The Chef, the Bird and the Blessing

by Andrew Sharp

  Did she truly detest Cain or did she so desire a three-metre wall and a limousine that all was permissible? What could I offer her? What had I brought back from the city? An insect net! Had Cain in actuality forced himself on her, or did she in truth wish a child with him? Had she decided not to wait any longer for a child due to my prolonged and perhaps exasperating consideration of the matter? Had she thought I had gone astray when I did not answer her texts? That I had taken another? Would I have to tolerate that Cain snake helping himself to my wife in order for us to survive? One who plants grapes by the roadside, and one who marries a pretty woman, share the same problem.

  Late husband? Did she wish a divorce? Would she become his fourth wife?

  Truly, I had serious personal matters in my marriage. I had become like Mr Bin. I had striven against disorder since my father died, but now I had disorder in both my professionals and personals and the personals, to my surprise, were the more heart-twisting.

  I returned to the house for want of knowing where to go next. Dorothea had remained in the kitchen doorway and was tissuing her nose. ‘You’ll no doubt want a divorce,’ she said.

  ‘Do you wish it? A divorce? Is it Cain for you?’

  ‘What?’ Dorothea wide-eyed me, threw her hands up and beat the door. ‘No, no, no! I hate that man.’ She was crying so loudly that the neighbours could surely hear. The monkeys in the park could surely hear and would be laughing at us.

  She quieted. ‘Sava, I wish to stay with you. You have big faults —there, I said it— but you’ve always been the man I respect. You’re not like Pastor Cain.’

  I wanted to somehow comfort her, but there was a painful strife in my heart that I could not resolve.

  ‘But it’s more than that,’ she said, ‘I missed you. I have true feelings for you at last. Yes, true feelings. Now it’s too late.’

  I went to the window and looked out at the yard. It needed sweeping of the leaves and seeds blown from the wild. The dying sun caused the breeze block wall to colour blood. A ragged winged bird flapped towards the coming night. All was cut up, dark and disorderly. She had professed true feelings —even such a thing as love? But she had accepted the arms of another man for money. She lacked personal discipline. Could I forgive such?

  ‘Maybe this is the rock bottom that Pastor Cain talked about,’ said Dorothea. ‘The previous was a false bottom.’

  I raised my voice, lost to a sudden berserk emotion. ‘No! There’s no rock bottom to hope for. Cain’s a fraud. A swindler! A trickster! If you continue to fantasise, we’ll never find rock bottom.’

  I saw the brick, squatting silent but somehow mendacious on its star-silvered wrapping paper and purple high-gloss ribbon. A false and cunning gift, a fantasy wrapped in the phony produce of the city. I went to the brick and snatched it up.

  ‘You must no longer live in illusion. Cain has shot-gunned your mind with his lies. This brick is just a brick.’ I spat at it. ‘A brick from the village kiln.’

  I turned and threw the brick out of the open window with all the force of my rage and, it is true, with all my disappointments and fears. It hit the breeze block wall and broke in two. It was just a misfired brick.

  Dorothea gasped. ‘You’ve cursed us! You’ve smashed the last of my hopes and dreams.’ She stepped towards the window, but then she turned around and slump-armed on the table, her wet face down ways.

  Seeing Dorothea collapsed on the table sorely troubled my constitution. It finally sunk the boat of my recent dally with self-belief and the float of my positive thinking on my prospects. Instead, I remembered my reasoned words to my bird on the night that I had returned from Plume de Paon. I recalled my logic. I could not deny it. Tomorrow would not be better than today. I was a no-good cook and now I had a no-good marriage.

  ‘Let me inform you, Dorothea. I’m also at fault, yes. I’ve also been living in illusion. My fantastical fantasy of being a head chef in the USA, serving top VIPs, was like your cloud-cuckoo brick. A misbelief. A phantasm.’

  ‘You don’t have a job?’

  ‘I have no job. My pockets are empty. I’m an unemployed cook and a poor fool.’

  For a long time she was still and silent, her face down and her arms out. I stood nearby but was unable to move to her. Then I saw her shake her head. I did not know what she meant by that. We had both emptied of words. We were lost, conundrumed, knowing not what to say.

  What to do? I needed perhaps to talk with an advisor, with such a thing as a friend. A person friend. There was no one. What to do?

  ‘I’m going to cook for supper,’ I said. But what of after? Mr Bin was not, surely, a friend, but we were well acquainted. ‘Tomorrow, I may pay Mr Bin a visit.’ He had once sought my opinion; he would not mind my asking his.

  Dorothea lifted herself and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. ‘Don’t you know? He’s in the jail. He’s awaiting trial.’

  ‘Mr Bin? Jail? What’s befallen him?’

  ‘He’s charged with attempted murder. He’ll be locked up for life.’

  ‘Impossible! Tell me, how and who and when and where?’

  But Dorothea was not inclined to converse further. She snatched a tissue from the kitchen and entered the bedroom, slammed the door and locked it, leaving me in many uneasy and disturbed speculations. Attempted murder! Surely Mr Bin had not tried to dispatch a new cook? Perhaps the new cook had also refused to wake him. Then I paralysed. His wife? The well-dressed lady? Had she driven to his house with her fiancé and her papers. Shouted yellow jelly at him? Did he pick up his rifle? Had Mr Bin lost his mind and committed a crime of passion? I did not think the spineless, indecisive, useless Mr Bin capable of such spirit.

  Chapter 19

  I found that whilst in custody, Mr Bin resided in a shipping container. The village had no purpose-built correctional institution but, no problem, the said battered container had been requisitioned from a railway siding far away, transported, I guessed, by flatbed sixteen-wheeler truck in a storm of dust and then tipped with the sound of thunder next to the police station. A small window had been angle-grinded with accompanying flashes of light high in the side to prevent suffocation of the prisoner and thick bars welded in place to frustrate thin escapees. The visiting hours were written freehand by an apprentice writer in dripping green paint on the side of the container. 3.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Mondays. Apply at Police. I had arrived on a Tuesday.

  I entered the next-door police station and found Mr Bambatiwe, the full-of-pastries chief of the two police in the village, sitting on two chairs in paperwork with his officer. He raised his samosa-eyelids to see me.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mlantushi, you’re back. Greetings, greetings. No doubt you’re on leave from your chefing work in the US of A. Perhaps I can drop by your house so you can give me a statement about it whilst I’m enjoying one of your excellent cakes on your fine sofa.’

  ‘Of course sir, you’re always welcome, but today I’ve come to see Mr Bin.’

  ‘Our prisoner, the offender Du Plessis?’

  ‘I’ve brought him a meal.’

  ‘Visiting is on Mondays but my officer will pass him the food. He must be tired of ground maize and water, although he needs to get used to it.’

  ‘I’d like to give him the dish myself. I’ve taken some trouble to cook it.’

  I showed him the pot, wrapped in a towel to keep warmth, and took off the lid.

  Mr Bambatiwe waved the steam of my stew to his horse-sized nostrils. ‘Ah! Leave the food with us. This stew’s too good for a prisoner.’

  ‘Sir, I beg you.’

  ‘Mr Mlantushi, why associate with a criminal? You don’t want to appear as an accomplice, notwithstanding your clever alibi of being overseas during the crime.’

  ‘Mr Bin’s a criminal? Has he confessed?’

  ‘So far he’s been exercising his legal right to remain silent. That’s how guilty h
e is. Does not an innocent man protest his innocence?’

  ‘I look forward to baking a large, showstopping cake for you, sir. But how will I achieve such if I’m fretting about not delivering to Mr Bin. The stew’s getting cold.’

  Mr Bambatiwe tapped his pencil up and down on his desk. ‘Let me check for concealed weapons … files … drugs. Show me the stew again.’

  He lifted his pencil and poked it about in the stew. Then he licked the pencil clean and poked in the stew again and licked again. ‘Yes, too good for a prisoner.’ He frown-browed. ‘Cake is necessary.’ He turned to his officer. ‘Officer Geoffroy, let Mr Mlantushi deliver and say a few words of farewell to the criminal before his trial, and then he must leave.’

  Mr Bin sat on a metal shelf at the far end of the container in a thin spear of sunlight from the high window. He appeared somewhat forlorn and pale skinned above an unkempt beard. He wore prison-regulation khaki shirt and shorts and a pair of well-used prison flip-flops. A chain ran from his ankle to a ring in the centre of the floor. This was truly a maximum-security establishment for prisoners with murderous inclinations. A lumpen mattress and a small brown blanket had been provided in a corner for his night-time comfort and there was a bucket in the other corner for his ablutions. In truth, I was most perturbed to see Mr Bin incarcerated so, and although I knew that Mr Bin cared nothing for material comforts, for Egyptian cotton sheets and ceiling fans, I considered his current residence to be somewhat unsatisfactory, even for him. Despite the crime that he had committed. Indeed, I forgot my personal affairs, seeing Mr Bin caged in such a way. He was like a trapped bird. He would never again have need of his long legs for walking just as the caged bird has no need of its wings.

  He fixed on me, wide eyed, as if I was a ghost. An unexpected ghost at that. Officer Geoffroy closed the door with unnecessary banging and bolting and left me alone with Mr Bin.

  ‘Mr Bin, I’m so sorry to find you in this place.’

  ‘Mozzy, is this really you?’

  ‘I’ve brought you a meal.’

  ‘You’ve come back from Boston to bring me a meal?’

  ‘Not exactly … but I wished to see my ex-employer again. Here, look, it’s a simple stew with beef, carrots and potatoes. You can eat the meat … I’ve added no curries.’

  ‘Do you mind if I start?’ said Mr Bin. ‘I’m ravenous. State food’s horribly monotonous and gritty.’

  I gave him a plate, ironed napkin and a spoon. ‘Please, eat.’

  It was a pleasure to see him appreciate my food. He had never before. I did not disturb him although my time with him would be short. I remembered Father saying, Words are sweet, but they cannot take the place of food.

  Mr Bin paused to dab his mouth with the napkin. ‘I’m going to be put away for a long time, Mozzy. It’s ironic, as lately I’ve become less keen on solitude.’

  ‘My father used to say, Solitude is an enchanting mistress, but an unendurable wife.’

  ‘For once, your father was right.’

  ‘I’m sure the Justice will release you.’

  ‘No chance. It’ll be my word against my accuser.’

  Officer Geoffroy cranked the door open again. ‘Time’s up. You must leave the prisoner now, Mr Mlantushi.’

  ‘So short?’ I stood. ‘Mr Bin, I forgot to ask. Did you record the akalat bird?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here in jail. My attempts to record the akalat.’

  ‘Come now, Mr Mlantushi, no more stalling tactics. Let him finish his meal.’ Officer Geoffroy swung his arms about, shooing me out as if I were a disobedient goat.

  I heard Mr Bin say after me, ‘You’re my first and only visitor. I appreciate it.’

  On my way home I experienced being alone again, as in London. I had no Dorothea; soon I would not even have Mr Bin; I had no bird companion, not as yet. Prospects remained compromised in every respect. In daze-thought I almost walked into Mr Makata at the door of our house. Dorothea was remonstrating with him. When she saw me, she said, ‘Mr Makata says you’ve agreed to sell our pink sofa in exchange for this extremely sick little bird in the cage. I’ve told him not to lie! I told him that I know my husband. You’ve no time for sentimentality. You’d never agree to such a thing.’

  I knelt to the cage that Mr Makata had delivered. Yes, I still had my bird companion! My little London friend had arrived safely. It had a bright eye. I thought it not sick as Dorothea had suggested, only ruffled from its long journey. It was flapping this way and that, excited no doubt, smelling the home air, testing its wings. It had eaten all its picnics, leaving only a few scattered wings and dry limbs in the bottom of its cage. Did it recognise me, its friend? If so, it made no indication. It behaved as a bird. I was pleased that it was so. Soon it would fly and become busy, it would fulfil its purposes. Its life would have a meaning. I experienced a happy moment.

  I stood up and shook hands with Mr Makata. He had delivered as promised. I had figured this: if Mr Makata could export organic produce from Romaji, he could surely import organic produce to Romaji. What goes out can also come in. That is the logic in logistics. At first, he said it was impossible, but when I offered the pink sofa, he had said, ‘No problem. Import-export, export-import, it makes no difference,’ and had arranged a pick-up of the bird from the Kensington park. He had even sent a taxi to lift me to Heathrow, departures.

  Dorothea said, ‘Is this true?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  She open-mouthed and then said with a bitter tongue, ‘I didn’t sell the sofa even when I was living off the charity of my friends and having to … give Pastor Cain love offerings. All I sold was that hideous, hideous, vase … but you’ve swapped our most valuable possessions, and symbols of blessing I might add, for a half-dead bird?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All will know we’re in poverty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I took the cage and placed it on top of the gloss paper, which the brick had been wrapped in. The bird alone had been the blessing to me. A living that had been a companion to me.

  Mr Makata sat himself on the pink sofa and stroked its ample thigh-like arm. He rested his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. ‘Very perfect,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch Powers in the final in comfort. I’ll send a team of strong men to collect it.’

  He exited with a haughty head and a jaunty step. Dorothea stared at me for explanations.

  ‘I’m going to release the bird,’ I said.

  ‘So … you’ll not even keep this bird that you exchanged for our sofa.’

  ‘No.’

  She put her hands to cover her head. ‘What’s happened to you?’ Then she picked up a More Blessings Campaign leaflet, but then set it down. She did not know how to conduct herself. ‘Sava, you’ve changed.’ She twisted her fingers back and forth.

  ‘We’ve both changed. We’re transitioning to something.’

  ‘I’m fearful, Sava. Where are we going? What will we be?’

  How was I to know? I wished I knew. I thought instead of my bird. I was mindful to release it straight away but peaceably looking at the living that had saved me from loneliness in London, I became reluctant. I would enjoy its company for just a short time longer before I bid it farewell. Maybe it would sing, now that it was nearly free.

  I picked up my insect net and left the house to shop for the bird’s dinner. Around Romaji there were millions of fat tasty insects to catch. It would be locally-sourced organic food for the bird. A harvest from the park. I would make a beautifully presented feast. I would be the best bird feeder in Romaji.

  Chapter 20

  The trial of Mr Bin for attempting foul murder was held in the court at the district headquarters two hours away by bus from Romaji. Although we were in no way in happy conversation and of convivial spirit, Dorothea wished to accompany me, and I was glad. I longed for the joyed matrimonial days of the pa
st, but we were both in paralysed confusion, both in a fog of the mind that prevented vision. We had passed each other in the house like ill-acquainted persons, taken different bedtimes and eaten in eye-swerving silence. I had taken no pleasure in cooking. Somehow, I had lost my ardour and mastery. Neither of us finished my food.

  We arrived early at the place of judgment and took a seat together behind Mr Bin who was chained to Mr Bambatiwe to guard against his abscondment. Mr Bin was not looking around, a solitary figure as ever. Mr Bambatiwe was fortified against a long trial with sodas and chapatis in fat-stained brown paper parcels, stocked under his chair. The prosecutor was a young man, no doubt hoping to send a murderer down and so to make his reputation, so leading to a profitable career in his exalted profession. He occupied a table to the side, his soap-scrubbed hands resting on neatly stacked pages of notes, his beautiful fingernails on show. I could picture him preparing his appearance before the trial, standing before a mirror trying an open neck and then a tie and then a bow tie. What would be the exact balance of showmanship and dignity for the district trial of the year? He had decided on a maroon bow tie.

  The chair for the defence was empty. I was concerned that Mr Bin’s defence team was going to be late. Surely he had hired the best? Perhaps they were coming from the capital. The public benches were busy with a high number of excitedly murmuring public members, no doubt without jobs, this being a weekday. It was not every day that an attempted murder trial happenstanced. It could not be missed. Above us, a fan turned too lazily to cool the room. Behind the public, a large black clock dealt the judgement of time on the court room and its proceedings.

  After a suitably long wait to demonstrate the wide pecking order of the court personnel, the Justice entered in the green and black robes and the white fur ruffs of her high office accompanied by two lesser officials carrying reference documents of precedent. The court quieted and stood for the Justice until she sat and then we all sat. After necessary and procedural preliminaries, the judge asked the prosecution to present their case.