Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight_ An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller [80]
Dad and I find logs near the edge of the dam and begin to fish for barbel, whiskered fish that bury themselves into the mud in the drought years and reemerge only after the first rains. They are like vampire fish, coming back to life with a creepy insistence, year after year—even after years that have left a trail of skeletons in their wake. These fish are very hard to kill. We bash them brutally, headfirst, on rocks; still they thrash and squeal. They don’t seem fragile or fishlike at all. Dad and I take turns to jump on them, but they slither out from underfoot. Then we wrestle them to the ground (they are black and muscular, and slip easily from our grip) and one of us holds them down while the other smashes rocks on their heads. We leave their battered bodies in a net, suspended in the water so that they won’t rot in the heat.
“We’ll take them home for the muntus,” says Dad.
“What do they taste of?”
“Mud. They taste like the smell of this,” says Dad, digging his toe into the visceral dirt.
“Yuck.”
“Ja, but a muntu will eat anything.”
Vanessa has walked to the other side of the dam, where she can see Mum and where she can be seen by Richard, who has stationed himself, precariously, on a log that overreaches into the dam. He is straddling the log, head bowed exposing white neck to hostile sun, and is threading a worm onto his hook. His back is to Dad and me; his neck is already turning stung pink. The dogs nose around, always keeping one anxious, faithful eye on Mum, who looks unmovable, unmoving, unreading. In spite of her stillness, she is the one who seems most restless; her energy is snaking out of her like heat waves, dancing across the water to us, hot and insistent. Or perhaps it is my anxious energy dancing toward Mum: I’m like one of the dogs, trying to read her mood, her happiness, her next move.
Suddenly, Mum gets out of her chair and walks across the damp patch of smelly sticky mud toward the water, kicking mud off her toes as she walks, girlish in the gesture. Vanessa lifts her head—as if sniffing the air—and puts down her fishing rod. She has been watching Mum out of the corner of her eye all this time, but now that Mum has moved, Vanessa is riveted with indecision. Dad and I have propped our rods against rocks and have been crouched, haunches hanging, waiting for another bite. Dad shifts when Mum gets up, almost rising himself. The dogs come bounding back from where they have been exploring, mixing and stirring at Mum’s feet, suddenly playful. Only Richard is unaware of the un-drama unfolding at the water’s edge.
Like a woman hoping to drown, Mum is walking into the dam, fully clothed. She walks softly, shimmering behind the veil of heat.
“What the hell’s she doing?” Dad gets to his feet.
“Mum!” Vanessa starts to run toward her.
Mum continues to wade. Her shirt has floated up and is spread out on top of the water, blue and dry, briefly, until the muddy weight of the dam sucks it down. Mum can swim—poorly—but we all know that she has the willpower, the leaden weight of heartsickness, not to swim if she chose to let the murky water swallow over her head.
Vanessa is lumping awkwardly, slow-motion-panic, through the mud. “Mum!” Her voice is made sluggish with the dense heat.
The water is up to Mum’s chest now. She raises her arm, and it is only then that I notice she is holding a beer. “Cheers!” she shouts. Then, “It’s not very deep.”
For a moment we’re all too stunned to react.
Then, “Is it nice?” I shout.
“Nicer than outside.”
Vanessa pokes one toe into the water and then, with sudden resolution, wades out to Mum.
“Why don’t you bring a beer in, Tim?”
By the time Richard dives off his log and swims toward us, we are all up to our chins in the water, sipping beer.
“Get yourself a drink, Richard.”
“The beers are a bit warm, I’m afraid.”
Mum says, “There’s