Harare North (6 page)

We have not even start starving but his face already look thin
and his lips dry and cracked; now his teethies suddenly is crowded
inside his mouth. He have come straight inside house, remove his
dirty boots and disappear inside the bathroom to have shower.
Tsitsi take she baby upstairs and leave us alone.

All that time I don't know what this Shingi thing is all
about but can sniff sniff that this have something to do with
his graft.

Now I have to do something to make Shingi feel better. I open
my suitcase, take out my screwdriver, grab some old newspaper
and Shingi's boots, and I start to scrap the mud off. I do this for
ages but Shingi don't come out to see. Then me I get tired, put
the screwdriver back inside my suitcase, wrap up the dirt and throw
it in the bin outside.

Now I hear him coming. Me I jump off my suitcase and go to
the kitchen to make him coffee. When I walk back, he is sitting
still. I hold out the cup of coffee to him and he ask me to put it
down on the floor next to his feeties. I have forget to buy milk,
so the coffee that I make him has black and shiny metallic surface
like used engine oil. I sit down on my suitcase and watch him.
He have trace of sneer on corner of his nose.

He never touch the coffee but only thumb his nose once and
lie down on the bed.

Shingi only start to talk the following day. Now he tell how
cigarette-biting foreman march them out because someone sell
them out to immigration people and there is going to be some
raid soon. One of the foreman's people have dog and when Shingi
try to explain that he have proper papers the man don't listen and
nearly let they dog loose on him. Shingi is in big trauma; even
today when I ask him what kind of dog this was, he only say it
have very big mouth. This kind of end have been easy to see for
everyone but Shingi.

In the evening when Farayi and Aleck come from graft, Farayi
sympathise big time with Shingi. But head boy Aleck not very
impressed about all this. He is worried for his rent money.

'BBC graft for £8 per hour. Immediate start, and it's in Croydon.'
That's what Aleck tell us. He is trying hard to head us in BBC
direction and Shingi is drooling now.

'The fly that land on dollop of poo is the lucky one,' I tell
Aleck. 'The one that land on honey is in big trouble. That's the
tricky thing about living in Harare North. But some of us, we
have to ask the question: you want to do something – what is
better, to try doing it your own way and risk finding small success,
or to do it in undignified pooful way and find big success?'

Both Shingi and Aleck get the score quick and stop all this
BBC talk. Me I am principled man.

The Savoy Hotel, the Ritz Hotel, myhotel Chelsea, Crowne Plaza
Shoreditch and Westbury Hotel. That's the list of hotels that I
plan to mau-mau. But Shingi don't have ginger for talking this.
Me I think maybe it's time to cook supper for him.

In the fridge there is still some of the beefsteak that Shingi
have buy on his way from work some few days before. Like usual,
I take my screwdriver out of my suitcase to use it to make steak
tender before cooking. I pound the meat with the screwdriver's
heavy handle and after that I stab stab stab the steak with the
other end of the screwdriver.

Then I fry it nice. I also make vegetable relish and when I lick
the wooden spoon me I know this is number-one stuff. While all
this is getting ready I decide to cook bit of rice but I cannot use
our pot because it get burnt in the morning and so have dark
layer of porridge at the bottom. The worst thing you can do is
use burnt porridge pot because whatever you cook inside it start
to smell of black porridge and no one want to eat it. Instead of
rice, I cut some bread for us and take it to our room where we
eat silent.

We have not yet find mattress in them rubbish skips for me,
so I lie beside Shingi in bed because he share his bed with me.

I try to light up the mood by making joke about how if the
cigarette-biting man run rings around Chirac's head like that,
maybe Chirac was fake Frenchman. Big mistake. Shingi blow his
top off and tell me to start bringing in money for food and rent
instead of sit on my tail all day and only waiting to crack jokes,
play food games with him and pretending I possess him.

Now we stop all them jokes and food games. Even when I
know I still possess him.

Food is tricky subject; things get funny over it. Even before Shingi
lose his graft, food sometimes make conversation funny. And that's
not only with me but also Aleck, Tsitsi and Farayi. But that's not
big surprise to me. Or even Shingi. The two of us have had
chance of witnessing them troubles that food can cause from long
time.

One morning I get shocked to find that Shingi's bearded mother,
MaiShingi, is involved in fight with she new husband over bread.
MaiShingi's husband is about to go to his graft as commuter bus
conductor, and she is getting ready for she day. She do people's
hair from home and one customer have already arrive wanting to
have she hair straightened.

I am waiting for Shingi and his stepbrother Chamu to finish
eating they porridge so we can go to school together when Shingi's
stepfather, in his blue uniform, order his wife to cut him two slices
of bread while he get dressed. He dash through the lounge as he
say this.

'What?' MaiShingi clap she hands in big surprise to show this
is bad bad omen. 'Me slicing bread for you?' she bawl. She can
be proper fishwife sometimes.

Now, she husband is stunned and don't know what style he
have been hit with. He is not sure what to do in the front of
MaiShingi's customer who is sitting in the lounge, pretending to
peel off nail polish from she fingernails because she is stewing up
in unease. And the lounge, which is also hair salon and always
filled with smells of burnt hair and chemicals, now also have the
new smell of food quarrel.

'Aah, MaiShingi?' he try to warn she, but MaiShingi don't
bother answering; she pick she new shaver from the table and
disappear into the bathroom. Now anyone can sniff sniff that
MaiShingi's husband is going to be worryful all day if peace is
ever possible inside house that have two people who shave beard
every morning. That's the kind of thing food quarrel can do and
complicate everything. People always fight over food; if it is scarce
they fight over them crumbs, and if there's enough of it, people
fight over who get to put it on the plate and for who. And if
there's just too much of it, people bawl horror and want to fight
them supermarkets for trying to fatten them.

The problem is that disagreement over food always end up with
innocent people hurt. Food arguments don't fail to have victim.
Shingi's stepfather, after the fight with wife, he run off to work
with big vex on his face. That day, all them fare dodgers and poor
mothers that rely on begging for conductors' kindness to have free
ride with they children is in for big shock, me I know straight away.

That's food. So when food talk make Shingi sore like that, I
step with care.

* * *

Me I wake up, I get up, I get clothed, I tie my shoelaces and
step off out of the house. You can't mau-mau like hungry man
when you have got full stomach, so I don't eat nothing that
morning.

Money is like termite. The more desire you have to catch it,
the more you scare it down into its hole. You don't try to catch
it by its head, but let it crawl out of the hole first. That's what
I'm reasoning as I walk down Brixton Road. You have to have
big patient style with these things.

Then there is this news–animal that follow your every step
from Zimbabwe, hiding in the dark tailwinds behind you. You
can't see it but only hear its footsteps; you stop, the footsteps
stop, you walk and you hear them footsteps again. All the news
of emeralds or diamonds and the government wanting to take
Mother's village – is this propaganda or what? You have to catch
the termite before this thing come out for you, that's the catch.
Otherwise it scatter your mind all over like leafs at the mercy of
the winds and you lose what you believe in and have no weapon
to fight with. Then you never get out of Harare North.

Today I have to find hotel to mau-mau. When I leave the house
Shingi is still in funny mood and say he have headache. I offer
him cigarette but he just shake his head tight. He is making big
play out of studying ceiling, clearing his throat and swallowing all
the time like he want to say something but he never do. Me I
leave him alone.

Farayi and Aleck have already go to graft and Tsitsi have again
go to rent she baby at the hair salon.

As I'm stepping off down them pavements and reasoning me
I don't know that by the time I come back in the evening I will
find that there's also now some Judas inside our house. Someone
have been going through my suitcase I can tell straight away;
they have leave my screwdriver pointing to the opposite way from
how I leave it. I forget to lock it before I leave. Someone have
sniff sniff and look inside my suitcase and they even thief
my US$9.55. You can take the money but don't look inside my
suitcase.

Me I am not civilian person; so I don't go
paparapapara
panicking. The past always give you the tools to handle the present.
Add small bit of crooked touch to what you do and everyone
soon get startled into silence and start paying proper attention
and respect to you. Every jackal boy know that style; drop in crazy
laughter in some crazy place during interrogation and any traitor
will listen up. It's not accident that 'skill' and 'slaughter' start with
a crooked letter. Every jackal boy know that too. Remove the
crooked touch from each of them those two words and suddenly
you kill laughter.

When I come back from mau-mauing hotels, Shingi start
drinking that old brandy he buy last month. Aleck is in the shower
and Tsitsi and Farayi is cooking in the kitchen.

I don't want to talk to no one about my day. I have spend all
day looking for hotel and can't find nothing because they is hidden.
I only hit one hotel after I see one man that look like he's from
Saudi Arabia going inside. I step inside the hotel and I know
straight away that this is visited only by quality people that only
poo pure strawberries and fresh cream. There is one beautiful
woman being helped at the reception. Me I'm still looking at this
beautiful thing and suddenly I don't know what happen next
because before I even know it two fat bouncers in uniform have
throw me out onto the street. It happen so fast, I am stunned.
Maybe they even hit me on the head with some frying pan or
something because my head still feel dizzy now. But now look
what I find inside our house?

Everyone say they never touch my suitcase and Shingi say he
don't see nothing all afternoon. Because the person that look
inside my suitcase did not search the bottom, me I don't want to
push it.

Before we go to bed Shingi is drunk now in pathetic way. He
get up from the bed and go to kitchen and stagger about in very
careless way. Then he make mistake of dragging his foot on board
that is loose and some funny noise come out of his mouth. He
limp back and collapse down on mattress. It's one big splinter,
one centimetre or more into his foot.

The best thing to remove it is maybe the needle and that's
what Shingi ask for.

'My needle is lost inside my suitcase, me I can't find it,' I tell
him. I go to the kitchen and take two knives. One belong to Aleck
and Tsitsi and is one of them things with clip-point blade. The
other, ours, is normal big bread knife.

I walk back into our room whetting them two knives together
and Shingi recoil in drunk horror.

Easy, boss, everything is under control, me I say and go kak
kak kak. I have do this before – I make one clean cut along it
splinter with this knife then I spade it out with this.

Shingi have heap of suspicion on his face.

Me I have no time to waste with drunk person. If you don't
trust my skill then just say so, I tell him.

I try to cut sharp line along the firewood, and try do it at some
angle so that I end up cutting towards it once I get under skin.

Shingi's skin under his foot is dry and cracked and hard
like tortoise shell. So no matter how careful I am, I just can't
get past it. I tell him that I now have to put more force because
it look like he have tortoise ancestor somewhere in the past.
I sit on his leg so that I hold it tight in case he try jump
about.

Now I have his leg tight like vice grip.

Now admit that you are the one that look inside my suitcase
or I push this splinter ten miles inside your foot, me I go kak kak
kak into the ceiling.

Shingi try to jump about but this is vice grip.

OK OK it's me it's me, he surrender quick.

Me I was only joking, you coward. But I still remove the splinter
for you.

Things start to go wrong because Shingi can't keep his foot
still as I cut into his foot. He thrash about really bad and I am
struggling to hold his leg tight with my legs. Then blood start to
go everywhere and me I have to stop because I don't want to
touch no blood. Shingi have been in prison, and everyone that
go to prison always come out with Aids, me I know. I have to let
Shingi pull the splinter out with his own fingers.

Aids also end with crooked letter. That can add bit of the
crooked touch to your style if you know that tomorrow you will
be gone. Those traitors know that too.

'Do you really know him?' I ask Shingi but he is just twitching
his tail like proud thing and ignore me. I don't say nothing
too. He think he know everything about this granite-jawed bitter
old Zimbabwean man that work part-time with Aleck. That's
the Zimbabwean that now live in Brixton after running away
from police back home. He is the one that hook up Shingi and
Aleck together and live at Tulse Hill Estate and have very impatient
style. One blazing eye and greying stubble; he remind you
of many things.

He also do the asylum style – that's how he get the council
flat that he live in because Lambeth Council getting a fair share
of Zimbabwean asylum seekers these days. But he have fall out
of love with Zimbabwe, don't want to know it no more and
don't even want to be known. Last time we visit him our conversation
end in funny silence. That's because he is that kind of
person that you can buy beer for and say I know you but they
will throw back at you some rough mouth like 'You say you
know me, has your mother ever cook
sadza
for me?' He is so
rough you can't admit that he don't want to be your friend and
you still buy him four more beers hoping that maybe you have
make friendship. Still he don't want to know you.

I know him from home this old man. His flat, that's where
Shingi say he is going to spend the day because he is in funny
mood since I help him remove that splinter. He is limping about
and his eye accuse me of damaging his foot.

Before Shingi have limp off to the old man, me I step out
of the house and off to Paul and Sekai.

Now I have to make new plan and make peace with Paul
and Sekai; you can never trust people that is not your relative
in foreign places. Especially with all them these small betrayals
going on inside our house. Shingi is worryful, you can see. All
them big promises that he have make to his family that he will
send them money, they is hanging around his neck, and he
don't want news getting back home that he have lose his graft
again because that have already happen three times now since
he come to London. But I don't get the score why he behave
like this to me.

Sekai is on the phone and old Paul is at the computer, poking
keyboard with two fingers like policeman. Paul have disappointed
look on his face when he let me in at the door and walk back
to the computer saying he just want to finish off something
quickly. That's when Sekai leave the phone and jump on me,
cross-examining me on why I just leave them without no warning
and if I was wanting to burn they house down because I leave
petrol behind; what kind of thing is that? Now, you don't let
no one talk to you like so if you is not depending on they food
no more.

'Don't rush to swallow things before you have even chew
them proper because you will choke and get us very worryful,'
I tell she straight and square. 'The petrol was inside house
because me I forget to take it with me; Aleck was coming to
pick me in his car but run out of petrol by Stratford station. I
was going to bring him the petrol but then he phone saying
he have manage to top up.' I spin she head dizzy now.

She nearly choke on that but suddenly now she have big
ginger to point out them things that is not adding up in my
story, trying to catch me out, spinning some jazz number and
make me feel cheap. But me I'm doing them swanky ninja moves
inside my head; ducking, diving and doing cartwheels so she
end up clutching thin air. Then she start taking me to task for
bad manners because I only tell them by email that I have leave
them.

Paul come to my rescue because now he can see that this has
become embarrassing because his wife will try to throttle me if
he don't stop she.

Sekai get ready for night shift and she leave without saying
goodbye to me.

'There is mail for you in the kitchen,' Paul tell soon after
Sekai have bang the door on the way out. It's one letter from
my uncle. When I leave home, he had promise that he will
help organise
umbuyiso
ceremony for Mother. Now he say he
is not sure if it's useful for him to start organising anything
because people in the village where Mother is buried have
already been telled that they have to prepare to be resettled
any time.

'This village, Mother's family have been there since 1947
when they was moved from fertile land in Mazoe because the
land have been given as reward to some British Second World
War veteran. Now they have to move again?'

Paul nothing to say to me about this.

'Soon Mother's grave maybe end up being dig up by some
machine, get wash away by rain and she bones come out in the
open and get bleached by sun just like bones of dead bird and
no one is going to care.'

When I tell Paul about what happen when I try to find hotel
where Saudi princes give fat tips, he nearly fall off his chair
laughing. Now I have to stop talking about this because people
think that I am dunderhead. But when I leave me and Paul is
still talking in civilised way.

I say sorry for how I leave them last time.

'You know anything about Uncle Nhamo?' That's what Paul
ask as he walk me to Tube station. I don't know where this
question come from or if this is trick question or what. Uncle
Nhamo kill himself when I am still the size of teaspoon.
Everything that I have hear about him is funny because everyone
going hush hush. People say he have the winds.

'Yes I know about Uncle Nhamo.' I don't want Paul to start
accuse me of not knowing family members like them young
people do these days. He's old-fashioned in that kind of thing
even though he is not old.

He kick some stone on the pavement in that way like, OK,
let's leave that one alone. It's funny behaviour by Paul. And
me I don't want to talk about this Uncle Nhamo dead guy.

'What will happen to all them family graves in Mother's village
and why is Uncle doing nothing?'

But Paul say nothing. Even Uncle Nhamo is buried in
Mother's village.

When the past always tower over you like a mother of children
of darkness, all you can do is hide under she skirt. There you
see them years hanging in great big folds of skin and when you
pop your head out of under the skirt you don't tell no one
what you have see because that is where you come from. You
tell them and people will treat you funny. Especially civilian
people. You don't tell no one about the past or you frighten
them. Me I don't say even one word about the past to anyone
inside our house. Things is still funny in here. Shingi have just
send chunk of his savings to family back home. The Western
Union form is there on our bed.

I have buy sausages, do you want?

Shingi just lie in bed quiet and don't say nothing to me but
only shake his head with funny grin on his face; one of them
grins that stay on the face even if the owner of the face have
stop smiling two months ago. Maybe it's because there is still
no lead to follow regarding graft.

We need to clean our house. We have to sweep the floors because
they is full of dirt and it's hard to think straight inside this
house, Shingi say now. You need to clean the inside of your
head, I don't say.

It's morning, everyone have go to graft, Tsitsi have go to
hang out at hair salon and it's only me and Shingi in this house
and I'm still reasoning what kind of plan to make now.

Shingi expect me to go get the broom and start the cleaning.
Time stop suddenly. Outside, the city rattle on as usual: doors
slamming on faces of people that is mau-mauing for graft, rail
tracks red hot from big punishment by them trains, jet planes
criss-crossing sky and all. If I had good sense of hearing maybe
I even hear cars on the M25 going round and round London.
Outside our door, on the lamp post, that stubborn spider is maybe
again trying to hang his web across lamp post and the hedge.
Inside this house no one go to get broom from the kitchen.

I decide to escape all this and look around Brixton for those
graft that you find stuck on window of newsagent and small
shop. But when all you see everywhere is 'massage therapist',
'room in flat' and that kind of thing, you can't keep walking
on. So me I think I should just relax; if God want to give you
graft it will come.

I go check out the salon where Tsitsi is spend all this time
selling she baby with MaiMusindo and them other women.

The salon is inside Market Row mall, opposite Elser Cafe. I
coil myself at the corner, close to some tramp who have them
soldier's eyes. He is drowning his chips in ketchup.

In the evening when I tell Tsitsi about that I was at Elser
Cafe, she don't like it because she think I'm following she.

'You! Stop following people,' she shout and start to talk
about how following people is breaking the law in this country.

When I tell she about it, it was just the two of us in the
kitchen. I have then go to join Farayi and Aleck thinking that
the conversation have finish but she follow me to our room so
she can tell me that stalking people is big crime offence. Me I
ignore she and try to talk to Aleck and Farayi because it is about
8pm and I have not see Shingi since morning.

Farayi and Aleck is not worried about Shingi.

Them clocks hit 11pm and Shingi is still nowhere to be seen.

In the morning Aleck now start going on like big headmaster
telling us how Shingi is not able to take the pressure of Harare
North. I want to tell him to be careful how he talk because
he have to remember not to get over familiar with Shingi and
me because it is not like we have spend our childhood herding
cattle with him. I give him one powerful look that is full of
skill and he get it.

Farayi, he don't want to get involved in all this so he eat his
breakfast hard.

When Aleck and Farayi leave for work, I go to kitchen and
make myself porridge. I try to eat it alone in our room. Porridge
refuse to go down.

Shingi, I know he will never spend even one night at the old
man's place at Tulse Hill Estate, the old man that ran away
from Zimbabwe. That old man not going to let that happen. I
don't want Shingi to end up becoming one of them people we
read about in the papers being found floating with broken
umbrellas and dead ducks in River Thames.

I abandon the porridge. Upstairs Tsitsi have wake up for
second time. She normally get wake up by baby some crazy
hour in the morning to feed him and then she sleep again. I leave
the house because I am not in mood to tune into she talk and
songs today.

I have run out of cigarettes and the money to buy them, so
before I leave house me I look inside the pockets of Shingi's
jacket that is hanging on the nail on the wall and find only
seventy-three pence.

I find Tim's Fish Bar. It is this small likkle thing in Stockwell,
fifteen minutes' walk from our house and on its glass front Tim
have write
Thank Cod For Tim!
. That's where they have graft;
one of them 'apply within' things. People that love them fish
and chips always coming to this place. Tim is short and well
fed, chinless scooter-riding wonder that have barrel stomach
that is very taut in familiar way. He also like dog racing. He
read the
Sun
newspaper when things is not busy. He is assist
by Ricardo, who come from Portugal. But he don't hire me on
the first day because he think he can find someone that speak
English better than me.

'Can you speak English?' he ask with them arms folded on
counter on top of his newspaper.

'Yes.' I also know history and woodwork.

He just want someone that can talk English and is not workshy.
Tim want to know if I have work permit. I tell him I leave
it home and he nod with small smile on his face, and say that
he want someone that can do the floor cleaning and all other
things because him and Ricardo get swamped. I should come
back in few days' time. I also have to be sure I can do the
working hours, Tim say, and I write these hours inside my head:
11am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, or 5.30pm to 11pm Monday
to Friday.

I go back home and after three days, Shingi is back into our
house from nowhere.

'Why should Aleck and Farayi worry about someone who
have relatives in east of London?' That's what Tsitsi say to me
as I wash them cold hands in warm water in kitchen sink.

I don't ask Shingi no questions because I don't want him to
feel like I'm playing big brother or something on account this
might cause clash of feelings and volumes of bad air. If he have
decide to visit his relatives, then fine.

I tell Shingi the big story about Tim and his fish bar but he
think that I am spinning him one fat old jazz number, I can
see in his eyes. He get up from his bed and go to kitchen
without no word. Me I follow him. Now he dash around
cupboard to cupboard opening door and drawers as if looking
for something, giving me them one-word sentences – Hmmm.
Good. OK.
Shuwa
– while I am flapping about in the air following
his movements in the kitchen.

No . . . now y . . . you will start looking after yourself; that's
good because I have no more ginger for looking after some
baby that have beard, he say.

Me I go and sit down on my suitcase and light my cigarette.

Shingi have bring with him some beefsteak that he buy on
his way home. He cook some portion only for himself and eat
all by himself. Me I just smoke cigarette. He make small talk
with Farayi eating and sitting on his bed and I know he have
talk about me to his relatives and they have throw some funny
mouth around and try to propaganda him against me. That's
because he find it hard to save money to send home. All my
fault.

Now Aleck come in and start to make fun of Shingi, asking
if Shingi is finding pressure of living in Harare North too much
because maybe the winds is howling inside him. This thing start
as one small joke and even if Shingi not laughing about it,
everyone in the house laughing. Then Aleck don't want to drop
it and now no one is laughing because it feel funny. One time
you is going kak kak kak while someone is being make fun of,
and you don't notice the change; suddenly no one laughing any
more and all they is doing is just feeling funny and walking out
of the room.