The Death of Rex Nhongo (11 page)

S
asa and me in the TV room. In Amerika, Momma only let me watch one day a week, but now I watch evry day. An evry day Mom come in an she say, “You watch too much TV, Rosie.” An I say, “I don!” An she look at me an it like she don know whadda say next an fold her arms an jus stare an, long as I stare right back, I know that she gonna look down and give up in the end. This time, tho, she come in wid Gladys an they both stand there, arms folded, lookin at me an then each other like I already done sumthin naughty.

Momma say, “Isn't this scary, Rosie?”

I turn to the TV. Iss a cartoon about the puss in boots what got a sword an fight against an evil ogre by stabbin his toes. “Iss not scary.”

“Watching on your own…” Momma say.

“I not watchin on my own,” I say. “I watchin with Sasa.”

Momma look at Sasa, but I know she can't see him, even though he flappin his wings, an sayin, “Look at me! Look at me!” Then she turn to Gladys with eyes like a question an Gladys shake her head an walk in front of the TV so that her big backside in the way an she say, “Enough TV for today, little bird.”

Sasa start jumpin up an down an his mouth all little sharp teeth an he sayin all kinda curse words like Daddy when he angry, an I giggle cos I the only one can hear them.

Gladys tryin to turn off the TV only she don know how cos she jus the maid. So I slide off the couch an I start to scream—“No! No! No!”—an I hit Gladys hard as I can.

Mom say, “Rosie! Stop it!”

But I don stop it and Mom come over an try an pick me up. So I struggle an flap my wings jus like Sasa, an he goin, “Bite her! Bite her!” So I do. I bite Gladys jus as hard as I can on her leg, an now she scream too. An it sound so funny that I laugh an Momma holdin me under my arms, right up to her face, an she say, “It's not funny, Rosie! Stop it! Stop it!”

An I say, “Iss funny!”

She whisk me through the house an put me on the naughty step by the kitchen door an I start cryin and she say, “You stay there till you learn how to behave, Rosie. Ten minutes. On your own.”

I cry harder cos, whateva Sasa say, I don want Mom to hate me. But she wrong cos I not on my own an Sasa go, “There, there, little bat.”

Even though I don want to cos I still sad, I laugh an I say, “I'm not a little bat! I'm a little bird!”

An Mom turn round an she go, “What you say?”

So I jus bow my head an make a sad face again.

On Sunday, it jus me an Momma cos Gladys don come Sundays an Daddy away workin again like always. She give me bath time and breakfast all by myself an then she cornrow my hair an, even though I complain cos I don like all that pullin, I like it too cos Sasa not there for a change an it jus me and Momma an she look at me like she use to when I was a little girl in Amerika. She put on my best dress with the purple butterfly on the front, which Aunty Dionne sent me by post on my birthday, an she go, “You look smart, little bird!”

We early at church cos Momma say she gotta talk to the pastor. We go to a house behind the church an the pastor meet her at the door an hold her one hand in his two. He look down at me with one of them big smile that don mean nuthin an he say, “Look at you, Rosie! Growing bigger every day!”

Him and Momma talk in his office while I sit outside on a plastic chair. The pastor's wife, who wear makeup like a clown an kinda scary, bring me orange juice. Altho I do bad things, I'm a good girl, so I tell her that I not allowed juice before lunchtime. She go an aks my mom who say iss OK jus this once. Thas how I know that what she talkin about with the pastor sure serious.

When they come out, pastor got his arm round Momma's shoulders an she been cryin. But I know not to say nuthin, cos when she cry an I say, “You cryin, Momma?” she always say, “No, little bird. Not crying.” So wos the point if she gonna lie?

The pastor look at me with those same eyes like a question. He turn to Momma an say, “It'll be OK, Kuda. We are a strong congregation here at UFIC and the holy spirit works miracles.”

Tho Momma talk to the pastor for ages, we still sum of the first people in church—we real early. Generally, we sit near the back with Gogo, but today we right at the front behind the choir. I say, “Momma? Am I goin to Sunday school today?” Cos I like to play wid other kids even if they don speak no English.

But Momma say, “Not today, little bird.”

Church go on for ages an I so bored I can't keep still an Momma get cross, but she bring my crayons an paper so I draw a picture. I draw a picture of Sasa wid his big wings, pointed teeth an sharp claws. I try to show her but she all busy wid church an don look.

Then the pastor say sumthin an Mom pull me up an suddenly we right at the front an evryone lookin at us. I don know wos happenin but the pastor got his hand on Momma's shoulder an I can feel her shakin. He go, “Many of you know our sister, Kudakwashe, recently returned from the States.” Then he say sum other stuff I don unnerstan, but I unnerstan the people real excited all right.

The pastor tell Momma to let me go an she do like he says. I scared now an I start cryin—why Momma don like me watchin the puss in boots but do this? The pastor say, “It's OK, Rosie. Don't be afraid.” He touch me on my forehead an my chest, even though my dad say no man allowed to touch me there but him.

I don know what happen after that. Nex, I jus outside the church an Momma holdin me an she still shakin an evryone comin up to her an goin, “God bless you” an “Trust the power of the spirit.”

Momma say, “How do you feel, little bird?”

An I say, “Fine.”

The pastor come up an he go, “This is a…” I can't say the word. “…spirit, Kuda. I haven't seen it before. It's not from Zimbabwe. Did you hear its language? Maybe Twi.” Then, when Momma look shock, he go, “It's gone now, Kuda. It's gone. Everything will be OK.”

When we get home, Momma different. Iss like she had hiccups an now they better. She say, “What do you want to do, little bird? Let's do some baking. Cookies.”

An I say, “I wanna watch TV.”

But it don make her angry. She smile at me. She go, “OK.” An turn on the TV for me even tho I know how to do it my own self.

Sasa sittin on the couch. He say, “Where you been?”

“Church,” I say.

An he say, “How was it?”

An I say, “Fine.”

He look at me like I already done sumthin naughty an he start to bounce up an down an shout an scream until I don hear nuthin else.

L
ate afternoon, Shawn Appiah sat in the driver's seat of the battered Isuzu
bakkie,
legs splayed out of its open door, smoking a cigarette and shading his eyes against the bright orange sun making a rapid descent over the golden hills of…wherever the fuck he was. He resented the fact he was smoking, because he didn't like the taste and it made his lungs feel like shit. But he needed something to do with his hands, something to pass the time. At home, in New York, he'd have been tugging on a reefer, enjoying the calm wash right through him. He'd heard the local grass was good, but he'd decided early on that he couldn't be seen buying weed and suchlike. He'd already concluded that, in the absence of sufficient water and electricity, Harare ran largely on gossip.

Shawn was all about business, and business here meant playing the game. Playing the game was why he was smoking cigarettes, why he was driving this crappy truck, why he was watching Peter Nyengedza, his geriatric co-director in the recently formed NA Holdings, standing on the
stoep
of some shitty shebeen ten clicks north of Mazowe Dam in intimate conversation with three gold-panners who, to judge by the threadbare state of their clothes, were hardly an advertisement for their industry.

Shawn watched the old man in his three-piece suit explaining the finer points of the deal. Every now and then, the panners looked towards the large American lounging in the truck, as if to confirm both their worst suspicions and best hopes. In the end, Shawn couldn't resist waving a smoke signal of greeting. “Hello, motherfuckers!” he said loudly, confident they'd only half hear him and wouldn't understand anyway. One, the youngest, who was wearing a torn Lakers vest over a pair of denim shorts that revealed muddied ankles above filthy, bare feet, raised a nervous hand and half-smile by return. “I fucking hate the Lakers,” Shawn announced to nobody.

This was the easiest way to make money that Shawn had ever discovered, so why was he finding it so hard? The principle was simplicity itself. Gold fetched around forty dollars a gram on the Harare market, while the desperate panners who were, frankly, often two-thirds of the way to starvation would accept as little as twenty-five, sometimes less. All Shawn had had to do, therefore, was buy a Gold Purchasing License from the Chamber of Mines, form a company and find an “indigenous” Zimbabwean to take fifty-one percent. This was where Peter Nyengedza came in—thanks to April Jones of the British Embassy, no less. Shawn had invested twenty-five thousand dollars, Nyengedza nothing but his name. Still, at the current rate of progress, NA Holdings was looking at an official return of a quarter of a mill in the first year and exponential growth thereafter. So, what was so hard about that?

Primarily Nyengedza. Shawn liked Nyengedza—respected him, at least. But Nyengedza laid down ground rules for the business that, even as they made sense, ticked Shawn off (because this was
his
idea and it wasn't like Nyengedza was risking jack). The old man, for example, had told Shawn he had to trade in his top-of-the-range Pajero for this piece of crap Isuzu, the reason being that a fancy car would lead to all sorts of fancier expect­ations from the panners selling gold in the fields. Fair enough. But Shawn couldn't help resenting the principle as he ground through the truck's gears on crummy dirt roads and seemed to spend as much time with his head under the bonnet as over the wheel.

Likewise, Nyengedza had insisted on making first contact with the panners. He would facilitate a relationship, which would allow Shawn to buy on his own thereafter. It was a plan that had already borne results with four “collectives” in the Mazowe area. But if Shawn couldn't fault the old man's reasoning—Nyengedza spoke Shona and struck up a good rapport with the locals, which, in turn, enabled them to trust Shawn—the long-winded, ritualistic process of ingratiation drove him to distraction. Wasn't it simpler to just make these guys an offer, say, twenty bucks a gram, with twenty-five as your final position? Didn't they understand the basic principles of capitalism—supply and demand? Why all this need for soothing and buttering and false respect?

It was, in fact, the negotiating process that seemed to crystallize what Shawn was finding most difficult of all—simply, he was really starting to find himself hating Zimbabwe or, rather, its people.

Shawn stubbed out his cigarette. Nyengedza was approaching. Everything about the guy was meticulous, even the way he walked, picking his way through the dusk like Bambi through a minefield. Shawn swigged from his water bottle. He considered lighting another cigarette. He didn't. Instead, he reached under the passenger seat for his fanny pack, which held the cash. He switched on the interior light, so that he could see what he was doing. When Nyengedza eventually arrived, he said, “Yes, Peter. How much have they got?”

“Quite a lot,” the old man said. “They say they can bring a hundred grams tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

“They haven't got it with them?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, they've got it with them or yes, they haven't?”

“Yes,” Nyengedza said. Then, sensing his partner's irritation, “Yes, they haven't got it.”

“Fuck!” Shawn said. “So now what?”

Nyengedza took his handkerchief from his breast pocket, carefully unfolded it, and blew his nose. “The dust,” he said. “This is a dusty place.” Then, “They say there is a motel on the main road. We will come back in the morning when we can see what we are doing. We will buy groceries.”

“Groceries?”

“
Hupfu,
vegetables, chickens. These are hungry fellows. They will give it to us for groceries. Just give me one hundred. It will show we are serious.”

Shawn looked at Nyengedza. He shook his head. He said, “A motel? I'm supposed to be back in H Town.”

Nyengedza looked back at Shawn, shook his head too, and his voice became impatient: “It is one night in a motel. We give them a hundred dollars tonight and maybe we buy them two hundred dollars' worth of groceries and we have their gold. I thought you wanted us to make money?”

Shawn was taken aback. He stared at the old man while he did the sums in his head. They didn't make any sense. Even if the gold was shitty quality, they were looking at three and a half K profit on a three-hundred-dollar investment. Was this even market economics? He wasn't sure any more. He peeled a single hundred-dollar bill from the roll in his fanny pack. He said, “You're right. Of course you're right.”

It was now dark. In fact, it was so dark that Nyengedza walked three steps and vanished into the ink. Shawn laid his head back on the headrest. He took out his cell. The signal had been coming and going, but right now he had three bars. He made a call. “Look,” he said, “I'm not going to make it back tonight, OK? I'm still stuck out in Mazowe.” Then, “I know. I'm not taking nothing for granted, believe me.” Then, “I'll see you tomorrow.” He clicked the “end” button. He checked the time in the light of the display. He considered calling his wife, but figured the maid would already have Rosie in the bath by now and he risked Kuda's accusation of interrupting his daughter's routine. Instead, he rejoined a game of Tetris he'd started an hour or so before. He lit another cigarette without thinking about it.