She stops stirring a saucepan, looking wary.
“People? Who?” you demand.
“They wanted to wait when I told them you had travelled to Mutare. I told them you were not here, but they said they knew. So I said, well, let me put something on the stove because I saw they were not listening to me and going.” Her voice falls so low you can hardly hear her. “I know that kind of woman. So I thought these are not people who come here for me to say no, so let me cook for everybody.”
“Tambudzai,” an energetic voice demands from the living room. “Come in here and greet us. Why are you asking Mama there in the kitchen? If you want to know then come here.”
The elation you felt while you wrote the proposal that you have kept hold of for so long seeps out of you. An ant crawls over the back of your neck. Dozens more creep across your skull. You breathe deeply, resisting brushing any of the insects away. They have visited you so often that you know they are not there. Telling Ma’Tabitha everything is all right, you steel yourself and walk into the living room.
You embrace your aunt.
“Mauya, Mainini! You are welcome, Kiri,” you recite automatically. “It is so good of you to come, welcome. How is Nyasha and my Cousin-Brother-in-Law, Mainini? Kiri, how is your aunt, Mai Manyanga?”
An insect runs down your arm to dissolve in the crook of your elbow. You lower yourself into your favourite leather chair.
“Ah, you Mainini Lucia and you Mainini Kiri, I never thought this would ever happen. I never thought I would enjoy you both sitting in my living room. Truly, I never thought,” you hear yourself chattering. You feel you are doing well so you urge more cheerfulness into your voice. “But now here I am and you are here. Tell me, how is everybody?”
“Offer condolences,” Mainini orders.
Christine hawks phlegm up the back of her nose. After that she remains impassive.
“Too bad, too bad,” you murmur. “I am sorry. What happened, vasikana?”
“My aunt. Her story is always about blood,” says Christine.
“It cannot be,” you exclaim. You begin to want to hear the story in order to enjoy not having married those Manyangas. “The young men. Their father’s sons. Going so far, with nothing holding them back, nothing.”
Lucia and Christine glance at each other.
“Ah, those boys are a story, but not the one we came about,” says Christine.
“But you said blood?” you repeat, conscious that you have conquered the ants. You are tense but there is no more crawling.
Lucia says, “Tell her so we can finish it.”
Christine resumes and it turns out that the blood she speaks of, which had for so long been flowing when it should not have, is indeed Widow Manyanga’s although it is not from the widow’s outside but from within her.
“Remember, I said it, Tambudzai,” says Kiri. “Even the first time that blood wasn’t just the blood from my aunt’s veins. Those boys knew it was also from her womb when they started cutting each other up with bottles.”
Ma’Tabitha comes in to inquire whether she might bring the food to the table.
You ask whether the pots can sit on the stove for another ten minutes.
Generously, not calculating how long the washing up will take her beyond her hours, she agrees the meal can wait.
“That’s why they were always fighting,” Christine goes on, hunching her shoulders high under her ears and ramming her hands into her armpits. “They knew that with that bleeding, there was nothing of life left for my aunt.
“Ignore even pretended to be helping his mother to get the house away from the others in order to keep everything for himself. Sometimes I ask if people forgot that many people went to war. Because if they have not forgotten, these people in this country, what is going on with them? Why are they so foolish? Do they think we went for this? Tss!” she goes on bitterly, sucking her teeth. “This is not what we went for and stayed for without food and blankets, even clothes, without our parents or relatives. Some of us without legs. Yet now we are helpless and there is nothing we can do to remove the things we see that we didn’t go to fight for.”
Mainini sucks her own teeth in loud sympathy and purses her lips.
“Those boys, they are worse,” Christine nods, treating you as though you are a relative, for such things cannot be admitted to strangers who will go away and laugh.
“Even worse than my aunt’s husband. And he was just a foolish old father,” she goes on grimly.
Mai Tabitha sets a dish of water on the dining table and folds a towel beside it. You calculate the time your guests will stay. But it is as though Kiri is driving a thorn into a boil.
“Those Manyangas think they are town people,” snorts Christine. “They’re peasants, just like their parents. Just like all of us. They’re just little people who had nothing but a kind old white, who gave Manyanga a job and made him a manager.”
“You’re telling it. Let it be said,” agrees Mainini Lucia. “It’s people like Tambudzai here who should hear it.”
Christine elaborates with a dour sort of relish, the story she began on the night of Shine’s woman and the trip to the Island. One day, under the influence of unbridled excitement and various imported beverages, with which he had that evening celebrated his increasing success, VaManyanga hurtled into a head-on collision with a combi at the corner of Jason Moyo Avenue and Second Street. Following the accident, many of the limbs that were originally cramped in the minibus in the order the packed seats imposed were seen by shocked pedestrians and by people reclining on the green, strewn far and wide over the road and pavement beside Africa Unity Square. There was blood everywhere. VaManyanga, nevertheless, stood up from the mangled mess to put one shaky leg in front of the other. All who saw him walk away recalled he looked the picture of health, in spite of his balance being a little wobbly. His biggest blow was what happened to his BMW and his temporary relegation to a lowly Datsun Sunny. People admired the stoicism with which Manyanga put up with this.
But then his body began to swell.
It was, observers said, the dishonestly obtained wealth delivering karma, damming his waters up just as he had dammed up company funds. If not, it was the wrath of an angry soul belonging to one of the omnibus passengers or to one of his muti victims. Everyone turned against Manyanga. His friends stopped congratulating him on a speedy recovery, the elegance of his home, and the size of his cars, seeing that his increased girth was the wages not of well-being but of sin. They all agreed that they had suspected all along that he was a contemptible deceiver.
VaManyanga himself was furious with his ancestors for not exacting vengeance from the combi driver. Had he not lost a BMW as a result of the reckless public transport speeding right in the city centre? Was he, Manyanga, now to be attacked rather than pitied? This ruminating raised his blood pressure and increased his swelling further. Then, as though all that had happened was not enough, one evening as he lay in bed, the angry spirit entered the room that became Shine’s. Sitting on his chest, it refused to listen to his wife’s prayers, or to the choruses she sang, and scoffing at every single one of her husband’s ancestors she petitioned, it attacked him pitilessly.
Gasping, sweating, and shivering all at once, both from the need for oxygen and from fear, which exacerbated the former need even more, VaManyanga’s breathing difficulties grew critical, far beyond the ability of Mai Manyanga’s fanning and other ministrations to assuage. Soon Mai Manyanga was at the telephone. It was working that evening. The ambulance was also available, having returned from the workshop earlier. It wailed up the Manyanga drive in no time. The emergency staff had an oxygen mask strapped over the managing director’s mouth in a matter of moments. There was oxygen in the tank, but even this admirable professionalism did not dismay the vengeful spirit. It burrowed deeper into VaManyanga’s lungs and kept on squeezing. When VaManyanga stopped gasping, the ambulance men declined to take the body and informed Mai Manyanga that the proper procedure was to pay
up front since VaManyanga’s medical aid had expired due to the lengthy duration of his treatment.
Mai Manyanga was not able to produce the money, for she was falling down in grief. Nor could she dial 999 for the police. Her sons, more sober then than they were to be subsequently, joined forces to sort out everything. This was the last time VaManyanga, whose lifestyle had always caused such a stir when portrayed on the leisure pages, was mentioned in the Clarion. It was also the last time his sons worked well together.
“This is how it started and went on to become something else,” Christine concludes. “Everything was wrecked and fell apart. That Ignore had taken over the house, and so my aunt died a pauper. What good do we expect out of that Ignore kind of person? Those who do, like my aunt herself, weren’t they just being foolish?”
“I am sorry,” you say when she has finished, standing up to shake her hand, a gesture you should have offered when you first heard of Widow Manyanga’s passing. Offering your condolences with sombre propriety, you pray your display of good manners will mollify your two aunts and speed up the unwanted visit.
“Tambudzai, are you sure? Do you know what you are playing with?” Mainini bristles.
You return to your seat etching a small smile onto your face, which you hope, but doubt, conveys understanding. Far from being discouraged by the story that has just been told, you are more indignant than ever that your maininis do not admire your initiative and resourcefulness. That, you reflect, is your people’s problem: they have no ambition.
“What are you thinking?” demands Christine. “First it is our fathers, our uncles, and our brothers. Then it is our little sisters and our daughters. Tambudzai, you are making some people very angry with what you are planning. You want people to throw coins at your mother, your aunt Lucia’s sister here, so she is just like my own womb sibling.”
You give up paying attention and listen with only half an ear, as Lucia and her companion attempt to dissuade you from the Village Eco Transit enterprise. Everybody has heard about ex-combatants setting themselves up as custodians of the nation’s development, in spite of displaying no understanding of business that is not related in one way or another to combat. Yes, it was their very ignorance concerning how to move the country forward that stopped the tours on Nils Stevenson’s farm. If not for those very war veterans, you would be earning your living up in the northwestern gamelands. You would not be at the homestead at all. Later, when Christine is no longer mourning, you will divulge details about the VET. Even at that future date, however, just as you are keeping the case from your mind now, you will not mention the matter of the bare torsos and beadwork.
“Do not do it, Tambudzai,” Mainini warns, furious with humiliation. “This new behaviour of yours is just as bad as everything else that we have seen from you. No, it is not even as bad. It is worse, isn’t it? Surely you know what you are playing with. You are the one with a sister using only one leg. You know what can be done when people are roused to fury, you know it. It is no longer explosives in the ground as it was with Netsai. These days, people’s arms have become the size of their sleeves for less than this thing you are doing.”
“You are opening the door,” nods Christine. “My uncle opened his door and untellable things came through it. Now look at all his people who remain. You cannot say this is what you want for people at your homestead.”
“I have heard what you say,” you reply formally. “I thank you for coming. I know I have you, my mothers, who went to war, to protect me. Please tell them there is nothing to worry about. Tell your colleagues I will give them something. The village wants this project,” you go on. “Everyone there is happy something is coming that will give them benefit.”
You pull several notes out of your purse. These you offer Christine respectfully, with both hands saying, “but first let me give you my chema.”
Christine does not move to accept them.
You do not know what to do, so you bend lower. Christine remains immobile. You go down on your knees.
“Give it to me,” says Mainini Lucia.
You walk over to your aunt.
“Here,” Mainini says to Christine. “The child says here are her tears.”
“Thank you,” Christine says and receives the money.
“She didn’t want to come,” Mainini says, as relief sinks you deep into your seat again.
“I said what for?” concurs Christine, anger rising once more. “I said to Lucia, talking to you, Tambudzai, is wasting our time.”
“Mainini,” you interrupt. You speak quickly so that the idea you have just come upon holds clear in your thoughts. “Mainini Lucia, I know the ex-combatants are now on the farms. But I drove from home this morning and I did not see anybody. How did you hear it?”
“Aren’t there people in the village?” Mainini says. “There are people. And there are children of people.”
“Netsai,” you say.
Neither Mainini nor Christine responds.
“Not Netsai,” you say. “The girls. It must be Concept.”
“You are beginning to see.” Mainini smiles slightly for the first time that evening.
“Concept,” you repeat, caught off guard by the idea of your young nieces being informers. “And Freedom.”
“Ms. Sigauke, madam, I’m bringing the food now,” Ma’Tabitha calls patiently from the kitchen.
When the cook has set down the spaghetti bolognese with a little salad, you usher your guests to the table. Ex-combatants do not generally engage in small talk. Kiri and Mainini grunt in reply to your efforts at conversation about their work at AK Security, all other subjects being too contentious. They twist a few strands of spaghetti around their forks for form’s sake and depart while there is still much food on the table.
CHAPTER 22
The buildings in the village are ready, smelling of fresh thatch, cow dung floors, and new wood, all the beams treated with boric acid and not creosote, in line with your company’s corporate identity. The visas are waiting at immigration. All your preparations have been excellent. The clients have flown to Amsterdam with KLM, then on to Harare with Kenya Airways. You stand in the arrivals hall at the airport. Here you are on the linoleum floor, proud of yourself. You are standing in the same spot your brother and father stood to welcome Babamukuru from England so many years ago, when you were told you could not travel to the airport and everyone agreed you must stay in the village. In a year or two, you believe, if you manage your Village Eco Transit well, you and not Tracey will check in and travel to meet clients in Europe.
This morning, you hold a sign on a metre-long staff. It sways in the air. You slip a hand higher to support it. You enjoy this. It is like the flag of your realm, which domain you see expanding magnificently. At the top of your staff, a short white banner ripples in the slight breeze, white because this is the cheapest. On the light background stands a green and purple jacaranda. Below the tree, printed in green capitals, the banner promises: “The Most Inspiring Eco Getaway in Africa.”
It is three weeks after your discussion with Christine and Lucia. You returned to the homestead twice in each of those weeks, keeping busy and pushing people ahead of schedule in your determination not to consider what your maininis told you. On several occasions, the chairwoman of the Dance Committee asked you for money for costumes. You kept a queenly silence. In the office, on the other hand, you assured Tracey all was arranged; the dancers would perform in the required—or rather in the requisite absence of—raiment. You told yourself you believe this and now, as you wait for the first batch of Green Jacaranda clients to take the Village Eco Transit, you do believe it. Your conviction has made you immensely confident. You are perfectly convinced you deserve to be held in high esteem. After all, in addition to performing the assignment excellently you have brought jobs, activity, and innovation to your village following decades of devastating peasanthood.
Pedzi is your assistant for the launch of the Village Eco Transit. Pale tourists, tired but
excited, emerge like apparitions from the heat haze that shimmers over the tarmac. Soon you and the queen of the ghetto are counting heads and checking lists. You conduct yourself as though you are holding court, taking a census on your people.
“We are back again,” booms ruddy, portly Herr Bachmann. He enjoyed the original Green Jacaranda safari on Nils Stevenson’s farm and, when she launched it, Pedzi’s ghetto getaway so much that he visited both three years running.
“No, no!” Herr Bachmann waves a hand at a hovering porter.
“There is no need. This I can do for myself,” he tells the disappointed man who wished to earn a euro or a dollar. Herr Bachmann smiles at him and the porter wafts away.
Now Herr Bachmann turns to Pedzi with his arms thrown wide.
“Pedzi,” he roars jovially. Pedzi beams. Herr Bachmann wraps her in a hug.
“You are beautiful. It is always good to see you. Congratulations to you and Tambudzai!” Your client flings an arm round your shoulders and squeezes. “Yes, you always manage to find a new programme. This is what I said to Claudia.”
With this Mr. Bachmann moves closer to the woman beside him.
“I said, we have already had one holiday in Zimbabwe this year, but Claudia, we have to see this!” Herr Bachmann disengages his arm from you and flings it round his wife.
“Yes,” agrees Frau Bachmann. “We are so excited. Tambudzai, in the brochure it says this new programme is the Village … Village … I cannot remember. Village something.”
“Village Eco Transit,” says Herr Bachmann, rolling his r.
“Yes, Village Eco Transit,” Frau Bachmann agrees again. “Tambudzai, it says that is where you live … oh not now, but it says that is where you were born and your family lives there.”
Pedzi giggles.
“It is where I come from. I live in Avondale,” you explain with a smile.
“Ah, yes, Avondale,” Herr Bachmann agrees warmly. “That is where they have that wonderful restaurant, with those cakes. Lekker! I heard some people say that word here. I know you in Zimbabwe say also lekker.”