Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa (17 page)

The black giant seemed to become
uncomfortably aware that his own were about on a level with Billy's teeth.
Thereafter, he seemed to grow smaller by the minute.

'So what's the matter with you, then?'
spat Billy.

'O, nothing, sah!'

'Then take that dirty look off your
face!'

'Yessah!'

'AND GET YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR
POCKETS!!!'

'YES-SAH!'

By the time he sprang to attention, the
black giant looked no bigger than Billy.

One day there was a 'card sale'. This
meant all the Party bullies were out on the streets selling membership cards in
the Party at fifty cents each. Needless to say, the sales were not unpressured.

They were often shameful. People parted
with their fares at bus stops, even mothers taking their children to hospital,
who had to walk long distances instead. And they blockaded the supermarkets,
where they supplemented the work of the checkers. To be exact, they did this
outside the doors, not because of anything to do with legality, which was
exclusively the Party's affair in Zambia anyway, but because it needed less
workers to cover one or two doors than half-a-dozen check-outs.

Outside the OK Bazaar they had placed a
school desk, where a couple of bully officers sat with a ledger and a cash box.
They rarely accosted Europeans, but these were some of the more ardent spirits.
As Billy entered the store, they asked him in a tone Billy did not like if he
wanted to buy a Party card.

'No!' snarled Billy. 'I do not. Do I
look like an effing Zambian?'

They were about to let him pass, but
Billy had not finished with them yet.

'I am going into this store to make my
legitimate purchases. When I come out, I do not expect to see you or this desk
here. If I do I will throw it and you into the street!'

When Billy came out, the desk and its
handlers had disappeared.

A famous institution in Central Africa
is the 'long bar': needless to say, exclusively male. The long bar at the mine
club was as long as a cricket pitch. It was of course multiracial, but the
whites used the left end and the blacks the right. As the place filled up, the
two groups would meet at an uneasy conjunction somewhere between.

One evening, at sundowner time, Billy
was the last man on his side of the border. He had had a hard day, and perhaps
had taken too much on board. At any rate, it was not his first brandy and coke
which his black neighbour knocked over.

In the ensuing altercation, Billy used
the fatal word, 'Kaffir'.

He hardly had time to think about it,
still less regret it, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning round on his
stool, he found himself facing a po-faced individual with notebook and biro.

'I have noted the things you have been
saying to this comrade, comrade, including the offensive word in question. I
should inform you that I am a member of the area committee of UNIP, and I can
assure you that you will shortly be leaving the country.' With which the
individual put up his notebook and pen and left the bar.

Hardly noticed by a somewhat crestfallen
Billy, a small group of Africans drinking at a nearby table put down their
glasses and left also.

Presently, one of them, a respectable
little grey-haired
madala
, (
Old man
) returned and approached Billy in what appeared to be a spokesman capacity.
Touching his crinkly forelock, he addressed him.

'O, Mistah Doughty, sah, you don't have
to worry about our friend with the notebook. You see, Mistah Doughty, sah, we
know you, sah, and we know you are a good chap, and when you are saying these
things about "Kaffirs", we know you are not meaning them. Anyway,
when we got our friend outside, we beat him up and burned his notebook.'

Billy and I gave the first (and last)
multiracial parties on the Copperbelt. We had the nucleus of the hospital staff
to build on, where race relations were easier than in most places. One of these
parties was invaded by a group of drunks, encouraged, no doubt, by the unusual
racial mix, who invented an instant African custom to justify their intrusion,
to the effect that anyone is welcome at any party in 'African culture'. They
were led by one 'Tembo of the
Times
' (a title Billy later recalled with
derision). As they were being rejected enthusiastically by both black and white
participants, they had the cheek to call us 'racists' and 'colonialists', etc,
in the usual knee-jerk way of Rentamob, and vowed to return with their friends
next day. Tembo even threatened us with the hammer of the press.

After they had gone, Sister Chitambo
reassured me: 'They were talking nonsense, Dr Durrant. That is not an African
custom. We call them "gate-crashers".'

As a result of our initiative, Sister
Chitambo invited Billy and me to the engagement party of her niece, with a very
decorative and persuasive invitation card.

We turned up at the time requested  -
about 4pm  - and found the happy couple welcoming the arrivals outside the
house. The fiancé was in a morning suit, the girl in a long white dress and
long gloves. Both looked about as animated as tailor's dummies. Thank God,
Billy and I had decided at least to wear shirts and longs instead of our usual
week-end shorts and whatever.

After shaking hands we went inside. We
found ourselves in the usual enclosed veranda of such an old house, where a
number of other guests were sitting. Europeans in such a situation would have
split up into groups, each group exclusively male or female, unless the numbers
had been small enough to oblige them all to get together. In African society
togetherness is inescapable, and the chairs were lined round the walls facing
inwards, like some kind of tram car. All were in their Sunday best. Beer (for
the gentlemen) and Coke (for the ladies) were being taken in small paper cups.
Billy and I took our places, and were similarly accommodated. Conversations of
excruciating politeness were proceeding.

'And how are you, Mr Longo?'

'O, I am very fine. And how are you, Mr
Bongo?'

'I am very fine. And how is Mrs Longo?'

Mrs Longo, who did not presume to answer
for herself, stared bashfully into her Coke, leaving her husband to speak for
her.

'Mrs Longo is very fine. And how is Mrs
Bongo?'

After about half an hour of this, Billy
and I crept into the sitting room.

Such a room has no exterior windows and
is in more or less darkness, on some days even aided by electric light. Here
more chairs lined the walls. Some younger people sat about, no less formally
dressed. Music was playing quietly from a record player.

Billy, nothing if not a spreader of joy,
approached a solitary girl, who also wore long gloves.

'Would ye like tae dance, miss?'

The girl nearly choked, then seemed to
emerge from some kind of trance, looked wildly about her and stiffly replied:
'O! I don't seem to be dancing.'

Billy resumed his seat. It was not often
I saw him deflated.

Little cakes on paper plates were passed
around. The light faded in the swift tropical twilight. The formality continued
relentlessly. Billy and I felt ourselves slipping into rigor mortis. Then like
a good fairy, Sister Chitambo appeared before us.

'O, Billy!' she pressed. 'Why don't you go
and get some of those nice LPs you played at your last party at your house?'

Leaping at this chance with almost
indecent alacrity, Billy replied: 'Certanly!' and to me: 'Can I borrow the car,
Warren?'

Then he was gone. He was gone a long
time. Night came on. I plied the paper cups as hard as I could, but nothing
changed. I realised I had reached that grey stage where even alcohol has
failed. And like Mariana's boy friend, Billy cameth not.

About eight o' clock I made some excuse
- a case at the hospital. I got a lift from someone. Take me home first - I
have to do some study. Someone else will fetch me. O, what a tangled web!

Next day when I woke, I got the rest of
the story from Billy as he sat up in his own bed in the next room. He had got
the records but, as I had guessed, got holed up in some bar and did not rejoin
the party till nearly midnight. The whole scene had changed.

- Tae begin with, they had got rid of
the paper cups and were drinking the stuff straight from the bottle. They must
have got through fifteen crates by the time I got back. Mr Bongo and Mr Longo
had discovered they supported different political parties. 'How can you support
that man?' 'I thought this was a democracy!' 'You must be stupid! -' [This was
almost as bad as 'Kaffir', and was meant to be.] 'Who are you calling
"stupid"?'

- The music was now shaking the
building, and that little floozie that wouldnae dance wi' me came flying across
the floor, wrapped hersel' round me and screamed: 'SOCK IT TO ME, MISTAH
DOUGHTY!!!'

- The next thing, I felt a heavy paw on
my shoulder, and when I turned round, there was a bluidy big bloke like Idi
Amin staring doon at me out of his smoky eyes. He said, 'You put her down! She
has a boy friend and he is my friend. I will beat you!' -

Billy decided it was time to leave.

Lazarus was well-named. A creeping,
cross-eyed creature who knocked on our door more than once asking for 'work,
baas!' We had two servants: little old Peter, the cook, and Elias, the gardener.
It is true that Elias had a spell put on his stomach by someone and had to
return to the tribal lands for specialist treatment, and we never saw him
again. The winter was coming on, and we decided to leave our garden, which
never amounted to much, to lie fallow. In any case, we didn't like the look of
Lazarus.

Billy had a dog, some kind of collie
bitch, called 'Shereen', and she liked the look of Lazarus even less than we
did. One day, when he crept up to the house looking for work, Shereen saw him
off the premises. Peter saved Lazarus with a timely closure of the gate, but
that did not appease the evil creature.

According to Peter, Lazarus then began
to 'throw stones at doggie, bwana!'

Billy's Caledonian blood turned black
with murder at this news. 'The next time that black bastard comes near the
house, Peter, you tell me! D'ye understand?' 'Yes, bwana!'

It must have been shortly after that
Shereen died. Nothing to do with the stone-throwing, but the loss affected
Billy deeply and did nothing to soften his heart towards Lazarus.

Lazarus had the sense to keep away for a
bit. Then one Sunday morning, while Billy and I were sitting up in our beds
reading the Sunday newspaper, a tap came on the door. I went to open it.
Outside was Lazarus. 'Work, baas?' 'No,' I said quietly. 'You better not come here.
Bwana Doughty know you throw stones at dog.' 'No, baas, I never,' pleaded the
shameless creature. 'You go quick!' I urged, and closed the door.

'Who was that, Warren?' came Billy's
mild inquiry from his room.

'It was Lazarus.'

It was enough. Billy flung aside
newspaper and bedsheet. He was dressed only in his pyjama shorts. He shot out
of bed like a cannon ball, paused only to rattle open the door and bawl
'Lazarus!' just as the latter had reached the garden gate.

Lazarus then achieved a speed I would never
have credited his twisted body with, streaking down the avenue with Billy in
his pyjama shorts streaking barefoot after him.

After a minute or so, Billy became aware
of a number of well-dressed Europeans also progressing down the avenue at a
more leisurely pace on their way to church, many of them probably liberals who
wondered, no doubt, what that indecent-looking white man was doing chasing that
poor little black man. The pyjama shorts also did nothing for Billy's
self-confidence, and before he reached the railway line, he gave up the chase.
At least, Lazarus got the message and we never saw him again.

One night that winter, I was wakened by
the 'music of two voices' in the house some time after midnight. I recognised
Billy's tones, somewhat thickened by the 'hard stuff'. I also recognised a male
African voice. This turned out to be a trainee manager Billy had taken under
his wing at the club.

After doing the honours, Billy took on
the didactic tones of Dr Livingstone improving his black congregation. Billy
had evidently got out a record and started the record player.

'Now you listen tae this, Boniface, ma
boy. This is Beethoven. I mean that's the man who wrote the music. Now listen
weel, 'cause ye never had naething like this in your culture!'

‘Thump! Thump!’
I recognised the opening bars of the
Eroica
.

The first movement surged to its end
after fifteen minutes or so. Another fifteen took us lurching through the
funeral march; at least, it did Boniface and me, as subsequent events showed.

When it reached its dying fall and the
end of that side of the disc, I heard only a persistent clickety-click. Of
course, I well knew what had happened.