The Eternal Audience of One

by Rémy Ngamije

  “No, I am here to deliver a report for the minister,” said Guillome.

  “The minister he is busy inside. Just wait, I will call. Someone will come,” said the guard. He reached for his walkie-talkie and pressed a button, summoning noisy static. Guillome waited while the man spoke into the receiver in Oshiwambo, catching a few words: “O-minister” and “deliver o-report-a”. After some more static the guard said to Guillome, “Just wait here, neh” and slumped back down in his seat. The plastic chair was a marvel of science, Guillome thought. He noticed an old rifle which stood propped in a corner. He took a couple of paces, then stood facing the street, the report tucked under one arm. He took in the wealth represented by the cars that were parked, two wheels up, on the kerbs, on both sides. A little further away was a black Mitsubishi Pajero. He admired its angular frame, its unassuming presence, and thanked the Japanese for making cars that did not break down when you had to evacuate your family from a capital city on fire.

  “You are from which tribe?”

  “Sorry?” Guillome’s mind had wandered far away from the smooth, tarred road lined with cars towards another road, a rutted one, both sides viscous with worried faces lugging wooden carts carrying children and scant possessions, straight necks and stiff heads which balanced bundles of clothes or basins of whatever worldly goods were deemed essential for surviving whatever it was that lay ahead of each tired step. The long, anxious drive in the Pajero, Therése beside him, clutching his left hand as he carefully navigated the pitted roads. Therése had refused to let go of his hand, as though if she did he would be sucked out of the car. In the back seat, asleep next to each other, Yves and Éric were totally oblivious to what was unfolding around them. Séraphin sat quietly, observant, declining his parents’ advice to get some sleep, looking out of the windows in curiosity. He made eye contact with two boys about his age as Guillome squeezed past. The boys were in a wheelbarrow that was being pushed by a determined man with a frown on his face. They looked at each other, their fates separated by the car window before Guillome angled the car further away from the creeping terror behind, which mechanised feet, legs, and souls to walk beyond endurance, beyond home.

  “You are which tribe?” the guard repeated.

  “I am not from here,” Guillome said.

  “Zimbabwean?”

  “No.”

  “Zambian?”

  “I am Rwandan.”

  “Near Kenya?”

  “Yes,” replied Guillome, impressed that a country smaller than many of Namibia’s regions could make it into this security guard’s general knowledge.

  “That is far,” the guard said. Guillome nodded. “You are which tribe? Hutu or Tutsi?”

  Guillome hesitated. Then he said, “Hutu.”

  “O-ho. You are the ones who did the killing. Or you are the ones who did the dying?”

  Guillome looked at the guard balefully, an intake of breath swelling his chest and audibly issuing from his nostrils. “Everyone,” he said, “did a bit of both.”

  The guard sucked his teeth and gazed out at the quiet street. Guillome looked at his watch.

  “You are refugee,” the guard said. It came out as a statement of fact.

  Guillome breathed in deeply. “No,” he said.

  “You are what then?”

  “I am permanent resident here in Namibia.”

  “But you are from Rwanda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are refugee.”

  Guillome could see the obvious logic presented to him and, failing to see any way to counter it, decided to remain quiet. The guard took his silence as an invitation to consolidate his point. “All of us, we are refugee.” He chuckled. “If you are not white, you are refugee. If you are white, then you are not refugee. You know how I know we are all refugee?” Guillome raised his eyebrows in enquiry. “Because we are not home. Everyone that is not home is refugee. Even me I am refugee. I am not home. I am here.” He waved his hand at the warm night air. “This is not home. So I am refugee.”

  Guillome decided to be taciturn. He never engaged in political discussions with locals. As far as he was concerned, politics was for people who could, in some way, control the fate of their lives. People who could take things, own things, and pass things on. Everyone else, those who lacked the will or the means to do so, just had to keep quiet and work.

  “Do you know how to not be refugee?” The guard was undeterred. The man seemed determined to expound some long-held thesis about displaced identities. Guillome raised his eyebrows but made no comment. “Make home. Small home. Big home. But home. I try to make home here.” The guard knitted his hands together over the bulk of his belly. “Here, I try.”

  “Where are you from?” Guillome finally asked.

  “The north. I come here for work. Because home is no work. And if home is no work, then you cannot make home. So I come here. Like you. Refugee. I try to make home.” The guard inclined his head toward the house. “You are working with the minister?” he asked.

  “For,” Guillome corrected. “For the minister.” The guard grunted. “I work with medicines,” said Guillome. The generality was characteristic; he often refused to describe the nuance of his job because it drove home how mundane it was. The answer seemed to satisfy his companion.

  “They live well, these ministers,” he said, a sly look passing over the offensive taste in the yard. “They make home.”

  Just then the wooden door of the mansion opened and a lady in a tight-fitting blue pencil skirt and a white blouse came out. She made her way towards the street, her stilettos clicking on the driveway, ankles struggling to keep each step poised, a stumble and a sprain a lapse in concentration away.

  “You have the report ready?” the woman asked, coming to a precarious halt.

  “Yes, madam,” said Guillome, handing her his day’s work. Although twice her age, he deferred to her position.

  “It’s late,” she said.

  “I am sorry. It took some time to put in all of the necessary details and then to edit it. I have also emailed a soft copy to you and cc’d the department head.”

  “It’s late,” she said again. “You said you emailed it as well? Then why bother bringing this?”

  “I was instructed to bring a copy personally, madam.”

  “Is there anything else?” she asked stiffly.

  “No, madam,” he said.

  “Then I shall hand this to him tomorrow. I hope he is not angry. It is very late.”

  The walk back to the house was more laboured and Guillome stayed to watch just in case there was a fall, the delivery of some small justice for the aide’s rudeness. But there was none. When the last wonky step had vanished inside and the big wooden door had closed Guillome and the guard exchanged a look.

  Guillome shrugged and began to walk to his car.

  “Happy New Year,” the guard called after him.

  Guillome paused. He turned back. “Happy New Year,” he said.

  By the time Guillome arrived home all of the assembled guests were eating, the adults in the lounge and the children in the television room. Around the house the conversations, which bumped along like reluctant train carriages, came to welcome hiatuses.

  In the television room everyone was glad for a respite from the freshly revealed smallness of Windhoek life, as had been confirmed for them by Thierry. Their music tastes were a month behind – Man, y’all only hearing that shit now? Damn, that came out months ago!”The fashion they admired was a season or two behind – “Nah, you can’t be seen in the streets wearing that. You’re gonna look camp as fuck!” They had no tales to offer of travel in faraway places like Bali or waking up on a beach in Ibiza – “Telling you, man, that shit was dope. We did that for five days straight. Ibiza was crazy!” Thierry said crazy so that it stretched over four syllables as opposed to its usual two. Everything was cra-a-a-azy. Paris was cra-a-a-azy, Bangkok was cra-a-a-azy, and New York was cra-a-a-azy. Drake’s concerts were cra-a-a-azy an
d Lil’ Wayne live in Los Angeles was cra-a-a-azy. Mardi Gras in Nola was cra-a-a-azy.

  “What’s Nola?” asked Uwimana.

  “New Orleans,” said Séraphin.

  Whatever wasn’t crazy to Thierry was “a movie”. Seeing the Miami Heat and Lebron James fire past the Oklahoma City Thunder in person was a movie; waiting in line to enter a posh club in Atlanta was a movie. The way Thierry described his party-saturated life everything seemed cooler, more fun, unreal. It was a movie, like the films that made American cities the only places in which superheroes could exist, Parisian cafés the only places where love could be found, and unnamed landscapes from Far East Asia the only places in which spirituality could be attained. Thierry’s tales stoked already restless yearnings for escape.

  Séraphin longed for midnight. Like a rollercoaster slowly climbing up towards the apex of a ride, midnight would bring with it the countdown to Cape Town. His own movie awaited him. He planned on having a cra-a-a-a-azy year – with five syllables – if only to one-up the pompous hunk of youth who was making Windhoek more cramped and constrictive than it usually was.

  In the lounge, talk of Canadian life came to a halt when Guillome arrived. After putting his head into the television room and greeting the room at large, and receiving polite greetings in return, he took a plate and served himself from the food trays on the dining room table. Having noted that all of the available seats in the lounge were taken, he toted one of the dining room chairs with him when he went back through. He placed it next to Espoir’s garden chair. He smiled politely at Claudine in hers. How many years had it been? Therése would know exactly, but Therése wasn’t looking at him.

  Espoir’s email, which had popped into Guillome’s inbox, with its affectations of friendship, had taken him by surprise.

  From: espoir.tuhuze@writemail.com

  To: rwibonera-nzira.guillome@writemail.com

  Subject: Longtemps

  Mon ami, it has been too long. My family will be in Namibia in December. Maybe Christmas or New Year’s would be a good time, no?

  Espoir

  When Therése had read the email she had snorted with disgust. “They have no shame. No shame, I tell you. Gui, are you going to invite them here?”

  “You know we have to,” he had replied. “It wouldn’t look good if we turned them away. There would be talk.”

  “About us not having them over but not about their sneak-thief ways?”

  “We must invite them, Therése. You know this. Which one will it be? Christmas or New Year’s?”

  Therése had chosen to storm away, gusting around the house like an avenging, cleaning wind, blowing the boys out of the television room with just a look, and sulking herself into a fury that not even the best cooking or gardening shows could soothe. Later, in the brooding darkness of their bedroom, as Guillome knew she would, she had given her terse pronouncement.

  “New Year’s. There will be other people around. If I am left with them, I might do something stupid.” Then she had rolled over and turned her back to him and pretended to be asleep for the rest of the night.

  Relieved to have made it home earlier than he had anticipated, Guillome arranged his plate on his lap and tucked into his food, thankful the need for conversation was temporarily stifled by the more immediate urge to satisfy hunger. When he had finished eating he stood up and took his plate back to the dining room. He poked his head into the television room to ask Séraphin to come and collect the guests’ plates and bring a fresh round of drinks. After supper, conversation began to flow once more.

  “You had to work tonight? On New Year’s Eve even.” The sympathy in Claudine’s voice would have bedevilled a hungry crocodile.

  “Work is work,” replied Guillome. “If it has to be done, it has to be done, regardless of the day or the time.”

  “Mais, c’est la vie ici, non?” said Adrien. “We work and then work some more. It is how things are.”

  “It is so hot,” said Cesar, passing a hand across his forehead. The night had not cooled with the setting of the sun. The heat lurked around the house like an uninvited guest.

  “It would be cold in Canada now, no?” asked Guillome, turning to Espoir. Despite the man’s more impressive physique, he seemed diminished beside Guillome, whose personality somehow added physical bulk to his being. Although quiet and reserved, Guillome commanded respect and, oftentimes, deference from his friends. The only people who did not fall under his spell, it appeared, were his work colleagues – to them he deliberately cowed – and Séraphin, who seemed immune to most authority.

  “Back home it would be freezing,’ said Espoir. “I was telling Claudine earlier that it is so strange for us to be here in nothing but shirts.”

  “Yes,” Guillome said. “Back home.”

  The statement seemed innocent enough but it caused Therése’s eyebrows to rise, just a fraction. Was her husband, the diplomat, being sarcastic?

  “How is home?” Guillome asked, this time looking straight at Therése, grinning slightly.

  “Cold in winter, mild in summer …” Claudine’s voice trailed away.

  “It is busy,” said Espoir.

  “And work is going well?”

  “Yes, work is going well.”

  “Are you still working as a pharmacist?”

  Espoir wriggled in his chair. “No,” he said. “I stopped doing that a while ago.”

  “Espoir owns a pharmacy now,” said Claudine proudly. Espoir gave his wife a fleeting smile before turning back to Guillome and confirming ownership of his new business venture.

  “This is good news,” said Guillome, leaning back. “This is what we must strive to do, to start businesses.”

  “But it is tough here,” said César. “Here you need money and some miracles to get started. Then you need to pray you are not sabotaged by envious people.”

  “It is true,” said Marie Chantal. “You can be driven under quickly. Namibians do not like working for foreigners.”

  “It is tough,” said Olivier. “You cannot hire foreigners because then people will be angry at you, and you cannot hire locals because they do not work or know how to do the work. And even then,” he added ruefully, “you will be the wrong tribe.”

  Guillome chuckled at the last statement, remembering the guard from the minister’s house. “But,” he said, “we must try. We are not going anywhere else. We cannot go back home, and neither can our children. So, we must make home here.”

  Murmurs of agreement went around the circle followed by a few slow sips of juice and beer.

  “How did you get started, Espoir?” asked Eugene. “Even in Canada it cannot have been that easy.”

  Espoir fidgeted, putting his glass of juice down and picking it up again. Everyone was looking at him. “Work, save, work some more,” Espoir said. “ Then one day I saw an opening at the pharmacy I was working at and I went for it.”

  “The money was not hard to find?” asked Marie Chantal. “Over here, even if you have a good idea finance is not easy.”

  “Espoir worked and saved every day to get the pharmacy,” said Claudine. “He never went to bars or spent his money on useless things.” She barely noticed the chagrin her comment aroused in the room. “And then God did the rest.”

  The generosity of God was acknowledged by a focused effort on everyone’s part to find something interesting to look at. Most turned their attention to their drinks. Guillome and Therése looked at each other and smiled.

  “We have been so lucky,” Claudine continued, “luckier than anyone should have been. It is why we wanted to come back and visit and see how everyone was doing here. To see if we could help in some way.”

  Espoir looked at the palms of his hands as though they bore testimony to hardships the others could not see. “C’est trés difficile, ici,” he said. “But now we are in Canada we hope that we can help out. In any way we can. I have some contacts now, and if there is something I can do to help, I will do so. There are opportunities for us,
for our children.” He stopped. No one seemed inclined to fill the silence. “We could even start a Little Rwanda neighbourhood – like the Chinese with their Chinatowns,” Espoir finished.

  Guillome and Therése forced the cold engines of politeness to hum themselves into life, permitting a smattering of laughter before the fuel of good humour was exhausted.

  “In no time at all we could all be Canadians, no?”

  This time there was no polite laughter. Everyone remained silent. The pall was broken by Séraphin coming in to see if anyone needed something to drink.

  “No, no. I think we are fine, Séra,” said Guillome.

  “You used to play basketball, Séraphin, no?” asked Espoir. “What position?” The questions came at Séraphin like a fast-break pass. Everyone in the room was glad for a change of topic.

  “Yes,” Séraphin said. “Shooting guard.”

  “That is good. Thierry plays basketball too. He is the point guard on his team.”

  “Cool,” said Séraphin. He forced himself to tarry in the lounge a bit longer. It was obvious he was required to be an outlet for tension in the room.

  “The point guard is the person who controls the speed of the play,” Espoir explained to the rest of the party. “Thierry was quite good in high school, too. Do you still play, Séra?”

  “I played a lot in high school,” Séraphin told him, “but I don’t have much time anymore. Studying takes most of my time these days.”

  “Of course,” said Espoir, nodding. “Was your team good?”

  “St. Luke’s generally isn’t good at sports. But we had a strong basketball team when I was there. We made it to three consecutive finals.” Séraphin crossed his arms. Everyone looked from father to son and back again, smiling at the resemblance. “We lost all of them, though.”

  “All of them?” Espoir’s forehead creased.

  “Yes. To the same school too. The other team had Angolans …who didn’t understand what age groups were.” A rustle of laughter. “We were under-fifteen, -seventeen, and -nineteen in each year we made the final. The other team was always under-thirty.”