After another hour long wait, they heard men’s voices and the sound of a vehicle with a serious exhaust problem. Looking towards the road they saw an old pickup truck crest the small hill, with about a dozen men sitting in the back talking and laughing. When they saw the muRungus they all laughed, but it seemed good natured. They waved, and all piled out of the truck as soon as it stopped. The driver exited also, and walked over to them.
“Good day,” he said in accented English, and nodded his head. Shumba beamed.
“Hello,” said Rei. “We have come from Shumba’s village…” At this Shumba nodded enthusiastically. “And we need to get into town. We can pay you for your trouble, of course.”
The man frowned a bit. White people were always rushing things, and talking of money. “You come.” He waved them inside. When Shumba didn’t follow, he turned and said something to him in Shona. Shumba grinned and followed behind them.
“Sit!” He waved to a table and four chairs. “Funda,” he said to the woman, obviously his wife. “We eat first. I have worked all day, and am hungry.” His wife brought more tea for them all, and went out a back doorway where they could smell food on a charcoal fire. She returned with bowls of beans, rice, stewed meat, fried greens, and chingwa for sopping up the sauces. No one spoke until all the food had been eaten, and the cook had been thanked enthusiastically.
“I am Martin,” the farmer said. He pointed to his wife. “This is my wife, Patience. My sons were on the truck, they are now at their own homes.”
“Were all those your sons?” Rei asked, eyebrows raised.
The farmer laughed. “No, not all sons. Some are workers. Five sons. Three daughters.” He smiled. “You have sons?” he asked Gideon.
“No sir,” Gideon shook his head. “Not yet.” He smiled at Rei.
Rei smiled back, but was getting impatient as the day was drawing to a close. “Martin, we really do need to get to town. Our friend will be very worried about us.”
Martin sat back in his chair and folded his hands together across his stomach. “You got lost,” he said. “From where?”
Rei glanced quickly at Gideon. “We were foolish… We were at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, and we wandered off. It was so beautiful out there. We got turned around, and ended up at Shumba’s village. But our phones don’t work here, and we would like to go to Masvinga to find our friends.”
Martin looked at them for a long moment. Gideon knew that the story was implausible, but he also knew the real story was implausible. He took Rei’s hand under the table and squeezed.
“Yes. I will take you to the city tomorrow. We cannot go tonight, the road is very bad. Cattle and antelope on the road, and many holes. It is not safe. Tomorrow, we go.”
They saw that there was no sense arguing for an earlier departure. The man’s truck was obviously old, and they had no idea where they were. Gideon nodded. They knew it was unsafe to drive at night in Zimbabwe, and not just for the four legged animals.
“Thank you so much.” Rei said, and Martin and his wife smiled, she behind her hand.
It got dark at 6:30 and Martin and his wife lit the few oily candles in their small home. Patience laid out two reed mats in the corner of the room near the fireplace, and brought over a half dozen brightly colored woven blankets, smiling shyly as she handed them to Gideon. Having no clothes and no toiletries, getting ready for bed was a quick affair, and by 8:00 the house was quiet. After their long day, Rei and Gideon fell asleep quickly, even on the hard ground.
At first light, the household arose, and the smell of coffee and sounds of cooking woke them up. Rei went out the back doorway to the open air cooking area and tried to offer to help, but Patience shooed her back inside with a giggle. Gideon found a pitcher of water and a bowl on a table, and washed his face, then went out to the outhouse. Rei wasn’t overly fond of the outhouse, but had to agree that it was much better than her one other experience with a public toilet in Africa.
After a breakfast of fresh eggs and more chingwa, Martin took his men to the fields to work, then returned for Gideon and Rei. They set off down the dirt road, driving through Martin’s land for a good distance, through fields of sweet potatoes, cassava, tomatoes, beans, pumpkins and a small banana orchard. The road was, as Martin had said, abysmal. They achieved a maximum speed of fifteen kilometers an hour for the first two hours of the trip, and Gideon repeatedly checked his cell phone for any signal.
Finally Martin turned his old truck onto a macadam road, one car width wide and in much disrepair, but better than the dirt road they had been on. After another hour, Gideon finally had enough cell signal complete a call Captain McMillan. He answered on the second ring.
“Gideon? Is that you? Where are you?”
“It’s me. Sorry Captain, we got a bit diverted by our friends.” He glanced over at Martin, who remained impassive. “But we’re safe, and are headed into town. I’m not sure where we should meet, though… Surely not the airport?”
“No…” McMillan was silent for a moment. “There was one of those guys at the airport all day yesterday, watching our plane. It was creepy, to tell you the truth. He just sat and watched the plane, and talked on his phone every once in awhile. I’m guessing they’re still there, although we haven’t been out to the airfield today. Hang on a sec.”
Gideon could hear mumbling as the captain talked to someone.
“Hey Gideon, my copilot here says there’s a cafe about a mile from the airport. Not on the main road. It’s called … Hang on.” More mumbling. “He swears it’s called Octopus.” Gideon could hear laughing in the background.
“Octopus?”
“That’s what he says. Are you driving?”
“We have a driver bringing us into town.”
“Ok, ask him if he knows it.”
Gideon put the phone to his shoulder and turned to Martin, “Do you know a cafe near the airport called Octopus?” He saw Rei’s eyebrows go up, but Martin nodded his head.
“Yes, very good food there. An hour from here.”
Gideon put the phone back to his ear. “Ok then, he knows it. And he says it’s an hour from where we are now. So meet you there?”
“Yeah, but drive around first. You can’t miss those guys, and I think one of them got hurt somehow yesterday. Was that you?”
“Uh, yeah. He ok? Do you know?”
“I heard from the staff that a tourist got hurt, and that he was one of those guys in black. That’s all I know. For his sake, I hope he’s not in the hospital here. I’ll go by the airport and see if their plane left—maybe they flew him out. I’ll see you at the famous Octopus, then.” And he disconnected.
“Is the guy ok?” Rei asked.
“Don’t know, but the captain thinks so.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Actually, I hope we never get close enough to any of those guys again to find out.”
“Agreed!” she said.
An hour and a half later the truck pulled to a stop across a narrow dirt road from the Octopus Cafe. They had driven up and down the road once, but hadn’t spotted any other white people at all, so they asked Martin to park. He declined an invitation to join them for lunch, and also declined Gideon’s proffered money.
“You used a lot of petrol, Martin, and you fed us so well!”
Martin shook his head firmly. “In Zimbabwe, we are happy to help a stranger, and to take him into our home. You are most welcome to come back any time, my friends.” He smiled and shook Gideon’s hand. “I hope you get back to your home with safety.”
“And you… We can’t thank you enough!” Gideon and Rei alighted from the truck, grabbed their backpacks from behind the seat and ran across the street to the dark cafe.
Captain McMillan waved at them from a table in the back corner. He had a map spread out in front of him. They sat down in the rickety wooden chairs, and Gideon signaled to the waitress. When she came over, he ordered two Cokes. After she’d brought them to the table, uncapped the bottles, and given them glasses and st
raws, Gideon looked at the captain.
“So how the hell are we gonna get out of here, Cap?”
McMillan touched the map. “I’ve been looking. There are two towns with airfields I can use. Here, at Chiredzi,” he pointed to a dot southeast of Masvingo. “And here, at Zvishavane.” He pointed to a town a little south and west. “Chiredzi is mostly a sugar cane producing region, and there aren’t too many people. The airport is adequate. Just. Mostly it’s used by the sugar cane plantation owners in small prop planes. And it’s farther away and harder to get to by road.”
“Wait, by road?” Rei asked. “Who’s driving?”
“I think the only way to get you two out of here is with a pump fake…” Rei looked at Gideon, confused. The captain continued. “I think we’re going to have to get you out of here by car, to somewhere that I can fly to. If we choose Zvishavane, I’ll probably say I’m headed for Gabarone in Botswana. Then I’ll have a minor emergency and have to land to check it out. You come aboard, and we head…wherever you’re heading.” He raised his eyebrows at them.
“Actually, we don’t know yet. But we will soon…” I hope, thought Rei.
“Ok, so you get aboard and we leave. Even if we fly to Nairobi or Kampala or somewhere like that, I can say I have to go there for a part… In these small airports they’re not paying much attention anyway, especially if you give them a little incentive not ask too many questions.”
Gideon turned the map to face him, and studied it. “It looks like this road between Masvingo and Zvishavane is a main one. While it isn’t exactly an interstate, it’s sure better than anything that’s not a main road. And it’s closer. So between the paved road and the shorter distance… I’d say that’s the best bet.”
“That was my thought,” said McMillan. “Jimmy, my copilot, has been making a show of getting the plane ready, and has told the officer in the terminal that you guys bailed, and we’re headed to the next job. I got your stuff from the hotel, since the rooms were in my name, so all that’s in the taxi with our driver friend, who’ll be back here in…” He consulted his watch. “Oh, forty-five minutes or so. He’s also agreed to drive you wherever you need to go, as long as the price is right, but in his brother’s panel van, not his cab.”
Rei sat back in her chair, rather breathless at this take-charge man who’d arranged their escape. “Wow! That’s amazing! And you don’t seem flustered by this at all.”
McMillan laughed, his blue eyes crinkling around the edges. “Mrs. Quinn, I’ve been a pilot in Africa for fifteen years. I’ve transported all kinds of people, from politicians to plantation owners, and in a lot of countries. Most everybody is running from somebody. It may not be the most moral thing in the world, but I’ve learned that a bribe goes a long way towards getting what you want done, no matter which country you’re in on this continent.”
An hour later, the taxi driver picked McMillan up to drive him to the airport. Ten minutes after that, a panel van pulled up in front of the Octopus, and a tall man entered and looked around. He smiled and joined them.
“Hello! I am Tendai Ndava. John is my brother. He says to pick you, and take you to my home, so we go!” He thrust his hand towards Gideon, who shook it.
“Yes, we go!” Gideon said, laughing, and grabbed his backpack. Rei got up and followed them out the door, and they slid quickly into the back of the panel van.
There was nothing to sit on in the back, and the road was a typical African road filled with ruts and bumps, but they stopped in ten minutes, and the door slid open.
“Please come.” Tendai gestured to his small house. “You wait.”
He led the way into the two room house, and beckoned for them to sit on the wooden bench near the cooking area. The walls and ceiling were stained black from smoke and soot, but the dirt floor was recently swept, and the room was clean. A crinkled photo of two children in front of a large cow was tacked to the wall. Tendai left them alone to wait, and went outside where they could hear him filling a tin bucket with charcoal. He returned, and started stacking the charcoal in the fire pit.
“I make tea. My wife is not here now.”
Looking at the evidence of many hours of smoke on the wall, Rei quickly said, “No, please, don’t go to any trouble. John should be here soon, and we will need to be on our way. Thank you though, you’ve been so helpful!” She smiled at him, knowing she was being rude by refusing the hospitality, but not wanting to be forced outside into the open by the smoke. Hopefully he would put her rudeness down to being a muRungu. Whatever he thought, he smiled, left the charcoal, and sat down on the floor, content to wait.
A half hour later they heard a vehicle come to a stop outside the house. John Ndava came in, smiling and holding out his keys. He and his brother conversed for several minutes, and John gave Tendai a small handful of bills. Tendai left the house, and they heard doors opening and closing on the vehicles. When it was quiet again, John started out the door.
“We go!” he said over his shoulder.
As they got in the van, they realized that Tendai had transferred their luggage from the taxi to the van. He had also installed a box of food and drink supplies, a small pile of blankets, and a foam mattress. Rei was much relieved that they would have some cushioning from the roads against their backsides, and thanked both Tendai and John profusely. Both men grinned, and Tendai waved to them as he closed the panel door.
The 75 kilometers on the Zvishavane-Masvingo road went relatively quickly, all things considered. They arrived just as the sun was setting, and went straight to the airport. To their great relief, their plane was there, and Captain McMillan was waiting for them in the small terminal.
“And away we go…” he said, leading them quickly out the door. “Paperwork’s done, palms are greased, the runway lights will be on for another half hour, and I think we need to get out of here as soon as we can. The officer in charge here looks a bit greedy for my liking.”
They piled into the plane, Jimmy closed and secured the door while McMillan went to the cockpit, and in a very few minutes they were taxiing down the runway and taking off, the few lights of the town winking on in the increasing darkness. As they circled around the airport, they saw the runway lights blink off.
The flight to Kololo Airport in Kampala, Uganda was at the edge of McMillan’s comfort zone in the plane he was flying, but he had a friend and co-worker who lived there and who had agreed to put them up for a day or two if they decided to head that way. Since the Quinns didn’t actually know their next stop, and since Kampala was a large and reasonably modern city, he figured it was better than a hotel somewhere unknown. In Kampala, they could access whatever information they needed.
His friend made the arrangements for Kololo to keep the tower open until their arrival, and they landed without incident, parking the plane inside an open air hangar where Jimmy and a local mechanic would give it a once over and tune up before they took off again. Kololo was on the company’s regular maintenance route, so the captain knew the jet was in good hands.
Jakisa, or Jack, Magara, met them in his Toyota Land Cruiser, and brought them to his gated house in Garden City. Traffic was bumper to bumper and side to side, and here also there appeared to be no one following traffic rules. Although Cape Town was pretty large, Kampala was the most crowded African city they’d been in, and they were dumbfounded at the amount of people and traffic and chaos on the road.
“Traffic’s pretty light now,” Jack said as he narrowly missed a boda boda, a motorbike taxi. “Tomorrow you will get to see the real thing. But where I live, it is not so bad. And we have power most of the time, so we are happy.”
Jack was a tall, thin Ugandan with very close cropped hair and a lilting accent. He was nicely dressed in slacks and a starched white shirt, and the vehicle was immaculate.
“Are you from Kampala?” Rei asked, still staring out the window at the endless stream of people walking down the sides of the road.
“Oh no, I am from Jinja. It is east, tow
ards Kenya. I went to the States to university, and became a pilot at a flight school in Texas. Now I live in Kampala because Kololo is on our company’s maintenance route, and I can jump off from here to anywhere in East Africa when I am on duty.”
They weren’t able to drive fast, so it didn’t seem that they traveled far in the hour it took them to get from the airport to Jack’s house. Once they turned into the district which was called Garden City, they could see that it was much more upscale than most of the city through which they’d driven. There was a large mall that had a New York Pizza Restaurant; Nakumat, a Kenyan store which Jack said was like a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart; and small, elegant boutiques. Nearby was a small but high-end hotel called Emin Pasha. The roads were paved and virtually pothole free. When they turned off the street and into Jack’s drive, they were met by a large, solid metal gate. Jack honked once, and the gate was opened by a young Ugandan, who waved as they drove in.
The house was stone, two story, with a corrugated tin roof. The landscaping was lush. There were lights on in the downstairs windows. They parked next to another Toyota Land Cruiser.
“My wife’s car.” Jack said. “She is a lawyer. She is away in London, visiting her sister.”
He led the way inside, and Captain McMillan started up the stairs. “Same room, Jack?”
“Yes, and the one next to it for the Quinns. They are all prepared.” He smiled at Gideon and Rei. “Can I get you tea? Something to eat?”
Even though they hadn’t had dinner, they weren’t hungry, and were happy to be shown to their room. Rei saw a real toilet and a sink with running water, and grinned.
Solomon's Throne Page 18
