White Dog Fell from the Sky

4



Before the sun was up, he was out of the house. He did not want to be seen, or to speak to Kagiso that morning. He took a little water and gave some to White Dog, who trotted beside him, her tail held high; then they were down the path and out onto the road. He could feel the heat at the back of his neck like a beast stalking him, its hot breath coming closer. His heart felt sad, his bones tired, but it was his duty, he said to the morning, not to give in to those things, not to dishonor the freedom he’d been given. The pain inside Nthusi’s shoes reminded him with every step that he was here because of his brother.

He didn’t know where those shoes would take him, but when he came to the place where the woman with the green knitting yarn had continued straight, he followed the way she had gone, toward the Old Village.

Although it was early, the road was already full of people. He passed women with tins of water sloshing on their heads, others with heaps of firewood piled high. Two school girls with scrubbed knees and blue uniforms, a man wheeling a single tire down the road, hand over hand. One half of a car, attached to wheels, pulled by a donkey and driven by an old man. A teenaged boy carrying a sack of sugar slung over one shoulder. A small girl with an even smaller child clinging to her back, legs wrapped around her hips.

When he had a job, he would buy paper and a pen, an envelope and a stamp and tell his mother that all was well. But these days, all was not well, and he wouldn’t write to her, not yet. His old life felt farther away than the moon: his family’s faith in him, the chemistry lab with its gouged wooden tables, his cell biology teacher, who walked with his wide feet splayed, his tie stained, his mind brilliant. The heat had already begun to travel off the pavement through the soles of his shoes. Where was the Old Village? A Toyota pickup truck came by, followed by a three-ton Chevy with people hanging out of the back. At last, he came to a small grocery store on a corner. He knew what would be on the shelves: oranges, a half sheet of newspaper folded around a half loaf of brown bread, chips, sweet bananas, Coca-Cola. Everything a person could want.

Boitumelo was to have been his wife. They were going to have four or five children. At work, he would have cured the sick, delivered babies, put his younger brothers and sisters through school. What you expect, though, is not what will be. When you’re a baby, moving down the birth canal into the world, about to take your first breath, a young animal eager for life, you don’t know that you’ll come out into a dimly lit dwelling into the arms of a midwife, a woman with shriveled breasts and tired shoulders who’s brought thousands like you into the world. You don’t know that there’s black and there’s white, and you’ve arrived on the wrong side of the fence, boy.

He stood outside the store for several minutes, watching people come and go. Africans and Europeans were using the same door, and when he looked inside, a white woman at the counter was waiting on a black African man. It stunned him. Outside, someone had discarded the Botswana Daily News. It had been trampled upon, but it was still legible. He sat under a tree, cross-legged, and read the caption of a picture on the front page. “The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Archie Mogwe, greets the U.S. Ambassador, Donald Norland, on arrival in Gaborone.” The two men were shaking hands. Another article began: “Water alight? Unbelievable, but villagers at Keng, some 125 kilometers west of Kanye, are convinced that they have witnessed a case of burning water and look on the incident as a sure case of ‘super-witchcraft.’”

Inside the paper was a picture of a handsome man standing next to a white woman. To his astonishment, Isaac read that this man was the president of Botswana, His Excellency, Sir Seretse Khama, standing next to his wife, Lady Khama. They were holding a pair of scissors together, cutting a wide ribbon, presiding at the opening of an agricultural fair. Sir Seretse Khama had a large head, a black mustache, and a regal bearing. His wife was rather plain looking with a strong, kind face. She was pale and wore a small white hat. He’d heard a rumor of this marriage back home, but he’d dismissed it as an impossibility. Nowhere could a black man marry a white woman, surely. But here it was, the two of them, their hands touching. He folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket to study later. He felt dazed and disoriented. Not only Sir Seretse Khama and his European wife, but a newspaper full of the news of African people.

The trees grew larger down here in the Old Village. Vines spread over shaded patios. The servants’ quarters were larger, with stoops to sit on. Chickens scratched in a yard. He turned down a small road, where three huge jacaranda trees grew beside an old colonial-style house with whitewashed walls and a wraparound porch. An odd noise, like an untuned radio, came from the rear of the house. He walked farther down the road to see what the noise was. Birds babbled in vine-shaded cages that hung from the back and side of the house and from the shade trees. Bee eaters in blues and yellows and greens sat in cages, parrots behind bars shrieked into the trees, parakeets twittered next to their mates. It was a carnival of birds, an amazement, although truth be told, it was sad to see them in cages. What is a bird if it can’t fly? It might as well be a cockroach.

A gardener toiled in the yard, and Isaac walked on. Three houses farther up the road he asked for work and was turned away. At a fourth house, he was met by a barking Alsatian. White Dog put her tail down and slunk off to the side of the road. There was no fence or gate around the yard, and he saw no gardener. He put his hand out to the barking dog, thinking, she’ll either bite it or sniff it. She did neither. He walked past her into the yard, wondering whether she was one of those stinkpot dogs who make you think they’re your friend and then bite you on the ass. He wouldn’t turn around. He’d make her think he wasn’t scared, even though a little animal scurried up and down his backbone, yelping in fear. Alsatians had always spooked him.

A white woman came out of the house. She was dressed as though she was going to work.

“I am looking for gardening work, madam.”

“Have you any experience?”

“Yes, madam.” It was the truth, if it was life she was asking about.

“Do you have references?”

“No, madam. A thief took my suitcase on the train, but in any case, I am an excellent worker.”

“Your English is not bad. You’re from South Africa, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“Are you here illegally?”

He thought it best not to answer.

“Well, I don’t mind either way. Our gardener left this past week—his mother took sick in Francistown. I’ll give you a try and pay you in food today. If you do well, you can come back tomorrow.”

“Thank you, madam.”

She led the way to the side of the house. “I’d like a bed of flowers here.”

“Marigolds?” It was the only flower name he knew in English.

“Not marigolds. There are already too many marigolds in the world. I don’t know what kind yet.”

“Yes, madam, thank you.”

She handed him a spade, and he set to work. White Dog sat solemnly near the road, her paws crossed. Isaac dug, squaring the corners of the garden carefully, turning over the dirt and breaking up the clods with his hands, sifting it through his fingers so the smallest seed could survive. He worked steadily, not stopping for anything. When he finished, he paused. The woman came out, as though she’d been watching him.

“Why did you make it square?” she asked.

“I thought this is the way you would like it.” White people were always making square corners.

“Don’t think about what I like. Think about what’s beautiful. Straight lines look like a cemetery.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Please don’t call me madam. Have you eaten today?”

“No, mma.”

“What do you like?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What do you like to eat?”

To be asked such a question. “I like meat,” he said quickly, then thought he might have sounded too bold.

She didn’t look bothered. “I’ll ask Itumeleng to bring you meat at noon when we have it. Have you met her?”

“No, madam.”

“She’s here every day. If you have questions when I’m at work, you can ask her. Give this bed some curves and then please put water on the trees in the back. They’re new, and need watering every day.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Please don’t call me that. When you call me madam, I feel like I’m a hundred years old.”

He smiled and then grew serious. “What must I call you?”

“Call me Alice.”

“Madam, I cannot.”

“Well, then.” She shrugged helplessly. “Don’t call me anything.”