The marketplace was crowded.  It had been this way since we arrived two weeks ago;  perhaps because Zomba market was renowned as the best in the country...but no, today was different, the air was agitated, pulsing, almost suffocating.  Becce and I crossed through the gate and at once were overwhelmed by the cloying stench of long dead fish drying in the sun.  Someone had just brought in a new load from the lake and the men were busy throwing them into piles:  chambo, kampango, tiny bite size ones and split flat fish we didn’t know the names of yet.  One of the fish sellers called out to us, “Ma-dam, please come buy my beautiful fish, a bargain, beautiful fish ma-dam.”  He picked them up, turning them over and over, slapping them on their creamy bellies so the scales flew off in silvery showers; as they sifted down along the spindly brown legs of the seller, the sun caught their somersaulting in flashes of tiny light before they settled with the rest of the dirt swirling around countless barefeet.  We retreated, to try to find what we had come here for, but as we squeezed through the crowd other sellers slipped their wares in front of our faces - mangoes nearly dripping sticky juice as they dropped into our hands, fat shiny cucumbers, tear-drop ripe papayas, avocados the size of  hand grenades, and pineapples that we smelled from yards away.  Women were laughing, their pink tongues flying between cracked lips, while the babies wrapped tightly to their backs were sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the wild gesticulations of their mothers, and the din of the market around them.

            A surge of people pushed in on us and I got separated from Becce.  I stood still, trying to relax until the crush subsided.  I realized then too that the banging of the tinsmith was ringing in my ears.  He was smashing his hammer onto the side of a half-finished bucket trying to smooth out the kinks; beads of sweat gathered on his forehead until a few dropped onto the bucket, dulling for a moment the screech of the two metals grinding together.  I was getting claustrophobic.  I thought I saw Becce across the market, by the bottle seller, so I moved to make my way to her, but something caught my eye.  I turned to see a woman walking towards me.  She was unruffled by the commotion, walking resolutely, in a straight line towards me.  Her eyes were so clear, but empty.  No, not empty, just far away, very far away.  I stared at her, at the landscape approaching me in her eyes, but she brushed right by me without stopping.  I followed her, but stopped by the edge of the maize stand as she approached the other “tomato ladies.”  She moved a little beyond the group and laid her basket down slowly, almost reluctantly, as if setting down this burden was like relinquishing a part of herself.  This basket of tomatoes was a part of herself, the many hours and days spent tending and weeding and waiting for the rain to come.  Now, the red blush of these fruits must certainly attract buyers to her, like lovers drawn to the freshly painted full lips of the one they desire.

            She stayed bent over her treasures for a long time, just staring at them, gripping tightly to the sides of the basket.  Then suddenly she snatched one from the bunch, turning it over and over again - then another one, and another one until satisfied that they were still ripe and plump, she let go of her panic.  Her blouse clung to her back, the tiny flowers of the pattern drowned in the salty sweat.  As she stood up she pulled the cotton from her skin to let the cool air pass through.  She paused, leaning back over the hand resting on her waist; her head slipped back so I could see her eyes flutter then close for a moment, her lips moved imperceptibly forming words unrecognizable, unheard.  But then as if this reverie would trap her somehow, she shuddered and straightened.  She gave a furtive glance around to see if any of the other women had seen her, lost in this indulgence, but they hadn’t.  She tugged the folds of her chitenje loose to tighten them again around her waist.  She wrapped it once, but it wasn't tight enough.  She kept wrestling with it, not quite getting it the way she wanted it; each time the birds on the material quivered on their branches as she swirled it around, waiting for their chance to finally alight in peace.

            I left her there.  I left my sister there, and walked up toward Zomba Mountain.  I walked past the Indian stores where tailors sat on the khondes pumping rivers of lush material through their machines, past the Gymkhana Club and the perfect white stripes on the tennis court, past the women laying out a colored puzzle of dripping clothes on the rocks, past the sprawling colonial mansions that were once Britain’s glory, until I came to the tall grass;  the tall green grass, that had finally come with the rain.  I didn’t look for the path, I had no patience left.  I walked into it, into the smell of it, into the length of it, into the silence of the swishing blades.

The winds are stirring again this morning.

            I heard them coming before I opened my eyes.  I lay waiting.  The sunlight washed across my eyelids illuminating the transparent maze of roads I knew the winds had taken to get to me.  They’d broken loose as the sun rose over Phalombe and raced across the plain, winding playfully around maize stalks as though waltzing with golden voluptuous women - then pulling them to the ground in a fervor, they released their captives, sending showers of pollen into the air, the aftermath of a brief love.  I saw them pour on, sparing nothing in their path, leaving footprints of red-clay dust clouds obscuring the land, the huts, still asleep before dawn.  Only the women returning from the hills with their head-loads of wood could feel the insistence of these hot-season winds wrapping around their hips.

            And now the winds are here, calling me from the acacia rustling outside the window.  They don’t wait for my reply, just slide through the slats, brushing aside the curtain.  Naked winds dancing around in this tiny room pressing up against me, stroking my body through the sheets then fleeing as I turn to respond.  I shudder from this fever withdrawing from me, my eyes are growing hotter and the roads are burning, leaving me alone with these winds pursuing me; every day now I’m waiting for the rains to release me.

            But when will they come, I ask the boy, Kunjerika.  And Kunjerika tells me, “Tomorrow, Ma-dam, tomorrow, I know they will come - don’t worry Ma-dam, and when they come you will remember what this world looked like the very first day it was born; the grass will grow as quickly as children, the papayas will drop off the trees just as many as the raindrops, and when you walk the path to Mulunguzi the jacarandas will spill their red, purple, white blossoms on your head.”

and I thought...yes, Kunjerika, I will remember.  I will remember.

•••

            It was a brilliant day, a blinding day, when we arrived.  The plane circled Lilongwe airport several times before landing, an oversized African vulture waiting to swoop in for its prey.  I looked out the window at the National Geographic Special we were about to enter and saw lots of tiny black faces following our movements from the lookout deck on the building below.  I found out later that this pilgrimage happened almost every day; adults and children alike came to find out what the metal bird had to bring them that day - a promise or a burden.  We approached each other that day in mutual awe, and disbelief.

            As I stepped off onto the runway the air closed in on me, heavy, sweet; the heat filtering in my nostrils brought with it the smell of many flowers, overripe fruit, sweat - dark, moist, perpetual sweat.  I drank of the heavy sweetness, the heat, as I swallowed and walked on towards the cool refuge of the concrete building ahead.

            Lucy and Mr. Nkwela met us after customs.  She was a big woman, from the Home Economics Department at Chancellor College, and he was a “driver.”  They had a white Peugeot station wagon with cabbages in the back.  Lucy apologized - the cabbages were cheaper in Lilongwe.  She couldn’t come this far north very often, so she was taking back as many as she could.  We didn’t care, we’d finally made it.  Our bags were thrown in with the cabbages as we settled into the burning leather seats for the last leg of our journey.

            I remember that ride so vividly still - my mother, sister, and I stretched out in our exhaustion, no longer shackled to our ten-ton bags.  We’d walked like inmates for days, dragging our “worldly” possessions along the ground, tripping as they wound around our legs.  I’d begun to dread every move we made.  The distance from the hotel to the taxi stand to the check-in line at the airport seemed interminable, unbearable.  In my delirium I couldn’t even imagine why we thought we needed all of it - the clothes, the shoes, sheets, and towels, and pots, and hair dryer, and coffee pot.  It was staggering.  I just wanted to get there.  And now we were here, our escape accomplished.  We were floating along, in a car, with a breeze washing over our aches and everything new streaming in the windows - no fear, no resistance, just silvery hills and dust, and red earth churning along with huts and women and children with no clothes on and colors of wraps around every woman and the one road in the whole country that was leading us to our home.  For hours we rode in this mesmerizing movie scene of childish wonder, letting our senses absorb anything this new land had to offer. 

            In the evening I saw the first signs of “civilization:”  A row of street lights cutting through the blackness at the outskirts of the town of Zomba.  They were such perfect, uniform spheres of light compared to the tiny fires we’d seen flashing up along the roadside on our way.  As we glided into this runway of fluorescent beacons, in our white chariot, I thought it somehow strange that this was the beginning of our life in Africa.