out to help me to my feet.
“Are you sure you want this horse?” he demanded, face creasing with anxiety. “It looks uncontrollable to me.”
Dazedly, I nodded. There was no going back, no matter how wicked this little pony really was.
All these years later, listening to Pat talk about his own childhood horses, I wondered if Ticky might have been the sort of horse he would have liked: strong, willful, but intelligent beyond measure. My parents quickly learned to detest Ticky. I spent my nights protesting, declaring my unwavering love for the nasty little horse who would pin me against his stable wall, lunging for his bucket, but somehow I knew they could not be convinced. No matter how many times he bit, no matter how many times he kicked out, my resolve only hardened: Ticky was the horse for me. He was going to love me like I loved him, or the world would surely end.
One day, some months into my struggle with Ticky, we entered ourselves into the bending race at a local gymkhana (an equestrian meet). At Erica’s farm, we cornered Ticky, fitted him with his bridle and saddle, and walked—or perhaps dragged—him to the club where the competition was to be held. As we approached, I could hear the cries of a huge crowd of excited children and eager parents and the neighing of all their horses.
I had already spent long hours brushing Ticky, and his coat gleamed in the morning sunlight. I was convinced: Today was going to be the day that Ticky would prove his true worth. Out there, on the track, we would come from behind to win, triumphant together; Ticky would know what we had achieved, and all of his nastiness would simply evaporate away.
At last, my name was called, and Ticky and I took our place along with six other riders. A red flag was waved, and Ticky and I were off.
We were not even halfway to the first bending pole when Ticky took flight. Making a dramatic turn, he charged at the fence, scattering spectators. Though we cleared it, somewhere in the air I lost my balance and toppled to the side, crashing down from Ticky’s back.
Indignant, Ticky came to a stop, gave a kick of his hooves, and, without a look at where I lay, headed for home.
On the grass, I lay alone, my riding hat askew.
“That’s it,” I heard my father cry. “We are selling that damn horse!”
It was the last time I ever saw Ticky.
“I have to admit,” I said to Pat, the sounds of the birthday party fading around us, “I haven’t ridden since.”
“Well, I suppose we’ll have to do something about that.”
He kissed me for the first time that night—and, one week later, I packed my bags, said good-bye to my little room in the hotel, and moved in with Pat.
We were married in 1978.
In Rhodesia, the bush war still raged. The country’s white farmers, isolated and not well protected, were targeted by the so-called freedom fighters. The rebels’ guerrilla tactics of attacking suddenly and then disappearing into the bush kept army patrols busy across the country. All the same, there was only one place in the world that Pat had ever wanted to get married: the town of Enkeldoorn, close to his childhood farm, a place that occupied so many of his memories and thoughts. I had heard so much about the town and the land across which Pat and his beloved Frisky had cantered that I felt as if I knew it already; now, it was time for the formal introduction.
Pat’s father’s farm was every bit the paradise he had told me about on that very first night. After the service, the wedding party moved there in convoy, and, not for the first time, I noticed that many members of our party were carrying weapons, their eyes fixed on the horizons and intersecting roads. Rhodesia, I had to tell myself, may have looked perfect, but it was still a country at war.
At the farmhouse, we were met with a feast fit for a king. I stepped down from the car and felt a little kicking in my belly; our firstborn son was already well on the way. I wondered what he would have made of all this. Tables dressed in white damask cloths groaned under cured hams and other delights. Champagne flowed. The laborers of the farm had decked themselves out to join in the festivities and kept glasses full. My mind whirred, seeing these same men who watched the horizons with such steely eyes throwing back champagne and roaring with laughter. There was something about Rhodesians, I decided, that made them look at joy and disaster with the same eyes. It must have had to do with living under the shadow of war for so long and still preserving all that is good about life. I found it exhilarating, I found it absurd, I found it frightening and life-affirming all at once. In the years to come, I would come to know this feeling by one simple word: Rhodesian. I felt the kicking again and the thought hit me: my son—he was going to be a Rhodesian as well.
It was time for the speeches. Happy under the effects of the champagne, Pat’s father stood and made his way to the center table.
“When Pat first introduced me to …” He hesitated, seemed to be wetting his lips. “I’ll start again,” he continued. “When my son Pat first introduced me to …”
“Amanda!” somebody shouted.
“Amanda,” Pat’s father repeated. “Of course. When Pat first introduced me to Aman—”
In that instant, the wedding party fell silent. Pat’s father’s eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance, and, as one, the men at the party turned to follow his gaze. I stood. Out there, a vehicle moved, thick, choking black exhaust fumes behind it. It seemed to shimmer in the heat, banking along the same farm roads over which the wedding convoy had come. It was, it appeared, heading straight for us.
Nobody said a word. Nobody had to. All the men at the wedding simply stood and hurtled for their cars.
“What is it?” I asked.
Pat stood. “Terrs …”
Terrorists: the Rhodesian name for the black insurgents making war on the ruling government. The vehicles we had traveled in were all wheeling around, sending up flurries of dust, as men piled inside and checked their weapons. Pat ran to join his father’s car, stopped, and hurried back to where I was standing.
“Here,” he said, “take this.”
I found a gun pressed into my hands. Though I took it, I had no idea how to hold it. Pat told me it was an LDP, a submachine gun that only Rhodesians ever wielded. After UDI there had been so many international sanctions against the country that importing almost anything had been impossible. This had given rise to industries in which Rhodesia had never before operated, and, with the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in 1966, one of those boom industries had been in weaponry like this. The gun I was holding was nothing less than a Rhodesian imitation of the infamous Uzi.
“What do I do with it?”
“You just point and shoot,” Pat said. He turned and began to lope after the other men. Then, absently, he looked over his shoulder. “But only at the terrs,” he added. “Don’t point it at us …”
I had never held a gun before—though, in the years to come, I would receive training in all kinds of weaponry, just as all Rhodesian women would, in case we too found ourselves caught up in war.
I was sitting, slumped over the bridal table with the submachine gun in my lap and an empty glass of champagne in my hand, when the men returned. Looking up, I saw Pat striding back to the wedding table.
“Terrorists?”
Pat shook his head. “It was only a bus.”
“Is this what life is going to be like?” I asked. “Too much drink, guns, chasing after terrorists through the bush …”
Pat could not have known what was in store for us twenty years from that day, when we would find ourselves having to leave the country I had come to love, but today he threw me a rakish grin and helped me to stand.
“Probably,” he said.
I put down the gun. If this was