tribes. The women broke into a lament, doing a shuffling dance around the Buick and singing about the great one who brought the rains, gave barren women the sons they craved and cured the bite of snakes, even the great black mamba.
Inkosi-Inkosikazi stuck his ancient head out of the window again and shook his fly switch impatiently. ‘Be gone with you, you stupid old crows, sing for Modjadji the rain queen, this old rain maker has failed to squeeze a drop from the sky.’
With a roar from its mighty V8 engine, the big, black automobile shot down the road, raising a cloud of dust behind it. ?
By the time the holidays were over Granpa Chook, for that was what I had called my chicken gift, and I were practically inseparable. Calling a chicken a ‘chook’ was a private joke my mother and I had shared. We had received a bunch of photos from a distant cousin in Australia one of which had shown a small boy not much older than me feeding the chickens. On the back of the photo was written: ‘Young Lennie, feeding the chooks on the farm in Wagga Wagga.’ We had called the two old drakes who always quacked around the farmyard together Wagga Wagga, and had started referring to Granpa’s black Orpingtons as, ‘the chooks’.
Granpa Chook was, I decided, a splendid name for the scraggy old rooster who came running the moment I appeared at the kitchen door. There was no doubt about it, that chicken had fallen for me. I don’t mind admitting, I felt pretty powerfully attracted to him as well.
We practised the chicken trick for a couple of days but he got so smart that the moment I drew a circle in the dust he stepped into it and settled down politely. I think he was only trying to be co-operative, but it meant that I had lost all my power. Granpa Chook was the first living creature over which I held power and now this not-so-dumb cluck had found a way of getting back on even terms which was damned annoying if you ask me.
TWO
The holidays came to an end. My bed-wetting habit had, of course, been cured, but not my apprehension at the prospect of returning to boarding school. As for my hatless snake, I’d asked Inkosi-Inkosikazi about that and he’d hinted that we were similarly unique which was why we were so special. It was comforting at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Nanny and I had a good old weep on the last evening at home. She packed my khaki shorts and shirts and two pairs of pyjamas and a bright red jumper my mother had sent from the nervous breakdown place. We laughed and laughed, in between crying of course, because one sleeve was about ten inches shorter than the other. Nervous breakdowns probably do that sort of thing to people’s knitting. By unpicking it at the shoulders Nanny made it into a nice red jumper.
We set out after breakfast in Granpa’s old Model A Ford truck. On the way we picked up fat Mrs Vorster, the widow who owned the farm next door. Granpa spoke no Afrikaans and she no English so she thumped up and down in silence with her chins squashing onto her chest with every bump of the old truck.
I was delighted to be in the back with Nanny and Granpa Chook, who was concealed in the mealie sack where he lay so still you’d have sworn he was an empty sack. Nanny was going to town to send money to her family in Zululand to help with the terrible drought.
Granpa Chook’s wing feathers had practically grown again and by taking a run-up, his long legs pumping up and down, he could take off and land high up on a branch anytime he liked. I have to admit, while he was heavier, he wasn’t any prettier. His long neck was still bare and his head still bald, his cock’s comb was battered and hung like an empty scrotum to one side of his head. Compared to the black Orpingtons he was a mess.
We stopped at the school gates and Nanny handed me the suitcase and the bag with Granpa Chook playing possum. ‘What have you got in the bag, son?’ Granpa asked.
Before I could reply Nanny called from the back, ‘It is only sweet potatoes, baas.’
The tears were as usual running down her cheeks and I wanted to rush back and hide myself in her big safe arms. With a bit of a backfire and a puff of blue exhaust smoke the truck lurched away and I was left standing at the gates. Ahead of me lay the dreaded Mevrou, the Judge and the jury and the beginning of the power of one, where I would learn that in each of us there is a flame that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it burns within us, we cannot be destroyed.
I released Granpa Chook from the sack and gave him a pat. Pisskop the Rooinek, possessor of a hatless snake, was back in town. But this time, for damn sure, he was not alone.
The playground was empty as we crossed it; Granpa Chook darted here and there after the tiny green grasshoppers that landed on its hot, dusty surface. They too seemed to be in enemy territory for not a blade of grass grew on the sun-baked square of earth. To make it across to safety they were forced to land frequently, exposing themselves to the dangers of a marauding Granpa Chook. Though the odds were rather better for them, there were hundreds of them and only one Granpa Chook, while it was the other way around with the two of us.
We seemed to have arrived early and so I made for my secret mango tree, which grew on the other side of the playground. Leaving my suitcase at its base, I climbed into its dark, comforting canopy of leaves. Granpa Chook, taking a run-up and flapping his wings furiously, flew up and perched on a branch beside me, swaying and wobbling and making a lot of unnecessary noise and fuss.
I carefully explained the situation to him. He just sat there and tossed his silly cock’s comb and squawked a lot. I tried to impress on him that this was the big time, that things were different here to down on the farm. I must say that any chicken who could outsmart Inkosi-Inkosikazi’s cooking pot and get the better of his magic circle had to be a real professional, so I didn’t lecture him too much. Granpa Chook was a survivor; how fortunate I was to have him as my friend.
After a while we left the mango tree, and skirting the edge of the playground we made our way to the side of the hostel which contained the small kids’ dormitory. It looked out onto a run-down citrus orchard of old, almost leafless grapefruit trees. Half a dozen cassia trees had seeded themselves over the years and their bright yellow blossom brought the dying orchard back to life. The ground was covered with khaki weed and black jack which reached to my shoulder. No one ever came here. It was the ideal place for Granpa Chook to stay while I reported to Mevrou.
Deep inside the orchard I set about making a small clearing amongst the rank-smelling weed and in the process unearthed a large white cutworm with a grey head and a yellow band around its neck. Granpa Chook thought all his Christmases had come at once, and with a sharp squawk he had the plump grub in his beak. You could see the progress of that worm as it made a bulge going down his long, naked neck.
The clearing complete, I drew a circle on the ground and he settled politely down into it. It still annoyed me a bit that he refused to go through the whole magic rigmarole, but what’s the use, you can’t go arguing with a chicken, can you?
I found Mevrou in the wash house folding blankets. She looked at me with distaste and pointed to a tin bucket which stood beside the mangle. ‘Your rubber sheet is in that bucket, take it,’ she said.
I tried not to sound scared. ‘I… I am cured, Mevrou,’ I stammered.
‘Ha! Your
I stood with my head bowed, the way you were supposed to in the presence of Mevrou. ‘No, Mevrou, your beatings are the best… better than my granpa’s. It just happened, I just stopped doing it.’
‘My sjambok will be lonely.’ Mevrou always called the bamboo cane she carried her sjambok. She handed me a coarse towel and a blanket. ‘You are too early, there is no lunch, the other children will be here not till this afternoon.’ The blanket smelt of camphor balls and with the familiar smell that old fear returned and with it came doubt that perhaps I wasn’t cured of my bed-wetting habit.
I dropped my blanket and towel off in the small kids’ dormitory and returned to Granpa Chook. The absence of lunch didn’t bother me. Nanny had packed two large sweet potatoes in my suitcase and I now planned to share one of these with Granpa Chook.
As I approached the abandoned orchard I could hear a fearful squawking coming from Granpa Chook. Suddenly he rose from above the weeds, his short wings beating the air. I lost sight of him again as he plunged
