“Snakes Like Stars Amaze Me"© is a work of fiction. Below is a short excerpt from the full story which was first published in the Queen's Quarterly 103/1 (Spring 1996), and later included in my collection "Off Centre" (Oberon Press 2004). In the Africa that I love, the night air carries the smell of wood fires, and dry thatch, and dung, and the salty odours of our dust-covered bodies as we walk through the village. Whenever I run my tongue over my lips, I taste the earth, the desert earth whipped up by dust devils, wheels, feet, brooms.
Sometimes, when lain is away on one of his trips for the school, I lie awake long after midnight. Often, I give up trying to sleep at all and instead I go outside into the small courtyard around our rondavel. I don't even notice how long I stand there. I hear dogs barking at the moon, see stars like foaming white rivers across the sky. Here is something I would touch, if I could. It is only the night time cold on my bare feet that turns me back to my empty bed. You're closer to heaven here, I try to say to Bakile one night as we are walking home from the training centre. I can almost see my words hanging in the air, illumined somehow in this unfamiliar glow, I see their flattery, their confusion. Ee, mma ... her flashing smile, eyes averted. Already she is used to the things I say. Words, I learn quickly, do not always make the connection. Words can steal away the power of the sky. I am watching how easily Bakile walks in the night. How she never seems to look down, as I do, to search out the open stretch of tarred road, to scrutinize the tall dry grass along the footpath leading into the village. She does not seem to be wondering where the snakes may be lying in wait. Why do I not tell her of my fear, instead of floating out those words about stars, and heaven? I could tell her about other snakes I have met, those little garters that scurried from my child's footsteps on the flat rocks along the Winnipeg River. I could say to her that it's the venom that terrifies me. The hissing. The thought of poison-laden fangs sinking into flesh. But this is not what I will say. We are sitting outside on the floor of Bakile's courtyard. Coals from the evening fire radiate warmth to our feet, children and old women sleep behind us, in the round houses. We drink the tepid beer that always makes me gag, and once again I fail to disguise the resistant sound in my throat as I take the first sip. Bakile's brother is grinning at me as I drink, and since he is my boss at the training centre, I grin back. He does not need to know how tired I am of laughing about my difficulty with their beer. After a while I ask them, sounding somehow like one of those earnest researchers we all make fun of, why it is that they have no fear of snakes. But truly, mma, you do not know what we think about snakes, Tebogo says in his carefully crafted American English. What do you know of our fear? A bite from the mamba kills Batswana, kills Makgoa, the same. But it is true we know the snake in many ways. It is not only a matter of fear. Some time I will take you to an elder, a doctor, one who throws the bones, maybe he will tell you about his medicines from the snake, how he is famous among our people for remedy of black mamba. Or you ask the old grandmother, Mma Tladi, she is the one who can tell stories from the old days when the snakes and other animals still spoke with our people. Tebogo's half-closed eyes are on Bakile as he raises the jar of cloudy brew to his lips. I watch the movement of his throat as he swallows, the powerful muscles of his jaw, his dark skin that is touched by the glow of the fire, and the glow of the sky. It is said, he goes on, that a snake once came into our village carrying a lost boy in its belly, and the snake spoke to the mother of this mosimane, and asked what she would pay for returning the boy, but ... Nyaa, Tebogo, Bakile interrupts him, and I think she is teasing as she shifts her gaze to me, but I am not sure. No, she repeats, we are not telling these stories. We have learned long ago from the mission schools that they come from a time before we were civilized. But we are no longer so ignorant. Now we are educated. Aren't we, Tebogo? I feel myself on the outside of the smile that passes between them, but I try to join them, shaking my head with just enough vigour, I hope, to unhook myself from this infamous legacy. Well, they should make up their minds, Tebogo says. In America they came to me at the university, and they told me how I must save my culture, and they put our stories in a book of African tales. Now Bakile is clearly enjoying herself. Well, she says, it is better that we also know the truly civilized Makgoa stories, like the story about that snake, the one in the garden who speaks in English, and tells the happy naked girl to eat a fruit from the tree. And everything is ruined with one bite. Soon we will do a book, Tebogo adds. Ee, Bakile concludes, a book of Makgoa tales. For a moment, my mind must work the connection, winding backward to its first source, the gravelly voice of a father on a winter night, the lean earth-stained forefinger travelling slowly down the columns of the Book of Genesis. When I look up, Tebogo and Bakile are both staring at me, holding back. Their smiles widen when I begin to laugh, when I spill bojalwa in my lap, and wipe it off with my shirt sleeve, when I hold out my jar for a refill. A few weeks later, I hear about snakes from the old Boer trader who often comes through the village with his supplies of glass beads and plastic buckets, tobacco, and candy. lain and I take a lift to town with him to buy a paraffin stove for our rondavel. On the way back, he tells lain, pretending I'm not there in the back seat, that the tarred stretches of road hold the heat from the day's sun, and in the cold night, the snakes come out to lie on the warm surface. Once, he says, giving me a quick knowing glance in the rear view mirror, he drove right over a twenty-foot python. Thump, thump, he says, banging the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. And, he goes on, taking a swig from the bottle of Johnnie Walker he keeps under his seat, a python can unlock its jaws wide enough to swallow an antelope whole, a man even, if his shoulders are small, sure it will, he says, anticipating our disbelief, and you can watch the great lump moving along, bony limbs poking this way and that from inside, stretching out skin, then it's gone, crushed to nothing. Takes a month to digest. The whisky dribbles through the stubble on his chin, the stained khaki sleeve sweeps across the slurping mouth. I notice the man's small shoulders, I see lain grinning out the window.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Add a StoryRelate an anecdote, several anecdotes, a favourite memory, a story from your time in Botswana. It can be funny or serious, long (500 words max.) or short. Please email your content (including any photos you wish to include) to: Archives
April 2021
Categories |