When Hoopoes Go to Heaven (22 page)

Inside, the girls had gone to their room and Mama waited alone at the dining table with tea and cake. Benedict took his to have at the coffee table, where he sat on one of the couches with the
bird book, keeping an ear on his percentage.

Now that the ancestors had blessed their new business, they could have their first proper meeting. As they had already agreed by phone, Zodwa and Jabulani had chosen the first three cakes that
they were going to provide for free on account of having to spend money to make money as Baba always said, and just to see what people thought.

The first cake was for the family of a man who was late from a car accident. Mama said she didn’t want to know about the car accident, thank you very much, she was in the celebration
business, so could they please just tell her about what they were celebrating, which was the man’s life.

‘Sorry, nè?’

The man had worked at the casino at the Royal Swazi Sun hotel in the Ezulwini Valley, and his family had been very proud of him for having such a good job. Mama said they should suggest to his
family a cake shaped like a casino table covered with casino chips with one of those wheels that spun round. Or they could have a treasure chest that was partly open, with casino chips tumbling
out. Jabulani liked Mama’s treasure-chest idea, but it would be up to the family to choose.

Then there was a man who had worked cutting sugarcane in the sugar plantations in eastern Swaziland, and that made Benedict think of Mrs Patel’s ancestor cutting the British
colonials’ sugarcane with his dentures. Swazi children loved to chew on sugarcane, he had seen them running alongside the sugarcane trucks trying to get a piece. But Miss Khumalo told them
that chewing on it too much was bad for their teeth. Maybe their teeth would fall out and they would need dentures like old Auntie Geraldine in Bukoba.

Zodwa said a cake that looked like a big, thick piece of cane would be nice, and Jabulani suggested one that looked like a whole bundle of pieces of cane tied together. Mama said it would even
be possible to make a cake that looked like one of the lovely yellow cane-gathering machines that the Tungarazas had seen in that part of the kingdom on their way to their new home on the Malagwane
Hill.

The last cake was for the family of a young girl.

‘Benedict’s age,’ said Zodwa sadly and, sensing all their eyes suddenly upon him, Benedict concentrated hard on trying to find a grouse in his book. There was a sandgrouse, but
it didn’t look much like the famous grouse, and it didn’t live in Swaziland. He wondered what the grouse had done to make itself famous.

Jabulani cleared his throat. ‘This one we chose because it’s difficult.’

‘Tell me what we’re celebrating,’ said Mama. ‘What did this child love to do? How did she make her family happy?’

For a long time, nobody said anything. The only sound was Jabulani clearing his throat.

Then Mama said that it was good that they had chosen this case because it gave them the opportunity to see what difficulties lay ahead. She told them that they needed to go back and speak to the
child’s family, to find out what the child loved to do, what it was about the child that the family loved, what it was about her that made them happy. The family wasn’t yet ready to
order a cake if they didn’t yet know what they could celebrate, if they didn’t yet feel ready to celebrate.

‘In the cake business,’ Mama added, ‘you are not yet ready to make a cake if you yourself don’t yet understand why there is a celebration, why your cake is
necessary.’

‘You are right, Angel,’ said Jabulani. ‘Ours is to go back to the mother and then report back.’

‘Right,’ said Zodwa. ‘Now let us be clear. We are done with talking about cakes and celebrations, nè? Because as a woman I have to talk about this child and why she is
late.’

‘Maybe...’ said Jabulani, and again Benedict could feel everybody’s eyes upon him.

Sitting on the kitchen step while he tied the laces of his old pair of shoes, listening to pieces of what Zodwa was saying as her voice came faintly through the kitchen and a
little more clearly through the open window near the top end of the dining table, Benedict didn’t see why Mama had asked him to go outside. It wasn’t as if he was too small to
understand. He knew exactly what had happened to that girl on account of having witnessed it happening to his duck.

She had been swimming by herself near the edge of the dam, happily dipping her bill into the water to scoop up something to eat, when suddenly, without any warning, male ducks had come and
attacked her. Five, six, seven, eight, one after the other, landing on top of her, forcing themselves on her, even though she had struggled and quacked and tried to get away, even though he had
shouted and run up and down on the muddy bank, looking for stones to throw at them to make them stop.

When it was over, she was left floating barely above the surface, patches of her feathers gone, one wing outspread, too exhausted to stop herself from drowning. He had run out to her as quickly
as he could, the mud sucking him down, the water pulling at his shorts as he bent and scooped her up into his arms, anxious not to cause her any more pain, desperate to save her, frantic to get her
down the hill to Uncle Enock.

He thought about her now as he made his way up to the dam. He hoped that she was okay. Uncle Enock had told him that only ducks could do that, they were the only birds that had a pipi. As he
emerged from the trees onto the plateau, he remembered the programme he had watched on TV about hyenas, and he thought perhaps that was why female hyenas chose to have a pretend pipi. Was that how
they kept themselves from getting hurt by the males? Was that why the males let the females be in charge?

He wished female people could have a pretend pipi, too. Then they could be in charge, and it wouldn’t be his shoulders that had to carry all the responsibilities that came with being the
eldest boy. Grace would have to be the grown-up one, the one who had to watch out for dangers, the one who always had to make sure that the whole entire family was okay.

Petros was kneeling at the edge of the dam, scooping up handfuls of water to drink. His golden-brown dog wagged her tail as Benedict squatted to pet her.

‘
Sawubona
, Krishna.
Sawubona
, Petros.’

‘
Yebo
.’ Petros stood up, smiling shyly and wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘
Unjani?
’

‘
Ngikhona.
How about you?’

Petros squatted down next to Krishna. ‘Better,’ he said, rubbing his chest with his hand. His shirt was open, and Benedict could see his ribs under his skin. ‘I have new
doctor. Better than Auntie’s.’ Reaching into the pocket of his shirt, he brought out a piece of newspaper, unfolded it and handed it to Benedict. ‘Somebody, he help me to
read.’

It was an advertisement, the kind that Benedict had seen plenty of in the
Times of Swaziland
, near the announcements that told friends and family that a certain person had demised, and
when they were going to have the vigil and burial. This one said:
Are you sick/in pain? Lost a loved one? No problem to big or to small. Clear evil spell with magic stick. Get lover back in 1
hour, lost job back in 3 days. All sickness cured, TB, Aids. Win at casino garanteed.
The advertisement ended with the number to call.

‘You went to this doctor?’

‘
Yebo
.’ Refolding the piece of newspaper, Petros put it back in his pocket and took out something else. ‘Now I can get a baby with my girlfriend.’ He showed
Benedict a small, black-and-white photograph of a young woman. ‘He live near Nhlangano.’

Baba had been to Nhlangano. It was the big town in the south, in the Sishelweni region.

‘She looks nice.’

‘Yes. Now I am the size to marry, but
eish
, Auntie’s doctor, he say no, I mustn’t marry.’ He shook his head. ‘That doctor, he tell me no, I mustn’t get
a baby.’

‘
Eh!
’

‘This one,’ he tapped his shirt pocket, ‘he say I can marry my girlfriend, we can get a baby.’

‘That’s nice.’ Benedict gave the photograph back. ‘Will she come from Nhlangano?’

‘Uh-uh.’ He slipped the photograph back in his pocket.

‘So you’ll go there?’ from his squatting position, Benedict eased himself onto the ground, stretching his legs out in front of him.

‘Soon. When I’m already tip top.’

Not wanting Petros to think he had no plans himself, nothing in his own pocket, Benedict brought out his drawing of the map to the caves full of gold and showed it to him.

‘Do you want to help me to find this gold? We can share it.’

Petros looked at the piece of paper, turning it sideways then upside down, just like Benedict’s sisters did whenever they tried to work out a map.

‘Here,’ he said, getting to his knees. ‘I’ll show you what it says.’ Reaching for a bendy stick, he placed it on the grass. ‘This is the Kalukawe River, only
I don’t know what its name is now. And these,’ he put two stones next to each other, some distance from the stick, ‘these are Sheba’s Breasts, just down the hill.’ He
pointed in the direction of the peaks. ‘And all the way here,’ on his knees, he crawled towards the dam and slapped a piece of ground, ‘here is where the treasure is.’

‘Here?’

‘Well, no...’

‘Here?’ Petros’s eyes had grown very big.

‘No. You see—’

‘This paper,’ Petros looked at the map, ‘it say treasure is here? On this hill?’ His breathing was fast now, and he began to cough. Krishna drew close to him, squashing
her body up against his legs.

As the loud, bubbly sounds of coughing continued, Benedict waited patiently, thinking that the new doctor’s
muti
hadn’t yet had time to make the dementia in Petros’s
chest better. At last the coughing eased, and Petros turned his head and spat onto the ground. It wasn’t nice to spit, but Benedict didn’t say.

‘No, it’s somewhere else, some other place. That paper says where.’

Petros was calmer now as he stood up, handing the map back to Benedict. ‘My ancestor, he have this.’

‘This map?’ Benedict stood up too.

‘No.’

‘A different map?’

Petros nodded before making Benedict jump by whistling and whooping loudly. Cows began to appear around the end of the clump of trees from the field beyond them, and Krishna walked to meet them,
her tail wagging slowly. Petros began to move away.

‘Did he find it?’

Walking away, Petros gave no answer.

Benedict called after him. ‘Your ancestor. Did he find the gold?’

But Petros was coughing again, and by the time he stopped he was some distance away with the cows, and he seemed to have forgotten that Benedict was there.

On the Saturday afternoon when Innocence Mazibuko had her birthday party, all the Tungaraza children were invited. Benedict wasn’t keen to go but Baba said he must, and
he went because he could see that Mama and Baba wanted some time alone to talk. They seemed a little happier than when Baba had first got back from the conference, but Benedict could see that
something was still wrong.

He had looked in Auntie Rachel’s book, the one where she had shown him that Sifiso’s birthday meant he was a lion, but Innocence’s birthday at the end of August just meant she
was a maiden, a young girl. That was boring for a birthday picture, so he had drawn some flowers for her instead. Feeling shy to give it to her himself, he had given it to Grace to pass on.

As he had expected, there were lots of girls at the party for his sisters to talk loudly and dance with in the big, added-on room, and there were also plenty of younger children. Mrs Levine was
in the garden trying to organise games to keep the young ones busy, while Auntie Rachel and Uncle Enock chatted and laughed with a few parents in the lounge.

Helping himself from a bowl of cashew nuts flavoured with
pilipili
, Benedict looked at the cake that Auntie Rachel had made. It was a big oblong covered in chocolate and sprinkled with
tiny pieces of dried coconut. Benedict counted the fourteen candles on it. Lungi told Titi and Titi told Benedict that Auntie Rachel always used a cake mix that came in a box. Mama said that was
cheating, but Baba said it was just about saving time and money. But Auntie Rachel didn’t need to make a special cake for Innocence, not for a birthday that wasn’t special.

Grace was going to be thirteen next birthday, and her cake was going to be special on account of her becoming a teenager. Benedict’s last birthday cake had been special on account of him
getting to double numbers. Mama had made him a big butterfly, she had copied it from one of his books. Not his favourite, the African monarch, which didn’t have enough colours for a cake, but
one called blue pansy, which was black with big patches of bright blue, small patterns of white and round circles of bright red that looked like pretend eyes.

Pouring himself a throw-away cup of bright orange Fanta from a big plastic bottle, he moved round to the piece of the garden at the far side of the house where it would be quieter. As he rounded
the corner his mouth flew open and he almost spilled his drink. A girl was sitting there with her back to the wall of the house, her knees pulled up to her chest.

It was Nomsa.

‘
Sawubona
,’ he said.

She looked up at him. ‘
Yebo
.’ Her voice was surprisingly soft compared to the hardness of her eyes.

They told each other their names, then neither of them said anything for quite some time. Benedict wasn’t sure what to do.

‘Should I...?’ he began. ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘It’s okay, you can sit.’ She looked at him carefully as he found a place across from her on the grass. ‘Did her mother make her invite you, too?’

Benedict wasn’t sure. ‘I suppose. We live in their other house further up.’

She nodded, and they were both quiet again.

‘I saw you saving a spider,’ said Benedict. ‘And I heard you saved a scorpion.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘People can be cruel.’

‘Yes. But the scorpion could have stung you. You were brave.’