An Ounce of Practice

by Zeilig, Leo;

  The house was grotesque. The four-car garage boasted a luminous new Jeep, twin-cab and two Mercedes. A garden hose sat uncoiled on the driveway. The front lawn was manicured with shears, the sides and corners where the lawn bordered the flowerbeds and drive cut with the kitchen scissors. Viktor had seen Godfrey on his first morning, when he had woken in the enormous bed and not known where he was for a second. When he drew the curtains in the spare bedroom light had poured over him. In the joyful sun he saw parrots in the rustling palm trees, flying off, screaming, returning again, their wings open like petals. Viktor had gasped. The circus of gold, yellow, dark, pale, radiant greens settled and formed in his head, registered themselves.

  In one corner of this scene, Viktor still standing at the window, there was a figure, camouflaged in patched, khaki dungarees. He was shoeless. His feet dug into the grass. He was stretched on the lawn as if he was spying, waiting, his body not moving. Viktor looked closer and saw that his back was moving rhythmically under his clothes. Viktor scanned the garden: further from the prostrate man, in the distance by the garages, was a washing line and on it a row of green overalls flapping in the morning breeze. On each were the words: Louis’s House Services. Viktor dropped his eyes to the man. In his right hand was a pair of scissors. He was snapping at overgrown blades of grass at the edge of the flowerbed with a pair of black and chrome household scissors. On his back were the same overalls that waved to Viktor on the distant breeze. A circle of perspiration ringed his collar. The man’s hair was receding, his skin old. Viktor felt sick, dizzy. He put his hands on the windowsill and steadied himself.

  When he focused again he saw not the stiff, exhausted figure of the servant, his knuckles too swollen to grip the scissors properly, but his own father, who had never travelled further than France, who sheltered in the summer from the mild sun, whose hands were now like this man’s, unfit for purpose, too thick to hold a pen or wield his lunchtime cutlery with any elegance. Viktor imagined that it was his father lying on the grass, the sun burning into his back, humiliated. Viktor had wanted to tell Louis what he thought, that if he too looked closely at the man trimming his garden on his stomach he would see his own father as well.

  Louis had burst out of the house, releasing his dogs. Their tails hit the side of the decrepit taxi, the hollow metal echoing loudly. Louis pushed his hand into the cab and a pile of creased notes sprang out. Heavy, bare, crude, Louis walked towards the house with his arm resting on Viktor’s shoulder. Under the porch, the security lights flashed on. The dogs barked, bouncing around the men, ecstatic and stupid.

  Vicki sat on a tall stool in the kitchen swilling white wine around in her glass. ‘Vicki has been cooking all afternoon. We are going to have a hearty Greek meal with Rhodesian hospitality,’ Louis chuckled to himself. Vicki put her glass down on the counter, stood up, steadied herself and then tottered to Viktor, rocking uneasily on her heels.

  ‘Darling!’ she said, reaching up to Viktor’s face. She squeezed his cheeks and then dropped her hands to his shoulder and kissed him firmly on the lips, her mouth open, the smell of alcohol on her breath. Viktor winced. ‘Garlic king prawns. Salad. Dessert,’ she announced.

  Louis opened the cupboard, where bottles of wine were stacked in neat rows. With elaborate overstatement he pulled out a bottle, examined the label dramatically, shook his head, put it back aggressively. He repeated this procedure and on the third attempt he exclaimed, with the bottle held to the light, ‘I have the perfect bottle, Vik. We’ve been saving it.’ He filled a glass and handed it to the guest.

  Vicki took Viktor’s hand and led him to the back patio. The garden stretched out wider than the house, reached a steep, rocky, artificial ridge in the distance, then plunged down to the swimming pool. From the patio the night sky filled the horizon, uninterrupted by houses or trees. The mechanical, repetitive chug of the generator from neighbouring houses competed with the loud, dry click of cicadas and the throaty call of the giant bullfrog.

  They sat in the padded wicker garden chairs. Viktor knew how to play his part. ‘You shouldn’t have cooked, Vicki. You and Louis are too kind.’ He couldn’t say, ‘I know, we all know, that you haven’t cooked this afternoon – you supervised other people’s labour in your kitchen, skidding on the white tiles in your heels with a tall glass of wine. Please, friends, let’s give up this farce.’ And yet some people in Zimbabwe call this cooking your own meal, Viktor thought. Mugabe has a point.

  Vicki responded, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I’m a terrible cook. It’s only Louis who believes I actually do any cooking in this house.’

  ‘What did you say, darling?’ Louis shouted from the kitchen.

  ‘I was telling Viktor that he should come and stay with us and bring Anne-Marie. He could have Jack’s room; he’s not going to be back until December.’ Vicki eased her shoes off. Her feet dangled off the floor, her misshapen toes moving together. ‘Why don’t you?’ she asked, her tone soft, her head turned back to the guest.

  ‘Thanks, Vicki. That’s very kind, but I am okay in town. I’m staying with Anne-Marie.’

  Louis joined them, opening the fly door with his shoulder. He put a glass of wine on the table and from a pocket in his shorts removed a phone and gave it to Viktor.

  ‘Now you are going to phone Rosa.’

  Viktor obeyed and took the phone.

  ‘Let him do it alone, at least,’ Vicki said, levering herself up and walking onto the lawn, indicating to her husband with a nod of her head to come with her. Louis quickly filled his glass again and followed her. ‘No fucking excuses, Vik. Call.’

  The couple zigzagged to the crest of the hill, then fell onto the grass and hung their legs over the edge. Their bodies were sharply traced by the light of the half-moon, the sky throbbing with specks of ancient light. The sound of the garden, of the city and country, the frogs, crickets, even the generator seemed to Viktor, sitting with the plastic receiver in his hand, a discordant song to the earth – man, amphibian, insect, machine singing together inharmoniously. The black speckled desert sky teemed in its own way with life and noise. Even these crickets understand their place better than me.

  Viktor pressed hard on the illuminated keypad: the international code, Nina’s number. He pulled up his sleeve and saw it was seven o’clock, six in the UK. The ring sounded faint in the distance.

  ‘Hello?’ Rosa answered, her voice small.

  Viktor was silent. He had not expected his daughter to answer – how could she? How did this miniature child, who could only reach the kitchen counters on her toes, answer the phone? He was ready for Nina, the phone slammed down, an accusation, but not this, not the low, distant voice of his daughter.

  ‘Hello, is anyone there?’ Rosa asked.

  Viktor shook his head, jerked into focus. ‘Darling, it’s me. It’s Daddy. It’s Viktor.’ The phone hissed and popped with static. There was no answer. ‘Are you there, sweetie?’

  ‘When are you coming back, Daddy?’ Rosa spoke so softly.

  Viktor saw her holding the phone with two hands, in the hall, where the old office phone was kept on top of a pile of telephone books – the phone he had stolen from work, smuggled home in his backpack. Now Rosa knew the way to the phone and was old enough to stand in the draughty corridor, on the stripped floorboards, and answer it.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ Viktor forced his voice to speak loudly, to colour the question with excitement, to skin it of doubt and sadness. ‘How’s school, sweetie?’ He saw her alone in the house and worried, in her pink towelling dressing gown with the plastic Disney princesses on the back. Had she been left by Nina as well? Abandoned at seven by both her parents? Left to shuffle around the flat, butter her sandwiches, let herself out, tiptoe with the key to get in when she came back from school, her bed crowded with blankets and toys to keep her company at night in her parentless world?

  Rosa rushed over her sentences, packed the phone full of the lost months. ‘I’ve got a best friend! She’s called Lara. She comes over
most days. She lives opposite. Mum allows me to cross the road to her house. We play Dr Scar. There’s Dr Scar and his wife, Mrs Scar, and they have two children, Benjamin Fire Scar and Lily Roselyn Killer Scar. She’s my favourite. When you come over I will show you. We can play together. I will set up a bed in my room. Mum won’t mind. When are you coming back? I miss you.’

  Rosa’s voice trailed off; she was silent again.

  ‘I had to go away for a while, sweetheart. I am still away, but I got you something.’ Viktor heard Nina’s voice behind Rosa’s. ‘Do you remember how we went from bookshop to bookshop when we were last together? Do you remember what were we looking for?’

  ‘A proper book of spells,’ Rosa answered without hesitation.

  ‘Well, guess what I found?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A book of spells. And I am going to send it to you.’

  ‘Don’t send it,’ Rosa said matter-of-factly. ‘Bring it with you when you come.’

  ‘Okay.’ Viktor looked into the garden. Louis was lying with his head in Vicki’s lap, her hand stroking his head.

  ‘Read me one. Have you got the book with you? ... It’s Daddy. It’s Daddy, Mummy. He’s a long, long way away but he’s coming home.’

  The wall under the porch where Viktor sat was covered in insects, all crawling towards the yellow bulb. The cicadas called out repetitively. The sky flickered with light as if the throbbing stars were messaging earth, instructing Viktor what to say, drawing Vicki’s hand across Louis’s brow, causing Rosa’s excited, nervous heart to pound in her chest.

  ‘Read me a spell, Daddy!’

  Viktor dug into his pocket and pulled out the small pink paperback printed on cheap paper: A Book of Spells. He had found it in the shelves of the shop opposite Louis’s café, a new age cure for ‘daily sadness and the stresses of modern living’ in, of all places, Harare – a city that had already conquered the mere sadness and stress of modern life and plunged headlong into hell.

  ‘Okay, sweetheart, I have it here with me. Let me just find one.’ Rosa was silent. The crackle of the phone, the long distance, filled the receiver. ‘I’ve got it,’ Viktor finally announced.

  ‘What’s it called? If it’s a proper spell it should have a name,’ Rosa said adamantly.

  ‘It’s called ... wait ... Let me see. Okay, darling, the spell is entitled To Strengthen a Long-Distance Friendship.’

  ‘Read it to me,’ Rosa ordered abruptly, issuing instructions to her father as a child should do. As if, Viktor thought, I haven’t been away and we are together, crouched low in the hallway, the book open.

  ‘If you have a close and trusted friend who has moved abroad or to a far-flung town, you will find your time together even more precious.’ Viktor’s voice faltered as he read the spell. He stopped; he could make out the slight sound of Rosa breathing, her mouth touching the phone. A cricket sprang onto the veranda. Its black body reflected the light. Exposed and unprotected, it shouted louder – Vik, Vik, Vik. Was this Rosa’s Zimbabwean form: had the insect come to hear the incantation too? Brazen, confident, the cricket stood its ground, chirping in time with the spell. The black mass of insects on the wall behind Viktor seemed to swarm closer, gathering to him, to the phone, to the words on the page. The sound of the insects pounded in Viktor’s free ear; he pressed a finger to close it, silencing them.

  ‘Go on,’ she almost shouted. ‘Get on with it, Dad!’ Forever and from now on, you will take your orders from me. For running away, I divest you of all agency. All rights of action. ‘Go on, Dad,’ she repeated, more softly.

  ‘Buy an A4 notepad and, when together, light an orange candle over it. Together, say: “Merry meet and merry part, Before I go, my heart I’ll show”.’

  Viktor felt something on his leg. He leant forward and saw a long insect in two segments, each with a set of transparent ribbed wings. The oval body was striped yellow and black. Its forked claw-mouth opened and shut as it waded up Viktor’s calf. Behind it Viktor saw the cicada, its hind legs, rubbing visibly, calling to the others to come off the wall and follow the giant, grotesque wasp leading the assent, the assault, on this man, this imposter. Viktor looked around him. The terrace was being overrun by insects – the chair too. Between the heavy weave of the chair, more life came.

  He continued to read. ‘Now, each makes a dated entry in the book. Decide on a keeper of the journal.’

  Viktor watched as the wasp hauled itself over his knee, moved through his thick leg hair, found the hem of his shorts, pulled itself up and continued across the creases of his shorts to the bottom of his shirt.

  ‘Every time you meet, repeat the incantation and then use the pages to explore your progress and thoughts since you last met.’

  Nina’s voice sounded behind Rosa, clear and loud. ‘You have to go to bed, Rosa. Tell your dad to phone back tomorrow.’

  ‘Finish the spell,’ Rosa said calmly.

  ‘Continue to fill in the notebook diary and you will find it becomes a fascinating and enlightening Book of Shadows.’

  Viktor couldn’t make out the garden any more. He tried to scan the horizon for his hosts, but he couldn’t focus. The wall and floor now sang in a dry, rough chorus. The wasp reached his chest and rested, its mouth twitching. Around the chair an audience had gathered. Insects that didn’t even have names, that had never been seen before, alive for a day then eaten by their offspring, involved in the same scramble to eat and suck and gather. ‘Merry meet. Merry part.’ An inch-thick centipede, blood red, long enough to take down a lion, a man, approached Viktor. Others, with pinchers, snapped at the latecomers. Cockroaches the size of mice winged into the air, flew blindly, crashed into the wall, fell and crawled back to the circle, pushing their way to the front.

  ‘Darling, that’s it,’ Viktor said finally.

  ‘What’s a Book of Shadows?’ Rosa asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Witches, I think, keep their spells in a Book of Shadows.’

  Nina shouted more roughly, louder. ‘That’s enough, Rosa! It’s bedtime.’

  ‘We will keep a Book of Shadows. We will keep one together,’ Rosa said.

  ‘Yes. You can be the “Keeper”, sweetie.’

  ‘We will keep it together.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘When will you phone again? Tomorrow. Phone tomorrow.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Mum, he’s going to call tomorrow.’

  ‘I love you, sweetheart,’ Viktor said.

  ‘I love you too, Daddy. Another spell tomorrow.’

  The phone clicked. The static cleared. Viktor got up and the wasp fell, hit the ground and scurried angrily away, thrashing its wings. The wall cleared and the light widened, throwing back the shadows.

  Viktor saw Louis and Vicki walking towards him.

  *

  A moment after the cannons stopped firing, Viktor and Anne-Marie heard a scream, then the sound of feet on dry gravel. There was shouting in the distance. From the trees a man came out, yelling, behind his two children. Anne-Marie stepped away from Viktor and tried to make out the figures. A small white and ginger animal was zigzagging ahead of the family.

  ‘What is it?’ Viktor screamed.

  Anne-Marie swivelled on her heels to face Viktor. ‘It’s a bloody dog. It’s gone crazy, dingue, because of the guns.’

  The man’s scream became more urgent. The dog passed Anne-Marie’s car, bounded up the steps to the main road and disappeared. The man reached the car, panting, his face wet, his cagoule open, his eyes ablaze. ‘I was telling you to stop the dog!’ he shouted angrily as he passed them and bounded up the steps, taking three in each stride.

  Anne-Marie shouted after him, ‘It’s your bloody dog, mister!’

  Some distance behind him were the two children, the boy howling, tears running down his face, his sister holding his hand and pulling him on. The girl had large eyes, thick lashes, a centre parting and ruffled, sandy hair.

  Anne-Marie knelt in front of them and opened her ar
ms. Viktor walked away from the car and joined her.

  ‘There’s no point you running as well. Let’s wait here for your dad,’ Anne-Marie said.

  The boy stuttered, ‘Toby’s going to die.’

  Another thunderous boom echoed, shaking the trees and casting the children into Anne-Marie’s embrace. Viktor took the keys from Anne-Marie’s bag, unlocked the car and found his phone. He took a photo of the children’s white, flushed faces hanging over Anne-Marie’s shoulder, their bodies crossed.

  The children sobbed, the boy repeating, ‘Toby’s going to die.’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Anne-Marie replied. ‘Your dad will catch him.’

  The scene was repeated. The dog, his coat shimmering red, ran out of the wood. This time a few steps behind him was the man, yanking his arms free from his jacket, then dropping it on the ground.

  Viktor snapped another photo of the children, then ran, his great giraffe legs carrying him quickly to the stairs. The pavement and road were a metre away from him. He saw the lights of a car flash through the trees, turn the corner and accelerate up the hill towards him.

  Viktor’s hand was clammy round his phone. From his position he could see the entire scene under him. The children had left Anne-Marie’s embrace and stared as their father chased the dog, stooping, his arms in front of him, trying to scoop up the animal.

  Viktor thought, How tiring it is being a man, to be a father. He saw in the children’s faces so much expectation, so much love for this ridiculous man. It struck him as deeply unfair how Rosa was obliged to love him, how she had no choice in the matter. From her relationship with him her love flowed abundantly – a torrent, a flood. If she had been able to choose her father, surely she would have found a more worthy vessel for her affections. All these children, his daughter and the two now standing next to Anne-Marie on the gravel, would have chosen differently if they could. If they had been given a choice. Rosa is stuck with me. Her love came not from anything he did, but his simple presence and title in her life.