Nkoloso a very long time.’
* * *
‘A-okay?’ said Ba Nkoloso, thumping his fist against the steel drum lying on its side in the grass.
‘A-okay!’ Godfrey’s muffled voice echoed from within. The cadets were gathered around a forty-gallon oil barrel, Cyclops I’s darker, dented twin. Reuben was holding the ceremonial spear aloft; Bambo clutched Ba Nkoloso’s overstuffed briefcase against his chest; Fortunate was busily waving the new Zambian flag. The British photographer bent down and snapped a picture with his Kodak, its flash casting a silver glow over the measled inside of the drum and giving them all a glimpse of Godfrey’s sweaty, smiling face.
‘All systems go!’ Ba Nkoloso shouted. ‘Countdown!’
‘Ten…nine…eight…’ the cadets chanted like schoolchildren.
Matha’s heart beat in double time. She knew all too well the stuffy dark smother inside that drum, the reverberation of voices outside it – a buzzing echo in the metal and skin – the gentle rocking of the cylinder against the ground, like a canoe about to capsize.
‘Two…one…Blast off!’ the cadets cried.
Nkoloso gave the drum a shove with his boot. It began to roll and the cadets began to applaud, but the decline was too shallow and Godfrey taller and heavier than the average Zambian. The drum rocked to a stop, balanced against a tuft of scrub. The applause pittered out, a rain shower changing its mind. The photographer stood up from his crouch, lowering his camera. Reuben and Matha glanced at each other, then ran forward and gave the drum a four-handed shove. Now it rolled freely, picking up speed as it bounced down the hill before bumping to a stop against a tree. Everyone ran after it – the reporters, the cadets, even the girls with babies on their backs, ululating with the thrill.
Matha got to him first. The drum was banging with hollow booms as he righted himself.
‘Wow!’ he was saying over and over, or maybe ‘Ow!’
‘Are you fine?’ Matha asked as his head crowned from the dark cave.
‘What a ride!’ he shouted as he crawled out of the drum. His uniform was smeared with brown streaks from the remnants of oil inside. ‘Your turn, Miss Mwamba!’ he grinned, swaying a little as he touched the back of her neck, setting it aglow with anticipation. She glanced at Ba Nkoloso for confirmation. He was busy speaking into the American’s microphone, his lips grazing its perforated silver head.
‘This is how we are acclimatising to the space travel,’ he was explaining. ‘It gives my cadets the feeling of weightlessness, of rushing through space.’
‘Do you think that this training session has been a success?’ the British reporter sneered.
‘We have learned a great deal,’ Nkoloso replied with a twinkle in his eye that Matha recognised as preface to a punchline. ‘For one thing, we are going to need a bigger barrel!’
* * *
Matha was swinging. The ropes hanging from the tree were creaking; the branches to which they were tied were creaking; the birds in the leafy canopy above were creaking; her bomber jacket was creaking. Matha tipped her head back and laughed, delighting in this questing sound of things moving, stretching, on their way. The other cadets were watching her swing, their heads pivoting back and forth as if the wind were tossing their skulls to and fro. Godfrey gave her an occasional shove to keep her going. Ba Nkoloso, standing a few feet away from her, rattled out his explanation to the reporters, the words fading in and out as she swung.
‘Mulolo…swinging technology…ahead of the Americans and…greater thrust to soar…deep abysmal heavens…theories of Diocletes…flew towards the sun…obscure flights of birds…yes, fishes too!…way forward…turbulent propulsion!’
Matha had heard all this before, the way Ba Nkoloso blended together science and fable, African technology and Western philosophy. It confused others, but she had learned to see the world through his double vision. It was as natural to her now as the air through which she was swinging. She turned to face the television camera. She knew its square black mouth was quietly eating a picture of her. The British reporter stepped in front of it, his back to her. As she swung towards and away from him, she caught snatches of his commentary:
‘Zambian astronaut…finally airborne…self-styled indigenous…far-sighted if unconventional…toothless space enthusiast…Zambia’s village idiot…an amiable lunatic who…a manifesto that…“Wherever fate and human glory lead…”’
We are always there, Matha whispered the end of the Academy motto, opening her eyes to the tilting, untilting world. Would the white men believe Ba Nkoloso? Would they give him the money he had requested for