Tidetown (6 page)

‘You are in charge. Don't you sit wherever you please?'

So the governor settles down on the bench beside Carp.

‘I want to say some things to you while I have the chance. Just we two.'

‘What things?'

‘Well. About you, Carp. About yourself.'

The governor pauses to assess the reaction to her words. Carp examines her fingernails.

‘I have seen many young women stifled by others. Unable to become themselves.'

Carp looks down at her skirt, her long hair falling across her face. A mask. A curtain. She fiddles with the string of her smock.

‘Before we met I read all the transcripts and the reports of your time here. Also, it was the little things the wardens had to say about you that made me think. To consider who you were. Who you could be. Then when we met, with your sister, I could sense in your eyes that you want something else from your life.'

Carp says nothing. She raises her head. A blank, baleful expression on her face. Stoic yet almost yearning. The governor maintains eye contact, looks for a sign of recognition, then continues.

‘I will be bold. I think your sister is controlling you. I don't think you really believe all the things that Perch believes. That she says you both believe. Mostly, I think you don't want to be who you think you are.'

Carp puts her hands over her ears.

‘I can help you. We can help you. To find your own way, Carp.'

She moves to put a hand on Carp's shoulder, but the younger woman pulls away.

‘Stop, stop!' shouts Carp. ‘Don't say these things.' Then she jumps up from the bench and runs along the corridor and into her cell, leaving the governor in a space and place she's found herself many times before.

Lying face down on the lower bunk Carp heaves and sobs.

‘What is it?' whispers Perch, half awakening. ‘Have you seen him? Has the archangel come to you?'

‘No,' says Carp. ‘No I have not seen him. Not seen him at all.'

The monks have all they need. The island is the great provider: the ‘GOD of the Great Out Doors', as Brother Moses always says. They get fruit and vegetables from the orchards and fields; oysters, fish and crabs from the sea and its shores; they bake bread, brew beer, breed pigs for meat and chickens for eggs. Everyone's day is a mix of prayer, meditation and work. Just as the morning bells call them from their beds to the chapel, so the evening chimes bring them from the fields and barns, from the oast houses and orchards, to the long oak table of the dining room and a nutritious meal.

During Zakora's first weeks at the monastery, much was alien, unusual, peculiar. The rhythm of the day, the taste of the food, the way the monks spoke, the sounds they made, the songs they sang, the echoes in the passageways, the feel of the air in the cloisters. He sits in the chapel and looks up at the beauty of the stained-glass windows and wonders at the stories they might tell. Some remind him of the words of the Silvery Man. One window, he thinks, shows the Jesus person laying hands on a sickly child. It takes him back to the time when he fell sick, a sickness that would change his life, that would set him on a course across oceans, bringing him to this chapel with windows of multicoloured glass.

One morning, when he was about fourteen years old, Zakora woke with a terrible pain at the base of his skull. He buried his face in the pillow, worried his head would explode and fly from his neck. All that day he stayed in bed. The Silvery Man called for the doctor, who gave him medicine and told the matron to keep a cold towel on the young boy's forehead and shoulders. By dusk the pains had only got worse and were now running up and down his spine. The doctor returned, shaking his head in bemusement. ‘Put him in a room by himself. Keep him in bed, keep him wrapped up and I'll come again in the morning.'

As darkness set in, Jango, the old Zulu nightwatchman, was assigned to sit by his side and look over him. Jango, long versed in the ancient traditions of sacred healing and witchcraft, placed his weathered hand on Zakora's cheek and whispered in his ear.

‘Tell me what you see, young Zakora, fine strong warrior. What sights?'

And, as deep as he was in his pain, as far as he felt from the room, Zakora was calmed by the softness of Jango's words.

‘There are faces, Jango, and voices I half recognise but do not know.'

‘And what do they tell you, Zakora, what do they say to you?'

‘They tell me I have a calling. They tell me I am special, an
ithwasa
. I am chosen.'

Jango smiled, for he knew full well what all this meant. He knew that the ancestors called upon and identified an
ithwasa
through an illness, an ailment. This would be the first sign, one Jango had seen in his aunt, many years ago, when he was a young child in his highland village. Jango decided there and then to take it upon himself to ensure that Zakora's destiny would be fulfilled.

‘Rest. Your pain is your blessing,' he said, and Zakora closed his eyes and slept. In the dreams that came a parade of faces appeared in sharp relief: urgent eyes, welcoming smiles, warm demeanours. They wore headscarves and robes from years and generations gone by. In his delirium, in the depths of his sleep, Zakora was comforted by these faces, by a sense of recognition, even though he had never seen them before this night. These men and women, some very old, some young, he intuited were the spirits of his ancestors come to welcome him. As dawn broke and the images faded he felt contented and at ease. Without uttering a word to anyone at the missionary station, Jango spoke to the local elders and crow-heads. He recounted all he'd seen and heard. There was no doubt in anyone's mind as to their significance: Zakora had been chosen and they all had a duty to perform. Preparations were made to whisk Zakora away to the care of the
sangoma
in his secret hut deep in the Chimanimani mountains. If Jango's part was discovered it might cost him his job or more, but he knew it was a task he could not shirk. Over the succeeding days Zakora's mysterious pains continued and he was moved to the room in the missionary station reserved for those with malaria or infectious diseases. On the fourth day Jango arrived with a donkey and provisions for a long hard journey. Zakora was happy to be taken away, knowing in his heart that his future lay elsewhere.

The journey was a haze for Zakora; his fever, though unabated, was also his protector. The time and hardships of the road passed by in a sequence of mirages: fording a swollen river; Jango leaning close to his face, mopping his brow; a spread eagle silhouetted against a broiling sun; the braying of the donkey as it stumbled and slipped on the crumbling rocks of a steep incline.

When they reached the agreed meeting place (a bore hole by the sacred babool tree) the old
sangoma
and two
n'anga
were waiting. No words were exchanged; none were needed. The
sangoma
gestured for Zakora to climb down from the donkey. He reached out for Zakora's hand, looking him straight in the eye to confirm what he already knew from his own dream world. Then the old
sangoma
turned and led Zakora back along the track that headed to the hills and his secret place. The two
n'anga
, his loyal disciples, and Jango watched them until they disappeared into the distance. They then took the donkey to the bore hole to drink before Jango began his journey back to the mission station.

Immediately upon his return Jango was confronted by the Jesus men. He told them the half-truth that he had been ordered by a powerful crow-head to take Zakora back to his village. ‘No,' he said, under fear of witchcraft or death, ‘I cannot tell you where the village is or reveal the identity of the crow-head.' ‘Yes,' he had thought about telling the Jesus men what was being planned, but knew this would only make matters worse. And ‘yes,' he did realise the police might press charges leading to prison. But Jango was too good a nightwatchman and the head Jesus man did not want to incur the wrath of the crow-heads. And, when all was said and done, no one would miss another street boy. So the police were not called and Jango kept his job.

Zakora was taken to the
ndumba
and there in the sacred healing hut his clothes were taken from him and his initiation as an
ithwasa
began. The old
sangoma
listened to Zakora. He was kindly, for he saw and sensed in Zakora the makings of a great diviner. When Zakora spoke of his times as a child when he secretly visited the wise man who lived near the mission, the
sangoma
knew his heart was right. As the
sangoma
spoke in the Shona language of their people Zakora felt soothed by his voice. The words of the ancestors rested well in his ears, opening his mind, connecting him to the land beneath his feet.

‘Here in the
ndumba
your ancestors reside. They have been with me waiting for you,' said the old man, whose face seemed to change shape and expression as he spoke. It was as if his features shifted from old to young, drifting between man and woman.

The hut was bare and sparse, made from mudbrick, with a small hole in its conical roof where smoked billowed from the ever-smouldering fire. Suspended from the walls were pieces of wood and twigs, animal skins and stones tied together by vines. Zakora sat around the fire with the old
sangoma
and the two
n'anga
.

‘Jango did well to recognise the signs,' said the old man. ‘He is a wise soul. Your illness is a
twasa
, a calling from the ancestors. Not to be cured, it is there,
ku mu thwasisa
, to lead you to the light. You will stay here with me, away from all others, and I will teach you all you need to know. I will instruct you in the old ways and you will be humbled in the face of our ancestors.'

As young as he was, as much as the constant throbbing ache in his head and neck troubled and absorbed him, he felt exuberant and expectant. Here was a true purpose, a sublime meaning to his life. A searing bolt of pain shot down his spine and he winced and bent forward. The
sangoma
laughed.

‘My young
ithwasa
, what ails you now at the beginning will become your trumpet call at the end. This ailment we will transform into a song and dance, through dreams, and with prayer. At the end of your training with me, when you move from
ithwasa
to
sangoma
, you will tell the story of your suffering with the voice of a myna bird and the deft and delicate step of a gazelle. That which is pain will be your strength … your treasure house.'

This would be Zakora's life for the next five months. He never left the side of the old
sangoma
. He came to believe in the power of
amadlozi
, the ancestral spirits; he learned to divine by casting bones and twigs and stones. He was schooled in the powers of creating harmony between the living and the dead, and was taught to show respect for the ancestors through ritual and animal sacrifice. He joined the old
sangoma
in summoning the ancestors by burning sacred plants such as imphepho, by dancing, chanting, going into a trance, by playing drums. Some days the
sangoma
would force Zakora to cleanse his body by drinking huge quantities of a strange-tasting liquid that caused violent vomiting. On others, he would be purified through smoke and steam or else by being washed in the blood of sacrificed animals.

Eventually, when the old
sangoma
deemed his young
ithwasa
had learnt enough, the day of Zakora's initiation was set. A goat was sacrificed and Zakora drank the freshly spilt blood. This was to seal the bond between the new
sangoma
and the ancestors. Many gathered to celebrate the completion of training. At the conclusion of the ceremony, after the anointing and blessings, Zakora was presented with one final challenge to prove his worthiness and acceptance by the ancestors and to witness whether he had truly acquired the skills and insight to be a healer and diviner. One of the oldest of the
sangomas
, out of Zakora's sight, hid his sacred objects, including the gall bladder of the goat that had been sacrificed. Zakora was instructed to call upon the ancestors to reveal the hiding place and to return the objects to the
sangoma
who had hidden them away. This would be proof as to whether or not Zakora had developed the ability to see those things hidden from view. He closed his eyes to conjure the ancestors. When he came out of his trance he walked straight to the well and found the objects hidden in a bucket. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he handed them to the oldest
sangoma
in the group. Everyone cheered and clapped and Zakora laughed heartily, knowing he was now a true
sangoma
.

After the initiation ceremony the elder
sangomas
held council and agreed that Zakora should travel to a village in the highlands where his cousin lived. The
sangoma
there had died at an old age and only a
n'anga
remained. Zakora's skills of divining and healing would match the other's knowledge of herbs and remedies. And so, with full blessing and best wishes, Zakora joined his cousin on the long walk to the highlands and his new life.