White Dog Fell from the Sky

41



The news from Nurse Mooletse brought Roger to his knees. That night, he set out for Gaborone in Ian’s Land Rover, feeling that what he had to tell couldn’t be told any way but eye to eye. He thought the woman’s name was Alice. He was pretty sure Ian had said she worked in Local Government and Lands.

Never had he felt such sudden grief and strangeness. To steady himself, he’d had another beer before leaving, and now he didn’t trust his mind or his eyes. The sand was deep, and he hadn’t passed another vehicle since leaving the outskirts of Maun. He remembered the last night he’d seen Ian, how his friend had been in such dreadful love, his mind dashing in circles, his heart jumping the track, burdened with the force of its commotion.

He’d met a guy on his last trip to Nata who’d said Ian had borrowed a bolt cutter to cut sections of agricultural fencing. It was a daft thing to do, but it didn’t surprise him. Ian would have landed in jail if he’d been caught, and the chances were good of that. But jail at least would have saved him ending up under the sands of the Kalahari.

He couldn’t believe he was gone. But here were the four wheels of Ian’s vehicle under him and the rattling roof cage above him and Ian’s wallet beside him. The nurse said they’d buried him somewhere in the Kalahari. Not many died as Ian had, but few saw the world as he did, either. He passed through Bushman Pits with a long, dark stretch of road in front of him. What worried him were animals crossing. By the time you saw their eyes in the headlights, it was already too late. He figured if he didn’t fall asleep and flip the vehicle, he could be in Francistown by eight or nine in the morning. Another five or six hours to Gaborone driving full speed. He wanted to reach her before she left work.

He made it to Francistown for a quick breakfast and coffee, added petrol to the tank, and started down the road toward Gaborone, 430 kilometers of hard driving ahead. Seruli, then Dikabi, and on to Palapye. The sleepless night was catching up with him. In Palapye, he stopped for another coffee and set off again. North of Mahalapye, he remembered the one-lane bridge over the river and pulled off the road for a quick nap. Punch drunk, he couldn’t trust himself to get the f*cking wheels onto the center of that bridge. He felt sad and sick and soul weary when he woke. He got out of the Land Rover, peed into a bush, and drove on. The dust from the few cars and trucks he passed could be seen a long way off, and the blur of their passing remained with him long after they’d gone. By the time he reached the Dew Drop Inn, he couldn’t drive any longer. He pulled into the parking lot, took another twenty-minute nap, and went on, promising himself no more stops until he arrived at the Ministry of Local Government and Lands. Probably three hours away. He finally pulled in at half past three. It took him less than fifteen minutes to find out where she was. Someone pointed the way to her office, but he stopped, having to face how he’d tell her.

He found a men’s room, splashed water on his face, and dried his face with the front of his shirt. He lingered in the hallway near her office and heard her voice speaking with someone on the phone. It occurred to him that she would never again in her life be clear of what he was about to say. He walked past her office and looked in. He recognized her immediately, the curly hair, partly gray, big bones. He didn’t see the blue gray eyes until she put down the phone and looked up. She recognized him, and he saw in the what-the-hell look she gave him, that she remembered where she’d last seen him.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said.

She froze, as though she already knew.

And then, “You’re lying! Get out.”

“Hold on. You’ll want to know. It happened the day before yesterday. Or maybe on Sunday. They buried him in the Kalahari, near the Kuke fence.”

She stared at him.

“I’m so sorry.” He gave her Ian’s wallet. She opened it and saw his picture.

He told her as much as he knew. And he told her the name of the baby that had been born.

Her eyes slipped from his face, and tears ran down her cheeks. She pounded her fist against the cinder-block wall, over and over. She made no sound except that rhythmic beating. She climbed into the knee hole under her desk and curled up, knees to forehead. He stood at a distance and waited. He went away and came back with a cup of milk tea. “Drink this,” he said, setting it near her foot. Her hand swept it to one side.

He sat on the floor near the door, and still she didn’t move. When it grew dark, he lay down on his side and put his head on his arm. His eyes were open. He pictured the road he’d traveled in the dark last night, the strangeness of the light falling from the moon, the 430 kilometers south, the endless dust. He felt her love for Ian like something alive. She cried fitfully, was quiet a while and then he heard her again. Finally he slept.

He woke in the dark to the sound of her shuffling free of the desk. She brushed past him into the hall. When she returned from the bathroom, he said, “I’m here. Don’t be frightened.” She sat on the floor, knees drawn up, her arms hugging them. Her hair had fallen partway over her face. The night was very hot. He saw from her face that she knew the truth of what he’d told her, all the way down to the bottom of it. He could just see one eye, like the glow of an animal crossing a road. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

She cried softly, the sound muffled by her knees. “Do you know where they buried him?” she asked.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

At dawn, he left her sleeping. He laid the keys of Ian’s Land Rover on her desk with the license plate number and a note saying it was hers now, that he’d parked it at the side of the ministry building. He walked to the train station, drank a whiskey, bought breakfast, and waited for the next train to Francistown.

She woke with a start out of a dream and found herself on the concrete floor of her office. Her limbs felt numb, dead. She pictured Ian as she’d seen him that last night in Mahalapye. He’d drunk too much. He couldn’t stop talking. He talked about strangeness, about how “civilized” people had the appetite for it educated out of them. He’d thrown his arm around her waist, bearlike. She’d been irritated without knowing exactly why.

She got up off the floor, disembodied. The San people had buried him. She’d never know where. It could be anywhere in that endless sand.

Her mind raced. That night, they hadn’t made love. He’d talked about how he’d slipped between two worlds. He’d seen his grandfather coming toward him, walking down a column of light.

That last morning, he was sleeping on his back, his hair thrown around the pillow. His left hand was fisted near his face, his right hand open at his groin. She’d decided not to wake him. She looked at him, whispered for him to be safe before she rolled from the bed. Later, he would have woken alone, wondered for a moment where she was, and then remembered she was gone.

Loss swallowed her. She heard people moving around out in the corridor, arriving for work. At some point Thabo would be bringing the tea cart around.

She called her boss, but he didn’t answer his phone. She called again and again. She held the telephone away from her ear and let it keep ringing. She pushed her hair away from her eyes with the palm of her hand while she waited for a voice to answer and was struck by the ordinariness of the gesture. People lived ordinary lives.

“Hello?” she heard on the other end of the phone.

Her words would not come.

“Hello?” he said once more.

“Is that you, C.T.?”

“Alice?”

“Ian died.” To say it was to believe it.

“Where are you?”

“My office.” She set the phone down in its cradle.

Her boss found her there, standing with the tips of her fingers on the phone as though it connected her to something.

“When did it happen?” he asked.

She shook her head. She saw the pity in his eyes and how he paused before he came and put an awkward arm around her.

“I left Mahalapye without saying a proper good-bye. They say he was in a buffalo stampede. The San buried him. His friend left this.” She picked up the wallet to show him, she held the keys to his Land Rover in her hand. She thought, some of his molecules have passed from his wallet to my hand.

“Have you been here all night?”

“Yes.”

“Can I take you home?”

“I was going. I wanted to tell you.”

“I think I’d better drive you.”

She heard the sound of the tea cart rattling down the hall toward her office. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

“Yes, I understand.” He stepped out into the hall and the tea cart rattled past the door.

“Let me take you.”

“What will I do?”

“Alice. Let me drive you.”

“What will I do?”

“Want me to call someone for you?”

“I don’t know. You better take me home.”

They drove down the road in C.T.’s car. She was aware of his discomfort. He was a shy man. She was sorry to put him in this position.

White Dog was there at the entrance to the driveway, waiting, her paws crossed over each other. “I’m okay now,” she said to C.T. Before he could wonder what to do, she got out of the car. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’ll try to come to work tomorrow if I can.”

He got out of the car and came around to her side. “You take whatever time you need.” He put his arms around her. She didn’t want to sob into his shirt, but she couldn’t help herself. Finally she pulled away and told him she was all right, that he should go back to work. He got into his car and started to back out, then stopped and leaned out the passenger side window. “I could stay a while. Make you a cup of tea.”

“Thank you, C.T. Itumeleng will be here. Thank you.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said, sliding back toward the driver’s seat. She watched him back out and disappear down the road. She sat down in the dirt next to White Dog and put her head on her fur. She heard White Dog’s breath going in and out next to her ear. In her mind’s eye she saw the sand swept by wind across the floor of the desert where he lay, grains lifting and falling. She saw Ian’s shaggy head, his large warm hand, the rain pounding outside, felt the pulse of his love inside her. She saw the three hills where they’d never go now: the male, female and child, the dent in the rock where the first soul had knelt.

The broad back of Ian receding, his head set at an expectant angle, the creak of oars, the boat crossing the river and coming back empty. The key to his Land Rover in her hand. Don’t go, my darling. Where are you now? Where in all the vast places have you gone?