White Dog Fell From the Sky (38 page)

“Lulu, where are you from?”

“I am from Botswana,” she
said.

“Do you know where in Botswana you are
from?”

“No.”

“You are from Gaborone. This is where
you must get off the train.”

“Where are you from?” she asked
Moses.

“I am from Botswana in
Gaborone.”

“No, you are from Gaborone in
Botswana. Lulu, where do you come from?”

“I am from Gaborone in
Botswana.”

Moses asked her why they must say these
things, and their mother told him to stop with his questions, that he must only remember
what to say. “Otherwise they will throw you off the train.” Lulu imagined
the two of them sailing through the air while the train laughed down the tracks with its
white smoke. Her mother had told her that they must get off the train in Mafeking and
find a Motswana to ask the way to the train that left for Gaborone. “Do you
understand? Tell me it back.” Lulu told her. Moses was a year older than she, but
her mother knew that she wouldn’t forget. She had given her the papers because she
had more sense.

But she knew now that they’d been
tricked. She didn’t understand why her mother would send them to this white woman.
And where was Isaac? She turned in the chair and looked at the stove behind her. The
door was large enough to shove her in. Their mother had put them on the train, and it
was only when they had been traveling from
the time the sun rose until
it was high in the sky that she knew that Gaborone in Botswana was at such a distance
that they would not be traveling home on the weekend to see their granny and that maybe
they would never see her again. She didn’t want to cry because crying makes the
spirit come out of you her mother said, but the tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped
her nose with the back of her arm, and the snot dried in a streak like the trails the
snails left on the wild spinach her grandmother gathered after the rains.

The white woman came back and with her came
a black woman with a little child holding her mother’s skirts. The black woman
asked in Setswana, “Where are you from?” And before Lulu could warn him,
Moses said, “Bophuthatswana.”

Lulu said, “Gaborone in
Botswana.”

“That is where you are now,” the
black woman said in Setswana. “You are in Gaborone.
Lo tswa kae?
”
Where are you from?

“Gaborone in Botswana,” Lulu
said again.

“Isaac
o kae?
” Moses
asked. Where is he?

“He’s not here,” Itumeleng
said in Setswana. “We don’t know where he is. He has disappeared.”

Lulu began to whimper.

“You must sleep,” the black
woman said. “It’s late now. Isaac will come back.”

“
Ke batla
Isaac!” I
want Isaac! She was wailing now, her spirit pouring out where it could be scooped up,
but she couldn’t stop herself. Itumeleng picked her up in her arms, and Lulu felt
the hands of Itumeleng’s little girl rubbing her bare leg where it dangled. That
little girl had not yet been eaten. Even though Lulu was a big girl and old enough to
carry important papers, Itumeleng jostled her in her arms the way a mother does a young
child, and Lulu felt herself giving in to the deep crooning that came from the
stranger’s throat.

Alice woke before six, tiptoed to the room
where the children slept, and paused at the door. Lulu was invisible, under the sheet.
Moses slept on his back, arms flung out to the side as though he’d fallen backward
into tall grass.

Outside, the crested barbet sang in the tree.
Small bits of white paper floated in the air, lit in the tree, fluttered on in the
breeze. Her eyes were still full of sleep, and it took her a moment to realize that the
white butterflies were migrating. She’d asked Will about them once and learned
that one of their host plants was the shepherd tree. They traveled up Africa toward
Madagascar, maybe as far as India. Here were a few dozen forerunners, but there would be
more coming, and more behind them. Their wings were edged with a soft brown, but she
remembered the effect when they traveled in the tens of thousands: a sea of white, the
air alive, wind made manifest.

White Dog stretched out her front paws,
shook herself awake, and pressed her snout into Alice’s hand. Alice brought out
food and water and set it down for her. It was nearly an hour before the children woke.
Moses found her in the kitchen, and Lulu trailed behind.

“
Dumela, rra
,” Alice
said. “
A o bolawa ke tlala?
Are you hungry?”

“
Ee, mma.
”

Lulu ran away and hid under the covers. It
annoyed Alice, and then she was annoyed with herself for being annoyed. Had Lulu ever
talked to a white woman? She filled a bowl with porridge and added milk. Moses ate what
she’d given him, and a second bowl.

“Lulu
o kae?
” she asked
Moses. He shrugged and put a napkin over his head to communicate to Alice that his
sister was shy.

“Take her this, please?” She
said it in English, and he began to eat the porridge she’d dished up for Lulu.

“For Lulu.” He laughed and
disappeared with the bowl. And came back.

“You’d like more?”

“
Ee, mma.
” He ate with
enormous concentration. When he’d finished, he said, “Isaac
o
kae?
”

“
Ga ke itse.
” He asked
again, as though she hadn’t understood. “
Ga ke itse.
I’m
sorry. I don’t know.” She sat down at the table next to him and they were
quiet for a while. His smile melted her heart. She walked into the small bedroom, Moses
following.

“
Dumela, mma,
” said
Alice to the sheet.
“Lulu, come out, I want to see
you.”

“Lulu, come out, I want to see
you,” Moses repeated.

Alice tugged at the sheet gently.
“Lulu, please come out.”

“Lulu, please come out,” the
echo said.

A small hand held fiercely to the sheet.

That night, she called Hendrik Pretorius
after the children were asleep. “I’ll call you back,” he said. Fifteen
minutes later, the phone rang.

“I tried calling you last night but
couldn’t get through,” she said. “I found the children. They’re
here, asleep in the other room.”

“Thank god.”

It sounded as though the phone had gone
dead. “… Hello, are you there?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here. First let
me say I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to happen this way. Isaac wrote to his
mother asking that we send the children to Botswana. He said it was a good place, a safe
place, and he wanted them to have a chance at a different life. He mentioned you in the
letter and said he was working as a gardener at your house. I was in favor of them
going. His mother was reluctant. It would mean losing them, maybe forever. What tipped
the scales was Nthusi’s death.”

“Nthusi?”

“Isaac’s older brother. He
worked in the mines. There was a collapse. He died last month. Isaac’s mother said
if that was the fate awaiting her children, then they should go. Tshepiso, another one
of Isaac’s brothers, couldn’t be persuaded to go. He’s still with the
grandmother in Bophuthatswana.”

“Isaac never said
anything …”

“Perhaps he thought you wouldn’t
agree.”

“I don’t know what he thought,
and I don’t know what’s to be done now. Lulu won’t speak, won’t
look at me. She’s very unhappy and wants to go home. Moses keeps asking where is
Isaac, where is Isaac?”

“I don’t know what to
say.”

“Can their mother call? She works for
you? During the day, could she call?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I could drive them back
home.”

“Where?”

“To their mother.”

“That’s impossible. They
can’t live there.”

“To their grandmother?”

“You wouldn’t be allowed
there.”

“What about putting them back on a
train?”

“How would they explain themselves at
the border? It’s one thing getting into Botswana. The children said they were
going to visit their brother. It appears there was no problem. Going the other
direction, I can’t imagine what would happen.”

“Perhaps Isaac will be
back.”

“He won’t be back. I made some
inquiries today. He’s in prison.”

“Oh, dear god.”

“They’ve taken him to Number
Four in Jo’burg. The place is unspeakable. My wife and I are completely torn up
over it. Many don’t get out alive … we’re devastated.”

She was stunned, appalled.
“You’re a lawyer?”

“In a country where the laws of the
land are rotten to the core. I would move heaven and earth to help this young man. If
you could keep the children until … Hello? Is that possible?”

She couldn’t imagine how it was
possible. “Yes, of course I will.”

“I’ll call again in a few days.
I think it’s best that I call you, not the other way around.”

She hung up and went outside. Her throat was
dry, her hands shaking. Out in the pool of light spilling from the kitchen, she felt a
flash of anger. What was Isaac thinking? Would he even have told her before they
arrived? But it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except getting him out. She
could hardly bear to think about what they’d do to him, what they might have
already done. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of white. The moon was
bright. More butterflies had come.

“I want you to tell them what’s
happened to their brother,” Alice said.

“
Nnyaa, mma.
”

“It’s better for them to
know.”

“
Nnyaa, mma
, it is not
better,” said Itumeleng. “They are thinking, this is what happens to people
who come to Botswana. They are thinking, oh, they will send me to prison too.”

Alice shrugged with impatience. “Well,
can you tell them I want to take them to school to register them today? Can you at least
tell them that?”

“
Ee, mma …
Moses! Lulu!
Tla kwano!
Come!” She set her daughter down at the table with a bowl
of porridge in front of her.

“You’re going to school,”
Itumeleng said to Moses in Setswana. “Lulu
o kae?
Go fetch Lulu.”
He ran out of the room and came back a few minutes later without her. Itumeleng stood
with her hands on her hips. “Do you want to go to school?”

“
Ee, mma.
”

“You are not going unless Lulu
comes.”

He disappeared again and came back dragging
his crying sister. Her knees looked dry and dusty even though Itumeleng had given them a
bath just last night. Her one shoe dangled in her hand.

“Forget it,” said Alice.
“It’s not going to happen today. Tell them no school. I must find Lulu new
shoes. And they’ll need school uniforms.”

She felt a wave of grief coming on and fled
out onto the veranda. She said his name out loud, and her knees buckled. It was so hot
her
dress clung to her back. She squinted into the sun and drew her
hand over her eyes. “Come back, damn it.” She had an impulse to look for
him—to go to all the places they’d ever been together.

Get real,
a voice said in her head.
Pull yourself together.
She shuddered as though a cold wind had blown
through her. When she opened her eyes, a flash of aqua, almost iridescent, caught her
eye. A lilac-breasted roller sailed between two tall stalks of aloe, near the rock where
Isaac had liked to sit. She remembered him in this quiet place. What came to her was a
Bible verse her grandmother had given her to learn: “Naked came I out of my
mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job had lost his seven thousand
sheep, his three thousand camels, his five hundred yoke of oxen, his five hundred she
asses. A wind had come and smote the four corners of a house where his seven sons and
three daughters were eating and drinking wine. The house had fallen, killing them all.
And still Job said, “… blessed be the name of the Lord.” It was a story
of God’s unbearable cruelty, a story of testing a man to the outer limits to see
what he was made of. What kind of a God would do that to a faithful man?

The lilac-breasted roller flew again. She
thought it must be the most beautiful bird ever created, with its shining wings, aqua
tipped with deeper blue, its lilac throat and breast, white feathered forehead, and
perfect dark eye. She thought of God speaking out of the whirlwind, how He reminded Job
(as though he needed reminding by then) who had caused the morning stars to sing, who
shut up the sea with doors and commanded the proud waves to come only this far, no
farther. If He could harness the stars and the ocean, why could He not harness cruelty?
Was it more powerful than all the stars and oceans?

She turned back toward the house. In the
children’s room, Alice found Lulu back under the sheet. “Isaac wants you to
go to school,” she said to the lump. She had no words but English. “Goddamn
it, I can’t make you understand, but you’ll have to get used to being
here.” She sat on the foot of the bed. The sheet quivered. “Isaac wants you
to go to school.” Every time she said “Isaac,” the sheet grew still.
“Your brother Isaac loves you. That’s why you’re here. But Isaac is in
trouble.
This is what you can do to help your brother. You can go to
school. This is what he wanted for you. Do you understand?” The lump in the sheet
moved away, closer to the wall.

Hendrik called just after two in the
afternoon and put the children’s mother on the line. Alice said a few words to her
in Setswana and heard a few soft words back. When she’d exhausted her Setswana,
she said in English how sorry she was about Nthusi and Isaac. And added that she’d
do everything in her power to take care of the children. Their mother said,
“
Ee, mma. Ee, mma,
” over and over and thanked her, although
Alice had no idea how much she’d understood. She called Lulu and Moses to the
phone and left the room while they spoke. Later, Itumeleng told her that the children
now knew where Isaac was. They also knew that their oldest brother had died in the
mines.