The Last Resort

by Douglas Rogers

  ‘No, not all. Only seventy-nine. Plus a hundred sheep, a hundred goats. Oh, and the horses and Stripey the zebra. All infested with ticks and in terrible condition, of course. I’ve put them on Droppie’s place. Can you believe the war vets on Kondozi want to charge me for grazing and upkeep these past three years? They gave me a bill for almost two billion Zim dollars! No way I’m paying anything. But at least I got them back, Lyn. Better than nothing.’

  My father was elated for him, and completely surprised.

  ‘So how did you manage it, Piet?’

  ‘I went to see the Top Man, Lyn. He sorted it out.’

  Dad looked at Oom Piet as if he had lost his mind.

  ‘The Top Man? Jeez, Piet, how did you get to meet him, and why on earth would he be helping you?’

  Dad had been engaged in an elusive dance with the Top Man. For years he had tried to avoid him; now he was trying desperately to meet with him.

  ‘Well, that’s why I came to see you. The soldier I told you about, the sergeant – he’s the uncle of one of our old Kondozi farm managers. He knows the Top Man. He had a word with him and took me to see him. The soldier sorted it out.’

  ‘But I thought you told me he’s just a lowly staff sergeant, Piet.’

  ‘I know, Lyn, he is, but it’s all very strange. He says he’s a staff sergeant but I think he’s something more than that. He’s a ZANLA war veteran. Told me some interesting stories about his time in the war, and he’s very close to the Top Man. He took me to the Top Man’s house in Harare. That was when the Top Man sent a letter to the war vets to give me back my livestock. Listen, this soldier worked for me, Lyn. I think he can maybe help you with your deeds.’

  My father didn’t know what to think.

  ‘Jeez, Piet, baie dankie. So how do I get hold of him, this soldier?’

  ‘I already told him about you. He’s going to give you a call.’

  They wondered about this gift, Mom and Dad. Was it really the silver bullet they had been waiting for? Or was it a curse? They were wary of entering into an ‘arrangement’.

  The government functioned as a Mafia now, and the worse the economy was, the more of a racket it became. I had written an article for the Guardian once mentioning a Prince Edward school friend of mine who had entered into an ‘arrangement’. His name was Simon and he was still on the tobacco farm he’d bought outside Harare in 1995, but he no longer owned the farm. It was ‘owned’ by a brigadier who lived in Harare and to whom Simon paid rent and a share of profits come harvest time. In that way he was allowed to stay.

  ‘But that’s how the Cosa Nostra worked,’ I had told him.

  ‘I’m a farmer, Doug,’ he said. ‘It’s what I do. What choice do I have?’

  Now my parents had to make a decision: were they going to enter into an arrangement, too?

  In the end they decided on fate: if the soldier called, they would meet up with him; if he didn’t, they wouldn’t pursue it any further with Piet.

  Sure enough, though, as Piet said, the soldier did call. Dad spoke to him and told him to come out to the house to meet with them one Sunday morning, and a few weeks later they were face-to-face with a Zimbabwe National Army staff sergeant, a veteran of the liberation war and a close confidant of the man they believed was the most evil man in the valley.

  His name was Walter Sebenza. He was forty-eight years old, married with one child, and, according to Mom, he was ‘the size of a buffalo and the colour of burnt toast’.

  They sat on the Adirondack chairs on the veranda, drinking lemon tea that Mom had brewed, making small talk at first about family and religion. Small talk suited my parents. They didn’t want things to get political. They were wary enough of having a national army soldier in their home; a supposed close aide to the Top Man in their house put them on edge.

  ‘Mr Rogers, are you a Christian man?’ the soldier asked straight up.

  Dad smiled. ‘These days, I have to say, I find myself praying a lot. I don’t know if God exists or anything, but I would rather be safe than sorry.’

  The soldier nodded. ‘I am a Christian man, Mr Rogers. My wife is a religious woman. I did theology. I have a diploma in it, so when I am doing this military job sometimes God makes me understand and I don’t use a pistol.’

  Dad was relieved. ‘It’s good that you don’t carry a pistol, Mr Sebenza,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no,’ boomed the soldier, leaping out of his chair. ‘Of course I carry a pistol!’

  He reached into the belt of his khaki trousers, pulled out a gleaming military-issue revolver, and started waving it around like a table-tennis paddle.

  ‘I said I don’t use a pistol!’

  Dad’s eyes bulged.

  Mom calmly got up from her chair. ‘More tea, Sergeant Sebenza?’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rogers,’ he said, sitting down again, holstering the weapon.

  ‘I think you were talking about religion,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Eh, yes. Let me be certain with you. I went to school to learn the Bible, so one day I want to quit this job and simply start a church. I will just resign from the army. I want to become a full-time churchgoer.’

  He had a deep baritone voice, deeper than John Muranda’s, and he spoke English with a thick African accent, flattening the vowels, as if with a shovel.

  ‘What denomination are you, Mr Sebenza?’ asked Dad, getting his eyes back.

  ‘Call me Walter, Mr Rogers. No denomination. Just a Christian man.’

  Dad suddenly hit on a way to perhaps bond with him: his favourite new subject – witchcraft – and his promise to Miss Moneypenny about revenge.

  ‘Tell me, Walter, does your religion perhaps include traditional healing?’ He knew it would. Zimbabwe might be a deeply Christian country, but traditional healers still play a dominant role in Shona culture, even for the most westernised black family. An official association of traditional healers represents thousands of licenced n’angas in the country and is, unsurprisingly, a powerful political lobby given the widespread belief that its members have the power to heal, bless, protect, read the future and even kill.

  The soldier’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course, Mr Rogers. In our culture everyone has a traditional healer.’

  ‘In that case, do you happen to know of a n’anga called the Destroyer?’

  Walter, I discovered when I met him, had two catchphrases: ‘Let me be certain,’ said in the sonorous baritone; and ‘Don’t tell me!’, uttered in a surprised-sounding high-pitched squeal, like an American teenager saying ‘Omigod!’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ shrieked Walter. ‘How do you know the Destroyer?’

  ‘Have you heard of him?’ said Dad excitedly.

  ‘Of course, Mr Rogers. Let me be certain. He is the greatest n’anga of them all. He lives in the mountains near Mozambique. I know him very, very well. He is very powerful. Some time ago at our military barracks some weapons went missing. We called in the Destroyer. He nominated who the thieves were. Now there is no more stealing! Why do you ask about the Destroyer?’

  ‘I have a friend who needs to hire this Destroyer. There might be good money in it for you if he can solve a problem that she has.’

  The soldier nodded seriously.

  ‘It is okay, Mr Rogers. It is okay. We can discuss.’

  The conversation soon turned to my parents’ property problem and the possibility of meeting the Top Man and getting his title deed back or an offer letter. Could he help them out?

  The soldier had come prepared. He gave Dad a phone number.

  ‘I’ve already apprised the minister of your situation, Mr Rogers. Phone him and make an appointment.’

  Dad was surprised. Was that all it took to get to the Top Man, to the top floor of the tallest tall building? The correct phone number?

  ‘Thank you, Walter. I will try to make an appointment, but will you not come with me? I believe you accompanied Mr de Klerk to see the minister.’ My father was nervous. He knew too much about the Top Man.

/>   There was an ominous pause.

  ‘Mr Rogers, it is better you see the minister on your own,’ said the soldier.

  Dad had expected it. He and Mom had both got to know and like Simbarashe the sculptor in the last few weeks, and once, in passing, they had asked him if there was any possibility of his taking them to see his uncle. The sculptor said, ‘It is better you see my uncle on your own.’ They had come to the conclusion that even the Top Man’s own family was terrified of him.

  The soldier didn’t stay much longer that morning, and Dad resisted the temptation to ask him how he knew the Top Man, but they did make an ‘arrangement’. Dad promised him that if he got his title deed back or an official offer letter, he would buy the soldier a secondhand truck. He didn’t know how he could afford one, but that was the deal. That way there was an incentive for the soldier to work for him.

  He was even pleased when the soldier cautioned him not to get too excited.

  ‘Mr Rogers. Please understand. With our government, these land issues can take time. Sometimes many months. But let me be certain with you. The channels are now open. I know many people. Failing the minister, I am ready to speak with my other contacts. I have many contacts. Many friends in government.’

  And then, as he got up to leave, the soldier did a strange thing. He gave Dad a business card. It read Staff Sergeant: ZNA. Then he showed him an ID card. It read: State Security. State Security was Central Intelligence – the CIO, the Top Man’s other department. The soldier was a spy!

  Dad had wondered how a mere staff sergeant could be so connected, and this was it. Oom Piet was right. The chefs were all paranoid now. If there was going to be any change in government, it was increasingly likely that it would come from a military coup rather than an election. Dad reckoned the army must be full of spies checking up on other soldiers and officers – who was on whose side, who was saying what. And suddenly another ghastly realisation came to him: he had crossed a line. There was no going back. It was like jumping a border without a passport or a visa: you would never know if you could ever get out again. Everyone was corrupted in the end, he now realised. He was no different.

  The Top Man’s secretary answered the phone. She had been expecting Dad’s call. He made an appointment and drove out to see the minister in his hometown, 96 kilometres west, on the Harare road.

  It was a hot, bright, weekday morning in November 2006. Dad was nervous, and his mouth was parched. Halfway there, in the village of Odzi, he pulled over to buy a Coke. He paid Z$400 000 for it. That’s ten times what my entire pension was worth! he thought. He realised that, despite everything that had happened, cashing in his pension a dozen years ago to build the cottages had actually been one of the best decisions he had ever made in his life. Z$40 000 could not buy you an onion now.

  He drove on, passing Odzi Sports Club on the left. He remembered watching a rugby game there one Saturday afternoon in the 1970s and playing squash matches in the cement-block courts next to the clubhouse. The sports club was in tatters now. It had long since been taken over by war veterans.

  Forty-eight kilometres on he arrived in the Top Man’s town and turned right onto a potholed, jacaranda-lined street. He came to a small, double-storey colonial house surrounded by a high wire fence. Two armed guards at the gate asked his name and let him through.

  It was a beautiful home. It had a steeply pitched tile roof, a wide veranda and a green front lawn that was being drenched by water sprinklers. The receptionist met him at the front steps and told him to take a seat on one of a dozen chairs neatly arranged on the veranda. He wasn’t alone. Four people were already there, including an old white woman in a faded floral dress, her grey hair tied in a bun, her lips pursed and wrinkled. She didn’t look at him.

  He soon realised this was an audience with a chief. By the time the Top Man stepped onto the veranda half an hour later, more than twenty people were waiting. My father recognised him instantly from that time in the bar. He was plump, bald and not much more than four foot nine, but there was no denying he had presence. Wearing an immaculate charcoal suit and wire-rimmed glasses, he moved slowly through the rows, warmly welcoming everyone and shaking hands. My father was struck by how polite he was, charming even. But it occurred to him that almost every senior official he had managed to meet or speak to while trying to get his deed back was the same way. Some of them even had similarly posh British-sounding accents, picked up, he knew, in the country’s colonial-era mission schools. He was always reminded of Unita Herrer at moments like that, and what the war veterans had done to her. He wasn’t fooled. They have the power to completely destroy us, he said to himself, especially this man.

  The Top Man took a seat at a table in front of the chairs. His secretary sat to the side, a notebook on her lap. My father was fifth in line. First up was a youngish man in a suit jacket, an A2 farmer, complaining, in English, that a man named Neil Moolman was not vacating his farm to make way for him. Fuck me, thought Dad. I know Neil Moolman. He used to drink at Drifters. A huge Afrikaans guy. He’s still on his farm? How did he manage that?

  The Top Man said: ‘Don’t worry, I will sort it out.’

  Dad muttered: ‘There goes Neil Moolman.’

  Then the white woman stood up. She introduced herself. My father vaguely recognised the name. Where do I know her from? She had a heavy Afrikaans accent and spoke in a high-pitched voice that reminded him of Unita Herrer’s. She started off normally enough. She said that her husband wanted his farm back. That he was a good man, with a good history in Zimbabwe. The farm was all he owned in the world.

  The minister listened politely, nodding.

  Then she said something that almost made my father fall off his chair.

  ‘I want you to know that God has spoken to me, Minister,’ she said, her voice rising several octaves. ‘God has spoken to me. He is very displeased with what is happening in this country. He is very displeased with what has happened on my husband’s farm.’

  Her arms were flailing about now. She pointed a bony finger up at the ceiling, the sky, the minister. ‘God has spoken to me, Minister! God has spoken to me! There is going to be a lot of trouble if you don’t mend your ways. Oh yes, Minister. A lot of trouble!’

  My father was shocked, and suddenly he realised who she was: a South African woman who moved to Zimbabwe at the height of the land invasions to marry a local farmer after answering his ad in ‘The Hitching Post’, the lonely hearts section of Farmer’s Weekly magazine. The woman was a born-again Christian, a religious firebrand. Within months of her arrival, they were booted off the farm. She hadn’t taken kindly to it. She hadn’t left South Africa to live in penury in Zimbabwe, she told people. She was going to get the farm back!

  She railed on. Someone at the back sniggered. Dad, full of admiration, had to hold himself back from cheering her on. But then he looked at the minister. He sat perfectly still, nodding politely, completely untroubled by anything she was saying.

  When she finished he said: ‘Good to see you again, madam. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Dad realised she likely came to rail at the minister like that every week.

  Soon it was his turn. He introduced himself and explained the situation. It was his one shot, and he tried everything. His land was a tourist business, he told the minister, totally unsuitable for agriculture. It had no water on it. No flat ground. Totally unsuitable for resettlement, too. ‘Even the land inspectors have come to my place,’ he pleaded. ‘Three times! Even they say it’s unsuitable.’

  The minister shrugged.

  ‘I agree,’ he said.

  My father didn’t know if he had heard right.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I agree. I’ve been to your place. I had a look around. It’s not suitable for resettlement.’

  Dad’s heart leapt – in a good way for a change.

  ‘Does that mean you will give me an offer letter?’

  ‘Yes, you can have an offer letter.’

  He
was stunned.

  ‘So will you write one up for me?’

  ‘No. For that you will have to go to the Ministry of Lands in Harare.’

  My father’s heart sank again. But he wasn’t letting his one chance slip.

  ‘I’m sorry, Minister, but I have tried to go there. They do not answer or return calls. They never write anything down. How will I get an offer letter from them?’

  The Top Man shrugged.

  ‘Don’t worry. Call the permanent secretary in one week. I will inform him.’

  My father was thrilled, ecstatic. He couldn’t believe his luck. He thanked the Top Man, shook his hand, said goodbye. On the way back he bought another Coke in Odzi. This time he left a big tip.

  A week later he called the permanent secretary. He knew nothing about any letter. Dad called the week after that. No word had come from the Top Man. He phoned a dozen times over the next month. He either couldn’t get through or the secretary wouldn’t call back. Eventually he called the Top Man again. His secretary answered the phone.

  ‘He is busy,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t bother him at this time.’

  And so it was happening again. A few weeks before Christmas, in a long Skype conversation, my father updated me on the drama.

  ‘Now I’ve heard that the Top Man has told other white farmers that he would give them offer letters, and not one of them has got one. I think he was bullshitting me. It’s just something he said to get rid of me.’

  ‘So what did the soldier say when you reported back to him?’

  ‘I’ve met up with him a few times now. He told me things take time, that the wheels move slowly. I wanted to say that if he wants a truck, they’d better move faster, or I’m downgrading him to an ox-cart. Anyway, he now says he’ll go personally to the Lands ministry in Harare and sort it out. He says he knows the man. He also knows the Registrar of Deeds.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘Well, I keep wondering: Am I making a deal with the devil here? Is he helping us or is he using us? I mean, it’s occurred to me that he could be checking out our place and planning to get an offer letter for himself. Who knows? But I did eventually ask him how he knew the Top Man, and guess what? He says he was a guerrilla leader operating in our valley during the war. Some kind of war hero. He’s got wounds all over his body. He showed me. He said that during the war he answered to the Top Man, who was his ZANLA commander back in Mozambique. That’s how he’s close to him. I mean, who knows what the soldier got up to in the war? I don’t even want to go there. I tell you what, though, I think you should ask him when you come out.’