An Ounce of Practice

by Zeilig, Leo;

  Biko spat out, ‘Bastards.’ A few comrades shook their heads.

  Eleanor continued, ‘And inside, just beside that junction at the bus stop—’ She looked around the room. They nodded, encouraged her to continue. ‘There were others who were singing as they were being assaulted by a group of police. After we were beaten we were told to run and join the others. They were also forced to line up and the beatings continued.’ She paused. ‘Then sexism intervened.’ Eleanor laughed. They all looked at each other. ‘The chief security officer of the university, you know, that man Benson, came and asked for permission to get the women. So I was saved, comrades, by my gender.’

  The room lightened, the mood improved – there was laughter. Bludgeoned and defeated they were, but not dead. On the Zimbabwe scale of repression – on the international rating of bone-cracking and state murder – the day had been slight and the defeat minor. No one dead, no one in a coma, no one utterly, irretrievably lost. There was a victory in this not lost on anyone in the room.

  ‘That’s not sexism, Eleanor,’ Jethro said. ‘Benson was a saviour, a hero.’

  Ignoring the interruption, she continued. ‘So it was granted, and he took the women to the security control room and then he later telephoned the staff at the clinic, for those who needed to go.’ Then, forgetting a part of her story, a link in the narrative, she said, turning to address Biko directly, ‘And, comrade, as we were walking away they were also saying that ndozvamatunwa naBiko, that’s what you have been sent by Biko to do. Go and tell him kuti hapana zvaano tiita isusu, that there is nothing he can do to us; we are the strongest army in Africa, and no one can do anything.’

  They laughed, let the day’s beating wash over them, cleanse them with relief. For once Biko’s voice couldn’t be heard. He was assessing, calculating, working out what had gone wrong – what he had failed to do, what they needed to do next time. He knelt, leant against the wall, the others speaking quickly, kneading their bruises. Biko heard nothing.

  He had spent days before the action thinking of strategies for the best way to leave campus and get into town for the proposed marches, the other feeder demonstrations from the city and townships. What came out of his planning was that he would address a general meeting outside the administration building on campus, which the students had code-named Hunger Palace. From there the students would march through the southern entrance of the university, then along Gwanda Road and into town. When Monday came he had mobilised with other Society comrades on campus and they moved towards Hunger Palace. From there students had started to march towards the exit point, just as he’d planned.

  The noise in the room was reaching its familiar pitch. Biko – without realising it – had started to speak his thoughts aloud. ‘I was a bit overtaken by events, comrades. By the time I got to the exit point there were about four thousand students, singing and chanting slogans.’ Slowly the others turned to him, smiling affectionately at him, at another eccentricity. ‘Apparently there was a line of some riot police who were firing tear gas canisters. But they met quite stiff resistance from those gathered there by virtue of the numbers of us, the ratio of students to riot police. We need to get the equations right in future. We can beat them with numbers, comrades.’ The others hooted and called out.

  Biko patted the air for silence and then continued. ‘They eventually ran out of tear gas. They probably called for some reinforcements, so about five minutes after their tear gas had run out, we suddenly saw a helicopter coming in very low and people started dispersing, running in various directions – but you know the rest, comrades. In no time the college was bombarded with military police, the riot police as well as soldiers – those boys in uniform who don’t know who they are, just stupid, dangerous kids with guns mounted on army trucks. There were water cannon, riot police riding in pick-up trucks, others in conventional pick-ups. Mayhem, comrades. It was a state parade, armed and motorised bodies of men. We managed to get the entire state to mobilise.’

  There were nods of agreement. Biko looked from face to face and smiled. Apart from the fanfare, the declarations, the group needed to understand what had gone wrong. They had the answer before the events had unravelled, before the catastrophe of the day. If the hard work and organising was not done, if all the building in the townships and high-density areas was not undertaken, if the comrades in the Society did not sweat their fucking guts out on planning and undertaking, like a thousand little Lenins, as Biko said, then they would go to hell and deserve the damnation. Yet they were so drunk on their youth, their anger and invulnerability that they had not planned or built.

  Yet for Eleanor there was more to it even than their failure to organise and their heady rush to action – there was something deeper at stake.

  Eleanor had resumed pacing the room, irritated with the interruption, with Biko’s assumptions, his arrogant, pushy maleness. Why doesn’t he just listen, we don’t need a narrative of a day we organised, a story – only real once it had been sanctified by him – that we lived. She felt the defeat throbbing and pulsing over her body. Damn him.

  Biko went on. There were tired nods. Eleanor had moved to the door, her back half turned on Biko – she had heard this before. ‘So we see, comrades, the privatisation of the state that had continued through Mugabe’s so-called anti-imperialism. Most of us are locked out of the Zimbabwe that our fathers, our grandfathers fought for! We are not recognised. We are not citizens, not human beings, we are treated like trash. But the people will rise up, with the right organisation, with the correct timing and planning ...’

  There was silent agreement. They were exhausted, and refused to debate any more. For once, Biko was unconvincing – where was his striving, his commitment? They knew the formula, repeated it to themselves in meetings, to opposition: In Zimbabwe, whenever there is a movement, it is the students that act first, they act as that spark to the powder keg. It is the role of students to act first, to act as torchbearers, to instigate action. But what if they remained just a spark, a single fucking flash that could never catch or light the popular will – so sodden and damp, so broken by exhaustion, hunger and defeat? What then would become of them and their precious agency? These militants, with their spotless analysis, were unable to instigate anything.

  In their own way they each felt these doubts. The first thing that was taught to them in meetings of the Society was their role in the mass movement; hammering out their confidence in their own abilities, their own scholarly capacities, linking them to the workers, the poor. Biko had been the peculiar teacher of their poverty of agency; the necessity, as vital as oxygen, to touch off the poor. Without this, friends, we are nothing – useless elites.

  But what were they if they could not trigger the movement?

  And what of the poor, those who had left them today and not marched, joined their numbers to theirs, who had left them alone to be bludgeoned by the state?

  Eleanor now squared herself up to Biko, her anger calmed, her determination redoubled. She took a couple of steps towards him. ‘I should have listened to my neighbours, to my mother’s friends. Without any political education, they knew it was child’s play. No one was coming out; that’s what they said, and I refused to listen. They are hungry, too hungry to march to another promise – for what?’ She paused. Biko stared hard at her.

  She continued more fluently, feeling the silent support of the others. ‘They say we live on a dollar a day. Comrades,’ she swivelled in a half-circle to the men sitting and lying on the floor, ‘a dollar a day would make us rich. My mother makes a dollar last three. Three days. She is up at five, selling juice-cards and vegetables in town. And how do we live on campus? You know, Zero-Zero-Buns. Rotten vegetables in the townships and a single bun at university.’ She gulped, squeezed her eyes hard with her forefinger and thumb. ‘What do we say to this?’ She avoided Biko’s unblinking stare. ‘The people will rise up with the right organisation?’

  Biko spoke into her pause, slowly. ‘And they will, Eleanor,
but not to our poor, hasty demonstrations and heroics. You are speaking at the end of a day of violence. We will rise.’

  ‘No!’ Eleanor screamed, both from the pain that rippled hard and sharp in her body and the agony of his words. ‘What I am saying is, they won’t rise. My mother won’t fight – with what, anyway? Her rotting vegetables? People in rags don’t make the revolution, comrade.’

  By the end of the week Mugabe had publicly expressed ‘regret’ at having to teach these ‘youths’, these ‘hotheads’, a lesson.

  Chapter Eleven

  Viktor couldn’t help himself: he remembered. When Nina arrived home, he and Rosa were sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor around their CDs, sleeve notes open. Rosa flapped the pages of an open libretto in time to the loud music that deadened the noise of Nina’s entrance, the door slamming, her rattling keys and remonstrations. Viktor, his back to the door, sliced and cut the air, conducting Aida, shouting instructions and explanations, both of them in the middle of a lake, around them open pages, a dozen paper butterflies. Rosa had given up trying to hear Viktor’s explanations. Still he shouted: ‘When Aida premiered, sweetheart, in Egypt, the audience was full of politicians and businessmen, not ordinary Egyptians. When Verdi heard about this, he raged, he was furious. He wanted the music to be heard by everyone.’ Around them sounded the cymbals, the voices of the choir. Radamès and Aida declaring their illegal love, Aida’s voice shrill, stirring up the music. Then the familiar refrain, repeated by Aida, by son and daughter, the words joining in a great crescendo: ‘La fatal pietra sovra me si chiuse.’

  Nina, her hands on her hips like Amneris, the spurned lover, tried vainly to shout above the din. ‘I want the music off. Clear up this room. Rosa, it’s bedtime.’

  The room was disturbed, the drama cast. Viktor and Rosa, their forearms swinging, arcing with the notes, dipping low, soaring high. Rosa’s eyes and smiling mouth turned up towards Nina, wanting desperately to spin their spell on her, take her to Verdi’s Egypt. She had to come, to follow them and listen to the crashing waves – not the words, maybe not even the singing, just the sound. To the flutes, the violins, the harp, the cellos, then to Radamès.

  ‘For god’s sake, Viktor, you said you would put Rosa to bed. I asked you to do one thing.’

  The music was turned off, the notes crashed to earth, the butterflies folded their wings back into the plastic CD cases. Aida and Radamès sped forward quickly to their preordained fate, the tomb, singing stupidly, using up oxygen on a last declaration of love.

  ‘It was so lovely, Mum.’ Rosa rushed to Nina, holding her round the waist, looking up and pleading as she cleared the floor. Viktor ran Rosa’s bath while Nina noisily tidied the kitchen. In bed, Rosa, her arms around his neck, pulled him in for a final embrace. She whispered, ‘Tell Mum to come and say goodnight. We’ll play her the music tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, sweetie.’

  ‘Why didn’t they run away?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Aida and that man ... Radamès.’

  ‘Because it wasn’t possible. Both of them were trapped, between love for each other and duty to their families and country.’

  ‘That’s funny. I think they should have escaped. I would have.’

  *

  Nina turned the tap, ran cold water over her hands, slowed the pressure, filled the glass. She brushed the capsules into her hand, brought it quickly to her mouth, threw them to the back of her throat and washed them down with the water. Twice a week isn’t an addiction, she reasoned, supporting herself on a work surface. Only a minor, innocent prop to get me through the winter until spring. I will kick the Tramadol in the spring. In two months. She felt better already, pleased with her practical good sense, the decision to relegate questioning until the spring, when the days would be longer and she could emerge from the winter cage.

  When she returned, Viktor was tapping away at his phone again.

  ‘Would you put the phone down? If you’re going to flirt with other women online, then maybe we should reconsider how we do these things,’ Nina snarled, cutting the air with her words.

  How did Nina know that he flirted with women online? Does she know about Anne-Marie? Without even admitting the treachery to himself, he decided that he must take this affair into a more private venue.

  Vitkor realised then, at that moment, that his parents would die soon, stumble over the kerb, struggle to keep up with their interminable bills, grow more decrepit and he wouldn’t notice because he’d been arguing with Nina. Ten years would pass and they’d be five years dead.

  ‘I don’t have any female friends. And I am scared to contact my friends,’ Viktor lied.

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘Yes, scared. Scared that you’ll complain.’

  ‘You’re a fucking coward.’

  ‘And you’re being unreasonable.’

  ‘I need to lie down,’ she said to Viktor when he came towards her, her hand up, showing him her palm. In an hour calm would spread across her and she would feel reconciled and generous, ready to deal with the night, with Viktor.

  Viktor hurled Rosa’s toys, the coloured pages of the scrapbook, the tube of glue, the oversized card game, into a disordered pile in the corner of the lounge. His body ached. He felt wronged. He plugged in his headphones and turned up the volume, and music lurched out of the speakers and thundered through the flat. He pushed in the jack and diverted the sound, his head filled with the opera.

  ‘Viktor!’ Nina screamed, then slammed the bedroom door.

  He shut his eyes and slumped on the sofa. After five minutes he sat up, yanked the headphones off his head and dropped them to the floor. The distant opera continued to play; the crackle of sound followed him to the kitchen door. He fumbled in the cupboard above the sink, found the pills hidden behind jars of jam and peanut butter, Rosa’s clumsy fingerprints traced around the lids. He fingered the capsule’s perfect oval then pulled it apart, emptying the powder on the counter. Carefully, he brushed the white powder into a spoon and filled a glass of water. He paused, steadied himself, lifted the spoon, knocked the powder to the back of his mouth and washed it down with water. The bitter, harsh taste filled his mouth. Viktor grimaced, washed the spoon under the tap and dug it deep into Rosa’s jam. He took the two ends of the capsule, put them together to make a whole again, and placed them back into the cupboard.

  This ritual had continued for more than two years. His absurd alchemy, Viktor thought, eliminated the harmful effect of the gelatine in the capsules. Somehow, by leaving these bastard, voided tablets, he had not really taken it, which meant he was not really a minor addict. Nothing mattered to either of them on Tramadol. The flat disappeared, the night opened to them without threat and the desire that they both secretly held that they wouldn’t make it to the morning faded. Both knew about the other’s habit, but they took their private transformation separately: Nina in her room, Viktor on the sofa, waiting for the rush of chemical love. Viktor collapsed on the sofa, picked up the headphones, closed his eyes and tried to forget the day, the marking, his contract that ended in a fortnight, and obey the music.

  For once Viktor wanted to empty his head of the blog posts, status updates and emails he had to write to keep himself alive, for the invisible crowd of friends who waited for his insights and questions. He imagined a giant hand reaching into the flat, battering down the door, pushing its muscled forearm into the room, gripping his head, squeezing it and draining it in a single violent hold of everything he did, his whole self-serving, narcissistic universe. He was alive only when he was in front of his computer, the grotesque carnival of his public, online life a curse on his daughter. He had even prostituted Rosa to the internet with his observations on childhood, her weekly photo, each artefact of lived experience thrown at Facebook. Every feeling shared, each banality told – what right did he have to do this to Rosa?

  If only he could focus on the music. He breathed through his nose and concentrated on his breath. He listened to the libr
etto, tried to catch the Italian words he knew. He chased away the thought that he should write a series of posts on Aida, explain what the opera meant, each lesson in short, pithy phrases, pose each of the opera’s dilemmas in the form of a question. He had to get back to the music, concentrate on Rosa. He felt the first waves of Tramadol shudder over him, the warm wind wrap around his heart, circle his head. The last thought before he was completely lost inside the drug was of his daughter, little, impossible, vulnerable Rosa and her automated, terrible wish to be like him, her perfect imitation of him, her awkward, tall frame, her distractions already like his. He feared that she too would never be satisfied, following his soft, absorbent heart, his ever-ready, hopeless compassion. Nina was right.

  *

  When the split finally took place it came with all the terrible, excruciating agony of loss and regret and text-messaging. An ordinary argument became their fork in the road, the justification for separation which was debated and weighed up on their phones – Rosa in bed, Nina crouched on the floor of their flat, huddled over her phone like she was praying, and Viktor stretched out on the bed in his parents’ spare room.

  Nina wrote message after message.

  I am on the floor of the lounge. I have cancelled the meal with my friend. This is what you wanted, to sabotage my only dinner and weekend without childcare, like you will do to anything I put my energy and interest into.

  You set me up to seem like a bitch. The alternative is to be a complete pushover, to never do or say anything that might upset you so you can’t blame me constantly for your unhappiness.