The Death of Rex Nhongo (3 page)

J
erry didn't talk about his first time at the Epworth clinic until a few days later, at a small gathering they held at the house—beer in the fridge, meat on the
braai,
chatter on the veranda while the kids swam. Someone, a woman from the Alliance Française, asked him how it must be to work at such a place, and there was something in her tone and large inquisitive eyes that cast him as a hero and persuaded him likewise. He told her the story of his very first patient, Munya, an eight-year-old boy, and even as he hit his stride and began to embellish the facts for dramatic effect, he hated himself for doing so but was driven on by her murmurs of astonishment and approval. What was it about the white people in this country, foreign and local alike, that made them profess their love of the place, before complaining about its horrors and then, finally, sanctifying their various roles in its redemption? Jerry had noted the syndrome from his arrival and, now, here he was succumbing to its temptations.

That day, he had got out of the Land Cruiser and followed Dr. Tangwerai into the clinic. There was a long queue waiting at the door. It was a week after the death (or murder) of that general on a farm in Beatrice and he'd read an editorial in
Newsday,
which claimed the Zimbabwean people might yet be pushed to uprising. April had even told him that embassy staff had been warned to be extra vigilant on any trip into a high-density area, and Jerry's stomach was fluttering with latent nerves. But the expressions on the faces of the silent line of people who watched his approach spoke of nothing more sinister than a kind of resigned suspicion. There was no sign of revolution here.

They were met at the door by the receptionist, a young man called Bongai, and the practice nurse, Sister Gertrude, a large woman in late middle age, wearing an NHS uniform from the early 1980s. The queue made an unthreatening but undeniable surge forwards and Tangwerai promptly locked the door behind him. He led them through the small reception area, past a desk, chair and two filing cabinets thick with dust. Bongai sat behind the desk and immediately began tapping at his mobile.

The back room was larger. There were two old steel beds, two chairs beside them, separated by a tattered partition. On one wall, bare shelves held a jumble of supplies and equipment—needles, rubber gloves, bandages and gauze. Next to the shelves, there was a brand new white porcelain sink with a sign above it, saying, “Borehole Water,” and then, beneath that in brackets, “An Oasis Zimbabwe Initiative.” To the left, there was a door to a further room with a sign saying, “Doctor.” The sign had a sliding panel next to it with the words “In” and “Out.” The “In” was currently partially covered by half a beer mat advertising Castle lager.

“So this is where we work,” Tangwerai said. “I'm sure it's not what you're used to.”

“No,” Jerry said. “It isn't.”

“At least you don't try to bullshit me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Generally, when we have a white doctor come here, they tell me they have ‘seen worse' in the DRC or Iraq or what-have-you. It is as if I should be grateful even to have paracetamol or a clean needle.”

“I'm not a doctor.” Jerry shrugged. “And I've never been to the Congo or Iraq.”

“Neither have I. Perhaps they are still trepanning and bloodletting. Here we have only the problem of witchcraft.” Tangwerai looked up at Jerry seriously through his thick spectacles, then burst out laughing and clapped him on the shoulder. “I will scare you away before you even start.”

The system was simple: Sister Gertrude and Jerry would take patients in turn and effectively triage them on the doctor's behalf. Most cases would, Tangwerai said, be pretty straightforward: HIV patients, who could come through to him directly for their ARVs, assuming they had the necessary paperwork, people suffering diarrhea, undernourished kids, cuts needing stitching and so forth. Tangwerai showed Jerry the stocks of rehydration salts and Plumpy'Nut paste for treating malnutrition. He said, “It is important you talk to them, OK? Say a kid is borderline: find out what is going on at home, if the father is working or drinking or what-have-you. Sometimes it is just best for the kid to go to the grandparents. We can't be giving out these sachets just because the father's a drunkard.”

Tangwerai retreated to his office. As he entered, he moved the beer mat to partially cover “Out.” Bongai unlocked the door. Jerry washed his hands. Sister Gertrude took the first patient, a morose young man, who seemed a picture of health, but for his sadness. Sister Gertrude redirected him to the doctor's room so quickly that she was able to take the second patient too, a stooped elderly lady of about seventy carrying a baby. Jerry washed his hands again.

The little boy came in with his mother, a woman in her mid-twenties. He was completely calm, holding a wad of tissue over his left eye. Jerry smiled at them and held out his hand. The little boy smiled slowly back. The mother accepted Jerry's hand with just three fingers that were dry and cold. She looked up at him. She had been crying. Jerry gestured to the bed and chair. The mother sat in the chair. The boy perched on the bed.

“So,” Jerry said. His heart was quickening. “How can I help you?”

“Doctor?” the woman said.

“Nurse. How can I help you?”

The woman reached into her handbag and produced a small piece of cellophane that she carefully unwrapped on her palm. “He was playing,” she said.

Jerry looked at what she was holding and said, “What is that?” in spite of himself, because really he knew what it was, but his mouth wasn't keeping up with his brain. He was looking at a small piece of metal wire, maybe from a coat-hanger, protruding from the soft sphere of a child's eyeball.

“I…” the woman stuttered, making a demonstrative movement with her other hand. “I try to take it.”

Jerry looked at her. He blinked. “Of course,” he said.

He turned to the boy. “His name?”

“Munya.”

Jerry squatted in front of him. He took the boy's pulse. It was impossibly slow. No wonder he appeared calm. He was in severe shock. Jerry said, “Can I have a look?” He peeled the tissue paper away from the eye. He had never seen an injury like this before. There was surprisingly little blood. He stood up. “One moment,” he murmured. He called Tangwerai.

The doctor examined the wound. He spoke to the mother in Shona. He shook his head. He took the eyeball in its plastic from her and handed it to Jerry. “Get rid of this,” he said. Jerry looked around. He wrapped it in tissue paper, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to toss it into the disposal bin next to the bed, so he went to the doctor's office and tossed it there instead—as if that were somehow more respectful of the boy's loss.

Tangwerai was bathing the socket with saline solution. He worked quickly and without fuss. He cut gauze and bandage and fashioned a patch. He administered an anti-tetanus shot. He spoke to Jerry over his shoulder: “What have I just done that you could not do yourself?”

“Nothing,” Jerry said. Then, “He needs to go to hospital. He needs antibiotics. We can't just patch him up and send him home.”

Tangwerai stood up. He turned to Jerry. He seemed about to say something, but thought better of it. He took a cloth from his pocket, removed his spectacles and began to clean them vigorously. He spoke to the mother in Shona. The woman dropped her chin and replied in a low voice. Tangwerai nodded. “She doesn't have the money to go to hospital,” he said.

“How much is it?”

“Two dollars. Each way.”

Jerry took out his wallet. His smallest note was a twenty. He said, “Can you ask her to wait?” He went outside to his car. The queue watched him go, but he didn't look at it. He beeped the alarm and opened the door. He peered into the ashtray where he and April stuffed the dirty and tattered dollar bills they received as change and used to buy water, pay for parking or hand out to particularly persistent street kids. He counted out four notes.

When Jerry returned, Munya and his mother were standing up, ready to leave. He handed the woman the money. She said nothing. He touched the boy lightly on the shoulder. He ushered them out. Tangwerai was watching from the door to his office. “If you can do your job properly, you will be quite an asset, Jerry,” the doctor said. “Not just a free nurse but a free ambulance too.”

A
t school, the white lady, Mrs. Kloof, aks what difference I seen between here and there. I tell her kids here call their mom “mummy.” If you done that at Pine Hill Elementary, you got trouble for sure from Donny Orsenbach or Shantay Bennet. They say, “Mummy girl! Mummy girl!” Sumthin like that. Mrs. Kloof don like my answer. She go, “There must be something else, dear.”

Here sum things that different. 1. The food. 2. The weather. 3. The language.

Before we come, Mom say, “Everybody in Zimbabwe speak English.” But that not true. When we visit Gogo and Kulu at the weekend an I sent to play with the kids (“Go play with your brothers and sisters,” Gogo say. But they not my brothers an sisters. How can they be like that when my mom an dad not they mom an dad?), they jus talk to each other in they own language an don answer no question I aks.

When I say this to Momma she look at me like I done sumthin bad. She say to Gogo, “You see? That's why I had to come home.” Even though we not at home, we at Gogo and Kulu's house.

My dad say sumthin I don unnerstan in a jokin voice an he make Kulu laugh.

But Mom don laugh. She look at Dad like he done sumthin bad. She look at him like that a lot, way more than me. Dad musta done a whole lotta sumthin bads.

Nutha thing that different: my name. In Amerika, my name Rosie McClaren. Now my name Rosie Appiah.

Before we come, Dad say he not goin back home with the name McClaren an he done research and our name now Appiah an he change it by law.

Mom say, “Whatever, Shawn. So long as you know it's not your home, it's my home.”

Dad say, “What, Kuda? Like you own the place? We called Appiah now and that's that.”

Mom say, “You tell Rita? She can be Rita Appiah. Or Rita Perez-Appiah. That what you want?”

Dad say, “Kuda! In front of Rosie? Jesus, you got some growing up to do, Ku!”

I got growin up to do too, cos I'm a little girl an I don unnerstan why Rita, who is Angel's mom, gonna have our name when she not our family.

Sundays we go to church: Momma, Gogo and me. Church nutha thing that different. In Amerika we go to Brooklyn Pentecostal Church of Our Savior. Here we go to United Family International Church. They look the same, at least inside, but they different. In Amerika we fight the good fight against Satan and our triumph is certain. Here it sometime sound like we losin.

Dad come the first time, but not again. He go, “I don't need to listen to that mumbo-jumbo. Come on, Kuda: spiritual warfare? You too smart for some bush pastor telling you what to think. You know what you believe.”

“I used to,” Mom say. “But turned out I was wrong.”

“And Rosie?” Dad say. “You think it's good for her to listen to all that? This some scary stuff.”

Mom turn to me. Her eyes got that look again, like she not quite there. “You scared, Rosie?” she say.

An I don't know wotta say so I jus go, “I dunno.”

An Mom say, “You see?”

My mom say lotta things but summa them not true. Like, sumtime I seen her sittin at the table an she been cryin like a little baby. I say to her, “You sad, Momma?”

An she say, “No, little bird. I'm happy.” But that not true. Like when she say evryone here speak English.

When I say this to her she smile and touch my cheek. She go, “You're too clever, my little bird. But most people speak English, don't they? It's probably just the kids who aren't so good.”

An I don say nuthin, but I think “most people” different from “everybody”—specially for me because I's a kid and kids who I gonna talk to.

Then Mom look at me like she feel bad an she say, “Sorry, Rosie. I didn't lie to you. It's just the truth is complicated sometimes, understand?”

I say, “OK,” an shrug.

But I think Mom got it wrong.

Like, sumtimes when I go in the garden with Sasa an I pretend to be a bird, Dad come out an he say, “What you doing, Rosie?”

An I say, “I'm a bird, Daddy, an I fly high!”

An Dad, who like games like this, look up in the sky and say, “Fly high, little bird, tell me what you can see.”

So I say, “I can see the car an the shops an lions an elephants an Africa an Amerika…an…an…” An sometimes I run out of things I can see, because a pretendin game like this real complicated. But the truth? The truth not complicated. Iss jus the truth.

F
adzai's kitchen was in Mbare, near Magaba market, south of the city center, a small stall with a counter where she locked her pots and plastic plates at night. There was space out the back where she cooked on an open fire.

She traveled there daily from Sunningdale, either catching an ET or, if he was not too busy, Patson took her in the cab. She cooked
sadza,
vegetables and a meat dish—mostly chicken, sometimes beef, occasionally goat or pork, depending on what was available. A plate cost a dollar and, on a good day, she might serve sixty or seventy customers and clear up to thirty dollars' profit. But business was slow today, as it had been for months, and she wasn't sure she'd break even.

The kitchen was under pressure from several angles. Chipangano thugs now taxed all stallholders a dollar a day. They said this was to raise funds for the Party in the forthcoming election. But nobody truly believed this any more than anybody was reckless enough to dare argue.

The cost of meat was also soaring. If she'd had the capital, Fadzai would have bought some poultry or goats to rear. But she didn't have the capital.

The development with the worst financial implications, however, was the competition. Six months ago, hers had been the only regular kitchen in the vicinity. Now there were two others within a stone's throw. She had met the women who ran these new enterprises and she didn't resent them personally: everyone had a right to earn a living. But there simply weren't enough customers to sustain three kitchens so close to one another.

Part of the problem was the currency. Back in the days when Zimbabwe had its own money, she'd have been able to reduce her prices. But since the move to the US dollar, that was impossible: there were no coins in circulation, so there was no change and a dollar was the baseline for everything. One of the other women had begun giving out a free cup of Mazoe orange with every plate, but Fadzai wasn't convinced that this drummed up extra customers.

She remained confident that the working men liked her food, confident, too, that she'd been doing this long enough to outlast the others if she could just survive the next few months. But the next few months were a worry. People always want to try something new.

Gilbert had come to help out. At first she'd been grateful for his offer, because she'd been working alone the last six weeks since she'd had to let Juliet go. It was difficult to dish the food, take the money and ensure that none of her plastics went astray. Unfortunately, she soon remembered how irritating he could be.

Fourteen years younger than her, Gilbert was the brains of the family, but he was also the baby, and that combination seemed to have cursed him with a cocksure attitude. Once, she'd found it funny and charming, but now it just seemed too incongruous with his circumstance. He was the one with seven good O levels and the potential to do so much—much more, certainly, than loiter outside her stall, joking with the customers.

Gilbert had rejected the chance to attend sixth form at the school in Mubayira where their father taught and had somehow persuaded the old man that he should go directly to business college in Kadoma. He'd always been full of big ideas and their father—ordinarily a strict, but sensible man—had a blind spot when it came to his youngest son. While neither she nor her elder brother, Clifford, would ever have dared question their father's judgment, Obert Chiweshe seemed to regard Gilbert's willingness to answer back and the eloquence with which he did so with something like pride. Fadzai knew this was partly because, after her mother had miscarried so many times (five? six?), Obert had given up hope of further children, and Gilbert was regarded as a particular blessing. However, she also suspected her dad recognized something of himself in Gilbert—that quick wit and vivid imagination—and, while he had chosen largely to rein in these aspects of his own character in favor of a stable family life and secure, conservative career in education, he secretly liked the idea that his son might live more freely. And that, Fadzai thought with no little bitterness, was exactly what Gilbert had done.

Within two months of starting at KBC, her brother had met Bessie, a high-school girl, and made her pregnant. The consequent furor surrounding the pregnancy and their eventual marriage had aged her father a decade.

It was Clifford who had negotiated
lobola
and she remembered his ashen face when he returned from the first meeting and outlined the price Bessie's parents were putting on their daughter. She remembered her father's expression too. Gilbert had tried to lighten the mood with some facetious remark, but even Obert had not felt able to allow this to pass and had blasphemed, under his breath but audible to all. The family had sat in shocked silence for several minutes, on account of the rarity of such an outburst.

The initial plan had been that Gilbert would return to KBC as soon as the marriage was formalized and Bessie was settled at the Chiweshe family home. But it quickly became clear that the girl's bride price left no money to pay college fees.

The headmaster at her father's school agreed to employ Gilbert as caretaker. But he spent most of his time in the library, reading anything and everything, and neglected his duties, often, for example, forgetting to lock the classrooms at the end of the day, much to his father's embarrassment.

After an appeal from her mother, Fadzai had rung Clifford to discuss Gilbert's behavior. But Clifford had his own family and his own problems. “I don't have time for this. I wash my hands of him,” he said.

“You can't wash your hands of him, Clifford. He's our brother.”

“He thinks being a caretaker is beneath him. He will learn.”

Fadzai understood Clifford's viewpoint, but considered it unduly harsh: there was nothing consciously malign in Gilbert's actions. She explained it to herself like this: when you raise a child to believe they are special, perhaps they will achieve great things. But perhaps that child will simply believe they are special. This was her younger brother's cross to bear and the responsibility for carrying it could hardly be left to him alone.

The two lights in this unfortunate situation were the birth of Gilbert's daughter, Stella, and Bessie herself. For Obert, it was as if Stella made up for all the disappointment he now felt for his last-born, so he took great delight in his granddaughter, playing with her endlessly with a patience and sensitivity that was unrecognizable to Fadzai (or, indeed, her children). And Bessie was a revelation, throwing herself into her new role in an unfamiliar household with common sense and good humor. If the daughter-in-law had been initially regarded as the millstone that would sink Gilbert's potential, she was soon a vital cog in the family machinery, and everyone agreed that the ingrate was lucky to have found such a girl.

Nine months after the wedding, Bessie approached her mother-in-law and told her she wanted to go to the city to train as a maid. Harare was half a day's bus ride away, so she would have to leave Stella in her grandmother's care.

Mrs. Chiweshe supported the plan. Of course, the additional income would be useful but, more than that, it might shake Gilbert out of his inertia. So, as Bessie had persuaded her, she now set about convincing her husband. It took some time, but eventually Obert, too, saw the wisdom of the proposition. In fact, Gilbert was the last to know and, when he finally found out, he quickly understood his whole family was arrayed against him and no amount of eloquent argument was going to help. That had been a year ago.