a slow, questioning wave. Matha was waving back when she heard a shout. The girls both turned. Another shout. In the distance, three Land Rovers rolled into view, lurching up and down as they traversed ditches. Matha’s mother stood up, her hands pulling Nkuka to her side and her eyes pulling Matha into her line of sight in one fluid movement. More shouts. Boys began to spill out of doorways, swarming towards the commotion. Matha ran back to the courtyard and met her mother and sister at the entrance. Matha’s mother gave her a look – I’m here – then shoved Matha by her bald head in amongst the other students.
* * *
The schoolchildren were instructed to sit on the courtyard floor. Teachers in short trousers strutted about like secretary birds, hovering over them, wagging their fingers. The female cleaners and cooks, dressed in smocks and chitenges, stood near their sons, forming familial clots here and there. The White Fathers, in long soutanes, floated calmly towards the newcomers: the three bazungu officers in white shorts and socks and helmets who had stepped out of the vehicles with a host of black kapasus. Had one of the teachers committed a crime? Were they rounding up Congress? Matha glanced over her shoulder at her mother.
The other students sat calmly, as if they were at assembly or Mass or watching each other perform a drama by Shaka Spear, or was it Shaka Zulu? Matha could never keep the two straight. Stage left, Father Superior Deslauries was speaking to an officer, a tall muzungu with sick-looking skin. Centre stage, a short muzungu waved his hands and barked orders at the black cadets. In the backdrop, through one of the courtyard archways, you could see the kapasus chasing after a handful of men, zigzagging across the veldt.
Father Superior Deslauries stepped forward, and as he did at every Mass, spread his hands to bless the students with silence. He gave a curt introduction: ‘Mr Walsh,’ he said and walked off with downcast eyes. The tall muzungu stepped forward and raised an indignant finger.
‘A man has been arrested!’ he cried. ‘We have brought him here because some of you children have been overheard singing insurrectionary songs and praising your Congress chief!’
The schoolchildren blinked. Congress chief? There was only one chief of Luwingu, Chief Shimumbi, and he was the one who had put out a warrant to arrest the Congress leaders.
‘Bring him out,’ Mr Walsh barked over his shoulder.
There was a scuffle as two kapasus wrangled a man to the front. He was wearing an oversized black suit splattered with mud, a tie loosely noosed around his neck. His hair was long and matted and wet. He trudged forward, his chin to his chest. He hung between the two kapasus as if suspended from their grip under his arms. Mr Walsh pointed at him and spat sarcastically:
‘Ecce homo – behold the man! Behold your Congress chief!’
A kapasu grabbed the bushy locks to pull the man’s head up. Matha gasped. Ba Nkoloso! He looked out at the students, swaying with every beleaguered breath.
‘This bedraggled rat,’ growled Mr Walsh, prowling the stage, ‘this…puppet dictator has been terrorising your district for months. Causing fires. Starting riots. He is not your chief!’
Mr Walsh strode over to a cluster of kapasus and pulled a man from amongst them. Matha gasped again. Chief Shimumbi! He was wearing his royal robes, holding his headdress in his hands.
‘This is your chief!’ Mr Walsh screeched, pointing at Chief Shimumbi, who rose a bit taller, and as an afterthought, fitted his headdress on. ‘Do you see the difference now?’
Mr Walsh strode from the chief back to Ba Nkoloso.
‘All of you!’ He swept his hand over them as if stroking their heads. ‘I want you to tell this rrrat! Tell him what he is.’ He jabbed his finger at Ba Nkoloso as he cried out: ‘Traitor!’
The schoolboys, trained to respond with verve to such calls, echoed the muzungu instantly: ‘TRAITOR!’
Matha looked around, shocked. These same boys had been singing Congress songs just yesterday, songs about the downfall of the Federation and the rise of African freedom. Her eyes locked on Nkoloso’s son, squatting at the edge of the audience, his head bowed with shame.
‘Liar!’ cried Mr Walsh, jabbing his finger again.
‘LIAR!’ the schoolboys shouted.
Ba Nkoloso hung heaving between the two kapasus. Sweat or blood dripped from his temples into the dust. Mr Walsh stepped forward and fingered Ba Nkoloso’s tie with a melodramatic sneer, as if the cloth