he disbanded the Space Programme and, instant traitors, they had not returned. Matha longed for their soft fur and their hard eyes, and most of all their soothing indifference, the way they gloried in solitude, as if alone even with their owners. If only she could be so cavalier when it came to providers of food and shelter. Matha was not looking forward to the ordeal of pleading ahead of her. All she needed was a place to stay. Nothing fancy. Maybe a small loan.
It was late afternoon when a servant finally shook Matha’s shoulder. She blinked awake, sat up, pulled on her bomber jacket and trotted past the others waiting on the veranda steps. The sitting room she entered was snug, carpeted in fuzzy orange and curtained in heavy pink. An ornamental fireplace took up much of one wall. Ceramic sheep grazed on its mantel. A wooden giraffe listed affably at them. Christ hung forlornly above. Aunt Beatrice sat in a recliner, leaning to one side, her elbow on the armrest, her cheek resting on her palm. Her skin was the blackbluesilver of burning paper and her hairline had faded from forehead to midhead, as if cowering from her stern brow. She was dressed like an overgrown schoolgirl in a high-necked grey dress, white stockings and Mary Janes. Six aunties sat with her, three on either side, cheeks in their hands as well.
Grumpy with humbling, Matha crouched before each aunty in turn to shake hands, her left hand cradling her right elbow. The greetings made a lilting round:
Mulishani mukwayi
Eyamukwayi
Mulishani mukwayi
Eyamukwayi
Matha settled herself on the floor before the semicircle of women. All was quiet but for the chatter coming through the open doors to the veranda – birds, dogs, a diesel generator – and from the radio in the next room announcing the shifting coordinates of a cricket match.
Finally, Aunt Beatrice tilted vertical, lifted her cheek from her hand, and spoke. She had a tremulous voice, words scrambling like spiders from her mouth and across the room to shiver up the spines of her audience. She presented the charges against Matha Mwamba steadily, one by one. Running off from the farm in Kasama. Politicking with cadres. Loitering with space gentlemen. Prancing around out of wedlock. The other aunties wordlessly concurred. They clapped their hands past each other, they shook their heads, they hummed descending staccato notes: MM. Mm. Mm. Aunt Beatrice concluded with a plea to the Lord to heal this waywarding child, which was followed by a general nodding of heads, a smattering of Amens.
Matha despaired. She had come to ask for help. How had news of her Lusaka life reached the aunties? How had this turned into a trial? Her fingers writhed like caterpillars in her lap, then metamorphosed into winged creatures that fluttered up to her face as she explained. About wanting to continue her education, about wanting to participate in the struggle for independence, about joining the national cause…
‘Child. Are you not with child?’ Aunt Beatrice interrupted.
This question harrowed a ditch in the middle of the room. The air rushed into it as the aunties turned to stare. Matha’s mouth fell open. Only Nkuka knew she was pregnant. When had she told them? Matha cast her eyes down and nodded. The aunties came to life, twittering and twisting their heads this way and that.
‘It is seeming to me,’ Aunt Beatrice intoned, ‘that you are in need greatly for assistance.’
Matha scrunched her nose, allergic to this humiliation, but too trapped to protest.
‘It is highly appropriate that, in exchange for this assistance, you must be granting us the opportunity to dictate the well-being of this child’s life, given that in the foreseeing future…’
A tear of rage slid down Matha’s cheek. She had not come to bargain with her unborn child.
‘…at the proper timing we will be sending the child for appropriate schooling. But for now…’
Aunt Beatrice pursed her lips. The other aunties turned to her – yes, yes, their eyes said, but for now…what was her verdict?
‘You must voyage to your father’s farm in Kasama. You will be bearing the child there.’
Aunt Beatrice tilted over, laid her cheek onto her hand, and closed her eyes with finality. The aunts exclaimed their amazement at this beneficence. Some even reached out and patted Matha’s shoulder, grinning as if they were giving a gift rather than doling out a condolence. Matha fumed. She should never have come. The aunties were already concocting a plan to secret her to