Uncle James shouted into his cell phone and then abruptly the conversation ended. He picked up a shovel and smashed it on the ground. Miners scattered as he moved through the pit, swinging his shovel like a punch-drunk boxer.
“Faster! Work faster,” he shouted at a man working next to me who had left three sacks of untouched ore lying beside him. “What are you doing on my mine? You’re wasting time!” Uncle James gripped the man by the arm and struck him across the face with the handle of the shovel and then kicked one of the sacks. “Get this man off my mine,” he called to Musi. “Patson, take his place!”
I ran over and tried to lift the unconscious man out of the water. Musi walked up and pushed me aside. “Get out of the way, boy,” he ordered as others from the security team ran down and hauled the man through the mine.
“Get back to work,” screamed Uncle James at the diggers gawking at him. “What are you looking at?”
We all quickly returned to our work. I scooped up the ore from the sack Banda had kicked, dumped it into my sieve, dipped it under the water, shook the basket, and lifted it onto the bank. I had done this too many times to count but this time a girazi was sitting on top of the wet gravel, the size of my big toe.
The trouble was controlling my breathing; a surge of excitement exploded in my chest. I tamped it down, aware that the slightest sign of exhilaration would draw unwanted attention. I had to keep working in a slow, steady rhythm; I had to remain calm.
I dipped the basket back into the swirling, caramel-colored water, glancing up to see if anyone was looking in my direction. All eyes were on Musi and the guards carrying the unconscious man out of Banda Hill. It was then that I noticed his shoes lying on the bank, and offered up thanks to my shavi for bringing me both the girazi and a way of getting it off the mine. Without considering the danger, I placed the sieving basket next to the shoes, palmed the girazi, picked up the shoes, and followed the guards carrying the man.
I figured it would take me about three minutes to walk to the entrance. There, I knew I would be searched. I had to work quickly, but at the same time everything had to be done without anyone noticing anything unusual. I paused to drink at the water station, buying myself more time. The guards had dumped the unconscious man a short distance away, just outside the mine entrance. Musi was having a heated discussion with his father. None of the miners dared to look up from their work. As the guards started walking back into Banda Hill, I ran toward the entrance, now guarded by only one man.
“I got his shoes,” I said, waving them in the air.
The guard who had been watching them drag the man across the field turned to search me. I lifted my arms up in the air, spread my legs, and opened my mouth.
“Boss man is crazy today,” he said, warily looking over my shoulder at Banda, who was shouting at Musi.
“If he’s got problems, we’ve all got problems,” I said as the man ran his hands over my body, checked under my tongue, glanced at the ragged shoes I held in front of him, and then nodded for me to pass.
I ran up to the man lying on the ground, praying that he would still be unconscious. As I approached, he stirred, flinging his arm to one side in an effort to stand. At any moment he might open his eyes and see what I was doing. I slipped my hand into the shoe where I had stuck the girazi with chewing gum and pried it loose with my left hand. The man groaned and opened his eyes and I knelt down beside him.
“You were unlucky today,” I said, handing him his shoes. “Pray to your ancestors that you will find what you want at Mafukose Munda.” We both knew he would not be returning to Banda Hill.
The man blinked at me, took his shoes, and staggered away.
Walking back to the mine, I pretended I needed to have a pee. I turned around and trotted to the nearest set of boulders. With my back to anyone who might be watching, I carefully checked the size and shape of the nearest thorn tree, the relationship between the rock I was peeing against and where the sun set. I dropped the girazi and surreptitiously scuffed as much sand as I dared over it. And then just to be absolutely sure I would find it later, I made as if I was wiping my hand on my T-shirt but instead I tore off a scrap and dropped it into a nearby bush.
When I returned to my station, Arves, Kamba, Jamu, and Chipo all looked up, like a family of meerkats, and watched me pick up the sieving basket and start working again.
“You good?” asked Chipo, walking over.
“Just fine,” I replied.
“You took the guy his shoes?” asked Jamu.
“Uh-huh.”
“Why did you do that?”
“’Cause maybe he felt sorry for him, Jamu,” chipped in Arves.
“Was he hurt badly?” Kamba didn’t really sound concerned.
“He’s okay. Sore head, that’s all.” I hauled the sack Banda had kicked and poured more ore into my sieve.
“You took him his shoes. ’Cause you felt sorry for him?” Jamu again.
“Nah, not really. I just took him his shoes.” I didn’t look at Jamu but felt his eyes on my back.
“Hey, Jamu, why’s your father so pissed?” asked Arves. “He’s making everyone jumpy.”
“Yah, what’s going on?” Chipo joined in.
Jamu glanced around to see who was within earshot.
“He was shouting at Musi,” said Kamba. “I thought he was going to hit him with his shovel.”
We all looked at Jamu, waiting for an answer. Finally I felt I could look up from my work without giving away the elation that was flowing through every muscle and nerve in my body. In the last month I had found my fair share of ngodas and made my contribution to the gwejana by adding several stones to the tin box, but finding a girazi was different. This diamond was mine and mine alone. I wasn’t sharing it with anyone. I was going to be rich. And now that I had found one, I knew I would find another and another.
“The army’s coming,” Jamu finally said. “The soldiers could be here by the end of the week.”
At the end of the day we all headed up to Gwejana Rock in a somber mood. Jamu’s news about the possibility of the army coming to Marange made us realize how precarious the situation was at Banda Hill. I hated the fact that the Moyo family was still living in the sheds and that when I got home tonight, I would have to fetch water for a bath, lie down on a hard mattress, and breathe in the stale smell of old tobacco. But now with the girazi I found we wouldn’t have to stay there much longer. All afternoon I had been daydreaming about the new Moyo house we would live in—it would be bigger than Kondozi Farm, with a swimming pool and two garages.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Kamba as we jumped from rock to rock on our way up to our camp. “If the army comes here, how are we going to cash in our stones?”
Kamba articulated what I had been worried about: turning my anger-stone into cash. If the army came, it might make that a lot more difficult.
“That’s going to be one big problem,” said Arves. “The army is far worse than the police and everyone knows we all work for Banda. If any of us are caught selling stones to any of the dealers around here, Banda will find out. You can never trust a dealer. They’re like hungry hyenas and Mutare is full of them.”
“We could sell them at night along the highway that passes Marange,” Chipo suggested. “I heard there were a lot of foreigners on the road coming to Mutare and they won’t know or care who Banda is.”
“Yah, I suppose we could try that,” said Arves.
“No! You don’t want to go to the highway. It’s too dangerous. There are soldiers in the bush. I’ve seen what they did to people who were trying to come to Marange,” I said, and then the idea popped into my head. “If you’re looking for a diamond dealer, I might know someone who can take us to one.”
Everyone stopped climbing and stared at me. “You know someone who could help us sell our stones?” Kamba asked.
“He’s a French guy from the Congo. His name is Boubacar. He brought us through the forest to Marange and he works for a diamond dealer
. A Farouk somebody.”
“Abdullah. His name is Farouk Abdullah. Everyone around here calls him the Baron,” said Jamu. “And Boubacar is his bodyguard. It’s not a bad idea, Patson. My father hates the Baron and won’t do any business with him, so if you’re careful, he’ll never find out. But you had better know how to haggle. My father says the Baron doesn’t negotiate.”
“Hoh-hoh, Patson, you are full of surprises.” Arves grinned at me as we made it to the top and he handed me a bottle of water from our supplies. “Didn’t I tell you this guy was going to be great for the gwejana?”
“But how are we going to find him?” asked Kamba, pulling out a packet of dried nuts and fruit, which he handed around.
“Oh, that’s easy enough,” said Arves. “Everyone knows about the dealers that hang out at the Dairy Den in Mutare. And they will all know where to find the Baron.”
“So how much are we going to ask him for our ngodas?” said Jamu, placing our tin of small industrial diamonds on a rock before us. “I can’t go. I might be recognized.”
We sat around the tin box, lifting up the individual stones, counting them, discussing how many carats each stone had and their different colorations. Everyone had his own opinion as to how much our stash might be worth, but it was Kamba who surprised us all with his simple logic.
“Come on, guys, of course we think they are worth thousands of Usahs, but look at us. We’re just kids,” he said, raising his voice. “Most of the dealers will simply take our stones and walk away. And what could we do about that? Go to the police? I don’t think so. Patson should find this Boubacar guy and maybe together they could speak to the Baron, and we’ll just have to be happy with however much money he brings back.”
No one could say anything after that. Kamba’s words made me realize that finding a girazi was one thing but getting someone to give you money for it, without stealing it from you, was another thing altogether. My girazi was still just a stone as long as I was unable to find someone to pay me money for it. Finding a diamond was hard enough, but selling it was harder, and more dangerous too.
“And if the soldiers come to Marange, who knows what will happen. You’re going to have to get to the Baron as soon as possible,” Chipo said as she wrapped up the tin in an old newspaper, stuffed it into a carrier bag filled with nuts and fruits, and handed it to me. “If we’re going to have any chance of cashing in our ngodas, you should go to Mutare tomorrow, Patson.”
“And ’cause I know Mutare like I know every trench and hole in Banda Hill, I’ll go with him,” offered Arves. “You can’t trust those Dairy Den diamond dealers; they’ll eat this chicken alive if I’m not there to protect him.”
The town of Mutare lay at the foot of the Bvumba Mountains, some two hours west from Marange. Arves and I had to hitch three lifts to get there; first a maintenance truck that dropped us off at a rock called the Stone for Girls, where six girls had been killed by lightning; then a white guy Arves knew from his Family AIDS clinic who dropped us at a taxi depot. And, finally, a taxi driver who agreed to take us the rest of the way free of charge after Arves slipped him a small brown paper packet.
We drove past Sakubva township, past a roadside market of mounds of exhaust pipes and secondhand clothes, along the ilala palm–lined Herbert Chitepo Avenue, and were dropped off opposite Meikles Department Store at midday. Naked white mannequins stood behind the glass windows, frozen in a different age. I peered into the shop at the rows of empty shelves. Election posters for the opposition party, the MDC—Movement for Democratic Change—were stuck in the corner of the window. The people of Mutare did not vote for President Mugabe, which was probably why this shop was empty.
“Come on,” said Arves, dragging me away from the window. “It’s time for me to eat.” We ran across the busy street, dodging cars, until Arves spotted a woman selling roasted corn on the cob.
Munching the corn, we headed down one of the alleys off the main road and passed shops with makeshift signs announcing BABYLON INVESTMENTS, LUCKYFIELDS ENTERPRISES, and GIRAZI GIANTS. “No, not here,” Arves said as I tugged at his shirt. “Banda sells his stones to all of these guys. The dealers at Dairy Den will know where to find Boubacar and the Baron.”
“Hey, Arves, stop holding on to the bag like that,” I warned, throwing my cob into the gutter. “People will know you have something worth stealing.”
“I’m still hungry,” he complained, tossing the bag more casually over his shoulder, and heading for another street vendor. “Sadza and relish?”
Sitting on the pavement with a pile of hot, clean-white sadza with spicy atchar between us, Arves and I ate handful after handful, washing it all down with a can of Fanta grape. It was one of the best meals I’d ever had. I pulled my phone from my pocket. Four messages from Sheena.
School’s out. Don’t want to talk about school. U there?
And:
Going crazzzy thinking about u. Hmmm, any friends? Girlfriend?
And then the text that took my breath away:
Do I mean anything to u?
And then the last one:
Ignore that. Nvm.
I thought for a minute, put down my can, and texted back. Arves watched me carefully, wiping up the last of the gravy with a handful of sadza.
School is great. Lots of homework. Got no time for running. Yah, good friends. No girlfriend. Yes, u mean a lot to me. Xxx
“Girlfriend problems,” stated Arves.
“Nah, just an old friend from Bulawayo.”
He shook his head and looked at me with pity. “When you come to the fields, Patson, better you forget your old life. Nobody really understands what happens to you when you get here.” He pointed a sticky finger at me. “It’s like we’re living two lives—the one on the fields, which is all about hard work, and the one in our imagination, which is all about the good life we think we’re going to have. When you come to the fields, you enter the girazi zone and become a zombie digger under the spell of girazi.”
“Arves.”
“Uh-huh?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at me.
“Stop talking crap.”
“Okay. But you know I’m right.” He chuckled. “You said this Boubacar guy came from the Congo. Jamu said that he was a mercenary. You’re sure we can trust him?”
“Sometimes you got to trust somebody,” I said, putting my phone away, pleased with the text I had sent to Sheena, and slipping Grace’s tie from my pocket to my neck.
“What’s with the tie?” asked Arves, licking up the last of the atchar and sadza with his tongue.
“Lucky charm.”
“Let’s go.” He jumped up, full of energy, and headed off down the pavement. “Come on, Patson, hurry up. We don’t want to get back to Marange in the dark.”
I hoped that Boubacar would remember me. It was unlikely that Uncle James would have paid him anything for bringing us to the fields. He might not even want to see me, but I had kept these doubts to myself and then, seeing his tie hanging above Grace’s mattress, I brought it along, sure that Boubacar would remember “Mademoiselle Gracie.”
“The diamond dealers of Dairy Den,” announced Arves as we turned a corner and stared at the shiny Mercedes-Benzes, Hyundais, and BMWs that stood gleaming in the ice-cream parlor parking lot. The men, dressed in the latest gangster style—gold chains, baseball caps, wifebeater vests—leaned against their cars talking into cell phones, with their beefy arms draped over the thin shoulders of long-legged women wearing bling from head to toe. Waitresses from Dairy Den bustled to and fro serving ice-cream sundaes to the women, and burgers and beers to the men; street kids washed cars that blared hip-hop music; a crowd stood around a man holding an open black briefcase chanting auction-speak. Across the road, a police van idled in the shade of a government building, its blue light whirling its silent warning.
“Watch and learn,” said Arves, handing me the precious bag. “When I find out where Boubacar is, we’ll find Baron Farouk Abdullah.
I want you to follow me at a distance. If anything happens to me, you run and I’ll meet you at the naked mannequins. I know how to deal with these goat herders turned millionaires.”
“But, Arves,” I protested. “What if—”
“It’s going to be cool. I’m sure they’ll know where the Baron hangs out.”
“Arves, I want to come with you.”
“Relax. Who’s going to hurt a skinny kid with HIV? I get a lot of pity and sometimes sympathy can be useful. I’ll give you the thumbs-up when it’s safe but it will be better if you keep your distance.”
Arves sprinted across the road, heading for the group of street kids washing a midnight-blue Isuzu Trooper. After a brief exchange with the washer-boys, he approached a man talking on two cell phones simultaneously.
The radio chatter coming from the nearby police van made me nervous, and I realized how tightly I was holding the bag. Before we left the mine, the others had warned me about the dreaded plainclothes officers of the Central Intelligence Organisation who roamed Mutare searching for dealers. Diamond dealing was illegal. You had to have a permit but nobody knew how to get one. If you were caught with stones, you were arrested and thrown into the back of a police van and never seen again. Remembering this and my own advice to Arves, I slung the bag more casually over my shoulder. I tried to ignore the parked police van but its slow-moving, silent blue light made my skin prickle and then I noticed the reflection in the shop window.
A scruffy boy with legs and arms brushed with light-gray powder stared silently back at me. The boy reminded me of those other boys standing on the side of a highway who had lifted their hands to form the shape of a diamond. Now I had become a mailasha—a smuggler of diamonds—just like the boys I had seen in the long grass trying to sell me their ngodas. The words of the driver returned: signing their death warrants by sticking their necks out like that. They’ll be dead in a week.
Diamond Boy Page 10