21

The Village

A group of grass huts sits in a stony field, and stray goats wander across our path. Lottie is sure-footed and confident where I am nervous and slow. As we approach the native compound, my bravery deserts me. We walk up a slope into the sun, and the silhouettes of ramshackle huts rise against the sky. A tall boy lopes across the path. A dog follows him, stops, turns to bark at us, then trots away. It was a mistake to accompany Lottie on her personal search for Darnell, but I will not give in to fear. I realize something about me is different since the fire.

Don’t stray from the road, Mother warns me when we leave our house in Manzini, and I never have. Till now.

“That’s Mama Khumalo’s place.” Lottie jerks her chin in the direction of a hut built in a clearing. A tall, dark-skinned Swazi woman with angular features and a wide, smiling mouth stirs a pot of maize beer in the dirt yard. She greets Lottie in a familiar way and points to a grass mat under the shade of a corrugated iron lean-to attached to the hut. The lean-to is made from rusted iron sheets and wooden planks held together with mud.

A group of Swazi children dressed in traditional animal skins and cast-off Western clothing stand outside the stones that mark the boundaries of Mama’s yard. They point and whisper at the stranger in their village: me. Lottie they already know. Far off in the distance, a woman sings in a field, and the sound tugs at my insides. The song reminds me of a favorite doll that I lost on the trek home from the markets in Manzini when I was little.

Mama beams at Lottie, and they talk in Zulu, easy in each other’s company. I sit with my legs tucked to the side, as Lottie instructed, and wonder what they’re saying. I know just enough Zulu to tell the maid to wash the dishes and scrub the floor, but even then, I mime the actions so she understands.

“Darnell comes and goes from the village, but Mama hasn’t seen him for days.” Lottie translates Mama’s words into English for me. “He’s not here.”

Mama leans closer and becomes animated. She makes the shape of a gun with her fingers and pulls the trigger. Boom. One of the children, a girl with cornrowed hair, clutches her chest and falls to the ground, where she twitches her arms and legs while the other children shriek with laughter. Mama smiles, amused by their antics.

“There was trouble on Bosman’s farm last night,” Lottie tells me after the girl gets up and dusts herself off. “Mama doesn’t know what started it, but they heard a gunshot blast and the dogs barked all night. She’s not worried for Darnell. Bosman and his sons shoot at shadows and Darnell knows every inch of these hills so he’s probably fine. We should go back to school, where it’s safe. She says to stay away from Bosman’s farm.”