Lettah's Gift

by Graham Lang

  I reflect on my quaint predicament, sandwiched, as it were, between Hazel and Clara as their feisty chitchat flies back and forth. More like sisters than mother and daughter, the way they tease each other. I also dwell on the momentous occasion that awaits. Soon I will be face to face with Lettah. All going well, I, Frank, will fix what was broken between her and my mother. I will restore what was lost and Lydia will rest in peace. And I will return to Australia, to bask in my father’s and brother’s approval. Mission accomplished.

  Around nine o’clock, two constables saunter up the road. One unlocks the security gate to the police station, the other approaches the car. We greet him and ask after Chombo. ‘You arranged a time to meet the inspector?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Eight o’clock.’

  The constable looks at his watch. ‘Maybe he will come soon,’ he says. He laughs and enters the police station. We overhear him informing his colleague that the umLungu outside has arranged a time to meet Chombo. A burst of laughter.

  Constable Fashion arrives, attired in blue combat fatigues, the trousers so tight her gait is restricted to small, dainty steps. She eyes us warily beneath her cap as she passes the car. Without returning Hazel’s wave, she clambers up the front stairs into the charge office. Ribald banter and laughter ensue. There is a commotion in the jail: a banging of pots and the convict’s cheers at the arrival of their jailers – presumably breakfast is in the offing. After a while one of the constables emerges from the charge office, yawning lustily. He exits the security gate and walks off back down the road. Hazel’s cell phone rings. ‘No, you big oaf,’ Hazel sighs. ‘We’re perfectly capable of managing without you, Vic . . . Frank is quite capable, thank you. I’ll have none of your facetious comments . . .’

  The bickering continues for a minute before Hazel hangs up. I realise, finally, that the thing she loves most about Vic is being exasperated by him.

  ‘I don’t know what you see in that man,’ Clara says.

  ‘You should exercise just a teeny bit of tolerance, my dear.’

  ‘I should exercise tolerance? What about him?’

  Hazel lights another cigarette.

  ‘You should stop smoking, Mom. Imagine your lungs.’

  Hazel blows a plume of smoke out the window. ‘Anything else?’

  I ask: ‘Hazel, do you think we’ll recognise her? After all this time.’

  ‘Lettah? I don’t know.’

  ‘The more I try to picture her face, the more elusive it becomes. I hope your memory’s clearer.’

  Hazel shrugs. ‘It may be up to her to recognise us.’

  At last, two hours late, Chombo pitches up, a passenger in an old Dodge truck that comes rattling down the road, apparently stuck in low gear. He slaps the door a couple of times and waves the driver on. The truck whines on past us, spewing exhaust smoke. Chombo lumbers up the road, his ponderous step appearing to lag slightly behind the forward tilt of his big belly. A hot air balloon dragging its basket along the ground. We climb out and exchange greetings. Sweating profusely, he rubs the dust off his boned shoes on the back of his trousers.

  ‘Hayi! This sun is too much!’ he complains.

  There is a flicker of disappointment in his eyes when he sees Hazel but he quickly musters a smile. ‘Ah, we meet again, madam. To what do I owe the honour of a second visit?’

  ‘Only your limitless charm, Inspector. Allow me to introduce my daughter, Clara.’

  Chombo shakes hands with Clara. ‘Oh, yes, I can see the resemblance. Is this world brave enough to cope with both of you?’

  Clara regards him uncertainly. He cackles loudly and ushers us into the police station. Constable Fashion glowers at us from behind the counter as we follow Chombo to his office. Her worse than usual bad temper, Chombo explains as he pulls up chairs around his desk, is due to being on the Sunday roster. We sit. He wipes the sweat from his face with a grubby handkerchief and sits behind his desk. ‘Fashionista!’ he bellows. ‘Make some tea for our important guests!’

  ‘No milk!’ comes the terse reply.

  Chombo holds his palms out helplessly. ‘What’s wrong with the farmers in this country that they cannot even produce milk for our tea?’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t have farms and cows,’ Hazel says.

  Chombo laughs ‘Ah, what would life be without old Rhodesian ladies with sharp tongues? Reminding us Africans of our place in the world. Would you like black tea, perhaps?’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Cole would like to get down to business,’ Hazel says.

  I nod. ‘Yes, I would, if we may. You say you’ve found Lettah Ndlovu?’

  As though scarcely able to believe it himself, Chombo shakes his head. ‘Hayi! My friend, you have no idea how much trouble I’ve been to finding this woman. I have been to every farm, every village, every kraal in the district. Shangani . . . even Gweru. Searching, searching for this Lettah Ndlovu. And all the time she is right here under my nose!’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Here! Ten minutes from Fort Rixon!’

  ‘Well I never!’ Hazel says. ‘That’s wonderful news. And there I thought Zimbabwe’s police were next to useless!’

  ‘Mom . . .’ Clara says.

  Chombo lowers his eyes; he strokes his chin, abashed.

  ‘How did you manage to track her down?’ Hazel asks. ‘Were there records? Was it word of mouth?’

  ‘Work, madam. Lots of very hard work.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s her?’

  ‘Dear lady, do I look incompetent?’

  Fearing a reply, I quickly ask: ‘Can we see her now?’

  Chombo nods. ‘Of course. But first I must caution you. Ndlovu is not the woman you remember. She’s not the woman in the photograph from the old days. She’s very old.’

  ‘I’m expecting her to be old,’ I say.

  ‘Old? She’d be about the same age as me,’ Hazel says. ‘It’s not as though we’re Egyptian mummies!’

  ‘Some bear the ravages of time better than others,’ Chombo replies sagely. ‘Her memory is not a hundred percent. It took me a long time to confirm that she is indeed the Lettah Ndlovu you are looking for. Only she would know certain things from the past.’ He stands up. ‘No point sitting here wasting time. Just one problem. There are no police vehicles for our use. All are broken.’

  ‘Must be something in the fuel,’ Hazel muses innocently.

  Chombo sighs wearily. ‘Eh-ja . . . what can I do? I must ask you a favour –’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Hazel says. ‘We can use my car.’

  Chombo plonks his cap back on his head and we walk out into the hot glare of the morning. Three convicts are sitting in the shade of a jacaranda tree outside the jail, scooping sadza out of a black pot. I note how thin these men are and wonder how often the luxury of a proper meal comes their way. ‘Don’t think I can’t see you lazy bastards doing nothing,’ Chombo growls as we pass by. The men laugh nervously. One of them pipes up: ‘Hau, Inspector, it is Sunday. The day of rest.’

  ‘Look at me,’ Chombo says. ‘Do you think I rest on Sundays? Always on the job. Always!’

  Hazel hands over the role of driver to me and gets into the back with Clara. With Chombo issuing directions from the passenger seat next to me, we drive off back in the direction we had come, turning left after the store onto the Insiza road. Hazel points out the landmarks of her youth to Clara: the Jeannette Schur School, the old Dhlo Dhlo farmstead, the roadside graves of a pioneering family now overgrown with long grass. So sad, she says, that all this history is simply vanishing. I catch Clara’s eyes in the rear-view mirror; she winks and smiles. Chombo lounges back in his seat. He laces his fingers behind his neck and stretches, yawning cavernously, his joints cracking. Pointing at the column of smoke in the distance, he tells us of two children who perished in a veld fire just thre
e weeks ago. He chats about the mundane problems of police work. The thing that drives him mad is stock theft. The cases are endless, the paperwork too much. Ruefully, he shrugs and shakes his head. In the end you just give up, he says. I fully expect a barbed remark from Hazel, but she just listens quietly in the back, one eyebrow raised.

  I pay scant attention to Chombo’s waffle. I’m thrilled at the prospect of reporting back to Errol that the job is done, that my mother’s faith in me was well placed. At the same time, I’m apprehensive. What will meeting Lettah again evoke? After all she has been through, will she bear any resemblance to the person I knew? How will I appear to her? How will I be received?

  Something else niggles me too.

  I ask: ‘Inspector, that man from the farm – Ntombela – how is he? When we last spoke, you said he was sick.’

  ‘Ntombela? Oh, yes. Henry the Fourth.’

  ‘Henry the what?’

  ‘Henry the Fourth,’ Clara says. ‘HIV. Geddit?’

  Chombo guffaws. ‘Hayi! These Australians are too slow, man! What’s required in this country is a sense of humour, Mr Cole.’

  ‘I apologise for my deficiencies, Inspector. But Ntombela – how is he?’

  ‘He is six feet under the ground.’

  For a few seconds there is just the sound of the tyres rumbling over the corrugations in the road.

  ‘What? He’s dead?’

  Chombo nods. ‘Eh-ja.’

  The tone of good cheer has not left his voice.

  ‘But I spoke to you only –’

  ‘Mr Cole, you must not worry yourself about things that are beyond your control.’ He gestures out at the passing countryside. ‘Four out of ten people here have the Sickness. AIDS is everywhere. Your Ntombela is a drop in the ocean.’

  ‘Where did he die, Inspector?’ Hazel asks. ‘Was he given treatment?’

  Chombo sighs impatiently. ‘From what I hear, he died in the night. On the farm. His family woke up and he was dead. That’s all. Finished. Now let’s not be distracted from the happy event that lies ahead. We must be positive in life.’

  In the mirror I see Hazel make a face at the back of Chombo’s shaved head, her childish impudence a curious measure of our place in the scheme of things here.

  Chombo directs me off the Insiza road onto a narrow track that winds up through some forested hills. We pass through tinder dry glades that smell like old tea leaves, the scream of insects growing louder as we slow down over rough sections of the track. The bush thins as we descend into a small, arid valley. We pass empty, shimmering pastures and deserted kraals, coming at last to a T-junction, next to which stands a long ramshackle building. Chombo tells me to pull over in front of the building. Hazel recognises the place as Harrie’s General Store from the old days – Bob and Mavis Harrie, she says, used to run a thriving business selling anything and everything from blankets and horse bridles to beer. The tired ghost of this business can still be discerned in the remnants of red lettering on the building’s flaking façade. Only the façade appears intact. The veranda to one side of the entrance has collapsed; the corrugated roof, too, seems in imminent danger of caving in; the exterior walls are cracked and peeling. A group of people – a man, three women, and some children – peers through the doorway as we arrive. There are no other signs of life: no dogs or fowls, no livestock in the pastures behind the old store.

  We climb out into the hot glare. The people emerge from the store. All look half-starved; they appear to be expecting Chombo. They greet him nervously and the women and children promptly disappear around the back of the building. Chombo introduces the man to us as Gumede; he is Lettah’s distant relative – a cousin of a cousin, Chombo explains. Gumede shakes my hand, African style. With Ndebeles it’s a sign of respect to look down when greeting someone; Gumede’s downcast eyes, however, seem more the product of defeat than custom. He is an emaciated wreck; prematurely aged, wizened, yet probably no older than forty. He breaks into a terrible coughing fit. When he finishes, I half expect bits of lung to be hanging out his mouth. He commences to roll a cigarette in newspaper, nonetheless.

  ‘Aibo, Gumede!’ Chombo chides him. ‘You have one foot in the grave, my friend. Where is MaNdlovu?’

  ‘Phakathi – inside,’ Gumede rasps, gesturing at the dark interior. ‘She is waiting.’

  We follow him inside. Our steps echo in the huge, empty room that was once the shop. A strong smell of wood smoke. A couple of ruptured mattresses on the cement floor at one end and some blankets strewn over flattened cardboard boxes at the other. A few pots surrounding the embers of a fire on the floor near the open window. Some bare shelves along one wall. ‘I always had the impression Harrie’s shop was tiny,’ Hazel reflects, her voice echoing.

  Gumede leads the way down a passage. A gaping hole in the roof above provides a splash of hot light on the passage floor. A bicycle minus one wheel leans against the wall. The doors to the rooms on either side have been removed from their hinges. Glimpses of more beds on floors, small belongings. A foul-smelling toilet, loud with buzzing flies. At the end of the passage Gumede halts and gestures to a room on his right. ‘She is here,’ he rasps before breaking into another coughing fit.

  We follow Chombo inside. The room is small, lit by a single window with broken panes. An iron bed and a rickety table and chair are the only items of furniture. A battered leather suitcase and some cardboard boxes are stacked against the wall. An old woman sits on the bed, her eyes fixed on her clasped hands resting on her lap. She is barefoot and wears a dark blue headscarf, a threadbare orange dress and a grey shawl fastened around her shoulders with a safety pin. A surge of expectant joy rises in me.

  ‘Sa’bona, MaNdlovu,’ Chombo greets her, placing emphasis on her name. ‘Kunjani – how are you, MaNdlovu?’

  She looks up at him and nods. She glances quickly at Hazel, Clara and me before staring down at her calloused hands again. A square of light on the bare cement floor at her feet illuminates her face from underneath. She is ancient; her sunken eyes surrounded by a maze of deep lines, none of which appear the product of laughter. Her face is like the desolate terrain outside, eroded by neglect. There is nothing about her that I recognise.

  Chombo stands over her. ‘MaNdlovu, are you not happy to see the nkosana from long ago? Come, greet Mr Cole. This is Frank. He is the same boy that you knew long ago. This is a time to celebrate, MaNdlovu!’

  The woman looks up again. She gives me a trembling smile. ‘Sa’bona, nkosana Frank,’ she whispers.

  Standing in the doorway, Gumede breaks into another coughing fit. He disappears. We hear him stumbling outside, coughing and spitting.

  ‘Lettah?’ I say, my voice choked. ‘Is it you, Lettah?’

  She looks at me and back at her hands.

  ‘Aibo, MaNdlovu!’ Chombo exclaims impatiently. ‘Mr Cole has come a long way to find you. He asked you a question. You are the person he seeks. You are Lettah Ndlovu, are you not?’

  Hazel interrupts: ‘Oh, don’t badger her like that, Inspector!’

  Chombo gives Hazel a frustrated glare. ‘I’m just asking MaNdlovu to identify herself. She is old and senile. Her memory needs encouragement.’ He turns back to the woman. ‘Tell them. You are Lettah Ndlovu.’

  She nods. ‘I am Lettah Ndlovu.’

  I go down on one knee. I put my hand on hers. She flinches. ‘Do you recognise me, Lettah?’

  She continues to stare downward. ‘You are nkosana Frank.’

  ‘I’ve wondered what became of you, Lettah. Do you remember the time when we lived in Que Que? Do you remember the house we lived in? Do you remember my parents?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about that time?’

  ‘You are the son of Mr and Mrs Cole. Errol and Lydia.’

  She labours over the pronunciation of the
names. My heart begins to wilt.

  ‘Do you remember my brother?’

  She nods.

  ‘Maxwell? You remember Max?’

  ‘A-heh. I remember Maxwell.’

  Chombo beams. ‘That’s right, MaNdlovu. You remember Mr Cole’s family. Four altogether, is that correct?’

  She nods. ‘Errol, Lydia, Maxwell, Frank.’

  I stand up. A long silence ensues.

  ‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ I say. ‘Do you wish to ask me any questions?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Hazel asks.

  The woman looks up at Hazel, the lines on her face contorting with confusion. She glances helplessly at Chombo.

  Chombo’s voice has a flustered, frantic ring. ‘What are you talking about? What have you got to do with this?’

  ‘I asked her a simple question, Inspector.’ Hazel replies. She turns again to the woman. ‘Do you remember me?’

  ‘She is senile!’ Chombo yells. He taps his head with a finger. ‘Her memory is full of holes! She can only remember the big things!’

  Hazel ignores him. ‘Do you remember my name? I was a friend of Frank’s mother, Lydia – her best friend. If you are Lettah then you would remember me.’