The Passage

NOTE TO READER:The word 'passage' in Zimbabwe refers to the central corridor that runs down the middle of most houses there. By closing all the doors, a central area in the house can be created.

THE PASSAGE

I could feel the slight coolness of the wooden floor against my cheek as we huddled together. The smell of fresh polish that filled my nostrils was comforting. It reminded me of sun-filled days and my mother, humming as she polished the floor of the main passage. Somehow those days seemed distant; too distant. I felt if I didn’t hold on with both hands I would lose them; that all would be lost and I would be alone. A small noise lured my attention as my brother shifted slightly, a short distance away from me. He tried valiantly to smile; the confident protection of an older sibling, but fear in his eyes spilled over. I bit my lip, tried to return the gesture and failed.
Outside, the hour-long silence continued. It was the silence that was getting to me. Yes, it was better than the noise, but the silence brought an unbearable anticipation with it; a solid, pregnant pause willing to labor at a moment’s notice. The silence was steadily becoming more of an enemy than the noise, leaving a huge, gaping hole that was filled rapidly by even the mere sound of breathing. A hole that cried out to be filled in totality and yet was denied.
“Sarah.” It was my mother’s voice, soft and at the same time, loud in the stillness. Shiny-black hair framed an elegant, olive-skinned face filled with quiet concern.
My throat was dry. I swallowed. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Lie quietly with your brother, honey, while I make something to eat.”
I lifted my head, nodded silently in return and watched while she crawled a short distance down the passage to the small gas stove set up in a far corner. The only light we had was a small candle that emitted a dull glow, barely licking the corners leaving us in a dim, flickering darkness. Outside the sun was setting. I could see it as the sliver of light under the kitchen door slowly faded. I could almost imagine how the last touches of sunlight were hitting the old fruit bowl on the counter. Imagine, because I had not seen the kitchen in several days, even lying a mere foot away from its entrance. I put my head down again and absently noted that the wooden floor had
cooled in the moments that my cheek had been lifted.
“You scared?” It was my brother, Gus; older than me and proud inheritor of my mother’s genes. His dark eyes flicked about anxiously.
I didn’t know what to say. If I said ‘yes’ then I would be chicken and if I said ‘no’ then I would be lying. In the end I settled for something in between. “Kinda.” I replied. In the corner, a quiet whump announced the gas stove was lit. Mom was crouched on the floor over it, and we heard a grinding sound that told us the old can opener was fighting tooth and nail with a can of beans.
“I’m not, you know,” he said not entirely confidently. “I have to look after you and Mom.”
I looked away for a second. Dad had told him to. Told him to take care of Mom and me, that is. He had taken Gus aside the day he left in his green army-clothes. They had spoken for a long time, my father’s tall frame kneeling before his nine-year-old son. Gus had taken his role very seriously and had marched up and down the yard for days. But then things had changed and now we were here.
It seemed like an eternity that life had been like this, but in truth it had only been three days. Three days that felt like weeks. Huddled in a passage where every door was locked and bolted and the only way the day could be seen was by the slices of light under each barred doorway. And despite all this, the sun rose over the African bush-land each day without me seeing it.
CRACK!
I jolted awake. The silence was shattered and the noise lay in a million shards around my ears. I gripped my blanket until my knuckles grew white and my fingers cramped. My whole body shook as a brief silence rushed in to fill the gaping hole left. We lay together on a single, crowded mattress; all we could fit into the passage. The candle had long been blown out and mom had dared to let us use the bathroom for but a minute or two.
CRACK! CRACK!
Each noise brought a new spasm of terror.
CRACK!
Suddenly my mother had her arms around me. The warmth of her breath near my ear and her strength a safety belt across my chest. My brother hugged my mother’s waist. He didn’t say anything. He just held on.
“It is going to end, I promise you, it will end.” My mother’s voice was a calm in the storm. She spoke softly into my ear and pulled me tighter to her. Beyond the locked and bolted doors, I could hear glass shatter as bullets thudded into wall and cabinet alike. It seemed to go on forever and I found myself wanting that old familiar enemy of silence. I clenched my eyes shut and shamefully allowed a tear to escape. What would be left when we got out? Would my precious Jacaranda tree in the driveway still be there? What would it look like and would it ever be the same again?
I swallowed hard again. It wasn’t that they wanted us. Mom had explained that to me; told me not to hate them. No, it was just that we happened to live on the edge of the bush-land and there were terrorists who were using our house for cover. They had been driven out of the bush. All they wanted to do was escape, and nobody seemed to want them anywhere. I couldn’t understand why people would do such things. I didn’t know them and I had certainly never wrecked their homes. I wondered idly if their children were cross with them because of what they were doing.
Silence seeped under the door again and for the first time in what seemed hours, I took a breath. My ears were ringing and my mother’s grip had not lessened an inch. The woman had the strength of a steel bar and it was crushing my ribs.
“Mom,” I muttered, “Leggo, I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry, hon, “ She whispered, “don’t know my own strength.” She reached over and gently removed a stray hair from my forehead. “I told you it would end, didn’t I?” I nodded silently. It always ended, but one of the things that gripped me the most was that my mother never lied just to keep us calm. Somehow she just knew that things would end. When she made a promise, no force other than that of God could stop her from making it come to pass.
“Mom?” I was surprised to hear my own voice small and trembling. This wasn’t the boisterous tomboy who ruled the back garden. I wasn’t easily scared and had faced down a king cobra once, but this unseen enemy left me shaking and fearful of my next breath.
“Yes?” She shifted in the dark and spread the blanket over my brother. He snored quietly. He could sleep through just about anything.
I bit my lip. “Why do they do this? Why us, we didn’t hurt them, did we?”
“No we didn’t. But a long time ago the country did and they are mad at the country.”
“Zimbabwe? They are mad at Zimbabwe?”
“Uh huh.”
“So why scare people like us?”
“They don’t plan to. Sometimes things like this just happen. Men like to organize wars, but in reality, the wars often organize the men. No one can say, but the truth usually gets lost somewhere along the way.”
“So why do it?” I needed to know. I wanted to be able to go back out there and know that there was still something and someone to go back out to. Dad was out there.
My mother sighed and I could tell she was rolling her eyes heavenward. “Sarah, did anyone ever tell you that you ask too many questions?”
I smiled in the dark. She told me that every day. I was nothing if not persistent. Too much of my Father in me, she had muttered on many an occasion.
“Why don’t you try and sleep, Sarah.”
“I can’t,” I replied.
“Why ever not?” Mom was sounding resigned. She knew I would talk all night if I had the chance.
“The sound holes bug me. I can’t sleep.”
My mother laughed softly and it was a comforting sound that spoke of light and spring. “Sound holes? Tell me, what are sound holes?”
I frowned in the dark. Dad had always said to explain something scientifically as best you can. I took a deep breath. “Sound holes are the spaces left after the bullets have gone. I can’t say I like them when they are full, but being empty is just as bad.”
Mom laughed again. The silence was bothering me and I guess she didn’t want to sleep either. She stroked my cheek.
“Will the stars still be there when we get out?” Sitting and watching the stars every night was something that meant more to me than any game I could play. It was something special I shared with my father. Almost every night we would venture out into the back courtyard and watch as the African night sky opened above us. I knew just about every constellation in the southern sky. We would sit for hours and look for the moving dot that gave away the hidden path of a satellite overhead. Eventually, my mother, determined to remove the various layers of the backyard that I had acquired during the day, would haul us inside. It was a special, quiet time at the end of the day. Our time. But to me, the best show in the house was free. The night sky was everything to me.
A sudden vision rose in my young mind of a ripped sky and old, tattered stars hanging down or lying ruined on the ground. Fear gripped me as did an impulsive, irrational surge of anger at the terrorists outside. I didn’t know them and suddenly I didn’t care. My precious night sky could be no more and they probably wouldn’t blink an eye. I bit my lip, trying not to hate; hoping I wouldn’t.
They wouldn’t take away my sky…would they?
Mom was silent for a while. I guess the question caught her off guard. “The stars will always be there. Nothing, but time can remove them.”
“Oh.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Then another question bubbled off my tongue. “We won’t be in here too long then, will we?”
My mother groaned. She knew I was off on another one of my question quests and no one would get any sleep or peace until I knew what I needed to know. My mother was a determined lady, so she tried anyway. “Go to sleep, hon.”
“Will we?” I persisted.
“They will still be there when we get out.”
“No one can shoot them down, or anything?”
“No one can shoot them down.” Mom said reassuringly and if sensing my next question already on my lips, “And the stars will be there forever, so you don’t have to worry about missed time, I promise.”
I relaxed instantly. There were those words that guaranteed the whole world to me. My mom had promised me. The stars were safe.
The usual scraping of light crept across the floor to greet me the following morning. As far as I could tell, the Sun was working pretty well, so I felt cheery about that fact. It was good that everything worked. I hated it when things broke down and Dad wasn’t here to fix them. Though how he would fix the Sun if it broke was an interesting thought and I filed it away with my fleet of questions I had stored for him on his return. Mom and Gus were sitting up in the far corner reading by candlelight. It seemed almost funny that we had all this free light outside for use and we still made our own. I yawned and stretched, while my mother passed me a piece of buttered
toast. I bit into it and wondered what I was going to do on day four in the twilight zone?
Time flopped past in great, lumpy minutes that crowded unnecessarily in the present. The day wore on. The only highlight was a mild disagreement with my mother over reading light. I had insisted that I wanted to read at the foot of one of the doors and for some grownup reason, she wasn’t happy with that. We debated the topic at length. I presented my case stating that the waste of sunlight was completely unnecessary and felt I proved my point regarding my ability see in such light by reading several passages of my book. Mom remained unimpressed and I was
soon getting to know our friendly neighborhood candle.
But best of all, the noise had stopped. We hadn’t had an attack since the night before and I thought I could almost hear birdsong beyond the darkness that hemmed me in. The world was still going about its business without one Sarah Edwards and that seemed blatantly unfair for some unexplainable reason.
The silence or rather the lack of gunfire continued the entire day. In fact, there was never another shot fired. We sat, quietly, waiting for confirmation that all was well. I had to fight the urge to start pacing. Mom leaned against the far wall; the brickwork was cool against her back. It could get rather hot and stuffy in here. Gus played with his cars. I stared at the ceiling wishing it were made of glass. And still the silence galloped onward.
The sound was small at first, but steadily grew. A quiet jingle of keys and the rattling of a lock. It grew louder and was soon accompanied by the shuffling of feet and muffled voices. I sat up straight, wondering if this was what we were waiting for? Who was there? Mom motioned for us to keep quiet and silently clenched the rifle she kept near her at all times. It was loaded and ready. She flicked off the safety and rested the weapon on her shoulder, pointing it at the door with an almost-professional ease. Dad had made sure that she knew how to use it before he left.
The lock clicked and the handle started to turn. Mom waved at Gus and me to crawl
around the corner in the passage. We did so, hurriedly; my heart was beating in my throat and for some reason the air was like syrup.
A tidal wave of light rushed the passage, bouncing off the walls. It was so bright and beautiful that for a moment I found myself reaching out to touch it. A sudden cry from my mother and I was scrambling to my feet and hurtling around the corner, regardless of the danger. But I was mistaken. She was hugging someone. A man with a big, bushy beard; dressed in green army-clothes. I knew who it was. Dad was framed in blazing light; I hadn’t met the beard, but I knew his twinkling, blue eyes as they danced with unexpressed joy. I was engulfed in a bear hug and lifted off my feet. It was over. Mom had promised; Dad had fixed it. It was finally over.
It was much later when the door to the back garden was opened and I was allowed to venture outside. The brickwork at the back of the house was pitted with bullet holes. At the bottom of the step, a lone, dark pool of crimson reflected the sky. I sat down on the top step, not sure if I wanted to go any further. At least the sky wasn’t in tatters. Dad seated himself beside me. As usual, I had hardly heard him coming. I almost expected him to haul me away from the sight at the bottom of the steps, but strangely he didn’t. I looked down and wasn’t sure how to react. Something told me that I wasn’t ready for this and yet another part of me argued saying that there
was nothing to be done now. No one said anything for the longest while. No one needed to. The crimson pool spoke for itself. It was where it did not belong. It was sitting smack in the middle of my comfort zone. I was abruptly aware of the changes that had taken place and worried that my favorite memories would be erased; that my life, my place where I found joy, would be gone forever. Did I want to know? I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Dad, whose blood is that?” For the first time I realized I had just filled a sound hole.
“Someone who wanted to hurt you, Gus and your mother.”
“Is he okay?” If the man was okay, maybe the whole thing could be explained to him and they wouldn’t do it any more.
Dad was quiet for a long time. I didn’t know it then, but he was struggling for the first time on how to explain the reality of death to his six-year-old daughter. “No, he isn’t okay. He died.”
“You didn’t want to put him in jail?” I looked up at him.
My father rubbed his forehead, tiredly. “He wouldn’t let us. We had to do something or else he would have broken into the house.” I leaned against him and looked away. The sky was turquoise and something was appearing in it. Actually it was more than one thing. There were many things. My father followed my gaze, then took my hand and led me around the side of the house to where our old metal watching bench squatted comfortably, its worn surface waiting patiently for us. His lap was comfortable and his arms were warmly wrapped around me. As the last vestiges
of light slipped beyond the horizon, old friends swam into view. They blazed brighter than I had ever seen them as if greeting a long lost friend. Tentatively they stretched out in glorious splendor as slowly more of them crowded forward. I couldn’t help but grin in excitement. The air rested cool and still and beyond the back fence a cricket sang passionately about the approaching summer evening. I leaned back and rested my head on my father’s shoulder. I could see the Jacaranda tree in the driveway and the old sandpit near the garage. My lucky-bean trees were untouched. I sighed a deep, contented sigh and for the moment I knew, my memories were safe.
That night it was just Dad, the stars and I.

THE END