An Elegy for Easterly

by Petina Gappah

  Any time now.

  Any time soon.

  The President glowers from every front page.

  Like sex shops and pregnant women baring their stomachs in public in the summer, the Internet is a Geneva discovery. He knew of it, of course, but it did not feature much among his generation of civil servants. At the passport office in Harare where he was Head of the Department, everything was handwritten. And even here in Geneva, he does not use the computer at work. All typing is done by the secretary. He does not need the Internet for his work.

  Then again, there is very little work.

  Geneva is not London, or Johannesburg or Gaborone or Dallas, Texas, where there are hordes of Zimbabweans losing themselves or their passports, dying and getting arrested. There is not enough consular work to do, and even if there were, he is only a mailbox, an intermediary.

  ‘I will send your papers to Harare,’ he says to a woman who wants a passport for a newly born Zimbabwean. ‘It will take up to eight months, in fact, it is faster if you go to Harare and apply from there.’

  ‘So what are you here for?’ she asks.

  ‘It is faster in Harare,’ he repeats.

  She leaves without saying goodbye.

  ‘In Zimbabwe, out of Zimbabwe, civil servants are all the same,’ she says.

  He has learned the hard way that a first-world lifestyle demands a first-world salary. His monthly salary of six thousand two hundred francs a month would be adequate if only it were paid on time. After paying the rent, which is exactly a third of his salary, and paying the bills, and sending money back home, and by living on a diet of Champion value food, he and his wife save enough to put the children through university. Robert is finishing the third year, and Susan only just started.

  He has recently been promoted from Full-Time Consular Officer to Part Consular Officer and Delegate. On seeing him wade through the piled-up newspapers, his Ambassador said to him, ‘Attend meetings at WIPO. And take in ITU and OMM if Chinyanga is busy.’

  He now spends his days at meeting after meeting at which people talk of compulsory licensing and layout designs and topographies of integrated circuits. They talk of possible amendments to Article 6quinquies of the Paris Convention. They talk of the Berne Convention and the Lisbon Convention and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. They laugh at jokes that he has no hope of ever understanding.

  Other African delegates peel away the veneer of diplomacy on learning his nationality. They address him with an affectionate familiarity. ‘You Zimbabweans,’ says the Kenyan delegate. ‘You want to drive out muzungu, heh?’ The Kenyan delegate laughs, and the Zambian and Tanzanian delegates join in.

  ‘You Zimbabweans,’ echoes the Ethiopian delegate. ‘When are you getting rid of your President? And our Mengistu, there in Harare with him?’

  He develops a laugh for encounters such as these.

  He learns to fall asleep with his eyes open.

  On the flight to Amsterdam, he dreams of a new geyser for their house in Harare. The last time he called home, his brother’s wife said the old geyser is giving problems. He must remember to ask his brother to call Tregers’ for a quotation, he thinks. Then he remembers that with a million euros, they can buy a new house, houses, for him and his brothers. And each of their children. And their children’s children.

  He works out how much a million euros is in Zimbabwe dollars. Each euro is two million dollars, on the parallel market, of course. 2,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars. His mind cannot expand enough to take this in.

  Twelve zeroes make a billion, according to the United Kingdom system of counting. Twelve zeroes make a trillion, going by the United States version. Two billion or two trillion. One-fifth of Zimbabwe’s last annual budget. A lot of money, in any country. In a flood of thanksgiving, he plans all the things he will buy for his Lord’s representative on earth, their pastor in Harare.

  A new cellphone, for sure.

  A stove and a fridge.

  A suit for the pastor.

  An outfit (with a hat) for the pastor’s wife.

  Toys and clothes for their children.

  In his mind he sees the pastor’s children on his farewell visit, peering at the black-and-white cartoon images hissing from their fourth-hand television.

  ‘I will buy them a new television,’ he vows. ‘One with a flat screen.’

  The grimy façade of the building that houses the European Bank of Luxembourg gives him pause. When he sees the broken elevator, the ten-franc ham sandwich that he ate on the flight moves uneasily in his stomach. He walks up the stairs to the second floor. A door with the letters EBL in black flourishes on a gold plaque gives him some reassurance. The door looks serious, solid. Inside, he finds that the offices are not as grimy as the outside indicated. The ham sandwich settles in his innards.

  The biggest surprise is Mr George. He is not the white gentleman of our man’s imagination, smiling with largess in a bustling office. Instead, he is a lone young man with a West African accent. He has several gold chains around his neck. He wears black denim jeans with giant pockets at the knees, patent leather shoes, and has two cellphones on his belt. He interrupts their conversation to talk in low tones on his phones. To our man who does not understand the language, the one-sided conversations sound vaguely sinister.

  ‘The money you have won needs to be cleaned,’ Mr George explains to him. ‘And you need to give us twenty-five thousand euros for that purpose.’ The word sounds like papas. ‘We cannot give it to you in this state.’ In dis stet. ‘There is an expensive chemical that we must buy.’ Iks-pansive kamikal.

  Mr George takes a fifty-euro note. It has some markings on it, reddish brown, above the stars of Europe. He wipes it down with a cloth on which he has sprinkled a transparent fluid. The note emerges pristine. The term money-laundering comes from that part of our man’s mind that absorbs the news and documentaries that he watches every night on BBC World. He asks the question.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Mr George laughs a full-bodied laugh that sees him click-clicking his fingers and clink-clinking his gold chains. ‘Money-laundering. No, no, no. That is for dirty money, money from prostitutes and drugs, money that is sent to accounts in Cayman Islands, you understand me? This is a lottery, you understand me? This no dirty money. God has chosen us to find people like you, to help you.’

  Mr George pauses to answer the phone ringing on his right.

  ‘Dr Rose, he wants to help you,’ Mr George continues. ‘He even mention your name especially, you understand me.’

  Our man understands nothing, but the earlier reference to God settles in his mind. ‘I am a civil servant,’ he explains. ‘I do not have twenty-five thousand euros. Can’t you just deduct your money from my million euros before you give it to me?’

  Mr George laughs.

  Click-clickety, clink-clinkety.

  ‘No, no, no. That is not how we do it, you understand me. But it’s okay. If you don’t trust me, we can’t do business. You can take your five thousand, and lose your million euros.’ Our man has already handed over the five thousand euros; they rest snugly in the back pocket of Mr George’s jeans.

  He can see their outline when Mr George turns.

  ‘Here is what I propose. You are a nice guy, flown all this way. You can’t leave empty-handed. We can lend it to you. Or rather, we have a partner who can lend it to you.’ And he mentions a Miss Manning from Equity, Loan and Finance Company of London. Lorn-dorn.

  Our man is dismayed to learn that he has to deal with yet another person in yet another city. ‘You do not have to go to London,’ Mr George says. ‘Miss Manning will contact you to arrange the loan.’

  Our man is bewildered by all of this. ‘Why can’t the bank just get the money directly from this lender? Why does the money need to be washed?’ To all the whys, asked and unasked, Mr George has one response. ‘Go back to Geneva, and await Miss Manning’s email.’

  In Geneva, our man is anxious but not afraid. A week passes, an
d nothing happens. He emails Dr Rose who tells him to contact Mr George who tells him to await Miss Manning. Miss Manning finally contacts him, by email and then by post. The letter that comes by post says, ‘Greetings. May our Lord Jesus Christ shower his Blessings upon you and all your Beloved. I looked into my heart and found a Blessed Peace. I pass this Peace on to you today. Herein please find a cheque for 25,000 euros, to be repaid on receiving your winnings.’

  Our man is tempted to kiss the cheque, but restrains himself.

  ‘Worship God, not Mammon.’

  Within an hour, Mr George writes to him.

  ‘Greetings,’ he says. ‘Please send us the money, as soon as the cheque clears. Your million will soon be in your account. Trust God.’

  In two days, the cheque clears.

  ‘Learn humility,’ our man chides himself. He promises the Lord not to doubt His wisdom again. He sends the money to Mr George. He waits a day, two days, a week, two weeks. There is no news from Amsterdam, or Brussels. There is no news from London. Lorn-Dorn.

  He emails Dr Rose, Mr George, Miss Manning, in that order, every day, twice a day for one week. Dr Rose finally responds in a letter of fluid persuasion. ‘We would not cheat you, my friend,’ the email says. ‘As for me, I am a woman fearful of God. My promise is my credit.’

  The reference to the possibility of cheating him does not alarm our man so much as Dr Rose’s revelation that she is a woman. He finds himself back in Amsterdam, Mr George’s voice in his ear. ‘Dr Rose, he wants to help you. He even mention your name especially, you understand me.’

  ‘You say you are a woman,’ our man writes. ‘I thought you were a man. Mr George distinctly told me that you were a man. In Amsterdam, he said you were a man.’

  ‘Make no assumptions, my friend,’ Dr Rose responds. ‘Only have faith and all will be well. You will hear from Mr George.’

  Mr George is brief, to the point.

  ‘We need more money for chemicals,’ he writes. ‘Miss Manning is sending you another cheque.’

  Our man in Geneva protests, but his emails bounce into empty space.

  Every night, and first thing in the morning, he sits before the computer. He jumps at the pinging sound that announces new email. He is bothered by a permanent dryness in his throat. Susan calls to remind his wife about her second semester fees.

  ‘Wototaura nababa vako,’ his wife says. ‘He will send the money next week, that is, unless he has spent it all.’ Our man joins in her laughter, his own laugh sounding to his ears like Mr George’s.

  ‘Spent the money? No, no, no.’

  Click-clickety, clink-clinkety.

  He opens his Bible to a random page. Like an answer to a prayer, his eyes fall on Jeremiah 33:3. ‘Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.’

  He asks God to show him the way. The Lord speaks to him with all the clarity of common sense. ‘Forget about the million euros. Come clean to your wife. Pray together and work together. Write a letter to your daughter’s university. Ask for a grace period. If necessary, take a loan from those credit people who send emails.’ For the first time in weeks, our man sleeps the sleep of dreamless ease.

  He wakes the next day with a sense of purpose. The morning is bright with hope. The clocks have moved up an hour, and the year is approaching spring. As he drives up the hill towards the United Nations, the sun casts its rays through the slits in the giant sculpture of the Broken Chair and into the windows of his car. The snow drips from the trees. The birds sing from the melting boughs. At the yellow and black zebra crossing just after the Broken Chair, he stops to allow a woman and her toddler to cross the street. The child drops its teddy bear, breaks free of its mother, runs back to pick it up and meets the eyes of our man through the windscreen. The child breaks into a toothless grin and waves. Our man waves back. He is seized by a burst of joy so intense that he almost gasps. As he drives on to Chambesy, he whistles his wife’s favourite hymn of thanksgiving.

  ‘Simudza maoko ako, urumbidze Mwari, nekuti Ndiye ega akarurama.’

  His heart is filled with grace and gratitude.

  In the afternoon, his bank manager asks to see him.

  ‘We need to discuss an irregular transaction from your account,’ the bank manager says. ‘You deposited a fraudulent instrument into your account. We cleared it, but the American bank on which the cheque was drawn has now refused to honour it.

  ‘We would normally take the blame,’ the bank manager says, ‘but this does not apply to cheques drawn on American banks.’

  Our man’s stomach turns to water. ‘Dr Rose and Mr George and Miss Manning,’ he says. ‘Dr Rose.’

  The bank manager offers him a drink. He empties the glass in three swallows. Water dribbles from the glass onto his tie. He explains about the email that started it all, the trip to Amsterdam, the dirty money, the loan, the cheque. It takes eleven minutes. He contradicts himself three times.

  He drinks a litre of water.

  ‘This is clearly a matter for the police,’ the manager says. ‘It is difficult to establish identity in such cases. For all we know, this could be the work of just one person. It often is.’

  The full meaning of the manager’s words hits our man. ‘I can take you to Amsterdam,’ he says. ‘We can go there together. I’ll pay for our tickets. We can catch Mr George. Write to Dr Rose. I have their emails. Write to Dr Rose.’

  ‘That is not the bank’s immediate concern,’ the bank manager says. ‘I called you to give you this.’ Our man takes the proffered paper. It is a letter of demand. The amount of fifty-one thousand two hundred and thirty-four Swiss francs, equivalent to twenty-five thousand euros, is to be repaid within thirty days. He looks at the bank manager’s face, looking to find something that says the letter is not real. He does not find what he seeks. He swallows.

  From a very far-off place comes a voice that sounds like the bank manager’s. The voice sounds like it has travelled a long way and echoes around the room. ‘I will call the police for you,’ the voice says.

  Police, police, the word is loud in our man’s head. His mother’s voice speaks across time and space: ‘You take any more of that sugar, and I will call the police.’ That memory sparks another, and suddenly, there they all are; his mother and his uncle Benkias, his sister Shupikai holding his son at age two, all of them crowding his head. ‘I will call them now,’ the bank manager says. As the bank manager reaches for the telephone, our man reaches for water, but the glass is empty, the bottle too.

  The Maid from Lalapanzi

  ‘You should not play outside in the rain when you are wearing red,’ SisiBlandina said to Munya and me.

  ‘Lightning likes things that are red and it will hunt you out and strike you down and burn you from inside out.

  ‘And you must not sit out on the road, otherwise you will grow festering boils on your bottoms.

  ‘You should never cut your hair out of doors, because if even the smallest fluff is left in the open, varoyi will find it, and put a spell on you, and you know how powerful their sorcery is.

  ‘And you must not peek at each other while you dress, because boys and girls who spy on each other’s nakedness get styes in their eyes.’

  She told story upon story of the fates that awaited us if we did things we were not supposed to do, and she had the proof, for these things had happened to people she knew in Lalapanzi.

  ‘You must not walk over a person’s legs,’ SisiBlandina said. ‘If you do so, you must walk back the other way to reverse the action, and if you don’t, the one who has been walked over won’t grow.’

  I made Munya lie on his back. I jumped over his legs and out of the house to play. He ran to find SisiBlandina and wailed, ‘Chenai jumped me. She always jumps me, and now I won’t grow.’

  SisiBlandina marched out of the house, with Munya sniffling beside her. Her nails dug into my flesh as she grabbed me above my right elbow and dragged me from my play.

  ‘Yo
u will not go outside until you walk back over him,’ she said.

  I obeyed, jumping over him, but making sure that I crossed my fingers on both hands behind my back.

  ‘She had nings on,’ my brother cried. ‘It won’t work because Chenai crossed her fingers, she had nings on.’

  ‘Nings nings, chii chacho,’ SisiBlandina said. ‘Why must you always believe what those white children tell you? Did their parents not lose the war?’

  That was incontrovertible, it was unanswerable.

  We had won the war, we had conquered the conquerors. Our parents said it all the time. The television said it, the radio too. We had won the war.

  Munya, who had been torn between the binding nature of nings and the authority of SisiBlandina, now believed her when she said that he would grow as tall as my father.

  ‘Bigger,’ he said. ‘I want to be bigger than SekuruThomas.’

  ‘You will be bigger and stronger too,’ she said.

  ‘Will I be like Mr T, from The A-Team?’

  ‘Exactly like Mr T,’ she said.

  She petted him, and said she would take him to the shops to buy sweets with her own money. Now that the threat of dwarfism had been thwarted, Munya could afford to be generous. ‘I will bring you Treetop sherbet,’ he said.

  I could still see the marks that SisiBlandina had dug into my arm.

  ‘Keep your stupid sherbet,’ I fumed as I stormed off to pour water all over the shiny kitchen floor. When SisiBlandina smacked me across my bottom I screamed, ‘You are not my mother; you are only the housemaid.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am only the housemaid, but your mother is not here.’

  My mother was often not there because she had day shifts and night shifts as a nurse at Andrew Fleming, later called Parirenyatwa Hospital. I was not always happy when she was home because she pulled my hair when she plaited it, which made me wince in pain and sit with my face tight for two days before the plaits settled on my head. She spanked me hard when I made Munya cut my hair so that she could not plait and yank it any more.