White Dog Fell from the Sky

14



The letter from his mother had taken two weeks to be delivered from Pretoria. He sat on the flat rock under the large aloes and opened the envelope. As he read, he heard his mother’s voice among the trees. Her voice was a deep one, almost like a man’s, with a roundness like the sound of a large gourd, a vessel for holding things. He read the words quickly, turned over the page and read the words again. And a third time. White Dog sat next to him, with her legs crossed in front of her. On the fourth time through, he wept. White Dog put her nose under his arm and pushed upward. She made a sound in her throat as though she wanted to offer comfort. When his tears were finished, he folded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and put it in his pocket.

He remembered the last time he’d kissed his mother’s cheek, softer with age every time he kissed it. This letter started the longing in him again, a longing that roared inside him the way a fire moves across the veldt, consuming grass and trees and termite hills and all the living creatures that run before it. One morning, he thought, he would wake and not care about his safety and return to his family. His mother pulled him like the Earth pulled the moon: the thought of the years and troubles piling up in her, until one day she’d be gone, with an emptiness beside her where he should have been. Someday, his sister Lulu would have breasts that would flood her with surprise. Day by day she’d become a woman, and he would not be there to protect her from harm. He’d be a stranger to her, and to Moses and Tshepiso.

On his own, he might make his way to the border, walk along the fence and find a way under or over when the moon was dim. But then what? He’d have no passbook. He’d need to walk at night and hide during the day, steal food, run from everything. Dogs would pursue him. His mind would weaken. He wouldn’t know north from south, east from west. He’d have no money, no friends.

He walked around to the front of the house and was surprised to find the madam waiting for him.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“No, mma, everything is not all right. My baby sister has died from malaria.” He turned away. “She was so young, she hardly knew life. Now my mother is alone.”

“Where are your other brothers and sisters?”

He stopped a moment. Surely she must know. At first he didn’t want to speak. His heart was angry that you can be this close to South Africa and be so blind. But then he asked himself how was she to know? Even if she went there, she wouldn’t be allowed to see the things that all Africans see and know.

“Of course you must have a pass at all times,” he told her, “and if you’re not working, you are not permitted to live in Pretoria. My father is missing and there is no money. My mother must work in the city and send money to the children who are living with their grandmother in the homeland, which is not our homeland. The government calls it the homeland, but the land is poor, there is nothing there, the schools are poor, everything is poor and shabby.”

“When did your sister die?”

“On the nineteenth of last month.”

“And the rest of your family?”

“My sister Lulu and my young brothers are no longer in school because they have no shoes. My oldest brother Nthusi is now working in the mines. Soon, perhaps, there will be enough money for them to return to school.”

“Your father?”

“He too was working in the mines in Johannesburg. As I told you, he is missing. Perhaps he is no longer alive. We don’t know.”

“I’m very sorry, Isaac. I have no words for how sorry I am.”

“Thank you, mma. There is nothing to be done.”

He watched her get into the truck and drive away, back to her work.

His mother had said nothing about herself in the letter, but he could feel her sadness. She said she did not have anger toward him. She wrote that it was better for him to be alive in Botswana than dead in South Africa. He picked up the spade and went back to work, standing at the top of the hole. With each shovelful of dirt, his anger grew, until he felt he could fill this whole hole with his fury. He felt he could hit someone’s neck with a spade, break their neck the way he’d broken the neck of the snake.

His brother Nthusi now worked in a hole a hundred thousand times the size of the hole he was filling. He remembered his dream, his father standing in the bottom of an enormous pit, still standing there as the waters rose, making no effort to save himself. He imagined the hope in Nthusi’s heart now dead, working in sneakers too big for his feet, laboring until his body broke.

When he walked home that night, he could hardly drag his body up the road. He knew what he would find at Amen’s house. Amen was away training new recruits, and there was not enough money for food because Kagiso’s mother was sick, and she had to send all her money to Mochudi for medicine. For a week, the meal at the end of the day had been mealie meal, the same food that started the day.

When he arrived, Ontibile was crying for milk. Kagiso was cooking over the fire and paying no attention to the baby, but she looked happy. Her brother had come to Gaborone from Mochudi and brought with him a bag of dried beans and the leg of a goat. Her brother had returned home, and the smell of meat was coming from the three-legged pot.

Ontibile put her arms around Isaac’s neck, and he picked her up. She made little singing noises as he rubbed her back, and then her head sank onto his shoulder. Later, after they’d eaten the meat and beans, he watched Ontibile lying on her back, asleep, peaceful, her arms outstretched as though no harm would ever come to her. Ontibile. God is watching over me. This was a good name. If he ever had a little girl, he would call her by this name.

He went outside where the still air held the heat of the day. He walked to the water pump and brought water back in a tin and washed his face and body behind the house. Only the poor die from malaria. If his mother had not been poor, his sister would be alive. He said nothing to Kagiso. Let her enjoy her full belly and be happy for once. White Dog would not leave his side. She knew his grief, this dog who was more than a dog, this dog who had fallen from the sky.

Kagiso was asleep next to their baby when Amen returned home.

In a dream, her brother had been holding two goats, lashed together with a rope around their necks. The sky turned black and the birds flew for cover and the rains pelted down. She and her brother tried to shelter under a tree, but the rain poured from the branches, down their necks, into their shoes.

Amen climbed onto the mat beside his wife, and for a moment she didn’t know what was dream and what was husband, and then her arms found their way around his neck, and she pulled him to her. She smelled the night on him and his own smell she’d recognize anywhere, even if she couldn’t feel the fringe of beard pressed against her cheek and feel with her tongue his one front tooth standing behind his sweet-tasting lips. She pulled his head to her breast like a child and felt his breath go out all at once, in a great torrent of relief as though he was now free to breathe the air that surrounded both of them, as though the work he needed to do was done forever. Their child stirred on the other side of her and moved into the curve of her back.