White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,117

to get my breath underwater.” She really meant like trying to breathe under sand. Too often, she imagined his body, the sand clogging his nose, his mouth. The thought of him suffocating took her to a place beyond bearing, as insane as she knew it was. She rubbed her face with her open palms.

“My mother called. She wants me to come home.”

“And?”

“I told her no.”

46

She’d been standing on the platform since half past three. The train was already over an hour late. The heat rose up through the soles of her sandals, and her stomach turned over. She felt that whatever was coming down the tracks would change her life irrevocably. She thought of Ian, ready for anything, heart wide open. Next to him, she felt cautious, slow to trust. It was one of the things she’d loved about him—how he’d made her unafraid.

All at once, it seemed the activity around her increased. Porters appeared, an old man with a large metal container of milk tea shuffled onto the platform. She felt the train’s presence at a distance before she saw it. Then the single light far down the tracks. She stood up a little straighter and took a step back. It was closer, and then very close. People crowded the platform, and the noise of the steam engine and huge pistons engulfed the crowd. The brakes screeched, the steam spread out over them like a vision from hell. As the steam cleared, passengers began to pour down the steps of the train carrying suitcases, paper bags, boxes wrapped with string, chickens in crates. She peered into faces, searching for a person with a question mark to match hers. A pair of lovers embraced, weeping, and Alice’s eyes pooled to see their happiness.

The platform began to clear. She walked up and down searching for Isaac’s name among the parcels that railway workers had loaded into the large-wheeled iron carts. The hubbub subsided. A couple of skinny boys came and pushed the iron carts toward the freight office, and she was left standing on the quiet platform. She was thirsty, exhausted. There was nothing here. She’d go home and call Hendrik Pretorius.

Just then, she caught sight of a boy and girl huddled together beside a wooden coal bin. The boy, who appeared to be about seven or eight, had an arm protectively around the girl. His legs were spindly and looked dusted with ash; his eyes were bright as a bird’s. The girl’s hair was neatly plaited in a dozen or more sticking-out braids, each one finished off with a different colored plastic barrette. She looked a year or two younger than the boy. Her blue dress was faded almost to white at the shoulders, too small for her, so the fabric was rucked across her chest. She’d lost a shoe and stood on one foot, her bare instep resting on the top of a white plastic sandal.

As Alice approached them, she saw that the girl was trembling.

“Isaac?” she asked them. “Isaac? A o itse Isaac?” Do you know Isaac?

“Isaac o kae?” the boy asked eagerly. Where is he?

“Ga ke itse,” Alice said. I don’t know.

The girl began to cry.

“Isaac,” Alice repeated. “Come with me. Tla kwano. Come.

“Come,” she said again.

The boy took the girl’s hand and pulled her along.

The girl nearly refused to get into the truck, and she whimpered all the way down the road to the Old Village. Alice sat them both down at the big wooden table in the kitchen and scrambled four eggs, thinking that might be a familiar food. They ate it. And toast with butter and jam. Then she made mealie meal porridge, and they ate that and drank two glasses of milk each.

When they’d finished, Alice pointed to herself. “Alice. Leina la gago ke mang?”

“Moses,” said the boy.

“Moses,” she repeated. “Moses.” He smiled.

She asked the girl her name. There was no reply.

“Lulu,” said the boy.

“That’s a nice name,” said Alice. “Lulu.”

“Isaac o kae?” asked Moses. Where is Isaac?

“Ga ke itse.”

“Isaac o kae?” Moses asked again.

“Wait a moment.” Alice walked out behind the house to Itumeleng’s servant’s quarters. “Itumeleng?!” she called. “Can you come?”

Lulu would not close her eyes. The chair felt hard on her bottom, and her heart beat wildly. She felt she might be sick. It would have been better not to eat that white woman’s food. She had gone outside calling to someone, but what would she come back carrying? Back home she had heard stories of enchantresses who lure children