Free Dust Devils by Roger Smith Page A

sending back the sun like signal mirrors.

 
    Sunday was late. Running across the veld toward the cultural village, her tennis shoes slapping the hard pathway, the betrothal beads rattling in her bag like a curse. She ducked into the gate, under a pair of crossed elephant tusks and a sun-bleached sign written in English. Passed a small bus, red with dust, the driver sitting behind the wheel reading a newspaper. A handful of sweating white people flicked through postcards in the shade of a reed gazebo. She saw Richard, in his skins and plumage, his fat belly leading him toward her.
    Sunday sank to her knees. "I'm sorry, father. The taxi was late."
    "Stand, daughter, stand." She got to her feet and risked a glance up at him. He had never called her that before, used the term of respect. "Is it true that you are to marry Induna Mazibuko this weekend?" Respect and something else in his voice. Fear.
    She nodded. "Yes, father."
    "Then it is not fitting for you to do the maiden's dance. You will demonstrate the loom weaving and help with the beer ceremony. And make sure you wear your betrothal beads, do you hear me?"
    "Yes, father." She bobbed and turned and hurried away to change.
    How the word induna had flowed off Richard's tongue. Headman. Advisor to the chief. A man feared in these parts. She knew the old man by another name. Inja. Dog. That suited him far better. Like one of those scavenging mongrels down in Bhambatha's Rock, blue tongues panting, skinny ribs poking through mangy fur. The thought of his hands on her body made her want to vomit.
    Then she saw something that cheered her. The small car belonging to Sipho, the AIDS educator from Durban was parked in the shadow of the bus. There was no sign of Sipho, but she knew he would be in the vicinity, handing out the English papers nobody here could read.
    Sunday sleepwalked her way through the next hour. Sat on a grass mat, her breasts covered by a bib of skin, as befitted a betrothed woman. The beads clutching at her throat. She weaved cloth on a wooden loom as the whites took their photos, her fingers moving automatically, braiding the colored strands, her mind far away.
    Later she helped to serve traditional gourds of beer to the tourists. The men and women sitting in separate groups, according to custom. The women pretended to sip, grimacing. The men drank the beer and smacked their lips as if they were enjoying it, but looked as if they wanted to spit it out. Richard, as always, threw back a full gourd of the mud colored liquid, patted his belly and burped, flashbulbs exploding as the tourists captured him to take home with them to whatever country made these pink people.
    Sunday changed into her day clothes, stuffed the beads in the bag and hurried out to the car park. Sipho sat beside his car, beneath a tree, writing in a book. It was hard to believe he had the sickness. He seemed so young and healthy and his eyes shone when he looked up at her, smiling.
    "How are you, Sunday?" He stood, pocketing the notebook.
    She gave him a shy smile. "I am well, thank you."
    "Are you going to the road?"
    She nodded and he opened the car door for her. "Let me give you a ride."
    Sunday hesitated. It wasn't proper for a betrothed woman to be with a man unchaperoned, but when she saw nobody was watching she ducked into the car. Sipho closed the door and came around and got behind the wheel.
    When he tried to start the car it made a sound like a sick animal. Then the engine caught and he laughed. "One day I'll have something better."
    They bumped out onto the sand track that led to the main road where she would find her taxi. This was the third time Sunday had driven in a car. She knew minibus taxis, of course, but only twice before, on church trips, had she been squeezed into the rear seats of old cars, the flesh of the aunties at her side overflowing onto her like brown jelly. To sit up front, alone with a man, was a new experience for her.
    "I hear you are to be married this