The Colours That Blind

by Rutendo Tavengerwei

  ‘Bas, are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, he’s all right. Too drunk to walk – that’s all that’s wrong with him. Been drinking the whole damn bottle!’

  He looked up at her and scowled.

  ‘I bloody bruised my knee here.’ He paused, burped, then continued, ‘Because this wife of mine kept pulling me. Always nagging! Nag, nag, nag,’ he said, now trying to focus on his wagging finger.

  The Missus breathed out an exasperated sigh.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, girlie! Didn’t they say you’re a nurse? Well … fix my knee then, won’t you?’

  I knelt beside him and looked up to the Missus, who only rolled her eyes and walked past me. I hesitated for a while before eventually untying the dhuku from my head and tying it tightly around the bas’s knee. Feeling the wind push against my hair, I quickly tried to smooth back my voluminous hair, nervously peering to see if the Missus had seen me.

  The bas pushed me aside and struggled to get up. ‘Bloody useless, all the women here. Fussing over hair all the time,’ he said, staggering into the house.

  By the time I came back to the veranda with the table mats, the Missus and Bas Rogers were already sitting outside. The Missus sat on the right like she always did, a magazine on her lap and her knitting needles clicking against each other as she pulled the wool over them. She paused for a second, watching me dish out the food, before snipping a piece of the wool off with the shiny pair of silver shears that had been by her foot.

  To her clear displeasure, the bas was humming loudly, swaying and laughing to himself in the chair.

  Her eyes rose to my head and my heart skipped. I quickly looked around to see whether the bas had tossed my dhuku somewhere close, but I could not find it and she did not say anything.

  As my eyes wandered, they picked up the sight of Matthew and Phillip walking towards the veranda from the tea plantation, in shirts bleached by the sun and with their hair playing loosely to the tune of the wind. At the sight of him I could only stand and stare, remembering what Tawana had said.

  ‘Aunt April.’ Phillip leaned in to kiss her cheek. I watched him from the other side of the table, his body relaxed and that smile on his face.

  ‘Look at the both of you! Have you been rolling in mud? Honestly, between you two and your uncle, you’re going to drive me into an early grave. Rosie, get a broom and sweep this mess off the veranda, will you? And you’d both better clean up before you come and have your lunch.’

  As I walked through the corridor to the kitchen, my ears picked out Matthew’s cackle in the background, and I pictured him going over to greet his aunt with a kiss.

  I picked up the broom and got ready to return to the veranda. But as I marched out of the kitchen, there he was, his dirty feet trudging in and stopping mine completely. For a minute, frozen awkwardly in time, we simply stared at each other in silence. I shuffled my feet and looked down.

  ‘We should find time …’ He cleared his throat and scratched the edge of his right eyebrow. ‘Um … we should talk.’

  I remained quiet.

  ‘I don’t mean now. I mean, it doesn’t have to be today even, but I think we should talk.’

  I pursed my lips.

  ‘I mean, if you want to. I’m not forcing you or anything like that.’ The tips of his ears now matched the flush flooding his cheeks.

  ‘I heard what Tawana said to you yesterday,’ I blurted. He stared at me, blinking quickly. ‘And he was right.

  I shouldn’t have said all those terrible things.’

  He moved closer so that I could smell the leafy aroma of tea leaves, mixed with the strong musky scent of sweat on his shirt. ‘This fighting between us must stop, mustn’t it, Thandie?’

  He took my hand in his and lifted my chin with his other hand, his fingers brushing over the jagged scar along my jaw and forcing me to look at him.

  ‘Yes, the fighting must stop,’ I echoed, though I doubted whether just saying those words could erase the distance between us.

  He smiled, and before I knew it, he had pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. His right hand slid to the small of my back. I could not stop focusing on the thinness of his lips as his face slowly pulled in towards mine.

  ‘Matthew, you should come see how –’ Phillip, laughing, entered the kitchen. I watched his forehead crease like clothes that have been left un-ironed.

  I took a step back, and Matthew slowly let go of me.

  ‘Cousin,’ he said uneasily, moving towards the kitchen door, but Phillip quietly turned around and exited the room, leaving us both standing just where we had been when we first began wading through the ocean between us.

  56

  The Missus rang her little bell and I hurried outside to clear the table. Bas Rogers had slid back into sleep, clutching a bottle of beer. The Missus had resumed her knitting. Matthew sat on the ledge, eyes focused in the distance as though deep in thought. And Phillip watched me as he sipped at the water in his hand.

  The Missus turned to Matthew. ‘Why don’t you help your uncle inside, darling? He might as well lie down properly.’

  ‘And bring the chessboard on your way out, cousin. It’s a perfect afternoon to test your strategy,’ Phillip said lazily.

  I watched Matthew out of the corner of my eye as he got up and walked past me. My heart lurched as he neared me, and proceeded on to his uncle’s side. The bas grunted at Matthew’s touch and grumbled as he led him into the house.

  ‘Aunt April …’ As soon as Matthew and the bas had gone inside, Phillip pulled out a cigarette from his breast pocket and placed it between his lips. ‘Isn’t girlie here meant to cover her hair or something of the sort?’

  I swallowed, and began walking back into the house. The chair screeched and I froze as he moved in front of me.

  ‘Well, there’s a hair in my water, Aunt April,’ he said, and his eyes locked with mine.

  I glanced at the glass on the table and then at the Missus.

  ‘But, madam, I only took off my dhuku to wrap it around the bas’s knee,’ I tried to explain.

  ‘No need to explain, Rosie, I didn’t ask you to speak,’ she said, forming the wool into intricate knots with her knitting needles.

  Phillip stepped closer and grabbed my arm. The Missus stopped knitting and her eyes danced between Phillip and me. My heart tore at the roughness of his grip. It was on this very spot that the bas had lodged his hand over my throat.

  ‘Bas, please …’ I whispered.

  ‘Come sit down,’ he ordered.

  ‘Bas Phillip, please, I’m begging you,’ I pleaded, my voice thickening with tears, trying to free myself of him. Without warning, he sent a forceful slap to my jagged cheek with the back of his hand and I fell to the ground.

  The Missus stood up, and her knitting fell off her lap.

  The skin that had started to heal along my jawline cracked under the heat of a thousand fires.

  ‘I said! Sit! Down!’ Phillip hissed.

  I sat, my whole body trembling. I feared he might actually kill me.

  ‘Aunt April, pass me that,’ he ordered, his index finger pointing at her silver knitting shears, still by her foot.

  ‘Phillip … please …’ I shifted, getting ready to stand up.

  ‘Don’t you try me, girlie,’ he threatened, hoisting his hand in the air, ready to strike. I was so afraid, mzukuru, that I think my teeth might have chattered. The blades of the shears shone as they swung in Phillip’s hand.

  If I had not seen it for myself, I might never have believed it. A chunk of hair collapsed dead onto the ground, and my eyes followed it as its lightness was carried off by the breeze. My body stayed there, numb, and unable to utter a single word. I felt pain, mzukuru, almost as though he had shredded my flesh.

  ‘Phillip!’

  I opened my eyes and it was then that I realised that I was crying.

  Matthew stood there, face pale and staring at us both.

  ‘Phillip, what do you
think you are doing?’ He pushed him away from me.

  ‘You will not fight with your cousin over this scum!’ the Missus ordered.

  Tugging and struggling ensued between the two men, blows flying in all directions. Then from nowhere there was a loud bang, and little white pieces of the ceiling rained on the ground. We all stared at the rifle the Missus was holding as she stood by the main door, her hands trembling.

  ‘I will not have this fighting in my house! What has got into you both?’ she demanded.

  ‘Aunt April!’ Phillip gasped, rushing to her.

  ‘Thandiwe, are you all right?’ Matthew asked, sliding over to me.

  I must have heard the words coming out of his mouth, but I could not speak. You know, mzukuru, they say of Samson that when the Philistines cut his hair, strength seeped out of his skull, pouring like fresh honey from a comb. They say it robbed him bare, taking everything from him like a begrudged lover. I felt it then, the light wash of the breeze as it caressed its fingers through my patchy head and blew away my strength.

  And I’m told that before I left I stared into Phillip’s eyes and smiled. How I wish he had known before he had done it that hair can trigger a war bloodier than the gun. Because really, mzukuru, true wisdom lies in never thinking that you are entitled to touch a woman’s hair.

  57

  There is a thing they say about dead things – that they are hard to let go. They say it is the grief that ties you to them, and makes you scared of losing what you’ve already lost. As I walked off the veranda towards the gum trees, tears salty on my lips, my hands held up the hem of my skirt containing the broken tufts of my hair and would not let go. I see the questions in your eyes, mzukuru, wondering where I was going with it, and what I thought I would do. And I can only plead insanity, because all I know is that I grieved for that loss.

  ‘You run after her, you turn your back on your whole family, Matthew! For good!’ I could hear Phillip screaming from behind me.

  Then were feet thudding hurriedly behind me and the shout of my name: ‘Thandiwe, wait!’ he insisted, now standing in front of me.

  ‘Let me through, Matthew.’

  I tightened my grip on the hem and lifted my head high. I had lost so much already. I would not be ridiculed for whatever it was I was doing now.

  ‘Let me through!’

  ‘You’re upset!’

  I pulled my head back with my eyebrows raised. ‘Upset? Don’t you dare tell me what I am! You don’t know a thing!’

  ‘I am risking everything by being here with you, Thandiwe. You could at least –’

  ‘Risking everything? Must I now kneel down in gratitude? Because clearly I’m now indebted to you for this kindness, Matthew. You honestly think you’re doing me a favour by coming here? Look at what they did, because you smiled at me!’

  He looked down.

  ‘We were only fooling ourselves, thinking we could forget our places and begin again. There is no mending this. This –’ I said, choking down the tears – ‘is what they think I deserve!’

  I expected him to walk away, but instead he stared into my eyes.

  ‘I meant what I said earlier. The fighting must stop.’

  He frowned for a moment as though deep in thought. ‘Would you like us to bury it?’

  ‘What?’ I clicked my tongue in annoyance and tried pushing past him.

  ‘You already have it there in your skirt, so we could bury it.’

  I stayed silent, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Come,’ he said, leading me along a path that started a little distance after the big Msasa tree, meandering into the thick of the woods. I followed him, hands still clutching my hem. I could feel my mood lighten as I watched him dig a small hole in the ground, and I wanted to cackle at the absurdity.

  ‘Do you want to say something?’ he asked after he was done.

  I looked at him, still baffled.

  ‘Well?’ he asked with a seriousness on his face that made me melt inside. I shrugged and let go of the hem, watching the tufts slowly unroll into the little hole he had dug.

  He watched too, then cleared his throat. ‘Well, I’d like to say that this hair was a true thing of beauty.’ My eyes welled up as his turned and stayed on me. ‘But you, even without it, are still a work of art. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

  I looked down, thinking of my patchy head and mangled jaw. He scooped up the loose earth he had dug and swept it back into the hole, spreading it over the hair and patting it down before standing up and looking at me again. We stood there awkwardly for a while, not knowing how to proceed.

  ‘You should go back to the house before your cousin sends an army looking for you. I don’t have any more hair to shave on my head.’

  He looked at me, smiled and drew closer to me.

  ‘He’ll have to shave mine then. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that too.’

  I could feel the light touch of his breath on my face as he spoke. I gave a light chuckle. The reality of what had happened writhed inside my being. And then it came like a purging. Sudden gushes of violent sobs that erupted out of me. He pulled me into his chest and held me so tightly I thought I would break.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into my ear. As his cheek lingered on my face, I could feel the dampness that sat between us, and I knew then that we were both crying.

  58

  Two days had passed since Phillip had cut my hair and Amai had carefully shaved off the remaining tufts. All I could think of now was how in anger I had run to Bullet and told him that the bas and Phillip were hiding guns in the bas’s barn. I had wanted the Rogerses to pay for what they had done to me. But even so, guilt crawled all over me like fire-ants, and I hadn’t told Matthew what I’d done.

  ‘It feels like the end,’ I said, as we walked side by side up the small hill close to the river.

  Matthew answered softly. ‘If it’s the end, then it’s a beautiful one.’ He paused. ‘Thandiwe,’ he said hesitantly, ‘don’t get upset …’

  I frowned.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow night.’

  ‘Leaving? What do you mean, you’re leaving? Leaving to where? For how long?’

  ‘I’m going to Mozambique. There’s a job that a friend of mine has arranged for me at one of the mission schools there, and I feel I should take it. You know how things are with my family at the moment, and I don’t think I can –’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m going to meet him close to the mission and we’ll make our way from there. I didn’t want to go like last time, without you knowing.’ He squeezed my hand.

  A lump sat in my throat and I could not say anything.

  Then, as if I’d been waiting for it, gunshots sounded on the horizon, making us both duck for safety. A blaze of orange flames rose in the distance. My heart pounded, remembering what I had done.

  ‘It’s the farm! Quick, we have to go!’ Matthew shouted.

  I felt regret descend on me like a cold shower and prayed no one had gotten hurt as I watched the barn flare up wildly like tinder. I could tell from the denseness of the smoke that all the bags of dried tea leaves that were waiting to go to market must have caught fire. By the time we reached the barn, scores of men and women from the village were hurrying with buckets of water, passing them in a chain. My heart pounded at the sight of the Missus sobbing on the veranda. A little further from the house, Nurse Edwards tended to the bas, dabbing at what looked like a burnt arm.

  The bas got up. ‘I’m going to help put out the fire.’ He moved away from Nurse Edwards.

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here,’ Nurse Edwards said when she saw me. ‘There are other people injured.’

  I stared at her, wondering where she had left her babies, and whether she herself had fully recovered.

  ‘Nurse Edwards, shouldn’t you be resting? You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘There’s no time to spare. There’s a boy I saw earlier who’s burned his foot. Look – there he is. You wouldn’t mi
nd helping him, would you, Thandiwe?’ she said, gathering up all her dressings and ointments.

  I glanced over to the other side, where the boy was carrying a heavy pail of water, limping closer to the flames.

  I grabbed what I could from Nurse Edwards’s little bag of medicines before rushing towards him.

  ‘You can’t be walking on that leg.’

  ‘The fire will spread if I don’t help,’ the boy protested.

  I coughed as a wave of smoke hit my nose. The tea estate was now full of people working together to try to put the fire out.

  ‘They’ve almost got it,’ I said, ordering the boy to sit down.

  ‘I saw them, you know,’ he said, giving in and groaning as he sat. ‘I saw two of them in camouflage, and one of them threw the petrol bomb into the barn through one of the high windows. I was on my way from the estate with Bas Phillip.’

  I flinched at his name, and tended to his leg quietly, afraid to let the guilt slip out through my mouth. What would Matthew say if he found out?

  ‘I think they wanted to burn it all down, from the look of things. Next time they will make sure it can’t be snuffed out.’

  Fear crept over me at his words.

  ‘Did you see their faces?’ I asked as calmly as I could.

  He said nothing but let out a whimper as I rotated his leg to check for other burns.

  I understood. Anything he said could have labelled him a sell-out, and during those days when identities were hidden in the shadows of the war, you could not easily trust anyone.

  ‘You’ll be fine. It’s only a little swollen.’

  The boy nodded and tried getting up so he could leave. As I tried to convince him to rest for longer, my eyes spotted Phillip behind the Msasa tree, hidden from everyone else by the shadows. My heart began to thud at the sight of a tallish figure towering over him with what looked to me like a bayonet pointed at him. I knew who it was, and I knew what he would do.