‘There was a huge amount of racial tension,’ Mum continued. ‘Students were protesting the lack of inclusivity, and the police would come when there were riots.’
‘So you were protesting?’ I asked Mum.
‘Well, Hannah … Well, no. I wasn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Maybe you’re too young to understand, but it was a scary time back then. You couldn’t speak up …’
‘But there were people speaking up?’
‘Hannah,’ Nana chimed in, rushing to Mum’s defence. ‘You have to remember, your mother was a Zimbabwean going to university in a different country, in South Africa. If she had rocked the boat, or got in any trouble with the police, that could’ve potentially been the end of her studies, she could’ve been sent right back here.’
‘Mum, you don’t need to make excuses for me. The truth is, no, I wasn’t part of the protests. Maybe I should have been. I don’t know.’ Mum smoothed down a photograph in the top corner of the page that had come unstuck on one edge. ‘Yes, it was scary but there was also a lot of misinformation and … well, I was starting university. I was young. I do have great admiration for all those people who did fight.’
‘I just can’t believe everyone at your university was white,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t that weird?’
‘Well, it wasn’t just university, it was everywhere. You would never have seen black South Africans on the same beach as white people, for example.’
‘Where did they go to the beach?’ I asked.
‘I … I guess I don’t know. Somewhere else? It was a strange society. I remember we once wanted to play another girls’ hockey team, from a predominantly black African uni, but we weren’t sure how to go about it because, you know, where would they go to the toilet or get changed during matches? They couldn’t use our bathrooms.’
I told Mum that this was probably the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
‘Yeah, it was stupid. But that was how it was … and no-one in my circles really questioned it,’ Mum said, as she flipped through the rest of the graduation pictures. ‘Oh, see this. This was my old university digs.’ She pointed to a blue-washed house in a row of small Victorian terraces. One of the photographs was of Mum inside the house, dressed as some sort of court jester, laughing with her arm around a man in a firefighter uniform sporting dark sunglasses as they both clutched pink plastic cups.
I asked her whether it was a picture of her and Dad, but she was so distracted that it was Nana who replied.
‘No, that’s not Steve. That was your mother’s college sweetheart, David Schmitt.’
‘Dreamy Dave, we used to call him,’ Mum said, breaking out of her reverie.
‘Where are the photos of Dad?’
‘Well, I didn’t meet your dad until after I had left uni, remember? And I was back home in Zimbabwe. I don’t think Nana has any photos.’
‘Of course I have photos,’ Nana retorted. She dove back into the pile of albums on the floor and fished out one with a glossy white finish.
‘I can’t believe you kept those, Mum …’
‘What, you think I’m not going to keep the photos of my only daughter’s wedding day? Pfft.’
‘I wanna see!’ I cried out. I had never seen any of the wedding pictures.
‘Oh, we don’t have to look at these …’ Mum started, but the album was already open on my lap.
There she was, standing in front of the church doors, dressed in a simple satin gown, hair pinned back with a few wispy curls framing her face. Her lips were painted red, her eyelids a shimmering silver that emphasised the deep blue of her irises. She was smiling from ear to ear, all of her teeth on display.
‘I’ve still got that ridiculous perm. How horrendous!’
‘You look pretty, Mum. I mean it. You look really pretty.’
On the next page, I saw Dad. His hair was not altogether different from the short, styled cut he had today, but there was one facial feature that had changed drastically.
‘Is that a … moustache?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t look real.’
‘Oh, it was real. Everyone was watching Magnum P.I. at the time, and your dad thought of himself as a bit of a Tom Selleck.’
‘I’ve never seen him like this.’
‘I’m sure I’ve shown you photos,’ Mum said.
I shook my head. She hadn’t. And if she had, I would have remembered them. I made a mental note to ask Dad about his moustache someday.
‘Well, I’m going to hold on to these and keep them safe,’ Nana said.
28
I was fascinated by the tri-vision billboards at the airport, the way the pieces turned and the large image on display would shift into something else. An advertisement for Mazoe orange juice transformed into a travel package for the Victoria Falls Hotel, the life-sized plastic bottle replaced with a gushing cascade of blue-and-white water.
It was mid-September. The month-long school holidays had passed in a blink of an eye, though I had tried to squeeze in every opportunity to spend time with my grandparents. And now they were leaving.
I threw my arms around Grandpa’s belly, which was not quite yet back to its original size, and hugged him tight, a button from his shirt leaving an imprint on my forehead. He had insisted we arrive by three p.m. even though the flight was at seven. Grandpa seemed to think that planes, like buses or trains, could arrive and depart early and he’d end up missing his, even though Mum insisted this had never happened in the history of air travel.
We spent the best part of three hours covering every inch of the small Harare terminal: sipping on Malawi shandies at the only cafe, browsing the kitschy souvenir store filled with cow-bone necklaces and anklets, and watching the billboards move like magic.
Nana and Grandpa had halved their possessions, and halved them once more, until everything fit into two well-worn suitcases and one large cardboard box. Grandpa only owned three pairs of shorts and the same number of shirts, so I presumed the rest of the space was left for Nana to fill with her flowing floral skirts and elaborate beaded jewellery.
Once they’d gone through security to the gate, Mum and I went to the terminal windows. From there, we watched them walk across the tarmac and up the mobile staircase. We waited until their plane lifted off the single runway of Harare International Airport and disappeared into the clouds.
‘I’m going to miss Grandpa,’ I said to Mum.
‘What about Nana?’
‘I’ll miss her too. But I’ll get to speak to her on the phone. Grandpa never talks on the phone.’
‘Oh no, I think I just hung up on them. These things weren’t made for men with big hands,’ Mum imitated in a husky baritone.
‘Do you remember when we tried to teach him how to use the computer?’ I asked. ‘And he kept lifting the mouse and pressing it up against the screen to click?’
‘Why isn’t it working? Something’s not working here. JANE, it’s broken!’ Mum smiled at me. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie. We will see them again soon. Hopefully.’
Later that night, I was reading in bed when I heard Oscar Wilde barking. It wasn’t his usual bark, the one he makes after glimpsing a rat scurrying into the garden bushes or when he’s set off by the yappy Yorkies next door. It was loud. And persistent. I jumped out of bed, laying my book facedown (even though Mum said doing so damaged the spine) and walked along the corridor to Mum’s room. She was out of bed too, poking her head through the thick navy curtains to examine the garden outside.
‘Maybe there’s a snake,’ I suggested.
Our neighbours to the left, the ones with the Yorkshire terriers, had mentioned spotting a puff adder slithering through their hibiscuses about two months ago. They also said they were keeping Trixie and Bells inside from now on, lest they be swallowed whole. This meant Oscar was not getting riled up by his canine companions, but by something else.
Mum didn’t respond to my suggestion and kept staring out the window.
‘Mum, did you hear me? Maybe there’s a snake, Oscar—’
‘Shh,’ she hushed me.
I fell silent. All I could hear was the sound of Oscar’s panicked barking and my own breathing. I moved to my mother’s side and looked out the window with her. I couldn’t see much of the outside, as it was distorted by the reflection of Mum’s lamp and bed. I pressed my face closer, my nose smudging the glass, managing to make out the faint outline of the pool and Oscar Wilde standing alert nearby, turned away from us, towards the fence. I tried my best to spot a wriggling serpent in the grass, or maybe a large bird, but it was too dark.
And then something in the bushes on the boundary of the property moved. And moved again. There was a flash of colour. A t-shirt.
‘Go to your room,’ Mum whispered. ‘Now!’
I hesitated for a moment before rushing back down the corridor and throwing myself into bed, scrambling to pull the covers up. As soon as I did, I heard a crash: the sound of glass shattering; then a scream that chilled the blood in my veins. Then silence.
After a while, I could hear men’s voices speaking in rushed Shona. I couldn’t figure out what they were saying. The only words I understood were coming from my mother.
‘Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her. Do whatever you want to me, just don’t touch her. Don’t hurt her, please.’
I knew what I had to do: pretend to be asleep. I pulled my duvet over my head, my rapid breathing making the air underneath hot and stale.
The door to my room flung open, and I sensed the presence of someone in the room with me. There were soft clanks as objects in my room were lifted and moved.
Without warning, my bed covers were yanked off me and a flashlight was shone in my face. I struggled not to react to the heat of the light as the red insides of my eyelids became visible. I was scared, and I wanted to cry, but knew I mustn’t. There is not a person alive, no matter how deep a sleeper, who wouldn’t have been woken up by those actions. I knew that. The intruder would have known that. But he must have taken pity on me, or decided I wasn’t worth the trouble, because, shortly after, he left the room.
I heard all the men in the corridor; there were at least two different voices, maybe three. I held my breath, in case they were all going to come into my room, but their footsteps continued into the living room. Then I heard Mum’s voice and relief poured into my heart as I realised she was still alive.
‘We have a computer, in the office, past the kitchen.’
Soon the voices become distant echoes. I knew I only had a few minutes to act. I crept out of bed and down the passage, into the living room, to the table where the phone sat. I had watched Hollywood films where emergencies were reported following a simple dial of 911. But no such hotline existed in Zimbabwe – I would have to call the landline for the closest police station.
The room was dark, and I reached for the switch on the cord of the table-lamp, forgetting it was no longer there. I thought about turning on the ceiling lights, but feared it would attract attention. I stumbled over to the table near the front door, where we always kept a torch in case of power cuts, and felt my way across the surface – over the key-bowl and the notepad and the small vase – until I knocked something over. The sound rang out, and I clasped my hands around the object as if to silence it. It was the torch. I waited a few seconds before turning it on, in case the noise I’d created had alerted the men to my presence. But no-one came to check – I was in the clear. I opened up the yellow phonebook that sat next to our phone and started scanning the ‘P’ section but all the hundreds of names and numbers were overwhelming and I knew I didn’t have much time.
I set the book down, deciding to call Stella and John instead. They lived just down the road, so maybe John would be able to come or maybe he could call the police. I reached for the little black address book that had been resting on the phonebook. Mum had scrawled a scattered collection of names and numbers and email addresses and postal addresses and birthdays on each page, but had failed to organise it alphabetically. My stomach dropped, and my vision was blurred by tears that wouldn’t subside. At last, I found Stella’s number and picked up the receiver.
I punched in the first five numbers – 9-8-8-5-3 – and there were just two more to go, but I couldn’t figure out if she had written a 7 or a 2. I heard voices coming back towards the living room. I pushed 7-6 and pressed dial, shaking as I held the receiver to my ear. It was halfway through the second ring when the men re-entered the room.
‘HEY! You! What are you doing?’ one of the men shouted.
The overhead lights were flicked on, and I thrust the phone down, hanging up on the call. In the doorway I saw all three men, brandishing knives, and behind them were Mum and Gogo, who was barefoot and in her nightdress.
‘Who did you call? WHO DID YOU CALL? Huh?’ the same man continued – he seemed to be in charge.
‘I … I didn’t call anyone,’ I stammered. ‘I … I tried to, b-but you came back before I could finish dialling the number. I promise.’
I looked over to Mum. Her eyes were glazed over like a zombie’s. Blood pooled at the edge of a cut on her lip. I raced over and threw my arms around her, sobbing into her chest. A different man pulled me away with a force that left the imprints of his fingertips along my upper arms.
The first man asked me again who I’d called. And again I told him that I hadn’t got through to anyone. I realised my attempt to help may have put us in greater danger.
The men ushered Mum, Gogo and me back down the corridor. I thought they were leading us to the bedrooms, but they stopped halfway and shoved the three of us into the linen cupboard. I was sandwiched between Mum and Gogo, with no room to move between us. I felt Gogo’s breath on my face as she pleaded with the men in Shona not to lock us in there. She continued to beg, her hands clasped together as though she were praying. I didn’t know whether I should say something – whether adding my voice would provoke sympathy or agitation.
Soon they conceded and let us out of the cupboard.
‘But if anybody calls the police in the next hour we will know,’ the ringleader said. ‘And we will come back. And we will kill you.’
Once they’d left, the three of us sat together in the living room, no-one knowing what to say. I didn’t understand. Why us? Why tonight? Why did it happen right after Nana and Grandpa had gone?
After some time had passed, I broke the silence and asked the questions I’d been repeating in my head. Mum looked up from the spot on the floor that she’d been staring at. Her eyes were unfocused, and her voice came out heavy and robotic.
‘Well, we know cars are followed back from the airport, expecting people will have foreign currency, or have brought expensive gadgets and clothes from overseas … I guess that’s what happened to us.’
The room fell quiet again. I noticed a small bottle of nail polish on the coffee table that had been sitting there since Nana had used it a few nights before. I picked it up to read the label.
After a couple of minutes, I asked Mum if I could paint her nails.
‘Huh?’ she said, still looking blankly at the floor.
‘Mum?’ I repeated.
‘You can do it on me,’ Gogo said.
I moved to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her while she spread her hands out on her knees. I took my time with each stroke, making sure not to get paint on her cuticles, carefully blowing each of them dry as I went. After I’d painted a layer on both hands, I decided to add a second coat.
‘All done,’ I said when I finished.
Gogo raised her fingers up to inspect them. ‘Very nice, Hannah, very nice.’
We waited at least two hours before daring to call Stella and John.
John collected us and drove us to their home three streets away. He put on the k
ettle as Stella sat on the couch, talking to Mum in her I’m-in-charge nurse-voice.
‘Alright, Jane, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to have a cup of tea and then you’re going to try to get some sleep. In the morning, we speak with the police. I stitched up one of the blokes from the force last week – stab wound, free of charge – so they better not bugger you around. We’re going to tell them what happened. We’ll go to your house – I’ll be with you – and we’ll make a detailed list of everything that was stolen and everything you can remember.’ Stella took a breath in. ‘But right now it’s late. You’re shaken up. You need to sleep. Or, at the very least, lie down.’
Gogo slept on the couch downstairs while Mum and I stayed in the spare bedroom. Mum ran her fingers through my hair and softly sang the chorus of Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’. One of my earliest memories as a child was the sound of my mother singing this song. I could remember her singing it when I had nightmares, or when I fell down the rocks at Matopos or, more recently, in the nights after we left the farm. Perhaps she had even hummed the tune when I was in nappies and the elephant came through the campground.
She sang the two sentences in the chorus encouraging me not to worry because everything was going to be alright, over and over and over and over and over, until I fell asleep by her side.
To this day, when I think of that night, I think of that song. I can’t remember the facial features of the men or the colour of their clothes. I can’t remember everything they took, or how long they were in the house. Memories of what was said and done during the break-in have faded more and more each year. But I do remember with piercing clarity the way that Gogo sounded as she pleaded with them: Mira, mira, mira, mira, mira. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And today, Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ no longer soothes me, but sets off a panic within my bones and sends the message to my brain that I am not safe.
29
They took everything. my mother’s wedding ring, her grandmother’s brooch, a turquoise pin given to her upon graduation. Everything except her pearls.
Little Stones Page 16