The Colours That Blind

by Rutendo Tavengerwei

  ‘You know though, don’t you?’ he said through chattering teeth. I held him in my arms, rocking us both and listening.

  ‘You do know how sorry I am though, don’t you, Thandie? For everything.’ He gasped for breath.

  ‘For this,’ he said as he held my other hand tighter. I could feel him slipping from me and I began to hum again. I remember how gently I rocked him, humming Amai’s song. Hoping that the end had not come. But after a while his hand loosened its grip on mine and I saw the stillness of his face, the emptiness of his eyes.

  I think the trees shook as I erupted in a scream. It should have been me. I still cannot help but wish it had been.

  67

  Tumi

  Mkoma and I are driving to school, and I’m feeling a lot of things. I stayed up most of the night yesterday thinking of the missionaries, thinking of the massacre. Thinking of how Ambuya must have felt watching that. I stopped reading after Matthew died. I couldn’t bear it any more. There’s a page still to go and all I could do was stuff it into one of my books. I don’t know that I want to find out what else happened.

  And it feels as though as soon as I closed my eyes last night, the hole in my stomach shook me awake.

  It’s the first day of term today, and I’ll have to face everyone at school. I’m not sure if I have a place there any more. And it scares me – not as much as it did before, that’s for sure, but it still has me unable to eat and stuff.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mkoma asks as he pulls up in the parking lot. I linger for a moment, watching the other students making their way to the classrooms.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Mkoma says, squeezing my shoulder. I look at him and nod before grabbing my bag and getting out of the car.

  As soon as he drives off, I see Coach Ngoni slam his car door closed. The dread collapses on me, and I think I can walk away before he sees me.

  ‘Hey! Tumirai! Wait,’ he says, coming towards me. ‘We missed you at the try-outs last week, is everything all right?’

  My stomach turns.

  ‘Yeah, coach, I had some stuff happening at home so I couldn’t make it,’ I say, and wait for him to remind me I’m off the team. That I’m not part of them any more.

  ‘Yes, Musa did say something about that. I hope everything is better now?’

  Everything would really be better if I was still on the team, but I nod.

  ‘I was talking to Bongani and the other boys and we think we should start your training soon for the try-outs early next year.’

  I don’t say anything because I don’t know if it’s a pity move or not.

  ‘The judges heard about your record at the school event last term, and I can’t promise anything because the competition is ridiculous, but you might really have a shot.’

  I look at him blankly.

  ‘But of course you’re going to have to work really hard for it. Earn your way there, if you get what I mean?’

  I don’t know what to say. Not because I might have a shot in the solo events, but because the team cares. Whether or not I’m swimming with them in the national team this year, they still think I’m a part of them.

  68

  It’s the weekend and I’m standing in Ambuya’s lounge in Vumba, staring at that same picture of her and the white man. The same white man she was with in the picture she gave me. Saru and Mkoma are playing with Noku, and I can hear Ranga and Jabu talking outside. I couldn’t stay out there too long because every time I look at Jabu’s cast I shrivel in shame and guilt. He still doesn’t seem to blame me, but I honestly don’t see any way not to blame myself.

  ‘Mama, Noku wants another guava or she might just faint and die, no pun intended,’ I hear Noku say from the veranda where they all are. Jabu’s laugh is the loudest. I smile as I step away from the picture. Noku randomly started referring to herself in the third person a few days ago and it’s become her new thing. Between that and her occasional accent, I really think we’re all in trouble.

  My phone pings, and I pull it out of my pocket.

  Fam hit me up for our normal routine when you back.

  It’s from Musa. I’m not going to lie about it, I’m disappointed that I’m not part of the national team with the rest of them. But for the first time since it happened, it’s because my dream is to make it to the Olympics. And it really is just that. It doesn’t feel like a point I have to make any more. Yesterday, during the assembly, before I knew that the principal was about to call the team on stage to congratulate them, I was dreading it because I thought I might hurl. But it wasn’t even that deep. I mean, it stung a little, but I didn’t feel as though my world was ending or anything.

  I’m starting to learn that not everyone is going to be fond of me, and that’s cool. I haven’t gotten it down to a T yet, but I think whatever reason people might choose to shun me is on them. It doesn’t need to shape my world. I even told Bongani yesterday after he called me ‘mrungu’ that I didn’t like it because it was rude. I said it as politely as I could of course. And although he shrugged and walked off as though he hadn’t heard me, mandem now knows I don’t like it, and that’s a step.

  Sure boss. I’ll be back home tomorrow, and I’ll show you flames in the gym.

  I slide my phone back into my pocket. Ambuya walks into the room and sits quietly on the sofa close to the window.

  ‘Your brother tells me you read my letter?’ she says, watching me.

  I look at her and all I can give her is a small smile.

  ‘So you read the last pages of my story too then? What did you think?’

  My imagination springs up again and I see the hacking and the shooting all in my head. I think she must see it on my face, because she stands up and walks to me.

  ‘It wasn’t the easiest read,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it wasn’t the easiest thing to live through either.’ She is silent for a while. ‘Did you read it all?’

  I nod, then think. ‘Actually, there’s a page or so left. I have it with me,’ I say, pulling it out of the pocket of my shorts. I’ve been meaning to read it the whole week, but I haven’t been keen on finding out what it says.

  ‘I understand. It is not something easy to digest.’

  She smiles and looks at the picture of her on the wall where she is with the white man.

  ‘You know, mzukuru, after I lost my friends, I wrote it all down and I spent years reading and rereading that trauma, because I told myself that if I didn’t, I would forget it.’

  She looks at me.

  ‘For twenty years I read it every day that the Lord made, punishing myself because it shouldn’t have happened to them, and if death wanted to claim life, it should have been mine. I think I must know those words by heart still.’

  She moves closer to the picture.

  ‘For those twenty years I danced a very complicated dance between guilt and shame. But you know, then I saw Phillip again, and he helped me let that piece go.’

  I frown. ‘Phillip?’

  She pulls the picture from the wall and stares at it with a faint faraway smile.

  ‘On the twentieth anniversary of their passing, I went to their graves there by the mission. They buried them close to the football field where they had died. And when I got there, he was there. I hadn’t seen him since it happened. He had moved back to England and so when I saw him, at first I wasn’t sure what to expect. But then we began to speak, and I found out that he too blamed himself.’

  I have no clue where this is going, but I know I want to hear it.

  ‘After he returned to England, we kept writing to each other. You see, mzukuru, he was the only one who understood what had happened and where it had all started. And he understood the guilt and the shame. He had been there. We started to write back and forth, each sharing our stories of Matthew, and reminding each other to live. Because any self-infliction of pain would not have been what Matthew would have wanted. Not what any of them would have wanted. None of that would have been honouring thei
r lives, or what they had endured.

  ‘Initially I had framed that poem to remind me of it. But after I saw Phillip, I put that picture of the two of us up there too, so I would never forget. So that it would continue to challenge me if ever I did. It took me a while, but I eventually stopped reading that diary and packed it away until your brother asked me to share the story of what had happened and who the man in the picture was.’

  I want to say something to her, but I’m not really sure what.

  ‘Go outside and be with your friend, Tumi mzukuru. It is not your fault what happened, and Jabu knows that. You need to forgive yourself.’

  I am scared to look her in the eye.

  ‘Listen to me, my child. Just because you think and feel it, doesn’t mean it’s true. It is not your fault. Do you hear me? Let this piece go, mzukuru.’

  ‘I don’t know how to do that,’ I say.

  ‘Do what you can for today. Go outside, sit there and laugh with your friend. Hiding in here will not undo what happened to him, and it is not honouring him in any way either. He came here to see you, so go outside and “chill”. Isn’t that what you youngsters say these days?’

  I chuckle. It sounds so weird, coming from her.

  ‘Gradually, my mzukuru, it will become easier to let this piece go, but you must keep trying.’

  She presses my shoulder and I wipe the tears from my eyes.

  ‘And when you can, my mzukuru, read the last page. I think it will be good for you,’ she says, smiling and walking out of the room.

  69

  Ambuya’s story

  When I woke up today, for the first time I could breathe. Baba took me to the mission graveyard where the missionaries were all laid to rest. I haven’t been able to go there since it happened. But today when I woke up, it was all I wanted to do. Baba says it is progress, like a shoot growing up from hard ground. He says when I am stronger he will try and organise for me to go to the city in Umtali to see Matthew’s grave. I pray I will feel ready to go when the time comes.

  But today when I got to the mission, the morning fog cleared a little. I want to believe it meant something. Perhaps it symbolises my own fog lifting. Perhaps the heavens are acknowledging that I can breathe again, that I am starting to heal.

  I still miss them though. All of them. But most of all I miss Matthew. I miss how he sometimes chuckled in the middle of his sentences when he was talking to me. How he grinned when he teased me, and the flush that coloured the tips of his ears when he laughed or was embarrassed. I miss how he was not afraid at the end. And how he cared.

  But even though I cried as I sat by their graves, it didn’t feel as though I was pinned down by my pain any more. It almost feels as though I am beginning to be alive again. And God knows it will be hard, but I have promised myself, promised all of them as they lay there, promised him, that I will try and be alive. Not just to exist but to live, to be alive.

  I know though as I write this that I am not yet ready to move on. Because right now it still feels as though I have no right to. So I won’t. And maybe that is all right too.

  I am still figuring this path out. I don’t yet know how long I will feel I have to do this, but for now I will still remind myself of that night every day.

  At least now I know that if I owe them anything, it is life, to live it! And I shall not waste mine, for their sake. So here’s to becoming alive again, one day at a time.

  70

  Tumi

  I’m smiling as I hold this last piece of Ambuya’s story that she shared with us. It gives me hope that the fog will lift, just like hers did. I take a moment to myself, digesting everything I have read and heard, and I glance at the picture on the wall again. Perhaps Ambuya is right. Perhaps what I owe Jabu is life. I mean, I don’t quite know how to do that yet, but I want to try.

  When I eventually walk outside to the veranda, Jabu and Ranga are eating guavas and laughing at something. I sit next to them, and when Jabu looks at me I smile. He nudges me gently as though he understands.

  I won’t pretend I don’t still feel pretty guilty. But for real, I do want to let this piece go. So, although it feels impossible right now, I’m going to give it my best shot.

  ‘Daddy, we need to have business talks,’ Noku begins. Mkoma’s eyebrow is raised as he listens to her trying to convince him to take home another kitten that Ambuya got from one of her neighbours last week. She’s putting all her ammo into it, the pouting and the big brown eyes, all her big guns.

  ‘You know this kitten is a girl, right, Daddy? And you know how girls are. They need to be –’

  ‘No, Noku, my friend. No. I’ve heard this speech before and we’re not doing this again,’ Mkoma protests.

  ‘OK, then wait,’ she says, putting the kitten down and as her occasional accent slides in, Jabu begins to laugh.

  ‘You want a better speech, I have a better speech na, don’t worry. Listen to this here na abeg. Noku just likes cats oo-oo.’ She is moving her little hands around, with her head on the side the way they do in those Nollywood movies. If Mkoma’s not careful, this kitten might just go home with us.

  ‘Let Noku carry this little one back home na. She go take care of it well-well.’

  ‘No, Saru,’ Mkoma says, wiping his eyes as the laughter roars out of him. ‘This has to stop, it’s too much. She’s lethal. She can’t keep watching those movies.’ His whole body rolls with laughter.

  It’s the first time in a long time that he’s laughed like that, and that is more than I could have gotten from any swimming race. I glance at Ambuya smiling beside me and I feel warm inside. I finally understand the thing about Ambuya now, why Mkoma is so mad about her, why everyone is. She is a force, a blazing fire, melting away little sparks everywhere she goes and leaving embers that ignite a fierce volcano of memory whenever you dare forget her.

  I’m sure now that she’s who I want to be.

  I’ve been thinking about this book for a couple of years now. At first it was two different stories: one of the terrible atrocities committed against people with albinism in Southern Africa, and the other of the missionaries – my dad’s friends and teachers, whom I’d grown up hearing about. The latter story was told to me in the context of pre-independent Zimbabwe, which was called Rhodesia at the time: a place where my parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts were mistreated and discriminated against, although it was their home, simply because they were black and African. It was a place infested by hate and war, where native Zimbabweans fought for independence against colonial rule by the British, a place blighted by racial hate and prejudice until 1980. This war cost the Elim missionaries their lives. As much as the stories of hate disturbed me, hearing how these particular missionaries in a little village in Vumba had tried to live their lives with love inspired me – particularly because they had lived there like ordinary people who were part of a community, not saviours who needed to rescue a race of people or ‘improve’ them.

  But as much as I wanted to write my version of this story, I also wanted to write about the atrocities that were – and still are – committed against people with albinism in my region. Stories of children and women being kidnapped, having their limbs cut off or even being killed because of the mad belief that their bodies have supernatural powers. As a child, hearing about this always used to scare me, because my aunt has albinism and I feared that we would wake up one day and hear that she’d been taken, sold across the border. It is mind-boggling that such ignorance still exists today.

  I’ve carried both these stories in my spirit for years, wondering how to tell them, until now, when I’ve woven them together so they complement each other. Because essentially the question that surfaces from both – one I hope you come face to face with as you read this story – is: will we let our misconceptions about each other, especially where colour is concerned, allow us to perpetuate hate? And if we do, when and where will it end?

  I think this book contributes to an important conversation – one that has b
een ongoing for decades. Perhaps it is a conversation that we are in danger of getting used to because we’ve been hearing it for so long, but if we don’t listen to each other, we become comfortable with ignoring it. I hope that, as you read this story, you remember those who have suffered, who have been persecuted and treated without dignity because of how they look, whatever colour they may be.

  I hope that this book challenges you to refuse to let skin colour blind you – and that you ultimately refuse to tolerate injustice in any form.

  Rutendo Tavengerwei

  People with albinism still face significant discrimination and prejudice around the world. In some parts of Africa, atrocities are still being committed against them today because of a lack of awareness about their condition. If you would like to help by making a donation, or if you would like to know more, you can visit the following websites:

  Under the Same Sun – www.albinism.org.uk/

  Zimbabwe Albino Association – www.zimalbino.co.zw

  Global Aid Missions – globalaidmissions.org

  Abeg – please

  Amai – mother

  Ambuya – grandmother

  ay – hey

  Baba – father

  Bamkuru – older uncle

  Bamnini – younger uncle

  Bas – boss

  biko – please (Igbo)

  blud – very close friend

  boom-gate – an entrance

  bruh – friend, buddy

  chitsvambe – a game, like tag

  deep – profound

  dhuku – head-wrap

  fam – derived from the word ‘family’ and used to refer to friends or people close to you

  fishbae – slang for swimmer

  haa, hee, he-ee, ka – variations on ‘huh’