This Mournable Body

  The front door closes. Shine’s feet pad back into his room and across to his bathroom. A few seconds later his shower trickles, spurting occasionally, under the city council’s irregular pressure.

  You have finally fallen asleep when your door handle turns and rattles.

  “Tambudzai! Tambudzai!” your housemate whispers.

  You hold your breath and do not answer, glad the door is locked.

  “Tambudzai. Don’t worry, let’s just spend some time chatting,” Shine’s voice drips between door and frame.

  Your mouth dry and gravelly, heart jarring against your ribs, you do not move.

  “Bitch,” Shine breathes into the quiet.

  You do not answer.

  “Missing one like you is missing nothing,” he decides.

  He pads back to his room. Silence returns like a punch. Then his footsteps are in the corridor once more. He leaves the house and returns several hours later with a raucous partner.

  It is later still when a tentative inquiring sound startles you back from the brink of sleep.

  Ta-ta-ta. Fingernails tap at your window.

  “Do you hear me?” a hushed voice asks.

  A staring eye gleams in the moonlight.

  “Which one is in there?” the woman who surrounds that eye whispers. Mottled and shadowy through the pink curtains, her drooping figure hunches toward the window.

  “Is there a key? I want the door open now. You must let me in there,” she says.

  Knowing she can see in through the gap between them, you pull the curtains back, revealing a cloven face, one side silver, the other ebony.

  “You know me, don’t you?” the woman says.

  You stare at her.

  “It was last week when I was here,” she rushes on. “With Shine, don’t you remember?”

  She knocks again, harder. You open your window.

  The woman relaxes slightly. “Are all of them like this?” she asks, nodding her head at the burglar bars.

  Now you nod, and add, “Except for the toilet. But that one is tiny.”

  “So open for me,” she begs.

  “Try there,” you gesture toward Bertha’s and Mako’s windows. “Because my key is missing!” you volunteer when she opens her mouth to insist.

  Smh, your visitor sucks her teeth. She slides along the wall, trampling the nasturtiums that Christine has been diligently watering. Soon there is more knocking.

  Minutes pass as you lie back beneath your cover wondering whether it is better to have your housemate’s women in his bed or outside your window. You squeeze your eyes tight as a giggle from Shine’s room is quickly stifled and you realize you are dealing with both options. After a few moments of thick silence from your housemate’s room there is unintelligible murmuring, followed by a spate of curt whispering. A few minutes later a dull thump tells you someone is clumsily trying to open the small bathroom window.

  Doors squeak down the hall as your other housemates hurry into the passage.

  “Chi’i? What’s going on?” Mako’s voice filters under your door.

  “These ones! Disturbing us to be bitten by what they’ve dug up,” Bertha whispers.

  “Maybe she’s gone?” Mako hopes timidly.

  “Ah! Going away from where she followed herself,” scoffs Bertha. “Iwe, Mako, what kind of woman does that? If you have any, tell me where have you put your senses.”

  “You were disturbed?” whispers Mako, appeasing Bertha with sympathy. “She tapped at my window also.”

  “Why else would I come out?” the big woman snaps. “I told that girl, stop knocking, as if it is your window. And I said, don’t you know it’s not your husband’s window either? Now look at her, thinking sugar isn’t bought in shops with your own money, but with Shine’s foolish organs.”

  “Running after that one,” agrees Mako in a thin wavering voice.

  Bertha chortles nastily, as is her habit when savouring other people’s misfortunes.

  “Ha, I bet his mother is crying, because she is looking after half a dozen, if not a dozen children. If I were Shine’s mother, I’d have swallowed him down. I’d have passed him out like shit and that would’ve been the end of everything,” she says.

  “Shh,” cautions Makomborero. “What if he hears you?”

  “Then we’ll see!” Bertha cackles.

  While your housemates talk, a medley of shrieks begins in your landlady’s front garden.

  You stumble out of bed, feet groping for plimsolls. Although you do not want anything to do with the commotion, you know you must be informed in order to ensure your own safety. Deciding not to be seen in your fraying nightdress with its missing buttons, you drag on jeans and a T-shirt.

  Bertha is pulling the front door open when you walk into the hall. She strides out. Mako hurries after her and you follow them.

  Out in the yard, your landlady is hastily tying a Zambia wrap around her waist as she advances round the side of her house.

  She, you, Bertha, and Mako gather and look out over the ragged grass. In the middle of this effort at lawn, in a dusty patch, the new woman struggles with her clothing.

  She wears a pale shirt with a billowing frill down the front, as though she is dressed for dinner. Slim dark pants complete her outfit. She fumbles first at the buttons on her shirt and then at the ones of her trousers. Horrified, you watch her claw at her zipper.

  “See,” the woman screams.

  “Now, see me. I’m going to take off my clothes, Shine, I’m going to do it. And I want to see what you’ll do.”

  “Kachasu,” says Bertha. “Or Zed. I’ve never seen a woman who can take that moonshine hard stuff.”

  Your eyes water as you watch. The woman’s frenzy mirrors the panic you endured a few hours ago when Shine stood at your door. What if you were younger? What would you have done if a man like Shine, an accountant with a job, paid you attention? Bertha’s words sound harsh in your ears. Your stomach tightens as you recall Gertrude and the stone in your hand. You sidle away from Bertha and your memories, closer to Mai Manyanga.

  The woman peels off her shirt and flings it away. The garment hooks on a clump of spiky pampas grass. Her hands creep across her shoulders to slide away her bra straps. Again and again her fingers fumble. By the time she manages to work on her zip, not even Bertha snorts because the woman’s rage billows out from her until, like smoke, it suffocates everything.

  Your landlady breaks the spell by inhaling deeply in irritation. She glances at Shine’s room where the lights are out, then once more at the enraged woman.

  “Shine’s gone now. About time!” smirks Bertha.

  You and Mako agree, at which Bertha adds, “I’ve been waiting quietly all this time. There’s someone I want to bring in here from my workplace.”

  Widow Manyanga whispers crossly, “What is that little thing doing there?”

  Your landlady uses the prefix ka to describe Shine’s woman, calling her a small, foolish object unworthy of attention.

  “Who told her,” your landlady cries, “that this is where to come to do things like that? Where did she hear it? That what I do here is run a brothel?”

  Bertha snorts in a way that implies many answers to the widow’s question. You keep still and Mako is trembling.

  The half-naked woman continues shouting. In a moment she triumphs over her zip. She pushes her trousers down over her buttocks, wiggling and hopping like a dancing girl in a chart-topping rumba troupe.

  Bertha laughs, cutting your landlady off in the middle of great indignation. Using the interruption to sift through her options, the widow hitches up her Zambia cloth, throws her shoulders back, and inflates her chest.

  “Maria!” Mai Manyanga opens her lungs and throws up her right hand. This gesture comforts you so that you are glad you are standing close to her.

  “Maria na Marita vakataura naIshe,” the widow bawls, releasing her voice for the first time since her recent period of silence in a roar of righteous indignation.

/>   Aghast at the evening’s events, you raise your right hand also. Then you lift both arms and wave them in time to the widow’s rhythm.

  “Vakataura naIshe, dai magara pano, Lazaro haaifa,” Mai Manyanga rumbles. “If you had stayed, Lord, Lazarus would not have died.”

  Your landlady, both hands above her head, palms to the woman stripping on the lawn, sways in ecstasy.

  Mako bows her head and clasps her hands together, lips moving. You start to hum.

  Bertha walks away to fish the blouse off the pampas grass. Having retrieved it, she wades a little way onto the lawn.

  “Get dressed,” Bertha says, as she throws the garment at the woman. “You’re putting us all to shame here.”

  Your landlady finishes her hymn.

  “Yes, cover it up,” she says, having cooled her own temper with her chorus. “And then get away!”

  Shine’s woman stands with her trousers around her ankles, eyeing the shirt at her feet, not knowing what to do.

  “Foolish girls,” your landlady scoffs. “What can that boy give them? A pair of shoes? They should look at us,” the widow goes on. “They must learn from their elder sisters. Because getting a man to marry isn’t a game. It’s as bad as war, and you have to know how to fight that one.”

  You continue to hum, with arms raised, palms fluttering to support your landlady.

  This backing appears to inspire her.

  “So why lie down?” she shrugs, turning her back on Shine’s woman. “Why, if you’re not going to get anything?”

  Thinking twice of leaving, the widow stops beside you.

  “Keep on standing, that’s what I say,” she admonishes. “And keep things together. So these men keep everything where everything should be kept. Isn’t that right, vasikana?”

  Tired now, your arms fall to your sides. Reading your exhaustion as a signal, Mai Manyanga turns toward her cottage declaring, “We’ll bring the fire of the Holy Spirit down against whatever brought that silly thing to my garden. We’ll pray for forgiveness for her. Remember, girls, the kingdom of God is taken with violence. Let us be violent tonight, in praying for forgiveness.”

  “We are sleepy,” Bertha objects. “Besides, that one back there needs watching,” she hurries on, to stop Mai Manyanga’s protest. “She just might start again, shouting up a curse for everyone since that’s what she came for. Mako and I will watch her carefully through our curtains.”

  “Let’s get down on our knees,” your landlady suggests to you. “You and I together, Tambudzai. We’ll pray for this woman.”

  Seized by the need for prayer, she glances at the gravel but decides not to fall onto it. Instead, Widow Manyanga fills her lungs and once more belts out her chorus.

  “Did anyone say I am going anywhere?” Shine’s woman shouts. Her voice keeps rising until it hangs in the night like a querulous star. “Well, watch this space. Just keep tuned. You’ve got the right address. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Christine has been sitting beneath the jacaranda tree by the gate, so silent and still that neither you nor your companions have noticed her.

  “Now, sister, what’s up?” the landlady’s niece calls.

  Mai Manyanga stiffens. Ignoring her niece, she puts her mouth close to your ear and says, “Tambudzai, aren’t you coming?” With that, she stalks away.

  You hurry after her, glad to be leaving the scene.

  “Go and tell Christine to get that woman out of this yard,” your landlady says. “And then tell her to lock the gate. That one must not bring any demons back inside here.

  “Coming here to do that!” the widow mutters as she proceeds. “Do I have a shebeen? In VaManyanga’s house! Tss, why does she think she can do what she wants at VaManyanga’s?”

  Christine is already on the lawn, urging the woman back into her clothes, when you return to carry out Mai Manyanga’s instruction. Shine’s woman allows herself to be pacified and soon the three of you pass through the gate.

  “Here.” Christine holds a pair of shoes out and leans against the gatepost, watching Shine’s woman step into them.

  “Now go, and don’t come back,” Christine says when the woman finishes dressing.

  Shine’s woman hesitates.

  “Away,” Christine urges.

  Christine stands silent guard as Shine’s woman dwindles to a dark dot, moving against silver washes of moonlight that flood the potholed road. You subside onto a granite boulder beneath the gnarled tree, at odds with yourself once more, not knowing why, fighting back tears.

  CHAPTER 7

  A jacaranda blossom swirls to the ground, its gentle purple now a pale metallic hue. The moon shadows have edges sharp as knives.

  You are still under the big tree by the gate, sitting on a boulder. Christine does not sit next to you. She stands arms crossed, fists balled into armpits, staring into the night as though she is examining a spectacle she has seen too many times before.

  You are about to return to Mai Manyanga and prayers when Kiri turns to you.

  “Let’s run,” she breathes.

  The change is disconcerting. One minute she is absent, the next she is with you, a woman wide enough, compelling enough to jump from there to here in a moment by the power of her will.

  She gazes toward the house where Mai Manyanga is waiting for you. In the pause between Christine’s suggestion and your ability to respond, the widow gives up, sweeping off to her cottage. You do not say anything now that it is just the two of you. You want to put your head on Christine’s chest and weep.

  “Let’s run,” Christine says again.

  You realize she does not want this, the weeping.

  You agree with her silently, as you are always doing, agreeing with people greater than you. This evening you concede that there shall be no weeping.

  “Run,” you echo. You hear yourself and you are angry with yourself because the word is a lie, standing in for the truth that you wish to lay your head on her chest and let the water dammed inside you pour out.

  Christine raises her upper lip, drawing down a trace of something amused or disgusted into the space between you. You welcome this admission, however veiled, of how the woman sees you. Perhaps this is the moment of hope when you can announce, “I am so sick of being sick of myself. I think you can. Kiri, would you help me?” But her lips seal together again before you speak.

  “Just talking,” she shrugs, allowing her voice to waft away like smoke into the night air.

  “Anyone can see you’re not the kind,” she resumes after a while. “What did that to you, cutting off your legs like someone who has been to war, so that you couldn’t even come and get your parcel?”

  “Your aunt’s calling,” you say, to stop the ridicule. You stand with what you believe is firm purpose, pushing back against being taunted by this woman from the village.

  “It was not just your mother,” Christine resumes. “It was Netsai, too. Only your father did not do anything. Your sister helped your mother carry the mealie, hobbled all the way, although you know how she goes hopla-hopla on that only leg of hers. She also sent her greetings. I am as good as your younger mother. I know your aunt Lucia very well. We went to war and came back from it together.”

  You had seen it coming. The only reason for Christine’s closeness to your family while being a stranger to you was that their bond was formed during the war when you were absent from the village. That period of strife was the one in which the gap between you and the homestead widened. Since home was unsafe, you spent term time at the Young Ladies’ College of the Sacred Heart and holidays at your uncle’s mission.

  “We were taught not to be selfish during the war,” continues Christine, who up until this evening had not displayed much interest in conversation. “Because then everyone dies. There was a boy I liked. They kept on sending him up to the front until he was killed. I thought even then, that’s selfishness. In spite of what they taught us. Even though we fought the war, it was full of liars.”

  It i
s now too late to begin the conversation you should have had weeks ago, when Christine came, concerning your family and their need and your inability to do anything about those needs because of your city poverty. Christine has that layer under her skin that cuts off her outside from her inside and allows no communication between the person she once believed she could be and the person she has in fact become. The one does not acknowledge the other’s existence. The women from war are like that, a new kind of being that no one knew before, not exactly male but no longer female. It is rumoured the blood stopped flowing to their wombs the first time they killed a person. People whisper that the unspeakable acts were even more iniquitous when performed by women, so that the ancestors tied up the nation’s prosperity in repugnance at the awfulness of it, just as they had done to the women’s wombs. It occurs to you that you are more like Christine than you are like Mai Manyanga: Christine with her fruitless war that brought nothing but false hope and a fresh, more complete variety of discouragement. You with your worthless education intensifying your beggary, making it all the more ludicrous.

  Christine starts to run. Phrases from the widow’s choruses float down on the quiet night air. You jog after her, not for her company but to put distance between yourself and the singing. After a few metres, your eyes glaze with effort. When you focus outward once more, you see only the night. Christine jumps out from behind a tree. You almost bump into her.

  “That is what we learnt,” she says. “Running is easy. Everyone can do it. If you don’t, you don’t live. What were you doing, if it wasn’t running that you pretended you couldn’t?”

  “After all that,” you gasp, in reluctant admiration. “All day. In her garden!”

  “I don’t sweat,” she says. “I run to town, three nights at least in a week.”

  She appears to like the fact that you are impressed by her endurance since she goes on, “I have to. It’s the only way. Because of all the things that never stop. Just like tonight in that garden.”

  She turns away, only to resume again after a little pause, “That’s the good thing about what the war taught us. There’s only one kind of blood, not many like some like to say. We saw it seep from every wound. And even those who couldn’t run knew how, after they saw it. It’s true, Tambudzai. If you’ve seen blood, you know about running.”