Unpresidented

by Paige Nick

  As I hurry back to my guest rondavel, I look back at the main Homestead, once such a grand estate. Only a few of the higher windows remain intact; the rest are either broken or boarded up. There are remnants of rude graffiti painted over with the wrong shade. I can’t read what it all says, but from the letters that are still visible, I can hazard a guess. On the second floor, just the word ‘…hole’ remains, too high and far away from a window to be easily painted over. I doubt it’s a manhole warning.

  I sidestep scrawny chickens scratching in the dirt. A herd of goats nose their way through a pile of rubbish alongside the main house. I pass the infamous fire pool. The deep end contains a couple inches of dirty water, leaves, and a Pick n Pay packet. There’s also the rusted frame of a beach chair, a broken, upside-down Weber, the skeleton of a sun umbrella that’s seen sunnier days, a yellow cap with a faded party logo, and six or seven deflated soccer balls, the FIFA 2010 logo barely visible anymore.

  This is a terrible fucking idea, I think. Right up there with my most historic terribles. Like the tattoo I don’t remember getting on my inner thigh. Dating twins and thinking it would end well. All that fucking booze. And don’t forget the cocaine, bucket-loads of cocaine. None of that was ever a good idea. And then there was the terrible idea that led to my current killer tsunami of a situation. Not so much the small smudging of the truth in that article I wrote about the guy with cancer, saying he was going to sue the hospital and doctors when he wasn’t. But thinking that I’d get away with it.

  I step into my rondavel, home for the next few weeks while I try to get this book written, and wonder if I’ll ever get my money back from the ex-President. Or whether I’ll just have to take it on the chin, like the rest of South Africa’s taxpayers.

  THE EX-PRESIDENT

  When Muza steps into the room that used to be his study, his third wife, Bonang, now his first wife, is at a sewing machine at what was once his desk. And his fifth wife, Refilwe, now his second wife, is at the very ministerial-looking, leather-covered circular boardroom table. She has one hand on the keyboard of an Apple laptop, and she’s texting on her iPhone with the other. Neither woman looks up. He hums a bit. They still don’t lift their eyes. He sees more of the tops of their heads than their faces these days.

  ‘I’ve just had a very good meeting with my writer, my book of memories is coming along excellently, thank you for your interest,’ Muza announces.

  Refilwe stops texting long enough to say, ‘Well done, Muzzy, that sounds great,’ before returning to her phone.

  ‘Good job, baba,’ Bonang says, still not looking up from the sewing machine.

  Muza hovers. He picks a hedgehog pincushion off the desk and fiddles with it until he pricks himself and cries out. Still neither of the women looks up. He harrumphs, then stomps out of his former office.

  In the kitchen, Muza perches on a stool, retrieves the dictaphone from his pocket and speaks into it again.

  ‘From that study, I orchestrated the greatest presidency this country has ever experienced. That room has been witness to true greatness. I must remember to say that line to the writer as well; it’s a good one.

  ‘But when I returned from prison, I discovered that my third-now-first wife, Bonang, had set up her business in there. She has put a sewing machine at my desk. Can you believe it? My desk! The ex-President of South Africa’s desk is now a sewing table! There are pieces of fabric everywhere, and my study is cluttered with tape measures, pins, thread, sewing patterns, scissors, and such. There are even two mannequins in the room now, draped in cloth and stabbed with pins. Sometimes I like to think of them as the shadows of two of my other wives, the ones who are no longer here. The worst was my ex-fourth wife, of whom we do not speak since she ran off with that woman from the DA. But the joke’s on her, my ex’s cooking is terrible.

  ‘And after all these blows, on my return to the Homestead, when I tried to reclaim my office, Bonang told me that I couldn’t because it is now their office. Half of the study is the headquarters of her operation, ShweShe Designs. Bonang says she had to move her business into my study because it has “the best natural light”, which helps her see what she’s doing when she needs to thread a needle, and also the roof leaks the least in there. Which is important because her fabrics – I only called them materials once, they are apparently fabrics, not materials – are expensive and need to be kept safe.

  ‘I can tell that the weather and my departure have not been kind to the precious legacy of my once magnificent Homestead. But I am working on it, and one day soon it, and I, will be great again.

  ‘The other half of the room has become the headquarters for the new business of my fifth-now-second wife, Refilwe. She started a legal practice right here at the Homestead. Had I known she was such a great lawyer, who wanted to practice and not just wear the hats of one of the many wives of a great leader, she could have defended me for free and saved me the millions I had to pay the team of lawyers who assisted in my demise.

  ‘This is not what I had in mind when I fought for the redistribution of wealth in this country. I meant the redistribution of other people’s wealth, not my own.’

  A dog barking outside, followed by loud knocking, briefly interrupts Muza.

  ‘You turn your back for three years, eight months and twenty-seven days, and suddenly your study is a sewing factory-cum-law office,’ Muza continues, trying to ignore the knocking, ‘and you only ever see the tops of your wives’ heads because they are always working. So now I have to use this kitchen as my office. I am willing to live with these struggles for now. It’s normal that there should be a settling-in period after someone has been away for a long time, but I will soon reclaim my space in this house as the patriarch…’

  The knocking gets even louder. Finally he clicks his tongue, presses the stop button, and hefts himself off the stool.

  ‘What’s that banging sound? Do you hear it? It’s interrupting my important work,’ Muza shouts as he heads back into the study.

  ‘I believe that’s someone at the door,’ Refilwe says.

  ‘Did you catch deafness in prison as well as a sore toe, sthandwa sam’?’ Bonang asks, her voice muffled by pins wedged between her lips.

  Refilwe snickers.

  ‘What happened to my doorbell?’ Muza asks.

  ‘What do you think? This is South Africa, somebody stole it,’ Refilwe says.

  ‘It’s a compliment, you know. Everybody in South Africa wants to own something that belongs to the greatest President this country has ever seen. It’s a great honour for them. They want a memento. Like all those souvenirs we sold during the World Cup. Something to take home to remind them of a great time in history.’

  Bonang removes the pins from her mouth before speaking. ‘Yazi, baba, I’m sure that’s it. The same people who spray-painted those ugly words on the walls, and broke our windows with rocks. They just wanted to deface something that belongs to the greatest President this country has ever seen.’

  The banging persists, now even more loudly and with fewer pauses.

  ‘Isn’t one of you going to get that?’ Muza asks.

  ‘Where are all your men, why can’t they get it?’ Bonang snaps back.

  ‘I have sent them out on a very important business errand,’ Muza replies.

  ‘Well, we’re working on important business too,’ Refilwe says.

  ‘Did you lose the use of your legs while you were in prison?’ Bonang whips her head back down to her machine, her foot on the pedal, making it whirr so loudly that even if he did respond, she wouldn’t hear him.

  Muza scratches his belly as he limps back through the house, slowed by the pain on his buttocks and the ankle monitor he now wears twenty-four seven. He stops to speak into his dictaphone again, raising his voice to be heard over the knocking.

  ‘These wives, what will I do with them? I’m glad I picked up this recording device. It will be nice to have someone to speak to in honesty since they aren’t interested in listening to
me anymore.

  ‘I remember how things were before these hardships. Our many children and grandchildren all live overseas now, it was too difficult for them to find peace here after I was brought down. So we helped them to move overseas. My surname, which had made things comfortable for everyone for so many years, suddenly wasn’t welcome in a lot of places. Of course, it’s hard not to have my family here with me, but they are behind me all the way, even if it’s from very far away.

  ‘My wives were both beautiful once. Maybe Bonang a bit more so than Refilwe, but they both had their assets. I bought them so many hats – who needs so many hats? And I paid many, many cows for their lobola. If I had kept the cows instead of getting wives, I’d still be walking to answer my own front door now, but at least I’d be a man who was herds of cows and hundreds of hats richer when he had to answer his own front door. But I suppose I mustn’t be too hard on the women, they married a very powerful man, and it must be difficult for them to see me like this. At least they stuck around, unlike those other ungratefuls who disappeared the second they had to start buying their hats on credit.’

  Muza clicks off the dictaphone, slips it back into his pocket and covers the last few paces to the front door. He peels back a corner of the cardboard, where the seventy-seven thousand rand original handcrafted stained-glass panels used to be. All part of the necessary security upgrade of the Homestead.

  There’s a young man at the door. He’s wearing black pants that are too short for him, a creased white shirt and a blue tie with a stain on it. There’s a dusty green Mazda Sting parked in the driveway, the front door still open, the engine running. Muza wonders if he’s another journalist trying his luck, or maybe he’s here to volunteer for the fundraising campaign supporting Muza’s return to power. Or perhaps he’s heard about the high life that Muza’s entourage is currently enjoying, and he’s here to enquire if there’s space for one more.

  ‘Yes?’ Muza says as he opens the door a crack.

  The dog is sitting off to one side making low growling noises, teeth bared. The man is nervously rooted to the spot. When the dog sees Muza, he growls more loudly. ‘Fuseg’!’ Muza shouts at the dog, who backs off, hackles raised.

  ‘President Muza?’ the young man asks.

  Muza swells with pride at the sound of his old name and opens the door all the way.

  ‘Yes? How can I help you?’

  The man hands him a pen and a clipboard. ‘Can you sign here for me, please?’

  ‘A fan,’ Muza says. ‘What’s your name, ndodana? I will make it out to you personally. Your friends will be very excited, and your family will be honoured and blessed.’

  ‘My name is Snaye Gumede,’ the man says, wide-eyed.

  Muza scribbles a personalised motivational message and signs his name with a flourish. The young man looks at it for a moment, and then hands Muza a thick envelope.

  ‘You’ve been served,’ he says, then makes a dash back to his car. Tyres squeal as he tears down the driveway in plumes of dirt. A few chickens flap and squawk out of his way, but the goats barely raise an eyebrow as they carry on eating everything in sight. He leaves the car running as he gets out to open the gate, and then drives off like a racing-car driver, leaving the gate open behind him. The stupid dog barks again. The problem on Muza’s right buttock pulses as he looks around for someone from his entourage to yell at. Why is there nobody guarding the bloody gate?

  THE WRITER

  I sit at my desk in the guest rondavel and tap out a text message:

  Please call me.

  Then I move to the edge of the single bed and wait for the phone to ring. My feet don’t reach the ground, so I swing my legs back and forth like a child. The bed’s legs are propped up on piles of bricks to fend off the tokoloshe. If only they knew what I know: that the tokoloshe is the least of everyone’s worries out here.

  I clutch the Nokia with both hands and stare at it, willing it to ring. It only has two bars of battery left, but my laptop is plugged into the sole electricity outlet in the room. I need to be able to write, and who knows when load-shedding will hit. At this point, having a laptop with power is a bigger priority than having a cell phone with power. But seriously, who spends hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money rebuilding his home, and then only puts one plug point in the entire guest accommodation? I mean, I get it if you’re paying for everything yourself, then skimp away, but when it’s basically free, why wouldn’t you go the whole hog? It means I can’t make a piece of toast and boil the kettle at the same time. Not that I have a kettle, or a toaster, or even a slice of bread, for that matter. I’ve been boiling water for coffee (instant, if you can fucking believe it) and two-minute noodles in a dented pot on a two-ring hotplate. The Ritz Carlton this is not.

  Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Two weeks ago, unless it was a double capp or a latte, I wouldn’t be seen dead drinking or tweeting it. At least I have a bed and water, although it alternately dribbles and then explodes out of the taps in the bathroom, looking rusty, and smelling like an armpit. But it’s there, and I haven’t gotten the shits drinking it. Yet.

  ‘Jeezuz Dumi, take your time,’ I mutter.

  My phone eventually beeps with a text.

  Hi champ, what's up?

  Christ, what part of ‘please call me’ doesn’t he get? It’s not that complicated. I tap out another message, stabbing at the buttons with two angry thumbs; autocorrect comes in handy at times like this, although at no point in my life would I ever want to tell anyone to duck off.

  Barely any airtime left. Call me.

  I have to wait a few minutes, but the phone eventually rings. When I answer I can hear people chattering in the background, and the hum of music, something smooth and jazzy.

  ‘Hey champ, what’s up?’

  ‘Dumi, this is a fuck-up of monumental proportions.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak up, I’m in a meeting.’

  ‘Tell me again why I have to do this job, Dumi?’

  ‘You know why you’re doing this, Matt.’

  ‘Humour me, remind me again.’

  ‘Well, let’s see, you’re only making history, pal. This book is going to sell a brazillion copies, more than Spud and that Real Meal cookbook and the Bible all put together. It’s not only going to be the biggest selling book of the year, it’s also going to be the most shoplifted, my friend and favourite author, Matthew Stone. And then all will be forgotten and forgiven, and you can get your life back, and we can both buy Porsches. That’s why you’re doing this.’

  ‘Yeah, all good and well in theory, but I’m never going to get a book out of this guy, Dumi. He’s a nightmare. I’m in hell!’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Matty. You’re a pro, you’re going to ace this.’

  ‘Can’t you rather get out there and sell my story to someone? Let’s make some money out of that instead. That whole cancer stuff-up is big news, isn’t it? You said so yourself, it’s all everyone’s talking about. I made the Sunday Times front page, and I trended on Twitter for three bloody days, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘It’s a bit too soon, buddy. People out here are still kind of mad at you about that whole thing. His daughter just started one of those online petitions against you, and the media hates you, too. You don’t really have any friends left in high – or low – places. I can absolutely guarantee you that nobody wants to see your name or your face anywhere for a while. But you know that. That’s why we decided this is the best option for you, remember?’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do now?’

  ‘Just do everything exactly the way we planned it. You’ll spend a month writing the guy’s story. Come on, how hard can it be? And it will be over before you know it. And most important, you need to lie low for a while. If you think about it, this is a total win-win. You get to go away and take a break from it all, think of it as a bit of R&R, and then when the book comes out in four or five months, it will be an instant smash hit. Show me a South African who doesn’t want to re
ad Muza’s story? Hell, show me a Brit or an American who doesn’t want to read it. It will be your redemption, Matt. And in the meantime, while you’re out there, you’re out of the line of fire, which will give people a chance to calm down and forgive you. Or if they can’t forgive you, maybe they’ll forget you for a little while. You know, out of sight, out of mind and all that. I just think that you need to put some distance between you and this whole cancer scandal. And you definitely need to put some distance between you and social media. The whole fucking Sahara, if possible.’

  ‘You know what happened with that cancer guy wasn’t my fault though, hey Dumi?’

  ‘I know that, bud, and you know that. But people don’t see it that way yet. The way they see it, you wrote a bunch of lies, which were published. Then when everyone found out it was all made up, you sent those tweets denying it, and then the guy and his family got involved. You know what the maddening crowd can be like: they’ll have you hung, drawn and your nuts cut off before the weekend if you stay in their eye-line.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely positive there’s nothing else out there for me, instead of this … this sham?’

  ‘I’m sorry, buddy, I got nothing else for you. You’re Ebola right now; nobody wants to touch you.’

  ‘I could write for a soapie?’

  ‘They don’t want you.’

  ‘Magazines? I’ll even write at their ridiculous rates that haven’t changed since 1972.’

  ‘They definitely don’t want you.’

  ‘I could work in advertising?’

  ‘Matt, I swear I tried, I really tried. Not even the assholes in advertising want you.’

  ‘But it’s advertising, for fuck’s sake! They’d sell crack to nine-year-olds if there was enough money in it for them, they’ll take anyone.’