by Tendai Huchu
When I got up from my seat I felt as if the world was turning at an incredible speed. The floor under me did a sort of dance that made me fall back into my chair. I got up and began to navigate my way across the treacherous ground, reaching out to hold the walls for added support. I took a few steps into the corridor and dropped to the ground with a thud. It was as though I was learning to walk again. It took supreme determination for me to rise once more and walk. Each single step I took felt as though I had covered a thousand miles.
Dumi’s bedroom was right at the end of the corridor, past a Jesus poster with eyes that followed you wherever you went. I reached his door and opened it. His bed was neatly made. The toiletries on his chest of drawers were arranged in two straight lines. Even the dirty laundry was folded and placed in the corner. Dumi did his own washing and would not let Maidei do it. I glanced around the room and saw nothing amiss. Part of the problem was that I did not know exactly what I was looking for.
I checked under the bed, under his pillows, nothing there. There were so many clothes in his wardrobe, I went through each shelf and every pocket of his trousers and found nothing there. Something told me I would be rewarded if I kept up my frantic search. I leant on the window sill and thought. Then I staggered back to his bed and raised his mattress. Underneath was a small black journal with ‘Dumisani Ncube’ written in silver lettering on the sleeve. I knew I had found what I was looking for.
I must have passed out because when I came to I was lying face down on the bed, a tiny pool of red vomit beside me. I got up slowly and wiped my mouth on the sheet. My head was thumping and the clock on the wall said it was one o’clock. I could hear Chiwoniso playing somewhere in the garden.
In my left hand I held the black diary. I surveyed the room; there were clothes all over the floor. Bottles of lotion spilt on the carpet. The whole place had been ransacked. I bundled up the soiled sheets and threw them into a heap, then sat back down on the bare mattress.
I opened the first page of the diary and closed it again. There was still a chance for me to do the right thing. ‘Put it back in its place. It is not for you to know the secrets another has not chosen to reveal to you,’ one voice said; another told me it was my house and I had every right to know whatever happened inside it. No matter how much I rationalised things, I still knew that what I was doing was wrong. I set to work cleaning the room. I folded his clothes and placed them back in the wardrobe. The jackets and shirts that needed hanging I hung next to them. Dumi was observant and a perfectionist, he could not fail to notice that an intruder had been in his room and changed everything. I could not tell what I had got wrong but it all felt so different.
The last thing I picked up was his green passport. I flicked through it and saw stamps for Namibia, Mozambique, New Zealand, Botswana, Kenya and several for South Africa. All this travel had taken place in the last four years. The last was his visa to the UK, which I stroked; I wished he’d asked me to go with him. I thought of my own new passport so bare and unloved. There was a good reason for holding onto my man no matter what it took. I was doing this for us, I kept telling myself.
I met Maidei in the corridor as I stepped out of the room. She averted her gaze, disapproving but powerless to question what she knew I had done.
‘Maswera sei.’ Her voice was wary.
‘There are some sheets on Dumi’s bedroom floor. I want you to pick them up together with his laundry and wash everything.’ I heard the hostility in my voice, it was as if I was blaming her for everything I had done, for my drunkenness, my shame, her disapproval… everything.
I walked past her into the safety of my own bedroom. When I shut the door I must have shut out what remained of my conscience. I opened the diary to claim my prize of the truth. Even now I wish I never had. The contents were worse than anything I could ever have imagined.
Thirty four
After a moment of hesitation I began to read. It seems the diary had been started some time in the year prior to when we first met.
October 6
Great weekend with Colin at Troutbeck. Never knew trout fishing could be so much fun… Colin caught a big one whilst I seemed to pull out frog after frog. There must have been something dodgy about my bait. Did some horse riding through trails in the pine tree forests…
More entries of a similar nature followed. Dumi never seemed to be short of money and the two of them gallivanted all over the place, but another entry caught my eye.
December 3
Spent the weekend at home with Colin. We decided not to go anywhere. No man has ever made me feel so good about myself. He’s trying to persuade me to return to Canada with him… Am very tempted. Then there seemed to be a gap of months.
March 10
Where to begin? How to begin? So much has happened. All of it bad bad bad. My life feels hollow and no one to turn to or to talk to except you, little black book, but I’ve learned that even talking to myself provides some comfort. The sound of the door breaking and booted footsteps still wakes me at night. I can still hear the sound of his screams as he was dragged from bed and bundled into a van. There is no doubt in my mind that it was father who sent them. What business did they have when his visa still had two months left on it? And then his deportation for visa irregularities, which were never fully explained. He knew and I knew what it was all about.
The terrible thing that I can never explain to him is that my father was behind it all. Don’t know who it was that tipped him off, one of his ZANU cronies perhaps, there were plenty of them at the Great Zimbabwe hotel when we were there last… Maybe Kasuvandu saw us together in the bar late one night, our arms round each other. The irony of it, he was there with a fleshy young woman who was clearly not his wife, after all…
But that my break from my family should come this way… and on top of Colin’s peremptory departure — I think he knew my family was behind it… Will he ever trust me again…
March 22
Have made huge effort to pull myself together again. At least I know I can earn my living as a hairdresser, if anyone will take me...
April 01
Moved in with a colleague. Couldn’t afford to pay rent at the house in Avondale anymore since allowance got cut off. I don’t even think that she likes me. Didn’t know being broke could be such a drag. My kingdom for a swimming pool!
May 23
Missing my family so much. Patrick getting married next month. I have lost everything. Need to make peace with Vimbai. Don’t think she liked the fact that I got promoted over her. Her work is superb but she needs to do her styling from the soul. She is too mechanical, she thinks making her clients feel like ‘white women’ is the key, but what she actually needs to do is to make them feel like women. Thinking of telling her but don’t wanna mess with the landlady… Hope she forgives me but I need the extra cash from the job just to pay her rent. Due again next week…
June 05
Patrick getting married tomorrow. Haven’t been sleeping as much as I should. Lay awake in bed all night reading Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. Flowery prose might just put me to sleep… Doesn’t work. Vimbai and I getting along now. How will things go with the family? Praying to John Bradburne…
June 29
Can’t believe how well things are going. Family utterly adores Vimbai, she’s bigger than Michael Jackson. Allowance has been restored. Still keeping the job because I love it, but it feels so good not to have to look at the price tags when I go shopping. Need to tell Vimbai everything. Is it too soon? Seems like a really nice person. Don’t know who to trust any more… It’s way too risky. Need a bit more time. Get to know each other better. Can’t afford to mess this up. Shouldn’t have to live my life in the shadows like this.
August 02
Complete disaster! Now Chiwoniso is involved in all this. Have strong feelings for both mother and daughter. Want them to be in my life. Have to say something before things get too complicated. What am I saying? Things are already too complicated. Thin
k, think. They have a right to know the truth. Must act soon…
September 13
Met strong, dashing man who literally saved my life…
The things I read made me drop the diary as if it was scalding my hand and I covered my mouth as if in prayer.
Thirty five
‘Is everything all right, Mummy? I heard you crying.’ Chiwoniso was standing at my door holding her favourite teddy bear.
‘Everything’s fine, sweetie. Go and play, mummy is just busy right now.’
‘But I want to play with you.’
‘Give me five minutes.’
I looked at the diary on my floor. The tiny figure of my daughter lingered for a moment and then shut the door. DUMI IS A HOMOSEXUAL — Ngochani. If it wasn’t written in his hand and before my eyes, I would have denied it. I could not have foreseen this. He spoke like a normal man, wore clothes like a normal man and even walked like a normal man. Everything about him was masculine. Didn’t homosexuals walk about with handbags and speak with squeaky voices?
I had to find out more. I scrunched my nose when I picked up the diary, as if it smelt of something putrid. The page was open where I’d left it. What happened next, right under my nose, astonished me. The day I came home and found him and Mr M___ at my house was the day they had consummated their unnatural passions in the bed that I had shared with Dumi. I rubbed my body, feeling dirty and needing a long bath. Which one of them was the man and which was the woman anyway? The journal did not shed any light on this.
As far as I knew, Dumi had been raised in a good Christian family (if Catholics are Christians) and here he was turning my house into his own Sodom and Gomorrah. It seems the Canadian fellow, Colin, was a pervert as well. The authorities should have arrested him and locked him up forever. For as long as I can remember there’d been rumours of white tourists coming into the country and corrupting the youth, but I’d thought they preyed on street children and beggars. I could gather from the journal that in fact there seemed to be an underground scene right beneath our noses where these depraves congregated. It was that GALZ movement that set up secret safe houses all across the city to encourage this sort of satanic behaviour. Surely not Dumi! I felt numb.
The passages that were by far the sickest were the ones in which he declared his love for Mr M___, as if such a thing were ever possible. He used passionate terms like ‘the love of my life’, which only men and women should use. I reached for my Bible to give me strength as I went through the document leaf by leaf. They’d met many times, going off to secret locations where they pretended to be related. No one batted an eyelid if two men rented a hotel room, they would just think them relatives and leave it at that. I wondered who else knew about this. The journal was at pains to hide the names of other people, using only initials. I wondered why Dumi had done this when Colin and Mr M___ were named, and anyone who wanted to could target them or blackmail them.
‘Mummy, I want to play,’ Chiwoniso called from the other side of the door.
‘I’m still busy, go and play with Sisi Maidei.’
My daughter was the product of the union between man and woman. What could a man and a man ever hope to produce in a million years? Even the president had called them worse than pigs — I might have disagreed with a lot of what he has done to the country but I had to agree with him there. I imagined Mr M___ with his silly moustache fondling the man who was my fiancé.
‘Okay, I’m coming,’ I said at last, as Chiwoniso kept calling at the door.
I could not sleep that night because of what I knew. I spent the whole of Saturday trying to recover from the blow. In my mind Phillip the rapist was better than Dumi the homo. I drank cup after cup of tea as if it could wash me clean of what I knew. I had a day before the pervert came back to my house. Many scenarios played in my head. I would call his parents over and when he arrived we would all be there to confront him. The thought that I had fallen for him made me feel like a person who had been duped out of their life savings by a conman. Even that would be better than this. What would I tell my parents when they asked about him? The whole world would laugh at my expense. ‘She was so bad that she drove him into the arms of a man.’ Crude jokes like that would be made behind my back.
If it was another woman, I would fight to save my relationship, but another man! There is no response to that. It is the sort of thing that is so far outside of nature it can never happen. Even animals have sense enough to tell which one is female and which one is not. I opened my window to let the stale air out. There was a blast of cool air rushing in as if to cleanse my house. It was sweet and refreshing. If I hadn’t a daughter to look after that day I should have ended my life. The shame of it all was enough to kill me. I couldn’t sleep a wink again that night.
Sunday came and I rushed to church. I was the first one in the cinema. Pastor Mvumba came in and was surprised to see me there.
‘My daughter in Christ, what is troubling you that you should be so early?’ The Pastor spoke as if the Holy Spirit was telling him about my troubles.
‘Everything is just fine,’ I lied. I could not bring myself to seek his counsel on such a delicate matter.
‘What’s your name again? I often see you in the congregation but you always leave before the end.’
‘Vimbai.’
‘Well then, Vimbai, come down here and help me to arrange these newsletters.’
That day I did not hear a single thing in the service. The singing and the prayers all whizzed past me. My mind was with someone else. The seat next to me was empty — that was where Dumi should have been.
That night I helped Chiwoniso with her homework. She had been assigned to read a few pages in her reading book, which she did, placing a finger underneath one word and pronouncing it slowly. I found it a painful exercise and wondered how teachers were patient enough to endure it on their salaries.
‘That’s it, we’re finished now.’
‘Two more pages, Mummy.’
‘No, your teacher said you should read up to page ten.’
‘But Uncle Dumi always lets me read extra.’
‘It’s time for you to go to bed. Maidei, come and take her to bed.’ She had to be dragged kicking and screaming because she did not want to go. Raising her would only get more difficult the older she grew.
I sent Maidei off to bed early as well, and told her to leave the dishes until the morning. I did not want anyone to be there when Dumi came in. The lights were switched off and I sat in the dark on the sofa nearest the door. The ticking clock made the only sound in the room. I counted every second until I heard the key in the door. It creaked open and his dark figure came in and locked it. He walked across the room to the corridor and that’s when I called him.
‘Christ! You startled me.’ He switched on the light. ‘What are you doing in the dark?’
I did not give him an answer. I just glared at him, hating his handsome face the longer I stared.
‘What’s up, Vimbai? Coz this is kind of freaky,’ he said, with the chortle that I once found cute, but now thought the vilest possible sound a human being could ever make. He was studying my face, trying to read my mind. He put the satchel he was carrying on the ground and walked slowly toward me, one cautious step after the other. When he was just two steps away, I pulled out the journal from underneath the cushion.
His eyes widened and he took a step back, slipped by me, opened the door so fast that I didn’t even see him unlock it, and ran off into the dark night.
I shall regret the next thing I did for as long as I live.
Thirty six
The minister was sitting at her desk wearing reading glasses and signing document after document when I went in. She glanced at me dismissively and returned to her work. It had taken me perseverance and over two hours to get past security so I could see her. She occupied a corner office in Construction House on Leopold Takawira Street. Her hand moved with a flourish over the paper and I felt as invisible as a gnat.
�
��If you’re expecting me to come to your new salon, Vimbai, then you should know I can’t do it. Loyalty is very important. It pays to stick with your choices sometimes.’ She looked up at me, took off her glasses and put them on the table.
‘That’s not what I have come here for.’ My voice broke.
‘Then what can I help you with? My receptionist says you were very adamant and you would not tell anyone else what this was about.’
‘I have a good reason.’
‘Out with it then. I am very busy.’
‘It is about Mr M___ and Dumi.’ I fished in my handbag and placed the journal on her table.
‘What is this?’
‘I think you better read it for yourself.’
She squinted her eyes and then perched her reading glasses on the end of her nose. She sighed as she read through it, muttering ‘not again’ to herself. It seemed ages before she took off her glasses, but this time she kept them in her hand. There was an anguished look on her face but after a moment she regained her composure.
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘You are the first person I came to.’
‘I always thought you were a clever girl.’ She stood up and went to stand by the large window that ran from corner to corner, intersecting with another at a right angle. ‘Are you absolutely certain there is no one else who knows this?’
‘I am sure.’
‘This whole country is in a mess. I look down from my window every day and see it. To the right is downtown. An area I wouldn’t advise you to visit; it is filthy, full of crime and vice that runs all the way to Mbare, the beating heart, an example of everything that is wrong with this nation. On the other side you have First Street, Karigamombe and roads that take you all the way to the suburbs where you and all the decent people live. But Mbare is encroaching on you inch by inch. Have you ever been in a war? I saw one first-hand and it’s not a pleasant thing. You see, men like my husband are funny creatures — when they reach a certain age they feel they need to revive the excitement that they once had in their younger days. They look at their wife and she has aged, even put on a little weight. They begin to experiment, first with younger girls, then they work their way back to the top until they are screwing their own grandmothers, but they still can’t get that excitement. So they do something radical, they become beasts with their experimentation. That’s why this country is in the mess it’s in, because it’s being run by stupid men. I hope you’re following me so far.’