Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

Twin

229 Twin A plant with spiky pods grows under the kitchen window. I kneel there. Inside Daniel is reading a recipe in French. My father is coming. He is coming home today. There are holes nothing fits into. I watch ants go in and out of a pineapple . They have made a tiny round entrance. When they come out, their bodies are shiny. I break off some pods and I go down to my hut. All this week I carved my twin out of a piece of wood. He is very small because he lives in hiding. He has a name but it is a secret name. I am careful never to say or even think it. When I sit in the hut which Michael built, which grows, it is like dreaming. There are stars in the sky which are diamonds. Diamonds fall on my skin. Skin is a snake curled like a pot. In the pot is the twin. Stars fall and become sand. Twin lies on sand. The snake ate food and fed the twin. Today the twin must eat its own. I break pods and lay them there. “Eat. Eat. Grow big.” I ate and starved my twin to death. I ate, I drank, I starved my twin. Diamonds are falling. My tears. I cry in the dark “Drink, 230 twin, drink.” I lift him, he drinks. “You killed me,” he roars and the stars go out in the dark. He is the angry one. “Eat,” I say, “eat.” I offer him pods. I lift them to his mouth. “Is it good? Is it good?” The sky is raining through the holes where the stars were, the stars are grey, they fall on my face, my hands. I bury my twin in his bed of sand. “Sleep. Sleep.” I sing, Brown skin girl, stay home and mind baby, Brown skin girl, stay home and mind baby, For I’m going away on a sailing ship And I don’t know when I’ll be back again, So brown skin girl, stay home and mind baby. When I step outside my eyes go black with the light. My shirt is wet. I look at my hands and they are red. I can’t stop looking at them. I hold them out in the rain. The rain can’t wash them clean. They’re not my hands. My bloody hands. That’s my father’s voice. This bloody business. This bloody war. My bloody hands. “Anna,” my father calls, “Anna, come and see what I’ve brought.” I can’t hide them. He will see. He will know. I walk toward the house. He is standing holding a knobby thing the size of a head, a small head. He takes a knife and splits it open. Inside it is yellow and stringy, small black seeds shine like opposite stars. “What did you do to your face?” says my mother. “Your hands.” My father is laughing. My father is a blind man. “Oh,” says my mother, “she found the henna plant.” “Wait till you look in the mirror,” he says. “You look like the original savage.” “It stains,” says my mother. “Women use henna to dye their hair, isn’t that right, darling? You dyed your face. Scrub all you like, it won’t come off for a while.” C y c l e 3 “Just as well it’s the school holidays. You’d never hear the end of it.” “Try this,” says my father. “It’s called custard apple.” He hands me a slice and I lift it to my mouth. Every time I eat I will see my red hands. “It’s good,” says my mother with her mouth full. “It doesn’t taste much like custard or apples but it’s good.” “Taste it,” says my father. It is sticky white and sweet on my tongue. “Where’s Richard?” my mother asks. “He’s taking a shower. It was a long, dirty trip. Hard to tell much even from the air, but the Red Cross man said conditions are terrible on the other side. The soldiers took what harvest there was. The villagers are starving. He doesn’t think they can last long.” “How dreadful.” “Yes, in a way. But you know, they can’t win, so the sooner they surrender, the less damage there’ll be. If only the bloody French don’t...