Words for the Lost Child

A story by MWENYA S. CHIKWA

Fikansa Talala

Fikansa Talala finished flicking dirt out of blistered fingertips. He started peeling dry skin off calloused hands as he leaned against the ancient gnarled tree he had watched die, branch by branch, over the years, in the middle of his father’s farmland. The sores and scars were a good badge of honour he could hold up to Chishala, his elder brother, if he dared question his strength again–– especially after coordinating such a good maize harvest.

He should have been happy. The hard work was done, and the rewards were being handed out. The munkoyo smelled ripe, and his mother handed it to him with pride again, as she used to before he transgressed and forced her to take in a very pregnant Lupupa as a new daughter. 

There were both fifteen.

It had been four years since then, and their gift to her, Mapalo, was now old enough to accompany them in the fields. The little girl, tall as musanse, was a reflection of him.

Lupupa sat with Fikansa’s three sisters, a few metres away, next to akateba, sieving the beaten maize that had skewed wide of the dug hole and mixed with the sand when he was beating the maize with a heavy stick. The sisters were laughing, but Lupupa wore a thin smile, empty of joy. It hurt to see the expression grow natural on her face since her arrival at the house. He didn’t need to hear what his sisters were saying to know what had brought it on. They were his mother’s daughters, after all, and though the woman never lashed her children with the stick, she had crafted a mastery in brutal double-speak that left one humiliated. Her children were no different.

This couldn’t be allowed to go on. He and Lupupa had to leave and make their own home, and it was on him to make sure his woman didn’t become public ground for everyone to spit on. Without money and a place to go, he had but one option. His uncle had made him an offer to send him out of the village of Mapalaga to the city for skills training. And with how rare opportunities had become mwa KK, one had to take their chances swiftly. But if he went, he would be gone for years before he could ever return.

“Look at her,” His mother interrupted his thoughts, eyes on Chikondi. “Always smiling. At least she’s growing thick and healthy on my food. It would be nice if she did the same for my granddaughter.”

He made his choice then and told Lupupa later that night, sitting around a dying fire after everyone had gone to sleep. 

She didn’t like it.

“Calm yourself,” he shushed. She was always a difficult girl, clinging to him like he was a lifesaving branch. “I’m not a tree. I’ve legs and hands, and if I don’t use them, we’re both stuck here with nothing but ridicule.”

“Let them talk,” she whined, holding their sleeping daughter tight. “At least we’ll be together.”

“Where? In my father’s house? In that small room, forever?” He sucked his teeth. “Use your head sometimes, naiwe. Besides, don’t forget I have to pay your ransom or your father will take our child.”

Lupupa rolled her eyes. “I never knew your daughter and I were such burdens.”

He sighed. Tired. “Everything I do is for you two. I’ll return for you when everything is settled.”

Lupupa reluctantly agreed to be sent back to her father’s home after making him promise three times that he would return. Fikanse thought she would be better off staying with people who truly loved her than remaining with his family.

*

True to his word, he did return home to Maplanga. A plan made for five years, he did in four, all the while making sure to write back and send most of the money he made during that time. It was heroic––the stuff of legends, and like all legends, it was all fiction made in one’s head. When he arrived, no one was waiting for him. Both Lupupa and Mapalo were long gone.

A twist he found unamusing on a surprise visit to her father’s house as soon as he arrived in the village. Excited as the full moon above, he still had his rucksack full of clothes and a bag full of gifts ready for his welcome. He was received with a chorus of insults and threats of a sharp panga to the neck upon asking to see his two guiding lights through his years of drudgery. 

Confused and angry, he sent the old man to the hospital, believing his words a plan to extort money he had already paid. It landed him in jail, but not before visiting his “trusted” uncle, who he found living in a brand new house made out of his diverted financial sacrifices. The man didn’t even bother trying to lie; in his head, it was all fair tax for giving Fikansa the opportunity to earn the money. Fikansa sent the fool to the same ward as Lupupa’s father. A lucky man, his uncle, Fikansa, had intended to send him to his final sleep.

“Release me.” He shouted at the short constable, who he had almost choked to death upon his apprehension. “I’m the wronged party in this situation––”

The short constable’s “helper” standing by his cell tried to thump him with a baton and almost lost his right arm. Lucky for the young man, his five friends acted quickly and lashed Fikansa senseless before he could put his full weight into the act.

“You’ll die in a cell for this.” The constable vowed as Fikansa passed out.

He wouldn’t mind such a fate right now. His sole reason for living through four gruelling years on the Copperbelt province was gone.

He awoke to his mother’s visit. She said nothing and simply gave him a warmer filled with nshima and a small pot of boiled cassava leaves. The food’s usual sweat aroma melded stale with the cell’s horrid stench.

He refused her meal. “So, Mayo. You watched your brother eat insalamu and did nothing. Did he give some to you too?”

The woman sucked her teeth, closed the warmer, and took back the food.

“The hyena whose tail’s on fire achieves nothing by chasing it––” A deep, dry cough took the sting out of the insult. “––best to jump into the water.”

“The waters are infested with crocodiles.” He shot up too quickly from the floor and fell back just as fast. 

“The waters have always held dangerous things.” She continued. “You knew the kind of man your uncle was, yet you trusted him to be your middleman.”

He had nothing to say to that but hot, short breaths.

“A plan for three you made alone––” She sighed, too exhausted to finish the lesson.

“Mayo––my daughter.” He cried, pathetic and without pause. “My wife––I promised.”

*

Fikansa soon learned that life was all about failed promises, as the short constable’s hatred and duty gave way to ten 50 kg bags of maize and seven goats. This was a family matter, his thieving uncle proclaimed as soon as he came out of the hospital. Lupupa’s father wasn’t as easy. He wanted blood and a long-term jail sentence for his lost runaway child and Fikansa’s “unprovoked” assault. To even consider dropping the charges, fertile farmland would have to be put up as restitution. Fikansa was preparing for a transfer to the main jail in Luwingu, sure no one would be foolish enough to give up land for his stupidity, when the constable released him. And just like that, his father lost farmland that had been passed down long before David Livingstone was a foetus across the ocean.

At the resulting family meeting, his elder brother, Chishala, looked vindicated in his drunken stupor.

“All you bring is despair and ruin.”

Fikansa’s mother took the drunkard away before he was forced to act, but the fool’s words lingered in his mind. Lupupa had had many suitors, decades older, wiser, and more prosperous, a woman of high bar, and he turned her into a beggar. His father had been a great man with enough fertile farmland to leave to five descending generations. Now, he was simply an invalid with two swollen legs, watching as all his hard work amounted to nothing.

Such thoughts put him in a bad mood for the meeting. It got worse once the “discussions” started. Behind the false solemn faces of his father’s brothers, he sensed twisted jubilation in seeing their elder brother’s household fall.

He wanted to shout and kick out the vultures, but that would only add to their condescending judgement masquerading as care. So, for once, he took his father’s lead and boiled in silent stoicism.

The meeting passed. It solved nothing as expected. His daughter and wife-to-be were still gone, and he was forced to apologise to the pilfering fool responsible for their flight to appease uncaring watchers.

Late in the night, when he could not find sleep, he shared a cask of Katubi with his youngest sister. The alcohol put him in a pondering mood, sitting in the same spot where he had promised Lupupa a home. He felt alone in his soul, staring into an empty cup.

“So, what’s the plan, Mr big city conqueror?” His sister asked.

“I’ll find them. If I have to see a medicine man, so be it. I’ll get them back.”

She let out a cruel laugh. “This is what Chishala means––all you care about is yourself.”

He was too drunk to be shocked.

“You come home,” she said. “Embarrass the family throughout the area, lose your father’s land, force your struggling siblings to sell their property to pay for your freedom. And instead of trying to pay us back, you rush to chase invisible droppings.”

“I’ll accept such insults since you’re my favourite sister.” He pointed an unsteady finger at her judging face. “They’re my family.”

“So are we, and we can barely breathe.” 

That came as news.

“Father will never tell you, nor will Chishala––do you even know he’s keeping Mwaba and her children after her husband ran away to the city with all the harvest money.”

“I told her not marry tha––”

“Of course.” She rose, his opinion declared irrelevant. She got halfway to the house and stopped. “Mufulira. That’s where your woman ran to. I asked around after she disappeared with my niece.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wouldn’t even have known where to send the letter.” She said.

Her look of betrayal sobered him a little.

“Did you even ever think about us?”

He had no answer.

*

Despair and ruin, the thought was sharp on his mind when he arrived in Kitwe. As a bus to Mufulira awaited, another to Kalulushi reminded him of his job and his family back in Mapulanga. A boiler maker working for a mining company eager to retrench could only take so many leave days. The world was starting to seem as if all it held for him were bad surprises.

He lingered in limbo for ten minutes, stuck between two choices.

Mapalo Eternal Talala, he mouthed his daughter’s full name. The eternal gift he had named her. Lupupa. His beating heart. Please hold on a little longer. I just need to pay these few debts.

*

That promise would send him searching through three cities, twelve towns, eighteen villages, across five provinces, over the span of eleven years, all those thin threads leading him to a T-junction ten minutes away from Kalomo. He was broken, tired, and almost as empty as the fuel tank in his car.

He parked for the night, ready to fall into despair, when he came across a limp, bloody figure lying on the ground.

The unknown man looked dead, reflecting Fikansa’s soul, and then, without warning, the man coughed awake.

Fikansa came alive, acting on his instincts, and raced the stranger to the hospital.

“Just hang on, bosses,” he kept whispering as he drove into the infinite darkness, not sure the fuel would be enough to reach their destination. “We’ll make it,” he said, remembering the man’s marked but empty ring finger. “For the people depending on us, we have to.”

Lupupa Mutima

Lupupa Mutima-Mwape received the call two hours past midnight. She had been too worried to sleep, and the caller’s news justified her worry. Her husband was in the hospital, and from the caller’s heavy sobs, his condition was dire.

She prepared herself for the worst, informed the children where she was going, and walked to the main road. It was still dark when she arrived, and it would be another hour before the semi-open trucks travelling to town would begin to pass, but she didn’t mind the chilling silence. It distracted from her roving thoughts, grasping at past pains, crying to God, asking why. Hadn’t she suffered enough?

The memory of her younger self, returning from a month-long stint in the hospital to find her four-year-old daughter swollen and limp, flashed in her mind. Her mother was screaming at her for being a drain on her tight resources, and her father couldn’t say anything to protect her. She had written to the father of her child, asking for anything, and gave the letter to the only man who knew his whereabouts, his uncle. Months had passed without any response. The rat poison they used as a pesticide smelled enticing that day––

Anyway, that was more than thirteen years ago. She had made it out all on her own and never looked back. She would make it out of this new pain, too, if she had to.

She bit hard into her wrist to stifle a body-wrenching cry, a most reliable trick from too many years of survival.

*

The five-hour drive to Kalomo passed by in a slow, dazed flash. It was as if Lupupa blinked and she was in the hospital, listening to her sister-in-law, Chipo, explain what had happened to her husband, while at the same time, her mind still remained stuck in the car driving an infinite bumpy road to some far-off destination. All she heard was he had been beaten bloody and robbed. A good Samaritan had found him and drove him to the hospital. He was still in the operating theatre.

Her sister-in-law suggested they pray, but Lupupa had already prayed before Chipo’s call. She wanted to believe her God had answered through this good Samaritan and wanted to thank him before whatever came next gave reason for her to forsake manners.

She heard the toilet flush as soon as she entered her husband’s designated private room. She stood firmer in her step, trying her best false put-together look. The door clicked open, and in walked the Samaritan wearing the face of a devil long thought buried.

“Lupupa, this is the man who brought in Bashi Mwape,” said Chipo. “Mr Fikansa Talala.”

Lupupa saw the shocked recognition in his eyes, but there was no shame. Why did she expect it in a man who had abandoned his own daughter? 

Of all the people in the world. Was this another test from God? No, this could only be the devil and his vile, petty hard workers at play.

They stared at each other so long that she saw Chipo notice.

She broke the long silence that was building up to explode. “Thank you for helping my husband, Mr Talala.” She pointed to the door, showing him where he belonged. “I wouldn’t dare waste any more of your time.”

His red-rimmed eyes went cold and darkened at her words.

She instinctively stepped back, reacting to a childish fear. The fool stared at her with a condescending glare, disgusted. He looked offended by the silent accusation and moved to stand next to the single open window in the room.

“No bother.” He watched the admitted children playing on the hospital lawn outside. “I only did what any sane person would.” 

“The will of God must truly be great to inspire such action.” She spat the words out like venom and further poisoned the room’s volatile atmosphere.

“I don’t believe in fantasies.” He said, his tone low, exhausted. “The only wills at work here are mine and your––husband.”

Chipo looked caught in the middle, silent, unsure of what to do or say. She looked at them both, then settled her eyes on Lupupa. A question that Lupupa would never answer flashed in her eyes. Before she could ask it, the nurses wheeled Lupupa’s heavily bandaged and unconscious husband into the room on a bed.

She didn’t scream at the unrecognisable figure, nor did she tell them they had the wrong room, even though she thought so. She just let the tears fall as she walked over to the bed, looming over him, helpless to do much but whisper prayers.

*

“What do you want here, Fikansa?” Lupupa said as soon as her husband’s sister left the room. “If it’s money for saving my husband––”

“I’ll forgive that since––” Fikansa’s eyes glanced at her husband’s faintly rising chest. “What you do with yourself is up to you, Lupupa. But now that I’ve found you, I need you to tell me where you took my daughter.”

“What daughter?” She screamed, going against her best instincts. “Last I checked, you abandoned her and never paid a coin of support.”

“I left for a reason.” He sounded defensive, almost guilty. “You took her, left me. If you had waited––”

“Shame on you!” She refused his pathetic spin of the facts. “You would have starved us with false promises––” She sighed, disappointed in her rage over something she believed long dead. “Just disappear now as you did then. No one needs you here. All you bring is chaos.”

That shut him up. He rose to his feet and, for a moment, made her believe, for once, he would obey her wishes, but he did not leave. He paced back to the window and sat on the sill, his eyes suddenly glistening soft with yearning. She couldn’t look at them.

“I sent the money.” He said. “Everything you asked for, I sent. I even raised the money for the ransom your father pinned on our daughter––”

More lies.

“––but my uncle––”

“I don’t care.” And that was the truth. “Just leave.”

“That I can’t do.”

There was a jug of water atop the cabinet close by. Her hand didn’t ask her brain about it until it was already flying at the devil’s head and spilling water all over the floor. Sadly, the jug was made of plastic, and the fiend survived.

Three hospital staff members heard the crushing noise and rushed in before he could react. Their looks held agitated confusion as they moved to stand between the two.

“Take that man out of here!” She ordered. She saw violence flash in Fikansa’s eyes as the nurses approached. He looked ready to punch his way through them to reach her, but he must have thought better of the idea. “And don’t allow him back in.”

“I will be outside, woman.” He pointed an angry, quivering finger. “I’m not leaving here without talking to Mapalo.”

“Ah, rubbish,” She swatted away his nonsense rumblings. “I’ll never let you anywhere near. I’m calling the police––”

“Mum.” The soft, familiar voice cut through the room’s chaos sharper than a razor blade through the wrist.

All focus shifted to the young woman who had just entered the room.

How did you get here? A million other thoughts along the same line flooded Lupupa’s mind. Her eyes met her daughters’ and mimicked them when they turned to look at the man she resembled still.

“No––” Lupupa begged, but it had already been done.

Mapalo Eternal Mutima Talala

Mapalo Eternal Talala, that was her name. Even when her mother insisted on registering her simply as Mapalo Mutima at every school she went to, she remembered the answer that always brought a smile to her father’s face.

“Who are you?” He would ask, lifting her high as her mother walked beside him, chuckling.

Mapalo would almost bite her tongue to answer. “Mapalo Eternal Talala.”

Mapalo remembered those times often when she was watching her mother clean floors, wash endless bundles of clothes, and, at the end of each task, receive backhanded advice from relatives. In the night as they slept on a chitenge cushioned reed mat, she would whisper and ask about her father. Even though the darkness masked her mother’s face, she would always sense an abrupt shift in her mood.

He was dead.

Of course, her mother didn’t know what the aunties used to say to Mapalo when she wasn’t around.

Her father was alive. He just didn’t want her.

Then she would pick up a book and read it effortlessly, and the teachers would beam to embarrass her with compliments. They would ask who had taught her to read, and the answer would bring up memories that challenged the aunties’ callous words.

She would ask her mother again with the new evidence, and the woman would simply go silent and keep doing her work. Sometimes she would forget this and ask again, spurred on by some new hurt or joy in her life, but the answer never came. The responses to her question only incited strain between them. Eventually, she learned not to ask.

Despite the resolution, the question lingered and burnt her heart hot every time they moved, which was as constant as the changing months. In the end, each promise of a new safe heaven always revealed itself to be an old hell with new trappings upon arrival. 

The grade seven exam year epitomised her volatile existence then, forcing her to introduce herself five times as a new student.

“Mapalo Eternal Talala.” 

“Mapalo Eternal Talala.”

“Mapalo Eternal Talala.”

“Mapalo Eternal Talala.”

“Mapalo Eternal Talala.”

She said it so many times it wore out its essence and became just simple sounds. It was then she began playing with the sounds, at first to entertain herself, then inevitably, as all things one finds enjoyable, to impress others. When that ran out of joy, and she felt her audience lose interest, she gave the sounds new backstories. Stories that would excite the mind more easily than saying, “My father doesn’t care.”

The result of that long story came up swiftly, leaving her with the short end of the stick. 

She didn’t like to think about those times. 

Schoolchildren can be so mean.

In secondary school, she went by the sound Eternal. It didn’t get much applause from the ever-changing crowd, but at least it earned a flicker of attention that Mapalo didn’t get, and in that moment, those few seconds were a joy she refused to let go. Her mother was gone and had left her in the care of revolving relatives’ homes. The only time someone ever looked at her was to demand some task without care for her wellbeing.

“Be a good girl.” Her mother would say. “Don’t make your aunts and uncles angry.”

She tried, but it was always one accusation after the other. And in homes full of thieves, liars, and cheats, she found no pillar of support. 

Alone, brittle, and cold, she felt akin to a wrinkled tree struck by lightning, awaiting burning into firewood from a reluctant burner. At least then, she would be of worth.

It never came, and the homes kept changing.

Those were eventful times, characterised by musing of an overworked teenage pariah. Comfort was thin as a cushion left to soak in the rain, fit to hold nothing but rats. To keep sane, she had to regularly remind herself that her second parental severing had come with reason. Her mother was going to nursing school, she would return.

Right?

The answer always fluctuated until her mother came to visit. The whiplash in the inconsistent sequence brought on a rigid discomfort that dogged her every step. During the worst of it, she wrote a letter to her father. A week later, she heard it read on national radio. It contained her story, details, and current address.

She waited.

A year later, on one of her mother’s visits, while she was living in Mpika under the care of a strict old woman whose relation to her couldn’t be traced in a hundred pages, the two took a long walk. The cool air under the eucalyptus trees that surrounded a small teaching college brought on a quiet peace.

“How long?” She asked, feeling her heart settling too comfortably in her mother’s presence. Experience had taught her to treat this common joy with caution.

The question had no answer.

She cried herself to sleep most nights, dreading waking up one day to find her mother gone again. She blamed it on her father for leaving, despised her mother for choosing him then leaving her with strangers, and worse, for returning and acting like everything was normal. She wasn’t kind to her mother during those years, always turning everything between them into a fight that needed mitigating by the old woman.

“You should leave and go back where you came from––no one wants you here.” Mapalo would always say, never meaning it, but curious to see if her mother would.

Eventually, her mother came and stayed, and in time, exhaustion and crusted tears brought acceptance.

Lupupa Mutima loved her, and it would take something beyond perpetual hell to make her leave. It was not the answer she wanted, as it required empathy for her mother’s missed years, but her mother had a choice, and unlike her father, she had chosen to return to her. That could not be erased by anger, and it fed her a quiet strength.

They soon moved south for her mother’s new job.

“Name?” The grade twelve teacher asked. It was for her final exam registration.

“Eternal––”

“Your real name.” The woman was fiercely anti-colonial.

She thought about lying, but it required too much effort; they were only sounds. “Mapalo.”

“Now that’s a name.” She wrote it down with verve. “You’re a gift and a blessing. A meaning you can actually decipher without asking some ancient tome. Not these adopted foreign names ati Michael.”

“It’s just a name, madam,” she said.

“Not to the one that named you. From an infinite combination of letters, they chose Mapalo. They wanted everyone who called upon your name to know.”

Mapalo rolled her eyes.

“Scoff now, Ms Eternal blessing,” The woman smiled, wearing a naughty smile. “But when your time comes to name––”

Her words faded into a wave of laughter. School was about to end, everyone was in a good mood, and Mapalo was just trying to make sure she didn’t have to return. She laughed, indulging the woman’s wish.

“The names are, Mapalo Eternal Talala.” Although she said it, the name didn’t sit right anymore. A part of her felt the name no longer encompassed who she had become. “No. It’s Mapalo Eternal Mutima Talala.”

“Now that’s a name with a story.”

“I wouldn’t know much about it.”

*

Mapalo met the man who could tell the story two years later when she rushed to visit her younger siblings’ father in the hospital. He was drenched from head to toe and looked as she would if she were a man in her mid-thirties.

Her mother had stopped screaming, and the hospital staff looked at her with blank stares, sharing her confusion.

The man moved towards her.

“Stay back.” She stepped back and put one hand up in shaky defence.

“Mapalo––Eternal, it’s me.” He approached again, more cautious, tears streaming down his beaming face. “Mwana wandi, tau njishibe?” 

She did. His image had a reserved place in her mind, intersecting deep cracks that collapsed instantly upon his sight.

She froze.

He kept talking, but she couldn’t hear him. The words were empty and came too late to negate the wall she had built to survive his absence. The pain in his eyes, though, was a familiar thing she knew well from years of staring in the mirror. She couldn’t deny the truth in it without dismissing her own experience, but––

Her lips moved. Nothing came out but a breaking sound. 

“I looked for so long.” He came closer. “Everywhere I went. You and your mother had left.” 

Lies. She willed her lips to obey. “Nooo.” She pushed him away, instinct telling her not to believe the cheap words that intended to erase her pain into common tragedy. “Leave! No one wants you here, go back where you came from.”

“Mapalo––”

“Leave. I don’t have a father.”

He shook his head.

A dozen more staffers entered and grabbed the man. He fought, mad as a thrashing crocodile. He took punches, brooms, and bangs against the wall. Still, he refused to budge, throughout the entire punishment, his eyes stayed on her. Calm.

“I won’t leave you again.” He kept repeating. “They will have to kill me.”

Mapalo thought she would enjoy seeing her pain exacted on the person responsible, but all she felt was more pain that spiked when saw the hospital security rushing up the hall, batons out, intending to answer the man’s wish.

She couldn’t bear to see it.

“Please,” she begged. “Just leave.”

His eyes flicked a moment as if looking for confirmation. In an instant, he gave in. For her sake, it seemed.

She watched him dragged out. Her unanswered questions burned hotter than ever before, their rawness renewed. Without needing to speak, her mother embraced her.

Yes, ours is the only story that matters.

Except her new self couldn’t accept that so easily anymore.

*

It took Mapalo four weeks to admit that truth. She talked to her mother as soon as her stepfather recovered. She looked betrayed at the request, but she eventually gave in. This wasn’t about her; she had already found her resolution; Mapalo needed her own. 

She didn’t have to write a letter this time, the man had left his number.

They met outside the hospital gates and took a long quiet walk. When her heart settled enough to handle it, she asked the question.

“I should have listened to your mother,” Mr Talala echoed the pointless wish from her youth. “Things would’ve been different.” 

“I still need to know why.” Mapalo insisted. “You gave me my name. I need to know its full story. I don’t want to walk around feeling it’s just a set of empty sounds.”

“Mapalo was your great-grandmother’s name,” He began after a long pause, he held up a finger, calling for patience. “You were my blessing. I wanted that blessing to remain forever––eternal.” His lips twisted into a sad smile. “A false wish in the end––”

“I’m still here.” She said, words her younger self would have liked to hear.