Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight_ An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller [13]
I had to stay at home with Violet, the nanny, and Snake, the cook.
Mum was don’t-interrupt-me-I’m-busy all day. She rode on the farm with the dogs in the morning and then went down to the workshop, where she made wooden bookshelves and spice racks and pepper pots for the fancy ladies’ shops in Salisbury.
Dad was gone at dawn, coming back when the light was dusky-gray and the night animals were starting to call, after Violet had given us our supper and bathed us. He was just in time to kiss us with tobacco-sour breath and tuck us in to bed.
In the morning, one of our horses would be brought down to the house and I was led around the garden until Mum came out to take the dogs for their morning ride. Then I was sent outside to play. “But not in the bamboo.”
“Why not?”
Snake and Violet settled down for plastic mugs of sweet milky tea and thick slabs of buttery bread as soon as Mum was out of sight. “There are things in there that might bite you.”
“Like snakes?”
“Yes, like snakes.” Violet took a bite of bread and a mouthful of tea and mixed the two together in her mouth. We called this cement mixing, and we were not allowed to do it.
“Why?”
“Because it’s something only muntus do. Like picking your nose.”
“But I’ve seen Euros picking their noses.”
“Rubbish.”
“I have.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
So I went into the bamboo behind the kitchen and played in the crisp fallen leaves and lay on my back and looked up at the tall, strong, grass-colored stems, so shiny it looked as if they had been painted with thin green and thick golden stripes and then varnished. And nothing happened to me, even though Violet shook her head at me and said, “I should beat you.”
“Then I’ll fire you, hey.”
“Tch, tch.”
Then one morning, as I was playing as usual in the bamboo, I felt an intense burning bite on what my mother called downthere. Screaming in pain, I ran into the house and yelled for Violet or Snake to help me.
They put down their tea and put their bread over the top of the cup so that flies would not drown in their tea and they frowned at me. But they would not look downthere.
“Owie, owie.”
But “Not there,” said Snake, “I can’t look there.” He picked up his bread, wafted the flies off his peels of butter, and began to drink his tea again. But the spell had been broken for him. The moment of peace in the morning was ruined by me and my bitten, burning downthere.
Violet hid her mouth behind her hand and giggled.
Bobo and Van
I would have to wait for my mother to get home from her ride.
“It was a spider,” said Snake.
“Or a scorpion,” said Violet, taking a bite of bread and a mouthful of tea.
“A scorpion?” I screamed louder.
“Maybe a little snake.” The cook shut his eyes.
I tugged at Violet. “A snake? A snake!”
Violet shook me off and quickly swallowed her tea and bread without enjoyment. Glaring at me angrily as if I were giving her a stomachache.
“Help me! Owie, man!” I wondered if I was going to die.
I said, “Look in my brookies! Please help me!” But Violet looked disgusted and Snake looked away.
I lay on the floor in the kitchen and screamed, holding my shorts, writhing and waiting to die from the poison of whatever had bitten me.
When Mum came back from her ride I ran to her before she could even slip off the horse, stripping down my shorts and crying, “I’ve been bitten! I’m going to die!”
“What nonsense,” said Mum. She dismounted and handed the reins to the groom.
“On my downthere.”
“Bobo!”
“A scorp or a snake, I swear, I swear.”
Mum pressed her lips together. “Oh, fergodsake.” She pulled at my wrist. “Pull up your shorts,” she hissed.
“But it’s owie, man.”
“Not in front of the servants,” she said. She dragged me into the sitting room and shut the door. “Never, ever pull down your shorts in front of an African again.”
“Owie!”
“Do you hear me?”
“Ja, ja! Oh it hurts!”
She bent down and tugged at the soft,