Deborah Wheeler: Mother Africa

“It doesn’t matter,” Mama said quietly. “We are Africans now.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but no. Not till Africa leaves her mark on you. It’s you who belong to the land then and not the other way around.”

Willamette looked away, her vision fanning over the grasses. The sense of something waiting rose up like billowed dust. She looked for lions, but none appeared. That night, she dreamed of their tawny shapes sifting through the wind-rippled grass.

From Mbale, they went on alone. The Reclamation Project supplied them with tools, food, and prefab shelter, as well as incubators for the chickens and disease-resistant cattle embryos. They piled everything into their crawler, a patchwork cobbled together from Yugo and LandRover parts with an ancient Toyota drive. They took turns walking beside the crawler in the shadow of its outstretched solar wings.

The road went from gravel to dirt to nothing. They saw only abandoned villages, twiggy fragments of skeletons instead of huts.

It wasn’t nearly as hot as Willamette had expected, not here at three thousand feet. Jacaranda and hibiscus grew wild from the rich volcanic soil. Even the air smelled different, reckless and strong. The sky seemed to go on forever and had colors in it Willamette had never seen before.

Stephen spotted the first gazelle. He’d been riding on top, crouched between the crawler’s curving solar wings, while Dad eased it over the tufted ground. Willamette ran ahead, smelling the grass and the sky, wishing she had unpacked the football. At Stephen’s shout, Dad braked.

There they were, the color of sand and caramel, heads popping up like jack-in-the-boxes, ears pricked, tails wiggling. Willamette thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

The gazelles decided they were safe and went back to grazing. “Once,” Dad said, sweeping the horizon with one hand, “all this land was desert, overgrazed with the white man’s cattle, overrun by armies carrying the white man’s weapons. But in the end, Africa took back her own.”

Africa, Willamette thought, Mother Africa.

They spotted more gazelle and giraffe, a herd of zebras and another of the dark shaggy beasts that Mama said were gnus and then Stephen made a joke about “No gnus is good news” and everyone groaned.

Then the elephants came, gray as shadows against the horizon. Willamette thought that if trees could walk, they’d move like that.

“Oooh,” she said, “let’s go closer.”

“No, baby,” said Dad. “Let them be. When I was a kid, everyone said how soon there would be no more elephants left. They’re miracles.”

“Oh, LeVar, you’re such a dreamer,” said Mama, and gave a little laugh.

Willamette looked from one parent to the other and something came bursting up in her, something hot and bright and singing.

They made camp, checked for termite hills and snakes, cut a bare patch in the matted grass to set the solar stove. Mama poured out the water carefully. They were running low and had given up washing their clothes, or even changing them every day. When they reached the river, they’d disinfect enough water to refill their carriers.

Willamette lay awake after the others had gone to sleep. She gazed up at the stars, so many and so far, and thought how strange it was that the night could have so much light in it.

She woke startled, as if her body jumped all by itself. The sky was no longer dark, but that milky color before sunrise turned it yellow. The earth gave off a sweet damp smell. The insects hadn’t woken up yet; she could almost touch the quiet. Every once in a while, she heard a faint familiar snoring.

The scratching noise sounded like claws on metal. If she hadn’t been holding her breath, listening, she might have missed it. Something was scavenging in the aluminum food bins.

Soft as she could, she rolled to her hands and knees. Stephen would have shouted to scare the animal off, but some lonely part of her didn’t want it scared off. She would tame this wild creature, this part of Mother Africa, and they would belong to each other forever.

A rounded shape huddled beside the dark rectangle of the crawler. She crept closer. Her palms pressed soundlessly into the cool dirt. Grass roots tangled around her fingers.

The sounds stopped abruptly. She froze. The creature’s head shot up. Two round eyes, rimmed with white, met hers. She glimpsed a nose like a button and a shirt that was a collection of string, nothing more. The kid looked to be about six, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Geez!” Willamette managed to keep her voice to a whisper. “You scared the daylights out of me!”

The kid scuttled backward so fast he crashed into the crawler’s tire and fell over. He curled himself into a little ball, hugging his knees to his chest and whimpering.

“Hey!” Willamette said, making her voice soft. “Hey, I won’t hurt you.” She held out one hand the way she would to a frightened puppy, if she’d ever had one. “It’s okay.” Maybe the kid couldn’t understand English. She tried again in Swahili, but the kid only looked more terrified than ever.

Willamette looked around for something she could offer him. She spotted a tin of candy bars in the pile of food bins. She ran her fingernails over the lid.

The whimpers stopped. She pried the lid off, took out a bar, crinkled the wrapping foil. The kid uncurled a little more. She tore open the wrapper, took a nibble. The smell and taste of the chocolate filled her head. “Mmmm,” she hummed, rubbing her tummy and smacking her lips. His mouth fell open and his tummy rumbled.

She held out the rest of the bar. “Come on, you can have it. It’s good. Aren’t you hungry?”

The kid whimpered again and for a moment she thought he’d bolt, famished though he was. She crouched there, holding out the bar. The chocolate felt slippery between her fingers. The kid launched himself at her, snatched the candy, scrambled backward, and stuffed it into his mouth. He reminded Willamette of a Tidepool Museum crab, all jerky legs and bulgy eyes. She put one hand over her mouth, smothering a giggle.

“You want more?” The sound of her voice seemed to soothe him. That, or he was too busy eating to care. He finished the candy bar, licked his filthy fingers, and held out one hand, “M-m-m-”

She dug out a second bar, tore open the wrapper. This time she didn’t hold it out so far. He came closer and swiped at it with one hand. She snatched it closer to her. “Come and get it,” With a little jockeying back and forth, she got him to sit while she handed him gobs of the sticky, half-melted stuff.

Dad stirred in his sleep. The kid jumped. Joseph woke up with a gurgling start. Before the kid could take off Willamette wrapped her arms around him. He mewed like a terrified kitten and struggled, but didn’t try to hurt her.

The next moment Mama and the others were standing all around Willamette and the kid had gone rigid.

“My lord,” said Mama. “Come here, you poor thing.” She gathered up the child. He wrapped his dirty arms around her and hid his face against her breasts.

“Mama!” cried Stephen.

“Corinne, just what in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” Dad said.

“I found him and he’s mine!” Willamette said.

“He’s just a baby,” Mama said in a crooning voice. She stroked the kid’s hair. He kept on shivering.

“Get away from him this minute!” Dad shouted.

“If you mean slim disease, he doesn’t seem to be sick,” Mama said. “He’s not running a fever. But he can’t make it on his own out here.”

They went on like that for a while, Dad pacing and shouting, Mama rocking the kid, who was holding on to her like one of those monkey babies. Finally Mama put the kid aside and got to her feet. “I will not leave a child to starve to death.”