The Hairdresser of Harare

by Tendai Huchu

  ‘I am.’ I was nodding my head throughout her spiel.

  ‘Don’t interrupt me. I have ambitions that run to the highest office in the land. My ministry is one of the few functional ones left, because I can get things done. I’ve bled for this country, and dedicate my life to its service. I also have many enemies all around me, waiting to bring me down at a moment’s notice. The information that you have given would be very useful to them. That’s why this has to stay in this office and go nowhere else. I need to be able to trust you, Vimbai.’

  ‘You can trust me.’ I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. She flicked through the pages of the journal and began to tear it up. She passed the leaves through a shredder and binned the cardboard covers.

  ‘There now, that’s gone. Tell me, how is Chiedza?’

  ‘You mean my daughter, Chiwoniso. She’s fine.’

  ‘That’s good. Are you looking after her well?’

  ‘Yes.’ I was beginning to wonder where all this was going.

  ‘Girl children are very special. They are a gift from God. What school does she go to?’

  ‘Admiral Tait.’

  ‘And are you happy with that school?’

  ‘The teachers there are very good.’

  ‘She’ll need to go to a good secondary once she is finished, though. Arundel, Chisipite and Dominican Convent are the ones that spring to mind. The most important thing to me is loyalty. I place a value on it above anything else. Those who are loyal to me, I reward. Those who are not, I punish. Those two things are as constant as death and taxes. This deed you have done for me, I will carry in my heart forever. Wherever I may be you can come to me and ask what you will.’

  ‘I understand you perfectly. I swear I will not tell anyone what I know.’

  ‘That’s the right thing to do. This boy, Dumisani, where is he now?’

  ‘I don’t know, he ran away from me after I confronted him.’

  ‘Leave this with me. I will take care of everything. You go back to your life, Vimbai. Find yourself a good man, and this time make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.’

  Thirty seven

  I walked through the packed streets of the city feeling like I was being weighed down by thirty pieces of silver. People marched in different directions, here a woman carried a basket laden with fruit on her head and there a man with a bicycle pump walked along whistling a tune by Oliver Mtukudzi. In this mass of bodies I wondered if there were others like Dumi, hiding in plain sight. A young man with a tight pair of trousers walked past me. Was he one of them, or just someone who could not afford to get himself a new pair? Schoolboys with perms walked by; they could be on their first step down that road as well.

  I went onto First Street where a street magician was walking on a wire, blowing flames in the air. A crowd had gathered around him, tightly packed together. People no longer feared pickpockets. That profession had died because no one carried a wallet anymore. The bricks of money in my purse would not have enticed anyone, I thought, as I went past Barbours department store with large back-to-school advertisements on the windows.

  There was a restlessness in me as I struggled with my conscience. My phone rang but I could not answer it on the street. It was probably Sarah asking after me. I made a note to make her my manager since there was no way I could give the job to Dumi now. I got a lift and headed for Budiriro to see Fungai.

  Dropping off at the shops, I headed to the open fields where he told me he held his club. I looked all round where once there was bush; people now grew maize. The streets were busy, as usual, with idle youths hanging about, hoping for better times. I stopped one unkempt lad wearing khaki shorts and asked if he knew where the philosophy club was held.

  ‘Of course, everyone knows those lunatics. Go across the field and head for those rocks over there. You will find them talking nonsense.’ He went off before I could say thanks; the young don’t care.

  Once I had cleared the field, I saw a group of ten young men sitting and talking. One of them sat far from the rest. I guessed who he was immediately. Fungai had told me of a chap called Tonderai who refused to brush his teeth as a protest for the way the country was being governed. He occasionally went around different government departments, tormenting officials with the sheer power of his torrid breath until they chased him away. Fungai had tried to discourage this but Tonderai persisted, saying he was a disciple of Diogenes the Cynic. Even now, among friends, he had to sit at a distance and shout his points across because not one of them could bear to be near him. There was a tattered exercise book beside Fungai. It was the handwritten copy of Plato’s Republic, which he’d painstakingly copied out over a month because he could never hope to have enough money to buy a real copy. Its leaves rustled in the wind and he placed a protective hand over it to prevent it from being blown away. They were engaged in a fierce debate.

  ‘The goodness of man is an inherent quality which resides in his soul from the moment of conception. It’s not something that needs to be taught, though its qualities can be nurtured through study and self-discipline,’ one of them explained, waving his hand ferociously in the air.

  ‘But you’ve not explained why the quality of good is inherent, but not that of evil. I say man has these dual qualities in equal measure and both are desirable at different times during a man’s development.

  ‘For example during childhood, particularly infancy, it is more desirable to draw upon the good than the evil because if children were evil, society would abandon them. Yet when a man has matured he will use both to further himself and achieve his ends. In old age a man reverts back to solely being good because he needs society to look after him and does not have the strength to perform evil deeds.’

  ‘Then Mugabe is good!’ shouted Tonderai, and they all burst out laughing.

  ‘What do you think, sisi?’ Fungai said, pointing to me. The others all turned their heads to listen.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I replied, hoping to get out of answering.

  ‘We are trying to discover if the true nature of man is good, evil or something in between.’

  ‘The Bible teaches us that we were in a state of grace until Adam and Eve sinned, and so sin is passed down on all of us unless we repent and we are baptised.’

  ‘We try to discover the truth for ourselves here. We do not refer to the Bible as an authoritative text. To us it is just one of many philosophical texts and while we do pay it attention we do not place it on a pedestal.’ Fungai spoke gently. ‘I’m happy you’ve finally come to our club.’

  ‘I have to be honest and say that I would not have come if there wasn’t a question on my mind for which I can’t find the answer.’

  ‘Then ask what you will and we’ll see if Lady Philosophy might have an answer for you.’ They looked at me with eager eyes, their ears pricked to hear what I was going to ask.

  ‘I want to ask about homosexuality.’

  The sun was beating down on us on this rocky plane amidst green fields. I sat down with my legs crossed. They were all quiet for a minute until Fungai began.

  ‘The question of what the human body may or may not be used for is one that is as old as time itself. The question of what is termed human sexuality is perhaps even older.

  ‘Before you proceed you must explain what you mean by human sexuality,’ the one called Munashe asked.

  ‘It is that attribute within humans that makes them interested in sex. Sex being that most pleasurable function of the body, which is sometimes used for procreation but more often not. We assume that there are two types of sexuality since everything is made in pairs, light and dark, good and evil, et cetera. One we shall call heterosexuality, which is an attraction of opposites, and the other we shall call homosexuality, which is an attraction of matching subjects.’

  ‘What of bisexuals?’

  ‘Bisexuality is not a true essence in itself because at any given moment in time it can fall into the category heterosexual or the cat
egory homosexual. Therefore it is an illusion that misleads us from the truth of our enquiry. And so we will avoid that false detour which will lead us nowhere.’

  ‘That is as true as it is necessary.’

  ‘So we have defined what is and what isn’t, but because we have defined sexualities we have to announce that it is males and females who partake in these activities. That men should be attracted to women and vice versa is something we shall take for granted. We now also take for granted that humans are created in these pairs, but there we find ourselves mistaken. There are the hermaphrodites, those born with both genders, who straddle the line between man and woman.’

  ‘That can only lead to the conclusion that man and woman may not be as distinct as they seem,’ said one called Armstrong.

  ‘Correct. When we use our brains, we can see that between the two genders there are myriad possibilities; the leap from male to female is not as straightforward as our senses tell us. Therefore when you look at what you think is a man and what you think is a woman, you often fail to recognise or acknowledge all the other ambiguous possibilities.’

  (At this point one of them stood up and left.)

  ‘If there weren’t this subtle range of distinctions, then these two sexualities would not exist; there would be one or none but not two genders. At this juncture we must then say that homosexuality is not only there but that it is actually necessary. After all, approximately ten per cent of any population is gay or homosexual.’

  ‘This is bullshit.’ (Three more stood up and left.)

  ‘In our reasoning we can only turn to Lady Philosophy. Those who have preconceived notions of where she will lead us must leave because they are not seekers of truth.’

  (Another two stood up and walked away.)

  ‘What I need to know,’ I asked, ‘is, say I had a friend who was a homosexual, and the law is clearly against homosexuality, what should I do?’ I was worried that my question had been too bold.

  ‘In a few short steps, we’ve already discovered that homosexuality is necessary. The question you now ask is of friendship and the law. There are two sets of laws, the ‘natural law’ and ‘man-made law’. The illegality of homosexuality is the product of man-made laws.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘there are things that are wrong in both natural and man-made laws. If stealing falls within both, then why should homosexuality only be covered by one?’

  ‘Stealing is a topic that we can have a day’s debate on by itself, but we must note that stealing is something that harms other people whereas homosexuality between consenting adults behind closed doors harms no one,’ Fungai said firmly.

  (I wish I could have said it had harmed me and broken my heart. At this point two more stood up and went, leaving only Fungai, Tonderai and myself.)

  ‘I can only say that friendship should rise above man-made laws, which tend to be capricious by their very nature.’

  I could not have known at that time that my question would lead to the collapse of his philosophy club. Whenever Fungai walked the streets with his dogs, youths called him the ngochani and kept him at arm’s length. Only his friend Tonderai remained with him and perhaps only because, with his breath, he could find no other friends.

  Thirty eight

  The phone rang at three in the morning. Its luminescent light brightened my dark room, where I had only just managed to snatch my first sleep in many days. I reached for it but my drowsy hand only succeeded in dropping to the floor. It stopped ringing for a few seconds and started up again.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Why haven’t you been answering? I’ve tried your number nine times now.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ I asked, feeling more dead than alive.

  ‘It’s Trina. Listen, something very bad has happened to Dumi, he is at the Avenues Hospital. Put some clothes on, I’m coming to get you!’ Her voice sounded agitated. She hung up so I didn’t get a chance to ask what had happened.

  There was a knock on my bedroom door. I answered and Maidei opened it. She looked like a ghost standing in the doorway so I asked her to turn the light on as I swung over the side of the bed and sat up.

  ‘Mama, some men came here this afternoon and they took all the things in Dumi’s bedroom. I didn’t know what to do. They said they were from the CIO.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as I came in?’

  ‘I was already asleep. I only woke up when I heard your phone ringing.’

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ I said, knowing I should have thanked her. I put on a T-shirt and some jeans and went to get myself a hot drink to perk me up. I knew Trina would hoot the whole neighbourhood awake if I didn’t come as she asked. Had she really said Dumi had had an accident? At least he was at the Avenues, which was the best hospital available.

  No sooner had I fixed my cup of tea than her headlights flashed at the front gate. I walked out, my hair a mess, and wrapped my cloak tighter to keep out the night chill. Dogs were barking, disturbed by the noise. I got in and put on my seat belt.

  ‘We’ve got to hurry because he’s in a really bad state.’ My heart began to pound.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He got seriously beaten up. Someone found him in a ditch along Chinhoyi Road and took him to the hospital. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, but they wouldn’t treat him unless they had money up front. Somehow, he must have given them my number because they’ve put me down as his next of kin. Is everything all right between the two of you?’

  ‘How much do they want? There is only so much I can get from the cash machine.’

  ‘No need to stress just now. I told them to treat him and I would get the money but they refused to do anything until I coughed up. Can you believe it? He was dying and they wouldn’t touch him until they got cold cash there and then. I had to get Derek to rush in, in the middle of the night, with a suitcase full of money.’

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her all that had happened.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said. ‘They’re used to dealing with this kind of brutality. They see it on a daily basis.’

  I opened the window and a blast of night air cooled my face. Trina was doing eighty in the city and running through red lights. We arrived at the hospital and went straight up the stairs to the ward he was in. This hospital didn’t have the smell of death one found at Parirenyatwa. The floors and walls were clean. The nurse in a white dress told us it was all right to go into his room.

  At first I didn’t recognise the person lying on the bed in front of me. His head was the size of a football and the face was puffed up so much his eyes could barely open. There was a canister of oxygen beside the bed, which hissed continuously to aid his laboured breathing. I took his hand and began to weep by his bedside. Seeing him like this cut right through my soul.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry, Dumi. It’s all my fault.’ The words came out as a whisper.

  ‘I’m just going out to see if the nurses can give me some coffee or something,’ Trina said. I was sure she was just giving us time.

  Dumi let out a groan when I placed my hand on his chest. He struggled to speak but I told him to keep quiet and save his strength.

  ‘Thir-sty’ he said. I gave him a sip from the beaker on the cabinet beside his bed. The water spilt down the side of his mouth where dry clots of blood were caked.

  ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen. I couldn’t have known they would do this.’ I could not stop crying.

  Dumi lay half dead, as if waiting for the angel of death to come and take his soul. I could hear a trolley going past, maybe a patient being wheeled from one ward to the other. Trina came back in holding two cups of tea.

  ‘The staff here are very helpful.’ She gave me one. ‘He’s such a nice guy, I don’t know why anyone would do this to him. Maybe robbers, but to do this to someone is just plain evil.’

  If only she had known of my involvement, she would have been disgusted by me. Dumi’s limp hand lay in mine.

 
‘What did the doctors say?’

  ‘It’s not looking too good. There was extensive trauma to the head and that’s what they are mainly worried about. His skull is fractured in three places and there’s a risk that fluid has seeped in, so when the specialist comes in the morning they’re going to do a procedure to relieve the pressure on his brain. Are you going to tell his parents?’

  ‘I don’t think he would want them to know.’

  ‘Is there something about all of this that you’re not telling me?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Fine, keep it to yourself. I’m going home for a snooze; I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll pass through your house and get some fresh clothes and a toothbrush for you.’

  I held his hand the entire night, watching his chest rise and fall slowly as if it could stop at any time. I fell asleep in the chair with my head resting on the bed.

  The nurse woke me up in the morning and offered me something to drink. I stretched my aching back and gazed on Dumisani all bruised and swollen.

  ‘They’ll be coming to take him for the op soon. Maybe you can go home and come back after.’