Florihn intercepted me before I could reach my sister. “Did you think we wouldn’t know?” she yelled, stomping up the dirt track with her head lowered like a one-horn. “Did you think we were too unsophisticated to find out what you had done?” She slapped a newspaper into my hands.
I took the paper and flipped it open. I had made the front page, and the paper was particularly shrill on the scandal of my falling to the stage in my underwear. It was almost laughable, but not quite. There was no picture, and the headline called me only a former steeplejack, but my name was in the small print. So were Dahria’s and Willinghouse’s. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to lock out Florihn’s babbling outrage.
“And you with a child to raise!” she sputtered.
I stared at her, feeling once more the rising anger that had led to my smashing the statue of Cenu. “It was a misunderstanding!” I gasped. “The police already released me. It has no bearing on my ability to look after the child.”
I marched away before she could say anything else, my face hot, arms trembling. At Rahvey’s hut, I took the child without speaking, ignoring her indignant questions, feeling stupid, furious, and above all, lost.
“Don’t come back till two o’clock,” she said.
“She’ll need to eat before then.”
“Two o’clock,” Rahvey repeated. “Not a moment earlier.”
And she went to work.
*
IN NEED OF CALM and a chance to plan my next move, I took the child to the temple yard and performed the Kathahry exercises under the vague eyes of the nameless baby and a ring-tailed genet that watched from the branches of a coral tree. I had just finished and was sponging my arms and face when I saw the Mahweni boy I had met on the night of Berrit’s funeral. Mnenga.
“Anglet,” he said, beaming. “I am glad you came. I brought you something.”
I was taken aback. My thoughts had been too crowded for me to reflect much on our last meeting, and I was surprised to find how much his reappearance pleased me.
From behind his back he produced two corked earthenware bottles.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Milk,” he answered, proud. “And look.”
From the pouch around his neck he produced a rubbery object, which he proceeded to squeeze onto the mouth of one of the bottles. It was an artificial nipple.
“For the little girl,” he said in a comic stage whisper.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, marveling.
“We carry them for the young nbezu. Sometimes their mothers do not feed them, and we have to do it by hand. I have cleaned it.”
“And the milk is…”
“From the nbezu, yes. It is very rich and sweet. Good for human babies.”
“She’s actually just eaten,” I said, “but thank you. I will try it.”
He made no move to go. “I am very good at this,” he said. “I can help.”
He took the bottle and placed the rubber nipple against the baby’s mouth. At first, the child did not respond, but when he teased her lips open, she began to suck.
“She’s taking it!” I exclaimed, delighted.
Mnenga chuckled happily. “What is her name?” he asked.
I hesitated. “We have not had the naming yet,” I said.
He looked troubled. Naming had even more potent associations for the Mahweni than it did for the Lani. A child with no name was like a ghost or an animal, a soul without proper human form.
“I think she looks like a kalla,” I said on impulse. “The flower over there.”
He glanced at the rich and fragrant blooms that hung from a gnarled tree on the edge of the temple grounds and beamed. “Hlengiwe in my language,” he said, adding “Kalla,” trying the feel of the word and liking it. “Yes.”
“I will suggest it to her mother,” I said, taking the bottle from him and continuing to feed her.
“Good,” he said. “I helped.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”
I remembered what he had said the last time we met and added, “You did not tell your brothers?”
“No,” he said. “They notice nothing. I could have taken half the flock and they would not see.”
“Did you find the two that were missing?”
“Yes!” he said, glad that I had asked. “They had not come this far. But we are still looking for the old man.”
I gave him a puzzled look. “Old man?” I said.
“The one I told you about who came from the cliffs.”
“Oh,” I said. “The one with the sunburn.”
“Yes,” he said. “He is still lost, and some of the tribe are worried, so we have to look. It is very foolish. I am glad I found you instead,” he said.
“So am I,” I answered. The child was still drinking, the habbit forgotten by her side.
“I will come again tomorrow with more,” he said.
“I may not be here,” I said. “I have work to do.”
He shrugged and smiled that broad, infectious smile of his, then got to his feet. “I will come tomorrow,” he said. “In case. And I will get more nbezu milk. I think it is sweeter than her mother’s.”
*