by C. B. George
Generally, her father was sober at these clandestine meetings, but not at the last. He was a sad, philosophical, sometimes violent drunk. On this occasion he was only sad and philosophical, but April was painfully embarrassed by the look and smell of him, to say nothing of the way he cried into the coffee he’d stiffened with some unidentifiable dark spirit. He put his hand on top of hers and sobbed that he was sorry. She snatched her hand away and said that if he were truly sorry he’d stop drinking.
He shook his head. He stared into his Styrofoam cup. He said, “It sounds so simple, Daisy.”
He told her that there had been a moment a couple of years before when he’d realized he was teetering at the top of the steepest slope. He’d looked down and felt heady with the exhilaration of danger. He could see sharp rocks, jagging branches, overhangs that gaped into nothingness, but such was his state of mind that he considered himself almost weightless. He imagined that if he launched himself off the edge, he’d merely be blown back to safety by a sudden warm gust or, at worst, bounce gently downwards, like a beach ball.
So, he launched himself. And at first it was thrilling, all the more so as he began to gather speed. But as the rocks bit, branches snagged and overhangs took his breath away, he began to see that he’d achieved inexorable momentum, and the thrill turned to terror.
The terror, however, lasted only as long as he believed he might stop himself. And he had tried. Of course he had tried. He had screamed and bellowed for help. He had grasped at passing outcrops and come away with fistfuls of dirt and grass. He had skinned his knees and knuckles attempting to break his fall.
But when he had resigned himself to his fate, it had become easier. The pain was the same, but it was without fear. In place of fear was that weightlessness again, something akin to melancholy; poignant, certainly, but breathable. Naturally, as he fell, he retained the dull certainty of gravity and ground combining to conclusive effect, but the inevitability of the outcome seemed to rob it of its potency.
At fifteen, April had no idea what her father was talking about. In fact, she hated him for speaking to her in these intimate euphemisms, which she couldn’t understand but which left her simultaneously embarrassed, confused and scared. She stood up and told him that she didn’t want to hear this, that it wasn’t what dads were supposed to do, and why couldn’t he be normal and, sorry, but Mum would most likely be back from Tesco’s any minute. She left her McFlurry. She didn’t even like McFlurrys, but she’d never told him that. Neither did she tell him that she’d had enough of these secret meetings and, yeah, she knew Mum was annoying, but it wasn’t like anybody was making him drink. And she never got to tell him, because he wasn’t waiting for her at the bus stop the following week, or the three weeks after that. And the next Saturday was her sixteenth birthday and she had a party at the house. He wasn’t invited. He was found dead in his bedsit the Thursday after.
Although April may not have understood it at the age of fifteen, her father’s description of the fall stayed with her and, occasionally, broke the surface of her consciousness. After the collapse of her affair with Professor Vaughan at Cambridge, for example, she was dimly aware of her weightlessness on amphetamines—perhaps that was why people called it “getting high.” But then Jerry arrived on the scene and pulled her back from the edge.
Now, however, she was lying in Shawn Appiah’s bed in the middle of a weekend afternoon. Jerry had taken Theo to the park, so that she could lend support to poor wifeless Shawn and poor motherless Rosie. But Shawn had dispatched his daughter to the shops with Gladys, the maid, and they had retired to bed to fuck. The sex had been mechanically pleasurable—Shawn had a kind of box-checking, pornographic routine that she suspected might come to seem comical—but joyless. And now she sat up next to him sipping a glass of room temperature white wine in some kind of sordid simulacrum of romance, his semen wet, sticky and uncomfortable in the crack of her arse, a fitting signifier of her recklessness.
Now she knew what her father had been talking about twenty years before. She knew that she had been walking the brink of a precipice by committing adultery. It had been risky behavior, but comprehensible—justifiable, even—within the parameters of a failing modern relationship. But when Kudakwashe had seemingly attempted suicide (albeit, Shawn insisted, with no knowledge of the affair), April had faced a choice between appropriate, silent penitence and the descent into a kind of base immorality lacking any possible justification. She was neglecting her marriage, her child, any responsibility to the woman who lay sedated in a Harare hospital. She was beginning to doubt whether she much liked Shawn. Certainly she wanted no enduring relationship. And their sex: he had a thick, but rather rubbery erection that he had to shovel inside her with one hand at the base, which gave her the vague sense of DIY pipe-fitting. Her orgasm when it came was Christmas lights not aurora borealis—flicked switch not natural wonder. But none of this seemed to matter because she had, like her father, launched herself off the edge and she was weightless and the plummet was thrilling. Like her father, she was now without fear. And it never occurred to her how terrified he might have been in the weeks she didn’t see him before his death, or, of course, that those who claim they are not scared can only ever claim they are not scared yet. Catch even the devil unguarded and ask him what he fears and see the admission flicker behind his eyes before he voices his defiant denial.
43
Sunday. Patson got home after two p.m. With Gilbert still recuperating, he was back to working every hour God sent and a few more with an altogether different return address. A profitable morning carrying women and children to churches around Harare, therefore, had followed a successful night ferrying revelers from Chez Ntemba to the city’s darkest corners. It had been his best shift for several months and he pulled up outside the house with a rare sense of possibility. He had even stopped at the OK supermarket in town for a bottle of Mazoe: a treat for the kids.
Fadzai emerged to meet the car in the driveway. She’d lately taken to doing this if she was at the house at the time of his return, even in the middle of the night. It was one of many small shifts in behavior that neither of them spoke about but both knew signified much. They weren’t discussing their relationship for fear of jinxing its recovery. This was less superstition than acknowledgment that they didn’t understand the reasons for improvement. And both knew from long experience the potential damage of a single ill-judged or mistimed word, no matter its intention.
Today, however, Fadzai seemed distant. And though she held open Patson’s door, embraced him gently and expressed appropriate delight at the night’s takings, the new custom wasn’t yet sewn into the fabric of their marriage; Patson assumed he must have done something wrong. In years gone by he’d concealed so much from his wife that he automatically assumed he must be doing so again, though he couldn’t think what. He followed her inside, therefore, enervated by a vague but thoroughly familiar dread.
He found Chabarwa doing homework. The boy promptly cleared his books off the table and laid a place for his father while Fadzai busied herself at the stove to heat his plate.
Patson went through to the back of the house to wash his hands. Anashe and Bessie were doing dishes. Patson was always pleased to see his sister-in-law. She had a lightness about her, which seemed to elevate the spirits of the whole household. But today she greeted him with the very same absent-minded, rather sullen distraction as his wife.
He asked how she was doing, how she’d found Gilbert after “the incident.” He made a light-hearted, feeble remark about how he and Fadzai had done their best to take care of him, but some jobs were best left to “the better half.” Bessie said nothing, allowing herself only a small grunt to avoid being actively rude. Unacknowledged, Patson’s comment seemed to hang in the air between them, opaque as smoke.
He asked about her work. He asked about her boss, Mr. Jerry: was he still at the clinic in Epworth? Patson had now driven him there several times. He said he admired the Englishman who had
come all the way to Zimbabwe to help people and apparently he wasn’t even paid for what he did…
Patson tailed off. Generally, he was a laconic man who chose his words carefully, often choosing none at all. But now, unchecked by any response from Bessie, the banalities were spilling out of him, like he was a holed bucket. He felt ridiculous.
He asked where Gilbert was. Bessie raised her head for the first time and, hands covered with soap suds, jutted her chin to the street visible beyond the fence. There Gilbert, smoking a cigarette, walked five steps one way, then five the other—a contained, imaginary sentry duty.
“Right,” Patson said.
He headed inside, more convinced than ever that the fault must be his, the sense of dread growing proportionately.
When Fadzai put the plate of sadza and vegetables in front of him, therefore, and sat at his side, Patson feared the worst—a question he couldn’t answer, an accusation of something inexcusable he had or hadn’t done. But, instead, Fadzai began to talk to him about her brother in an urgent whisper. The combination of her tone, his preconceptions of where this was heading and his relief to discover he was in the clear meant that his wife was a minute deep into her concerns before Patson even began to focus on what they were, so he held up a hand to stop her, rolled a ball of sadza ruminatively and asked her to begin again.
She stopped. She sighed. She wetted her lips. She told him she’d never seen Gilbert like this. Of course she knew the beating had tormented her brother, emotionally as well as physically, brutally undermining his confidence, but she’d thought Bessie would snap him out of it. Instead, when Bessie had gently chided him for not attending church with the rest of them that morning and told him Pastor Joshua had even preached on Psalm 28 (“The Lord is my strength and my shield”), he had reacted furiously, calling his wife a stupid little girl who put her trust in fantasies. As Fadzai recounted this, she stared at Patson, as if to say, “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Patson sat silently for a moment and gave the impression of deep consideration. In fact, he was considering deeply, but not to gather his thoughts so much as to weigh what might or might not be said. He had more than a little sympathy for Gilbert: to be told to turn to God when in a state of humiliation seemed almost further belittling. However, Patson also knew that Gilbert’s outburst had been shocking. Sometimes he thought there should be a pact between women and men: the former could take responsibility for the family’s spiritual needs, the latter for material needs, and neither ever question the other’s domain. The trouble was, these days, a woman, in her insecurity, needed to earn money while a man, in his, needed to consolidate moral authority.
Patson nodded, as if he had reached a meaningful conclusion. “Bessie needs to be patient,” he said. “The young man is hurt. He will recover.”
He looked at his wife steadily. He read the smallest movements of her features at once. He should have known that such platitudes would never suffice. She said, “I am serious. I am worried for my brother. You know what he is like—full of crazy ideas and ambition. I have never known him to be without hope, not even for one day.”
“I will talk to him,” Patson said. “Just let me sleep first.” Fadzai stood unmoved, but for an eyebrow. Patson sat back. He shifted awkwardly in his seat. He said, “Can I at least finish eating?”
44
Patson found Gilbert at the car. Kneeling on the driver’s side, he was reaching across the handbrake to the small drawer under the passenger seat where they kept the wheel wrench.
Patson asked him what he was doing.
Gilbert sat back on his haunches, then backed out of the car. The strain such simple movements put on his injuries twisted his face into a grimace. He was holding an ancient, battered paperback. “My book,” he said. “I’m going to take out the car. Earn some money.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
Patson told him that he’d had an excellent night, that Gilbert could wait until he was fully recovered, that there was no need.
“No need to earn money?” Gilbert said.
Patson sighed. He was too tired for this. He took out his cigarettes. Along with the Mazoe, he’d bought a whole pack of Pacifics—takings had been that good. He unwrapped the cellophane and offered them to Gilbert. This was a first and Gilbert was momentarily hesitant, confused by the implication of the gesture—doesn’t everyone know, after all, that men bond over minor iniquity? He took the packet and extracted a cigarette. Both men lit up.
Patson said that Fadzai had told him about the argument with Bessie.
Gilbert exhaled ruefully—so this was the agenda. He remarked that it was just one of those things and, respectfully, it was between him and his wife.
Patson nodded: of course. He nodded some more. He dragged on his cigarette. He let the pause linger. He said, “Of course. However, in this instance, it is my business, too, because you are staying in my house.”
Gilbert said nothing. He smoked.
Patson said that naturally Gilbert was angry, but it would pass and there was no value in taking it out on the rest of the family, his wife least of all. “How often do you see her—once every two weeks? Those should be happy times. You must take comfort in your wife.”
Gilbert smoked.
Patson said that, unlike himself, Gilbert was still a young man, and that youth was both blessing and curse. “You believe you can improve your situation.”
Gilbert exhaled. “You say that like it is a bad thing.”
“It is what I said—a blessing and a curse.”
“So you want me to think it is not possible to get the things I want? You want me not even to hope?”
Patson dropped his head a moment and drew a rough semi-circle in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “It is hope that causes most problems,” he said.
Gilbert shook his head. He flicked his cigarette, even though it was only half finished. It was an act of defiance. He said, “My fate is my own. I married my wife. Our daughter was born. She came to Harare. I came to Harare. You allowed me to stay. I have worked hard. These were my choices. If I cannot hope to improve the situation for my family, what am I doing?”
Patson stared at his brother-in-law. He didn’t know what to say. He was foundering. He was just so tired; too tired. For some reason, he glanced over his shoulder and found Fadzai watching them from the doorway. He must have sensed she was there, or at some level known that she wouldn’t be able to resist verifying the conversation was indeed happening. He wondered what his wife thought he was saying. If he could guess, he’d have said it. He’d have said anything to conclude this conversation and be free to lie down. He dropped his eyes to his feet once again. He added a straight line to the parabola to make a P. Then he marked an A and a T, before scrubbing out the letters with the sole of his shoe. Eventually he murmured, “I don’t know. I try to find joy in small moments.”
“Like what?”
Patson made a low, gruff noise, somewhere between laughter and protest. “I’m not sure I can think just like that. There are many moments.” He paused. “When I watch Chabarwa play the cornet at New Vision,” he said. Then, quickly, to counter a brief surge of embarrassment, “When one of the guys at the rank tells a joke; my wife; hot food; even a cigarette. All these things.”
Gilbert was staring at him, almost as if he’d never seen him before. Patson was suddenly uncomfortable. Had he indeed said something foolish? But Gilbert’s eyes held a near maniacal seriousness that forced Patson to look away.
“What about the times in between?” Gilbert asked.
“What do you mean?”
“In between these moments of joy…”
Patson shrugged. “I don’t know. I am not a thinker. I am a worker. After a certain age, that is what a man does—he works. Otherwise…”
Gilbert interrupted by lifting his paperback to shoulder height and, momentarily and preposterously, his brother-in-law thought he might be about to clap him around the head. But, i
nstead, Gilbert simply brandished the book at him, eyes flashing. “‘Our labor preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice and want.’”
“What are you talking about?”
“That is what he says. In this book.”
“Who?”
“The writer.”
“Who is this writer?”
“Voltaire,” Gilbert said, checking the cover as if he needed to remind himself. “He was a Frenchman. Hundreds of years ago. You see? Nothing changes.”
Patson, utterly befuddled, nodded. “Weariness?” he said.
The conversation appeared to be over. Where Gilbert had been morose and angry, he now seemed energized. Patson didn’t know why and he was too weary to consider it. He left Gilbert two more cigarettes and returned to the house. Fadzai was waiting for him. She asked, “Is everything resolved?”
“It is resolved.”
“What did you say?”
“It is resolved. Everything is OK.”
Fadzai kissed his cheek, resting her hand on his shoulder. It was an intimate, tender moment and Patson could smell his wife and, despite the exhaustion, feel the blood hot in his face and penis. This was, he thought, one of the moments he had told Gilbert about and he wondered if he would ever grow too old to feel enlivened like this.
Fadzai said, “You must sleep.” And she went into the bedroom and prepared the bed for him lovingly.
Gilbert went to Bessie. He apologized for what he’d said. Initially, Bessie was unreceptive, but he was so animated, so sure of himself, that his very manner trampled her reservations. He was talking in abstractions. He said things like, “I will not fight a war I cannot win.” And “I have mistaken hope for joy.” He said, “I know what we must do.”
And Bessie, who had never imagined herself joyful and considered hope, at least in abstraction, a fatuous luxury, didn’t ask what he was talking about, but only, “What must we do?”
