Chapter 8
The following day, Luyanda and Jabu had two free hours in the afternoon and were both scheduled for another shift in the museum warehouse. They found Amina, Yisa and Nomsa there already. They joined them, and worked away in silence, wanting to get through their turn as quickly as possible. There was a knock on the door. They spun around to see Uru stalking in with the air of someone bearing great tidings. They stopped what they were doing and turned to him attentively.
“Is everyone here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Amina answered. “Why?”
“I’ve got an important announcement to make.” He rubbed his hands together. “Our next temporary exhibition will be, ‘The Mythical Heroes of Ancient Africa.’ After yesterday’s shipments, we finally have enough pieces to mount it. This has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I’m so glad to see it come to life. But there’s a lot of work to be done to get it all set up. I’m still expecting one or two more items. The long and the short of it though,” he paused and scanned their faces, “is we will need to put in some overtime hours.”
There was a collective groan from all the students. All of them except Yisa.
“When will the exhibition happen?” Nomsa asked.
“In two weeks’ time.”
Another murmur went around the room. Uru silenced them with a glare.
“Since it will be our first temporary exhibition,” he continued, “it will also be a good opportunity for our three new interns to cut their teeth as guides.”
“But we’ve never run any tours,” Jabu protested.
“There’s always a first time.”
“And what will we do?” Amina asked, nodding at Yisa.
“I’ve got some other work for the two of you that requires more… experienced staff.”
“Sorry, sir, but I have to agree with Jabu,” Amina said. “I mean, they’ve never done it before, plus, it’s the first exhibition this year. We’ll get a large crowd.”
“She’s right,” Yisa echoed.
Uru’s eyes flashed in anger, then dimmed just as quickly. He scratched his chin. “You may be right. Maybe you -” he jabbed a finger at Yisa and Amina, “could continue as the guides, but only do half of each tour? Then they’d assist you with the other half? What do you think?” He looked around the room. Yisa and Amina nodded.
“But, err—” Jabu cleared his throat. “What does it actually involve, this tour guide business?”
“It means that you have to learn everything about each item on display by heart and tell it to the visitors when you conduct them on tours.”
Jabu moaned. “Why on earth don’t we just use virtual guides like everybody else and save ourselves the trouble?”
“Because,” Uru barked, “we are not like everyone else. We are the Pan-African Heritage Museum. In case you’ve forgotten, oral storytelling is how we passed on our history for generations. Each time the storyteller speaks, he or she emphasises different elements of the story. They gauge the mood of the audience and react accordingly. Like actors on stage, night after night. No two performances are ever the same. You think some robot’s going to do that?”
Yisa cleared his throat. “If I may add to that, sir,” he started, “I’ve also found that visitors often have questions that go beyond anything that can be programmed into a virtual tour guide.”
Luyanda’s jaw dropped. Yisa had actually made a well-considered point. He glimpsed at Jabu and Nomsa. They looked equally shocked.
“That’s right, Yisa,” Uru continued. “This is actually a great learning opportunity for you interns. You should welcome it with open arms.”
“So I guess we just shadow Yisa and Amina? Do what they do?” Luyanda ventured.
“It’s much more than that,” Uru answered. “You will need to know the details of the tours as well as they do. If any visitor asks any of you a question, you need to be able to answer as well as anyone else.”
“And also,” Yisa added with a smug grin, “you’ll have to take over and run some tours from time to time.”
“Especially on the weekends,” Amina added.
“Especially on the weekends,” Yisa echoed.
“Oh, gosh,” Nomsa sighed.
“Relax, Nomsa,” Jabu said, folding his hands. “This sounds simple.”
Nomsa twisted around to face him. “Have you ever in your life given a speech to people you don’t know?”
Jabu went blank for a second, as he thought about the question. He shook his head.
“Just like I thought,” Nomsa continued. “I’d be a little more worried if I were you.”
Jabu just shrugged. Luyanda couldn’t help but agree with Nomsa on that one.
Over the next couple of weeks, Luyanda spent every free moment that he had at the museum. Putting up the Heroes Exhibition as their new permanent display involved a huge effort.
They moved pieces to the larger gallery and brought in artefacts they had curated over the previous months. It was backbreaking work. For once, both Jabu and Luyanda were thankful for Yisa’s physical abilities. The man was a workhorse. Even Dr Uru stepped in to lend a hand from time to time, making it harder for any of them to complain about being overworked.
Yet another afternoon found Luyanda and Jabu on hand to receive more shipments. The delivery drones had been coming and going all day, leaving rows and rows of crates packed inside the warehouse.
“I saw a rat last time I was in here,” muttered Jabu, as he and Luyanda navigated their way between the boxes.
“Don’t let Uru ever hear you saying that, otherwise we’re the ones that will have to get rid of them.”
Luyanda took a crowbar and leaned into the closest crate. “Give me a hand with this, please?”
Jabu seized the other side of the crate while Luyanda heaved. The box creaked under Luyanda’s weight, then cracked open.
Jabu grabbed a hammer, and with the claw started undoing the rest of the crate’s cover. It came off with a pop. Luyanda reached into the box and brushed aside the sawdust lining it. Linings of bubble wrap covered several objects. He undid the wrapping and held one artefact up to the light. It was a little wooden figurine, carved out of dark wood. An old man seated on a stool. Another was a knife, made of stone, with some carvings etched along the blade. There was also a necklace, a ring, and what looked like a snuffbox.
“Shucks,” Jabu sighed, looking up from the list on his PAD. “Seems we’ll have to check them all.”
“I’m not touching that stuff, thank you very much,” said Luyanda, as he picked up the crowbar and moved across to another crate. “This one’s bigger than the others,” he said, leaning on the crowbar. Its lid was jammed on tight and did not budge. “Hey, I need some help here.”
“Step aside. This is a job for a real man,” Jabu said, grabbing the lever from Luyanda.
Luyanda stepped back and smiled as he watched Jabu huffing and puffing away.
“Okay. Okay. I admit defeat.”
“See?”, grinned Luyanda, as he joined Jabu and put all his weight down on the edge of the lever.
The cover of the crate creaked and gave way.
“Almost there. That’s it,” Luyanda said, heaving a sigh of relief as the left edge of the top of the crate came undone.
Jabu attacked the other sides of the cover with the claw of the hammer. In a few short minutes, the lid slid off.
Both of them peered into the box.
“What the hell are these?”
“They look like stools, I guess,” Luyanda said, taking one out of the box and holding it up to the light.
“Stools?” Jabu shot a hand into the box and pulled out one. “Why the hell would Uru want stools?”
“Beats me,” Luyanda said. “That dude’s crazy. You saw how he went gaga over that flywhisk thing?”
“Now, this is more like it,” Jabu said, pulling open another crate. “Swords and spears. I hope they’re on the list.”
“So typical,” Luyanda said, shaking his head.
“What?” Jabu remonstrated. “I’m descended from a long line of warriors. I’m royalty.”
“So are you royalty or are you a warrior?”
“Both. I’m a warrior-king.”
“Whatever.”
After an hour, they had opened all the crates. Most of them contained stools, but a few of them had masks, charms and amulets.
“It’s such a shame most of this junk is on the list. I don’t think I have the heart to inspect them all today,” Jabu said. “Let’s knock off and get back to this tomorrow.”
Just then, they heard a tell-tale buzzing sound.
“Oh no.” Luyanda glanced up at the doors of the loading bay. “It’s another delivery.”
The drone swooped in. It carried a wooden crate wrapped inside a sturdy cargo net. The drone lowered its payload onto the warehouse floor, rose, spun, and whooshed out again.
“I wonder what that is?”
“I’m not interested,” Jabu mumbled. “It’s probably more junk. It can wait until tomorrow. I’m going home.” He spun around and marched out of the warehouse.
Luyanda gave him one look and shook his head.
“Lazy bugger,” he muttered under his breath and turned to the box. “Might as well get it over and done with.”
He grabbed a crowbar, yanked open the top of the crate, and let it clatter onto the floor beside him. The crate was empty. He stood on the tips of his toes and thrust his hand into the depths of the woodchip carvings that lined the box. His fingers felt something hard, cold and rough. He hoisted it up. It was yet another stool. He scanned its surface for a label. Nothing.
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “At least we can send this piece of junk back.”
He looked for a return address on the crate. Again, there was nothing. He studied at the stool, turning it over in his hands. Like several of the other stools, it too had three legs. But unlike the others, it was worn out, dented and scratched. Without any warning, a bout of fatigue hit him like an ocean wave. He pitched forward and leaned on the crate for support. A flurry of stars danced before his eyes and his eardrums buzzed.
“Don’t faint,” he muttered aloud.
He plonked the stool on the floor and sat down on top of it, leaned forward and shoved his head between his knees.
“Don’t faint,” he said again. “Don’t faint. Don’t faint.”
Then something very weird happened.
The ground beneath his feet gave way. A gust of wind blasted across his face, and the next thing he knew he was hurtling through a tunnel.
His feet were several inches off the ground, and an irresistible force dragged him forward. He couldn’t see the surrounding walls, but he sensed them inches from his skin. They were craggy and rough. Everything was dark. He was being pulled forward as though by a magnet. A steady, distant roar pounded into his ears. It reminded him of the buzzing noise he’d heard when he’d hold a conch or a shell to his ear, only a million times louder. The air whipped past him so fast that he could barely suck any of it in through his gaping mouth.
Then, just as quickly, he was slowing down. He could make out the walls of the tunnel. They were as rough as he had imagined them to be. Rough, jagged edges reached out to him like so many fingers. There was something familiar about them. That was it. The stool. They were made of the same rock as the stool.
A brilliant, white light blinded him. He shot through an archway at lightning speed, the wind blasting past his face. Then it stopped. He was prone on the cold, hard earth. A cold breeze nipped at his back, arms and legs. He was for the most part naked. Someone close by was shouting. His limbs were heavy with exhaustion.
He tried to sit up and winced as a hot stab of pain shot through his right side. Images flitted before his eyes. Memories and sensations that belonged to someone else. Or were they his? Was he dreaming? He struggled to his feet, and the muddled thoughts in his head cleared as if a mist had lifted. He looked at his arms and legs. They were longer, darker. More muscular. A loin cloth wrapped around his waist, and several beaded bracelets adorned his wrists and ankles. Two large stabbing swords hung from scabbards around his waist. In each hand he held a large buffalo hide screen. Each screen was the size of three shields.
He was certain who he was and where he was. Two words rung clear in his mind: “Luo” and “Lang’o”. The Luo: his people. Those he was sworn to defend. The Lang’o: the enemy. The reason his ribs and abdomen were covered in scratches and bruises. The reason he was in so much pain.