White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,143
and also I must be strong enough to walk around the building three times without stopping.”
“And how many times can you walk now?”
His face clouded. “I am not in a hurry to go.”
“Because you have nowhere to stay?”
“Yes, madam.”
“You can stay with me. But don’t call me madam.”
He stopped. He could feel his ears ring, and then he said it. “I cannot live under the same roof as you, Alice.” To call her by her name, he felt that the sky would tumble to Earth.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Because you’re African and I’m European? Because you’re a man and I’m a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Because people would talk?”
“That also.”
“Do you care what people would say?”
He thought a moment. “No, I don’t care what people think or what they say. I care about going to prison. I will never go back to prison. I would kill myself first. And I care about hurting you.”
She glanced at his face and bowed her head. Out the window, the mourning doves on the roof called. “Do you think you’d go to prison for living in the same house? Even with Moses and Lulu there?”
“In my mind, I think no. In my heart, I think yes.”
She saw how easy it was for her. She could say, Don’t be ridiculous, you know it’s different here, but she’d be playing with him, with a soul so wounded.
“How are Moses and Lulu?”
“They ask after you every day. Shall I bring them to visit?”
“Not here, no. I’ll see them before long … And White Dog?”
“She’s waiting for you.”
“And you?” he asked.
Unaccountably, her eyes filled with tears. She waited a moment before she spoke. “A man I loved was killed while you were in prison. He was caught in a buffalo stampede up near Maun.” It felt unseemly to cry in front of him after what he’d suffered. She covered her eyes and turned away. He sat quietly, and when she turned back, his eyes looked pained.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
They were quiet together for a while.
Finally she said, “If you can’t live under the same roof, you can build a rondavel for yourself in the garden.”
“The land belongs to the government. It’s not possible.”
“Perhaps it is possible.” The hospital gown hung from his thin frame. “Would you like me to bring some clothes for you from home? I think there’s a pair of pants there and a shirt.”
“Yes.”
“Have you thought about later when you’re better, what you might want to do? Do you want to go back to school?”
He looked at her as though she were mad. “I will never be able to return there.”
“I’m not talking about South Africa. You could get a scholarship to study somewhere else. Zambia. Europe. The United States. I can help you.”
He didn’t answer, and she saw that she should shut up. He was ashen-faced, the wound on his shoulder still suppurated. His dreams had vanished. He looked like a man waiting to die. She stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said. She walked out the front door of the hospital, past a row of women in kerchiefs sitting on the low concrete wall, with their little metal bowls of food for their loved ones.
On her way home, she thought of Mogoditshane, a small village outside Gaborone. She’d only been there once or twice but she loved the shade trees and chickens scratching about, the rondavels with their tight thatching, the neat mud walls with decorative patterns of contrasting mud. She could have two rondavels built, one for her, and one for Isaac and the children. Or she could stay where she was, have a house built for them in Mogoditshane, and leave them to it. Or she could do her own washing and cleaning, find another job for Itumeleng, and give Isaac the servant’s quarters. Whatever occurred to her, she bumped up against his haunted face, his eyes without a future. She had never seen a face like that.
She drove into the driveway and found the children playing in Ian’s Land Rover, Lulu in the driver’s seat, Itumeleng beside her, and Moses and Itumleleng’s daughter in the backseat. It gave her a start to see all this life in that dead thing.
Alice asked Itumeleng if she would mind watching the children a little longer. “Ee, mma,” she said, but her face said, I’m tired, the day is over. I’m sorry, Alice mouthed as she turned around and drove back to the hospital.
She sat down on Isaac’s bed and was quiet a moment before saying,