to her feet and pointed behind her.
‘Can you see? The DVD machine?’ she said. ‘You can have, sah. We can fix it up.’
The soldier laughed. He stepped towards her and stood inches from her shaking body. They were nearly the same height.
‘You? Can fix that?’
‘No, but he can,’ she pointed at Jacob. ‘But not here.’
Pepa explained in a rush that the tools Jacob needed were in Kalingalinga. She could have lied about where they lived – Solo widened his eyes at her when she said the name of the compound – but Pepa was a savvy girl. The jewelled cross hanging from the soldier’s neck looked expensive. His interest in the machine suggested that he had DVDs to play. She clasped her hands and promised the soldier that he could collect it, properly fixed, just-now, now-now.
‘I want that one as well,’ the soldier said, gesturing at Jacob’s chopper. ‘When it’s fixed.’
* * *
It was dark by the time Jacob got back to No. 74 Kalingalinga. Matha was sitting at her table, pulling a comb through her salt-brittle hair when she heard him greet Godfrey on the stoop.
‘Ah-ah! But what happened?’ Godfrey exclaimed with a chuckle. ‘Has there been a coup?’
‘Ah, no,’ said Jacob shyly. ‘We had a small fight.’
‘I can see you have some battle scars, young comrade!’
Matha had to stop herself from running outside. She stood by the window and listened as Jacob described scavenging in an E-Dump, getting beaten up by a guard and a soldier, bribing them with gin and stolen goods. When had her grandson become a kawalala? And Godfrey – idjot man – was busy responding with jokes and encouragement! Did he feel nothing for the boy? He hadn’t even asked her about the pregnancy she had written to him about decades ago, as if he hadn’t realised that Jacob’s existence implied a mother somewhere, his daughter. Matha noticed that Godfrey’s voice sounded clear and healthy now – staying with her had reinvigorated him, brought him back from the dead. And he had brought her nothing in return.
‘Aha! Very resourceful!’ he was saying to their grandson. ‘In every society, Ba Nkoloso said, there are the haves and the have-nots and then there are the ones who are brave enough to take!’
Matha heard the clink of bottles and a pause the length of a sip.
‘And your spoils of war?’ Godfrey asked. ‘How does this electronical thing work?’
‘This one is the controller. I just have to get some batteries and fix—’
‘Foolish boy,’ Godfrey burped. ‘This one is not for that one. You have the wrong controller.’
‘But they are the same colour,’ Jacob protested.
‘Can you not read, boy?’ Godfrey laughed. ‘This one is Digit-All. That one is Panasonic. They do not match.’
There was a pause. Tears zigzagged down Matha’s cheeks. The door opened and Jacob slunk inside. She took one look at his cut and swollen face and slapped him across it. Jacob stared at her, the shock in his eyes giving way to hurt. Without a word, he crept around her, unrolled his sleeping mat, and curled up under a blanket, his useless white toy beside him.
* * *
Jacob opened his eyes to a pale blur. It slowly clarified into the geometric eyes of his new helicopter. He sat up, wincing at his bruises, and reached for it. The toy had some dents and scratches and was spattered with mud and blood. But it was still elegant, its surfaces smooth, its blades as fine as fish gills. The front windows were intact and you could see the pilot inside, a tiny white man with a cap. The sun rose higher and peeked into No. 74, casting the shadow of the toy against the far wall. Jacob spun its blades, watching the giant grey fins whir on the wall. He was sure he could make it work.
He trotted off to the public latrines and when he returned, he found his gogo sitting on her stoop. He wondered where Ba Godfrey had gone and why she had taken his usual spot. Her mouldy Bible was in her lap, a pencil in her hand. His helicopter was perched at her side, light as a bird on its skids. She beckoned him. He sat on the ground across from her, shifting on his sore buttocks. She opened the Bible and began drawing inside it, slowly and carefully, not with the swift strokes she’d used for those engine diagrams the other day. When she was done, she placed the book in his