The Hairdresser of Harare

by Tendai Huchu

  ‘I have to stay. There’s no way I’m leaving his side.’ It’s difficult to stop loving someone, even when they have done something that you once thought unforgivable. There isn’t an on off switch for love. I wept for Dumi and hoped that everything would turn out okay. The guilt and the magnitude of what I had done hit me hard. When they wheeled him out I spent the morning praying for the Lord to spare his life. I wanted him back home with me where he belonged. I went through his things and found Mr M___’s phone number. When he heard what had happened, he began to sob uncontrollably. He kept saying he should have protected him and I tried to reassure him that all would be well.

  After hanging up, I wondered if what Dumi had said in his journal might be true. If it was, then he had one kind of love for me and another for this man; we were both loved but each of us in our own way. It would be a lie to say I did not want him to myself, but this didn’t mean that, if I couldn’t have him, I wanted him dead. Dumi was too nice a person and he’d helped me so much in my life. If only I could find a way of righting things again.

  Thirty nine

  The operation went well and Dumi was transferred to the ICU to recover for a time before being brought back to the ward. The days and weeks that followed were some of the worst in my life. The only person I could tell from his family was Michelle. She had to make up some excuse with the family about how Dumi and I were too busy renovating my house for him to go up and see them. That seemed to buy some time. She was a pillar of strength. She paid Trina her dues and handled the near daily demands from the hospital for more money. Sometimes they didn’t even have the drugs, and we had to rush off and buy them from the pharmacy before they could administer them. We alternated during visiting hours to make sure someone was always by his side. Having been educated in America, Michelle understood his situation better than anyone else. Mr M___ also dropped in every so often with flowers and in disguise. I would watch how tenderly he plumped up Dumi’s pillows to make him comfortable. I was touched and affronted at the same time.

  After a week Dumi regained consciousness and began to speak. I was alone with him when, in a weak voice, he said, ‘Thank you for looking out for me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry for everything.’ My voice broke.

  ‘It’s I who must beg your forgiveness. I should have been upfront about my true intentions with you. There were signals I gave off about us which misled you.You see, for a long time I used to think of my gayness as a cancer for which I needed treatment. Then I met Colin and he told me how wrong I was. Now, I realise it is just something I was born with and as long as Zimbabwe can’t accept it, I’d better live somewhere else.’ When he spoke, his voice was barely audible and only the right side of his lips moved.

  ‘I shouldn’t have read your journal in the first place.’

  ‘That was meant to be. I wrote it hoping that one day someone like you might read it as an explanation of why things are the way they are. You just found it before it was ready, and I was ready.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about what happened?’ At this point Michelle walked in. Her face brightened immediately on seeing that her brother was able to speak. She sat on the side opposite to me and held his hand.

  ‘After I left your house, I walked into town and booked myself a room at the George Hotel. I was resting there when three men barged into my room and blindfolded me. I don’t know where I was taken, but it was to some sort of torture house in the city. They beat me on the soles of my feet. One of them kept saying, ‘We haven’t been told why we’re doing this, but we’ll fix you.’ They must have worked on me all day, reviving me with water whenever I passed out. I begged them to let me die and they said I would soon enough. The last time I passed out they must have thought I was dead and dumped me somewhere. There are many gaps in my memory.’

  The pain on Michelle’s face mirrored my own. I know she was wishing she could tell her father so he could find the people who did this, but that was impossible. No one would stand up for a homo who’d been attacked. I phoned Mr M___ and told him the good news.

  ‘Praise God! I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  He arrived soon afterwards wearing a large farmer’s hat that covered his face. Once he was in the room he removed it and went over to Dumi. He gave him a gentle stroke on the face, then stopped as if he had suddenly realised that we were there.

  ‘How are you feeling, my boy?’

  ‘Like I’ve been hit by a truck.’

  Mr M___ laughed nervously. ‘I need to know if you are well enough to travel.’

  ‘I can if need be.’

  ‘The people who did this to you will come back to finish the job as soon as you leave this place. Consider yourself lucky, they do not usually get it wrong the first time.’ There was a hint of professional disappointment in his voice.

  ‘This is my home, I will not leave.’

  ‘Dumi, listen to him, don’t be a fool.’ Michelle cried out.

  ‘They will target your family as well if you try to resist them. I’ve trained men like that in my day. It’s best you leave the country and go somewhere they’ll know you will not be an inconvenience to them.’

  Michelle and I got up to leave the room. A part of me still rebelled, saying that what was happening in that room was against God and Nature, but the love I had for Dumi stayed with me. Michelle and I took some time to walk amongst the jacaranda-lined avenues, making a few trips round the block. It was a lovely day; the weather was not too hot. Michelle put her arm around me; she understood how much I cared for her brother.

  ‘Ya’ll need to go on the Jerry Springer show.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Never mind. I know this is a lot for you to take in, and I respect the way you are handling yourself. I don’t know what I would do if I was in your shoes.’ Michelle stopped and we stood in the shade of a jacaranda tree. ‘I have known for a while now that my brother is gay, and I’m cool with it. The rest of the family isn’t. Dumi came out to us just after he finished high school, he wasn’t seeing anyone at the time. Dad went ballistic, Patrick wanted to bust his knee caps, it all went crazy. Nothing happened for a year until one of dad’s friends mentioned in passing that he had met Dumi on holiday with some white guy. You should have seen my dad howling with rage. To try and protect the family name, dad arranged with his pals in the police to have the Canadian dude deported before anyone knew what was up with his son. It was a tough time for Dumi, he has suffered a lot just for being who he is. I want you to know one thing though, Dumi loves you and Chiwoniso more than anything in the world. You guys were family to him, when he had no one. He is just different, in a world which wants to force him to be what he is not. Don’t ever stop loving him, he needs you now, more than ever.’

  When we got back to the room, Mr M___ was standing in a corner, his eyes darting about the place.

  ‘We’re going to move to the UK,’ Dumi said. ‘Vimbai, can you get my passport? And, Michelle, please organise a ticket for this weekend.’

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his passport was gone. Everything he owned in this world had been taken away. There was no time to lose; it was Thursday. I said farewell and rushed into town.

  When I got to Construction House I was told that the minister had left for the day. I prayed that she would see sense and spare his life.

  The next day I got up early and waited in the lobby of her office. The security guard recognised me and put me through without a problem. She had meetings in the morning so I had to wait and pace around for three hours. The receptionist, a skinny girl, tried to strike up a conversation, but I was not interested.

  Around three o’clock her phone rang and she told me I could go in.

  ‘Vimbai, I didn’t think you’d come to claim your reward so soon,’ she said from behind the stack of papers on her desk. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘I’ve come to ask for a favour that you may not approve of.’

  ‘And what may that be?’ Her eyebrows ros
e slightly.

  ‘I am coming to ask for Dumi’s passport.’ I interlocked my fingers and pressed hard on my knuckles.

  ‘Tell me, is my husband coming to see that young man at the hospital?’

  A thought flashed in my mind, to tell the truth or to lie, which was better?

  ‘He is,’ I said, and closed my eyes at this second betrayal.

  ‘I knew that already. You see, we know everything. It’s good that you didn’t lie to me, but tell me exactly why you need this passport.’

  ‘I want his life spared, so he can leave the country.’

  She reached into her drawer and pulled out the green passport. She thumbed through the pages and settled on one.

  ‘It says here that he has a visa to go to Britain. Is that where he wants to go? It should suit him well there. Their government is full of gay gangsters. They walk the streets parading themselves. He will be happy in Sodom. But there are other things I have to take into consideration.’ Her face darkened. ‘Will he keep his mouth shut while he’s there?’

  ‘We have spoken about it and I’m certain he will,’ I lied.

  ‘Are you willing to put your own life down as an indemnity? Such that if he so much as mutters something in his sleep you will be forfeit.’

  A shudder passed through my body as I nodded my consent.

  ‘I always keep my promises.’ She threw the passport at me, ‘Consider us square now. My debt to you is paid in full. When you go to sleep every night remember the consequences of what you have agreed to.’

  Forty

  On Saturday evening Michelle, Dumi, Chiwoniso and I stood inside the lobby at Harare Airport. The stars in the sky did not burn so brightly that night. There was a queue of people checking in. Some black families with kids who only spoke English in a funny accent — children of the Diaspora. Dumi held himself upright, masking the pain in his tortured body. His left side was weaker than the right and doctors had said this was permanent. It was not the Dumi I knew. He looked older and his skin did not have the same glow it used to. His hair was cropped short and there were scars on his skull. We huddled together in a hug. We breathed each other’s scent in; perhaps that was the only part of my old Dumi that remained.

  ‘I’m going to miss you both so much,’ he told us and gave us each a tight squeeze. That was it. The last I saw of him was when he was speaking to the uniformed woman at the security gate. He said something and she smiled. I knew then that the secret which made him the best hairdresser in Harare was that he knew how to make anyone feel like a woman.

  He walked up through the gates and vanished out of sight.

  I received a phone call from him a few days later. He complained about the cold and told me how much he missed me. In the months that followed the calls kept coming but with less frequency. He was settling in well. Mr M___ did not try to go to the UK; his name was on a list of people barred from entering the European Union. He wrote Dumi a long letter apologising and explaining that he had responsibilities in Zimbabwe that would tie him down for the rest of his life.

  In a way I will always love Dumi. He restored my faith that there are still some good men out there. I never told him of my deal with the minister because wherever he may be I want him to live his life to the fullest, without fear.