White Dog Fell from the Sky

40



Nxuka and Rraditshipi slept next to the Land Rover that night, folded together on the ground near the front tires. The windows of the vehicle were open, and the vinyl of the seats, cooling from the day’s heat, gave off a strange smell. Nxuka’s dreams were uneasy, and her baby stirred in her belly. Near midnight, one small foot pushed outward with such vigor that if Nxuka had woken and looked down in the moonlight, she could have seen a tiny heel and five toes.

The next morning, Nxuka found a stash of tobacco in the glove compartment. They rolled a cigarette each, smoked it, and sat in the morning light while the birds woke. On the floor of the Land Rover, they found a copy of the Rand Daily Mail. They could not read the words, but there were pictures of a white man shaking the hand of another white man, and on another page, a white man running with a soccer ball. “Only white men in this paper,” Nxuka said, clicking the words with tongue and lips.

She climbed into the passenger seat, her husband turned the key in the ignition, and they started down the track. It was rough and pitted, and Nxuka held her arms under her belly to shield the baby. Several hours later, where a small track joined a larger one, her water broke, and she went into labor.

By the time they reached Maun, Rraditshipi was driving fast, erratically; the emergency brake, which he’d forgotten to release, was smoking. Nxuka had believed it would be another moon before the baby would come. The thought of a hospital frightened her, but it frightened her more to think of her husband delivering their child on the seat of the Land Rover, which smelled farther from sweet grass and wind than anything she had ever smelled.

Three hours later, their baby was born, the first San baby delivered at the Maun General Hospital in seven years. The baby was premature and weighed less than four pounds. His head was hardly bigger than an apple; his eyes were calm and wise. A nurse asked Nxuka what the name should be. Nxuka could see that the nurse didn’t believe her baby would survive and hardly cared to name it. She reached for Ian’s wallet on the bedside table, and asked the nurse to read the name to her. “Ian Thorne Henry,” the nurse said, and Nxuka told her, “That is the baby’s name.” She believed that this name, IanThorneHenry, would protect her child. Two people with the same name would not die within days of each other.

All day, a procession of nurses came to see the Bushman baby. Whenever one of them asked the name, Nxuka gave her the wallet and said, “This is his name.” One young nurse in training, a Seventh-Day Adventist from Iowa City, came on night duty, and asked, “Where did you get this wallet?”

“He is late,” said Nxuka.

She looked at Nxuka more closely. “Did you steal this man’s wallet?”

“He is late,” repeated Nxuka, more loudly. Her baby sucked weakly at her breast.

“You’d better give me that wallet.”

Nxuka put it between her legs and began to cry. “I want Rraditshipi.”

The young nurse went to fetch the night charge nurse. “We have a theft on our hands.”

Nurse Mooletse entered the room and put her hand on the tiny baby’s head. “He is drinking your milk well?”

“Yes,” said Nxuka.

“He’s a beautiful boy.”

“She has a wallet that doesn’t belong to her.”

“What is the baby’s name?”

“IanThorneHenry,” said Nxuka, passing her the wallet.

“Where did you get this?”

“That man is late.”

“I see.”

“The buffalo step on him. We carry him to our camp but he is too sick.”

“Where did you bury him?”

“At old camp. Then we move to a new camp.”

“I understand.”

“His Land Rover is there.” She pointed out the window. “Rraditshipi is finding someone to give.”

“Your husband doesn’t need to worry about the vehicle. Tell him to bring me the keys. I’ll look for someone who knew this man.” She took fifty rand out of the wallet. “This is for your baby. And do not wrap him in blankets. It is too hot, understand?” She stroked the small head once more and left.

She came back a moment later. “How will you and your husband get home?”

“We are used to walking. Sometimes we will find a lift.”

The following night, her only night off, Nurse Mooletse made her way to the hotel in Maun and found a Britisher who knew a man named Roger who knew Ian Henry. The bartender said Roger was at Crocodile Camp, a twelve-kilometer drive from Maun. “Tell him he must come to the hotel in Maun immediately,” she told him. And no, she could not talk about this matter over the telephone. She sat on a chair on the porch waiting, while all around her, men drank whiskey and beer. The moon was an odd color. When she looked back at it a couple of minutes later, it had changed shape.

In the Old Village, Alice sat at a sprawling dinner table with Will and Greta. Will had made chicken curry, and the table was littered with bits of rice, a few chicken bones, napkins stained with curry sauce. The kids had been sent to bed for the night. But they kept popping up, running into the room. One was thirsty. Another thought he heard a monster under the bed. Greta went to their room. “If I hear one more peep out of any of you,” she said, “you will see a monster, and it won’t be pretty. Now shut your eyes and go to sleep. We’re going outdoors.” She came back, grabbed a bottle of wine, and headed for the patio. She handed the bottle to Will and went back inside for a small packet she had stashed in a drawer.

“Black Magic African,” she said to Alice. The contents of the plastic bag looked like rotted black leaf.

She passed it over to Alice for a sniff. “Where’d you come by this?”

“Will got it off someone at work.”

They climbed a cinder-block wall that separated their garden from the neighbors’ and dangled their legs while Will rolled a thin joint. The weed produced thick white smoke and turned out to be ruinously strong, slightly harsh at the back of the throat, with a deep, satisfying taste. It wasn’t long before they were howling with laughter. At some point Alice looked at the moon and said, “Look at that. It’s a different shape.”

“Get out,” Will said.

“No really. There’s a bite out of it.”

Will squinted toward it. “It hasn’t changed.”

“I swear it has.”

They talked about the cosmos for a while, feeling grand, wise, happy. “Look, there it goes again,” she said.

Greta peered up. “She’s right.”

“What’s happening?” Alice was laughing now, with a touch of fear licking around the edges.

“I don’t know.” Will’s hand waved vaguely in front of his face. “One of those primitive things.”

Greta and Alice nearly fell off the wall. It was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

“Wait,” said Greta. “It’s a whatchamacallit. An eclipse. We’re in the middle of an eclipse of the moon. If we were on the moon where the bite’s out of it, we would have fallen through space.”