When Hoopoes Go to Heaven (24 page)

BOOK: When Hoopoes Go to Heaven
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Nobody could see how beautiful the basket really was unless they came to look while all the stones that Madam kept inside it were in the sink. The stones were many and a duster couldn’t
clean them nice-nice, they needed washing.
Eish
, the stones had too many colours, many more colours than all the wool that Mavis could buy in Mbabane. Each one was about the size of the top
part of Mavis’s thumb, and not one of them had any piece that was sharp or square. Madam had told Olga about them one rainy morning when Mavis was hanging the washing in the sheltered part
outside the back door. Olga had stayed home from school with a bad cold, and she didn’t want to leave the kitchen until Lungi’s biscuits were out of the oven, so Madam had sat her on
the table and talked to her about the stones.

They were tumbled, Madam had said, there was a special tumbling machine that made them keep falling and rubbing against each other until their sharp edges became smooth and round, it was what
happened to stones at the sea. Mavis had never been to the sea, it was far away in Mozambique. When life pushes you around and knocks you, Madam had told Olga, it makes you smooth and special like
these stones so that you can shine and everybody can see how beautiful you are.

Checking that she had done all she could in the kitchen for now, Mavis made herself a cup of tea and went outside with it. The chairs that Lungi and Samson had been sitting on were empty, but
the door to Mavis and Lungi’s room was open. Lungi was probably walking down to the gate with Samson. Mavis settled on one of the chairs to drink her tea.

The
kwerekwere
boy, the eldest, she had seen him in the lounge during the party, looking at books with another child. Life had certainly tumbled him, both of his parents were late. But
look how he was shining! Titi said he had started a new business with his
gogo
. Imagine that! He was going to grow up to be a fine young man, one who could take care of all his family’s
needs.

Her own boy would have been like that, Mavis was certain. Not in exactly that way. No. That way needed knowing the world and having parents with more schooling than just primary. Her own boy
would have been like Petros, who already had a good job and was kind and generous, giving things to others like a rich man who needed nothing. Her own boy would be saving his money for his mother
in a tin under his bed, he wouldn’t be asking anybody for anything. He would be making it okay that Mavis didn’t have a husband to be an adult for her and to sign things for her, he
would be in charge of her himself.

But,
eish.

There would be no husband for Mavis.

And there was no boy.

Holding her cup of tea tightly, Mavis closed her eyes.

Push, the midwife had told her. Push! But she was just fourteen and she was way too small and the baby wouldn’t come. It was a long time before anybody went to look for a car, and another
long time before a car came. When they picked her up to put her in it, the pain was so great that her mind had said no, stop, and it hadn’t let her wake up again until she was in the hospital
with her belly already stitched shut. Her baby boy was late, and her womb was gone.

That was how life had tumbled Mavis.

Madam never said, but Mavis knew that if she asked, Madam would say that she shone as a cleaner. Nobody could ever run their finger along the top of a door and find dirt there. Nobody could ever
look at one of Doctor’s shirts and say that it hadn’t been washed and ironed nice-nice. No. Life had tumbled her, and she was shining.

Her boy would be the same age as Petros now, almost seventeen. She couldn’t stop herself wishing that her own boy was alive, and that he was Petros. How lovely it would be to have her boy
working on the same hillside where she could see him every day though he was grown and working and not living with her.

The cows were already down the hill now, and yesterday they had been with somebody else, the one who always waved and called cheekily to Mavis. She wasn’t going to bother with that one, he
wouldn’t bother with her when he found out about her womb. Or maybe he would bother with her, meanwhile he was looking for a woman who could give him a baby, a woman worth marrying. Mavis
didn’t want to be somebody a man just passed his time with while he looked for somebody else.

She hadn’t spoken to Petros for three days now, and she wondered how he was. She had found a new doctor for him, a doctor who was advertising in one of madam’s newspapers. She had
cut the piece out of the newspaper with the kitchen scissor and given it to Petros, but he hadn’t gone at first because of money.
Eish.
So she had given him some money from her Cobra
floor-polish tin, and now he had gone. Now his cough could start to get better. Madam’s doctor wasn’t any good, he was like the doctors in the hospital who hadn’t been able to
save her baby or her womb.

Hearing a car starting up and some voices shouting goodbye, she stood up and swallowed the last of her tea. It was time to go in and clear up the last of the party mess.

THIRTEEN

B
ENEDICT FELT LIKE HIS WORLD HAD TIPPED OVER
– and it wasn’t just because he was staring at the TV while lying
on his side on the couch.

Looking back at everything that had happened, he tried to make sense of it by doing what Miss Khumalo always told them to do when they were writing a composition: give it a beginning, a middle
and an end.

Beginning

Auntie Rachel was stuck in another roadblock, and Benedict waited outside the high school with the Tungarazas, the Mazibukos, and several other children.

Moses needed the toilet.

Benedict told him to wait.

Then Daniel needed the toilet, too, so the three of them ran to the far side of the school grounds, terrified of bumping into Mr Thwala. Instead of waiting outside the toilets where Mr Thwala
might see him, Benedict went in with his brothers. Moses was too nervous to go, so they were in there for some time.

When they came out, they were glancing around quickly to see if it was safe to run back to the gate, when a classroom door opened. They froze.

To everybody’s relief, it was Nomsa who came out. Pulling her schoolbag onto her back and heading off without noticing them, she sniffed loudly.

Benedict called to her, but she didn’t hear. Running after her, he called her name again, but she began to run away from him towards the school gate.

And then a large hand grabbed at the back of Benedict’s collar, pulling it up and back in a movement that stopped him dead and tore the top button off his shirt.

The angry voice of Mr Thwala boomed above him. ‘Why are you small boys here again? Did I not tell you to stay away?’

When the teacher released his grip, Benedict struggled to get back his balance before turning to face him, respectfully avoiding looking him in the eye.

‘Sorry, sir. My brothers needed the toilet.’ He hated that his own voice sounded so small, so childish, after Mr Thwala’s. His brothers stood very close to each other, their
eyes big. Moses looked like he needed the toilet again.

Mr Thwala’s large hand forced Benedict’s chin upwards. ‘You!’ he declared. ‘Nomsa’s friend from the party!’

Without looking at him, Benedict nodded as best he could with the man’s hand under his chin.

‘Are you spying on me?’ Falling away from his chin, the hand balled into a fist and jammed against the teacher’s hip. ‘Did she tell you to spy on me?’

‘No, sir.’ Why would he spy on Mr Thwala? He didn’t want to be anywhere near the man!

Daniel spoke up bravely, as Moses began to cry. ‘We needed the toilet, sir. Auntie Rachel didn’t come for us yet.’

‘You didn’t look in the classroom?’ he boomed angrily.

All three boys shook their heads, keeping their eyes on the ground as Mr Thwala paced up and down. Benedict was aware of his heart hammering inside his chest.

At last the man spoke. ‘Come with me.’ Benedict stooped quickly to pick up his shirt button, and the boys walked nervously towards the school gate behind the teacher.

‘Straighten your shirt,’ Mr Thwala said to Benedict. ‘Untidy boy!’

Outside the gate, Mr Thwala addressed all the children who were waiting in the shade of the thorn tree. ‘This small boy,’ he said, pointing at Benedict, ‘came into the school
looking for his
girlfriend.
’ Benedict’s face became hot as he felt everybody’s eyes upon him. ‘Who does he think he is to have a girlfriend big enough to attend high
school?’ Then he began to laugh in a way that wasn’t about finding something funny but about wanting to hurt somebody.

One by one, the other children began to join in the laughter. Then Mr Thwala walked away, leaving Benedict feeling smaller than ever.

‘Benedict has a girlfriend,’ Grace announced at supper that night.


Eh!
’ said Mama and Baba.

‘She’s not my girlfriend!’ he said, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day.

‘It’s okay to have a girlfriend,’ said Titi, giving him her widest smile, the one that told him he had done something very good. ‘A girlfriend is a nice thing to
be.’

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ he said again.

‘Nomsa,’ said Grace. ‘She’s in class with Innocence.’


Eh!

‘She’s not my girlfriend.’ He really didn’t feel like eating his tinned pilchards and rice. His stomach hurt, and his head didn’t feel right. He looked at Mama, his
eyes begging her to make it stop.


Eh
, did I tell you?’ Mama said to everybody, clapping her hands together. ‘They loved my cakes! More especially the treasure chest for the family of the casino man.’

After supper he sat staring through the book that lay open in his lap, feeling miserable. Mama and Baba were talking in whispers.

‘Are you not concerned, Pius?’

‘Why should I be concerned? I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!’

‘But he’s just a boy. She’s older—’

‘She’s a
girl
, Angel. It’s been a worry to me that he doesn’t like sports like a normal boy, that he prefers to hang around you talking about colours and cakes.
Then today I came home from work and I found him sewing a button on his school shirt.
Sewing!

‘Pius—’

‘No, Angel, I’m proud of him for getting a girlfriend!’

Tears splashed down onto his book.

The next day, Nomsa made it worse by rushing up to him outside the school gate, handing him a folded piece of paper, and telling him to read it later. Everybody saw, and
everybody said that she was giving him a love letter. Of course it wasn’t a love letter, but he put it in his schoolbag and said nothing. And just to show everybody that he didn’t care,
he left the letter there for two days.

Then Nomsa came to find him. ‘Well?’ she asked breathlessly, even though other children were watching.

‘Well what?’

‘Did you...? My letter...’

‘Oh,’ he said loudly, to everybody who was listening rather than to Nomsa herself, ‘I haven’t read it yet.’

Tears welled in the hard eyes that stared at him until he looked down, ashamed of himself, the dull pain that had been in his head the past couple of days feeling so much worse.

Before bedtime, he hid the torch under his bed, bringing it out only when he could hear from his brothers’ breathing that sleep had taken them. As quietly as he could, he dug the letter
out from the bottom of his schoolbag, so aware of how badly he had behaved. Thanks God Baba was away for the night in Pigg’s Peak, in the northern part of Swaziland, and wasn’t there to
be as disappointed in Benedict as Benedict was in himself.

In the round beam of the torch, the letter surprised him. It wasn’t what Miss Khumalo would call a letter at all. There was no address, no Dear Benedict, no proper ending. It was just a
question and a name:
Can you get me some weevil tablets from the Mazibuko farm? Nomsa

Eh!

What?

Switching off the torch, he climbed into bed to think about it.

Okay, she wasn’t his girlfriend, and the way he had behaved today, she couldn’t even think of him as her friend. But she had given him the letter before he had behaved badly, when
they
were
friends. Friends who both liked rescuing small creatures and looking at books about snakes.

But this letter was more like one of Mama’s shopping lists. It wasn’t like one of Mama’s phone calls to Baba asking him to stop for more bread on his way home from work; those
calls always had a please and a thank you. This letter was not polite.

And it didn’t even make sense. Farmers used weevil tablets to gas the weevils that were living in the grain they were storing. Uncle Enock’s farm didn’t grow or store grain. It
was a dairy. If there were weevils in Nomsa’s mother’s flour or rice, she needed a sieve or a flat basket to separate them out.

He had thought the children in Nomsa’s class were unkind to her because she was a little different. But maybe what Innocence said about her was right. Maybe she
was
mad.

Shaking his head against his pillow, he was aware that the ache was still inside it.

BOOK: When Hoopoes Go to Heaven
7.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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