“You’re going to have to carry her home,” Mbaita whispered to Beauty’s mother. “She fell asleep the moment I parted her hair to begin plaiting the first row.”
Amake Beauty warmed with a knowing smile. She unfastened the wrapper from her waist and untied the knot to a pouch she had made in one of its edges. Then she nested the unfurled fabric in the palm of her hand to reveal a folded twenty-kwacha note.
“Oh, no, Amake Beauty, you know I could never ask you to pay me for braiding Beauty’s hair,” Mbaita said, meaning it, even as she was grateful for the money, what with Beauty’s mother being one of the few in the village who paid, and always on the spot. Others deferred paying her, or paid only a portion of what she had charged. Others told sorry stories, or simply didn’t see why they should pay a child who grew up right before their eyes, who had napped and peed in their arms and on their backs, who was rightfully their own.
Amake Beauty gathered a corner of Mbaita’s wrapper and created a pouch similar to the one she had used as a stash for the K20. The money properly secured, Amake Beauty gave Mbaita her back and leaned forward at an angle. Mbaita mounted Beauty onto her mother’s back. She helped Amake Beauty sling and strap her sleeping child with another wrapper, identical to the one she had around her waist.
“Your hands will surely take you far,” Amake Beauty said after she was satisfied her toddler was securely strapped and comfortable.
Tears pooled in Mbaita’s eyes. This was only the second person to offer this prediction. The first was her mother when Mbaita was only eight years old, when, although play-plaiting hair on fresh maize cobs and grass was all other young girls her age could manage, Mbaita could plait real hair—on grown women’s heads—into patterns as neat as furrows in a freshly tilled field. So light was her touch, no one developed headaches or pinch bumps at her hand, and mothers entrusted her with their babies’ delicate scalps.
“Wipe your tears and go to Sis Sophie’s house. She’s in the village and wants you to braid her hair,” Amake Beauty said.
Surprise sent Mbaita’s palms to her chest, the right crossed over the left. “Sis Sophie? Couldn’t she have gone to a proper hair salon in town?”
“She asked for you. Now go.”
Not knowing the length or texture of Sis Sophie’s hair, Mbaita gathered both narrow and wide-toothed combs, ‘fro and rake combs, combs that picked and combs that parted hair. She placed them, along with black cotton thread, scissors and a jar of Vaseline, into her bag. She didn’t have any hair extensions. If she did, she would have packed them as well, in case the hairstyle Sis Sophie asked for called for them. Yet, this was something Mbaita believed warranted no worry because as successful as Sis Sophie was, there was no way she would not provide her own hair extensions. What bothered Mbaita was that she didn’t have a proper mirror. The one she had, a fragment of what probably used to be a full-sized mirror fitted to a dressing table, which had found its way into her possession in a way she could not recall, was blotchy, the aluminum lining barely there. Sis Sophie was a well-traveled woman with money, and Mbaita would have loved to have a more presentable mirror for this important client. Nonetheless.
Before she left her hut, Mbaita hid her K20 in an old clay pot, which once casseroled her mother’s meals, now flaked at the mouth with a crack zigzagged on one side. In this pot Mbaita also stored the only photograph she had of her mother, and waist beads, which, together with a wrapper and headscarf, were what she was given after her mother was buried two years ago and the family gathered and elders deliberated matters of her, the departed, matters which included how to distribute her possessions. The clay pot was the only item that remained unassigned, unclaimed. No one would think to look there.
Mbaita changed into her special occasion outfit: a chiffon skirt and nylon blouse bought from a trader who made market in the village once a month, selling salaula clothes, shoes and bags. She checked the state of her hair in the timeworn mirror, glad it was freshly plaited.
Could her mother have been right? Was this moment Mbaita’s first step toward going far? She had given up all hopes of school taking her anywhere. How could it? The last time she remembered getting anything right in class or even understanding anything written in a book was when she was in Grade Four. After that, most words left her confused, at the top of the list were words not spelled the way they sounded, followed by words that were too long. Don’t talk about mathematics. The symbols and signs out and out hurt her head, fogged her mind. She could count things she could see and touch— real things, such as money. If her customers gave her a hundred-kwacha note when she had only charged them K60, she knew that she had to give them back K40— two twenty-kwacha notes. The kwachas were tangible, and the numbers on them, together with each note’s unique color and design, were identifiers, like one’s lips or nostrils.
Thoughts filled the walk to Sis Sophie’s house, the only house in the village which had brick, instead of mud walls like everyone else’s, and a roof lined with tin, not thatch, and a yard hedged by flowers you had to water, unlike all other yards, which were barely enclosed, their markers being sparse cassava plants. Thoughts, all given to Sis Sophie’s success, how Sis Sophie was the only woman Mbaita knew of who had never finished school, yet had gone far, trading anything that could be traded across borders. Thoughts of how men scorned Sis Sophie’s success (Who would want to marry such a woman? Her bosom is only good for stashing cash) and women begrudged (Who would want to marry such a woman? There’s no way she manages to haul her wares across borders without opening her legs for customs officials and bus drivers). Thoughts of—
“There you are! If you aren’t your mother’s child, then it is her I see before me!”
Mbaita, seeing solidly for the first time since she left her hut, saw before her a tired woman, the lids of her eyes no longer smooth, the skin under her eyes darkened and deeply creased. Not even ambuya Malita, the oldest woman in the village, who seemed to have lived longer than time itself, looked this tired. Mbaita chided herself; it was rude to look elders in the face. She lowered her gaze and extended her right arm in greeting, her left palm cupping her right elbow.
“Away with the formal salaams,” Sis Sophie said, her strong arms enfolding Mbaita. “When you come to my house, you’re a friend.”
A girl such as herself befriending a grown woman? The thought alone! “Yes, ma, I mean sis—”
“Welcome.”
In the shade of her veranda, Sis Sophie sat on a stool and took off her headscarf. “Can you repair this muddle,” she said without touching her pressed-down carpet of white-sprinkled hair.
With the tips of her fingers, Mbaita picked a small section of Sis Sophie’s hair, trying to diagnose the extent of the neglect. Sis Sophie’s hair tangled like chewed sugarcane, its strands as coarse as the sisal fibers in Mbaita’s bag. No comb, not even one with the widest teeth, was going to go through Sis Sophie’s rug of hair. Coupled with how tired Sis Sophie appeared, Mbaita understood why tongues wagged that this woman had sold her soul to the spirit of money. Skipping sleep aside, how else could a woman hold her head high, having neglected her hair so? Normally, people came to Mbaita with their hair already washed, in some cases, even straightened, and all she had to do was braid it.
Mbaita parted the section she had picked. The sight! She never thought it was possible for so much dandruff to heap on one person’s head, and for that person not to walk around scratching wildly, as one with lice. Yet, not once had Sis Sophie scratched her head since Mbaita arrived at her house. The smell! Who knew dandruff had an odor? Mbaita regretted not having brought her wrapper. Now all this dandruff was going to end up on her finest clothes.
“Um, pardon me, Sis Sophie. Before I can braid your hair, I’ll have to work on the dandruff, then, I’ll have to shampoo—”
“Whatever you must do, dear. I’m on the road so much that buying shampoo is the last thing I think about.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t bring any.”
“Always be prepared.”
“You’re right, ma. Let me dash back to my hut, then. It’s not too long ago that I had a bottle brought back from town.”
Mbaita left before whatever Sis Sophie was going to say left her mouth. In the chaos of taking in and reconciling what she had expected with what she had ended up seeing (and smelling), Mbaita ran-walked to her hut, where, in addition to shampoo, she also picked up two wrappers.
“You wasted no time,” Sis Sophie said when Mbaita stepped on her veranda for the second time that day. “That’s a good trait if you are to go far.”
“It’s really only because my hut is not too far from here.”
“No, no. You must learn to accept compliments duly earned. You’re really wasting your time here. Girls your age are making money in Jo’burg, and they are not nearly as good as you are.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Mbaita said. “The farthest I’ve ventured away from this village is—”
“Get a passport. There’s a passport office in Chipata. After that, get on a bus to Lusaka, then to Jo’burg.”
“Just like that?”
“Depending on how far you want to go.”
“Very far. Like you. And I’m willing to do whatever I must.”
“Ha!”
This word—this sound, really—the violence of it, how forcefully it tore out of Sis Sophie’s chest, made Mbaita flinch. She fastened her wrapper above her breasts, as one would a towel. Sis Sophie dismissed the offer of the wrapper with “These clothes are due for a wash, anyway.”
As was the case with most people, the dandruff in Sis Sophie’s head was concentrated on the crown. Mbaita decided to work her way to the crown from the left hand side, near Sis Sophie’s earlobe. With the narrowest toothed comb, she began to scrape dandruff off the scalp, taking care not to place too much pressure on the comb, even though doing so was precisely what the task demanded.
Within minutes, gray flakes formed a film on Mbaita’s hands and wrapper. They settled all over Sis Sophie’s cheeks, shoulders and arms. Some littered the air like leavings of milled millet. That Sis Sophie did nothing to try to rid her face of the dandruff told Mbaita that her client had dozed off. It explained why Mbaita noticed an easing in the out-and-in of Sis Sophie’s bosom.
Sis Sophie’s bosom. The whispers about it being a stash for cash swished about Mbaita’s ears like Lucifer’s lure. She looked about. It wouldn’t take much to peek at her client’s bosom, not when she was napping away. Taking a step to the right, Mbaita leaned over Sis Sophie’s shoulder.
“I’m not asleep,” Sis Sophie blurted, her arms lashing at the air. Her feet left the floor, knees sloped higher, but the rest of her body parked itself in that spot. “I mustn’t sleep.”
The jolt of Sis Sophie’s outburst forced a yelp out of Mbaita’s mouth, the comb flying out of her fingers. She staggered backwards.
“Don’t let me fall asleep, you hear?”
It took an era for the moment to pass, for Mbaita to say, “I won’t.” She picked up her comb, and, gingerly, picked up where she had left off.
“Don’t let me sleep,” Sis Sophie croaked, but Mbaita could tell that her client had nosed through the threshold into slumber, mind numbed. Whichever direction Mbaita turned her head, Sis Sophie obliged, the same way Beauty had done earlier that day, deep in sleep.
Mbaita reached to tap Sis Sophie’s shoulder, but remembering the worn-out face that had greeted her, quashed the impulse. She decided to let her client take respite. What were a few harsh words compared to affording an obviously exhausted woman her much-needed sleep? Besides, Mbaita had survived a couple of outbursts; surely, she could handle another.
The sound of air being sucked in and blown out of Sis Sophie’s nose became a whistle. Mbaita smiled. She relaxed the muscles in her hands, and winched her comb so that it barely touched Sis Sophie’s scalp. She began to hum, to lull Sis Sophie, the only woman Mbaita knew of who had never finished school, yet had gone far. The whistling swelled.
At the edge of the crown, the comb scuffed a tiny bump, hard, solid, which told Mbaita that it wasn’t a mole. And because Sis Sophie’s hair showed no indication it had recently been braided, Mbaita knew it couldn’t be a pinch bump. She parted the hair and leaned in for a closer look. The bump appeared scaly, gray-black, everything one would associate with a—
It shot up, sprouted. The bump puffed out and upward, curving as it grew longer. From the other end of Sis Sophie’s crown, the tip of another horn protruded.
~~
Perpetual Murraywas born and raised in Zambia. She is now a resident of Tampa, Florida, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Tampa, and currently she teaches English and Creative Writing at the Art Institute of Tampa. Her short stories have appeared in Jungle Jim Magazine and The Kalahari Review.
~~
Download pdf, mobi, epub
Short Stories
She Who Had Gone Far ~~ Perpetual Murray
Our Example ~~ Lutivini Majanja
When the Circus Comes toTown ~~ Zoë Gadegbeku
The Miracle of Fear ~~ Bode Asiyanbi
Poems
Men Die When They Fall In Love ~~ Lule Raymond
Swoop ~~ Stephen Derwent Partington
Hunting with Masai ~~ Charles Bane, Jr.
Confluence ~~ Nurain Oladeji
Theories of Death ~~ Kelvin Enumah
~~
Download pdf, mobi, epub
Short Stories
She Who Had Gone Far ~~ Perpetual Murray
Our Example ~~ Lutivini Majanja
When the Circus Comes toTown ~~ Zoë Gadegbeku
The Miracle of Fear ~~ Bode Asiyanbi
Poems
Men Die When They Fall In Love ~~ Lule Raymond
Swoop ~~ Stephen Derwent Partington
Hunting with Masai ~~ Charles Bane, Jr.
Confluence ~~ Nurain Oladeji
Theories of Death ~~ Kelvin Enumah