When Hoopoes Go to Heaven (11 page)

‘
Eish.
’ Uncle Enock scratched his head. ‘You think a duck has memories?’

‘Of course!’ Benedict was surprised, but then he reminded himself that this was Uncle Enock’s first duck patient. ‘How can ducks do migration if they can’t remember
where the other side of the world is?’

‘
Eish!
’

‘I’m thinking... the bird book says this kind of duck likes to be in running water with rocks in the day and then she goes to something like the dam in the evening to sleep for the
night. So maybe we could take her to a river now, and then she can decide for herself if she wants to go back to the dam later.’

Uncle Enock laughed and shook his head. ‘Fetch a cage from Dr Mamba,’ he said.

They freed her from the cage next to the Lusushwana River where it ran parallel to the road over a scattering of large rocks. It was where ladies came to wash their clothes and where people said
mermen sometimes put spells on them.

‘The mermen won’t put a spell on her, will they?’ Benedict asked as they waited for her to waddle towards the edge of the water.

‘
Eish.
You know, I think a merman can only put a spell on you if you believe in him. Can a duck believe in a merman?’

The duck was at the water’s edge now. She hopped in and swam in circles, then began to quack.

‘I suppose. I mean, half of a merman is a man, and she’s quacking at us now so she knows people are real and not just pretend. And you saved her life, so of course she believes in
you. And the other half of a merman is a fish. How can a duck not believe in a fish?’

‘Er...’ Uncle Enock picked up the empty cage. ‘Maybe... Maybe mermen save their spells for ladies, nè? Maybe they leave ducks alone.’

‘I hope.’

At lunch, Benedict didn’t have the chance to tell anybody about his duck, on account of everybody being too busy laughing at Mama’s and Titi’s stories.

Mama had found her first driving lesson in Mbabane as easy as cutting a slice of cake, with a lot less traffic than she had feared, and with Henry sprinkling praise on her like sugar on a
doughnut. Near the end of the lesson, Mama had stopped at a red traffic light where the street she was on intersected with a street sloping down a hill. Who had been waiting at the lights on that
other street, heading up the hill, but old Mrs Gama in her lime-green Beetle!

The light for old Mrs Gama’s car was red so that the vehicles coming down the hill, for which there was a green flashing arrow, could turn right to go to The Plaza, where Mama and Henry
were heading to fetch Titi. But old Mrs Gama wasn’t concentrating, and her Beetle was slowly sliding backwards down the hill. She didn’t hear the vehicle behind her hooting, and she
didn’t notice Mama flashing her headlights at her.

Henry had been so embarrassed he had wanted to be small enough to hide himself in the cubbyhole of the Quick Impact Corolla. It was only when the lights for old Mrs Gama turned green and the big
four-wheel drive vehicle behind her moved forward, pushing the Beetle ahead of it, that she put the car into gear and accelerated across the intersection.

When they had arrived at The Plaza and Mama had gone in to the supermarket to find Titi and pay for the groceries, Titi had been white!

She had just picked up a ten-kilogram bag of
ugali
from a shelf, when Mavis, who was on a day off from cleaning at the other house, greeted her. They stood and chatted in the aisle for a
few minutes while other shoppers moved around them, and then the bag of
ugali
began to grow heavy for Titi. Without looking – on account of being busy talking with Mavis – she
put the bag into her trolley, which was behind her. Only it wasn’t behind her any longer, on account of somebody having moved it out of the way. The bag had dropped to the ground and burst
open, sending a big white cloud of maize meal into the air around her.

She had been so embarrassed she had wanted to make herself as small as the smallest child at the other house so that Mavis could take her by the hand and lead her away. The manager of the shop
hadn’t been angry, on account of it being an accident and accidents being things that happened. He had sent a man to sweep it up, but Titi wasn’t somebody who was used to having people
clean for her, and nor was Mavis, so both of them had tried to help. And in helping, Titi had got even more of it all over her.

Mama had asked the manager for some old newspaper, and while she was spreading it over Henry’s back seat so that Titi couldn’t leave a powdery white mess all over it, Henry had
walked around Titi laughing loudly and pointing, which had made other people look. That had made Titi want to be small enough to fit into the cubbyhole of the Quick Impact Corolla, and Mama had had
to remind Henry that just a few minutes earlier he had felt embarrassed enough to want to hide in there himself. That had made Titi feel a little bit better about the unkind way Henry had behaved,
and they had managed to laugh together all the way down the hill.

After lunch, Baba took Moses and Daniel with him to watch football at Somhlolo stadium, where he was meeting a man from work who was also bringing his boys. Benedict kept
trying to like football, but he just couldn’t, even though he knew that Baba was disappointed. His first baba had loved it.

The girls went down to the other house, where Innocence Mazibuko’s friend was coming to visit with an older sister who was going to teach them lipstick. Mama had a lipstick. It was only
for best, when she went out in one of her smart dresses. But that hadn’t happened for a long time now.

It hadn’t always been like this, his older sisters together, his younger brothers together, and Benedict all by himself in between. When it had been just him, Grace and Moses at their
first parents’ house in Mwanza, they had all been friends together. Grace used to spend hours reading to them, and Moses had been happy to do with Benedict whatever Benedict felt like doing.
When their first mama had got so sick that she needed to be in the hospital, and their first baba had taken the three of them and Titi to live with their grandparents in Dar, they had become even
closer. At first they would even sit right up close to one another, their bodies touching so tight that not even a single layer of the thin, greying sheet their Mama lay on in the hospital back in
Mwanza could fit between them.

But two years later Faith and Daniel had come to live with them, and after that everything had changed. Moses had found that he preferred to play with Daniel, who was closer to his age, and
Grace had decided that her new sister was much more fun than books or spending time with Benedict.

Baba had started working late at the university then, taking on extra projects for extra money on account of the family being so much bigger now, and Mama had begun to spend much more time on
her cake business. Even Titi was busier, with five children to take care of and clean up after instead of just three.

It was then that Benedict had begun to take an interest in other animals, animals other than the people who no longer had time for him. He had begun with the dog in the garden of the house
behind Mama’s and Baba’s. The dog’s collar was attached by a chain to a pole at the side of the house so that it couldn’t run away if anybody left the gate open, and the
chain was long enough to let it attack any robbers who came to the front door or the back door, and to let it lie in the shade at the front or the back depending.

When Benedict had first noticed it, noticed it as one of God’s creatures rather than just a background shape in a neighbouring garden, he had wanted to reach out and touch it. But when he
had put his whole arm through the fence and stretched it as far as he could, and when the dog had come as far as the chain would let it and stretched its neck as far as it could, there had still
been a gap the length of a storybook between the tips of Benedict’s fingers and the tip of the dog’s tongue. It was only when Titi had called him to come in and wash his hands for
supper that he had realised that he and the dog had spent a whole entire afternoon reaching towards each other, and during that whole time he hadn’t felt bored or lonely, not even once.

After that he would spend hours sitting on his side of the fence chatting to the dog and being interested in anything that the dog showed him: a bird, a lizard, a bee. Their best was when all
the pigeons that belonged to somebody across the city flew home from wherever they had been taken in their box and set free. As the birds flocked overhead, the dog would jump and twist against its
chain, barking like a hyena drunk on fermented marulas, and Benedict would join in, jumping and shouting excitedly. Then Mama would appear in their back yard with her mixing spoon or her icing
syringe and ask Benedict if he was okay.

He was more okay than he had been in a long while, but he didn’t say.

Today he decided to go up the hill to the dam, so that Mama and Titi could have the house to themselves to carry on laughing about their morning. There was no point in going
down to see Auntie Rachel because she was busy with her mother’s visit, so he took his new library book up to the dam with him, and in the shade of a water-berry tree he settled down,
cross-legged, to read.

The book started with Introduction, where a man called Allan Quartermain said the story in the book was true. The English was difficult, on account of the book being from long ago; English was
also difficult back when they wrote the Bible. Benedict wished that Mr Quartermain knew Swahili. The library in Mbabane had a storybook in English that Grace had already read to him in Swahili:
Safari za Gulliver
, about a man called Gulliver who, unlike Benedict, hadn’t had to struggle to feel big. But in Swaziland people spoke only siSwati and English, and there was no hope
of finding a Swahili version of Mr Quartermain’s story here.

He looked at the back of the book to see what the story was about; maybe it wasn’t going to be worth all the difficult English. It said there that it was about three men following a
treasure map and going on an adventure to find the mines of King Solomon that were full of diamonds and gold.

Flipping through the pages to see if there were any pictures that might make the English easier, he came across the treasure map that the men had followed.
Eh!
That meant that anybody
could follow it and find the mines! He studied the map carefully. There was a cross showing compass points, but they weren’t marked. Really! What kind of map didn’t say where north was?
And it didn’t even say the country! But the names of two rivers were given: Kalukawe and Lukanga. He could look those up in the atlas at home. Two big circles were labelled Sheba’s
Breasts; maybe those were mountains. A kraal was indicated, and also a koppie, which was a word in South African English for a hill. Did the South African word mean that the ‘treasure
cave’ at the end of ‘Solomon’s Road’ was right next door to Swaziland, in South Africa? Imagine!

Something pressed up against Benedict’s back.

Eh!

He jumped up and swung round, dropping the book.

A dog circled round him, sniffing at his clothes. Golden brown with black ears and a black patch around each eye, she didn’t really look like any kind of dog in particular.

‘Krishna!’ A voice called angrily from the field behind the clump of trees. ‘Krishna!’

‘It’s okay,’ Benedict called, ‘I don’t mind!’ He squatted down and petted the dog. ‘Hello, Krishna.’

Petros emerged from the trees. ‘Sorry, nè?’

‘It’s okay.’ He smiled shyly up at Petros, still petting the dog that was sniffing him excitedly. ‘I’m Benedict.’

‘Petros.’

‘I think she can smell other dogs on me. I was at Uncle Enock’s work today.’

Smiling, Petros bent to pick up Benedict’s book. ‘Sorry, nè?’

‘It’s okay.’ Benedict stood up.

Petros turned the book over and over in his hands. ‘What does it say?’

‘This?’ He took the book from Petros. ‘I’ve just started, but I think it’s too difficult for me.’ He told him what it said on the back.

Petros listened carefully, shaking his head. ‘The gold, it is not in the mines,’ he said. Then he patted his chest. ‘The gold, it is with me.’

He laughed, his laughter soon turning into coughing. He patted his chest harder.

‘Are you okay?’

Petros nodded through his coughs, struggling for breath. Benedict waited patiently, focusing on the dog.

At last Petros could speak. ‘
Eish!
Sorry, nè? Auntie, he have
muti
for me. Come, Krishna.’

‘
Hamba kahle!
Go well,’ Benedict called after him as he made his way with his dog towards the path that would lead him down to the other house.

Not wanting to try again with his book just yet, Benedict sat again and looked at the water, where a dragonfly skimmed across the surface. Petros had smelled mostly of his funny cigarettes, but
underneath that was the smell of cows. It was hard to tell how old he was, but he must be younger than Titi. Could he still be a teenager? Maybe. He lived on the farm, but not in the house with
Auntie Rachel and Uncle Enock.
Eh
, he was so skinny! Did he have parents somewhere? Benedict didn’t know. But at least Auntie Rachel was taking care of him with medicine for his
cough.

What had he meant about the gold being with him? He certainly didn’t dress – or smell – like a rich somebody. Was that what people were talking about when they said he
wasn’t quite right in his head? Did it mean he was wrong about things? Was he simply wrong about the gold? Or maybe the gold was just pretend.

Who could Benedict ask? Definitely not Mama or Baba, on account of the Tungaraza children not being supposed to talk to Petros. Maybe Uncle Enock.

A sudden gust of wind shook the colony of weavers’ nests in the trees near the dam. It was winter now, so the nests were empty and there were no eggs or baby birds in danger of falling
out. Each nest had been built by a male and then decorated on the inside and made comfortable by a female. Weavers were clever with their nests, building them at the very ends of thin branches
where snakes couldn’t get to them, and putting the entrance at the bottom of the nest to make it more difficult for a snake to get in if it ever got as far as the end of the branch. That was
the weaver version of the window bars and security gates on people’s houses in Swaziland.