44
Dad was tried in court, found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months of jail time. The last time I saw him was a month into his sentence. Mum took me to visit him in prison. The man who refused to wear t-shirts without a collar and a fancy insignia was now clad in a cheap green-shirt-and-shorts combo, slouched over a grotty table with an uneven leg.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I said, as I sat down.
He looked up and his blue-grey eyes met mine, but he didn’t say a word.
‘How are you?’
We sat in silence for several minutes. I glanced around the space at the other inmates animatedly engaged in conversation with their visitors. I wondered how many of the men in the room were actual, dangerous criminals, like the men who held us at knifepoint, and how many were merely political dissidents, or even just men who loved men.
Having stared at me all that time – not quite at me, but through me – he finally spoke.
‘You’re going to end up just like your mother, you know. Sad. Alone. I hope you realise that.’
And with that, he pushed his chair out, turned away from me and walked past the guards monitoring the visitors’ room. The last image I have of my father is the back of his head as he ducked to walk through the doorway into the corridor that led back to the cells.
I have since decided that I am glad this was the case. His parting gift to me was the perhaps the best gift I would ever receive from him, and it was anger. Fifteen years later, when I think of him, I am still furious.
I worry that when I stop being angry, I might start to feel sad.
The second after Mum received confirmation that our visas were granted, she telephoned the travel agent and booked flights to Perth for two weeks’ time. I had queried why we were leaving so soon – why I couldn’t complete the school term at Bishopslea – but Mum said we needed to go. And once again, it felt as if I didn’t have enough time to say goodbye.
But her haste was justified. Three days before we were set to leave, Mr Wallace rang Mum to tell her that my father was going to be released early – he was only required to serve seven weeks of his total sentence. If we’d lingered, he may have had time to contest the court’s decision. Perhaps Mum knew this was likely to be the case, that my father’s status as a white man who’d committed a white-collar crime would result in the most forgiving application of ‘time served’. Or perhaps she knew that, unlike the men who engaged in petty theft, or staged grassroots protests, the contents of my father’s bank account would provide him with an invaluable get-out-of-jail-free card.
Our flight out of the country left at five p.m. It would take us nearly sixteen hours, via Johannesburg, to reach the coast of Western Australia. For our final meal, Mum and I went to IB’s for breakfast. We ordered the eggs Benedict, but when it arrived we noticed that we were only given one egg, instead of two, with just a scraping of hollandaise sauce. The portion had been laid out to take up as much of the plate as possible, with half an English muffin sliced diagonally in two, the pieces resting on the edge of the plate with the egg housed in the centre. The unusual arrangement made the simple breakfast look like an entrée at a fancy restaurant.
Dino did not come round to our table to ask us how our meal was, which was for the best as Mum was not eager to talk to anyone either. A boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, walked through the outside area of the restaurant, asking diners for money. We were both watching him, but then Mum turned away and moved our empty plates onto another table so she could spread out our flight itinerary.
The boy appeared next to us, his hands outstretched and cupped in front of him.
‘Please,’ he repeated over and over, his eyes dark and defeated.
Mum rummaged about in her purse and gave him a two- hundred-thousand-dollar note, all that she had left. He moved on to the next table, and I watched over Mum’s shoulder as he pleaded with two men in suits.
I continued observing the boy work his way along the strip of tables, until he jumped off the pavement and disappeared into the supermarket. He emerged minutes later, carrying packets of mealie meal and milk. He walked across the parking lot and joined a girl sitting on the ground, resting in the shadow of a building. The girl looked about my age. She held a baby in her arms, wrapped in blankets.
Once our suitcases were packed into the trunk of the car, and we’d done a final sweep of the house, I had to say goodbye to Gogo. Farewelling my class at school was hard. This was near impossible.
‘Bye, Gogo,’ I said.
Gogo hugged me tight and did not let go as she spoke to me. ‘Be good to your mum, okay? And study hard and you will do well, okay?’
‘Okay, Gogo,’ I said, unable to add anything more.
‘Now, Ruth,’ Mum said. ‘Remember, all the furniture, everything, that’s for you. You can sell it, or keep it, up to you. I told Learnmore he could have my work computer, so you can give that to him. And I know I didn’t give you much cash … it was hard to withdraw more … but the car is yours too, when John returns it … And … And … Thank you for everything.’ Mum wrapped her arms around Gogo.
‘Thank you, madam. Thank you, Hannah,’ she said, as her eyes began to water. ‘I do not know what to say. Thank you.’
I had asked Mum why Gogo couldn’t come with us to Australia, even though I knew there were a thousand different reasons why. Instead of taking my question at face value, Mum told me that, no matter what, Gogo would always be in my life.
‘If it wasn’t for her, we would not be the people we are now.’
I examined the Zimbabwean flag, painted on the wall of the airport, staring at the strips of green, yellow, red, black and white. In our social studies class, we had learnt about the significance of each colour. The green represented agriculture and rural Zimbabwe. The green was the tobacco farms, the msasa trees, the vegetation around Mana Pools and Victoria Falls, and the campsites Grandpa and I selected on the side of the roads. Yellow stood for the wealth of the country, for minerals like gold. (Although there was no longer any gold in the banks and the currency was devaluing by the minute.) Red symbolised bloodshed, and the lives lost in the war fighting for independence. Red was Nana using sandbags to protect the farm, and red was the beating hearts of those who fought against colonial forces – red was the death of Rhodesia. The black represented the people of Zimbabwe: the majority and the original inhabitants of the land. The black was Gogo and Diana and Rudo. It was Mrs Muduma and Rita, the workers on my grandparents’ farm, the student protesters and all their families, but also the War Veterans and Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF. The Great Zimbabwe Bird on the left was crafted out of soapstone, a link back to the Great Zimbabwean civilisation – the ruins of which Grandpa had joked about. It was meant to highlight the connection of Zimbabwean peoples to nature and the animal kingdom. The white triangle was a symbol of peace, while the red star was a symbol of hope and aspirations for the future. I wondered what the future would be for Zimbabwe, whether peace and prosperity were within reach, whether things would have to get worse before they got better, whether it would ever get better.
The small landing strip of Harare International Airport disappeared beneath the clouds, and I felt a niggling sensation that I’d left something behind. I stared down at the large A3 card in my hands. It boasted a carefully cut-out silhouette of the African continent, with our small southern country coloured in, stick-people holding hands around its border. I noticed my schoolfriends had spelt out Farewell in red, black, yellow, green and white, and I smiled. I opened the card to examine the interior for the third time since we’d boarded.
Dear Hannah,
GOOD LUCK IN AUSTRALIA, WE WILL MISS YOU!!!
From the Class of 7B
Alongside the main class message were words from Diana, who had likely organised the whole thing. She wrote:
Dearest Hannah,
Silly Hairy Impala Toes. I can’t believ
e you’re leaving already. You are my best friend on this planet and I am going to miss you so, so much. You better not forget me when you’re living in Australia and are busy hanging out with all the kangaroos! You are the coolest, funniest, smartest person I know (except for me, of course).
Lots of love from your shamwari for life,
Diana
PS. I forgive you for cutting way too much hair off me for the polyjuice potion.
Underneath, she had doodled a picture of the two of us, our arms out in a wide embrace. I closed the card, stroking a glued-on guinea-fowl feather with my thumb.
I tried to imagine all the new friends I would make in Australia. I wondered if they watched Midsomer Murders or Inspector Morse. Would they think I was interesting and funny, or would I be that weird kid arriving halfway through the year that no-one bothered to talk to? I knew Australians ate Vegemite, not Marmite, and that friends were mates, not shamwaris. But beyond condiments and names for companions, I was clueless.
EPILOGUE
I had always noticed the potholes in the roads, but it was only after leaving Zimbabwe that I began to realise the deeper cracks in my country. The surplus of zeros on banknotes, and outdated textbooks that told stories of a world that didn’t exist. The petrol queues and power cuts and never stopping at a red light. The lawyers who would have family emergencies on court dates, if the price was right. It was only after I left that I discovered George’s fingers were not removed by a combine harvester accident but by a ZANU-PF member who learnt of his allegiance to the Movement for Democratic Change.
On the day we left Harare, before boarding our flight, Stella and John had handed us a video cassette. They told us to play it once we arrived in Australia. A few weeks after we settled into our Perth flat, had purchased furniture and unpacked all the boxes, we decided to watch it for the first time. It began with a video of the theatre troupe, shot on a handheld camera, sending their best wishes for our new adventure. It abruptly cut to another gathering of Mum’s friends and old colleagues bidding their farewells, followed by a clip of Bishopslea girls screaming out: ‘We’ll miss you, Hannah!’ Then came a close-up shot of Stella’s nose as she steadied the camera on a shelf before she ran back to where John was waiting, and they said their goodbyes too.
The last clip was of Gogo. She’s standing in the kitchen, in a checked blue dress and white apron with a red bandana. You can hear Stella’s voice on the video, giving her instructions.
‘I’m filming you so Jane and Hannah can watch it when they are in Australia.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Gogo says, turning her head away from the camera, letting out a nervous laugh. She regains her composure, and the camera zooms in on her face.
‘Goodbye, Jane and Hannah,’ she says, followed by a soft ‘yes’, as though deciding those were the words she wanted to say.
Every time I watch the video, I ache for something more. That she might break into a heartfelt monologue, professing how much she will miss us. I recognise how selfish this is, but it hasn’t stopped me wishing it were so.
While peeling potatoes for dinner one evening, I tune into the seven o’clock news headlines.
‘Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has officially resigned, bringing an end to his tyrannical thirty-seven-year rule.’
I turn up the volume and call Mum into the room. We stare at the television screen and see that people have taken to the streets of Harare in celebration. Flags flap in the wind, strangers embrace each other, and the sounds of people singing are punctuated by the noise of car horns being honked in excitement.
I notice that the jacaranda flowers have already started falling from the trees and filling the potholes with purple. Amid the turmoil, there were always moments of great beauty; I carry them with me carefully, as I would the chongololos, not wanting to accidentally crush them.
‘We made the right choice, Hannah,’ Mum says.
‘I know.’
‘If we had stayed …’
‘I know.’
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Aviva Tuffield, and UQP, for believing in this book.
All my love and gratitude to Nana and Oupa, to Gogo, and to the people of Zimbabwe.
First published 2019 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
uqp.com.au
[email protected]
Copyright © Elizabeth Kuiper 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design by Christabella Designs
Author photograph by Leah Jing McIntosh
Typeset in Bembo Std 12/16pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
The University of Queensland Press is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
ISBN 978 0 7022 6254 8 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6352 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6353 8 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6354 5 (kindle)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
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