• • •
Mr Edward Phiri, Inspector of Schools, had written to the headmaster of Kwadere Secondary School to say he would arrive at 9 a.m. and would expect to have his midday meal with him and the staff. His Mercedes, third-hand when bought–he wasn’t a Minister and worthy of a new one–had broken down not far from the Pynes’ signpost. He left his car and in a foul temper walked the few hundred yards to the Pynes’ house. There he found Cedric and Edna at breakfast. He announced himself, said that he must speak to Mr Mandizi at the Growth Point to come and fetch him and drive him to the school, but heard that the telephone line was down and had been for a month.
‘Then why has it not been mended?’
‘I am afraid you must ask the Minister for Communications that question. The telephone system is always breaking down and it can take weeks to be mended.’ Edna spoke, but Mr Phiri looked at the husband–the man, whose role it was to lead. Cedric seemed unaware of his responsibility, and said nothing.
Mr Phiri stood looking at the breakfast table. ‘You have breakfast late. I had mine it seems many hours ago.’
Edna said in the same accusing voice, ‘Cedric was out in the fields just after five. It wasn’t properly light. Perhaps you would like to sit down and have some tea–or perhaps some more breakfast?’
Mr Phiri sat, good humour restored. ‘And perhaps I will. But I am surprised to hear that you are at work so early,’ he said to Cedric. ‘I was under the impression that you white farmers take it easy.’
‘I think you are under a good many false impressions,’ said Cedric. ‘But now I must ask you to excuse me. I have to get back to the dam.’
‘Dam? Dam? There is no dam marked on the map.’
Edna and Cedric exchanged glances. They now suspected this official of having faked a breakdown for the purpose of having a look at their farm. He had as good as admitted it, when mentioning the map.
‘Shall I have fresh tea made?’
‘No, this tea in the pot will do me well. And perhaps those eggs you have left over? A pity to waste them, I think.’
‘They wouldn’t be wasted. The cook will have them for his breakfast.’
‘And now that surprises me. I don’t believe in spoiling staff. My boys get sadza, certainly not farm eggs.’
Mr Phiri was apparently unaware of his incorrectness and sat smiling as Edna filled his plate with fried eggs, bacon, sausages. As he began eating he said, ‘Perhaps I could accompany you to see the dam? Since clearly I am not destined to get to the school this morning?’
‘Why not?’ said Edna. ‘I’ll run you there in my car. And when you are finished someone at the Mission will take you to the Growth Point.’
‘And what about my car sitting helplessly on the road? It will be stolen.’
‘That seems to me more than likely,’ said Cedric, in the same dry disliking tone he had used from the start, such a contrast to the rawly emotional voice of his wife.
‘Then, perhaps you could order one of your workers to guard my car?’
Again husband and wife exchanged looks. Edna, returned to her responsible self by her husband’s rage, which Mr Phiri was unaware of, was silently urging compliance. Cedric got up, went out to the kitchen, returned, said, ‘I have asked the cook to ask the garden boy to guard your car. But perhaps we should be taking steps to get it restarted?’
‘What a fine idea,’ said Mr Phiri, who had finished his eggs and was eating lumps of sugary sweets, which he clearly approved of. ‘And how shall we do that?’
Edna knew that Cedric was suppressing something like, ‘And why should I care?’–and said quickly, ‘Cedric, you could try the radio.’
‘Ah, so you have a radio?’
‘The batteries are low. There are none available in the shops just now, as I expect you have found yourself.’
‘That is true, but you could try?’
Cedric had not wanted to confess to the radio because he didn’t want to waste what power there was on Mr Phiri. ‘I’ll try, but I won’t promise anything.’ He disappeared again.
‘What is this delightful stuff I am eating?’ said Mr Phiri, tucking in.
‘Crystallised paw paw.’
‘You must give me the recipe. I’ll tell my wife to make me some.’
‘She must have it already. I got it from the radio programme, Making the Best of Our Produce.’
‘I am surprised you listen to a programme for poor black women.’
‘This poor white woman listens to women’s programmes. And if your wife is too good for it then she is missing a lot.’
‘Poor. . .’ Mr Phiri laughed, heartily, genuinely, and then realising there had been a remark which he was sure had been meant as a rudeness, said sourly, ‘Now that is a good joke.’
‘I am glad you like it.’
‘Okay.’ Meaning, enough of that.
But Edna went on. ‘It is a very good programme. I have learned a lot from it. Everything you see on this table is made on the farm.’
Mr Phiri took his time surveying the spread, but did not want to confess some of it was unfamiliar to him–fish pâté, liver pâté, curried fish . . . ‘The jams, of course, and may I taste this one?’ He reached for a pot, ‘Rosella . . . rosella–but this grows wild everywhere?’
‘So what, if it makes good jam.’ Mr Phiri pushed the pot away without tasting it. ‘I was told the nuns at the Mission won’t eat the marvellous peaches growing in the garden, they’ll only eat tinned peaches, because they don’t want to be thought primitive people.’ She laughed, spitefully.
‘I hear your husband has bought the farm next to this one?’
‘It was for sale. You people didn’t want it. It was offered to you. It was much against my will, I assure you.’
Here they looked at each other, but really, as had not happened till now; their eyes had been doing anything but expressing a willingness to try and like each other.
Mr Phiri did not like this woman. First, on principle: she was a white farmer’s wife, whom he thought of first of all as one of the females who had taken up guns in the Liberation War and defended homesteads, roads, ammunition points: this district was an area where the war had been fierce. Yes, he could just see her in battledress with a gun, aimed perhaps at him. Yet he had been a boy in the war, safe in Senga: the war had not touched him at all.
She disliked this class of black official, called them little Hitlers, and delighted in repeating every bad thing she heard about them. They treated their black servants like dirt, worse than any white person had ever done, the blacks didn’t want to work for other blacks, tried to work for whites. They abused their power, they took bribes, they were–and this was the real sin–incompetent. And this particular man she had disliked from the first glance.
The two people, the over-tense dried-out white woman, the large and confident black man, sat looking at each other, letting their faces speak for them.
‘Okay,’ said Mr Phiri at last.
Luckily, in came Cedric. ‘I got a message through just before the bloody thing faded. Mandizi will be along. But he says he’s not well today.’
‘Mr Mandizi I am sure will be as quick as he can, but we shall have time to see your new dam.’
The two men went out to the lorry, parked under a tree, and neither even looked at the woman. She smiled to herself, the practised bitter twist of the lips of one who feeds on bitterness.
Cedric drove fast, over the rough farm roads, through fields, kopjes, patches of bush. Mr Phiri had scarcely in his life been out of Senga, and like Rose did not know how to interpret what he saw.
‘And what is this growing here?’
‘Tobacco. It is what is keeping your economy going.’
‘Ah, so that is the famous tobacco?’
‘You mean you’ve never seen tobacco growing?’
‘When I go out of Senga inspecting schools I am always in such a hurry, I am a busy man. That is why I am so pleased to have this chance of seeing a real farm, with a white
farmer.’
‘Some of your black farmers are growing good tobacco, didn’t you know that?’
Mr Phiri was silent, because they were driving along the base of a tumbling hill and there, in front of them, was a waste land of raw yellow soil in heaps and piles and ridges, and an excavator was labouring away, balancing on improbable slopes and decliv-ities. ‘Here we are,’ said Cedric, leaping out, and he went forward without looking to see if the Inspector was following. A black man, the excavator driver’s mate, came forward to the farmer and the two stood close together, conferring over a map of some kind, on the edge of a hole in the dense yellow soil. Mr Phiri went cautiously forward among the yellow heaps, trying to keep his shoes clean. Dust blew off the tops of the heaps. His good suit was already dusty.
‘Well, that’s it.’ Cedric returned.
‘But where is the dam?’
‘There.’ Cedric pointed.
‘But–when it is finished how big will it be?’
Cedric pointed again. ‘There . . . there . . . from that line of trees to the kopje, and from there to where we are standing.’
‘A big dam, then?’
‘It won’t be the Kariba.’
‘Okay,’ said Mr Phiri. He was disappointed. He had expected to see a lake of sweet brown water, with cows standing in it up to their middles, and over it thorn trees where weaver birds’ nests dangled. He could not consciously remember ever seeing this scene, but that is what a dam meant to him. ‘When will it be full?’
‘Perhaps you could arrange for some good rain? This is our third season with practically no rain.’
Mr Phiri laughed, but he was feeling like a schoolboy and didn’t like it. He could not imagine the sweep of water that would be here under the hills.
‘If you want to catch Mandizi, we should go back.’
‘Okay.’ This was okay in its primal sense: Yes, I agree.
‘I’ll take you back another way,’ said Cedric, though it was against his interests to impress this man who intended to steal his farm. He wanted to share his loving pride in what he had made from the bush. A mile from the house a herd of cattle stood eating dry maize cobs. They had the frantic look of drought-stressed animals. What Mr Phiri saw was cattle, saw mombies, and he longed to own them. His eyes filled with the wonder of these beasts: he did not realise they were in trouble.
Cedric said, ‘I am having to shoot the calves as they are born.’ His voice was harsh. Mr Phiri was shocked, and he stammered out, ‘But, but . . . yes, I read in the paper . . . but that is terrible.’ He saw that tears were running down the white man’s cheeks. ‘It must be terrible,’ he said, sighing, and tactfully tried not to look at Cedric. He was feeling a real warmth for him, but he did not know what he would do if the white man broke down and wept. ‘Shooting calves . . . but is there nothing . . . nothing . . .’
‘No milk in the udders,’ said Cedric. ‘And when cows are as thin as that, the calves are poor quality when they are born.’
They were at the house.
Mr Mandizi was just arriving, but Cedric at first thought it was a deputy: the man was half the size he had been.
‘You’ve lost a lot of weight,’ said Cedric.
‘Yes, that is so.’
He had dropped the mechanic at the Mercedes and now he opened the back door of the car and said to Mr Phiri, ‘Get in, please.’ And to Cedric in an official voice, ‘You should get your radio fixed. I could hardly hear you.’
‘That would be the day,’ said Cedric.
‘And now to the school,’ said Mr Phiri, who was in low spirits because of the calves. He did not talk as he was driven to the Mission.
‘This is the priest’s house.’
‘But I want the headmaster’s house.’
‘There is no headmaster. I am afraid he is in prison.’
‘But why is there no replacement?’
‘We have asked for a replacement, but you see this is not an attractive posting. They would rather go to a town. Or as near as they can to a town.’
Anger restored Mr Phiri’s vitality, and he strode into the little house, followed by his subordinate. No one was about. He clapped his hands and Rebecca appeared. ‘Tell the priest I am here.’
‘Father McGuire is up at the school. If you walk up that path you will find him.’
‘And why will you not go?’
‘I have something in the oven. And Father McGuire is waiting for you.’
‘And why is he there?’
‘He teaches the big children. I think he is teaching many classes, because the headmaster is not here.’ Rebecca turned to go into the kitchen.
‘And where are you going? I have not said you can go.’
Rebecca made a deep, slow curtsy and stood with her hands folded, eyes down.
Mr Phiri glared, did not look at Mr Mandizi, who knew he was being mocked.
‘Very well, you can go now.’
‘Okay,’ said Rebecca.
The two men set off up the dusty path with the sun hitting down hard on their heads and shoulders.
Since eight that morning the many classrooms of this school had been a pandemonium of excited children, waiting for the big man. Their teachers who were after all not so much older than some of them, were as elated. But no car came, there was only the sound of doves, and some cicadas in the clump of trees near the water tank, which was empty. All the children had been thirsty for weeks, and some were hungry and indeed had had nothing to eat but what Father McGuire had given them for breakfast, lumps of the heavy white sweet bread, and reconstituted milk. Nine o’clock, then ten. Teaching resumed, the din of several hundred voices chanting the repetitions necessary because of no schoolbooks, no exercise books, was audible for half a mile from the school, and only ceased when Mr Phiri and Mr Mandizi appeared, hot and sweating.
‘What is this? Where is the teacher?’
‘Here,’ said a meek youth, smiling in an agony of apprehension.
‘And what class is this? What is all this noise? I do not remember that oral lessons are part of our curriculum? Where are the exercise books?’
At this fifty exuberant children chorused, ‘Comrade Inspector, Comrade Inspector, we have no exercise books, we have no books, please give us some exercise books. And some pencils, yes, some pencils, do not forget us, Comrade Inspector.’
‘And why do they not have exercise books?’ said Mr Phiri impressively to Mr Mandizi.
‘We send in the requisition forms, but we have not been sent exercise books or textbooks.’ It had been three years, but he was nervous of saying so in front of the children, and their teacher.
‘And if they are delayed, then hurry them up, in Senga.’
There was no help for it. ‘It has been three years since this school received any books or exercise books.’
Mr Phiri stared at him, at the young teacher, at the children.
The young teacher said, ‘Comrade Inspector, sir, we do our best, but it is hard without any books.’
The Comrade Inspector felt trapped. He knew that in some schools–well, just a few–there was a shortage of books. The fact was, he rarely went out of the towns, made sure the schools he inspected were urban. There were shortages there, but it was not a terrible thing, was it, for four or five children to share a primer, or to use waste wrapping paper for writing lessons? But no books, nothing at all. Flashpoint: he exploded into rage. ‘And look at your floors. How long since they were swept?’
‘There is so much dust,’ said the teacher in a low shamed voice. ‘Dust . . .’
‘Speak up.’
Now the children came in with, ‘The dust comes in, and as soon as we sweep it up it comes in again.’
‘Stand up when you speak to me.’
Since the officials had arrived without ceremony at the door, the young teacher had not ordered the children to stand, but now there was a great scraping of feet and desks. ‘And how is it these children do not know how to greet the representative of the government?’
‘Good morning, Comrade Inspector,’ came the much-rehearsed greeting from the children, all still smiling and excited because of this visit which would result in their at last getting exercise books, pencils, and even perhaps a headmaster.
‘See to the floor,’ said Mr Phiri to the teacher, who was smiling like a beggar refused. ‘Mr Phiri, Comrade Inspector Sir . . .’ he was running after the officials as they made their way to the next classroom. ‘What is it?’ ‘If you could ask the department to send us our supplies of books . . .’ Now he was running beside them like a messenger trying to deliver an urgent despatch, and, all pretence of dignity gone, he was pressing his hands together and weeping, ‘Comrade Inspector, it is so hard to teach when you have no . . .’
But the officials had gone into the next classroom, from whence almost at once came the shouts and imprecations of Mr Phiri’s rage. He was there only a minute, went on to the next classroom, again the storm of shouts. The teacher from the first classroom who had been standing listening, giving himself time to recover, now pulled himself together and returned to where his pupils sat waiting, still full of hope. Fifty pairs of eyes shone at him: Oh, give us some good news.
‘Okay,’ he said, and their faces lost their shine.
He was trying his hardest not to cry. Tongues clicked in sympathy and there were murmurs of ‘Shame’.
‘We shall have a writing lesson.’ He turned to the blackboard and with a fragment of chalk wrote in a clear round child’s hand, ‘The Comrade Inspector came to our school today.’
‘And now, Mary.’ A large young woman, perhaps sixteen, looking older, came out of the mass of crammed-together desks, took the bit of chalk, and wrote the sentence again. She bobbed a curtsy to him–the teacher had been a member of this class two years before–and returned to her place. They were silent, listening to the shouts coming from a classroom in the next block. The children were all hoping they would be called up to show what they could do on the board. The trouble was the shortage of chalk. The teacher had the fragment, and two whole sticks, which he kept hidden in his pocket, because school cupboards got broken into, even if they were as good as empty. It was out of the question to have all the children up, one after the other to copy the sentence.