and keep her feet in this sexy pose.
Naturally, Daliso the DJ had an entourage of boys, who crowded around as soon as they saw what his net shirt had caught. Sylvia had already been claimed; Mutale was now targeted. Too bewildered even to repulse their ‘Hi swit-haats’, Mutale stayed silent, tugging at the edge of Sylvia’s hidden JumpRopeForHeart and making let’s go! eyes. Annoyed by Mutale’s reluctance, the guys started calling her a Jelita – the little girl who runs and jumps in kids’ books. Sylvia laughed along with them. After a few more minutes of this flirtatious bullying, Mutale gave up and walked off alone, looking pitiably over her shoulder. Sylvia barely noticed. She had just met Daliso’s brother, Francis, who had a hightop fade and a real leather jacket, and she was beginning to thrum with proximity to so much maleness.
For the rest of the day, she wandered around with this new crew, which lost and regrew members like a lizard as it moved deeper into the exotic delights of the show. At Lusaka’s 58th Agricultural and Commercial Show, Sylvia Mwamba saw for the first time: a man in bumshorts and a boa; a headless woman in a dark tent; an albino woman walking around in a chitenge just like someone’s mother; one zombie and his nation, dancing on a makeshift stage – a ‘Thriller’ performance; a woman who slapped a man’s face, then gasped at herself, a smile stealing to her lips; and a live penis. This last was by far the most riveting.
The sky was a dusky rose by the time Sylvia and Francis sought some privacy between two stalls. In one, a man was emptying out unsold helium balloons. In the other, a young woman in a bow tie was selling groundnuts in front of a diagram of legume root systems. She sucked her teeth when Sylvia and Francis squeezed past.
‘Sorry, ba sista,’ Francis grinned. ‘We just gonna rap for a beat.’
The alley smelled like urine and burnt nuts and helium. At their feet were the dregs of the day – a blue-stained lollipop stick, a red puddle of candyfloss vomit, a torn crisp packet, a trail of gumdrops. Sylvia could hear the rubbery whine of the draining balloons, the tired panic of vendors shouting out their clearance prices, and the wailing of babies, who always know first when it’s time to go home. Francis was standing very close to her. She raised her eyes to his.
‘Chillax, swit-haat,’ he murmured. ‘Iss arright.’
He kissed her. She let him, slightly bewildered by his inability to control his lips or his tongue. She started to kiss him back and the lightning in her began to melt and run liquid through her veins. After a minute or so, Francis pulled his penis out and put her hand on it. It was darker than she had imagined it would be, and it grew as she held it, as fast as a mushroom that springs from the earth during rainy season. It smelled like a mushroom too, a dank earthy scent, and its skin was as thin and soft as a mushroom’s gills. Francis’s eyes were closed. He had seemed strong when he had handed his penis to her like a gift or a greeting. Now he seemed weak. The springy weight in her palm was vibrating – his knees were trembling and his breath was uneven, as if secretly, without letting on, he was already running away.
* * *
Sylvia carefully penned her name and number on a piece of paper for Francis that night when he dropped her home at the flats. He never called. Nevertheless, she mentally pitted her two loves against each other for months. Francis was older but Mwaba was taller. Francis had kissed her but Mwaba sometimes smiled vaguely at her. She had touched Francis down there but she still got to see Mwaba’s handsome face every day at school. Mwaba soon lost this advantage, however. Like most students in Zambia, Sylvia failed the national Grade 7 Exams that November.
‘Foolish girl!’ Aunty Cookie scolded her. ‘Wasting other people’s time and money!’
‘I have tried, Ba Aunty,’ Sylvia said. ‘My brain is just not strong. I fall asleep too much.’
In truth, Sylvia was relieved to have failed out of school for good. She had never understood why the teachers taught what they taught. Sediment, tectonic, archipelago. Hypotenuse, equilateral, isosceles. What was any of it good for? No. She did not miss those useless lessons or her only friend