The Cry of the Hangkaka

Anne Woodborne

Description

The Cry of the Hangkaka is the story of young Karin and her mother Irene. Shamed by a divorce, Irene seeks to flee with her daughter from post WWII South Africa. Jack, a Scotsman who works at the tin mines in Nigeria, seems to be the answer to Irene�s prayers. In the torrid heat of the Nigerian plateau, Karin is exposed to the lives of the colonisers, the colonised, and most of all to the dictatorship of Jack.

Sujets

• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature Nigériane
• Littérature Africaine
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Modjaji Books
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781928215387
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published in 2016 by Modjaji Books
PO Box 385, Athlone, 7760, Cape Town, South Africa
www.modjajibooks.co.za
© Anne Woodborne
Anne Woodborne has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the publisher.
Edited by Karen Jennings
Cover artwork by Judy Woodborne ( www.judywoodborne.co.za )
Cover text by Danielle Clough
Book layout by Andy Thesen
Printed and bound by Megadigital, Cape Town
ISBN: 978-1-920590-60-4
ebook: 978-1-928215-38-7
The dead come to me in dreams with wet eyes, as if they have swum the waters of those mythical rivers of the underworld, the Acheron and Cocytus, rivers of woe and lamentation. They crowd around me, their pallid faces slick with an underwater sheen; they watch and wait. As I sink into a deep sleep they seduce me with their surreal images.
I wake from such a dream one night and, in my drowsiness, sense the presence of my mother hovering over me, leaning on a stick, trying to peer into my dream. I turn on my pillow to escape her; I’ve shut the memory of Irene away between the heavy covers of a photo album and in a box containing a twig of dried heather, pearl drop-earrings and suede gloves carrying a lingering scent of lily-of-the-valley. The old yearning, like a heart wringing itself, has not tempted me to open these mementoes.
Yet, as I slip back into my dream, I find myself in my childhood bed, iron-framed, shrouded in a mosquito net. I hear the skeletal fingers of the locust bean tree scratching on the tin roof. The snakes slither from tree branch to roof, rustling through the leaves then thudding onto the corrugated tin. The drums begin their thrumming from the surrounding villages, an obbligato beat to underscore the soft crooning of the Hausa servants around the fire in the compound. Jack’s drainpipe snores rip the air from the bedroom he shares with Irene. The doll from Madeira sits, glassy brown eyes snap open and stare into space. Her concertina lungs wheeze a cry of ‘Mama-Mama’ through her painted lips. From the night sky drifts the jarring two-note cry of the hangkaka. The mechanical clanking of the dredger down on the riverbed pushes me back into the time of my childhood. I shrink into my nine-year-old body. The night noises of Dorowa lull me into a dream about my mother.
Part One
She’s my shadow. Whenever I turn, wherever I look, she’s there. I see her first thing in the morning when her face is new, before she remembers what’s happened. I feel her warm body close to mine like a hot-water bottle at night before I sleep. If the black dog nightmare wakes me, I see her walking like a ghost up and down at the end of the bed in the dark room.
Mom smells like sunshine and lilies. Her sweet lily smell comes from a small blue bottle called ‘Lily of the Valley’. Mom dabs the neck of the bottle on the inside of my wrist – I breathe in the scent and imagine Mom and I in a place where lilies grow. ‘Fields of lilies were crushed to make this exquisite perfume,’ Mom says.
Her black hair hangs like a silk curtain when she bends to turn the key of the jewellery box. She opens the lid and the tiny ballerina, painted gold and pink, pops up and turns on her toes. She holds her arms above her head in a circle. Mom shows me her reflections dancing in the small mirrors behind her. The music tinkles like a fairy dance.
‘The Blue Danube,’ Mom says. ‘Your father held me in his arms when we danced to this waltz, many, many times... to think I was once so happy.’
Mom’s tears shine like the pearl earrings she puts in the red velvet drawer in the box. They roll down her cheeks.
When Mom’s almost happy, her voice sounds like milkshake with bubbles on top. When she’s sad or angry, her voice sounds like burnt onions.
Mom’s lonely. ‘You’re my only companion, Karin,’ she says. ‘Our world has shrunk to these four walls and the beach – just the two of us.’ Sometimes she hugs me so I can’t breathe; her arms and hands are so strong. Sometimes her eyes look as if they can’t see me even when I’m right next to her.
I love watching Mom’s hands. They’re busy-bee hands. Her fingers are long and strong. They push sewing needles into material and wind wool around silver knitting needles. They cut vegetables and meat to cook. They make sheets smooth with a hot iron. Mom irons everything we wear so we can be neat and clean. When she dresses me she sings under her breath, ‘Little Karin is so sweet, always clean, always neat.’
The sun splashes a block of gold through the window onto the floor so Mom and I can be warm like marshmallows melting in front of a fire. Mom shows me how to cut pictures out of a magazine. Her scissors are small with sharp cutters like a bird’s beak. She’s turning the page in her hand to snip round a bunch of flowers. She looks up when she hears a swish and sees a blue envelope slide under the front door. ‘What’s this?’ Mom says. She puts down the scissors and walks to the letter. Her eyebrows wave into worry lines. ‘Please God, not another lawyer’s letter?’
She picks up the letter and reads – Sender: John Robert Carmichael, Kincardine, Invergowrie Street, Perth, Scotland.
She rips open the thin blue paper folds. Mom sucks in her breath. Her eyes move from side to side. She reads the words running like crab legs wet with black ink sideways across the page. ‘Oh my – aah – unhh.’ She moans, ‘Oh, Jack, Jack.’
She holds in her breath for a long time then aaghs. Her eyes shine blue sparkles, a tear falls down her cheek. Her eyebrows undo their worry lines and jump into thin black moons. Her eyes are so sharp they look as if they could pin me down on the floor.
Mom presses the letter to her heart and puffs air out again. Her legs walk tchik-tchik. I snip paper with her scissors. She bends down, ‘Feel my heart, Karin.’
I put my hand on her apron top. I can feel Mom’s heart. It’s jumping up and down under her clothes. She’s excited. I run to my parting present, a painted rocking pony from my father. He gave me this when he divorced Mom and me. Rocky has a red saddle, brown eyes and brown spots on her white body. Her little black hooves look as if they can run to the ends of the earth. I jump onto the saddle and rock to the beating of Mom’s heart. Thump-thump. I feel everything Mom feels.
Her mouth stretches wide in a happy smile. She looks surprised. ‘Jack wants to marry me.’
Who’s Jack? The only Jack I know is my jack-in-the-box. But clown Jack can’t write letters.
Mom walks up and down with quick steps. She’s talking to herself, sounding out her thoughts. ‘Do you know what this means, Irene? It’s your passport out, a chance for a new life, a new beginning.’
She stares through the window, her hand on her mouth. ‘Oh, but I must think... what if... Scotland will be so very different.’ She shakes her head, pushes back her black curls. ‘No, I should go... I’ll take Karin. I deserve a second chance after what that basta–’ she looks at me to see if I’m listening, ‘...did to me.’
Mom doesn’t notice when I don’t eat my meat at supper tonight. I only like food that slides down my throat without chewing. I’m too worried to chew. I worry about Mom all the time. But when I don’t eat, Mom’s nose twitches, her eyes get big and she tries to push the fork into my mouth. I zip my lips up tight. ‘This is war, Karin,’ Mom’s face turns red and her voice sounds like burnt onions. Then she fills a big spoon with castor oil and brings it right close to my mouth. When I smell the oily, sick-making stuff, I begin to cry, then I eat.
‘Met lang tande,’ Mom says.
Mom spoke Afrikaans when she was with my father although she is English-speaking. Mom told me they got divorced because my father drank and chased women. I have a picture in my head of my father running down the road drinking out of a bottle, chasing women away.
But tonight Mom is happy, I’ve never seen her so happy. She listens to a programme on the radio. There’s the sound of a fish horn blowing then a voice says, ‘Snoektown calling – the craziest station south of the line with Cecil Wightman.’ Mom laughs at his jokes. I don’t think I have ever heard Mom laugh out loud before. This is better than Christmas. Christmas in this tiny flat above the Main Road is lonely. Mom is sad and cries for all the things she’s lost.
I climb onto the bench on the balcony high above the cars in the street. I can see half a moon and the stars blink at me. I wonder if I will see these same stars in Scotland. Mom says she’s taking me there. I turn to ask Mom but she’s rubbing cream onto her face and pulling her eyebrow hairs out with a little tweezer. Plucking, she calls it.
When it’s dark, I climb into bed with Mom. I snuggle-wriggle into her back. ‘You’re like a tick,’ she says.
The wind rocks the night. I hear the whooshing of the wind from the sea up the Main Road, round the roof tops, through the trees. The windows rattle, the floors creak. I hear the clickety-clack of the train next to the beach. <