“And this,” you remember next, picking up and handing over the little package containing the blouse and skirt.
“Keep it and give it to the chairwoman,” says Mai. “She will also wish to have her mouth opened.”
It turns out that the chairwoman is your family’s neighbour, who lives across the gully, Mrs. Samhungu. Your mother confirms that she was democratically voted in by all the members.
When you have eaten and taken Baba his breakfast, and indicated you must leave, Mai informs him she will ride with you as far as the shops. In the car, your mother gives you more instructions. You listen and agree with everything, meaning, if Tracey objects, to change later what she would like to have altered.
“Tisvikewo! We have come with someone we didn’t know anymore,” your mother calls out as you climb out of your vehicle at the Samhungus’ homestead.
“Enter, enter, Mai Sigauke,” Mai Samhungu calls from the dimness of her kitchen. “Did you sleep well? Yes, you must have. And those you are with, because, yes, the children told us someone had come whose presence you were enjoying.”
“Aiwa, we woke up with everything well at our place,” your mother assures the chairwoman, bending in at the door. You take places on the reed mat to the left. Mai Samhungu offers to have one of her granddaughters make you tea, but you decline, saying you have just drunk some.
However, the chairwoman has not had breakfast yet, so that soon you have set before you a steaming teapot of thick, milky tea with lots of sugar, and a dish of sweet potatoes. Mai Samhungu takes one from her own portion and runs her thumb over it to slip the skin off.
“There is nothing better than tea with milk and sugar and a dish of sweet potatoes,” she beams. “And these are the very best. We don’t put any fertilizer on these ones like they do over there in the town, so they are very good. Eat, Tambudzai,” she urges. “You will enjoy them.”
“They are delicious, the most delicious,” Mai agrees. “Like sugar and butter.”
“And when you go, my daughter,” Mai Samhungu enthuses at you, “I will give you a bag of my oranges. You saw the garden, didn’t you, when you came down? That green one, with lemons and oranges, and bananas, whose leaves are as broad as a mat, like the one that you sit on.”
You are confused. You cannot remember seeing an orchard.
“The chairwoman is good,” your mother nods, swallowing some sweet potato with appetite. “We are blessed with her because she is good at everything. We have come here because she is our chairwoman, Tambudzai. But truly, you should see her oranges. As big as a baby’s head. Even on those commercial farms, with all their everything, they cannot grow oranges like our chairwoman. Do not mind her, Mai Samhungu,” she says, turning to the other woman. “It is no good asking her if she saw it, because when do these people from the city see anything?”
The chairwoman puts aside the remains of her breakfast, and asks what news there is from the capital.
“Ah, news from Harare, that is why we are here,” announces Mai, and goes on boasting. “You see her looking just as she always looked when she was running here and there, but this child of mine has become a someone.”
“You, Mai Sigauke,” the chairwoman interrupts irritably. “How? When people come from Harare, do other people stop being someone?”
Your mother merely bides her time and attempts to laugh the matter off. Nevertheless, the chairwoman makes sure Mai understands the point just made by asserting in a loud voice that she, Mrs. Samhungu, is and has always been someone; which is how she has turned her abilities to good account and bit by bit introduced new ideas, new ways, new mixtures, and new crops to the pale village soil until it gave up withholding and her garden thrived, and on account of her prowess, which everyone hoped to share, she was voted chairwoman.
You sit quietly, nodding at intervals, while Mai Samhungu lists many good qualities about herself and her ventures.
Deftly, when the Women’s Club chairwoman pauses for a moment to decide which of her excellent attributes to present next, your mother intervenes.
“This somebody here, my chairwoman,” begins Mai, resting her hand on your thigh for an instant. “This somebody that nobody sees is here not because of herself but because of another person.”
Mai Samhungu naturally inquires who that other somebody is, and why that other somebody sent somebody else to the village.
Your mother responds that you are talking about bosses and other high people so that the best thing is to listen first and then decide what to think or do; that somebody was there because of somebody’s boss, and somebody’s boss was expecting somebody shortly, so that the somebody was taking quite a risk to divert from the agreement that had been taken in Harare to come and pay respects to that somebody’s elders, with no urging other than the wise advice from that somebody’s mother.
Mai Samhungu immediately understands everything. Without too many words she and your mother agree they will discuss the matter after you leave.
The little Samhungus congregate to stare, after lugging the promised bag of oranges into the back of your twin cab. You fling sweets at them as you drive out of the chairwoman’s homestead, your hand on your hooter.
“Ba-bah-ee,” shout more village children from the roadside.
At the water pump, dogs slick their tongues under the spout and on the bricks beneath the dripping tap. You follow the trickle out of the tap without much interest. The thin stream of wastewater leads down past a copse of short musasa trees to Mai Samhungu’s garden. The plants are healthy and fruitful. Wondering how you missed the garden as you drove in causes a surge of guilt that refuses to abate. Thinking better of dropping the last of the sweets through the window to the delight of the children who run after the car, you eat them yourself as you drive back to the city.
You turn into Jason Moyo Avenue shortly before lunchtime, mentally writing your report. The queen of Africa smiles a greeting. You smile back without seeing her, and raise a hand absentmindedly at Sister Mai Gamu. As you wait in the grimy entrance hall for the lift, you congratulate yourself on many successful indicators:
* Your mother, a key woman in the community, is persuaded to go ahead with the project.
* Your mother is the treasurer of the Women’s Club, which had not been known at the time of conceptualization so that this is an additional positive outcome that was not expected.
* The money for the mambo has been deposited in reliable hands.
* The Women’s Club chairwoman, another powerful woman in the community, showed herself honoured by your visit.
You step into the lift, composing your introduction. The doors do not close. You rattle them a couple of times to no effect. You hurry up the stairs.
“She’s waiting for you,” Pedzi informs you when you step into the foyer. “Come this side,” the Ghetto Getaway project manager beckons from the reception desk. “She asked me to sit here, so I could tell you immediately.”
“Twenty minutes. To put something down,” you plead, reminding yourself she is a former receptionist.
Pedzi waggles black fingernails decorated with tiny golden blossoms. She tweaks a tissue from a box on the desk.
“The lift,” you say. “It never works.” You hold out your hand.
Pedzi walks over to you and dabs at your hairline.
“You’ll do now,” she says when she is done. “She said immediately.”
You enter the narrow passage and walk down. Halfway to the boss’s office you stop and check your armpits. As long as the sweat patch does not spread, there will not be a problem. You reach the boss’s door, knock, and are told to enter.
Your attention gravitates to Tracey’s desk the moment you peer into the room. Her swivel chair is empty. Apprehensively, you sidle in.
Your boss stands in front of the window that looks down into the sanitary lane, built for the wagons carrying slops in the early days of the city. She holds a copy of the Clarion crumpled in her hand. Spinning round as you approach, she is about to throw the new
spaper into the wastepaper bin when she realizes you have caught sight of it. She holds the pages suspended over the receptacle for a second before she changes her mind.
“This,” your boss says, “is not coming into this office anymore. In principle, it’s a racist publication. You can’t dignify it by calling it a newspaper.”
“Well,” you prevaricate blandly, “you can’t produce an article if you haven’t got anything to write. People with anything to write wouldn’t be writing for the Clarion.”
Your remark does not calm her. Her cheeks turn red.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” Tracey says, dropping the newspaper on the table, where it unfurls, showing a photograph of several top government officials in well-cut suits beside another photograph of some bedraggled, if triumphant-looking, men and women who are roasting meat on a fire in front of a farmhouse.
“It’s like the … the … bloody war,” your boss says, turning the paper over so that the sports page featuring two top cricketers is visible. “They’re singing. They’re triumphant? They’ve invaded lots more places. Because the Old Fossil ordered it. It’s been part of his plan all along. People used to say that at the agency, but I stood up for this country. I couldn’t believe it. Can you believe they were ordered to do it, to go out and destroy honest, hardworking people’s homes?”
She stands with folded arms and clenched jaw, while you think about those times at the advertising agency and the happy hour with free drinks in the company pub on a Friday evening. You do not recall occasions such as your boss speaks of. In fact, you recall the opposite, your boss leading the ceremony to give your prize to another copywriter. You feel as though your womb is flowing from between your hip bones and gathering into a pool on the floor.
“Don’t worry about them. Those newspapers just write what the politicians want. There’s good news,” you say quietly, out of breath.
“Every five years,” Tracey mutters. “We’ll be endangered every five years, people like me. Have our homes razed to the ground. You know, the Roman Empire used to do that with slaves and people. Just for votes.”
“I can go and write the report,” you say.
“No, go ahead,” she says. “Green Jacaranda’s going to be fine. Just as long as we can still get to the minister of tourism.”
You speak for longer than you intended.
After the first few sentences your boss gives you her attention.
“Good,” says Tracey, when you are done. “You say the Women’s Club chairwoman? Make sure you put that into your report, Tambu. It’s a formula for impact. Win-win. Everyone knows about those women’s clubs. Our donors will just love it.”
Your boss requests cost estimates for your family and other villagers who wish to join the project through building rondavels for the tourists on your homestead and providing entertainment, catering as well as other services. You promise your boss she will have the report earlier than she requests, complete with recommendations, perhaps as soon as the following evening.
CHAPTER 21
You work in your office until late that night. The report is ready the following lunchtime. Tracey reads it through, gives her approval, and calls you into the boardroom where you finalize the projections down to the last bale of straw required for thatching the VET rondavels.
Two weeks later you return from a second trip to the homestead. You glow with pleasure. The queen of Africa for once is too preoccupied with customers in her shop to notice you, and Sister Mai Gamu looks more ready to commit assault and battery than ever. You press the lift buttons once and the doors open.
As soon as you arrive, Pedzi is called to the boardroom for a meeting with you and Tracey.
“I assume it all went as planned?” the boss asks, rolling a biro between finger and thumb.
“It’s happening,” you assure your colleagues.
“Excellent. Take us through,” nods Tracey.
“Handwritten,” you point out, pulling your folder from your briefcase.
There are ten pages of cursive compiled over lunch, at the Half-Way House, close to Rusape.
“What I did is,” you begin, folding back a printed sheet, “I took our list of requirements down with me, and I’ve inserted in the list here who is doing each of the tasks, and in the third column I have indicated whether any of the providers is a member of my family. I can break down all the participants,” you assure your boss. “That way I can record every action in degrees of kinship.”
The boss examines the file held out to her.
“It was three large rondavels and four single, construction and rent,” she itemizes from memory.
“They know that,” you concur. “We’re encroaching on the forest a very little bit, but when that came up, I paid the mambo a small additional, well, let’s call it a ‘close the mouth.’”
You chuckle appreciatively at your little joke. Nobody else laughs. Tracey rolls her pen against her palm with all four fingers.
“Also the water taps,” you continue, slightly flustered. “Fed from the mountain stream as discussed, at least one between every two structures. Ablutions, male and female, with shower. Some of the clients might prefer not to go to the river.”
“Will they manage to schedule?” asks your boss.
“Everything,” you say. “They trust me now. My mother and the chairwoman have agreed to everything.”
“Are you sure?” your boss asks.
“I am sure,” you say.
“Great.” Tracey stands up. “Pedzi, stay here with Tamboo-dzai. Get a sense of what catering we’ll need and start ordering.”
“Delivery date?” inquires Pedzi.
“Tell them it’s pending,” Tracey instructs.
Your boss offers her hand. As you move forward, an ember of red glows through the window that looks toward the Thomas Hotel. A young woman holds earphones to her head. She looks up as though someone beckons her, then sways away.
“I think we’ll put the mambo on a retainer,” Tracey deliberates slowly. “That will be the best thing.”
You assure Tracey she will have all the agreements she requires in the morning, drafted and ready to be signed by the beneficiaries in the village.
“With respect to the contracts,” Tracey begins very carefully. “Do you think we could do it for less than we thought, than we talked of? An opening special. Let’s say, Opening Eco Special?”
You regard your boss blankly.
“I know you’ve started negotiations,” she continues. “This feedback came just after you left. From our partners.”
A plea in her gaze turns over onto its back in submission. You have not seen this before. Wondering, you meet her look squarely. Your boldness lasts a few seconds. You have not done this before, either. You look away before your boss does.
“The Amsterdam partner says it’s fine in principle, but they’re asking for a discount. Due to the delay. Also, they mentioned the new location. They see it as a greater risk. That’s their perception. I’ve assured them what we have now is perfectly safe. That’s when they began talking about value addition.”
“Value,” you repeat uncertainly. “You were right, Tracey. The village is great value. Especially now Mai is fully behind everything. She wants to meet you.”
“Africa,” amplifies Tracey. “How’re we going to add value to a bloody continent? Oh, why did they have to go onto those farms? But let’s not go into it again. It’s just that they had value on the farm. They expect the village to top it.”
“I’m doing that,” you point out, working hard to sound calm, although your armpits are sweating. “I’m working my butt off and doing a lot that is not at all easy to make our things happen because I believe in you. You have to believe I’m giving you value, Tracey.”
For a moment your boss thinks about what you have just told her. Eventually she continues, “Well, I know. You engage with your village. That’s your side of it. I talk to Amsterdam. That’s what I do on this side. Well, for Amsterdam, o
bviously the farm is the farm. The village, well that means, for them, something different, maybe not as interesting.”
“Different?” you repeat. “Interesting. That’s what we’re working to make it.”
“From our point of view, yes,” Tracey assures you. “Completely. We’re talking, in principle, real eco values, authenticity, like millet and thatch, milk from the udder. We haven’t done that before, that’s unlocked value. They’re talking the rest of it, you know, all those things they say go with villages on … uh, on our landmass, like dancing authentically … minimal, like agh, loincloths, naked … torsos.”
As you begin to understand, the air in the room floats to the floor. Outside the birds in the air fly down to roost. The leaves stop taking in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Naked male chests are normal in traditional dance. Tracey can only be talking about the women.
“M-m, Tracey,” protests Pedzi. “All of that kind of thing is too sensitive just now. Those people on the farms. We have to do something. Everyone knows. But I think it is better if we find a way. It is better if no one exposes anything.”
Blushes flush through Tracey’s face. She looks neither you nor Pedzi in the eye.
“Beads,” she suggests. “People always have lots of them.”
Pedzi giggles and turns to you whispering, “Ewo, queen of the village.”
Tracey is vexed with the queen of the ghetto. “Don’t you understand?” she snaps, “This is no laughing matter, either of you. Please get this into your heads. There is no choice. We have to.”
You indicate you have the point in your head and you will find a way to spin the proposal. Forbidding yourself to hyperventilate, you struggle with the changes and to keep hold of your elation.
Ba’Tabitha is waiting to open the gate and lock it behind your vehicle when you arrive home several hours later.
Ma’Tabitha is waiting in the kitchen in front of the stove.
“Ma’Tabitha,” you begin, for you did not give instructions for cooking and you wish to be alone.
“There are people waiting for you,” says Ma’Tabitha.
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