Life After Death

  Today, right now, she would announce it to him.

  They sat over hamburger, spaghetti and tomato soup. Natasha had very little appetite, so she merely pushed the food around her plate, hoping it would escape Sipeyiye’s attention.

  ‘You’re eating?’ he queried.

  ‘Sipeyiye, you’re a kind and capable man.’ She just wanted to keep him talking.

  He switched attention to her. He growled and was immediately occupied with his food again. He said that should remind him to buy an umbrella in town next day. He swore that wouldn’t go through this twice without suing the people who put the garage at the back of the flats. She realized that she had to have a go at the food. IF that didn’t happen she could expect a squabble or two

  After the quick meal they put dishes in the sink and sat over a whisky. Comfortable in each other’s company they began to talk the night away.

  ‘Sipeyiye, you’re kind of a capable man,’ she repeated, circling the rim of her glass.

  ‘What’s this talk?’ He was aglow. Natasha was amused by his sense of triumph.

  ‘Well, it’s this woman you talked about this other day. I wonder why a person with a head over her neck could possibly walk out on you, considering what you have done to me.’

  ‘No’, he objected. ‘It was a mistake. It couldn’t work. I still had my career to nurture then. I was only twenty-nine. Hadn’t left for Oxford and North Korea. She fell pregnant, and I had no option but to abandon her, at least for that time… but, I haven’t been able to meet her again.’

  Natasha wasn’t sure she enjoyed the turn of the story.

  There wasn’t even a hint of regret in his voice. All she wanted was to keep him talking.

  ‘So you just left?’

  ‘I hoped to come back to her, but when I came to Bulawayo, I couldn’t find her.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s behind me. Come to think of it, it’s some thirteen years behind me.’

  ‘You frighten me, Sipeyiye.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Especially when I’m expecting your child like this.’

  The message hit him unawares and his eyes dilated. Natasha couldn’t immediately make out what he was thinking. He hammered the table with his hand and the whisky sloshed out of the glass. ‘Oh, the baby,’ he bawled. He was overwhelmed. ‘You know, I’ve waited just too long for this.’

  ‘Natasha and I are getting married,’ he declared.

  It was still raining outside.

  Chapter 36

  Sunday morning…

  They pushed the trolley between them. They talked. They shouted at each other over artificial anger. They teased each other. They were in a haven of their own, and were playing a game very close to the heart.

  ‘I’m dying for some mutton.’ He threw what seemed to Natasha to be some 5kgs of meat into the trolley, never glancing at the price.

  ‘We’ll never be able to finish this,’ she protested, taking it out. She replaced it with a smaller one.

  ‘And don’t forget I’m feeding two people now. I don’t want my baby weighing anything below 5kgs.’

  Natasha stopped. She breathed in. ‘You know exactly what 5kgs is I hope, because I might as well die.’

  ‘And you know the words you shouldn’t be using, for example, words like “die”. Come on, girl, we’re beginning life now.’

  ‘Can you stop it, Sipeyiye?’

  The supermarket was full, but it was never too full in this part of the city. The prices always scared people away. They wheeled two trolleys to the purchase point, after they had gone around rummaging for an hour or so. After they had gone through everything they wanted also meant a lot of alcoholic drinks. A bright day, they were determined to make it. Natasha thought with mild worry that soon she would have to quit her drinking habits because of the baby.

  Sipeyiye wrote the cheque, and they left.

  Really, it was Natasha’s brainchild to come here for shopping. Although it was enjoyable, usually all the spare time they had, they preferred to do something else, not shopping. Shopping, they usually did individually and hurriedly. And her own reason for coming here wasn’t exactly shopping, but the boy she saw yesterday. It’s only that she couldn’t always sneak away from home alone when Sipeyiye was there.

  As they walked out of the supermarket, her heart raced. And she didn’t know why he was having so much effect on her. She surveyed the big veranda ahead of her, but couldn’t make out the boy.

  ‘What’s it?’ Sipeyiye turned around when he realized she wasn’t keeping pace with him.

  ‘Nothing. Am I not following?’ She wished she hadn’t come along with him.

  The car was parked behind the supermarket. They snaked through the crowd as they headed there. As she turned around the corner, she saw the boy.

  Her gaze fixed on him as he approached. He was painfully young for the life he was living, not anything above twelve, maybe. He was beautiful, but his beauty was hidden beneath dirt and worry. Natasha knew it only too well, having grown up in it. You don’t quickly appreciate this kind of beauty. And beauty is an unusual gift, also. And if you pray hard, too you might realize beauty as a very unusual gift. It violates all that you have ever heard of: clothing, colour, place…

  Here, she was mesmerized with the boy in a yellow fading shirt. His hair was thick and matted. A thin film of sweat had formed where hair meets the face. His face, though not washed, was smooth, shining in unison with the sun. As he approached her, Natasha actually realized he smelled. She was taken miles and miles into History: Tuzuka. The smell had no beginning or end: it was simply always there if you’re married to the sun and the land.

  He felt her gaze and jerked around in all directors. And he was jerky, too.

  Natasha lowered the gaze to make herself less hostile. Usually when you do that, you’re likely to attract more attention than making a face.

  Manata seemed to know this too. He immediately broke away from the others. He came directly to her.

  Natasha wasn’t going to live with it for the rest of her life. Today, she was going to pay him off what she owed him. And so, she walked even slower, wanting to increase the gap between Sipeyiye and her. Sipeyiye was never to know about this, let alone play part in it.

  He approached, and still Natasha continued towards him. Let him ask first, she thought. That way it would always appear natural. She didn’t want to attract curious glances.

  ‘Madam,’ he finally said in her face, half expecting to be turned away like a neglected dog.

  ‘Yes,’ she responded in a half whisper. She was surprised at how shaky her voice sounded.

  ‘Can I’ve a dollar?’

  ‘Oh, sure you can have more than that.’

  ‘Natasha,’ Sipeyiye bellowed at the top of his voice. Quite some number of people turned to look at her.

  She quickly slipped out a number of five one-hundred dollar notes from her handbag and thrust them into his hands. He looked at her, unbelieving, but Natasha didn’t wait to see much of his response because she was already hurrying towards Sipeyiye.

  Sipeyiye had stopped and the last part of the ritual happened in his eyes. He stood akimbo, obviously confused by such an event.

  ‘Not much, only a ten dollar note,’ she lied as she joined him.

  ‘Ten dollars?’ He didn’t look very convinced.

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  They walked in silence and came to the car. Sipeyiye packed their purchases in the back of the Pajero, and they abandoned the trolleys. All the while, Natasha wondered how long it was before Sipeyiye’s shepherding antics became boring and just hoped she would be used to it.

  ‘Do you do that often?’ he asked as they drove out of the parking lot.

  ‘What often?’

  ‘Throwing money at every poor child you see in the street.’

  ‘You see, he has been too long on me. I thought maybe I might make the difference today.’ That wasn’t exactly a lie. She had met the
boy yesterday, but too long on her mind he had been. She had a sleepless night thinking of him, listening to Sipeyiye’s groans in the early hours of dawn.

  He didn’t say anything after her explanation. She wasn’t sure if he understood her. He probably didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Manata couldn’t believe his luck when the woman thrust the money into his hands. Or was it a girl? Money can do you anything. He would buy food. He might even go for a bit of entertainment in the evening, perhaps a cheap movie.

  He recounted it again the fifth time.

  ‘Five hundred,’ he said again to himself, palming it like it was pure gold.

  Money, money, money!. He didn’t remember having loved anybody the way he loved this woman. He began to look forward to seeing her again.

  Chapter 37

  That week she caught the flu. Although flu was nothing serious she worried about catching in the hot season.

  ‘Maybe it’s the dust,’ Sipeyiye suggested. ‘So make sure you stay away from all dusty places. Do you stay in the office while it’s being swept?’

  But the bug intensified at an alarming pace. Within a week, she was moving about with a pack of tissues. Her neck would hurt when she coughed. ‘But this is flu,’ Sipeyiye again. ‘It can really send you crazy if you’re not careful. Stay away from dusty and cold places.’

  One night she was startled from sleep by an alarming cough that shook her whole body with almost unbearable pain. The muscles of her throat threatened to rapture from the coughing. Her head began to throb badly. The pain was unbelievable. Never before had she had such flu.

  She bit her lower lip, and cast a look upwards as if to seek divine intervention. Sipeyiye lay there next to her, snoring blissfully and quite oblivious of her predicament. She wondered whether she should wake him. She decided not to because he was likely to fuss too much. It would then be ambulances and doctors. She was almost certain of that. He worried too much. No, she would not wake him. She was tempted like Brutus to say to him, ‘Enjoy the honey-heavy due of slumber.’

  Still, she coughed. She wriggled around the bed. He was damp with sweat. Her stomach answered to a hollow ache.

  ‘Are you ok?’ Sipeyiye suddenly said from his sleep. He swung the blankets away and half-sat. He flicked on the bedside lamp. ‘You’re coughing,’ he observed. His eyes glowed, catlike at her in the lamplight.

  ‘It’s not serious, but I can’t settle down to sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘This is bad. I will get you the syrup.’ He swung out of bed and padded out to the kitchen.

  There was a distant swish of night vehicles in the background. It was raining mildly. She could make out the sheets of rain hitting against the window. She wondered what time it was. It must be after midnight she decided. She withdrew her hand and tested the temperature. It was just fine.

  ‘Try this,’ Sipeyiye, said as he came back into the room.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. He poured her a teaspoon of whoops. Natasha straightened up to accept it. She was immediately racked with coughing. She was driven to the edge of vomiting.

  ‘I can’t take it,’ she whispered between coughs.

  ‘Just try. This can only make you better.’

  But she began to cough even more. As the new spate of coughing seized her doubled over in pain and felt the hot tears stinging her eyes.

  ‘I’ve never seen flu like this,’ he said. ‘Better I call the ambulance,’ he added, just as she had feared.

  ‘We’ll drive. I will manage.’ She was still shaking vigorously.

  ‘And that will save us time, too. I don’t like the look of this.’ He lurked up and swung the wardrobe open, his side. He put on a pair of trousers and a shirt. From her compartment, he took out a furry coat and threw it at her.

  ‘You slip into that.’

  She eased out of the bed and slid into her sandals.

  That didn’t make her feel any better, and she had to lean on Sipeyiye for balance.

  ‘The coat,’ Sipeyiye reminded her as she took the first step to the door. He wrapped it around her, and she slipped into it.

  ‘Now, you can walk. Take it slow.’ He slid his hand around her and led her to the door. Like a snail, they went in the passage, the lounge and eventually out.

  Now, the clunk of metal as Sipeyiye unlocked the doors.

  As she descended down one step, Natasha realized she couldn’t help it. Her stomach felt like it had been rammed. Even the most minor stretching sent sharp pain coursing through her whole body.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t get down even a single step.’

  ‘Not even one?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He looked around her like a man looking at a tyre puncture. ‘I will carry you then,’ he offered. ‘That’s if that isn’t painful as well.’

  He squatted in front of her. Natasha crouched at his back and wrapped her arms around his neck. She was still coughing vigorously. He straightened up and began down the stairs, one step at a time like an undertaker.

  ‘You know what?’ she said with a catch. ‘I’m enjoying this.’

  ‘I should have known,’ he peeked at her, and touched her lips with his over his shoulder.

  They got to the emergency department where Mr. Mohyi was told to wait outside while they attended to Mrs. Mohyi. Mr. Mohyi liked it, even too much: Mr and Mrs Mohyi. He was even planning of getting himself a flu once they were through with hers and wondered idly if the sisters didn’t have anything to place in the newspapers because that wasn’t going to be difficult. Look man, isn’t this a good hospital?

  But he didn’t like it when they made him wait for an hour only to come and tell him that Mrs. Mohyi had been admitted for tuberculosis.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Sipeyiye exclaimed at the nurse.

  The nurse who had other things to do replied. ‘You can come along. You will see her. I think the doctor has finished with her now.’

  He followed along the long linoleum flooring. In the room that he was shown into was a single bed. On the bed was a tiny figure in hospital swathes.

  ‘Natasha,’ he called.

  ‘Sipeyiye.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. I thought only that I might stay here for a while. I thought you were rather crowding me.’

  At this point the nurse even afforded a smile.

  ‘Come on, Natasha, this isn’t the time to joke.’ Sipeyiye pressed his hand to forehead.

  Chapter 38

  She stayed in hospital for a month. It was unpleasant. Her days were unpunctuated. She spent most of the time indoors. She missed the wind and the sun. She had no complaints about anyone though; she just wanted to be on her damn feet again.

  Her days started with the coming of the elderly women in blue uniforms and white aprons to clean up her room. A gentle knock in the morning, and it was always one of the two women, either the big-breasted one or the skinny one. They announced the beginning of a new day - a new day in hospital!

  Natasha walked out, her dry cough pronounced after the sleep. She sat in the sun for an hour, as the woman diligently cleaned up. If Natasha was lucky, a woman, one of the patients, came to chat to her. If she wasn’t, it was a man, worst of all, a doctor, who stared at her bulging stomach with resentment. Tough man, she thought: I’m already taken, she would think idly.

  Doctors think they have a right to every beautiful woman.

  She returned to her room to throw herself on the bed and look at the white ceiling. A nurse, wheeling her breakfast, often saw her like that. And how she hated food these days! A cup of tea and one thin slice of bread, and she was stuffed up. Besides, coughing made her lose her appetite.

  The doctors came after breakfast. The doctors busied themselves with her cards. She didn’t like it. They never told her when she would get out. And she even got furious. She would have appreciated it very much had one of them given her some indication of when she might be discharged.

&nb
sp; Sipeyiye came in at lunch. And he never failed, over-weighted with presents, magazines, get-well-soon cards, fruits... He was never tired of it. He piled presents on her. Natasha, rural-bound as she was, didn’t like flowers. What difference did they make? Sipeyiye did not mind never minded. He stayed for an hour and left.

  The afternoons would see her wriggling around the bed. The bed that was freshly made in the morning ruffled again, with magazines everywhere: in the blankets, under the bed, on the bedside table…Natasha never made up her mind. The first moment she would be in the blankets. The next moment she would be lying on top of her blankets. And yet the next, she’s sitting, always starting to read up an article, but never finishing it.

  But it was her mind that was playing tricks with her. She was thinking of a certain boy. The boy on the streets!

  Sipeyiye returned again in the evening, between six and seven, after the doctor’s last rounds and her supper.

  ‘Sipeyiye, when am I gonna leave this goddamn place?’ she asked. ‘I can’t help it anymore.’

  He buried his head in his hands, and sighed. ‘I wish I could take you out, but you know I can’t. And you can’t, because you have the baby. We can’t take chances with that.’

  And the baby, that was it. The baby, meant so much to them. The baby bound them firmly together.

  Sipeyiye gone, she would lie on the bed again, the feeling of loneliness stronger. She barely went to sleep until midnight. But even then, she hardly slept for more than two hours. She woke up with a strong cough, again.

  Again, when she was a little stronger, she thought of the boy.

  Her discharge was a surprise, even to her. A Wednesday evening, and the doctor was doing his usual rounds. All of a sudden he said, ‘you may go home now, Natasha.’

  She didn’t sleep that night, and it was like somebody who had been told about her first airplane flight. ‘At last,’ she wailed joyfully in the middle of the night.

  She rang Sipeyiye in the early hours of dawn, after having failed to get through to him the whole night. That morning, to be exact, thirty minutes later, Sipeyiye arrived at the hospital.