The Rain Falls Softly Here

A story by TAMANDA KANJAYE

One day, Luntha will think about the rain and all it took from her as a sick joke from the gods. Or perhaps a lesson is more befitting. A harsh, harsh lesson about being careful what wishes to put out into the world.

She will recline in a chair on tired mornings after working her night shifts at the hospital, the way her Papa did, and think about him. How proud he was up until the end, and how she got along with him the most. Some days she will roam around the home that the government and various other organisations chipped in to build for her and think about her Ma. 

She will want to scream, “I survived Ma, are you proud of me now?” But the words will forever stay lodged in her throat.

By then, Luntha will have stripped off the hardness she associated with the woman that birthed her and only remember her as tired and scared and strong. 

She will also think of her brothers and how she should have been kinder to them in their earlier years—especially Mzeru. Oh Mzeru, sweet, sweet Mzeru. He didn’t deserve her bitterness.

She will remember all this and cry, filling herself to the brim with whiskey and regret.

*

On the night it happens, however, Luntha only thinks of the rain as brutal. Each drop sounds like stone hitting the iron sheets of the house. It has been pouring God's wrath for days.

The flood warnings came again that year. At the time, Luntha and her family lived very close to The River, which means they are even more prone to disaster if it strikes.

The thought alone shakes Luntha to the core. She feels as though the house is folding in on itself. One day, she will look back at this and remember hyperventilating because of how claustrophobic she felt. 

Papa, on the other hand, is as relaxed as ever. He is drinking his evening tea with such a calm expression that it unnerves Luntha. He, like a lot of other people, has dismissed the warnings that come every year with no follow-through.

“Do not look so glum, the water never rises here,” he says, looking at his youngest daughter. “And even if the floods did come, everybody knows I built a strong house.”

He takes this time to tell the Bible parable about the man who built his house on a strong foundation. He puts another spoon of sugar in his tea, which is already saturated with sweetness and narrates it word for word to his family.

He tells the story with a small, amused smile on his lips and a slight tilt to his head.

“God and Nature know which houses to take and which ones not to challenge.” He laughs straight from his belly. The pride radiates off him.

There is no denying that Papa is a very proud man. He has the most cows and the biggest piece of farmland in their small village near the Shire River. Theirs is the only house with three bedrooms, each furnished with a bed and mattress for each member—a rare feat in a village where most people can barely afford even the basics. 

Papa had decided very early on in his life that he wasn’t going to be like his own father, or his mother, or his other eight brothers. He wasn’t going to lose his soul to alcoholism and laziness only to be blessed with gut-wrenching poverty. He wasn’t going to die in a small pond. Instead, he got himself an odd job on a rich man’s farm and worked until his feet blistered and his hands bled.

It took him almost eleven years of slaving himself on that farm, but eventually, he raised enough money to buy a reasonable piece of land. When he had first arrived, it was all but deplorable, with no sign of fortune. There were just a few suffering farms and scanty structures masquerading as houses. 

Still, the view was nice, the land arable, and the River mighty. He could make something of himself, and he got to work immediately. He dug and tilled and toiled throughout the days. At night, he slept on his mat—one of his only possessions from his past life. He didn’t mind, though; he had persevered through worse. His first harvest was not as great as he would have liked, but it was enough for him to get two goats. His second was a bit better, and with his earnings from selling produce and milk, he got to work making bricks for his barns, but most importantly, for his house.

Eventually, he would realise his dreams and everybody in the village would respect him and call him “Bwana”. They would believe him to be a big fish. 

Luntha, in some ways, believed this too. But on more occasions, she just thought of her village as just being another small pond.

That’s one thing she has in common with her father. The ability to know when a pond is too small for you. To feel completely suffocated by your own life.

She is a big fish, and she is going to get out. 

But as the rain pummels the house, she does not view her father proud and ambitious. She thinks him arrogant.

Looking across the room, she can tell her Ma probably shares her sentiments. A rare moment of them being in agreement.

While Papa’s nonchalance amuses Luntha’s two older brothers, Khama and Mzeru, who are playing checkers, it completely annoys Ma. There is a scowl etched on that smart mouth of hers.

Luntha had never seen her mother quite like this.

Lines wrinkle deep into Ma’s forehead.

She’s quiet.

Afraid.

The last time Luntha sees Ma like this is when she is standing over her bed later that night, knee deep in water. 

*

Ma was a strong, hard boulder of a woman. She did more farming on the land than the rest of the family combined. She was the most chiselled woman Luntha had ever seen. In fact, she could hold a candle to Papa.

Long before anyone else, she had seen the potential in Papa. She has been observing him as he lay on his mat and as he gardened his land, and had just known this man with his lean frame and handsome face and strong arms would make something of himself. She’d approached him one hot afternoon, offered him water and bread and had crouched as she watched him eat.

When he’d wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, Papa had turned to the woman before him. 

“What was that for?” he asked.

And Ma had simply declared, “You shall be my husband.” And that was that.

Ma adored her husband and her two sons with everything she had. Which Luntha thought was a shame because she was convinced it meant there was nothing left for her. 

Luntha only felt disdain from Ma. She suspected it was because she wasn’t like the rest of them. 

She spent her afternoons reading under the same tree Papa used to sleep under all those nights, while her Ma and her brothers toiled the land. The snarl on Ma’s face when she found her on such afternoons was enough to communicate her displeasure. But still, she insisted on using words.

“Just because you got into that fancy medicine school doesn’t make you better than us,” Ma would say.

“Leave her alone,” Papa would chastise, though his eyes shone. “She’s the only one of our children with a sense of ambition.” 

Ma would cluck her tongue and throw her arms in exasperation.

“You were supposed to be a boy, but God changed his mind last minute,” she would say. “That’s why you are so intelligent but can’t do anything else.”

Luntha always wanted to ask her how come her brothers weren’t intelligent enough to go to the university if that was the case. She often wondered if it pained her Ma that her two golden sons, who seemed absolutely perfect in every aspect, could not get grades that sent them to any colleges. And yet her “disgraceful” daughter had somehow bested them and gotten into the College of Medicine.

*

“Luntha, get up,” Ma screams at her youngest child. 

Her youngest daughter.

Her only daughter.

She gathers Luntha in her arms and hugs her like she used to when she was still a mindless child with smaller dreams- tight and endearing.

Ma realises she never noticed Luntha grow to become this big. She should have known Luntha would one day want to go away from her family, from her and chase bigger things. She was always more like Papa. If only she had been like her brothers, then there would be no risk of losing her to the world. 

Ma often wondered why her daughter didn’t want to stay home with her. If she were being honest, a small part of her resented not being more dependent on the family, on her own mother.

Ma wishes she could hold on to her little girl forever, but she feels Luntha shiver against her and realises she has to let her go.

There is a festering coldness in the air.

Everything is getting wet.

The water is rising fast.

The roar of rain is everywhere.

“Don’t panic,” Ma says.

She drags Luntha out of bed, who didn’t realise how high the water is until she is in it. 

It reaches her chest and just above Ma’s waist. All Luntha can feel is the warmth from Ma’s grip despite the freezing cold, as Ma cuts through the water and leads her to the dining room. She stops abruptly in front of one of the cupboards that stores the teacups and plates reserved for important occasions.

Ma turns to face Luntha, placing her big hands on her daughter’s narrow shoulders. 

The water is rising, but Ma is without panic. 

“Luntha, listen to me.” Her voice is eerily calm. “You are going to be a doctor so you need to survive this.”

Ma hugs Luntha again. This time more quickly

“Come, let me give you a boost!” Ma instructs as she hoists Luntha up the cupboard. 

Ma tries to also get up, but the water weighs her down, making it harder for her.

“No matter what, hold on, okay,” she says. “You’re going to be a doctor and save a lot of lives, so you have to survive this.”

Luntha can barely hear her over the roaring water and rain.

Ma is still telling Luntha she needs to hold on when one of the walls collapses. She is still telling Luntha about the need to survive and become a doctor when a large gush of water sweeps her under and drags her through the collapsed wall, out the house.

Luntha opens her mouth, but another wave hits mid-scream. This one knocks over another wall and collapses the cupboard Luntha is on. It shatters the wood and all the special cups and plates that Ma loved. 

The current drags Luntha under and slams into her with so much velocity that she gasps and loses precious oxygen. She rectifies this and holds whatever little breath she has left. She reaches out for a piece of wood that is one of the cupboard’s broken doors and clings to it as hard as she can. The water pulls and thrashes her around, but she holds on just like Ma told her to. 

When she resurfaces, everything is submerged in water. 

Luntha panics because the water is still dragging her away from home. 

Home.

She looks around the foreign landscape and realises she has lost all bearings of where she is. 

If she wasn’t so tired, she would cry. She knows her mother has been taken away from her. She wonders what has become of the rest of her family. Could they survive this? Could they swim? Are they floating as well?

As she’s thinking this, she sees him. Despite the blinding rain and the poor illumination from the moon, she can tell it’s Mzeru. He is draped over a sofa and being carried by the water’s mercy just like her. 

Luntha’s heart elevates when she locks eyes with him. She shouts towards him. She asks him where their father and Khama are.

The water drowns out her screams, but Luntha doesn’t care because in that moment, Mzeru is alive.

*

Luntha always envied her brothers. Khama was a whole year older than Mzeru, but everybody called them the twins, with good reason. If you gave them a cursory glance, you’d think they were perfect clones. 

Given their proximity in age and that they were boys, they spent a lot more time together than they did with their kid sister, who was born five years after Mzeru.

They were tall, muscular and had beautiful dark skin that was both smooth and hardened. They were glorious and reflected the sun. They were like statues carved by the gods themselves, and the whole village thought them flawless.

What Khama and Mzeru lacked in academia, they made up for in quick-wittedness. They were clever and knew how to run the farm when our parents weren’t around. Everybody thought they were brilliant. 

So brilliant that even when they didn’t do well in their final exams, nobody cared. Not their parents, who were alright with their two sons switching between a small technical college and their duties on the farm. Not their neighbours, who knew they would inherit most of the farm anyway. Not themselves who enjoyed the burn of physical exertion more than the math problems that they said didn’t count in “real life.” 

Nobody cared except Luntha, who saw a chance to excel at something they couldn’t.

Luntha avoided them as much as they isolated her. No matter. Luntha wasn’t going to stay there forever anyway. She was going to make something of herself. And then she would show them all that she, too, could be brilliant. 

Luntha viewed her brothers with a bitterness that left an aftertaste in her mouth. The jealousy built like phlegm in her throat. She wanted to spit every time she saw them charming everyone else in the village. 

She would look at her brothers from the tree she read under when they went to swim by The River with the other youths from the village. Luntha never went.

“Would you like to come with us?” Mzeru had asked one day.

Khama snorted. “She would just drown. All she knows is her big words from her big books.”

Khama laughed, and the other kids joined him, making their way to The River. It’s only Mzeru who didn’t. Luntha felt his gaze on her as she clenched her fist - internally seething.

Mzeru placed a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a watery smile.

“If you ever want to learn, I can teach you.”

There was a softness to his voice when he said this. It was yet another olive branch. Over the years, Mzeru had extended his hand every time Khama had sneered at Luntha. Asking about her day, offering to teach her checkers, to teach her how to drive a tractor—offering anything and everything really. Luntha wanted to appreciate Mzeru’s peace offerings, but the pride and resentment brewing in the marrow of who she was stopped her. She didn’t want his pity.

“Swimming isn’t a very important skill, especially when I am away from this place.” She had spat, smacking his hand from her shoulder and walking away from him.

*

Luntha does not anticipate the next wave. She sees it hit Mzeru first before she, too, is pulled under again. The water wrecks into her body, but she holds on to the cupboard door with her life, Ma’s voice ringing into the crevice of her core. 

The door is made of light wood. It resurfaces, pulling her up with it. Luntha chokes out water when she emerges. Looking around, Luntha doesn’t see anything. She doesn’t see Mzeru.

The water has drowned out everything.

She drapes herself on the cupboard door that has miraculously kept her alive and shifts her eyes to the ever-pouring sky. She knows she should hold on tighter, but she is too tired; all the energy has drained from her. 

Luntha thinks bitterly of how she always spoke her volume about leaving her small pond of a village. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the water drags her away regardless of her feelings.

Something inside her breaks and starts to leak.

Luntha weeps as the raging rain assaults her skin, washing away any semblance of hope she had.

She weeps until she sleeps. And she sleeps until the rain subsides.

She comes through because she hears rotor blades. A man in uniform descends on a rope ladder and extends his hand to her. Luntha is so disoriented that she stares at him blankly. The man kisses his teeth and waves his hand at Luntha, beckoning her to take it. This time, she does, and she is yanked into the air as the helicopter rises and rises.

She looks down at what used to be her home and only sees broken pieces of what used to be people’s lives floating in the waters below.

*

The first few days at the camp, all it does is rain. It’s a gentle sort of rain, but the people––most likely leftover families––huddle together so that they don’t lose the little that is left of each other. Luntha has nobody, so she sleeps a lot. Sometimes she cries and only pretends to be asleep. 

On the first day Luntha is brought to the camp, she weaves through the other survivors, looking for papa, for ma, for Khama, for Mzeru, but she only sees the faces of complete strangers.

For the next two days, Luntha keeps her ear out for trucks and helicopters. When they come, she rouses from her shallow sleep and searches through the recently rescued people, only to feel her heart sink lower and lower.

By the fourth day, only relief items come, no more people. Luntha has never felt more alone. Some organisations come with clothes. She gets a blouse and skirt. She is so relieved to take off the clothes she has been wearing since that last night with her family. She folds them and brings them to her chest. They are the only things from her old life that she has left.

On the fifth day, there is a buzz around the camp. Big government officials, accompanied by journalists who swarm them like flies, come distributing cement, iron sheets and money. 

When they reach Luntha, they ask where her family is.

“I don’t think they survived,” she says. Her voice is more stoic than she expected. She hasn’t spoken in days.

They ask her age, and she tells them that she is sixteen. There are collective gasps and looks of pity. They ask her more questions and flash cameras, and shove microphones in her face. Luntha answers as best as she can, even though she just wishes she could go back to sleep.

One of the officials looks into a camera and says there is need for the government, organisations and well-wishers to intervene, especially in her case. 

“She is literally stranded with nowhere to go. If anything, she needs a house and a scholarship,” he talks passionately, but as though she isn’t even there. “There is no need to waste a bright mind like hers, especially in the midst of disaster.” 

The official shakes her hand and more pictures are taken. And then he and the rest of the entourage get back into their big cars and drive away.

Some people leave the camp after that, taking the cement and iron sheets to go and start trying to rebuild their lives.

On the seventh day, the sky gets dark once again, and Luntha plans to spend the day sleeping, but she hears the familiar rumble of trucks.

“I think it’s more people,” one of the people in the tent says.

Luntha rises when she hears this and gets out of the tent. Other people follow suit.

A light drizzle wets her skin. A slight panic settles in her bones because this will be the first time the rain has touched her since she was rescued. What if it sweeps her away again?

She wants to run back inside, but remains rooted where she is. 

When she sees people start boarding out of the trucks, a hope starts to well within all the cracks of her heart.

She watches as the first few people walk past her, recognising loved ones they thought they had lost. It’s gone from a drizzle to a shower. The drops wet her skin, but she can barely feel them because in that moment she recognises the familiar outline of her brother descending from one of the trucks. 

It’s only been a week, but he is less sturdy than she remembers. The certainty of him has been battered and tossed by the current.

Luntha breaks into a run, screaming for him. He looks up and holds her gaze. He relaxes when he too recognises her. He starts to walk towards her, but there is an agitation to his step. A slight rush. A relief.

The rain starts to pick up, but Luntha does not care. She also does not care that she is getting thoroughly soaked or that she is running towards the brother who only acknowledged her existence when it was to deliver a biting remark. She does not care because she is not aware of the loneliness that has consumed her for the past seven days, though it stretched through long before and long after the flood. She is only aware that Khama is alive.

When she falls into his arms, his embrace is tight. None of them says anything. They just hold each other as though they are afraid the other will slip through their fingers like water. 

Luntha starts to weep softly. Just like the sky.