Read White Dog Fell From the Sky for Free Online

playthings. It seemed that white
people were the ones who believed in divine justice. That was because long ago,
they’d come with their guns and greed and taken what they wanted. They’d
long since forgotten what they’d done, and now they thought the land had always
been theirs.
    The bitter heart eats its owner. It was
necessary to forget certain things but not his brother who gave him his own leather
shoes for the journey. He walked along, listening to the way the soles of his
brother’s shoes thumped the sand softly, like guinea fowls landing in dust.
Someday, he’d do something for Nthusi, ten times over. But that time was not now,
maybe not for many years.
    A man was approaching from the opposite
direction, carrying a sack of sugar over his shoulder. Isaac crossed the road and
waited. “Excuse me,
rra,
” he said, “where is Lippe’s
Loop?”
    “I don’t know,” the man
said, walking on.
    He passed several more streets. The trees
were gone. Everywhere, the houses looked the same. White with blue trim. He wondered who
lived in them. He’d never been inside houses like these. From outside they looked
strongly built. But the trouble was, they were so much the same, you could be drunk and
walk into your neighbor’s house and never know the difference until you lay down
with his wife.
    The white dog was limping, and he stopped
and lifted her paw. There was blood, but he couldn’t see what caused it. He spit
on his thumb and rubbed the spit over the pad. She leaped away from him. “White
Dog,” he said, “come here.” And then he realized what he’d done:
when you name an animal, she becomes yours forever. He went down on his haunches and
looked at her. “You’re unfortunate to have ever chosen me,” he said.
“I have nothing to give you.” She returned to his side. He took her paw
again, and she held very still, shaking. A thorn was lodged deep. He talked to her and
told her that it would hurt to pull it out. He tried to grasp the thorn but it broke. He
pinched and squeezed and brought it to the surface while the dog stood patiently, her
eyes pained. The thorn was from the tree that grabs you and won’t let go. Now, it
had the pad of her paw, but finally—
out!
She danced and leapt off her four feet
in gladness.
    When he wasn’t expecting it, he found
Lippe’s Loop and turned down the road. It was an empty road, without people. The
woman said the third house, but there were three houses on the right and three on the
left. He chose right. A dog came barking up to a gate, a Dobermanwho
could rip your throat out. White Dog sat at a distance, her ears pointed, hackles
raised. Isaac tried talking to the barking dog. “Please,
rra,
let me
pass. I need a job.” But the dog barked furiously and leapt at the fence.
    A servant woman came out. “What do you
want?”
    “
Ke batla tiro.
”
    “There is no work.”
    He turned and crossed the road. There was
another gate, but no dog. He told White Dog to wait, entered the gate with his head
down, and closed it behind him
    “Koko?”
he called,
rapping on the door.
    A white woman came out of the house. She had
a blue dress and short white hair and an expression of distaste on her face.
    I’m not a thief, he wanted to tell
her. “I’m looking for work,” he said.
    “I have no work,” she said.
    He pointed next door. “In this house,
do they have work?”
    “I don’t know. You have to ask
yourself.” She turned her back on him and went into her house. He went out the
gate and closed it behind him. White Dog was waiting. The Doberman barked crazily.
    He tried next door.
“Koko?”
He waited. And then he saw a gardener slopping water
out of a hose onto hard-packed earth and moved on. At the next house, he knocked again.
No one came, but he felt eyes looking at him from behind shiny, blank windows. Those
eyes made the back of his neck prickle, and even though a lilac-breasted roller flew
over his head in a flash of brilliant blue wings and turquoise