As I slide the bricks off the makeshift pole and hold it in my hand, fear creeps in, painted with Bamkuru’s face.
‘Tumi!’ I hear, and flinch as a hand touches my shoulder.
‘Whoa, man! Watch it!’
Ranga dodges the pole in my hand as it swings wildly. I can see his confused face right in front of me now.
‘What’s going on? Why are you attacking me?’
I relax my grip on the pole and wipe my brow.
I could have hurt him! What is happening to me?
‘I’m sorry, man.’ I shake my head slightly when I say it, in the hope that the nightmares will fall out through my ear.
‘You’ve been acting so strange since that night your brother was shouting outside. What’s going on? What was that about anyway?’
I’m very disappointed in you, Tumirai.
There’s clearly too much space in my head storing unwanted things. All my nightmares are coming at once.
‘Hey.’ Ranga nudges at me again, realising that I’ve drifted off. ‘What’s going on with you?’
I shrug because honestly I don’t know either. He looks at me for a second longer then shakes his head and walks away, an afro comb stuck into his big hair.
Ambuya descends from the veranda, holding the pillar at the edge for balance. She turns to me and smiles as though I’ve just walked in with the sun. It’s a genuine smile. I can see from the way the wrinkles form, the corners of her eyes stretch, and the way the guilt slides so easily into my gut.
‘Mzukuru, come inside,’ she says, beckoning me into the house with her free hand. My eyes search for Ranga, for a witness, but he’s already following the cattle heading for the pastures. I can’t tell if Ambuya’s still upset and I’m afraid to find out.
I stand by Ambuya’s bedroom door, right next to the lounge, and hope she’ll send me after Ranga to herd the cattle or even outside to help Noku terrorise the cat. Now that the silence has been broken, I fear she’ll say something I don’t want to hear.
I watch her carefully as she sits on a chair next to her bed with her back towards me, holding what looks like an old letter in her hand.
‘Come in and sit down, mzukuru.’
It’s almost as though she has eyes at the back of her head. Her voice is quiet again. I hesitate a little before walking in and sitting on the furthest end of the bed. She looks at me and smiles again.
‘Your brother called early this morning. To find out how you are.’
I look at my feet. It’s both the awkwardness and the shame.
‘What you did was a very terrible thing, Tumirai. Very unkind. I hope you know that.’
I nod, but I don’t think I’d go as far as saying it was ‘very terrible’. It was maybe messed up, but ‘very terrible’ is a bit much.
‘I’m trying to make some order in here. Sometimes when there’s clutter, you have to start throwing away some of your old things otherwise you’ll be stuck in dirt. Don’t you agree?’
I don’t say anything. How would I know about storing junk?
‘I’d like you to help me clean up in here today. Why don’t you take down those boxes on top of the wardrobe and let’s start with those, shall we?’
I bite down my uninterest and reach up for the boxes. The dust that cascades around me as I lay them on the floor is a clear sign that they have not been touched in a long time.
Ambuya’s room is a mess, with things scattered everywhere. She stops wiping for a second and puts down the cloth in her hand. ‘Tell me, mzukuru …’
My heart starts beating and I hope she won’t ask about what I did. It’s already mad awkward the way things are.
‘… why did you take those letters, especially without your brother knowing? What were you looking for?’
So not my lie about the knife. And she doesn’t sound angry. I might be wrong, but I think she’s genuinely interested in finding out. I’d almost forgotten that she knew about the letters. I bite my lip and shrug.
‘Just curious,’ I mumble. All this is high-level, take-me-the-heck-out-of-here-now kind of awkward. I’m not sure what to say to her. I avoid her gaze, but I can feel her watching me.
‘What did it say where you stopped?’
I look at her and shrug.
‘Don’t know.’
I mean, how am I supposed to know that if the person who wrote it doesn’t even remember? It’s not like I crammed it.
She keeps staring at me, and I can’t really tell what she’s thinking. I feel my track-bottom pockets for the second letter, pull it out and quietly hand it over to her to read for herself. Whatever she wants, just to make this go away. She looks at the envelope for a while as though she is surprised that the writing is hers, before pulling out the letter and reading all the pages including the ones supposedly from her diary. I watch her as she smiles, reading them.
‘I haven’t spoken about this in a long while, although I have dreamed of it almost every other day for years.’
My eyes pop at the thought of recurring nightmares.
‘I still shudder at it all, but I am so afraid to relive it. It felt easier to send parts of my diary to your brother. Easier than having to recount it.’ Her eyes stay with me for a while before she picks up a heap of clothes from the other side of the bed and begins to fold them.
‘When your brother asked …’ She pauses. ‘He wouldn’t stop asking me about the past. But he felt alone, and so convinced that the hate he felt there, so far away, that it was only him that felt it. I wanted to be there with him, even if I couldn’t go there. To show him that there was a time that I …’
There is silence for a while. I’m not sure if I should be contributing to this monologue of hers, but the awkwardness has fried me ready, so I only nod, to show that I’m paying attention. I’ve been told before that it’s the politest thing to do when adults are speaking to you and you don’t know what to say.
‘I think it’d do you some good to hear the rest of the story … from me. Perhaps then you will see …’ She stops again and looks at me, smiling softly and stretching again the web of wrinkles around her eyes. Her eyes look a bit sad even though she is smiling.
‘Would you like me to tell it to you? You might be surprised how much we have in common, you and me.’
I hesitate but nod reluctantly.
She sits down beside me with a sigh. ‘My memory is not as good as it used to be though, mzukuru. I remember some things vividly, but not all of them.’
I look at her blankly.
‘But my father used to say that a good storyteller knows how to build bridges where there are lost pieces. And for you, mzukuru, that is what I will now do.’
I don’t have anything in common with her, I know I don’t. And now that the story is to be voluntarily told to me, I don’t want to hear it.
20
Ambuya’s story
It must have been the beginning of April 1975 because the harvest was just starting and I remember Amai sitting outside sorting the groundnuts. Baba sat next to her, stroking his dog’s fur. The sun was already going down and a slight chilly breeze from the mountains was biting at us.
‘You came back early again today. Was there trouble from the Missus?’ Baba asked, still stroking his dog. That dog probably got the most of Baba’s raw affection, perhaps because he never left his side. He was a faithful brown Rhodesian Ridgeback with a patch of black around his eye that he had been born with.
‘No, Baba. But I met the missionary teacher on my way home today. He said he and his wife might stop over here sometime tonight.’
‘Is that so? Oh, how good of them! We shall be expecting them then,’ Amai said pleasantly, still shelling the groundnuts.
Baba and I looked at each other, recognising each other’s annoyance at her fondness for the missionaries.
‘What business does he have here? To remind us that his kind has their thumb over us?’
‘Baba Thandiwe,’ Amai hushed him.
I understood
Baba. I shared the same rage against the missionary teachers. You see, mzukuru, during those days, an African child could only go to school after passing the admissions test. A test in itself has no ill to it, you might think. But to this day, I wonder what the logic was in that particular admissions test. What were they testing by assessing whether the African child could stretch his hand over his head and try to reach for his right ear with his left hand? How did the length of his hand measure his readiness for an education? And you see, mzukuru, it was not debatable. If they asked you to touch your ear and you failed, they would send you back home. ‘Come back next year,’ they would say. And when the next year came around, the admissions test would change again. ‘Now older than six years? Too old to start school with the others.’
Most of the children whose fathers fought in the woods, some of them children Amai had taken in, were unable to go to school because they were not ready. Their little hands had not grown long enough to stretch over their heads and touch their ears. And both Baba and I thought, How dare the missionary teacher tell us he will come to visit us when his kind did such things!
Amai ignored our reluctance and tried to make sure we were prepared to receive the visitors.
‘Thandiwe, stop daydreaming and start preparing supper. If Teacher Edwards and his wife are coming, we should try to have some food ready before they get here.’
‘Don’t they have food at their house? Busy eating the little we have here when they have rooms stocked with food there at that school! Iwe, Mai Thandiwe, you must stop barking every time the white man whistles!’ Baba intervened.
Amai’s voice softened. ‘It is just one meal.’
Baba looked away, lip curling in annoyance.
‘We already have so many mouths to feed here with all these children, and now we must tend to already-fed ones too?’
‘What will all this hatred give you though, Baba Thandiwe? Do you feel any better because you have hated a man for his skin? Has anything changed because of it? Have we won the war now?’
‘I will not be disrespected in my own house! It is that white man you must tell this nonsense, not me!’
Silence.
‘These Sunday services of yours are allowing them to brainwash you. Praying to a God you cannot see while they loot our land and kill our children.’
Amai continued almost as though she had not heard him.
‘I suppose we could have something a little tasty tonight maybe, Thandiwe? Why don’t we kill one of the chickens?’
‘Kill one of the chickens? Amai, we only have three left and we need them for the eggs. Will we kill a chicken every time a white man passes by this house?’ I only said it because Baba had begun it all.
‘Hold your tongue and know your place, child! You will not speak to your mother like that! What has come over you?’ Baba was now even more annoyed at me than at Amai.
We sat in silence for a while, before Baba grunted and called one of the children to carry his chair to the bowing tree. I imagine he wanted to get away from the bickering. I would have liked to have done the same.
‘Must I cook the whole chicken then, Amai?’ I asked.
‘It is not as though we can kill a whole cow for them, is it? We might as well eat the chickens instead of us rearing them and the comrades eating all of them. Don’t think I don’t remember what you agreed to do.’ Amai’s voice brimmed with irritation.
‘If the comrades find out that we’re feeding white –’ I stopped before I said anything else, because there’s a look from an African mother that can calculate how much longer you have to live if you continue along that road.
The sun had retired by the time I got the fire going. The chicken sizzled over the flames, next to the pot of sadza. Amai hummed as she sat next to me, and under the bowing tree the children now sat around Baba, who narrated one of his old folk tales, making gestures and luring them into a world of suspense and intrigue. My brother Farai emerged from nowhere and walked towards us with a serious look on his face.
‘Good afternoon, Amai,’ he said, then looked around again.
‘Thandie, they’re waiting for you.’ His voice was quiet and cautious.
My eyes slid to Amai and then to the pots on the fire. Amai shook her head and immediately stood up. I could see the look of disappointment she carried on her face. And if I’m honest, I struggled too because I had not eaten chicken in months. And although I had not liked the idea of cooking for the missionary teacher and his wife, I had been looking forward to ripping the juicy flesh off the chicken bones.
‘Are you happy now, Thandiwe? Do you feel like a hero? Because what you really wanted to do anyway was cook for those comra—’
‘Amai!’ Farai cautioned her, turning around to see if anyone had caught on. There were two things. We could die if it was found that we were cooking for the comrades. And we could be killed if the comrades found out we were reluctant to do so. But if there was anyone to be angry with, surely it was Farai. If not for him, we might not have been in this mess to begin with.
Amai breathed out slowly and tightened the zambiya around her waist.
‘Farai, bring the clay pot in the kitchen with the thick milk we got from the cow this morning. You must run to the mission immediately to tell Teacher Edwards he cannot come tonight. Thandiwe, you will need to hurry up so that the children can eat and there will be no movement at this house when you leave. Nobody can know what you two are doing!’
Amai stood watching me quickly start on another pot of sadza for the children. She sighed and pressed my shoulder to try to reassure me that even though she was unhappy about all this, she was still my mother, there when she was needed.
21
When Farai and I started off to serve the comrades hiding in the trees, the sun had begun to rot and turn into darkness. My heart shivered uncontrollably because, regardless of having done it before, my spirit still quaked every time I walked into those trees at night. Each time we left with a secret pot, I would look back at the homestead and it would seem to me as though it was a dancing ground of ghosts. I remember how dead it looked – robbed of sound and everyone already asleep with all the doors locked. It was safer that way.
‘Are you ready?’
I imagine I nodded at Farai and talked courage into my system. Because no matter how brave, mzukuru, no one ever gets acquainted with fear to that degree.
I quickly wrapped my head in a dhuku, balanced the pot of chicken – which had cooled down a little – on the top of my head and held some plates in my hands. Farai held the heaving steaming pot of sadza.
‘Let’s go.’
He seemed calm, Farai. Fearless in fact. Yet all I could think of was what would become of us if someone saw us.
‘We should move faster. The food must be hot when we get there.’ Farai’s voice was full of authority as though he was already a comrade himself. I nodded again. But as we walked past the bowing tree and towards the river, Farai suddenly stopped. I turned behind me, catching both my panicked heart and the sliding pot on my head just in time. Baba’s dog barked loudly from somewhere in the yard. I moved closer to Farai, my heart tearing in shreds. We both stood still at the sound of footsteps heading towards us. Then, like horror slowly rolling towards us, the night brought around a familiar voice.
‘Tisvikewo! Is anyone home?’
Farai looked at me with his forehead creased, and my heart pounded wildly against my chest. I watched him as he quickly placed the pot of sadza behind the bulging root of the bowing tree and stood in front of me hoping that, between him and the darkness of the night, I would be covered.
‘VaGuhwa! We were not expecting you. Amai and Baba have already gone to sleep.’
We should have been expecting him though. With the poor conditions in the reserves and the comrades demanding the little food that we had in the village, most of the villagers had begun to sleep hungry most nights. So VaGuhwa’s visits were becoming more and more aligned to our dinner.
‘Go
ne to sleep? So early?’ he asked, walking closer towards us, peering to see what we were carrying. He wore his old brown suit like he always did. I had once heard Baba say it had been a gift from a white man he had once worked for in Chiredzi when he was still strong enough to work. Now he wore it daily though it was old and worn out.
Several rumours about VaGuhwa’s life moved around the village. Ones I would not be surprised to hear that he spread himself. Some said he had been a comrade once before, during the same time as Baba, but had been too acquainted with the bottle so the comrades had asked him to go back home. Some said he had worked for a white man whose son had then pushed him off the farm when the father died. And some simply said he was a man who liked to tell stories, especially untrue ones.
I watched as his eyes trailed to my head. Although the night had been painted by darkness, my stomach turned and I knew he had seen the pot.
‘And where are you two going if your parents are already sleeping?’
Farai and I looked nervously at each other. The plan had been to make it to the comrades unseen, especially by VaGuhwa.
‘I came to see your mother,’ he said, then turned around to see if anyone was listening. He lowered his voice, came a little closer and continued. ‘I heard that Rogers’s boy is back, the nephew. I forget the name now. I even saw him today, can you imagine? Tearing about on that noisy motorcycle of his. And you know, people are talking. They say that you are now working at the Rogerses’ farm now, Thandiwe. Is it true?’ His eyes stayed with the pot on my head.
The Colours That Blind Page 8
