Diamond Boy

by Michael Williams

  I told him about everything Jamu had shown me that day and he told me about how the first diamonds were discovered here. There was a man who had been fired from the De Beers Diamond Trading Company along the Skeleton Coast in Namibia. It was a massive alluvial diamond field that runs two hundred miles along the Atlantic coast. He was visiting his father in Marange when he saw something shining on the ground. He recognized it as a diamond and immediately started looking for more.

  “Nobody believed him at first, but after six months West Africans, Lebanese, and Israelis came to buy the stones he’d collected. And that’s how the diamond rush to Marange started.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead. He got drunk in a bar and crashed his BMW into a tree.”

  “That’s a terrible end to the story, Baba. I thought you were going to say he has a beautiful mansion and lived happily ever after,” and I laughed at the deadpan expression set on my father’s face.

  Then he smiled too. “That only happens in storybooks, son. Real life is a bit different.”

  “The food is ready,” called Grace.

  My little sister served up a meal of goat’s stew and potatoes and proudly beamed when we asked for second helpings.

  “You see, Patson. It won’t be so bad,” she said. “This is almost as good as the food at the Banda house, don’t you think?”

  “Much better,” I said, licking up the last bit of gravy off my plate and feeling strangely happy to be alone with my real family.

  While we were sitting at the entrance of our shed finishing our meal, a young man walked up and greeted us. Around his neck was a green scarf similar to Grace’s. He had a broad smile and twinkling eyes. He shook hands with all of us and handed a plastic bag filled with avocados and litchis to my father.

  “My name is Determine Ludozwa. I live in shed number one,” he said. “We want to welcome you.”

  “Hello, Scoutmaster,” Grace called, and then turned to us. “This is the man I was telling you about. He was teaching us how to march. I’m going to be a Girl Guide, Patson.”

  “Thank you, Determine. I am Joseph Moyo and this is my son, Patson. It is good to meet you. Are you working the mines?”

  “No, that’s not for me. It’s too dangerous. I’m studying accountancy at Mutare Polytechnic. When I finish, I plan to go to South Africa. I have an aunt in Cape Town.”

  “You can’t go, Determine. We just got here,” protested Grace.

  My father looked at the young man with interest. “I’m glad to hear someone in Marange believes in studying. What year are you in?”

  “Well, I’ve completed my first year, but for lack of funds I couldn’t go into my second. I’m always looking out for ways of making money and next year I hope to continue,” he said, smiling. “In the meantime, I’m working on the fruit farm,” he added, pointing vaguely in the direction of Mutare.

  Their conversation faded and I, for the first time, thought to check if my mobile reception was any better here. But the battery was flat and how was that possible?

  “Grace,” I called, following her back into our shed. “Did you play games on my phone?”

  “I was bored, Patson. It was only a couple of minutes.”

  “And now the battery’s flat,” I said, irritated, tossing it onto the mattress. “You must ask me before you use my phone.”

  “If I had my own phone, I wouldn’t have to ask you,” was her pert reply. “But don’t worry, the old man in the first shed has a television set. I can ask him to charge it. I know how,” she said, darting out the door.

  “There’s no connection up here,” said Determine, watching Grace leave with my phone. “You’ll have to go down to the road.”

  A thought struck me as I watched Grace talking to the old man, three doorways down. “What do we do about Grace when we are working, Baba?” I remembered those children working in the dust at Mafukose Munda. I didn’t want Grace sifting dirt in the diamond fields.

  “She must go down to the farmhouse with Kuda,” suggested my father. “Or she can stay here. There are children here she can play with.”

  “We have scouting in the afternoons,” Determine said. “I don’t mind looking after her.” And with a great, warm smile, he added, “She is welcome to join us.”

  The next morning Jamu was waiting for me on the steps of the old farmhouse. I had risen early after an uncomfortable night on the thin mattress to discover that my father had already left the sheds and that Grace was on her way to the big house.

  “Auntie Kuda told me you can eat breakfast with us,” she said as we walked down the path toward the farmhouse. “Come on, Patson, I know you’re hungry.”

  “Nah, I’m okay, Grace. Maybe tomorrow. You go ahead. I’ll see you later.”

  Jamu didn’t ask about my first night in the tobacco shed, how I had slept or how I felt about us being dumped there. Instead he adopted his schoolteacher voice and continued my education about the mines. As we ran down the path toward Banda Hill, he explained how erosion had washed the diamonds from their underground pipes—“They’re called kimberlitic pipes”—and scattered them much closer to the earth’s surface. He gave me a regular geology lesson but I was only half listening as we walked up to the gates of the diamond mine.

  Banda Hill wasn’t really a hill but rather a series of mounds in a warren of paths that led down to a muddy brown tongue of water snaking through the open mine field. Around its edges piles of sand had been flattened by men patrolling along the fence that marked the mine’s perimeter. A few men were busy repairing a section of barbed wire under the watchful eyes of two policemen.

  “Welcome to the richest mine in Marange,” said Jamu proudly as we approached the main gate. “That’s why we need a fence and a security team. Everyone wants to work on my father’s mine.”

  I followed him as we strolled up to the security guards, who nodded at Jamu, but then eyed me suspiciously.

  “He’s with me,” said Jamu to one of the guards. “He’s my cousin.”

  The guard stepped aside and we walked into the mine.

  “They’re all ex-policemen who were tired of getting paid with suitcases full of worthless money,” said Jamu, referring back to the guards. “We’ve also got the police working for us. My father pays them to leave us alone.”

  Banda Hill had fewer miners than PaMbada and Mafukose and although the process of mining looked the same—the pits, the baskets, iron rods, and sieves—here it somehow seemed more organized, more urgent.

  “We have our own source of water. The Odzi River washes the silt down those water channels, and higher up we have the purest ore, better even than PaMbada.” Jamu talked on and on but all I could do was stare in wonder at the bustling activity of the mine. Everywhere I looked people were digging, sifting, shoveling, sorting, raking, burrowing, tunneling, and turning the earth with their bare hands: all determined to harvest a precious stone.

  I spotted James Banda sitting under a large red and yellow beach umbrella close to the eye of the mine. He wore sunglasses, a white panama hat, and a brightly colored open-necked shirt and had his phone pressed to his ear. At his feet, two men were crouched over a pile of washed stones, studying each one with the same kind of magnifying glass Uncle James used. Although he was still talking on his phone he beckoned us closer with his free hand.

  “Whatever you do, don’t put your hands in your pockets,” whispered Jamu. “When you’re on the mines, he has to see your hands at all times.”

  While we waited for Uncle James I stared at the heap of stones and wondered if I could spot a diamond before the men could. My fingers itched to rake through this pile of promising pebbles.

  “Morning, boys,” greeted Uncle James, slipping his phone in his pocket. “Jamu, you showed Patson the mines?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Is he clean yet?”

  “No, we came straight here.”

  Uncle James frowned.

  “I know. We’ll do it today,”
Jamu promised quickly.

  Then Uncle James’s phone jangled in his pocket and he waved us away.

  “You can’t touch anything,” Jamu warned. “It will bring you bad luck. You must first be cleansed.”

  “I washed this morning, Jamu,” I protested.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. Prophet Ubert will get you right,” he said, climbing up one of the embankments to the middle of the mine. As we ran past a line of men handing baskets of mud to one another that had been excavated from the center of the eye, one of them called out my name. I looked more carefully into their muddy faces.

  “Patson! Over here!”

  I recognized my father’s voice instantly. He was standing halfway up the slope, looking just like everyone else, covered from head to toe in brown mud. His feet were bare and he wore an old, dirty T-shirt and short pants. Uncle James had started him in the assembly line; the most menial of all the miners’ tasks. I’d seldom seen him in anything other than a crisply ironed white shirt, thin black tie, suit coat, and trousers. But most surprising of all, his ever-present black-rimmed glasses were missing. How could he possibly think he would find a diamond without his glasses? He struggled with a heavy basket of mud while on either side of him the other miners cursed loudly. He seemed out of place; the weak link in a chain of strong and able men.

  “Baba?”

  “Don’t look so shocked,” he said. “You’ll look like this soon enough.”

  “Have you found anything yet?”

  “No. But I will. You’ll see,” he said, with his eyes glinting and a white smile flashing from his mud-splattered mouth. “I still have to work out a more productive method of gathering ore, but I’ll find a way. See you later, son. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  My father returned to the work he clearly wasn’t very good at, and I followed Jamu, aware that in this mine, the miners’ energy was quite unlike the others. Here, the men worked hard, silently, and with keen purpose. I would have to do better than my father.

  “Hey, Fatso, you planning on working today, or you too busy playing tour guide?” one of the miners shouted at Jamu.

  “Get lost, Chipo,” Jamu shouted back and then pointed to me. “My dad’s given me an important job to do.”

  “Oh, crap, not another hard-luck story!”

  “I knew it wouldn’t be long before you spotted us,” Jamu relented. “Chipo, meet Patson.”

  I nodded at the miner and looked closer. Inside the too-large cap, the dirty shorts, and muddy T-shirt, Chipo was a girl. She was slightly taller than me, but I guessed, like me, she must be about fifteen years old.

  “Hey, Arves!” she called, eyeing me suspiciously. “Arves! Kamba! Come over here. Fatso’s picked up a stray.”

  Two young miners walked over, one thin and small boned with wiry arms and the other stockier, with one slow-moving eye and a jaw the size of a peanut butter jar. They both looked me up and down as if I’d fallen from outer space.

  “What do you think, Arves?” she said, hands on her hips.

  “Definitely too clean,” the thin one answered.

  “He’ll be vulture meat in a week,” said Jar-Jaw.

  The boys circled me, while Chipo shook her head. “A week? No way, Kamba, he won’t last two days.”

  “Patson is family,” announced Jamu. “He’s my cousin.”

  “Oh, so this is the prince we heard so much about,” Chipo jeered.

  “Doesn’t look like much of a prince to me,” scoffed Kamba. “What do you think, Arves? Royal blood or grape juice?”

  “Looks more like a teacher’s pet,” observed Arves. “That new guy dropping baskets in the line, is he your father?”

  We all turned to look back along the ridge of the eye. There was my father, on his knees, carefully lifting handfuls of mud into a basket while men in the line passed more baskets over his head.

  “He won’t last long in Banda’s syndicate,” predicted Chipo.

  “Yah, he carries on like that and he’ll be scratching dust on Mafukose Munda,” agreed Arves.

  “Banda hates slackers,” Kamba chipped in.

  To them my father and I were just four more hands looking for the same thing they were. Obviously we were not going to be welcomed with open arms. Not in this place where every stranger that walked onto the mine could be the lucky one who left a millionaire. I glanced back at my father, who had been passed over and now sat to one side, his head in his hands. I saw myself as different from him, though I didn’t quite know how, just yet. But if I was going to be different, I would have to be that way right from the start. This interrogation and standoff with the gwejana of Banda Hill had lasted long enough.

  “We are here to stay,” I announced. “So, you guys better get used to us Moyos being around. Yah, and one other thing. Jamu’s right. We are family. I’m part of the Banda family and James Banda is my uncle. I’m sure all of you have enough brains between you to understand what that means.”

  They stared at me. Even Jamu’s mouth hung open. Then Chipo laughed.

  “Well, that shut us up. I like your style, Prince,” she said and, turning to Jamu, added, “I think your cousin is going to fit in at Banda Hill just fine.”

  “Come on, Jamu,” I ordered. “I want to get this cleansing thing over with. It’s time I got dirty.”

  Prophet Ubert Angel strode up and down a long yellow cloth, swatting invisible flies. He wore a purple velvet jacket with large pockets over a white smock that hung to his feet. His face shone with exultation as he talked to his god and received His Direct Message. Women wearing white headscarves and robes knelt in rows four deep on one side of the cloth, and men in long white tunics, holding long shepherds’ staffs shaped like question marks, sat in rows on the other. The service was held outdoors, and a red cloth trimmed in white with a large cross at its center, stretched taut and held aloft by two acolytes, provided the temporary walls of the church.

  “I am with the spirit. I am in the vision. We are traveling. By the power of the spiritual navigator you must be cleansed of your disbelief,” the prophet shouted to the blue sky, his fingers moving dials on his imaginary switchboard to heaven.

  Jamu sat next to me, transfixed. His eyes never left the prophet. All around us this strange congregation shouted out their “hallelujahs,” the women bowing forward and back, and the men pounding their sticks in complete agreement.

  “If you are poor, it is because of evil spirits,” said the prophet. “But my god is a rich god, a generous god. Why should his children be poor?”

  A rumbling of “hallelujahs” and “amens” rose from the assembly. A woman lifted a Bible in the air and it was quickly snatched away by the prophet.

  “The hand of the angel of God is on this book,” he said, smacking its cover. “He says raise your money in the air and he will double and triple what you offer him. Everything you have will be double-double, money double-double, cars double-double. Woh-woh—raise your money, people. Let God see what you give, so that it can be doubled.”

  Jamu handed me two American dollars. “Wave it above your head,” he said. “It’s from my father. You can pay him back later. Do it! Now.”

  All around me people were waving notes above their heads as the prophet walked through the crowd, gathering the money, which disappeared into his purple pockets. He laid his hand on people’s heads, fanned them with the floppy sleeves of his smock, and gave one man a quick rap on the forehead. The prophet was like some microwave exorcist: Everyone he touched turned hot and shouted, “Hallelujah.”

  “You have been blessed, brother. Go to your girazi. It waits for you.”

  He zapped a man, who fell to the ground.

  “Thank you, brother. You are cleansed.”

  And another, who flung his arms in the air.

  “Mine is a rich god,” he chanted, taking people’s money with one hand and knocking them to the ground with the other.

  “Why should his people be poor? Thank you, sister. You are cle
ansed. God is your girazi. Find him in the fields.”

  “Wave your money,” said Jamu. “Otherwise he will pass by you.”

  I waved the two dollars above my head and in the next moment Prophet Ubert Angel lifted me to my feet, rested the sweaty palm of his hand on my forehead, and pushed.

  “Your girazi is there, child. God wants you to find its blessings. Hallelujah!”

  As I fell to the ground, the prophet moved on to the next miner, and Jamu shouted, “Hallelujah.”

  The two dollars were gone. The women across the yellow cloth were on their feet, singing, dancing, swaying from side to side. The men were chanting, pounding the ground with their sticks. The prophet withdrew behind the red cloth canopy, and the ceremony was over.

  “And now I’m cleansed?” I asked as we headed back to Kondozi Farm. “That was it?”

  “You don’t need to believe, Patson, but remember, finding a diamond is more than a matter of luck. The cleansing works. Why do you suppose some people are luckier than others?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that. But if Jamu was cleansed in this same way, why hadn’t he found anything? Could it be simply because of who he was, or was it really nothing more than bad luck?

  “The miners also use spirit mediums,” he said. “There is a powerful one from Mozambique who lives at Junction Gate who can speak to your ancestors. She gives me the creeps, but a lot of people go to her. You’ve got to have something extra, Patson, otherwise you’ll work for months and all you’ll find is rock and sand.”

  “But I didn’t give the prophet my money,” I said. “It was your father’s money.”

  “You could have kept the dollars, but you didn’t. You surrendered them to God. Now you can start working the Banda Hill mine,” he said. “You’ll see, Patson, it will work. Prophet Ubert Angel is connected; he knows what he is doing.”

  “You make him sound like he’s got his own cell phone to God.”

  “Sometimes I think he has,” said Jamu seriously.

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to be skeptical in case my doubts somehow canceled out the prophet’s blessing. All I knew for certain after seeing those purple pockets fill with other people’s money was that Prophet Ubert Angel had come to Marange and found his own version of a girazi.