My Friend Matt and Hena The Whore Read online

  They make pictures of burnt fields and broken houses and dead bodies, then travel to Gonta.

  When the white men get to Gonta the people aren’t there either.

  Someone says they might’ve stopped over at one of the villages in between, so they come looking to our village and find them here with us.

  Matt is having a great time translating all round, even though he’s not the only one who understands English. But he speaks it best. Better than Leku’s Dada even.

  Also he speaks the language of this other missionary bloke, which is not English. Matt don’t know it too well but he does a little, which impresses this new missionary bloke. He is different, this one, from our one. He don’t talk much of saving souls. He is running around trying to see what he can do to help. Our missionary bloke don’t think too good of him on account he is not what he calls a ‘proper Christian’. But Matt has taken a great shine to him, and the other way round. To tell the truth all the white folk seem to have taken a great shine to Matt.

  Smart-ass.

  After a lot of quiet argument among the white folk, the very ill and the wounded are packed off to Gonta in the van and one of the jeeps.

  The rest of the outsiders say their thank yous to all and start their walk to Gonta.

  This leaves more white folks than even fit into one jeep. A camera man, a lady reporter and two others get on it and follow on hoping to make more pictures and news on the way.

  Alberto – the new missionary bloke – and five other white folk, including one white lady, stay behind with us until the jeeps come back to fetch them.

  That is what the plan is but it don’t work out that way.

  By the time all arrangements are completed and everybody who’s to go is gone, it’s nearly night time.

  The schoolhouse is cleaned and tidied up to sleep the white folk for the night.

  We have put a new pot on the fire for the white folk but our missionary bloke has asked his miserable wife to prepare white man’s food for them.

  Alberto says he’ll stay and eat with us which makes the other white folk look at one another wondering who to offend. But our grown-ups tell them we don’t mind if they eat with the missionary bloke and his miserable wife.

  This makes them breathe easy. They relax their shoulders, they spread their legs by the dying fire, they cup their heads in the palms of their hands and they lie down for a little rest after the tiring day.

  The white lady takes out this little box she’s been carrying and opens it. I’ve been wondering all along what’s in it. I try not to break my neck as I stretch it giraffe-like to see what’s there. It’s another box. A box that flattens itself to make waves of music.

  One of the white men starts singing. He has a sad voice that rises in the night like an old bird flying for the last time.

  There aren’t many people left outside by now. Most have gone to their homes and their lives till the day breaks.

  Matt stops talking to Alberto and listens to the music box and the song with wonder in his eyes.

  I have a hard fart coming. I hold on to it with all my strength not wanting to put unwanted wind into the air but can’t stop it. I can tell it’s going to be a loud one. I try to squeeze it out gently so it won’t make much of a sound. Luckily it don’t; but it smells something awful. All that extra food we’ve had today after days of going very careful with grain – eating no more than a handful, and that with water rather than milk – has turned the stomach a bit rude.

  Grandma Toughtits always says, ‘Too much food makes a body rude.’

  There is no way I can control the smell once it starts. Everyone is too polite to notice, but when it reaches Matt’s nose the wonder in his eyes at the song turns to hunger in his heart for my blood.

  How he knows it’s mine I can’t say, but he knows it.

  He looks at me without looking which is worse than looking for I can tell he is looking when he isn’t. Leastwise, not with his eyes into my eyes but with his whole being into my being.

  I pretend not to care though I’m dying of shame. Matt senses it and lets go his unseen hold.

  Such a big fuss over such a little thing. Matt can be like that sometimes. I hate him.

  All of a sudden I’m hit by a thought which cheers me up. With so many white folk about we might be able to solve the mystery of their balls if we make sure one of us is following them about all the time. Carefully, of course, at a good distance or from behind the bushes.

  Our missionary bloke has this special closet with a deep hole in it which some of us got good gifts for digging. He even baths in the house. But these white folk may not be so particular. No one can be so particular as our missionary bloke.

  They might even take their clothes off and have a dip in the river like the rest of the world.

  I have another fart coming.

  I think I best run out of here for a while.

  I stand up to run at the same time as I think of running.

  This makes me careless and out goes the fart with a loud bang.

  Followed by a tiny squeak. Just as I stand up.

  The white man singing misses a note.

  I am so ashamed of myself I run and run and run till I’m on the other side of the village.

  I feel I can never ever go back there again.

  If I hadn’t had the clever idea of running I could’ve squeezed it out quiet as the first one. Or even, if it escaped noisily, pretended it wasn’t me. But now there’s no hope. My fate is sealed. Pity it wasn’t my lower windpipe.

  I’m in real tears. The cold wind hurts my stinging eyes and I shut them tight. I stand on the edge of the high fields, breathing in and out very slowly, trying to think of something different.

  I stand there for so long I nearly fall asleep standing up.

  I hear these strange voices: strange but familiar, far off but near. I hear but don’t listen on account I’m not sure if it’s real or a dream.

  I feel my knees giving way. I let my body knuckle and buckle till I am half sitting up, half bent on the cool sand.

  I think I really fall asleep.

  Soon I’m being shaken up.

  I don’t like being shaken up when I’m awake. I hate being shaken up when I’m asleep. But what I hate most is being shaken up asleep to wake up and find myself being shaken up awake. But I expect you know that by now.

  I expect you also know who’s doing the shaking up. Matt!

  ‘Starving hyenas. Just let me be,’ I go.

  ‘Just wake up. Wake up you farty fool,’ he screams in my ear.

  It was the worst thing he could’ve said this time.

  I jump up and grab him by the neck. In the space of a breath I have him on the ground and I’m hitting out at him in white madness.

  He just lies there and takes it.

  Arms by his side, eyes looking up at me with… with… gentleness.

  I don’t know what to do.

  My arms and hands stop half way and stay there.

  I’m more frightened than if he’d turned the strongest of guns on me instead of eyes full of gentleness.

  But it is a good fear. It brings with it peace and a feeling of being free. Free from anger and hate. Free from fear.

  It all happens in a moment. The moment passes.

  I see Matt with a worried look in his eyes saying, ‘They’ve taken them. They’ve taken them away.’

  At first I don’t get what he’s on about.

  ‘Who’s taken who away?’

  Then my brain works.

  ‘The soldiers have taken our people away!’ I say, my throat drying up. My whole body drying up.

  My Dada… my Mam… Grandma Pearl…

  I can’t speak any more. I think more than ever before, but I can’t speak.

  ‘I knew we shouldn’t have kept those outsiders. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it…’

  I think I’m saying it, but I don’t think I’m truly saying it because my mouth though open isn’t moving, and my voice thou
gh I can hear it is not coming out of it.

  ‘It’s not the soldiers who’ve taken our people away,’ says Matt, ‘it’s the guerrilla fighters who’ve taken the white folk away.’

  Just when I had hoped to see their balls!

  Things never turn out the way you plan them. Leastwise not the way I plan them.

  Four

  Murder in the Mountains

  Matt has this plan to get the white folk back.

  It’s so simple you won’t believe it.

  Leku don’t believe it.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ says Leku.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’ asks Matt.

  ‘It’s… it’s… it’s more like a little baby’s dream than a grown person’s scheme,’ says Leku after some thought.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ says Matt.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Leku goes, acting more sure of himself now.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Matt. ‘Nice of you to say so.’

  Before I say any more I think you ought to know what the plan is. Matt says we should follow the guerrilla fighters, find out where they are, walk up to them and ask them to let the white folk go on account they are our friends.

  ‘You know for a smart-ass you can be really simple,’ says Leku.

  ‘Naïve,’ says Hena.

  We all look at her surprised for we do not understand the word. Leastwise I do not.

  Matt says to look at it this way. The guerrillas want to help our people. The white folk are helping our people. So there’s no problem.

  ‘Not all white folk are helping our people. The school Master says…’ Leku is saying this when Matt cuts him short.

  ‘We’re not talking of all white folk. We’re talking of these white folk. Besides, no matter who they are or what they are it still don’t make it right taking them away like that.’

  ‘You try telling them!’ Leku goes.

  ‘That’s what I am trying to do, but you say it’s foolish. First you tell me not to do it, then you tell me to do it. Make up your mind.’

  I think Matt has him there but Leku goes, ‘I was only being sarcastic.’

  ‘And anyone can be mad.’

  ‘Not anyone. It takes a very special kind of person to be called mad. In a madhouse you have to be truly sane to be thought mad. In an upside-down place you have to be the right way up to be thought mad. In a…’

  ‘Oh all right, all right. Don’t go on.’ This time Leku cuts him short.

  ‘Have it your own way, but don’t blame me if you are hung by your toes and have your asshole removed. Good luck to you and your plan. I don’t want any part of it.’ Leku goes home.

  We are on our little hill when all this is going on. Matt and me have gathered our friends for a meeting.

  ‘How’re we going to find out where they are, even if we do try to do your plan?’ says Golam.

  ‘Easy,’ says Matt. ‘I give Alberto a whole bagful of food that was left over. The one we put in the pot extra for the white folk. He is going to drop bits of it here and there all along the way for us to follow. Like in the story our Master read to us in school.’

  I am truly shocked. For the first time in a long while I am truly shocked.

  ‘You mean you gave all that food to be thrown away on the sand!’

  I remember the look of pain on Grandma Toughtits’ face when she spilled the grain for the hungry on the floor.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that Matt, you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘It would have lasted my mam a whole month,’ says Golam, in that voice of his which makes everyone look at him when he speaks.

  Everyone who don’t known him, that is. We who do know him are used to it by now. Like we are used to his flashing eyes and smiling teeth and dancing hair.

  ‘It would have lasted the whole village for a whole month,’ I say, which is not quite true. But it would have lasted the whole village for a whole day.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ says Matt. ‘We’re not that short of food, yet.’

  ‘Tell that to my Mam,’ says Golam, who’s usually never angry with anyone, much less Matt.

  ‘I only used it to try to save people’s lives. Food is for saving people’s lives, isn’t it?’

  Matt always has an answer you find difficult to argue with. But we’re still not happy about it.

  ‘How do you know it will save their lives? How do you know the birds or animals won’t eat it before anyone can find them? How do you know their lives are in any danger? The guerrilla fighters are good people, they won’t kill them.’ Now Hena’s on the warpath against Matt.

  ‘It’s still not nice to be taken away like that and kept hidden away if you don’t want to. Would you like that?’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Hena carries on. ‘Besides, you still haven’t answered me about the food being eaten up by the birds or animals.’ She looks at him real angry. ‘Like in the story,’ she adds.

  ‘They’ll only eat it if we let it be till the morning. The creatures that come out at night don’t like grain.’

  ‘I think I best be going,’ says Hena to our great surprise.

  What’s more she actually trots off without even waiting for our reaction. Golam sits there trying not to look at us.

  ‘You best go as well,’ says Matt. ‘Your Mam’ll be waiting.’

  Last time we went to Gonta Golam’s Mam nearly died of worry. Having lost his Dada she is always worrying about losing him too.

  ‘You sure you don’t mind?’ says Golam. It’s difficult for him. He truly wants to please his Mam and he truly wants to be with us.

  ‘We’re sure,’ says Matt.

  ‘Yes, sure,’ say I.

  Matt and me are left on our own.

  ‘You won’t fall asleep on the way, will you?’ says Matt.

  Just because he never goes to sleep he thinks I’m always going to sleep.

  Well, there’s some truth in it. That’s why it angers me when he says it, but I say nothing back.

  *

  We start following the food. It is going away from the woods. That’s what we’d expected. The woods are a good place for hiding when you are running to or from something. For a short while.

  To have a proper hiding place, a regular one, the caves are best.

  Matt keeps putting the food in a bag as we go along.

  ‘You’re not going to eat it now?’ I say.

  ‘I might,’ he says. ‘Also we don’t want anyone else to follow us, do we?’ I expect he’s right.

  We keep walking till I feel my legs can’t carry me any more. I’m tired and worried and no longer sure if we’re doing the right thing. It is weird how Matt never seems to tire. And he’s only half my size.

  All of a sudden the trail stops.

  Up to now it hasn’t been too difficult. The moon is bright and makes the sand shine. It is easy enough to see lumps of food on it.

  Our main worry is snakes which start coming out at night this time of the season as the foods gets less and less. We are careful not to go too near the bushes.

  We are by the mountain walls and don’t know where to look except close to the bushes. Behind us are the plains and certainly no sign of food there. Ahead the rocks rise steeply. The only chance is they’ve gone along the bushes to our right.

  I’m more afraid of hyenas than snakes, but Matt says hyenas won’t attack two of us, but if we get near a snake it might hit first and hiss later. It’s good that we’re looking for our trail which means if there is a snake about we’re likely to see it before it hears us.

  Scorpions are different. Both of us haven’t got shoes on. Mine have holes in them big enough for a scorpion to bite through anyway.

  Matt’s Dada hasn’t been able to buy him another pair after his feet got too big for his last one.

  We’re going backward and forward but no joy. Even Matt is ready to give up hope.

  My eye catches something shiny on a craggy bit of rock. Matt sees it too. We both go to it. It�
�s part of a shawl, white with a funny little pattern on it. I pull it up for a closer look. Seems familiar.

  While we are wondering about it we see a big crack in the rock walls. It is at such an angle you’d never know it was there. We’d never have seen it if it hadn’t been for that bit of shawl.

  Just by the opening to the crack is a little lump of food.

  We’ve found our trail.

  We get into the crack and keep going. We don’t find any more food.

  Even if it was there we couldn’t’ve seen it, it’s so dark in there. I’m almost too scared to go on, but Matt holds my wrist in that iron grip of his and pulls me along.

  I lose my feel for time and distance. To save Grandma Toughtits’ life I couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been in that crack or how far in we’ve gone.

  Both my arms are held by two strong hands. Even Matt can’t have that kind of strength. Besides he’d need three hands for that as one of his hands is still on my wrist.

  But not for long.

  I am pulled to one side as if by wild camels. My wrist is wrenched away from Matt’s hand.

  This frightens me more than anything else.

  ‘Here are two more,’ I hear a voice say, sounding as surprised as I am. Luckily I don’t have time to think. Thinking always makes things worse. Leastwise for me.

  I’m in this room with walls of rock. A cave really, but set up like a room.

  It is brightly lit. So bright that after being blinded by the dark outside I’m blinded by the light inside. But I can see that Matt is there, next to me. I feel safe again.

  ‘You took your time coming, didn’t you?’ goes a sharp voice through my ears, like a needle of cold wind.

  It is Hena.

  Matt and I look at each other. Our shoulders jump up and down. The men who bring Matt and me in are wearing dirty blue jeans and dirty blue shirts. There is another man in the room. He is sitting on a sort of stone stool, wearing a long white robe. His head and face are covered in a white shawl, with just a little round opening through which he can see without being seen.