The Promise

A story by HENRY JOE SAKALA

I’ll never leave you.

Every night as a child, I said these words to the rats that chewed the garbage near where I slept. 

Wrapped in newspaper, under a dark sky lit by the false moon of Lusaka city lights, I remembered her promise. She had been gone only a few months. My memories of her face were already fading, but the afro moon of her hair and her starry eyes stared back at me between clouds. I was young enough to think that this was her way of staying with me. 

Later, while my cousins satisfied rent-money men in the corner of my uncle’s shack, I cried her promise into my torn pillow and pretended I still believed the words. The sky had become a patched roof and the moon my uncle’s drugged face and work-calloused fists. But still, her eyes shone in the burgeoning dawns as I walked to the quarry with my aunt to carry sacks of limestone to town. 

Then, when I became a man at the age of fifteen, I whispered the words in my lover’s ear. “I’ll never leave you.”

As long as I had my mother’s voice and the stars, I knew my she was still there.

My mother’s voice was like the rainbow-coloured birds that sang praises at dawn— a beautiful sound that made the plants shed tears of joy each day. I did not know the birds by name but they breathed life into my mother’s song. She made music with her hands as she crushed rock into stone and into dust; her feet danced under the heavy load of limestone we carried into town to trade for our day’s one meal.  

Lunch was nshima with a set: the head, the intestines, the feet, the heart, and the liver of a chicken. My mother and I shared this meal every day at the popular makeshift restaurant behind the Soweto market called Savage Restaurant. The clientele was mainly rough thugs and wheelbarrow pushers— a tough place to have a meal, but it was affordable. It was our restaurant.

If we didn’t make enough for chicken, we’d settle for nshima and vegetables like kalembula and vishashi. Life, like a song, continued. We always looked forward to the chorus, but our song was only in the second verse,  my mother and I.

At night, she breathed in the evening song of the birds, as if storing their music to carry her through the silent hours spent sweeping empty offices at the Boma under flickering lights. 

When she grew sick, she told me that as long as she had breath, she would welcome the birds, dancing to the music of life inside all of her wonderful days. And then, when she no longer had breath inside her, she made a promise. But…  I no longer believe her promise.

I had stopped looking to the sky the night my uncle tried to rape my lover.  Melesiyana was her name. She to whom I had whispered my mother’s words. She to whom I had shared what little love I had inside me. My rage burned that love to cinders as I pulled my uncle off her, wishing I had a knife, a club, a quarry pick to beat the arrogance out of his ranging devil eyes. But he was too big for me to master. Instead, he staggered outside with a smirk on his face, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Your girl’s lucky. You’re lucky! She will soon learn! You’ll soon learn!

Melesiyana was a bundle of pain and shame on the bed, holding on to the bed sheets like they were life itself. I hated my uncle for what he had done and without thinking, like a robot being controlled remotely; I stormed out of the shabby bedroom, to the kitchen and got a big old rugged and rusty knife that had seen many years in the family. The damn knife was older than me but still useful and I intended to use it to kill my uncle. I walked out of the house and found him standing by the hedge, smoking a cigarette. Knife firmly in my hand, I lunged at him ready to strike. Suddenly, I heard a gentle voice that stabbed my heart. I turned to see who was talking to me.

“Sonny!”

A woman, from the next door, stood a few metres from me. She wore a chitambala and had an empty bucket of water in her hands. Her eyes were filled with a merciful glow. 

“Sonny!” that voice stabbed me again. Sweet to the ears, but with the strength to freeze me. 

My uncle cowering under my feet. The knife raised and ready to stab.

She spoke.

“Osayesa mwana wanga. Whatever he has done to you, don’t do it.”

She reminded me of my mother. Her bright eyes and the soft timbred voice that filled me with tremors of repentance when she spoke. I listened to her. I lowered my hand and the knife clanged as it fell to the ground. My uncle got up and ran away. I never saw him or heard of him from that day. It was now only me and my Melesiyana. 

I was the man of the house, but not man enough to keep her under my roof. Still, we soldiered on together. I needed a change, a better life. I needed to earn enough for both of us. Months later, I discovered she was pregnant. When she told me, I repeated the promise to never leave her, but… I had to go and chase greener pastures and our survival. I promised to return. “Leka niyende nipangeko money! Osalila. Nizakabwela!” 

The stars that reminded me of my mother’s eyes went out the day I left her, big bellied and teary-eyed. I joined a gang. For a while my mother’s voice found me at surprising moments. A bird would chirp cheerily, interrupting me as I beat some rival gang member or robbed someone. Other times, groups of white-collared crows screeched warnings overhead as I ran from the police. 

The birds screeched.

I never knew if the stones I threw were meant for my enemies and victims or the birds. One morning, a solitary crow sang a sad tune as I woke with a hangover and a mind fogged by drugs. A few days later, her voice left me, frightened off by the screams of a man I was punching in the face for all the debt he owed me. 

My mother left me. That’s what I tell my heart whenever I think I hear its beat in my chest. She left me to die.

My notoriety spread fast. Sooner than later, they came for me. The men in black suits, those who sit at the apex of authority, flashing all the money, calling all the shots. They wanted to get into government but another party stood in their way with a new wave of politics. Flowery speeches, brown envelopes stuffed with money exchanging hands, handouts of chitenges and T-shirts. They stood no chance against the rival party except through intimidation and violence. I was hired and I led my own mob of cadres. 

“We have to win these elections by any means necessary,” my candidate for the by-election said as he handed out posters and pamphlets for me and my crew to paste and distribute all over Misisi compound. It was an easy job and the pay was good. 

“When we win, you are the first people that I’ll employ. You will have monthly salaries. Some of you will even be driving and move from this shanty compound to proper houses with big yards and fences!” The candidate promised us. 

It was nighttime. I split from my group, and I wrapped myself in a bruised silence as I pasted my candidate’s posters on buildings. I tucked pamphlets wherever they might be tucked, thinking I was alone even though flocks of people floated in and out of my peripheral vision. Until the dee,p angry voice woke me from my dreams of what the man on the poster would do for me if I helped him win. I ignored the Zambian music and shouts of drunken men, the barking dogs and the blaring hooters. 

“Nizakufyanta fyanta! Imbwa iwe!”

The words thundered over the polyphonic nightmare that was Misisi compound after midnight.

I saw five men. Slashers, pangas, hoes, iron bars and clubs porcupined their silhouettes. A large man, his muscles filling his T-shirt, raised a torch. It cast an evil glow over his face. It flickered off his balding head, casting his eyes in shadow but accentuating his bulky jaws. He looked like a pit-bull eyeing a poodle. That poodle was me.

Before I could do much, they surrounded me. They pushed. Taunted. Showed me their weapons. Insulted my candidate. 

“So iwe mbuzi, don’t you know that this eliya berongs to us? Si unga bwele che flom nowhere kufaka vi ma poster vako! You sanamabitch!” I argued back. Puffed out my chest and called them names. I’d gotten older since my days on the streets. Less confident physically, but wiser tactically. 

“Bafigili so mulemona kwati kuti mwantinya?” I retorted much to their shock. 

I focused on the big man. If I could keep these others between him and me, I might be able to trick them into following me into the crowd where I could then escape in the confusion. Old man methods, but then, there would be no old men if their methods weren’t good. But these boys were big. Their eyes dead and hungry to prove themselves. Suddenly one of them whipped out a small knife and jammed it with lightning speed into my gut. There was a moment of stunned silence as he withdrew the knife. We all stared at the blood seeping through my shirt. It was then I saw that the bulldog had brought only puppies on this hunt.

I dropped my bag of posters and pamphlets. And ran.

Like a pack of wild dogs, they bellowed joyously as they pursued me. 

I ran toward the ditch I knew was at the end of the main road. FINDECO house, though far away, was like a fiery multi-eyed monster that towered in front of me. A monster that looked less ferocious than the men’s faces I saw coming close behind me. Each one was much bigger than me. But maybe I was faster even though I was older. I slapped one foot in front of the other and tore across the main road.  Scrawny trees, bushes and piles of broken asphalt showed me where the ditch was. If I could just get ahead and jump into the ditch, I knew I could find a place to hide. I’d used these ditches when I was a young street kid hiding from stupid old men I’d robbed. My friends and I had made forts from garbage, ramparts of plastic and dirt and tunnels in canals of dirty water. I’d even called it home on some nights. 

I dodged left. Jumped over an oil barrel and slipped behind a gutted car. The bulldog and his puppies ran past, shouting and whistling, certain that I was within killing distance. I knew they would run into a fence and have to turn back so I took the opportunity and sprinted along the edge of the ditch as fast as I could. My lungs breathed fire into my legs. For a moment I felt like Samukonga— but not for long. I was surprised when I heard them shout.  Too soon! 

I turned my head just as my feet hit something soft and then tangled in a mess of clothing and legs. Some beast, maybe a large dog, must have been cowering by the lip of the ditch for there was a small yelp of pain as we tumbled. I prayed to any gods who might be listening that we would not land on anything sharp. Instead, I was submerged in cold, metallic, slimy water. Whatever it was, kicked me in the face and floundered a few paces off.

“Don’t come closer!” The shadow figure held a thick branch over its head.

“Sssh!” I hissed. “Get down!”

The night had been cloudy. It was usually so. But for a brief moment, the sickle moon parted the clouds and shone on a young girl. She was wet. Her kinky uncombed hair scattered around a thin, scared face. Just a child. I put my hands up to show her I meant no harm and moved close enough to put my finger to her lips. I bent over to pull the branch from her hand. She was tiny but surprisingly strong. We had a brief tug of war before I was able to get the branch away and push her down behind one of my old bush forts. Other kids must have kept it because it was still solid and hid us both easily. We kneeled down in the dark stream just as the pack of hounds raised a torch and began searching for me. I hoped my wound hadn’t left a trail of blood. 

“Nothing! Obviousry ngwele natolokela to the other side! Tiyeni!” 

The hounds moved on.

I knew I should move further down the ditch, or climb the pile up the far side so I could hide in the bush but my wound must have opened up in the fall. Shock had given me legs to run and brain to think, now my body demanded my attention. I felt sick to my stomach. Dizzy.  I thought, if I could only rest, just for a little while, then I’d be okay. Instinctively I moved toward life. The girl was small but I felt the muscles in her back as I leaned against her. “Just for a little while,” I mumbled.

With a grunt, she pushed me away and started to leave. This woke me back to life. I snatched at her hand, grabbed a piece of her shirt and pulled her back. 

“Do you want to die?” I asked her.

“Don’t touch me, dirty man!” She tried to pull away. Something inside told me this girl was my only chance.

“They may still be out there!”

“They want to kill you, not me. I’m better on my own.” Again, I was surprised by her strength as she managed to free herself. 

I looked carefully around and then followed her across the stream toward the rampart of filth. “Listen to me.”  I stepped on something and grunted in pain. “Those are bad men up there. They might kill me but…” I looked at her young body knowing those hounds were the type that fed on the young like hyenas. “They will rape you.”

She kept moving, though more slowly, as if she were arguing with herself. We climbed up out of the ditch and stumbled our way into a small grove of mango trees. She squatted on her haunches as I slid to the ground with my back to the tree. I noticed her feet were cut up and she had bruises on her legs and arms. One eye was swollen. Someone had been beating on her.

“Hey, mwaiche, what are you doing out here alone?” I asked her. “You are so young.” She looked at me with those star-lit eyes, then looked quickly away. If only I could keep her attention, maybe she would help me. My bleeding hadn’t slowed and my legs felt like sacks of quarry dust. There was no way I was going to make it. But the girl seemed uncertain, ready to flee like a gazelle, her white shirt flapping a warning to any who might be looking. Like the gang of thugs. 

“My name is Jacob Siame. Please, I’m bleeding. I need help. I’m not a bad man.”

“Then why did they cut you?” She asked. 

“They attacked me because I crossed their territory. I’m a cadre from the main rival political party. They think their candidate owns Misisi. I was just doing my job.” While I talked, I undid my shirt and used it to stop the blood. It slowed some, but I knew I couldn’t walk the distance to the clinic. I reached my hand out.

The young girl looked at my hand, at my eyes then looked into the sky. 

“My mother promised,”  she said.

“What?”

“My mother promised she’d help me get to school. So, I wouldn’t have to marry some old man my uncle had found to pay our debts. She promised I’d be free, that she would work to get us both away from Uncle Gundu. But she died. The disease took her hair, her starry eyes and her moon smile. She’s dead and my uncle stole all my money. And I’m sick of the quarry. I hate my life. I hate limestone! I hate you! I want my Mommy!” She started to sob. 

I know all about mothers' promises and the tears they bring. I know how money teases you into believing effort will lead you to freedom. But it’s a lie. And mothers' promises are the worst lies of them all. I don’t need this crap, I thought. Who cares about this stupid girl? Why should I? No one cared about the many girls I had seen brutalised in Misisi. No one cared! 

No one.

We stood there. Me bleeding from my stomach, she bleeding her heart out from her eyes. It was dark. The stream muttered angrily to itself as it pushed through cans, plastic, rotten food— all the other cast-off bits of humanity. It was so silent. I couldn’t remember the last time it had been quiet like this. My heart beat against my palm. Each pulse pushing blood out of me. I had to move or I’d die. It had been ages since I’d loved hearing my heart beat, but I wanted it to keep beating.

I managed to push myself to my knees and crawled clumsily to her. She had curled onto her side, crying, so I was able to rest my hand as kindly as I could on her back. The gesture felt foreign but good. At the moment my hand took in her warmth, I heard an owl call out. I was raised to believe that the call of an owl in the night was the call of death. But the sound of the owl filled me with the breath of life. Not much, but enough to hum gently a tune my mother had sung to me when I cried from hunger and pain.

“You are the strength and the pillar, the only one I have.

For as long as I have breath inside, I will welcome the birds.

Dancing to the music of life inside me all of my wonderful days,

I will kneel down under the warm orange morning sunlight and sing.

You are the strength and the pillar, the only one I have.”

The girl’s back stilled. The owl hooted a few more sad and deathly notes as the clouds parted and let the moon look down on her two children.

“My name is Margaret,” she said. 

“Margaret, my mother promised too. Maybe I can help her keep her promise but I can’t walk. I need you to be my legs.”

She stood, looked around and then bent over to help me rise. I leaned against her, holding the bloody shirt as tightly to my belly as I could with my other hand. Her head barely reached my armpit but she somehow held me up. Her hair smelled of limestone. Like my mother’s. Like mine had when I was a young boy, playing in the rubble while my mother’s  hands and legs beat the music of her life slowly out of her body and the dust filled her lungs with sickness. She had been about Margaret’s age when she first started working at the quarry. Later, when she came home from her second job cleaning, her hair smelled of ammonia and bleach. It was those smells that kept me breathing... and then a beautiful face …. Melesiyana….

*

We stumbled along for a while when suddenly she disappeared from under my arm. A sound of metal on bone came from somewhere behind me and then my legs were kicked out from under me. For a brief moment I saw bulldog jaws and pig eyes staring down at me. I screamed as a steel rod slowly pushed into my stomach, twisting and tearing at the wound. Something gave in my mind and all went black.

I woke to a young girl’s voice singing. It was a small voice. Like inkunda. The rhythm was familiar. A tap, tap rhythm with a grunt every few beats. It was the same rhythm my mother had used when she broke stones to pebbles. She had told me that songs made sorrow fly, that rhythm was the poetry of labour. The music of life was made for pain, for sorrow, for sacrifice, for everything, for nothing. 

“Jacob. Tears, Jacob. Let them flow. That’s the music, Jacob.”

“Mummy?” I said. The singing stopped. 

“Jacob, wake up. Please, wake up. I promise, I’ll never leave you. Please wake up!”

This time it was Margaret’s voice. But her words were the words my mother had used just before she stopped singing her last breath. I opened my eyes. I don’t know how she had stopped the pack of hounds from tearing me apart, but somehow, she had. She smiled when she saw my eyes open. It was like a sickle moon surrounded by two bright stars. 

“Can you get up? We aren’t far from the clinic. You can use this and me too.” She had a club in her hands. “One of them dropped it when they ran away.”

With her help and that of the club, I managed to get to my feet. Lying on the ground next to me was the pit-bull, his head cracked and bleeding. Near him was a huge limestone rock. I looked at the little girl and saw that at some point she had found her strength; she had become a woman. And I, the man, had become a boy.  

She leaned into me, chanting the quarry beat and got my feet moving. I focused on her voice, tiny and young, not at all like my mother’s. It kept me moving. Voices danced in my mind. Thick voices attached to thin, angry men. Thin voices screamed from silent mouths surrounded by bloated lips. Jabber and static became accusations. Accusations turned to speeches. Speeches melted into chants. My world became one loud noise. But under the din, ran Margaret’s chanting, the beat of my heart and the sound of our dragging feet. 

The night grew lighter. Looking up I saw two morning stars hanging low over the sky. And then there was a woman’s face. Strong hands, urgent voices and finally I was able to lie down as the sky was replaced by ceiling tiles. I heard the song of birds as the hospital doors closed then heard no more.

“I’ll never leave you. I promise.”

The woman’s voice was full of was a trembling whisper, full of tender devotion but cracked at the edges with regret.

I turned my head. A woman in her fifties was brushing back a young girl’s hair with one hand, rocking her body and holding the girl’s hand to her chest. Her back was round and solid. Like stone. I recognised the girl— Margaret.

I groaned and touched my belly. It was wrapped in linen. Tubes hung about me like vines. A heart monitor chirped optimistically over my shoulder like an owl in the dark of the night. 

“Ba Mayo.” I said. It sounded more like a question than a statement.

The woman turned and smiled at me.

“You must be Jacob. I’m Margaret’s aunt, Sarah. They told me you helped her escape from a gang. What a good man you must be!”

It felt strange to be called a good man. What had I ever done but evil? I made a dismissive ‘tch’ sound and looked away. 

The smell of quarry dust and a rough hand turned my head to look into Sarah’s eyes. 

“Sonny.” Her soft voice was like that of the woman who had stopped me from killing my uncle ages ago. Sweet to the ears but with granite strength to freeze my protests. She had bruises and cuts all over her face. Her eyes showed depths of misery and fear I had seen reflected in my mirror most mornings of my life. But hers, unlike mine, were not yet dead. 

“What have you done that has not been done to you?”

My candidate had said those words to me the night he first picked me out to lead my own cadres. True, he chose me because I had beaten another man bloody and shown him that I could stand up to the opposition. But he had also taught me that I had a reason, and thus a choice, behind my actions. 

“You can be free, my brother, if you make choices that give you freedom. You can choose to slice open a man but then hide like a beast as they hunt you down. What has been done to you, you can do to others, or you can turn the other cheek and fight for something that makes life better for others. Which man do you want to be? The one who destroys children, as you have been destroyed, or a member of a party that wants to save children?”

Aunt Sarah sat on my bed and let herself cry. As if her words to me were words to herself. I’d seen so many women weep, scream, beg. But not like this. Tears appeared like a magic spring out of the creased and worn face. She shook her head, put her hands in her lap and rocked herself quietly. 

“I thought I’d lost her. I thought I’d lost her. Oh ho! I had promised her mother and I failed. I thought I’d lost her.”

I looked down at her rough, joint-swollen hands, the nails bruised and torn to the quick from rock. So much like my mother’s hands. How many nights had my mother cried, just like this, while I slept? I’d never thought about my mother’s pain. About her fatigue and despair. I’d only thought about her song. Had her secret tears been what made her songs so beautiful? Or were her songs, like the mourning doves’ lament, meant to cover her broken heart? 

Her last words had been, “Tears, Jacob. Let them flow. That’s the music, my son. I promise I will never leave you.” I don’t remember crying when she died.

I felt one of Sarah’s tears land on my hand. I looked up at her and found I too was shedding silent tears. We sat there for a few minutes, the persistent beeping of the heart monitor, padding sneakers of nurses as they went about their rounds, soft voiced conversations and bells down the corridor accompanied our tears. The quiet pandemonium of people caring for others. I turned my head to look out the window just in time to see a flock of swallows whirling and diving outside. Even through the thick hospital glass you could hear their young chirping. 

“Ba Sarah.” I said, and took her hand. “We have a choice, don’t we? I can be a good man, can’t I?” She turned to look at me. I began to babble as I realised I was done with the life I had lived. I told her the life of violence and that being used like a dog to fight for the men in black suits was not a life I’d pursue any more. I was my own man and I was going to fly away like a bird, make my own nest and sing my own song. I would sing songs of life.

“I’m going to change. No more fighting. No more violence. I don’t want to die and leave only blood and garbage.” 

I felt like soaring out the window and dancing with the swallows.  Sarah wiped her eyes and smiled wide. The faint light I’d seen hiding in the depths of her pain sparked then took flame. I lay back exhausted. 

Margaret must have woken up and been discharged, because when I opened my eyes, her bed held an old man. The sky was growing dark. Two stars shone high above, near a sickle moon. I watched the swallows take one last glorious dance before settling down to keep their chirping brood warm for the night.

My mind wandered and remembered the weather changing. The sound of the white collared crows reminded me of the reason why I had left home in the first place. The hardships of life, the search for better living conditions, the dream to do better for myself and those I cared for … and loved. Melesiyana. 

I remembered my promise to her.

“I’ll never leave you.”

I needed to find her and my child. But I was still too weak to venture out.

The days passed. My wound healed slowly, but my soul grew faster than the stitches in my skin. I spent many quiet afternoons watching the birds build their nests under the clinic rain gutters. Each chirp, each feather, each careful placing of a twig, the skill of weaving a whole nest using pieces of grass, reminded me that healing is not an act of forgetting, but of rebuilding. Piece by piece. Layer by layer.

Soon I was strong enough to walk without help. It was time for me to leave the hospital. Sarah and Margaret came to say goodbye the day I was discharged. I thanked them  and left the clinic. Misisi compound was still the same, loud and hungry. But I wasn’t. My steps were lighter, yet purposeful. I didn’t join the cadres again. I didn’t even look back at the place that had taught me pain. I had somewhere I needed to be. Someone I needed to find. A promise I needed to keep.

I followed the old paths. The dusty shortcuts behind Soweto Market, past Savage Restaurant where my mother and I used to eat our “set” meals. I greeted familiar faces, some surprised to see me alive, others suspicious of the calm in my voice. I kept moving. I remembered the way to Melesiyana’s aunt’s house. I remembered the smell of her hair, the softness of her voice when she said my name like it was a secret meant only for the night.

I arrived just before dusk. The sky was orange, just like the days my mother and I walked home with limestone dust in our clothes and dreams in our eyes. I stood at the old unsteady gate, heart racing. I didn’t know if she was there. I didn’t know if she’d even want to see me. But I had come. 

A child played by the doorstep, his laughter familiar. He turned and there she was. Melesiyana. Her hair wrapped in a chitambala. Her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and something else. Something softer. 

There was silence between us. I heard the sound of a dove go, “Coo-coo-roo, coo-coo-roo!” A call to settle in for the night.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. The child walked up to her and tugged at her dress. He looked at me and I felt all that was left of the pain and anger inside me released from my spirit. The child looked just like me. I stood there feeling like I was looking at myself in the mirror. This was the final exorcism. My life would truly never be the same. 

Then, with the grace of a memory come alive, Melesiyana stepped forward. Her arms still held the strength of yesterday, but her eyes were cautious. I took one step closer. Then another.

“I’m not the same man I was,” I said. “But I remember who I wanted to be… when I was with you.”

She looked at me for a long time.

And then, finally, her lips parted, and I heard the voice that had kept me alive through the darkest of my days.

“You took long,” she said, gently.

I nodded, eyes wet.

“I was lost,” I replied.

She reached out and took my hand.

“Then come inside. And don’t leave again.”

As we stepped into the warmth of the house, the stars began to appear. I looked up and saw the sickle moon rise gently between them.

Somewhere, a bird sang.

And I knew… my mother had kept her promise too.

“I’ll never leave you.”