Wake up, Patson!”
Sunlight. Blue sky. A face.
Why was Arves slapping me? He was shouting at me, but I could barely hear him. He lifted my shoulders from the ground. I was upright.
Dizzy.
The world was zooming in at me from every angle. The ground was the sky. The hills were the tents; the soldiers were the miners. Commander Jesus was Uncle James running toward me.
“I was flying, Arves. Running and then flying.” I was gasping for words, wondering why I couldn’t move my legs, why I was so cold when the sun was so hot.
“You stepped on a land mine,” came his voice from far away.
Arves was dragging me back toward the mine.
“The mine is in the land,” I said. “No time for jokes now, Arves.”
“Stay awake, Patson.”
“My leg hurts,” I said, aware I was crying. “There’s something wrong with my leg.”
Many hands were on me now. People shouting. A man with a belt, twisting it tightly below my knee. The back of a jeep, hard metal ridges. My head banging against the door handle. That should have hurt, but somehow it didn’t, the furnace of pain coming from somewhere else.
“Careful!” someone shouted. “Slow down.”
“Look at me, Patson!” shouted Arves.
Now my head was cradled in his lap and I saw his upside-down face. I was being rocked from side to side, inside a cacophony of white noise: Arves shouting, rushing wind, wheels humming over gravel, the scream of a motor, at times far away, and then thundering through me. I wished it could be quiet; I wanted so much to close my eyes. But Arves glared down at me, his eyes drilling into my own.
“I see you, Arves,” I said. “Make them turn off the noise.”
And somebody did.
I awoke with a porcupine staring at me. A black snake rose up with a flame in its mouth. From nowhere the old woman appeared and handed a jar to someone kneeling behind me on the floor.
“Drink, boy, drink,” she ordered.
The noise was gone. I lay in a balm of quiet shadows, candles flickering. Someone poured a foul-tasting milky liquid into my mouth. Why couldn’t I drink by myself? My arms wouldn’t move. I gagged, trying to spit it out, but it was too late. I swallowed and more words passed over me.
“Talk to him, T’kai. Tell him what happened. He needs to know everything,” said the old woman, forcing something different down my throat. “Keep him awake. Long as possible. Talk, boy. Talk to your friend, and hold him still.”
“Patson, can you hear me?”
I nodded, choking down more bitter brew.
“You stepped on a land mine. Your leg is badly injured. But my granny can fix you. She has done this before, many times. In the liberation war. She traveled with the soldiers in the bush. They called her Dr. Muti. Can you hear me?”
“My leg?” It was as if, by mentioning my leg out loud, I had roused a sleeping monster with razor-sharp teeth that began feeding upon my lower limb. I heard myself gasp as pain spiked through me.
“It was nearly blown off. She needs to clean it.” Arves’s voice broke through. “She’ll stretch your skin to close the wound, cauterize it to stop the bleeding. You have to stay awake.” He pried open my clenched hand and forced something into it. “It’s a lion’s tooth. It will give you strength.”
“How did you know?” I asked the old woman. “I never told you about my mother.”
“You stay awake, boy,” said the old woman, sharpening her liver knife beside me. “This is going to hurt. Hoh-hoh. Hold him tight, T’kai.”
“Arves, you take my stones. They’re in my shoe. Give the biggest to Grace. You keep the other two.”
The old woman’s knife pierced the monster that had become my leg. It growled as she cut into its flesh, and my body jerked upward, fighting against the sharp blade. I saw the mangled beast then, its swollen stump-head wreathed in blood, devouring my leg. The beast roared pain that ripped through my body, delivering me into blackness.
The old woman showed me the oil pot. Why was she cooking my girazis? The anger-stone, rain-stone, and dream-stone were boiling away. They rattled around as she stirred them, steam rising from the pot on a gas stove. She was talking to me but her words made no sense. They were as obscure as the glass eyes in the porcupine, the flickering of a candle on an animal skull, and the fearful expression on Arves’s face.
The old woman took up a heavy, red-hot flatiron off the flames. She continued talking but now I could not hear her. I was too scared of the iron, so hot, so close to me.
Why did she need to do her ironing now?
Seared flesh; burning blood.
The monster screamed at the sudden heat; its jagged teeth tore into my body.
I floated away through the ceiling, leaving my body on the floor of the photocopying room. I watched the old woman pressing the iron against a leg, Arves trying desperately to hold down a body that writhed and jerked as it waged a losing battle with a bloodthirsty monster.
I didn’t care anymore.
Let them get on with it, I thought, and so I left.
Familiar voices pulled me back from the darkness.
“—and he knows a doctor in Mutare. My father will help you, Patson. He knows about the girazis. You give them to him and he will take care of you, get you a new leg.”
This was Jamu talking, talking.
“Grace told me about your diamonds. My dad said he will take you to a hospital. He’ll get the best doctor there is to make you better. He just has to wait for Commander Jesus to come back to the mine.”
Jamu’s words passed through me.
“The soldiers say he will be back in a week. Then my dad will ask permission to leave the mine and he will come for you. It won’t be long now. My dad will help you, Patson. It will be okay. We’re family. You give him the diamonds and he’ll get you everything you need.”
I wished Jamu would stop talking.
“Does he understand what I am saying?”
My head was too heavy to nod.
“Patson, can you hear me? Where are the diamonds?”
“You told your father about our syndicate?”
That must be Arves, but his voice was hard, unfriendly.
“It’s over, Arves, there is no more gwejana. Chipo and Kamba are gone. It’s just you and me.”
“You told them about our gwejana syndicate. You told your father everything.”
“I had to, Arves, I had to.” Jamu sounded frightened. “Things have changed. You have to understand, the soldiers are in control now. We have to be clever to get any diamonds past them. My father told me to come here. We’ve got to help Patson. My father promised to help him.”
“Yah. I’m sure he will,” said Arves. “Just like he helped me when I was sick.”
Why was Arves so angry? I tried opening my eyes, but my eyelids seemed glued closed. I forced them open, peering with difficulty into the shadows, and saw only the shape of Jamu’s mouth, crooked in his round and sweating face. Why was he sweating? Had he been running? His eyes glistened in the candlelight, darting around the room, searching, searching. I could not see Arves, but his hands rested light and cool on my shoulders.
And always the pain, pain that keeps my brain from fully understanding.
“Give them the diamonds,” I muttered. “I don’t care about them.”
I don’t know if anyone heard me.
Jamu was no longer there. The room was lighter. More words floated in the air.
“Hoh-hoh. Now trouble makes more trouble.” The old lady’s face appeared out of the shadows. Jars and potions flew off the shelf and were stuffed into a canvas bag. “Storm coming now. Mm-mm. When one knows, they all know. Hoh-hoh. Big-big trouble now. Quick, T’kai, move. Hoh-hoh. We have much to do.”
Or what day it is.
Why?
That’s all I want to know.
Why did this happen to me?
Somewhere in the room the old woman snores. Arves sleeps. I’m awake alone in the night and darkness presses down on me. Awake. Eyes wide open. Sleep just out of reach. Brain working overtime. My thoughts feeding on themselves.
A single candle is all that keeps me from crawling out of this room and into the yard and into the bush and into a hole to crawl up and die and let this sentence never end because if it does I will end up crying and crying until my insides turn into slush and I don’t know why I want to write in my diary when I can’t understand why this is happening to me and the candle flickers and reminds me of people and warmth and light and now I have to find the place for a full stop because my hand aches as I write this and so it has to be somewhere round about now.
Baba help me. God help me. I think I am dying. The pain is too much. I can’t think straight. I just want this to be over.
Please let it be the end…