White Dog Fell From the Sky (5 page)

When Nthusi told Isaac that Wallenda had
died, the light vanished from his brother’s eyes and turned dead as ash, as though
the suitcase that lived in his head had fallen with Karl Wallenda. And when Nthusi said
good-bye to Isaac, it was as though Nthusi knew now that he’d never go anywhere,
that he’d forever be the oldest son who cared for his mother—the one to comfort
her, the one who’d do his best to earn enough money to send the little ones to
school when he was too large and ignorant to ever go himself. Nthusi’s eyes became
dark smudges of light, like smoke that rises from a fire that hasn’t enough
wood.

Of all the members of his family,
Nthusi’s heart was the bravest. But in the case of his brother, it would have been
better not to have been born for all the joy that his life would bring him. What was God
thinking, to punish his brother like that? Sometimes it felt that He didn’t think
at all, that humans—especially black ones—were his playthings. It seemed that white
people were the ones who believed in divine justice. That was because long ago,
they’d come with their guns and greed and taken what they wanted. They’d
long since forgotten what they’d done, and now they thought the land had always
been theirs.

The bitter heart eats its owner. It was
necessary to forget certain things but not his brother who gave him his own leather
shoes for the journey. He walked along, listening to the way the soles of his
brother’s shoes thumped the sand softly, like guinea fowls landing in dust.
Someday, he’d do something for Nthusi, ten times over. But that time was not now,
maybe not for many years.

A man was approaching from the opposite
direction, carrying a sack of sugar over his shoulder. Isaac crossed the road and
waited. “Excuse me,
rra,
” he said, “where is Lippe’s
Loop?”

“I don’t know,” the man
said, walking on.

He passed several more streets. The trees
were gone. Everywhere, the houses looked the same. White with blue trim. He wondered who
lived in them. He’d never been inside houses like these. From outside they looked
strongly built. But the trouble was, they were so much the same, you could be drunk and
walk into your neighbor’s house and never know the difference until you lay down
with his wife.

The white dog was limping, and he stopped
and lifted her paw. There was blood, but he couldn’t see what caused it. He spit
on his thumb and rubbed the spit over the pad. She leaped away from him. “White
Dog,” he said, “come here.” And then he realized what he’d done:
when you name an animal, she becomes yours forever. He went down on his haunches and
looked at her. “You’re unfortunate to have ever chosen me,” he said.
“I have nothing to give you.” She returned to his side. He took her paw
again, and she held very still, shaking. A thorn was lodged deep. He talked to her and
told her that it would hurt to pull it out. He tried to grasp the thorn but it broke. He
pinched and squeezed and brought it to the surface while the dog stood patiently, her
eyes pained. The thorn was from the tree that grabs you and won’t let go. Now, it
had the pad of her paw, but finally—
out!
She danced and leapt off her four feet
in gladness.

When he wasn’t expecting it, he found
Lippe’s Loop and turned down the road. It was an empty road, without people. The
woman said the third house, but there were three houses on the right and three on the
left. He chose right. A dog came barking up to a gate, a Doberman
who
could rip your throat out. White Dog sat at a distance, her ears pointed, hackles
raised. Isaac tried talking to the barking dog. “Please,
rra,
let me
pass. I need a job.” But the dog barked furiously and leapt at the fence.

A servant woman came out. “What do you
want?”

“
Ke batla tiro.
”

“There is no work.”

He turned and crossed the road. There was
another gate, but no dog. He told White Dog to wait, entered the gate with his head
down, and closed it behind him

“Koko?”
he called,
rapping on the door.

A white woman came out of the house. She had
a blue dress and short white hair and an expression of distaste on her face.

I’m not a thief, he wanted to tell
her. “I’m looking for work,” he said.

“I have no work,” she said.

He pointed next door. “In this house,
do they have work?”

“I don’t know. You have to ask
yourself.” She turned her back on him and went into her house. He went out the
gate and closed it behind him. White Dog was waiting. The Doberman barked crazily.

He tried next door.
“Koko?”
He waited. And then he saw a gardener slopping water
out of a hose onto hard-packed earth and moved on. At the next house, he knocked again.
No one came, but he felt eyes looking at him from behind shiny, blank windows. Those
eyes made the back of his neck prickle, and even though a lilac-breasted roller flew
over his head in a flash of brilliant blue wings and turquoise head, he only half saw
it.

When he finished walking Lippe’s Loop,
he left that street and went down the next one that said “loop.” He could
see the pattern—there were loops and a cul-de-sac in between. On this street, there was
also nothing. Shame sat heavy on his head, that he should need to beg like this. He
turned back to the main road. Everywhere, it was the same. The people living on the
other side of the walls, with their courtyards spilling bougainvillea—red, fuchsia,
white, purple—their servants hanging their sheets and pillowcases and shirts on the
line, their gardeners laboring in the sun, what did those people know? Had they
ever seen a police dog go after a child? Seen their mother dragged off
to jail? He began to feel anger at the peace he found here and the complacency of the
blue sky and quiet roads, the watchdogs that made sure nothing would change. It was
peaceful, yes, but what was the measure of this peace? It seemed that just under the
surface was a familiar order—a few people owned everything. Aristotle said that it was
unbecoming for a young man to utter maxims. But how could you resist Aristotle’s
maxims? In a democracy, Aristotle said, the poor will have more power than the rich
because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. In time,
Aristotle’s wisdom would be borne out. It was necessary to believe this.
Otherwise, where was the hope?

He called White Dog and went back toward the
main road and down another cul-de-sac with houses on either side. They looked unused.
You wouldn’t want to enter them. The earth was scuffed and swept clean as
concrete. Flowers were planted in tight little formations. He knew why people got rid of
everything green. They were frightened of snakes. They wanted the ground clear so they
could see a black mamba from a long way off.

He knocked on gates all day, eighty, a
hundred, he lost count. At last, he turned toward Naledi. White Dog trailed, her tail
down, ears back, as though she’d heard each “no” and needed to lie
down and put her head between her paws. A truck passed on the road heading north, and a
cloud of dust fell over their heads. Isaac left the road and sat on his haunches in the
bush near where a footpath branched three ways. Flies buzzed around a pile of goat
droppings. A Toyota truck passed on the road, and then a Peugeot. “What shall we
do?” he asked White Dog. Small pouches of fatigue bagged under her eyes. She
wagged her tail at the tip. Neither of them had had food or water all day.

When he reached Amen’s house, the sun
had nearly set. He poured water for White Dog and drank from a tin cup. Khumo, Amen, and
Lucky were away. Kagiso said they were working.

“When will they be back?”

“I don’t know,” she said,
her face sorrowing.

“Where have they gone?”

“This also I don’t
know.”

She dished up a plate of mealie meal and beans
and gave Ontibile her breast while Isaac ate. When he’d finished half the plate,
he gave the rest to White Dog. Music from the neighborhood shebeen floated through the
air. A bat flitted here and there after mosquitoes. In the waning light, Kagiso’s
nipples were erect and plump with milk. As Ontibile began to nurse, a small pool of
darkness widened across Kagiso’s dress as her other breast leaked in sympathy.

She seemed very unhappy. “Are you
frightened?” he asked softly.

“Of course. One day he won’t
return, and then what will I do?”

You will marry me, he thought, and
I’ll be Ontibile’s father. “I don’t know,” he said. The
sky was almost completely dark now, and night was beginning: the sound of barking dogs,
the relief of shadow, the earth giving off its faint moisture. “Where were you
born?” he asked.

“Here in Botswana.”

“You have family in
Gaborone?”

“In Mochudi. Sometimes I think of
going back to them … But please,” she said hurriedly, “you
won’t tell him.”

“No.” You are very beautiful, he
thought. Her face was meant for joy.

“Did you find a job?” she
asked.

“There was nothing.”

“Tomorrow maybe you will find
something.”

“Perhaps.”

“If you pray, then you will have more
luck.”

“I don’t pray for
myself.”

“Then I will pray for you.”

He smiled at her. She was like a child. He
was touched that she’d do this for him. He believed in something larger than
himself, but there was no evidence to point to someone or something listening to a man
with brown leather shoes and a sweaty shirt. He didn’t find this unusual or
disturbing. Why should he be noticed when there were so many others to notice? It was
like the dry blades of grass at his feet. Every blade was different, reaching for the
sky in its own humble way, but from a goat’s perspective, they were all the same:
something to eat.

“What was he like back then?”
she asked, only her eyes and mouth visible in the darkness.

“Amen?”

“Yes, when you knew him in
school.”

“Pretty much the same.” Brash,
overbearing, reckless was what came to mind. “He was good at sports. Sometimes he
pushed people around. He told funny stories, played tricks on people. He was someone you
noticed.”

“Did you like him?”

“Not very much, no.”

“Why?”

“We were different.” He saw
himself back then, shy with others, a serious student. Serious in all things. He had to
be. He knew this by the time he was eight years old.

“Yes, I see.” Her body was
swaying, rocking Ontibile. “Sometimes he pushes me around too. But I don’t
mind. I’m different from you.”

How could she not mind? One day, she’d
have a mind of her own, but now, she was young. She rose with Ontibile and went inside.
White Dog sat down, groaning a little, and rested her cheek against his foot. The skin
of her forehead was wrinkled; her cheek was also wrinkled where it pressed against him.
He wished again that he could call upon
monna mogolo
and ask him what to do. He
owed part of his being to this old man who’d given him love for the stars and the
moon and the trees and the wide silent sky and the summer thunder, who made him proud to
be a human being with the same blood in his veins. His great grandfather was what some
people call a Bushman, but he thought this was not as respectful as calling him one of
the San people. Back then, he didn’t know what his grandfather’s kind were
called, or care. He only learned later, when his mother taught him a few words of the
click language, the language stolen from his son while the old man was in prison. He
didn’t know how his mother had learned those words, only that they were precious
to him now. His mother said that all the peoples on Earth come from the first San
people. There was no one alive who did not have their beginnings in Africa. For
thousands and thousands of years, the San people lived in the Kalahari, where they
gathered food and hunted. What would the world be like now if it were peopled by them
rather than the ones who’d stolen their land,
killed their
wildlife, stolen away their children and wives, and made them into slaves?

He thought, if they were like his great
grandfather, there would be laughter falling from the sky. These days, people live in
the world as though they are precious vessels, separate, each holding something that
must be guarded. But his grandfather taught him something different. We are doorways,
openings into something greater than ourselves, something that we don’t understand
and will never understand. We have nothing precious in and of ourselves. We are only
precious in that we are part of something that is too big to know.

Before the sun was up, he was out of the
house. He did not want to be seen, or to speak to Kagiso that morning. He took a little
water and gave some to White Dog, who trotted beside him, her tail held high; then they
were down the path and out onto the road. He could feel the heat at the back of his neck
like a beast stalking him, its hot breath coming closer. His heart felt sad, his bones
tired, but it was his duty, he said to the morning, not to give in to those things, not
to dishonor the freedom he’d been given. The pain inside Nthusi’s shoes
reminded him with every step that he was here because of his brother.

He didn’t know where those shoes would
take him, but when he came to the place where the woman with the green knitting yarn had
continued straight, he followed the way she had gone, toward the Old Village.

Although it was early, the road was already
full of people. He passed women with tins of water sloshing on their heads, others with
heaps of firewood piled high. Two school girls with scrubbed knees and blue uniforms, a
man wheeling a single tire down the road, hand over hand. One half of a car, attached to
wheels, pulled by a donkey and driven by an old man. A teenaged boy carrying a sack of
sugar slung over one shoulder. A small girl with an even smaller child clinging to her
back, legs wrapped around her hips.