White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,21
main road. White Dog was already ahead of him. “I could have explained,” he said aloud. He would have told that man how beautiful the garden was, how he’d meant no harm. His heart roared from the encounter. He thought, you are a fool. If he’d had a mind to take you to the police, you would have been returned to South Africa. From there, it would have been a short walk to your grave.
The land was broken up like a shattered mirror. A man like that could say what was his, and no one could argue. Every person alive thinks they are the center of the universe, that they are everything, when in fact each of us is less than nothing. A crested barbet flew to the top of an old thorn tree, its red feathers flashing, trilling metallically, like a sentry.
7
Alice found Isaac outside the door at quarter past six that morning. He was sitting next to his dog with his back propped up against the half dead tree that held the nest of the crested barbet. “Do you know what time it is?” she asked.
“No, mma.”
“It’s very early. Are you in trouble?”
“No, mma.”
“You have a place to go at night?”
“Ee.”
“Far from here?”
“In Naledi.”
“How long does it take you to walk?”
“I don’t know, madam … mma.”
“We have a bicycle we’re not using. Why don’t you ride it back and forth? It would be easier, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but what if something should happen to it?”
“Nothing will happen to it.”
“Ke a leboga, mma,” he thanked her. “I have an idea for the garden. Shall I tell you now?”
He began to talk, striding behind the house. “Here,” he said, “I will clear the ground so that the new fruit trees will have more light. Soon—maybe by next year or the year after—they will give you oranges and lemons and nartjes. And here I will plant a white bougainvillea to stretch up into the syringa trees so when the trees are not flowering, the bougainvillea will bring light to the darkest part of the garden. Here,” he said, “I will plant coral creeper. The flowers have no smell but they are such a beautiful color, they will make your heart sing. And here,” he skirted a hole, “I will block this opening and find the exit, so you need not fear snakes any longer. And there is another hole over there.”
“Those are snake holes?”
“Ee. I haven’t seen them. But never come out here in the darkness, mma, without a flashlight. If you get a cat, they will rid the garden of small snakes.”
“My husband is allergic to cats.”
“The cat can live outside.”
“Cats hunt snakes?”
“Yes, madam … Not madam. You are not madam.” He smiled. “They hunt the young snakes and kill them before they grow large.”
He walked to the rear of the house, about three paces in front of her. “With your permission, I wish to leave the aloes, even though they are untidy. The birds have made several nests. See? Here and here? These aloes have been growing for many years. They are keeping history.” He was thinking that the new part of Gaborone had no history, only bulldozers and more houses every day. “It is good for people to remember what Africa once was …”
“Before Europeans turned up?”
“I didn’t mean that. Most especially I did not mean to say it to you.”
“Let me tell you something, Isaac. If you offend me, I’ll tell you. And if I offend you, you can tell me.”
He was quiet a moment. His eyes went still as stones. Never, his face said.
She glanced at him and thought, Why would he trust me? “Never mind.”
“I beg your pardon, mma?” She didn’t answer.
He led the way to the barren side of the house, where the almost dead tree stood. “The crested barbets live here. With your permission, I will trim the dead parts here and here and put animal manure around the base. Perhaps it will grow stronger.”
She wanted to say, “Do whatever you like.” She knew nothing about supervising. The very idea of a gardener was appalling. Why should she be a madam and he be asking her permission every time he turned around?
“Here,” he said, “I would like to dig a large hole, at least two meters down.”
“A hole?”
“A sunken garden where you and your husband can sit.” He moved about ten feet away, and made an oval with his arms. “At the bottom will be flat rocks. On the sides, bigger rocks and many