The House of Discarded Dreams

He only shrugged at her terror and disgust. “We all do what we have to. This lake here, there aren’t many drownings, as you can imagine. Very little to feed on. And if you find someone who can help you—hey, why not?”

“You understand why we would be unsympathetic,” Maya said. Her arm wrapped around Vimbai’s shoulders in a protective gesture, and Vimbai felt gratitude flood her eyes, making them suddenly warm. Being held like that . . . it felt like being home from school, back when she was still a kid and getting out of school was precious because it was rare, and it was made even better by her mother’s cool hand smoothing Vimbai’s burning forehead. She was also reminded of the touch of Elizabeth Rosenzweig’s smooth hand, and thought that she rather liked Maya holding her—almost as much as she would if it were Elizabeth.

“My dogs wouldn’t even come near you,” Maya said. “Although right now I do have half a mind to call them and let them have their way with you.”

The man-fish thrashed, and Peb let out a bit more water—just enough to let the man-fish flip onto his belly and remain submerged save for his dorsal fin and its sharp spikes. Vimbai rubbed her forearm, which bore four long protective gouges, and winced. “So they are in the city. Is there any special weapon and tool we could use to defeat them?”

“Always looking for shortcuts,” the man-fish admonished. “Always wanting the easy way. Think about it—if there was a vulnerability, would they tell me? Would you?”

“No,” Vimbai said. “I see your point.”

“But I can explain their nature to you,” the man-fish continued. “I don’t know if it would help, but please accept it as a show of good faith—I do expose myself as much as the others when I talk about such things.”

“Of course,” Maya said. “Go ahead, talk.”

That’s the thing about injustice, the man-fish said. Those who are affected by it naturally wish for vengeance, for a manifestation of their rage and pain; and manifestation comes, although rarely in the form it is expected. When Lilith was banished from Eden, they say that she was the mother of giants, but really, the giants were just a sign of the injustice done to her. They roamed and rumbled and shook the earth.

Monsters followed Cain to the land of Nod, and monsters bred and lived in the shadows, on the underside of history—like thin fabric grown transparent in the sunlight, it showed them briefly and in shadowed outline inhabiting humanity’s dreams. They bared their teeth and claws, and their eyes watched people from every fold of darkness, waiting for them just beyond the edge of sleep.

So were the wazimamoto, the vampires, born out of injustice, as its manifestation and burden. They took residence in Harare built by Vimbai’s imperfect recollection, the closest they could get to the Africa of dark dreams and cruelties not talked about, and did what they were imagined to do, embodying the terror and the despair of those who had birthed them.

“I think I get it,” Vimbai said. “I just don’t understand why you . . . and them, I guess—why all of you are here? Are you just my nightmares?”

“It’s never that simple,” the man-fish said. “Now, give me my lake back and go—I mean, if you care at all about your friend.”

Maya and Vimbai stared at each other.

“Shit,” Maya said. “Where’s Felix?”

“I hope to God you’re not lying,” Vimbai said to the man-fish, and turned to Peb. “Come on, sweetie. Spit out the water so I can carry you.”

Peb obeyed, and Vimbai marveled at the stream of water spewing endlessly from his mouth, as Peb himself deflated gradually. The man-fish bounded and swam to the bottom.

“Don’t you worry,” Maya told Vimbai, “we can always get to him if we need to. Do you think they really got Felix?”

“I haven’t seen him after he went chasing after that freaky dried up head,” Vimbai said. “Then again, I wasn’t paying attention with all the drowning.”

Maya laughed and patted her shoulder. “You really have to cut it out,” she said. “It’s the second time this has happened, and the second time Peb saved you.”

Vimbai nodded, and Maya pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s go. It’s over the Malcolm X ridge, right?”

Vimbai smiled. “We’ve named everything there. I wish I’d written it all down.”

“I remember,” Maya said.

Vimbai nodded. “I do too.”

The two of them almost ran now, through the kitchen where Maya’s half-foxes joined them, and into the closet. They crossed the plain of discarded sisal rugs and mattress boxes, past the mound of gumboots and handkerchiefs. They passed through the valley of Five Percenters (named on Maya’s insistence, since Vimbai’s understanding of the doctrine consisted of the vaguely remembered class on African-American History, where it shared a lecture or two with hoodoo and other not-quite-religions for which the lecturer seemed almost apologetic. Even back then, Vimbai could not understand why the professor thought that these religions were less legitimate than the big three, or even the African religions and voodoo and muti magic.)

They reached the Harare of Vimbai’s dreams late at night, when the sun was already setting. They looked from the ridge at the long shadows falling over the city, starting at the no man’s land surrounding it and reaching deeper into the streets, serpentine, both familiar and strange—as, Vimbai supposed, a dream city ought to be.

“Perhaps it is not wise to go there in the dark,” Maya said. “For all we know, they can see in the dark.”

“They can,” Vimbai said. “And it is a real problem for Felix right now.”

“That’s right.” Maya frowned. “Felix. How do we find him here?”

“We let them find us.” Vimbai sighed. “I just don’t see any other way.”

“Unless my dogs can sniff them out.” Maya turned to her animals, smiling. “Go search,” she told her pack. “Search for Felix.”

“Wait,” Vimbai said, and dug through her pockets. “This is the handkerchief he gave me—maybe it still smells like him.”

“And don’t forget Peb,” Maya added. “He must retain some smell of Felix—after all, he and all his limbs came from his hair.”

They made sure that the dogs got a good and thorough sniff of the handkerchief and Peb both, and Maya sent them into the streets below. Maya and Vimbai followed the silent pack as they sniffed the air, no doubt stumped by its lifeless quality.

“It’s win-win,” Vimbai told Maya and Peb. “Either we find them, or they find us. In any case, I hope we get to Felix in time.”

“Wait,” Maya said. “Should we take Peb with us?”

“Good point.” Vimbai propped Peb in the branches of the nearest jacaranda tree, blue and languid like the night itself. “Stay here, little Peb, and if something bad happens, go get my grandma, okay?”

Peb nodded that he understood, and smiled a little. In the dusky gloom, he seemed transparent, but happier than he had been ever since his tongue was gone. He was either aware that his tongue was nearby, Vimbai thought, or the ability to help them in their search had distracted him from his troubles. Vimbai kept turning to look at him, glowing like a ghost of the moon in the low blue branches.

As they wandered through the streets, following the meandering track of Maya’s dogs, Vimbai looked for landmarks, for any signs that signaled that this city came from her dreams. She recognized the painted stone, the stone friezes, stiff and intricate like frozen lace. She looked into the windows, dark on the inside, and saw stone carvings everywhere—birthed from her memory of the small coop stores that sold such carvings by the artisans. Stone green and black, simple flowing lines hinting at the outline of a face with a single sweeping turn. There were flowers inside, heaps upon heaps of them, as if every house Vimbai peered into was a stall at the flower market. There were people—or rather, signifiers of them, little more than dark faces in the dark corners, hovering above moth-white crucifixes of t-shirts. She remembered how much of a shock it was to her, walking down the street with her mother, and the two of them not being the only black people around—in fact, almost everyone was black in Harare. She expected that, of course, but her heart could not be prepared for the exhilaration she felt then; the sheer intensity, the reality of it could not be anticipated.

Then there were houses that seemed to belong more to South Jersey suburbs than Harare, but Vimbai’s careless dreams plucked them from her memory anyway and dropped them among the trees and houses they did not belong with. In those, vinyl siding reflected the moonlight in fuzzy, opaque pools, and the floor lamps inside lighted the endless repetition of Vimbai’s parents’ dining room—the sturdy formal cherry table and the straight-backed chairs that surrounded it, haughtily expecting guests whose bottoms they would soon cradle. The tables were covered in the same white cloths with red trim—unusual, some sort of a heirloom, Vimbai suspected, but never cared enough to actually ask. The TVs glowered from the corner, with blue artificial static of their fisheye screens.