by C. B. George
52
Mandiveyi was fighting fires. He’d left the family home a couple of nights before, deciding he needed to give his wife time to cool down. Over dinner, in front of the kids, he said he had to go away for work. The context made it impossible for Plaxedes to argue. She looked at him contemptuously.
He was staying at a flat in Avenues owned by the Organization, one of several for the use of traveling operatives, stashing witnesses and occasionally interrogation. The administrator who gave him the keys hadn’t questioned his requirements. Nonetheless, Mandiveyi was worried that Phiri would find out. He couldn’t afford his boss thinking him any more unstable; not at the moment.
It was now approaching four months since Rex Nhongo’s death, but the newspapers were still full of the story. A security guard at the Alamein farm said he’d heard gunshots hours before the fire, there was talk of a second man arriving with Nhongo that night, and rumors that only the president had been present at the autopsy, which had been conducted by a Cuban pathologist who’d been in the country a matter of weeks. Most recently, Nhongo’s daughter had been shooting her mouth off about inadequacies in the inquiry. And still the state made almost no comment, no effort to quell the rumor mill; at least, nothing more than that the investigation must be allowed to run its course.
On one hand, this seemed surprising, since the wildfire gossip wasn’t choosy about which member of the establishment it threatened to engulf next, all the way from the president down. On the other, Mandiveyi knew it was a long-standing Party tactic, employed to great effect after the 2008 election. The Party answered the indignation of foreign powers, the media, even, to some extent, their own people, with a single sentence (albeit one generally framed within verbose anti-colonial rhetoric); whether This is an internal matter of a sovereign democracy or We must allow time for due process. And these single sentences amounted to one pertinent question—And what are you going to do about it? Experience proved that the answer from foreigners, media and citizens alike was Nothing.
The truth was that all fires burned themselves out in the end and, so long as you had no fear of the collateral damage, the trick was simply to be still standing in the ashes. It was a trick, Mandiveyi realized, that he might wisely apply to his own situation.
Mandiveyi’s own connection to the death of Rex Nhongo seemed both incontrovertible and utterly circumstantial. The news had already broken when, the following afternoon, on Phiri’s orders, he had met the man at a bottle store on Simon Mazorodze Road.
The man walked over to him with certainty, as if he knew who he was. Mandiveyi was sure he’d never seen him before. The man handed Mandiveyi a plastic bag with something inside wrapped in newspaper. Mandiveyi said, “What is it?” But the man didn’t answer. In fact, in the thirty seconds of their meeting, he never spoke. Mandiveyi remembered his face precisely. He thought he looked foreign, perhaps Tanzanian or Kenyan, but he couldn’t be sure if he was right, or whether it was significant.
The man was gone just like that. Mandiveyi ordered a beer out of habit, but took only one gulp before curiosity got the better of him. He went out to the car. He sat in the driver’s seat, the door open, and examined the contents of the bag. As soon as he saw it was a gun, he swung his legs in and shut the door.
He carefully extracted the weapon, his hand wrapped in a handkerchief. It was a SIG Sauer. He was guessing a P226, but he’d never seen one before. As far as Mandiveyi could remember, it was a model widely used by security and military worldwide, but not one issued to the Zimbabwean police, army or intelligence or, so far as he knew, in common use in the region.
He checked the barrel. There was some tell-tale fouling, which revealed it had been fired since last cleaned, but what did that prove? He snapped out the magazine: half full.
Mandiveyi’s thoughts were gathering pace and his heartbeat followed suit. His mind inevitably leaped to Nhongo’s death. Of course, so soon afterwards, there was as yet no meaningful talk of suspected foul play. But Mandiveyi was parked off Simon Mazorodze, the Harare end of the road that led to Beatrice and, therefore, indirectly, Nhongo’s Alamein farm. He rewrapped the weapon in the newspaper, put it into his briefcase and locked the briefcase in the boot. Then he went back into the bottle store, located his beer, slugged a mouthful and ordered a double tot of brandy. He needed time to think.
He was back in his office by four p.m. His thinking time had resulted in no productive outcome, only drunkenness. He cracked open the bottle of Viceroy he kept in his desk.
He considered taking the gun straight to Phiri, his boss, and simply handing it over. That would, he thought, have been a way of passing on the problem. But passing on a problem also passed on control of that problem.
Trouble was, Phiri’s instructions had been so vague. He’d delivered them in person. He said, “You are to secure a package.”
“Secure?”
“Secure.”
“And what am I to do with the package?”
Phiri looked at him with the extreme condescension that can only come from self-doubt. “You are to secure the package,” he repeated. Evidently Phiri’s own orders went no further. Perhaps Phiri himself had no idea what the package contained.
Mandiveyi considered his boss an idiot, but it wasn’t a thought that offered him any solace—quite the opposite. If Phiri was an idiot, then he was one who’d risen higher than Mandiveyi at a younger age. Such apparent idiocy was, therefore, a key part of a dangerous skill set.
And now, as he thought all this through in the Organization flat, he recognized that he had been lying to Phiri (and, both directly and indirectly, Iganyana) for months and his stories were becoming ever more fanciful. Initially, he’d told his boss that he’d secured the gun by burying it on an empty plot near his house. This had since extended into a tale that the plot was now fenced and guarded and he was just waiting for the right moment to retrieve it. He was, he said, cultivating a relationship with security that they might let him onto the land unattended—he was sounding ever more like a child making elaborate excuses for undelivered homework.
He knew Phiri didn’t believe him. His only saving grace was that Phiri would ultimately have to admit any failure to Iganyana, something he would want to avoid at all costs. For all Phiri’s posturing, Mandiveyi suspected that, if he was going down, he’d take his boss with him.
Ultimately, Mandiveyi had no idea whether the gun he’d fired drunkenly at some off-duty army thieves and dropped in a taxi was indeed the gun that had killed Rex Nhongo or, in fact, whether the Independence hero had been murdered at all. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the gun; not what it had done, the very fact of it.
“The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing”: Mandiveyi knew this phrase was used to describe failing administration, but in the case of the Organization it was actually systematic principle. The nature of intelligence was that an operative should see only specific details and not the big picture. But Mandiveyi increasingly wondered whether anyone saw the big picture or if there was even a big picture to see. The upper echelons had discovered that chaos profited their scheming, but it was chaos nonetheless. The upper echelons were scared they were on their way out, so they were torching anything that burned and Mandiveyi was fighting fires.
But, charred and choking, Mandiveyi still held a match. If he could arrest the American, Appiah, for illegal gold transactions, couldn’t he light a firebreak, scorching the earth between him and a rampant conflagration he couldn’t hope to contain? He pictured himself standing safe behind a strip of blackened, dead vegetation and celebrating the greatest victory of his career.
53
Mandiveyi had successfully extinguished one fire.
He was in Nature’s bathroom, washing himself. He’d found a clean shirt in her wardrobe. It was possibly ironic, certainly sad, that she’d thrown his soiled underwear at his wife, but still laundered, pressed and hung one of his shirts.
He had spoken to her calmly. He ask
ed her what kind of stupid bitch she was to go to his wife in a public place. He asked her if she had not considered the consequences because now she would have time to do so at her leisure. Her pride and defiance quickly gave way to tears and apology, then, dropping to her knees, holding his legs, simpering caresses. She had begged him to fuck her like he had when they first met. So he did.
Afterwards, she lay next to him, postcoitally confident of the renewed intimacy between them. He sat astride her playfully. He picked up a pillow and thrust it down on her face until her thrashing turned to a quiver. He had no intention of killing her. He removed the pillow in time for her to suck air and know what was to follow. He then beat her almost senseless. Her nose spurted blood. He should have stripped naked. He hadn’t thought it through. Luckily, she’d pressed a shirt for him.
He flexed his knuckles as he inspected himself in the mirror. He hadn’t broken a bone, but they were sore from where he’d caught her teeth flush. She wouldn’t be fellating anyone else any time soon. He had taken no pleasure in what he’d done, but he felt no regret either. Mandiveyi didn’t really believe in “pleasure” or “regret.” He considered them an indulgence of people who didn’t lie and therefore had the option to serve other masters.
After his conversation with Jerry Jones, the British nurse, Mandiveyi had looked up Shawn Appiah at the Chamber of Mines. He found a recently formed company called NA Holdings and a list of transactions with Fidelity Printers, the central bank subsidiary charged with purchasing gold. The indigenous partner in NA Holdings was a man called Peter Nyengedza; an address in Waterfalls. Mandiveyi couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized the name.
Mandiveyi left Nature’s flat with a renewed sense of purpose. He drove out to Waterfalls and turned on Derbyshire. Nyengedza’s house was an unremarkable one, no more and no less neglected than the rest on the street. However, there was a smart white Corolla parked in the driveway that suggested a recent upturn in fortune.
The door was answered by a maid, who showed him through into a sun lounge that had been converted into something like an office. Nyengedza sat behind a small desk, upright, staring meditatively out of the window. At Mandiveyi’s appearance, he looked slowly round but didn’t stand.
“My name is Albert Mandiveyi,” the CIO said.
“How can I help you, Mr. Mandiveyi? If you are seeking representation, I am no longer in legal practice, but I will happily recommend someone.”
“May I sit?”
“Please.”
Mandiveyi sat on the wooden chair opposite Nyengedza. It wobbled slightly beneath him and the old man smiled an apology and mumbled something about the need to purchase modern office furniture.
Mandiveyi said, “It is quite all right.” Then, “I work for the Central Intelligence Organization.”
It was a tactic he often used. A response to this bald statement, whether spoken or unspoken, could tell him much of what he needed to know. However, on this occasion, he learned nothing—Nyengedza was unmoved. He simply said again, “How can I help you, Mr. Mandiveyi?”
Mandiveyi said, “I am sorry to disturb you at home. But this was the address listed for NA Holdings.”
“This is my office. We currently have no need of additional business premises—an unnecessary expense.”
Mandiveyi nodded. Then he said, “Peter Nyengedza,” ruminatively, chewing over its every syllable. “I thought I knew your name. You are a comrade, isn’t it?”
Nyengedza regarded him steadily. His shoulders sagged, as if he found the weight of that word a burden. “That is what they call me. I trained at Nyadzonya…” His visitor made a reflexive noise of surprise, but Nyengedza shook his head. “No. Before the massacre. By that time I was already in England. I was not cut out for warfare, so I was sent to study law. I worked for Zvobgo at Lancaster House and, when we came home, redrafting local government legislation.” He smiled slowly. “I am not a veteran of the war so much as the peace. But I believe the battles were just as hard fought.”
Nyengedza leaned forward and looked closely at his visitor, much to the latter’s discomfort. The old man’s eyes were curiously opaque. Most likely this suggested the beginnings of cataracts but, to Mandiveyi, his gaze had an intrusive, almost psychic quality, as if Nyengedza were sifting his character.
“And you?” Nyengedza said.
“Excuse me?”
“You fought in the war?”
“I was very young at Independence.”
“We were all very young. Many of those who were martyrs to the cause were the youngest of all.”
This conversation wasn’t going at all as Mandiveyi had expected. He had the disconcerting sense that he wasn’t the one controlling it; that, in fact, the lawyer had just asserted his own authority. He had no sense, therefore, of how it might play out; no idea whether Nyengedza knew about his American business partner’s actions or how he would react to questioning. He wondered if the old man still had connections in the Party. He wondered if he was about to stick his nose into a hornets’ nest. It didn’t matter. He had to get to the point. He said, “Let me get to the point.”
“Please do,” Nyengedza replied.
Mandiveyi came straight out with it. He said that he suspected Shawn Appiah of selling gold on the black market. He asked if the lawyer knew anything about this, whether he knew an Israeli called Feinstein, or the prison sentences the courts were likely to impose for such activities.
“Are you accusing me, Mr. Mandiveyi?” Nyengedza asked.
Mandiveyi shook his head. For, at that very moment, he knew that any accusation would be ridiculous. There was no way this fellow knew about any crime. If Mandiveyi had thus far found the old man enigmatic, it was actually because he was anything but—he was the CIO’s opposite: a man of integrity. It was a quality that Mandiveyi had barely recognized because of who he was, because he came across it so rarely. It was a quality that, ironically, manifested similar characteristics to his own—a kind of inscrutability derived from a lack of interest in the petty mores of human interaction, thanks to an entrenched belief in truth on one side and lies on the other.
“I am not accusing you,” Mandiveyi said. “I am asking for your help.”
Nyengedza said, “Shawn is a very ambitious young man.” He spoke sadly. He wasn’t defending the American so much as taking a moment to express his disappointment. Mandiveyi imagined an honest man like this one must be frequently disappointed. He said nothing. He waited for more.
“It is my job to prepare our accounts for ZIMRA and the ministry,” Nyengedza said. “Of course I noticed a certain diminution in the value of our transactions but I had no specific reason for suspicion.”
Still Mandiveyi said nothing. Still he waited.
“He is out of town,” Nyengedza said. “Somewhere near Murehwa. We buy from makorokoza in the area. Maybe he will drive to Mazowe. He likes to use a mill there. I asked him why he wanted to drive so far. He said he wanted to use people he can trust. Now I know what he means—the mill must be getting its cut.”
Mandiveyi considered this. He had no desire to go on some wild goose chase around the country. He said, “When will he be back in town?”
“Tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”
“Right. Good.”
Nyengedza showed his visitor to the door. The old man’s handshake was strong and confident. Mandiveyi felt a rush of fraternal solidarity with the lawyer, some regret for the trouble he was causing him, even a certain osmotic cleansing from a straightforward conversation with an honest man. He gestured towards the Corolla. He said, “A new car?”
Nyengedza nodded confirmation. “A new car.”
“There will be an investigation,” Mandiveyi said. “I’m sure accounts will be frozen and so forth. Of course it is harder to seize an asset than to freeze an account. I believe it is a good time to buy a car right now. They keep their value very well. I know you understand what I am saying.”
“I understand you quite clearly,” Nyen
gedza said. His face was expressionless, but he looked at his visitor through those milky eyes again and Mandiveyi was left in no doubt of his contempt.
54
Jerry took a phone call over dinner. He stood up from the table. When he returned, April said, “Who was that?”
“Tapiwa,” Jerry said. “My work permit’s been approved.”
“Great! That’s great news!” Her husband made a face. “What? It’s great. You can get a job.”
“Right. I can get a job.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I can get a job.”
April sniffed. She pursed her lips. He knew she was fuming, but she avoided confrontation by turning to Rosie, who was sitting next to her. “Look at you!” she said. “Eating your chips! You like chips, Rosie? Of course you do. Don’t forget your broccoli. And some omelet. What good eating!”
Jerry found her sing-song tone infuriating. Rosie was eight years old, not a baby. He said, “When’s your dad coming back, Rosie?”
The girl answered, through a mouthful, “I dunno.”
April glared at her husband. She said, “He’s back tomorrow.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yeah, I spoke to him.”
“Oh,” Jerry said. “You didn’t tell me.”
Rosie had been with them three nights. This would be the fourth. April had said, “A couple of nights, max.” Truth was, it was no skin off Jerry’s nose either way, but he allowed himself to be annoyed. He told himself that he didn’t much like Shawn Appiah “taking the piss,” but really he just wanted an excuse. Now Jerry was no longer at the clinic, he stayed home with the kids while April went to work, but it was actually easier with two than one. Theo worshipped the little girl, following her around like a puppy, and Rosie was sweet and endlessly patient, casting their son as the baby in her various games of fantasy families.
