White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,10
One is at the throat and one is at the solar plexus. He put his knuckle-heavy hand on Isaac’s head. If you hold your head high and expose your throat and chest to danger, this says to others, I am not afraid. But if you are sunken-chested and hang your head like an old mule, people will know you are weak and fearful and they will slip in behind your weakness. This was what monna mogolo taught him, to carry himself like a proud, fearless man.
After his great grandfather went away, Isaac waited for him to return. One morning he woke with a strange tapping in his chest, like the beak of a bird tapping from the inside. He rose and said to his mother, “Monna mogolo is dead.”
“Why do you say such a thing?” she said.
He went to school, he came back home, he ate porridge that night. The next day, he went to school, and when he returned home, his mother said, “My brother has told me our grandfather is dead.”
Ontibile shifted in Isaac’s lap and opened her eyes onto his face. A warm wind brushed his cheek, and mist rose from the dawn-damp earth. The moon was setting on one side of the sky as the sun was rising on the other side, huge and fiery red like a drunkard’s eye. The white dog stretched her paws in front of her and got to her feet. The sun rose into the lowest branches of the trees, beating its slow steady beat. An uneasiness lay over the house.
His impulse was to leave now—walk out and find his way to town, but still he sat. A plane flew over. Ontibile got up and toddled behind the house. The dog followed her and then came back and sat near Isaac. Soon after, Amen came and sat on the threshold next to him. “Ontibile o kae?” he asked.
“She went around that side.”
“Why did you not watch her? … Tla kwano!” he yelled. Soon after, she wobbled back and went inside.
Isaac picked up a small stick and twirled it between his palms. The sun was hotter now. The tin roof began to pop, expanding with the heat. Two doves called from a roof next door, the sound of death in their throats.
Isaac and Amen were quiet next to each other, listening to the sounds of the day waking. At last Amen spoke. “Do you remember my sister?”
“I never met her.”
“She died on the sixteenth of June, in the Soweto uprising. My only sister. I quit school and joined the MK, Umkhonto we Sizwe. They gave me training in Angola. Six months the first time.”
“I’m sorry about your sister. I didn’t know.”
“I received training in pistol shooting, hand grenades, the AK-47, explosives, and land mines. And also the building of secret cells, which Murphy Morobe and I have carried out in Soweto. Now, for these last nine months, I am in Botswana, participating in certain necessary raids back home. I am not at liberty to say more. But I can tell you that without work such as this, apartheid will never end.” He paused. “You are a smart one,” he said. “You would rise fast.”
“It is not my way,” said Isaac, standing.
“She was my only sister,” Amen said again. “She did no one any harm. She was only asking to speak her own language in school. When the police shot her, she lived only a few hours. If I’d been beside her, perhaps I would have taken the bullet for her.”
“Is that what you wish?”
“I would never wish to die.”
Along the road, many people were walking, most of them in one direction. Isaac passed a young woman who was strong and handsome. A baby slept on her back, cinched close with a muslin wrap, then a plaid blanket wrapped over the woman’s breasts and around her waist. Her hands were busy knitting. “Dumela, mma,” he said. “A go khakala kwa motsing?” Is it far to town?
“Nnyaa, rra,” she said.
She carried a sack, draped over one elbow, which he offered to carry for her. She slid it off and handed it to him. They walked together in silence, connected by a string of green knitting yarn.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“From South Africa.” And then he remembered it was not safe to say this.
“My brother works in the mines,” she said.
“My father too, if he’s alive.” They walked along without speaking. “I’m looking for work,” he said.