by Zeilig, Leo;
Lucky Days: Tuesday and Thursday
Unlucky Days: Friday and Saturday
Colour of Affirmation: Amber
Tired, worn, his temples aching, his stomach unsettled, Viktor stared at the email, read and reread the message, searched for the meaning. Why must the truth always be hidden, why must it require such a ceaseless struggle, why did life only yield to blood and sweat? He felt his stomach turn. He wanted to settle, find peace, a steady, non-fatiguing climb. Most of all, he wanted a place to stand that didn’t tilt and give way. He wanted to feel the comfort of the ground and be sure of his own foundation. Nina’s claim on him, on his life, seemed to threaten each foothold he found in the present. But the present seemed to be determined by the ruin and heartbreak of the past.
*
Anne-Marie had invited Viktor to attend a ceremony and drinks at Meikles Hotel on Nelson Mandela Avenue and they had argued – briefly, concisely. ‘You want to know Zimbabwe, then come with me. Meet the NGO community, see what we do, meet my colleagues. Viktor, I need you to see what I do.’ They were having the conversation in the morning, six weeks after Viktor had returned from Bulawayo, six weeks since the start of the campaign for Biko’s release. Anne-Marie sat on the edge of the bed, blindly pulling on her shoes, then standing over her skirt, squatting, finding the hem and pulling it up over her calves and thighs, twisting and turning in her morning dance.
‘It’s only a question of time. I have limited time and at the end of the day I feel the dread of what I haven’t done. The calls, the emails. I need every waking minute for the campaign – without distraction.’ Viktor propped himself up on two pillows and let the sheet fall from his torso. His answer was not honest; he did not want to go. He did not want to see Anne-Marie in her industry. He had already seen too much. The large estates in the north of the city vacated by Zimbabwe’s white community, the opulent lawns, the sounds of children splashing in private swimming pools, the fleet of new vehicles – the obscenity of privilege in this city of the walking dead. Whole neighbourhoods filled with the foreign staff of international NGOs. He couldn’t go, he wouldn’t be able to hold the contradiction.
‘Rubbish. You can spare an evening.’ Anne-Marie hooked her bra over her arms, fastened it, then slid it into place. She pulled the curtains open. The room broke into light and she squinted.
‘You are not being honest. You don’t want to come because you feel embarrassed about the work I do. True?’ She kicked a pile of her clothes on the floor, trying to find her shirt.
Viktor shielded his eyes from the light – somehow the sun was never tiresome, never an irritation, it always lifted him. He felt a second’s wonderment when everything seemed newly foreign and unknown to him. He revelled in these moments – this sense of playing a part and not having to be himself. ‘True,’ he answered.
‘I am insulted. First, you don’t see my own criticism of the NGOs – which, you will admit, is a little more empirical than yours. Second, you are refusing an invitation into my world. That’s crap, Viktor.’
Viktor didn’t respond. It was difficult to make a decision in the bright starkness of the room. His head was crowded with noises: Anne-Marie as she pulled her pale blue shirt over her shoulders and then bent to reach her shoes, the distant sound of traffic, the scraping of feet on the concrete floors in the communal corridors. He knew the question but couldn’t formulate an answer.
‘Okay,’ he said finally, ‘you’re right. Let’s go.’ Of course I should go, he thought instantly after he had spoken. How fucking stubborn of me to resist.
*
The hotel was an aberration. Meikles shone in the night that fell early in Harare. Lights were cast over every surface of the hotel – the great arch, the huge doorway, the driveway that led up from the main road, the trees wrapped in coils of tiny illuminations, the lawns glittering with white fairy lights. The hotel had been rebuilt in the great wave of foreign investment in the nineties, with the execution of the first austerity and adjustment programme. ZANU-PF – the party of the African renaissance and land reform – had pushed through the structural reforms with breathless impatience. The new commandments had come out easily: ‘Comrades, in the next stage of the liberation struggle it is our duty to create the best circumstances for direct foreign investment. Brothers and sisters, fellow Zimbabweans, President-Comrade-the-Right-Honourable-Robert-Gabriel-Mugabe has said we all need to make sacrifices.’ So, in the name of the people, the second wave of liberation saw an inundation of suffering as hospitals and health centres were closed, universities and colleges were starved of funding and food subsidies were scrapped. The people did not suffer; they died. But Harare did experience a building boom of hotels, shopping malls, multiplex cinemas and takeaway outlets, and, after 1994, freed from the burden of apartheid, South African businesses hurried north.
Anne-Marie drove, her mood positive. She played the one failing cassette on her car stereo over and over again – the words came out loudly: Ngaï na bugui nzéla, Po’ bo tikaki ngaï mosika, Yango na komaki sé mitélengano, Koko lakisa ngaï nzéla. I lost my way, Because you left me behind, That’s why I wandered aimlessly, Grandfather show me the way. The voice crackled out of the speakers, high and unbearably sad. Viktor, who had asked for a translation, didn’t understand why it was the only song she sang along to or why it made her so cheerful. Anne-Marie turned carefully into Nelson Mandela Avenue, which ran along the high walls of the hotel. Cars swerved round her; drivers shouted for her to speed up and sounded their horns.
Viktor saw on the wall the faded words of the government’s old commitment to austerity and adjustment – You must work, work again, work more, always work. Involuntarily he shouted, hit the dashboard, fumbled to find the volume on the cassette player. ‘Look, Anne-Marie!’ He turned to the window, then back to her as the car passed the faded words: ‘I have read about ZANU’s campaign to sell structural adjustment. Can you see it? Those words. The party of African socialism telling the poor to work harder, to do nothing but work. This, this was the gospel of economic adjustment across the continent, sacrifice and hard work. Disgusting.’
They had pulled up behind a queue of vehicles turning into the hotel. Anne-Marie breathed in, felt the air inflate her lungs. ‘Viktor,’ she said, her voice tight and controlled, ‘when I am listening to Papa Wemba, do not touch the volume. D’accord?’ She wanted the evening to be normal and their conversation to be straightforward for once, without incident. Why is he explaining this to me? she thought. I know the history better than he does. She needed them to just dwell in the ridiculous festivities, the food, the absurdity of her work, and for one night suspend the critique. Just one evening free of commentary – that’s what she wanted. To live in this world, occasionally we need to suspend it.
‘Indulge me tonight, Viktor – just suck it in, take mental notes and tomorrow we will digest together. Do you think I am happy with all of this?’ She raised her hands momentarily from the steering wheel. ‘No. But I need to take a break sometimes. It’s a comedy show. Treat the evening like a comedy show. Try to enjoy it. Enjoyment is the project for this evening.’ The car passed the gates of the hotel, the wheels spat up the gravel drive – she handled the car in irritation. She saw a bay ahead and drove quickly, accelerating past a low-hung Land Cruiser full of suited white men. She swung the Golf quickly and veered in fast, right across their path and into the space.
The evening gala was a celebration of Zimbabwe’s teeming NGO sector and a minor challenge to the government. ZANU had been claiming that the huge funds pouring into the country’s NGOs – US$850 million had been the last stated figure – were meant for anti-government activities. The United States Agency for International Development played the leading role in this plot: Western aid workers, country heads, were stooges in a nefarious plot to unseat the radical reforms of the government. Just that morning, a party intellectual from the University of Zimbabwe had stated bombastically in the government paper, ‘The international community of th
ieves and criminals will receive a cruel awakening to the futility of their attempts to destabilise our radical government. The regime change agenda has collapsed a long time ago and its failure is the result of the choices the people of Zimbabwe made to have Mugabe, the God-given leader, elected. No other leader in the Southern Hemisphere is so universally accepted and applauded by his people.’
Viktor had read the article to Anne-Marie that morning as she crashed through the kitchen, grabbing a plate from the sink, pouring herself juice. He had laughed at the article, jeering at its coarseness, the hyperbole and overstatement. ‘They are right,’ Anne-Marie had replied. She elbowed the bedroom door open, leant on the frame, plate in hand, eating a piece of bread layered thickly with peanut butter. ‘ZANU is right. NGOs were using funds to effect regime change, or trying to. From the moment of George Bush and Tony Blair, the West wanted to get rid of the government, and the NGOs were one way they could siphon funds to projects aimed at destabilising the regime. I have seen the money and the documents.’
‘So you are basically a stooge, as X-Party claims, for regime change,’ Viktor had said, smiling.
Chewing slowly on her crust, Anne-Marie had nodded. ‘Basically.’ Then, laughing, ‘One microloan at a time. My rural women couldn’t give a fuck about Mugabe or regime change.’ Then, swallowing, clearing her mouth, she had said, ‘It was never an effective strategy, and the West was never consistent. They used some of the money to train activists in the early days, but soon the money did what money does – enriched a class of local and international NGO bosses. Zimbabwe is not important enough. We don’t sit on oil or occupy land in the Middle East. Casting Zimbabwe into the lunatic periphery of the solar system has helped save the regime.’
Viktor came round the car and took Anne-Marie’s hand, and the couple walked slowly together towards the shimmering entrance. Officially, the evening was a celebration of the years of cooperation and partnerships between local and international NGOs. Appropriately, therefore, the banner pegged to two giant stakes in the garden read, ‘Zimbabwe’s Voluntary Forum: Twenty-Five Years of Cooperation and Development’. Viktor held his tongue, fighting the urge to mock, laugh, analyse.
The gardens that stretched around the hotel came to life at night. There was a cacophony of frogs, lizards, crickets – each struggling for survival against the other, courting, fucking, killing (Viktor wondered if it was in that order). There seemed to be a thousand voices screaming for attention.
Anne-Marie handed the card invitation to the porter, who nodded and lowered his head. They moved into the hotel, a sweep of halls, a mahogany reception desk, polished tiles and a crystal chandelier blossoming high in the vaulted ceiling. Even here, the city beyond the perimeter wall and gardens could not be silenced – there was the sound of the streets, screeching tyres, motorbikes.
Viktor couldn’t help it: he basked in the might and opulence of the room, turned his face up to the chandelier and felt its heat on his face. It is drying me like the sun, he thought. Anne-Marie pulled him to, jerked him back. The room was packed, the partygoers young, evenly white and black. Behind the crowds were waiters, some holding champagne bottles, others with silver trays and food. Through the lobby was a large terrace, the swimming pool and more guests, men in suits, women in evening gowns.
Anne-Marie wore her own strapless gown in a metallic silver charmeuse, the bodice hugging her curves to just above her knee, then giving way to a flared skirt with a bouquet of silver roses at one side – a glamorous retro-Hollywood look which she’d finished with a simple rhinestone necklace and red lipstick. When she’d hauled it out of a closet and tried it on in the bedroom the night before the gala, Viktor had closed the zipper for her – it was a little too tight and Anne-Marie had to hold her arms up, cursing quietly. Once it was secured, she had sashayed a little, enjoying her effect on Viktor, who was too flustered and aroused to come up with a proper compliment. In a panic, Viktor had asked Louis in the morning what he should do; miraculously, after a call, a shouted order, a tuxedo was summoned up, arriving, laundered, on a wire hanger in a see-through plastic wrapper. Together they looked different, unusual, and in this lavish setting entirely appropriate.
Competing with the faint, distant sounds of traffic, the low drone of insects and amphibians, was a group of musicians sitting in a semicircle, playing Mozart’s Haydn Quartets. Viktor wanted to rush into the garden and speak to the musicians – ask them, tell them, Did you know what Haydn said to Mozart’s father? ‘Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me.’ And from Mozart’s father, Viktor’s mind ran to his daughter – with the frenzy of conversation around him, he remembered all of a sudden the summer he had bought a bicycle and fastened on a child’s seat so they could ride around in the morning, singing songs about eating baddies and playing in the swimming pool. Viktor held on tightly to Anne-Marie, the sweat breaking, puckering up on his skin. Why did I ever stop doing that? He remembered how Rosa smelt, her sweet, sticky skin next to him, her clutching, adamant embraces. How he had slipped seamlessly into her private monologues. ‘Daddy,’ she would say, ‘can carry two persons. So can Mummy. Daddy loves Rosa.’
Anne-Marie tugged hard at his hand. In the distance, by the doors to the terrace, there was a white couple waving at them. There were American accents; Anne-Marie could hear French. The air whirred and spun with satisfaction. Anne-Marie drew Viktor towards her. ‘Look around you,’ she snorted. ‘These Westerners, the kids, come in dumb and at the end of their tour leave even dumber. Care, Century Agriculture, Hands On – if their missions are less than three months, their foreign staff stay here – look around – they stay here.’ Her hot breath on his cheek felt comforting.
As they moved slowly through the cocktails, the reception, there were nods and smiles thrown at them; a sort of mocking admiration, Anne-Marie imagined, at the sight of this mixed-race couple. Quietly, she continued to brief Viktor. ‘This is Tim and Andy, that is Andrea, from Australia. They work for the competition, Century Agriculture. They are good, better than the others. Now you have to understand the big discrepancies between NGO expats and local workers – it’s key.’ Anne-Marie was talking quickly, expertly acknowledging her colleagues. They passed a large table of food, plates of red meats, cheeses, crackers, olives. ‘The expats earn tax-free salaries in US dollars and live in free accommodation – you have seen the places. They have two accounts, two salaries, one they don’t touch in the States or the UK or France and another paid locally for all of their in-country expenses. Now, the locals’ – she looked up at Viktor, winked, and pointed a finger to her chest – ‘do the grunt work in the rural areas and clear a fraction of the salary.’ Viktor was listening attentively. They were now only a few paces from the terrace. ‘Mugabe’s diatribes against NGOs have given certain protection for local African workers against excessive abuses.’
‘My god, mudiwa, you sound like an X-Party hack again.’ Viktor laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. Tim, an oversized Australian, almost Viktor’s height but broad and heavy, smiled and leant down to kiss Anne-Marie. Andy, his partner, put her arms out and touched Viktor’s side, her high forehead rising with her smile.
‘Rock forward, kids. Isn’t this wild?’ Tim spoke loudly, his voice bouncing. Anne-Marie made the introductions and turned to present Viktor.
‘I’m going to come right over there and give that lovely tall guy on your arm a hug.’ Tim passed his glass to Andy, stepped forward and put his arms around Viktor.
‘Tim and Andy,’ Anne-Marie spoke, amused at Tim’s ebullience, ‘work shooting short documentaries for Century Agriculture. Since the late nineties they haven’t been able to return to Australia. Am I right? They prefer our poverty and misery.’
Viktor looked at Anne-Marie, shocked, pleased – he liked her directness. Andy continued the narrative, speaking quietly. ‘It’s true. We have never been able to settle in Oz.’ Her forehead creased as she spoke. ‘After a stint in Thai
land and now Southern Africa, we can never go back.’
The couples chatted. Tim and Andy had been together for ten years. Tim shot films in rural schools transformed by the good offices of Century Agriculture, then Andy edited them. On the side – to deepen their impact – they sold photographic stills and artwork of poor rural children in Melbourne studios and art galleries. ‘Then, once we are back in-country, we have ceremonies – this is nothing to do with any of this.’ Tim spoke conspiratorially, waving his hand, rubbing out the gathering. ‘At these ceremonies we present the children with an envelope of money for the art we sold in Oz. So the kids get an idea of art as fun,’ he paused, letting the words infiltrate his listeners, ‘and also a potential income. A way out of their poverty. These people’ – another wave of the hand – ‘wouldn’t get it. But I know you two radicals do.’
Viktor nodded his head and spoke calmly. ‘So you sell poverty porn to wealthy Australians to hang next to their Aboriginal art, and give lessons in free enterprise to Zimbabwe’s rural children. That sounds like Mugabe’s entrepreneurship and business acumen. Congratulations. Don’t you think it’s exploitative?’
He delivered the line straight, poker-faced. Tim, Andy and Anne-Marie paused for an instant, then burst into laughter. Anne-Marie’s was loud – she shook her head slowly. ‘Yes,’ she said, pleased. ‘Exploitative and paternalistic.’
‘Excellent,’ Andy said. ‘Like Mugabe! Very funny.’ They all laughed again.
The quartet had stopped playing and a stocky, thick man in a suit had come up to the microphone and started to speak. His tone was warm, familiar. There was movement around the two couples as other guests made their way onto the terrace.
Andy took Anne-Marie’s arm, pulling her aside. ‘I need to speak to you alone, can we have a quick chat?’
The women moved a few paces to the side, Viktor emptied the rest of his glass and looked around for a refill. Tim waved manically to a waiter moving between the guests with a bottle and indicated Viktor’s empty glass. ‘A refill for this pisshead!’ He laughed loudly.