Synopsis: Nyree and Cia live on a remote farm in the east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical gradfather, theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far as the big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father is off fighting. The two girls know little beyong that until the arrival from the outside world of 'the b*stard', their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their idyll for ever.Review: This is one of my most favourite recent reads. Told from the viewpoint of nine year old Nyree. It's one of the most evocative, vivid, enchanting, tales of childhood that I've ever read.
Nyree and her sister Cia are inseparable. Great friends and playmates. Being older, Nyree is the natural leader and Cia is the more sweeter and shyer of the two. They don't look that much alike, Cia being the cuter and they have their own individual style even when it comes down to eating.
'The two of us are sitting on the flagstone steps outside the kitchen door eating our peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Cia peels hers apart, as she always does, and slowly licks out the filling, while I squash the slices of bread together between my palms until they turn doughy and ooze peanut butter and jam goo, then gulp it down. Sometimes we take tea like the Afs do, dunking our sandwiches into our green enamel mugs, then taking a dripping bite, followed by a swig, which we swill around in our mouths before swallowing. It's called mixing cement and we aren't allowed to mix cement. If we get caught, Mum hollers at us not to be so disgusting all our disgusting little lives.'
They live in a farmhouse built by their great grandfather. The name of the house is Modjaji which means rain goddess and it's slowly rotting away around them. The terraced gardens which are carved into the mountainside are unruly and lush, as they climb higher they merge and tangle into the virgin forest which is full of tree pythons, insects, slithering and creeping creatures, rotting tree trunks, fungus spores and dead Shangani warriors. Their grandfather Oupa calls it Paradise Lost and it's Nyree and Cia's favourite place to explore.
'Though we live in a world laced with threads of magic, triflings like tooth mice and firefly fairies pale next to the powerful magic that dwells in the forest. When Cia and I enter it's unending twilight, the earthly gives way to the unearthly, to the ethereal. As the canopy of trees close over us we can hear the heavy boughs whispering ancient secrets to one another, just as they do in the tales of the Faraway Tree, and we can feel hidden eyes on us with every footfall. Shrouded in the forest, we are lifted above the grubbiness of chicken slaughters, of peanut butter and jam, and are allowed to enter another world - one where things flit on gossamer wings and anything is a mere wish away'.
Mum is often busy with her farming accounts and Dad is off fighting the Terrs and so to a large extent Nyree and Cia are left to their own devices. Oupa is meant to supervise and help them with homework but more often than not he sit's on the stoep, swilling gin and tonic, sermonizing about duty and damnation, cursing his dead brother Seamus and bragging about his cast-iron constitution. They have a secret hideout and have plans to take a night flight to Fairyland, midnight explorations are a favourite thing and so is anything forbidden like riffling through Mum's dressing table drawers and snooping in the attic. Cia claims to have seen the Wombles climbing the house drainpipe one night, but they were Wombles-Gone-Bad and were coming to get her. Their dad once told them that when he was a child he awoke to find that his toys had come alive. Nyree wishes for this very much and prays to Jesus, she suspects that Cia has jinxed it though because she is terrified of her beloved toys being bewitched and has probably prayed accordingly. They spend summer days crocodiling through the waterhole built by their Dad and basking like hippo's. And all of this is played out amongst the backdrop of the political unrest in Rhodesia.
Life seems fairly idyllic to Nyree and Cia, They would prefer it if Oupa didn't sermonize so much and father wasn't off fighting the Terrs but on the whole everything is peachy ... until Ronin comes to stay. They are told that Ronin is their cousin and is boarding at school but will, from now on, stay with them in the holidays. Initially they are pleased ... 'There are few things as interesting as strangers on the farm, and none so interesting as the ones who look like Prince Charming, are sodden with scandal and disgrace and are real live descendants of Great Uncle Seamus' ... but Ronin's behaviour soon unsettles them. He is aloof, resentful and impolite (except to their Mother who he seems intent on charming) and his Prince Charming looks fade until he resembles nothing more than a blonde Barbie doll, girlish and vacant. His behaviour worsens becoming spiteful and sadistic but although this is witnessed by Nyree and Cia they are threatened with violence into keeping quiet.
The only part of the book that I felt uncomfortable with, was the shocking poverty of the local black Africans, and the racist viewpoint of most of the white people including Nyree and Cia. But Nyree was only repeating things she had learnt or overheard and she obviously had great affection for the family's black servants. Plus I imagine that this is a fairly accurate portrayal of how most white people thought and felt back in 1970's Rhodesia and it would have been disingenuous to represent it in any other way. There is a glossary at the back to help translate some of the slang Rhodesian/Afrikaan words used.
A magical, enchanting story of childhood.
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