When Hoopoes Go to Heaven (5 page)

The first time he had seen that Corolla, Miss Hlophe had been climbing into it. The school day was over, and as Benedict had waited for his sisters to stop talking and laughing with their
friends, Miss Hlophe had started the engine and reversed the Corolla right into the school’s wire fence, hitting a wooden pole with a loud crack.

The door on the passenger side had opened quickly, and a man had shot out like a hare being chased by a cheetah and rushed to look at the back of the Corolla, cursing loudly.

Eh!
Cursing in Swahili!

Putting his book bag down on the ground, Benedict had gone over to ask him if the damage was bad, and the man had already told him that it was a lot worse for the wooden pole than it was for the
car before he had realised what language they were using. Then the man’s face had lit up like a cake that was covered in birthday candles.

‘
Unasema kiSwahili! Eh! Eh! Eh!
’

The man had shaken Benedict’s hand in the same way that Mrs Dlamini rang the school bell, and the shake had gone all the way up Benedict’s arm, making his jaw wobble and sending his
left arm out from his body to steady him in exactly the way that Mrs Dlamini’s left arm stood out from her body when she rang the school bell.

Where was Benedict from? Who were his family? Where did they live?

Then the man had stopped pumping Benedict’s hand up and down, and he had given him one of his business cards and said Benedict’s family should call him. When Benedict had seen on the
card that he was Henry Vilakati, Director in Chief of the Quick Impact Academy of Driving, an idea had come to him, an idea of a way to help Mama. Not a way to help Mama’s business, but a way
to help Mama not to mind so much about not being busy with her business.

But by then Mrs Dlamini had come out of the office to look at the pole, and Miss Hlophe had begun telling her that the Corolla had no brakes, and Henry Vilakati was looking at them
nervously.

‘Mama doesn’t know driving,’ Benedict had said quickly, ‘but,
eh
, there isn’t really money for lessons.’

‘
Hakuna matata
, my friend! No problem! I can do her a special, nè?’

Then Mrs Dlamini had used her stop-this-nonsense-right-now voice to speak to Henry Vilakati about the brakes on his Corolla and the money for a new pole, and Henry Vilakati had switched to
siSwati and pointed at Miss Hlophe, and Benedict had moved away, slipping the card into his pocket for Mama.

That was some few weeks ago now, before Baba had had his idea that Mama should learn to drive, and long before Mama’s lessons had begun.

Greeting Mama now as she was putting plates and paper serviettes on the dining table, Benedict went into the kitchen, knowing he would find Henry in there chatting to Titi. Henry knew Swahili on
account of his mother having loved him enough to send him away to live with an uncle in Uganda when she couldn’t afford to pay for his high schooling herself. And Henry was wonderful because
he always spoke to Benedict like he was big.

‘Benedict!
Habari, rafiki yangu?
How are you, my friend?’

‘
Nzuri.
I’m fine.’ He returned Henry’s strong up-and-down handshake, clenching his jaw and holding on to the counter-top for balance. ‘How is Mama’s
driving coming along?’

‘Too good, my friend, too good. Improving all the time. Now! Let us help Titi with filling these mugs.’

Over tea, Henry told them about old Mrs Gama, who had just passed her driving test after failing it ten times.

‘
Ten?
’ said Mama. ‘
Eh
, Henry! You didn’t tell me I could fail many times before passing!’

‘You are not Mrs Gama, Angel. First of all, you know the difference between left and right.
Eish!
’ Rolling his eyes, Henry shook his head. ‘I had to ask her
granddaughter to spend time with her every day revising left and right. And she battled to hear me! She must be at least three-quarters deaf.’

‘
Eh
, Henry! I hope you’re not going to tell other people about
me
as a learner? You know it’s not professional to gossip about the people who do business with
you.’

Looking ashamed, Henry spoke very quickly. ‘I do know, Angel. It’s just that I’m so happy she’s finally passed! It’s not so much that I’m gossiping about her,
it’s more that I’m boasting about myself. Old Mrs Gama was my most difficult student up to so far.’

‘Is she older than Mama?’ asked Grace, and Mama gave her one of her looks that said she must be very careful about what she said next. ‘I mean, how much younger is
Mama?’

‘Oh, your mama is a child compared!’ declared Henry. ‘Titi is just a baby!’ He beamed at Titi, who looked down quickly at her slice of pineapple before smiling shyly.
‘Her hair is as white as the snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s her granddaughter who encouraged her to learn. Told her it’s never too late to be modern.’

‘That is true.’ Mama helped herself to another piece of pawpaw. ‘But tell me, Henry. Is her family going to celebrate? For Mrs Gama to get a driving licence at her age is a
very big achievement.’

‘In fact, they’re all gathering for a party after church on Sunday. They’ve invited me to join them.’

Benedict had been just about to take a bite of banana, but he paused, almost holding his breath. Under the table, the hand that wasn’t holding the banana crossed its fingers.

‘Of course!’ said Mama. ‘How could they not invite you? You’re the man who taught her to drive!
Her
achievement is
your
achievement!’

Henry laughed, slipping some more mango into his mouth. Mama continued.

‘
Her
celebration is
your
celebration!’

Henry chewed. ‘I suppose.’

‘Of course! Have you not just told us how happy you are that she’s finally passed because people can think that a slow learner means that your impact as an instructor is slow?’
He nodded. ‘And now that you’ve been successful with her, at her advanced age, everybody will know that Henry Vilakati is the driving instructor who does not fail, no matter how
difficult the learner. Everybody will know that if they need a miracle in the matter of driving instruction, Henry Vilakati is the man to go to. That is truly something for Henry Vilakati to
celebrate!’

Henry laughed, shaking his head, and Titi looked at him as if he really was a miracle-worker. Everybody except Benedict concentrated on their fruit and tea. Benedict could hardly breathe.

Then Mama began again. ‘Old Mrs Gama has become a very fine advertisement for your business, Henry. And yet you gossiped about her in a way that was unprofessional.’

Looking ashamed, he opened his mouth to speak, but Mama wouldn’t let him.

‘Perhaps you could make it up to her in some way? Find a way to thank her?’

Henry was quiet while he thought.

Benedict knew from Mama that men preferred ideas that they had arrived at themselves, but he could wait no longer for Henry to arrive at this one. ‘
Eh!
Why don’t you take a
cake to her party?’

Henry looked at him, his eyebrows shooting up. ‘
Eish!
My friend! That idea is too good!’

‘One of Auntie’s cakes!’ said Titi, and Henry gave her a very big smile indeed. Almost as big as the smile Benedict got from Mama.

The creamy banana was delicious in his mouth.

The cake was needed for Sunday, so Mama began baking it as soon as Henry left. He had wanted to choose something simple, but Mama had helped him to see that a simple cake
wasn’t at all right for a man who could do miracles.

Seated at the dining table with the other children for homework, Benedict had listened to them planning the cake on one of the couches. Baba said there was never no homework, even when teachers
didn’t give it. If you were a Tungaraza, you knew that your homework every day was to go over your classwork and make sure that you knew it.

The cake was going to look like the old, lime-green Beetle that the late Mr Gama had left to his brother, only old Mrs Gama was using it on account of the late Mr Gama’s brother being
blind. The cake-board was going to be iced in grey to look like a road, with a ridge of marzipan at the side looking like the edge of a pavement, and a white stripe in front of and behind the
Beetle to show that Mrs Gama had finally managed parallel parking. Lying on the road next to the Beetle would be a large white square of sugar-paste with a red L on it, torn in two. It was going to
be a very fine cake indeed, the kind of cake that might bring many more customers to Mama.

When he had finished his homework, Benedict went outside into the garden, which had the kind of tidiness about it that Samson always left behind him on the days that he came, a bit like the look
Benedict and his brothers always had after Baba had cut their hair with the hair-clipper. The grass was shorter – cleared, at the side of the house, of the fallen leaves from the large
lucky-bean tree – tidier near the yesterday, today and tomorrow bushes, and neater where it met the bed of arum lilies, strelitzias and red hot pokers at the garden’s edge. Benedict had
never imagined that trees and plants and flowers all had their own name, but there was a book about them in the bookshelf, and all the ones in the garden were in there, with pictures.

Beyond the flower bed the ground fell away sharply, held in place on the steep slope down to the garage by a wild mass of banana and pawpaw trees. But there was never any fruit for the people in
either of the two houses, on account of the monkeys always getting to it first.

In the clumps of wild trees where the garden ended at the side of the house beyond the lucky-bean tree, Benedict could see flickers of movement. Birds were waiting for him to go or to settle
into stillness so that they could feel safe enough to come down and explore what Samson’s gardening had turned up. A few butterflies flitted amongst the flowers. But he wasn’t in the
mood for sitting quietly in the garden and watching.

Making his way down all the steps to the garage, he hoped that he would see Uncle Enock’s bakkie there. It was a Friday, and sometimes on a Friday Uncle Enock managed to get away a bit
early. But the garage held only the red Microbus and the yellow Hi-Ace.

Wiping his feet on the mat, he knocked at the open front door of the other house, and Auntie Rachel called for him to come in. She was trying to tame the hair of one of the three littlest
children into a pattern of small bunches, but the girl was squirming, wanting to get down on the floor to play with the other two little ones.

‘Hi, Benedict.
Ag
, how many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have to knock?’

‘Mama says it’s polite.’

‘
Ja.
’ Auntie Rachel gave a small shrug.

‘Is Uncle Enock coming early today?’

She gave up on the child’s hair and let her join in the others’ play. ‘It’s month-end Friday, hey.’

Benedict felt disappointed. Uncle Enock spent every day taking care of sick animals and saving their lives, but the last Friday afternoon of every month was different because that was when he
worked at the dog orphanage. The dog orphanage got very full on account of people changing their minds about wanting a dog, and on account of other people letting their dogs have too many puppies,
so every month they had to make more space. Dogs that had been there for a long time without being chosen had to go to sleep for ever, and it was Uncle Enock who helped them to go.

It was a job that made Uncle Enock sad. He would come home saying how many more tails were wagging in Dog Heaven now, and he would want to be left alone.

Benedict wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of a separate Heaven for dogs. Say you loved your dog and then you both got an accident and went to Heaven, but your dog had to go to a separate
Heaven. Wouldn’t being without your dog feel more like being in Hell? What if the Heaven for dogs was next door, and you had to speak to your dog through a fence and you could never hold him?
Eh!
God had made people and animals, all creatures great and small, and He had put them all together here on Earth. Why would He put them in separate Heavens afterwards? It didn’t make
sense.

It sounded much more like something people would do, not God. Auntie Rachel had told him about an old law in South Africa that said people had to live separately according to what colour their
skin was. That law said that when Auntie Rachel had come home from being away learning her teaching diploma and she had found Uncle Enock doing his practicals on her parents’ farm, they
weren’t allowed to fall in love.

They had tried falling in love in secret, but Auntie Rachel’s parents were afraid the law would put them in jail, so after Uncle Enock qualified they came to get married here in Swaziland
where Uncle Enock’s parents were from and where there wasn’t that law, and then Auntie Rachel’s parents bought this small farm for them.

‘
Ag
, sit, Benedict. I’m going to have some tea. Would you like a glass of milk?’

‘Yes, please.’ He loved the fresh, creamy milk from the farm. In the house up the hill they had semi-skimmed milk from the supermarket on account of Baba watching his cholesterol and
Mama watching her hips, and it just wasn’t as nice.

Auntie Rachel called for Lungi, and when Lungi didn’t come, she got up and went to look for her. The house was once the same sort of size as the Tungarazas’ house up the hill, but
the Mazibukos had added on a big extra room at the side where the children could play and watch TV, and a whole new upstairs with more bedrooms. Benedict sat on a chair near the door, marvelling as
always at the full bookshelves lining the walls of the lounge. Some of the shelves went all the way up to the ceiling, and others were shorter, like the one in the house up the hill.

On top of the shorter shelves stood some framed photographs of Auntie Rachel’s family and Uncle Enock’s, which always made Benedict think of the photograph hanging on the wall of the
lounge up the hill. It showed the first baba he shared with Grace and Moses, and their first baba’s sister, the first mama of Faith and Daniel.