thought about the same thing. A few years before, when she was about seven and her second brother had fallen ill, she had gone with her mother to the clinic in Sadza. Chipo Tamari had already lost one son and this time when rubbing him with pastes of ground bark from the nyanga did not work and his pupils started rolling back in their sockets, she resolved to take action, whatever the other villagers might say. She wrapped the infant in swaddling to absorb the diarrhoea, dripped some well-water on his lips which were permanently open like the beak of a small bird, and placed a knitted hat on his head to protect it from the harsh sun. Then she tied him to her back and gave Aqui a calabash of water to carry so they could keep wetting his parched mouth. By the time they had made the three-hour-long walk to the township in the blinding heat, it was too late; the child's body was limp and could not be revived. Her mother began sobbing that she would never have a son and that they must have done something to offend the spirits. But Aqui was entranced by the bustling figures in uniforms, full of purposefulness, with pens in their pockets and metal trays laid out with instruments-stethoscope, tongs and syringes. The clinic smelled of paint and disinfectant, not of death and fear, as she had imagined. It was enough for her to know she had found her dream.
I admired the nurses' uniforms, how smart they were, and saving lives, and wanted to look like them and also because being a nurse or a teacher was something very special in the community But she knew it was impossible because her body was turning into that of a woman and her parents would soon take her out of school. It was different for boys. Boys were so precious, more precious than girls, we were useless in their eyes. Her young brother Tatiwa who had been born after the death of her previous two brothers was even more precious because he was the only son to survive. He would get all the land and as much schooling as the family could afford even though he was dull and slow at learning.
As for Aqui, she might have been the brightest girl in her class but she would not go to secondary school because by the age of thirteen a girl was supposed to be married. The idea of a girl's education was just for you to be able to read the note asking for your hand, then you were fine.
At that time there were only about 150 secondary schools in the whole country and few black children did more than six years' education. But Aqui loved school, particularly English and geography. I did not want to marry one of the silly boys in the village or, worse, an old man who had lost his wife and would pay good lobola [bride price]. In times of drought, when the rivers and wells dried up, the land shimmered with heat, and people had nothing to eat but the small yellow fruits that baboons ate, families often sold their daughters to such men, some such Mr Banana, as she thought of them, who had built up good stores of crops.
I begged the missionaries to let me stay on at school with the boys but I knew my father would never agree. Her mother had not gone to school at all but she could read a little and it was clear to Aqui that she did most of the work. My father, like all the men, was just talking, talking. It was my mother who walked to the well every morning when the sun came up, a pot on her head to fetch water for tea; she who took the animals to the stand; planted and weeded the crops; mended our clothes and cooked the food. In the dry season she grew all sorts of vegetables-tomatoes, cabbages, onions and rapeseed for relish with the sadza. In the rainy season she grew maize, pumpkins and groundnuts.
Aqui's father worked as a contractor putting up wire fences on the big white farms around Chivhu, but the jobs came few and far between. I loved it best when he went hunting with his catapult and knobkerry and would bring back doves or guinea fowl or sometimes even a duiker which we would eat in thick rich gravy with the sadza. Then our bellies would be full and he would tell stories and life had never seemed so good.
But those days seemed long ago. Recently she had heard him and her mother arguing about her school fees and the cost of the new uniform she needed as her body started sprouting in all directions. ‘No man is going to want a wife with so much knowledge in her head,’ he pronounced, and the beer-drinkers enjoying some Seven Day in the yard all nodded agreement.
The pressure to get married beat like a drum on her temples until sometimes she thought her head would explode. I wished I was like the other girls in the village who just wanted to find a man to look after them, then life would be easier. Most of the time I could just busy myself with tasks and not think beyond. But then I remembered the books I had read at school and the nurses I had seen and I knew there was more out there than Zhakata's Kraal.
She hated passing the Apostolics gathered for one of their sessions, their white robes flapping around. I wasn't scared of them any more, but if they saw me one of them would point a finger and declare that I should marry this Mr Banana or that Mr Pumpkin.
At the well or washing clothes in the river, she noticed women hushing their voices as she approached and guessed they had been discussing her marriage prospects. Sometimes one of them made pointed pronouncements like, ‘An unmarried woman is a troubled woman.’ At the New Year's dancing which always took place after a small portion of each crop had been left for the spirits and the babies born that year had been blessed, a wealthy widower from the next village had tried to grab her hand. So old was he that skin hung in webs from his arms and it was all Aqui could do not to curl up her lip in revulsion. But he had cows and goats and a storeroom of maize and told her he would give her the best hut in the village and take her on the bus to Chivhu to buy a shop dress.
If she married him, her father would receive a hefty lobola of several cows. There was a proverb in the village that ‘a son-in-law is like a fruit tree; one never finishes eating from it’. I knew as the eldest I should help my family and marry a man like that with stocks for bad times, but it did not seem fair. Her only hope was if he shared the same totem as her, the animal spirit which all Mashona are given at birth as a way of safeguarding against incest. Mine was impala like my father because in Shona society men are more powerful than women so the children always take the totem of the father. It would be completely taboo for me to marry another impala.
Even Aqui's mother, who she had thought was on her side, had started saying that now she was twelve her eldest daughter should be taking more care of her appearance. One day she sat Aqui down and smeared her hair with a paste made of water and ashes from burning the dry bark of the mutsvedzabeni tree to try and tame its frizziness. I was quite sure Nehanda never did such things.
Aqui wondered about appealing to the headmaster of her school to see if there was some kind of scholarship that would let her study to be a nurse. She had always had glowing reports, which she read out to her mother, and she knew he liked her. At a sports day for schools in the area they had camped on the field of another school, St Judes, because it was too far to get back to their homes. While she and some friends were sitting round the fire they had made, a boy had come running with a message that the headmaster was calling for her. I went to him, he was standing and I knelt down because we were always taught to kneel to big people. He lunged at me and started groping. Fortunately he was so inebriated that he could hardly stand and she had managed to run away. When she got back to her friends the fire had gone out and they were already sleeping in their blankets. She huddled inside hers and shivered. I didn't sleep all night.
Under the tree, a light rustling disturbed her reverie and she watched a chameleon pause in the wind and lift its head before scuttling away. The sun had already disappeared behind the Daramombe Mountains and Aqui realized she should be moving the cattle back to their pen before the wild animals came out and she was scolded for dreaming again. As she hurried back, flicking the cows' haunches with a large twig, darkness fell and seemed to grow thick and black around her until the moon took pity and showed half its face to light her path.
‘LET
