Love in the Driest Season

by Neely Tucker

  “Well, in case you missed it, the president has just declared open season on the media,” he said. “What we have now is a situation where the government and the military are on one side, and the people and the judiciary on the other. Things can drop rapidly into anarchy from here.”

  I liked Makumbe, as did most journalists who sought out his analysis. After a few minutes more, I ended our conversation as I always did, with thanks and a word to be careful.

  He gave his slight, raspy laugh.

  “I would think, Mr. Tucker, that you might need that advice more than I do.”

  The next week, four more local journalists were arrested.

  The Zimbabwe Mirror, another independent paper, reported that a soldier’s corpse had been returned from the battle in Congo. More to the point, only his head had been returned, the story said.

  Reporter Grace Kwinjeh and editor Fernando Gonçalves were arrested and charged with filing a report intended to cause alarm or despondency—the same offense with which Mark and Ray were charged. During the course of making calls on this incident, I noticed that when I hung up the phone, it would ring back. When I picked up, there was no one there. It had been doing that sporadically for months. Now it was doing it on almost every call. Most journalists in Zimbabwe assumed their lines might be tapped, but this was getting ridiculous.

  After another interview, I got the same ring back. But this time I didn’t hang up. I just pressed a finger down over the button on the receiver. As soon as it rang, I lifted my finger and demanded, “Who’s on the line?”

  There was a pause. “Eh, is that two Rayl Road?”

  “It is.”

  “Eh-eh. Do you still have those two big dogs, Mr. Tucker?”

  We had two Rottweilers.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I can’t afford to feed them so much anymore. They’ve taken to eating anybody who comes over the walls.”

  The man laughed, and the line went dead.

  13

  CHOOSING CHIPO

  ZIMBABWE WAS NOT, at this stage, a country that struck fear into any foreign correspondent’s heart. The incident with Mark and Ray and the journalists from the Mirror had been terrifying for them. But foreign reporters, at least at the moment, seemed to be regarded as a different kettle of fish. Most diplomats and analysts interpreted Mugabe’s threats as local huff and puff, fodder to show the local faithful that he had powerful enemies and thus was an important man in world affairs. (This was surprisingly effective. With the government paper trumpeting stories about U.S. and U.K. “meddling” on a steady basis, many Zimbabweans thought that Americans were receiving the same diet of news. My friends were often incredulous when I would show them the international sections of the New York Times and the Washington Post, in which Zimbabwe was rarely mentioned, much less on the front page.)

  Further, Zimbabwe was debating the rule of law. That put it on the upper fringes of most places I reported about. In the context of Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, and southern Nigeria, Mugabe’s tub thumping and a tapped phone line did not seem greatly alarming.

  But these were not ordinary times, as Chimutengwende said, and I was not in any ordinary position. Mugabe’s government was more than a little paranoid in its search for scapegoats. If I filed hard-nosed stories on the country’s turbulence, as was my professional mandate, then those stories might anger the government. And if the general policy was to “actively discourage” foreign adoptions on principle, there was no need to wonder what the policy would be toward newfound “enemies of the state.” If I angered the government for any reason at all, then Chipo would go back to the orphanage, an event she would likely not survive.

  Neither was the adoption process formally started, despite our new foster parent status. The Department of Social Welfare had yet to allow us to file a formal adoption request, and it was becoming apparent that foster custody was no indicator that such an application would be approved. Worse, Florence Sibanda resigned from the agency. Now we would have to start all over with a new social worker, still in the foster section, and obtain all of Chipo’s personal identity papers. Only when those were in hand could her file be turned over to an adoption officer. That person would have to conduct another home study and fill out and process yet another set of paperwork. Then the director of the department had to approve it. Then the provincial director had to approve it. Then it went to the national ministry for an application for an exemption that would allow foreigners to adopt. The minister, Florence Chitauro, had to personally sign the exemption. Then we would go back to a judge.

  This could take years. Of course, that was presuming that each officer approved of the adoption. A “no” could come at any time.

  It was about this time that my source in the Department of Social Welfare counseled me to back off for six or seven months. “Slow down,” the source said. “They really don’t like you guys. They think you’re pushy Americans. Just let everything settle down for several months, and then come back and tell them you’d like to adopt.”

  But the longer I stayed in the country as a foreign correspondent—which my work permit, renewed annually, clearly identified me to be—the more risk I ran of running afoul of the government, particularly with such a tiny foreign press corps. After the fall of apartheid in neighboring South Africa, the full-time correspondents dispatched by Western media outlets to the region had moved from Harare to Johannesburg. Mine was the only American organization to still base a full-time staffer in Zimbabwe. Even the major wire agencies, Reuters and the Associated Press, staffed their Harare offices with talented local journalists instead of sending in career professionals from headquarters; Zimbabwe was just too small, too far off the beaten path. There was the BBC correspondent, a dedicated young reporter named Joseph Winter, and Andy Meldrum, an American national writing for the British paper The Guardian, but the other foreign journalists in town were stringers to one degree or another. If Mugabe’s administration decided to go looking for an American correspondent to make an example out of, I counted noses and figured I was no lower than number two or three on a very short list.

  I sent my editors a one-page memo, giving formal notice of Mugabe’s speech and its possible implications for the company’s assets in Zimbabwe. I recounted the series of arrests of journalists and told them that our phone was tapped. “Ordinarily, this would not cause much concern,” the note read. “I would send Vita to Johannesburg in a difficult time, and follow only in the event of extraordinary violence directed at Western journalists. . . . But foster custody does not permit us to take Chipo out of the country. She has no birth certificate and no passport. If I get expelled or arrested, or if my work permit is canceled, she will be returned to the orphanage. I do not consider that an option.”

  I then told them I was invoking my contractual right to take three months of unpaid parental leave as soon as possible. I needed to lower my profile in the Information Ministry, while pushing as hard as possible on the adoption in the Social Welfare office, and hope the two didn’t talk to one another.

  I called editor Joyce Davis on the satellite telephone, the untapped line, a few minutes later. “What is this going to do to our coverage of Zimbabwe?” she asked.

  “Pretty much kill it,” I replied. “I don’t see any other way. I get hauled in for one story and poof, that’s it for Chipo. Then there’s the conflict of interest—I’m going to be reporting on a failing administration in which I need a cabinet member to sign my adoption papers. It’s just too dodgy. I’ve got forty-seven nations in my region. I’ll be happy to file stories from anyplace else on the continent—Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Congo, you name it—but I will file stories on Zimbabwe only at my discretion. If that’s unacceptable, I understand, and we’ll figure something out.”

  The desk was professionally dismayed, to put it mildly. A correspondent refusing to cover the country he is based in is extraordinary, if not unheard of. The editors were personally supportive—Joyce was an
adoptive mother herself—and we agreed that I would finish my current round of assignments, about a month’s worth of work, and then take my leave. Our understanding was that I would get the adoption completed and move the bureau to Nairobi as soon as possible.

  I hung up feeling as though I was letting the pressure get to me, that I had lost my nerve. There was a lingering sense that I was allowing the emotional weight of reporting in more deadly countries to affect my judgment here, as if there were an overlay making it difficult to distinguish between Bosnia and Zimbabwe, or Rwanda and Zimbabwe, or Congo and Zimbabwe. I would shake my head to try to focus on what was happening just in this country, stamping my foot on the ground to emphasize that I was here. The problem was that the picture didn’t look any better when I did that. I felt a hitch in my gut every time I looked at Chipo.

  14

  THE PAPER TRAIL

  DESPITE MY FRIEND’S COUNSEL to spend several months away from the adoption process, there was really nothing to do but wade right in. If social workers got angry, then we’d just have to deal with being the ugly Americans. Besides, there was no guarantee social workers would do their work any more rapidly half a year hence, and what I had seen so far did not bolster my confidence.

  So we got an official adoption application. It was four pages long. There were twenty-four questions and any number of subpoints. The form had blank spaces for our names, address, phone number, nationality, race, date of arrival in Zimbabwe, if we owned or rented, date and place of birth, religion, the name of any church attended regularly, employment, salary, if we had children, if we were physically able to produce more children, the particulars of a child we wanted to adopt, and information on our physical and mental health. Affidavits from a minister and a physician, testifying to our spiritual and physical health, were required. At least three professional and three personal references were also obligatory.

  We completed the forms, got the letters, and took the batch of papers into Florence Kaseke’s office. I knocked on the door, opening it halfway, and she motioned us inside. Vita and I sat in the chairs pulled up to her desk. All smiles, I told her that we wanted to file the official adoption paperwork. We had thought it over for the seven months Chipo had been living with us, and we had no doubt.

  “Absolutely,” Vita added.

  “How wonderful,” Kaseke said, looking less than overjoyed.

  Then I pushed it.

  “I know you think there is something improper about Chipo coming to live with us,” I said. “So beginning next month, I am taking three months off from my job to work with you on this. I will answer any question at any time. I have a vehicle, so I can drive your workers on their rounds, if that will be helpful, on my case or any other. The department has no copy machine. I will be pleased to donate one. I’ll be happy to work as a volunteer, a kind of support staff, for any or all of your social workers, because I can see how busy they are. I’ve got three months, and I’ll be happy to assist the department in whatever way I can.”

  She smiled then, gave a slight laugh, and looked anywhere in the room but at me.

  “That is so kind. We do not have that many vehicles here. It is very difficult for us. Our workers are not so well paid. But all our files are confidential. I could not let anyone but a worker handle them.”

  “I understand. It was just a friendly offer. As far as Chipo’s paperwork goes, just let me know.”

  I left for Nigeria the next day, as that nation was holding democratic presidential elections after years of military dictatorship, a monumental event in the world’s most populous and potentially powerful black nation. For ten days, I trekked around the country, hopping plane flights and long taxi rides, talking to people thrilled to be emerging from years of a military dictatorship. It was swamp-hot in the delta, and pleasantly cool in the inland capital of Abuja, but the hope in people’s faces was a tangible thing that gave energy to the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the infection I had in Harare wasn’t finished with me yet. By the time the ballots were counted, with former general Olesegun Obasanjo the victor, another abscess had developed—this one exquisitely located on the inside corner of my lip. It swelled with pus to such a painful degree that it pulled my lips away from my teeth. I couldn’t close the left side of my mouth. I looked like Quasimodo with a hangover and felt worse. A doctor in Lagos did an expert job of lancing it in his clinic, but the medication and the painkillers were so strong that they left me hallucinating when I got back to my hotel room—which was located on the seventeenth floor. In the midst of lights flashing and visions that I was flying soaring through my head, I moved a desk and a chair in front of the balcony doorway to keep me from staggering onto the ledge. I was still dizzy two days later when I boarded a South African Airways jet for a flight to Johannesburg. A tropical thunderstorm blew in, leaving us stranded on the Lagos runway. The pilot announced that the crew was having an argument with the control tower. The pilots thought it was okay to take off. The control tower said the rain and winds were too high. “So we’re going right now,” the pilot said, and the plane jerked forward before anyone could protest. We rose into the storm, and the winds hit—the plane pitched from side to side and the wings bounced up and down. Several overhead cabinets clattered open. Things fell to the floor and rolled down the aisle. We wobbled, and the bottom seemed to fall out from under us, a dip so sudden that a book in my lap floated past my head, where I caught it. The woman next to me screamed, making me nearly jump out of my seat. “Lady,” I growled in the jolting aftermath, “the nose of the plane is pointing up. When it starts to go down, that’s when you scream.”

  I was ready to kiss the ground when I got back home to Harare, and then I pretty much literally did, leveled by a kidney stone attack. I lay on the bathroom floor for a week, out of my mind on more painkillers and antispasmodics, waiting for the damn stone to pass. My immune system was so ragged that now the doctors were testing me, not Chipo, for HIV. Dr. Paruch, a Polish immigrant and our physician, said I didn’t have that virus, but my body was worn out.

  “Your immune system is beaten to little bitty pieces,” he said. “You are only what, thirty-five years old? You look terrible.” This was almost the verbatim assessment of my physical appearance the Italian physician had given in Nairobi. I thanked him for the confirming opinion.

  “What did he say?” Vita asked when I got back home.

  “That I look like hell.”

  “Did we have to pay for that?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. She gave me a kiss, always good medicine, and I hobbled over to the couch. Chipo held her hands out and giggled, the sign she wanted me to pick her up, and I did. “And what did you do today, Miss Thing? Did you go to Harvard? Are you the new Brandy? Or Whitney? Could you please be a singing sensation at thirteen so your momma and daddy can take an early retirement?”

  She leaned over and bumped her nose against mine, once, twice. She giggled.

  There were only a few days until my leave started, and I was ready to sleep for three months. I padded out to the driveway early one morning in March to retrieve the daily Herald. Herbert, the security guard, was thumbing through it. He handed it to me and smiled. “Ah, you Americans are in trouble, sure.”

  I flapped open the front page. He wasn’t kidding.

  “Three Americans Held over Arms” was the headline stripped across the front page. The article, accompanied by a photograph of police looking over a flatbed truck with an array of rifles at the side, said that three unnamed U.S. nationals had been arrested at Harare International Airport attempting to board a Swissair flight to Zurich. One man had an empty pistol in his pocket, police said, and it set off metal detectors. Disassembled weapons were found in the luggage, and dozens more in false panels of their truck parked outside. The men claimed to be missionaries, but police recovered three AK-47 assault rifles, a light machine gun, two sniper rifles, five shotguns, six telescopic sights with infrared lenses, nineteen pistols, and more than seventy knives. Their truck
bore license plates from the Shaba province of Congo. The main city there was Lubumbashi, a notorious hub for illegal diamond markets, gunrunning, and, during the Cold War, covert operations by the CIA.

  The article’s second paragraph said the men “appeared to be highly trained military personnel” and would be charged with espionage.

  “You have absolutely got to be kidding me,” I said out loud.

  It was all too obvious what was coming—a burst of government-sponsored anti-American propaganda. The idea that, as an American journalist, I would not be under the same scrutiny as local reporters, or even expats from Britain, evaporated before I got back inside with the paper.

  Mugabe’s administration quickly said not only that the men were spies, but that they were a three-man hit squad, somehow out to assassinate Congolese president Laurent Kabila and then Mugabe himself. Security officers said the men had a map of State House, the Zimbabwean White House, to facilitate their assassination of Mugabe. I went to see Didymus Mutasa, a senior member of the Politburo, one of Mugabe’s closest advisors, and probably the fourth or fifth most powerful man in the country. We had a good working relationship, as he thought the stories I filed had always been fair. But he was guarded about this matter, not even offering much off-the-record guidance. “We don’t know what kind of game these men were playing,” he said, “but believe me, we will.”

  This was not a story I could ignore—besides, this was one the government wanted reported—so on the final days before my leave, I was standing outside Harare’s criminal court with a gaggle of other reporters when police brought in the three suspects. They were identified as Gary G. Blanchard, Joseph Wendell Pettijohn, and John D. Lamonte, all in their mid-thirties. They were a motley crew from Indiana, dressed in checked shirts and heavy trousers. They were charged with terrorism, espionage, and contravening the Law and Order Maintenance Act (the same offense as Mark and Ray), as well as unlawfully holding arms and attempting to load dangerous weapons onto an aircraft. They faced a possible life sentence if convicted.