The Burning Water

Chapter 1 - On the Run

The day after his brother died, Lebona Dlamini knew he had to run away from the strange compound where he and the other boys and girls were held like prisoners.

Their mother had always called him and his brothers her three little rabbits: Lebona, Liboko and Likotsi. But she had passed two years before, and with twelve-year-old Liboko now gone to join her in heaven, Lebona had to take responsibility for eight-year-old Likotsi, take him away from this awful place where there was nothing but death. He was fourteen, after all, already a man in his tribe.

One day he had asked the small nurse, who spoke as few words of English as he did, where they were, she had shown him a map and pointed to a place called North Korea. She took him to the window and pointed to the river that passed on both sides and he understood they were on an island.

Then he looked back at the map and pointed to the tiny pink oblong called Lesotho, nestled inside South Africa like a child in the womb. She had agreed, it was very, very far away.

When he woke up that morning to the sound of coughing and retching, it was cold in the dormitory, so much colder than it had been back in his country. The heat and color of his homeland was long gone, replaced by white snow and bitter cold. He looked at the drab green walls, the tan linoleum floor, the two dozen cots each lined up neatly against a wall. Each bed had a small locker beside it where the orphans could keep the few personal belongings they had – a change of clothes, a toy, a few letters. All that they had been given at the orphanage back in Ntsi, before the man and woman had come to bring them here.

There were only ten orphans left, where originally there had been twenty. Most of the girls had already died; there were only four of them left, along with Likotsi, his brother, and four boys. As he looked around the room he noted that those four boys were all sick, even though none of them had received shots yet.

Every few days, the mean head nurse, the one whose face was wrinkled like the side of a rocky mountain, would come into the dormitory and select several of the children to go into the doctor's office and get a shot. Many of them became sick afterwards, and were taken to the hospital ward in the same building. They almost never came back after that.

When the mean nurse came for Lebona's brother, Liboko had cried and protested, and Lebona had tried to go in his place, but the nurse refused. Lebona was relieved when his brother returned a few minutes later, only complaining that the nurse made given him two shots instead of one, because he wiggled too much.

Within two days, Liboko couldn't keep any food down, and when Lebona touched his forehead, his brother's skin was burning hot. He stroked Liboko's head and sang him a little rhyme their mother had sung to them when they were sick.

When the small nurse, Young-Min, came by later that afternoon, Lebona told her, using a few words of English and a pantomime, that his brother was ill.

Young-Min was only a bit taller than Lebona, though like all the others her skin was as pale as the first rays of the morning sun, and her eyes had the funny slant all the people in this strange country had. She had a smiling round face, and she often brought the children sweets and told them not to tell anyone. She said that she would have to take Liboko away.

Lebona wanted to go with him, but Young-Min refused. She patted him on the arm and said something in her funny language. She pointed to Likotsi, and Lebona realized that he had to stay with his little brother.

That night, the littlest rabbit climbed into Lebona's cot with him, both of them frightened about what was to come. Lebona thought it was good to have his little brother's warm body against his.

As he drowsed, he prayed in the way that the orphanage director had taught them, back in Ntsi. He asked the Big Father in the Sky to let Liboko be one of the fortunate ones. He would come back from the hospital and play with them. They would go outside, as they had once, and sit by the shore of the river where the water was shallow.