The Boy Next Door (38 page)

And just like that, an image of Bridgette lying so still inside a wooden box holds me.

Into the spooky tunnel showing the mining of minerals, and David, on cue, makes ghostlike noises,
ooooo, ooooo,
and I, too, respond, on cue,
shuuu.
And then we’re down the stairs again, outside. I blink in the bright sunshine.

“Let’s go for a stroll in the park. We can get something to drink at the bar by the train rides.”

Centenary Park.

Ah, the pleasures of Saturday afternoons, strolling up the long thoroughfare, bumping into other families, coming and going.
The thrill of treats awaiting. On special occasions, perhaps a birthday, the train rides, perhaps even two, on the miniature
steam train run by the Rotary Club of Bulawayo; the conductor walking along the open carriages, punching tickets and making
jokes about picannins; the train starting, steam shooting up in a straight column; the pulse and pace of my heart quickening;
Daddy curling up, shoulders bent in the seat next to me, his head scraping the wooden roof; ducking under the long, long narrow
tunnel, where if you’re brave enough you can touch the walls with your outstretched hands; up some bridges;
oh, look,
a pond of ducks; watch your outstretched hands on the thickets and then back again to the waiting platform.

The frantic scramble onto the huge models of an airplane and a tank, children shooting and calling,
vroom, vroom, pa pa pa pa.

The run up to the playground, a haven of swings and slides,
look, look what I can do. Look!
And the swings that can go so high that the sky seems to be about to crash on you, and coming off, legs shaking.

“That’s where I got this,” I say to David, turning my head and tapping a finger to the scar above my right eyebrow.

“On that?” he says, eyeing the slide.

“Yes. I was seven, maybe eight. It looked so high, scary. The big kids would go down whooping. I was with Thandi, one of Uncle
Jacob’s kids. She had gone down a few times already. She was the same age as me and they lived in some flats in Luveve Township,
which I thought was very exotic.”

David starts fiddling with the Walkman.

“Anyway, I finally worked up the courage to go on it. I can almost feel myself going up those steps, biting my lips, wanting
to cry; the other kids, bigger kids, pushing and prodding behind me,
move, go, move.
So I’m finally right at the top, my legs have managed to carry me up those, what, twenty steps, and when I look down, Mummy
and Daddy seem so small. I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart is racing. I’m holding on for dear life to the sides. I can barely
hear Mummy, Daddy, Uncle Jacob, maybe even Thandi calling out encouragement. And then, suddenly, I’m off. One of the bigger
kids behind me must have given me a shove. I open my eyes, big mistake. The sky seems to be falling. I will never stop. I’ll
keep going, going… and so, to make myself stop, I swerve to the right just as I get to the bottom, and I hit a bit of the
metal edge that’s jutting out. Lots of blood. I had to have stitches.”

David looks at the rusty slide again with a newfound respect, and then the earphones are back on.

I don’t tell him how Daddy had to blame someone as usual. My mother. Or that there were specific times when black children
were allowed in the playground.

Centenary Park.

What a grand affair it used to be. And now look at it.

The Christmas lights, famous throughout Africa. And then Harare stole them for First Street. The fountain where before independence,
rowdy whites would jump in and splash about while the few brave blacks, garden boys and garden girls from the surrounding
suburbs, Burnside, Khumalo, Morningside, Ascot, on their one day off, watched from the road. And now, the smell of feces from
the receptacle, its sides stained yellow.

And here we are at the aviary. For a moment, I watch Ian grab hold of the fence with his bruised hands. It was the first time
he told me about Khami Prison.

There are no birds anymore. I would like to think that they have finally been set free, but it’s more likely that those tame
birds have all been eaten. In fact, throughout the park, I notice patches of charred grass and sticks.

Behind the aviary there used to be a wild park full of impala, ostriches, and a giraffe. The impala and ostriches must have
long become “inyama” and as for the giraffe, who knows. One ostrich would come right up to the fence and jab its beak at it.
Daddy said an angry ostrich could easily kill a man.

The Horticultural Society of Bulawayo planned and tended the gardens, and there were intricate beds of flowers, which fascinated
Mummy, and she would try to remember the arrangements so that she could do a bit of the same at home.

“The whites, they really know how to beautify,” she would say bending down to examine a particular flower.

The colors! Purples, oranges, reds, all of them so vivid and startling. Hydrangeas, sweet peas, roses, chrysanthemums, flame
lilies… Daddy would be standing impatiently behind her muttering about how expensive seeds were and “unnecessary expenditures.”
Sometimes he would tug on a seedling, even though it was forbidden to take any plant life from the park and if you were caught
the fine was a hundred Rhodesian dollars and maybe even time in jail.

The flowers are long gone; trodden ghosts of beds and dirt remain. Benches missing planks (firewood again).

We walk back to the museum car park.

“Do you feel like an ice cream, David?”

I have to ask him again, shouting through his music.

“Yes,” he shouts back without taking off his earphones.

So we drive to Eskimo Hut next to the Trade Fair Grounds where they have the best soft ice creams in Bulawayo.

As usual there are carloads of youngsters and families. And vendors milling around selling Ndebele jewelry and some replica
pots and carvings from Khami Ruins.

For a moment I think I must be wrong. I must.

We see each other at the same time.

She looks up from talking to a man with a black rucksack.

I’m handing David his cone.

Her face breaks out into a wide smile. “Sisi!” she calls out.

“Rosanna!”

And then I see
her.
My sister. Danielle. (How small she is. How much David towers over her.)

The man with the rucksack gives Rosanna some money; he clumsily folds the lace tablecloth and shoves it into his rucksack.

We meet each other halfway. “Sisi!” “Rosanna!”

For a moment we cannot say anything but hold each other’s hands. And then we move to a patch of grass and we sit on the bench
there.

We watch David and Danielle look at each other, and the thought strikes me, they are cousins; no, no, that’s not right, if
she’s my sister then, oh, my God, she’s David’s aunt. David’s her nephew!

“You are looking so fine, Sisi. Harare is too, too sweet for you.” She giggles into the palm of her hand.

“But you, too, you are looking good, Rosanna.”

Rosanna laughs.

We both know that I am lying. She is much thinner and the chitenga cloth hangs limply on her.

“I am keeping busy, that is all. Surviving.”

I notice the swollen blackened area below her left eye, and she raises her hand to hide it.

“Where are you staying, Rosanna?”

“I was staying for some months in Killarney, but the army came and destroyed everything. Now I am here.”

“Here” I know is the streets.

She puts a hand on my knee, lowers her voice.

“Sisi, I must tell you this. Maphosa is busy terrorizing people. He is the number one war vet in these parts. His gang killed
that white farmer over at Nyathi. He is looking for your white man. He must not come to Bulawayo.”

I look up from her hand back to the children. David has given Danielle the ice cream. The tip of her tongue darts in and out
as she licks the cold. David stands there with his hands in his pockets, trying to look so much like the man of the world.
So much like his father.

“He is saying Number Eighteen is Headquarters and Interrogation Centre. He is saying that the fighters are going to truly
liberate Zimbabwe now. He is going to the Indians in Lobengula and getting money; otherwise they beat the Indians and take
from the shops anyways.”

She lets out a long sigh. “People are changing, Sisi.”

Someone calls her name, one of the vendors. “I have a customer, Sisi. I must be going.”

I sit for a while watching Rosanna negotiate with the elderly white lady who is holding a doily in her frail fingers. Rosanna
takes the doily, carefully folds it, and gives it back to the lady. The lady digs in her purse and gives Rosanna some coins.
Rosanna stands there, looking down at the coins in her open palm, and then ties them up in a handkerchief, tucks the bundle
in her chest.

Ashamed of myself, I give Rosanna all the money that I have despite her protests. I ask her if she still has my Harare number.
She says yes. If you need anything, I tell her, just call. “Thank you, Sisi,” she says. I know that this is not right. I should
take her back to the house. Have it out with Mummy. But I am a coward. So I leave them there. Rosanna and my sister.

*    *    *

When we get back, I try to phone Ian again. Nothing.

This time I startle awake. I draw the curtains to one side. As though I’ve expected this all along, the glow of orange in
the dark does not surprise me. I turn to Ian, but he is not there. I feel the smoke and heat in my mouth, eyes. I get up from
the bed. I walk out of the room, the house, and stand outside in the dark, watching the house next door burn, and then there
is a figure running towards me lit up, whirling and twirling in the night—

I jolt up and find Ian standing at the foot of the bed.

“Hello stranger,” he says.

David and Danielle
are sitting, whispering at the back.

I keep seeing Rosanna’s face when she stood by the car and raised her hand to wave good-bye to her daughter.

“You must be a good girl,” she told Danielle. “Don’t bring shame to me. You are now with your little mother.”

Ian had stayed behind the wheel, nothing said between him and Rosanna.

“Yes, Mama,” Danielle replied and sat down quietly, her hands folded on her lap.

David had his earphones on and was looking out his window.

“She will be fine,” I said to Rosanna. “Don’t worry.”

She had phoned early in the morning.

“Please, Sisi, take my Danielle with you. It is only till I find a place to live. It is not good for a girl to be living in
the streets. The government will take her. Also, there are some gangs from South Africa who are coming after young girls.
Please, Sisi.”

It’s only when David and Danielle are both sleeping, their heads lolling on the backseat that Ian opens his mouth.

“Now don’t get all worked up about it, but I had a visit from the spooks.”

“What?”

“The spooks. CIO.”

“Ian!”

“I told you, don’t get all worked up about it; they just took me over to headquarters, for a discussion.”

“A discussion?”

“Yes man, listen to this one. Someone’s got hold of a negative and is busy adding horns and a pitchfork to Bob’s portrait.”

“Ian…”

“Don’t get overexcited. They just gave me a couple of slaps. I reckon they know it’s not me. A white man these days wouldn’t
dare try that one. They just wanted to be seen to be doing something.”

“Is that why you weren’t home?”

“When? Oh, yah, kept me there overnight, got on good terms with the blimming roaches. It was like being in a bad movie. The
dialogue. The looks.”

“Ian, what did they say?”

“The usual, people can be made to disappear, accidents can happen. Come on, Lindiwe, don’t look so shit scared; anyway, I
reckon it’s an inside job. I gave all the negatives to the President’s Office so someone’s playing a fast one.”

“So they just let you go?”

“Yes man. Dropped me off at Mbare with zilch dollars. Had to walk home like the masses. But I haven’t even mentioned the classic
they pulled. In the car they say Bob likes me and wants me on board for the campaign. I’m to report to duty first thing on
Wednesday over at ZANU-PF head-quarters. You’re looking at a party man, my girl.”

“Ian, you’re not going to—?”

“What were you phoning about?”

“Answer my question, Ian; you’re not going to work for—?”

“You first.”

“Ian!”

“Come on, Lindiwe, be realistic now. You don’t honestly think that Bob’s going to hand over the fricking country, no matter
what the voters say, to a former Trade Union guy, that’s if the bloke actually has the balls to take on Bob with his, what’s
it called, Movement for Democratic Change. You’re not really thinking that ‘chinja, chinja’ is coming. Please, the same old,
same old is coming. Bob’s here to stay. Didn’t you hear what the army chief said? If all else fails, they step in. The only
people qualified to run the country to the ground are former liberation fighters.

“Ian, it’s propaganda; you’d be selling their propaganda, you can’t, all your work in Soweto—”

“Oh, Lindiwe, please. This is Africa. I’m going to be taking some pictures, that’s it: Bob waving, shaking his fist, kissing
children, kissing the delightful Miss Grace, who the hell cares…. It’s a campaign. It is democracy in action. Just like in
the U S of A.”

“Ian—”

“Are we almost there?”

“Only forty K’s, my boy.”

I turn around and I see Danielle sitting straight up, tears falling silently down her cheeks. I turn to David who gives me
a scowl. I look over at Ian. What have I, we, let ourselves in for? I think of all the things I could say to Danielle. It
will only be for a little while; you’ll see your mother soon; don’t worry, don’t; it will all work out; just wait, you’ll
love Harare; you won’t even want to come back to sleepy Bulawayo…

“Are you guys hungry?” I say instead.

Danielle has on the headphones and is moving her head gently back and forth. David gives me his “you see” look.