On August 5, in this column, we told the story of “Kalulu and the long night of the hyenas”. That story had many layers, like an onion. One of them is about a mango tree, and three boys who wanted to eat its fruit.
But first, two of Kalulu’s companions we didn’t introduce last time, because they were away visiting a neighbouring forest. There’s Rashidi the guinea fowl, a rumourmonger and conspiracy theorist. Half of what he says is nonsense. The trouble is, nobody knows which half is true.
And then there’s Kasuku, the African grey parrot, a philosopher: calm and a little aloof. Unlike other parrots, she never repeats anything. She speaks only when she has finished thinking.
So, back to the mango tree. The grandmothers said every animal’s ancestors had watered that tree, so whoever was hungry could take its fruit.
Then Chief Hyena threw out the old custom and declared that mango fruit was henceforth a matter of blood; only those with hyena spots could eat. Three boys wanted the fruit anyway, and two of them weren’t hyenas.
The first was Juma, the young antelope who refused to clap when Chief Hyena made the announcement. On that terrible night, the hyenas dug a hole and threw him in. Every now and then they lowered a rope.
“Go on, Juma. Nobody is stopping you,” one guard would say. Juma would climb out blinking in the sun, but he never reached the mango tree.
They beat him on the path and threw him back in the hole. Then they lied to the forest that he loved trouble. Juma went grey in that hole.
But whenever the rope came down, he climbed up. Rashidi said the hole had a secret tunnel. Kasuku did not even turn her head. “A door that opens only so they can beat you on the doorstep,” she said, “is still a wall.”
The second boy was Baraka the squirrel. Nobody put Baraka in a hole, and the hyenas boasted about it. Baraka was free: free to be beaten, free to be chased through the thorns, free to dodge arrows.
Twice he climbed the tree and came down with mangoes in his pockets. Twice the hyenas shook him until the mangoes fell out, then ate them in front of him.
Baraka could sing, and the young of every nest and lair in the forest sang his songs. That was what the hyena palace could not forgive. One night they chased him into the far forest. On quiet evenings you can still hear him, and mothers tell their children it is only a bird.
Rashidi swore Baraka had been seen eating mangoes with foreign elephants. Nobody believed him. Still, every animal repeated the story.
“You can chase away a singer,” Kasuku said, to no one in particular. “But the children already know the words.”
The third was Zuberi, Chief Hyena’s own son. For Zuberi there was a copper ladder. The palace built it, and his mother, aunts, and uncles held it steady for him.
When cleverer hyenas of the same clan came near, the guards chased them off. Kalulu asked Kasuku what it meant.
“A mango tree fenced for one tribe is soon fenced for one clan, then one family, and at last for one child,” Kasuku said. “Those who cheered when the antelope was shut out discover, too late, that the fence kept shrinking and they now stand outside it.”
Still, Zuberi kept slipping. His paws were too small for his big body, and whenever he got near the fruit, a wind came from nowhere and rattled the ladder. He clung on with his eyes shut, a frightened lad whom nobody had ever asked whether he even liked mangoes.
Behind the anthill, the same aunts and uncles who cheered him as he climbed were quietly teaching his cousins to climb, in case he fell badly. Zuberi heard the whispering. It did not steady his paws.
“That wind is sent by his own father, to test him,” said Rashidi.’A ladder held by many paws,” said Kasuku, “can be let go by any of them.”
One evening the animals gathered at the tortoise’s divination gourd. The tortoise shook it and spilt the seeds.
“Ask it who will eat the fruit,” said Kalulu.”The gourd says mangoes do not wait,” the tortoise said at last. “Fruit that is guarded and never shared falls by itself. Then the ants eat it, and ants have no tribe.”
Rashidi opened his beak to explain what the gourd really meant, then shut it. Kasuku said nothing, which frightened everyone more.
The animals looked from the far forest to the ladder, and from the ladder to the gourd, wondering who would finally get to the mango to eat it: the caged, the chased or the coddled, and none could say.