Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [11]
We accepted the war as one of the prices that had to be paid for Our Freedom, although it was a funny sort of Freedom that didn’t include being able to say what you wanted about the Rhodesian government or being able to write books that were critical of it. And for the majority of the country, Freedom did not include access to the sidewalks, the best schools and hospitals, decent farming land or the right to vote. It now seems completely clear to me, looking back, that when a government talks about “fighting for Freedom” almost every Freedom you can imagine disappears for ordinary people and expands limitlessly for a handful of people in power.
“Bullets, lipstick, sunglasses. Off we go. Come on, Bobo, quick march.”
My feet poked out of two holes in the drum’s lid. I couldn’t walk very well. I had to waddle like a penguin. This amused Vanessa, and her peals of laughter echoed around inside the insecticide drum. Mum, with Olivia on her hip, helped me out of the big door, down the rough stone steps and onto the veranda. “Don’t fall,” Vanessa said, barely able to contain the hope in her voice. It was very hot inside the drum and sweat poured into my already stinging eyes and onto my increasingly stinging rash.
“I’m boiling,” I whined.
“One more word out of you,” Mum warned.
We scuffled across the yard and into the driveway, and arrived at Lucy, the mine-proofed Land Rover, where a problem presented itself. I didn’t fit through any of the doors.
“Oh dear,” Mum said. “An unforeseen hitch.” There was a silence while she had a think. I pictured her biting the inside of her lower lip and frowning. When she spoke again, she sounded struck by inspiration. “We’ll put her in the back.” She paused. “Darling,” she said, not to me, “go and fetch July and Violet.”
So Vanessa called July from the kitchen and she fetched Violet from the laundry. Then there was general hilarity while July and Violet each considered how amazing it was that the madam had put her young daughter into an insecticide drum. Mum explained that when she was in labor with me in England, the radio was playing “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,” which was prophetic because when I arrived, I really was, as promised, Not a Rose Garden (Mum has refused to waver from this story, even though I have since discovered this song became a hit for Lynn Anderson a full year and a half after I was born and therefore could not have been playing when she was in labor with me).
“She had yellow skin and black hair. That’s why we call her Bobo,” Mum explained, “because she looked just like a little baboon.”
Violet and Vanessa dissolved into more conspiratorial giggling.
“See?” Mum said, “Violet thinks your costume’s amusing.”
“Could we just get on with this?” I said.
So July and Violet each seized an ankle and thrust me into the vehicle while I stood rigid inside my insecticide drum. I could smell the greasy-meat scent of the dogs’ supper on July’s clothes and the green laundry soap on Violet’s hands and arms, but now the usually comforting domestic scents had an isolating, excluding effect. The dogs circled around us and whacked the drum with their tails. Their excited panting made me feel even hotter.
“Right,” Mum said. “Off we go.” She climbed into the Land Rover and Vanessa-darling got in on the passenger side. “Hold on to the baby,” Mum said, handing Olivia to Vanessa. Then she whistled and a couple of lapfuls of dogs leaped in with them. The Land Rover jerked off down the hill and bumped past the orchard. I could feel it go over the culvert at the bottom of the driveway where the cobra lived. I yawed against the window as Mum took a left onto the main road at the bottom of the farm. I pictured Vanessa, billowing pinkly in the front seat, the wind flapping her two long, blond braids in which Mum had entwined pink and white roses made