It was not altogether lost on Lukha’s parents that education tended to take children away from home, and that someone would someday, after they were gone, have to look after the homestead. As his parents had predicted, Lukha’s brothers soon left home in triumph using words printed on things called certificates to get jobs: one as a teaboy in the City of Kings, and the other as a messenger boy in a nearby mine.

At this point, Lukha had arrived at the centre of things. It was time to reveal the crux of the whole story.

‘The land around us was declared a national park, and all of a sudden we were not permitted to hunt in it freely. When I was eighteen, perhaps because I was no longer able to hunt, I became restless. For a long time, I could not find a place to put down the restlessness, and then one day I went to the bottle store and found that the shopkeeper had placed a foosball machine outside. Although it was a newly introduced thing, everyone seemed to know how to play the game, and everyone wanted to play it. It was so popular that it even got a nickname, iSlug. Boys and men would gather around the machine to take turns to play it. I looked at the machine, and I was not intimidated by the rows of stiff miniature red and blue soccer players. It took some waiting, but I eventually tried my hand at it.

‘I have never been particularly good at anything the white man has introduced, so imagine my surprise when I found that I was good at this game. I knew exactly when to strike the ball and when to block it. I even found a way to turn the handles with a flourish that pleased the people. After two or three games, I had learned enough about the game to play it and not lose. You see, I could somehow see how it all worked … came together … and that allowed me to anticipate my opponents’ moves. My brain just understood the movement of things, much like it does when I am hunting or tracking.

‘Soon after I started playing, I realised that people had taken to coming to the store just to watch. The shopkeeper realised this too, and started having people place bets. I played against many opponents and remained undefeated. I will admit that it was nice to be watched while doing something I was good at. I liked being the centre of attention. I got free beer from the bottle store, I had money in my pockets, and girls started slowing down their pace and giggling whenever I approached. A man who had more in his life would probably have handled the situation better, but I was still a boy in many ways, and I let it all go to my head.