The Death of Rex Nhongo

by C. B. George

  April picked up a lion. She said, “This one Sasa?” Then, “Which one’s Sasa?”

  The little girl laughed. “None of these Sasabonsam, silly!”

  “Oh, of course! Your friend.”

  “He jus pretend,” Rosie said.

  April was home by seven. Theo was already asleep and Bessie finished for the night. She found Jerry in the living room. He was swigging from a beer. There was an empty on the table in front of him. “Didn’t take you long,” she said.

  Her husband didn’t look at her. He said, “I know you’ve been fucking Shawn.” April froze. She made an involuntary noise that might or might not have been an effort at speech. Now he looked at her. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Rosie told me. Rosie. Jesus.”

  The doorbell rang. Jerry stood up to answer the intercom. He pressed the button to open the gate. He said, “That’s Patson. I’m going out. I’m going to get shitfaced.”

  “We should talk,” April said feebly.

  “About what?” Jerry asked. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not even angry. That’s you. That’s what you do.”

  April stared at him. He was telling the truth: he wasn’t angry. She found him terrifying. She said, “So you’re just going to get drunk?”

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s what I do.” He picked up his keys and left.

  57

  Patson shouldn’t have been driving. Generally, he returned home between five and six and Gilbert took the taxi out after they’d eaten. That night, however, Patson got back to Sunningdale to find his house in a state of some chaos.

  Gilbert had taken a phone call from his father late in the afternoon telling him that he’d spoken to the headman, who owed him a favor, and there was a plot of land waiting for him, should he want it. “It is nothing much,” Gilbert said excitedly. “Barely four acres. But it is close to the river and the drainage is good. It will be a start.” He was in the middle of packing his small suitcase, a process that for no apparent reason seemed to involve the eager assistance of both Anashe and Chabarwa, and turned the whole Chisinga household upside down. “The bus is at half past six,” Gilbert said. “I must hurry.”

  Patson turned to his wife. He said, “And why must he go tonight?”

  Fadzai shrugged. She didn’t know the answer and she clearly wasn’t feeling well enough to ask. She was struggling terribly with nausea and the effort to appear otherwise was taking its toll. She hadn’t yet told anyone but Patson about the baby. She felt that at her age, after so long, it would be asking for trouble—especially considering her own mother’s history of miscarrying.

  Patson sat at the table. There was no point involving himself in his brother-in-law’s manic activity. He watched his wife putting water on the hot plate. Her movements around the pan were slow and forbearing. Patson stood up again and whispered in Fadzai’s ear, “Please, go and sit.” He made himself tea and then perched next to her. He squeezed her hand companionably. In that moment, he knew that the revival of their sex life was now over for the time being and the most he had to look forward to was companionship. But he looked forward to that too. He said to Gilbert, “When you are ready, I will take you to the bus station.”

  Gilbert laughed. “I’m sure you can’t wait to be rid of me, my brother.” Then, “No, but you have been so kind, all of you. I would never have reached this decision if you had not allowed me to come here and see the city and find out for myself.”

  Patson considered the young man. Gilbert had an extraordinary capacity for emotive straight-talking that he found simultan­eously bewildering, touching and somewhat implausible—after all, if you are always declaring your feelings, what value have such declarations when feelings change?

  Fadzai mustered a question. She said, “And what have you told Bessie?”

  “I have told her that I am going home, that we are going home. She will meet me at the bus station.”

  “She is going with you?”

  “No, of course not. But she will follow. She is my wife.”

  The kids wanted to come to Mbare Musika. But Patson wouldn’t allow it. He said, “I will rank afterwards. I don’t want to be driving all the way back here.” Fadzai hugged her brother, then she hugged Patson too. This was unusual. She had tears in her eyes. Patson said, “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s probably just…” She didn’t need to say any more. She rested a palm on her stomach.

  Patson and Gilbert drove to the bus station with little conversation. Gilbert’s high spirits seemed to have given way to a taut, nervous silence, while Patson felt the time was right for wise, avuncular advice and couldn’t think of any. Eventually he said, “You have shown you are a worker. That is the main thing.”

  It was a feeble attempt and the words dropped between them without resonating, but at least they seemed to shake Gilbert from his reverie, as he now asked Patson about the day’s takings. Patson shook his head. “You know, it is slow.”

  He’d had only two customers the whole day—Salim, the Indian, who seemed to have fallen on hard times (in the casino, no doubt) and haggled over a five-dollar fare, and Mr. Jones, twice. “I took him to the doctor,” Patson said. “He said he was bitten by a bat.”

  They were stopped at a junction. Gilbert looked at him, the light back in his eyes. Gilbert said, “‘Ask a passenger to tell you his story, and if there is one who says he is not the most miserable fellow, I give you permission to throw me head first into the sea.’”

  “What are you talking about?” Patson said. “What sea?”

  Gilbert produced from his jacket the battered paperback that he now seemed to carry everywhere. He said, “It is a quotation. From my book.”

  “The murungu was not miserable. He said it was funny if you think about it.”

  Gilbert laughed. He said, “Everything is funny if you think about it.”

  For some reason this exchange appeared to have reignited Gilbert’s high spirits. Patson considered that there were many things that were not funny, no matter how much you thought about them, but he said nothing.

  Mbare Musika was hectic as ever. They found the Mubayira bus. It was still being loaded and wouldn’t leave for at least fifteen minutes. There was no sign of Bessie, but Gilbert sent her a text and she appeared moments later. At the sight of her, he leaped from the taxi and Patson watched from the driver’s seat as they embraced and engaged in urgent, earnest conversation. Bessie appeared concerned. Patson wasn’t surprised. How must it be to be married to his brother-in-law? Like attempting to carry enough water to drink in the palm of a single hand. Nonetheless, as Gilbert talked, she was evidently mollified, as was always the case.

  Patson’s phone rang. It was the murungu. He answered. He said, “Yes, Uncle.” Then, “No, I am still working.” Then, “No, it is me, Uncle. Gilbert is not working today.” Then, “Twenty minutes. Is it too long? I will be there just now.”

  He got out of the Raum. He took Gilbert’s suitcase from the boot and approached the couple. He said, “I must go. It is Mr. Jones. At least I can take your wife, isn’t it?”

  “You see?” Gilbert exclaimed. “Today everything is serendipitous.”

  Bessie said, “You must tell Stella that I love her and I think about her and pray for her every day.”

  “Of course I will,” Gilbert said. He kissed his wife on the mouth. Some people stared. Patson was embarrassed by such a show and suspected Bessie was too. He stood next to her as Gilbert boarded the bus. She lifted a hand to wave, her face impassive. A woman must be very patient, Patson thought. It was not the first time he’d concluded as much in recent months. Perhaps it signified a change in him.

  Bessie sat in the back as Patson drove to Greendale. Each lost in their own unformulated but all too real concerns, they didn’t exchange a word until they reached the house. Then, at the gate, Bessie asked to be let out. She said it would be wrong to be seen arriving in the taxi. Patson pressed the buzzer.

 
; Mr. Jones emerged immediately, even before Patson had turned the car round. He got into the back without a word. Patson drove out. He said, “Where to, Uncle?”

  The man took a moment to answer. “The Maiden,” he said.

  Patson pulled in outside the bar at Harare Sports Club. Mr. Jones showed no sign of moving. Patson looked at his customer in the rearview mirror. He was staring out of the window, his eyes narrow. Patson remembered Gilbert’s words—the most miserable fellow. He said, “Do you want me to wait, Uncle?”

  The murungu slowly turned his head. He said, “Will you have a drink with me?”

  Part Three

  58

  Mandiveyi has two profound realizations. The first comes while kneeling over Nature, breathing heavily, pummeling her face. Nature has sought to exploit his infidelity to assert her authority over him. But she has no authority over him. It’s a lie that he explodes as easily as his fist explodes her nose.

  In doing so, he sees that his wife has no authority over him either. And he doesn’t even need to beat her to prove it. Instead, he simply returns home and joins the family for their evening meal as if nothing has happened and, later, he climbs into the marital bed where Plaxedes is sitting up, waiting, her face taut with emotion.

  “What are you doing?” she asks. “I want you out of the house. I want you gone. I want a divorce.”

  He lies on his side, propping himself on an elbow. He says, “This is my house and you don’t want a divorce. If you want a divorce, I will take you to your brother and you will have nothing, just the shame.” He then rolls over and turns off the bedside light.

  For a moment his wife is silent. Then, in the darkness, she spits through her tears, “You! You and your girlfriends! You don’t think that is shame?”

  “No” he says. “Because I have no girlfriends. I have told you a hundred times, my work is complicated and private. You don’t want to know about my work. You cannot know about my work. That is it. Finished.”

  Mandiveyi doesn’t even bother to make this sound true. It doesn’t matter whether Plaxedes finds it plausible or not, because she has no choice but to believe it.

  The second realization occurs to Mandiveyi when Phiri calls him into his office and once again demands the gun. His boss’s intimidation is so explicit, his manner so aggressive, that Mandiveyi easily sees the underpinning desperation. Phiri needs the gun to save his own skin and to get the gun he needs Mandiveyi. For the moment, therefore, any threats are only so much bluster.

  Mandiveyi apologizes. He says he’s very busy working on a significant issue: a case so important, so valuable, so politically imperative that it might make everyone—maybe even Iganyana himself—forget the other matter. Phiri stares at him, as bewildered as he is furious. But he, too, has little choice but to take Mandiveyi at his word, even as he knows it’s worth nothing.

  Mandiveyi is sitting in his car thirty meters down from Shawn Appiah’s house. He is waiting. He has been waiting all afternoon. Appiah will come. He will return from Murehwa with his illicit gold. Mandiveyi will make a single phone call and have a team there in minutes to search the house. Of course Appiah will deny the charge and brandish his buyer’s license. But Mandiveyi will tell him they are after those further up the food chain.

  Appiah is an American: all arrogant defiance, no doubt. He will demand to speak to his embassy, but Mandiveyi can stall. He can produce the company records he’s obtained from Nyengedza. He is confident he will make Appiah crack, confess all and give up the names of the Untouchables he met at the Rainbow Towers Hotel. Naturally, the Untouchables will remain untouchable. But that is not the important thing. The important thing is Appiah will confess all.

  Embassy officials will then arrive and reassure him. They will bleat about “due process.” But Mandiveyi will enjoy reminding them they are in Zimbabwe, enjoy their gradual comprehension of Appiah’s guilt and, especially, the look on his prisoner’s face when he comprehends that his nationality cannot save him.

  The light is just beginning to fade as a Land Cruiser pulls up to the gate. Mandiveyi is briefly excited, even though it is not the American’s vehicle. The Land Cruiser emerges again ten minutes later. It is driven by a white woman he doesn’t recognize.

  Mandiveyi turns his mind to his son, Tendai, whose mobility seems to deteriorate almost daily. Tendai’s condition is not a lie; neither is it founded upon a lie. But perhaps lies will provide something approaching a solution. If Mandiveyi can rise through the hierarchy, earn more money or, preferably, favors, perhaps he will be able to afford better treatment or a better school. Mandiveyi tells himself that he does what he does for his family. Like all the best lies, this contains some truth.

  Mandiveyi continues to wait. It is half past nine before the headlights of Appiah’s Isuzu reflect in his mirror. He catches a glimpse of the American’s face as he swings the bakkie through his gate. Everything is coming together perfectly. Mandiveyi takes out his phone to call for back-up, but before he can dial it rings in his hand.

  He looks at the name on the display. Briefly, he considers ignoring the call. But he doesn’t. He answers it. The voice at the other end comes fast and barely intelligible, racing with horror.

  Mandiveyi says, “Right now? I cannot come right now. I am working.” Then, “I know what I said, but—”

  The man at the other end cuts him off and resumes his distressed entreaty.

  Mandiveyi listens. He thinks. He checks the time. It is late and he sees little likelihood of Appiah attempting to move the gold this evening—the American knows no reason to be worried. Mandiveyi’s operation can wait an hour or more. Perhaps there will even be some advantage in waking Appiah from sleep, catching him off guard. Besides, the opportunity to watch two stupid foreigners thrash in the Zimbabwean swell is undeniably appealing—he might save one and drown the other all in a single night, and who knew what favors and kudos might accrue?

  The man is still talking. His words are garbled. Mandiveyi thinks he’s misheard. He says, “Can you say that again?” The murungu repeats himself and Mandiveyi almost bursts out laughing. Is it possibly the same one? Can it be true? If so, he has no need to control his destiny, because the god of lies is on his side. He says, “OK. I am on my way.”

  59

  I wake up on my own. Least I think I wake up. Least I feel like I’s on my own. I call, “Daddy! Daddy!” But he don answer. I go out in the corridor an I look up at the walls an they look like they meltin ice cream. Mebbe I sleepin after all. I go to the TV room an open the door. Gladys there, wrapped up in a blanket like a baby. I gonna wake her up, but then I hear a voice behind me go, “Sssh.”

  Even tho it sound real sweet, I know that voice anywhere.

  I say, “Where are you?”

  An Sasa go, “Up here. Come on up, little bat.”

  Sasabonsam somewhere real dark. I never been here before an I can’t see nuthin but his red eyes that shine like the light on the remote control.

  I go, “I can’t see.”

  He go, “Come with me.” An I follow him to a window, only it not a window, more like a hole to the sky, cos through it there’s the moon shinin bright. He says, “Come.”

  The air is warm an still. From here I can see evrythin. Daddy once aks me why I wanna play with Sasa when he sumtime mean to me. I go, “I dunno.” But when you a little girl there so much things thas not for kids. Sasa never say sumthin not for kids.

  From here, I see all the way to Amerika, only there iss bright blue skies. I can see my old school, Pine Hill, an thas my friend Angel Perez bein collected by his mom. Sumtime I still miss my old school an my friends an I wonder if Angel miss me too.

  I look the other direction an you never believe it but I see into the United Family International Church. Even tho iss night, there still a whole lotta people. I see Momma an Gogo, an Momma on her knees with her eyes tight shut an she cry an cry, her whole body shakin like jelly on a spoon. I know she cryin bout me. I know it. I jus dunno how I know it.
The night Momma got sick, I dun a real bad thing. Mebbe she cryin bout that. Sasa tell me I dun nuthin wrong and Momma tell me I dun nuthin wrong an I gotta go back to bed. But I know when I dun a bad thing, even tho it Sasa’s fault, shoutin at me so loud I go blind. Sasa tell me, “Don think on it. When you think on it, it only make you crazy.” I tell Sasa to shut up cos iss all his fault anyway. But Sasa right because now I thinkin on it and I’s shiverin, no matter how warm the night.

  I shake my head and blink my eyes. I look outside our gate an spot Daddy’s truck on the road. Daddy hate that truck. I know that cos he say so, but also cos of the way he drive it, like he wants to make it sore. He flyin down the big road an turn off at our little road without slowin down. The beam light up a car parked near our gate an I see a face inside an I give a little shriek.

  Sasabonsam say, “What’s the matter with you?” All impatient.

  I go, “I think I seen the devil.”

  He laugh. He go, “Thas no devil. He not even halfway there. Truss me.”

  Daddy park up outside the house an get out of the truck real slow. He look tired. He light a cigarette even tho I told him Mrs. Kloof say they kill people.

  When I tell Daddy this, he go, “That’s what she said?”

  “Thas what she said.”

  An he laugh like sumthin the opposite of funny an go, “A lot of things kill people, little bird. Even getting in some other folk’s business.”

  He say this like I sposed to unnerstan. I don unnerstan but I go, “OK.”

  Daddy walk to the house. His feet go crunch-crunch on the path. I call out, “Daddy! Daddy!” But he don hear me. I mean, he stop a second an he look my way, but then he shake his head an go inside. Thas when I figure I sleepin for sure.

  Sasa go, “You wanna fly, little bat?”

  I look at him. Sumtime he look like a toy, but sumtime he look like the realest thing you ever see. Right now he look like a toy. I make a face. I go, “I don like it when you call me little bat. I’m a little bird.”