The Theory of Flight

by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

  ‘You have killed me. I am dead,’ she says to Sikhumbuzo before walking away.

  ‘You cannot walk away. You are dead! You are dead! You need to lie down on the ground. I have killed you. I have killed you. On the ground now. Those are the rules of the game. You cannot not follow the rules of the game. You are dead!’ Sikhumbuzo shouts, looking both angry and hurt.

  Next thing Genie knows she is standing on the carcass of an abandoned car, Brown Car, surrounded by a field of sunflowers. She has Penelope in the crook of her right arm and Specs in the crook of her left arm. Penelope and Specs join her in looking over the hazy blue hills in the distance. The sunflowers turn their heads towards the hazy blue hills as well and wait patiently with them. Together they watch as Genie’s parents become a giant pair of silver wings that take to the skies and turn into a flash of light and colour as they glint and gleam in the sunlight. The giant wings become smaller and smaller until finally they are a mere speck in the azure sky. And then, as if by magic, the tiny speck turns into nothingness and her parents vanish.

  Genie is still in the safety of the sunflowers when she sees two army trucks drive up the dirt road and make their way towards the Beauford Farm and Estate compound. In the army trucks are sojas carrying very real AK-47s and wearing garish red berets. Soon after the sojas’ arrival, she hears incessant screams, intermittent rat-a-tat-tats, incoherent voices shouting, incomprehensible voices wailing. She smells flesh burning … not mouthwatering, but nauseating … definitely not something edible … not an animal that you eat … a different kind of animal … a human being … someone. Someone is burning.

  And then suddenly it is all over. No screams. No rat-a-tat-tats. No voices shouting. No voices wailing. But still the smell of burning human flesh.

  She hears the army trucks come back down the dirt road. One of the trucks stops next to the sunflower field. There is the shuffle of boots on the dirt road. Then the smell of burning grass. ‘Put it out,’ a voice booms. ‘What have sunflowers ever done to you?’ The truck starts up again and the boots start their shuffle … stop … hesitate.

  The sun has begun to set on the horizon, marking the end of the day. Genie knows that all the days that break henceforth will never be felt the same way.

  She opens her eyes.

  She looks around her. Has she been dreaming or just remembering? She does not know. She is not on the Beauford Farm and Estate. She is not among the sunflowers. She is in a room. A lovely room filled with whites, creams, golds and richly reddish-brown teak wood. Her room. The room she shares with Vida. Their room. On a bed. A lovely bed now stained red with her blood. Her bed. The bed she shares with Vida. Their bed.

  Yet still the smell of burning human flesh lingers.

  Her stomach heaves but nothing comes up. She has nothing left to give.

  At least she, knowing that this moment was inevitable, had the foresight to take care of some things. She had Vida’s only suit dry-cleaned. She remembers standing at the dry-cleaner’s, holding Vida’s jacket to her nose and breathing in his scent as the woman behind the counter looked at her with a raised eyebrow but did not say anything. She personally ironed his favourite white shirt and made sure to starch his collar. She had Stefanos buff Vida’s shoes to a brilliant shine. She had Matilda assemble and lay out his accessories: a handkerchief, a tie, a pair of argyle socks and an ivy cap.

  Funny that during her final moments her thoughts and concerns should be so domestic.

  After a lifetime of believing she was in flight, of believing that she was something spectacular in the sky, had she rather been a hybrid thing – something rooted but free to fly? Could such a hybrid thing even exist?

  All she knows is that in this life she has reached for something and touched it. And that is enough. When, at the end, all that remains is a blood-soaked mattress that will have to be thrown out, a mattress with a bloodstain that has taken the shape of a country, perhaps what matters then is that it is enough … has been enough … was enough.

  Matter. Interesting word, that. She allows herself to fall into it. Into its darkness.

  She is back in the field of sunflowers. With Marcus, this time. Together they watch as the boot of a car pops open and out of it slowly unfolds an impossibly tall man. He is unlike any man they have ever seen before. He is taller than even the sunflowers, or so it seems. He is magnificent. It is when he looks directly at them, through the sunflower stalks, that Genie knows for sure that this magnificent tall man is her father, Golide Gumede. Her father, she has always known, would arrive like a hero in a story.

  His eyes zero in on hers. And Genie struggles loose from Marcus’ tenacious grip and runs out of the sunflower field towards her father. Her father gets down on his knees and reaches out a hand to touch her gently, tentatively, as though she truly were the most precious and beautiful thing in the world. In that moment she knows that her mother has been telling the truth all along. She, Genie, was hatched from a golden egg. She smiles at her father, revealing the gap between her two front teeth. Her father smiles too, revealing the gap between his two front teeth. An inheritance.

  Hoisted on her father’s shoulders, Genie can, for the first time, see above the heads of the sunflowers. She notices that the sunflowers’ faces are no longer facing the sun but have turned, each and every one, towards her father and her as they make their way home. She sees her mother, Elizabeth Nyoni, running towards them with a rainbow of colour trailing behind her, her blonde hair all but flying away, her arms outstretched in joy and welcome.

  Genie knows without a doubt that the future has arrived.

  The crunch of car tyres on gravel, the squeaky swing of a gate opening, the dance of headlights on the bedroom wall pull Genie out of the darkness she had entered and into the darkness of the room.

  She hears footsteps on the stairs.

  Vida.

  Finally.

  Home.

  VIDA

  Vida knows instantly that the house is dark because Genie is not in it. On a normal day the lights in the kitchen, in the living room, and in their bedroom would be on. Genie hates walking into an unlit room. The back door leading into the kitchen is not locked; Vida does not know whether to find this suspicious or not.

  He turns on the kitchen light and immediately notices two glasses on the kitchen table. Two glasses. Both empty save for a desiccated wedge of lemon at the bottom of each. It is the desiccation of the lemon wedges that fills his heart with fear. Something is not right. Where is Genie? Where are Matilda and Stefanos? How long has everyone been gone? What exactly has happened here? Without being aware of what he is doing, he makes his way to the bedroom.

  In the bedroom, Genie is sleeping peacefully in a bloom of her own blood.

  The next thing that Vida becomes fully aware of is that he is standing in the cold corridors outside the Intensive Care Unit at the Mater Dei Hospital. Dr Mambo is gently touching him on the shoulder, explaining to him that there is really nothing he can do and that it is best for him to go home. She is trying to be kind, he knows, but he cannot find the kindness in what she says.

  ‘You standing here, looking like that, will not change things either way.’

  Looking like what? Vida looks down. That is when he notices it. On his trembling hands. On his shirt. On his shoes. Blood. Genie’s blood.

  ‘Please, Vida. Go home. Take care of yourself.’

  Once home he cannot bring himself to sleep. He cannot bring himself to take off his clothes. He cannot bring himself to take a shower. He feels that washing Genie’s blood off his body would be a resignation, a betrayal. He does not want to go upstairs and face the bloodstained bed. He does not want to go upstairs and face the absence of Genie. So he sits at the kitchen table and looks at the two glasses with the desiccated lemon wedges. Genie has obviously had company at some point while he was away. He feels that this matters, but does not know how it matters.

  And where are Matilda and Stefanos? Why are they not here? When such a thing h
appened, why were they both not here? It all seems too coincidental to be a real coincidence.

  He feels that there are dots to be connected and that if he connected the dots, he would know something really worth knowing. But he is tired. Mind and body. Tired.

  In the early hours of the morning, when he is just about to fall asleep or has been asleep for a little while without realising it, still thinking that he is thinking when in fact he has been dreaming, a memory from the day before presents itself. His only suit, newly dry-cleaned, still in its protective plastic covering, and his favourite shirt, ironed with a crisp collar, just the way he likes it, both hanging from the coatrack with, beneath them, his favourite shoes polished to a brilliant shine; an ivy cap, a pair of argyle socks, a handkerchief and a tie laid out neatly on the footstool next to the coatrack. He had noticed the clothes as soon as he turned on the light. But more surprising than that had been Genie’s suitcase at the foot of the bed … the bed on which Genie lay bleeding.

  He pushes himself away from the kitchen table – bounds up the stairs – rushes down the corridor – opens the door to their bedroom – makes a point of not looking at the bed with its bloodstain – and opens Genie’s suitcase. And then the truth of his situation makes itself known. There, placed neatly among Genie’s childhood clothes, are Penelope and Specs … and Blue’s baby-blue silk slippers.

  Genie had prepared herself to leave him. And she had done her best to prepare him as well.

  But none of this does anything to solve the mystery of the two glasses with desiccated lemon wedges in them. It is now clear to him that Genie had made sure that Matilda and Stefanos were not there when she entertained whoever it was. Who was this someone who had paid Genie a visit? Who was this someone for whom she had opened the door and fixed a drink that required a lemon wedge? Who was this someone for whom she had taken the time to cut a lemon into wedges? She had taken the time to collect his only suit from the dry-cleaners. She had taken the time to enter her old bedroom and pick up the three possessions she had entered this home with – her suitcase, her rag doll, Penelope, and her teddy bear, Specs. She had taken the time to put Blue’s baby-blue silk slippers in her suitcase. She had taken the time to leave clues behind – clues that let Vida know, without a doubt, that just as easily as she had chosen to enter his life, she had chosen to leave it. That she had chosen this end for herself.

  Feeling betrayed, Vida enters the shower fully clothed and lets the water wash the blood – Genie’s blood – off his body and clothes. That is when he sees them: a pair of sunglasses on the ledge of the basin. They do not belong to him. They do not belong to Genie. Someone has entered not only their kitchen but their bathroom as well – and Genie has let whoever it was into their sanctum. He looks at the pair of sunglasses, unable to comprehend what they signify, until the water washing over his body turns ice-cold.

  In an impotent act of revenge, he wears the clothes that Genie had so carefully prepared for him to wear to her funeral. He walks out of their bedroom, down the stairs, through the kitchen – where he makes a point of not looking at the two glasses on the kitchen table – out the back door, down the driveway, through the gate and onto the streets. He walks with no thought of where he is going. All that matters to him is that he is putting distance between himself and the desiccated lemon wedges, the packed suitcase and the bloodstained bed.

  The sunglasses are safely tucked in his breast pocket.

  JESUS

  Genie watches Vida, fascinated as he blows perfect smoke rings out of his mouth. She captures one floating ring in her mouth before it disintegrates into nothingness. Then she starts giggling uncontrollably and infectiously. He cannot help but laugh. She sits and he lies on one of the kopjes in the backyard, both high on premium Tonga dagga. The night air is comfortably cool. They have come out to watch the stars – brilliant and seemingly close enough to touch in an ink-black sky – but all they have done is look at each other.

  He reaches up and gently pulls her head down towards his. She smiles and leans forward to kiss him. They have never kissed before. Their lips touch lightly, tentatively, imperfectly.

  Then Vida is filled with the knowledge that this moment is not real. He tries to hold on to the moment – a memory within a dream – for just a little while longer, but, cruelly, unforgivably, Genie’s touch fades away.

  Thankfully, her scent is still there, warm vanilla, on his shirt collar.

  Vida opens his eyes.

  The sunlight – harsh even in winter – is blinding.

  His eyes accustom themselves to his surroundings. Pavement – cold, grimy. Awning – sun-beaten, tattered. Toing and froing people. Helter-skelter traffic. Noise and noxious fumes. The heart of the city. Diseased now. But still beating its erratic beat.

  How long has it been, three days since he took to the streets? Downings’ Bakery closed down years ago, so he no longer has the security of the alleyway nor the comfort of freshly baked bread.

  Something is fluttering on Vida’s chest. He looks down to see a colourful bird. The bird looks at him quizzically. It flutters again, a little unsteadily. A broken wing on the mend.

  ‘Aren’t you a colourful one … pretty,’ he says. ‘And friendly too.’

  He is overwhelmed by a need to touch the bird – to touch the colourful feathers – before it flies away. He tentatively lifts his right hand.

  Just then someone shoves The Chronicle newspaper into his hand. ‘You made the headline,’ the person says, walking away before Vida can clearly make him out.

  Frightened, the bird flies away. Vida feels robbed, and angry.

  He looks at the newspaper in his hands. In big bold letters the headline reads: ‘JESUS BACK ON STREETS’. There is a picture of him – Vida – taking up half the page. Definitely not his finest hour, which, of course, is exactly why he made the headline. Mouth wide open and drooling. An open bottle – half empty – of something he no longer remembers drinking, dangling in his hand.

  Despite the sensational headline and embarrassing picture, the reporter, one Bhekithemba Nyathi, does not have much to report. The story reads: ‘The man once known as “The Messiah of the Streets” is back. Having first disgraced the streets with his presence in the 1980s, when he could be seen still faithfully wearing his RF military fatigues long after the liberation struggle had ended, the ex-soldier disappeared without a trace in the mid-1990s. He is now back, thankfully minus the military attire. The question on everyone’s lips, of course, is: “Why is Jesus back?” Some say he is one of those white farmers whose land has been rightfully reclaimed. Some say his illegal activities (we can only wonder what those are) have finally caught up with him. Some say he gambled away his immense wealth. If he has a sober moment, we would like to ask him some questions and get to the bottom of this.’

  Vida gets up. Finally he has something to do – something other than waiting. He swoons and steadies himself against the wall. He has one serious babalaas, but he is determined. He needs to set the record straight. Make things right again.

  He has never been known as ‘The Messiah of the Streets’. Ever.

  He has never been a white farmer. Ever.

  The only thing he ever gambled was his life. But everyone did that in the 1970s in one way or another.

  This Bhekithemba Nyathi needs to be taught the facts.

  He stops, suddenly uncertain. There was a bird that landed on his chest a few minutes ago, wasn’t there? Or was he imagining things? He hopes not. He wants to take comfort in the knowledge that such a colourful bird exists and that it would feel safe enough with him to land on his chest.

  ‘There was a bird … I had a bird … a colourful bird. Not so long ago,’ he finds himself asking – no, telling – a complete stranger.

  The stranger, a street vendor selling sad-looking tomatoes and onions on the corner, looks up at him and smiles. Her eyes, however, seem to look through him.

  ‘I had a bird … a beautiful and colourful bird … didn’t I?’ V
ida repeats, this time making sure to state it as a question.

  ‘Are you talking to me?’ the street vendor asks, an uncertain smile on her lips. ‘I’m afraid my eyes are not for beauty to see,’ she says.

  It is then that Vida realises that the woman is blind. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles as he continues on his journey. He turns back and says to her: ‘There is no beauty to be seen. Not any more.’ But with all the street noise he is sure that she does not hear him.

  Vida had thought his dishevelled appearance would create a problem; however, it turns out to be surprisingly easy to enter The Chronicle’s premises and gain access to Bhekithemba Nyathi.

  ‘I have never been a white farmer,’ Vida says, tossing the newspaper onto Bhekithemba Nyathi’s desk. ‘I’m having a bloody sober moment. So here I am. Ask me why I’m back on the street,’ Vida says, pacing the small room. It is true that he is sober now. Walking the streets always has that effect on him – clears his head and helps him focus.

  Surprisingly, and to his dismay, Vida finds himself struggling not to feel sorry for Bhekithemba Nyathi. He wants to feel angry. He needs to stay angry. Anger is an active emotion. It is much better than being reconciled. But this Bhekithemba Nyathi sitting in this minuscule, decrepit office is arousing his sympathy. How could he not, when everything around him is sadness. The chairs – there are only two – are so old that the cushioning has been completely eaten away by years of overuse. One of the legs of the desk is levelled by a brick. And wafting through the only window in the room is the acrid smell of sun-baked urine from the alleyway below.

  Pathetic. If he had to work in this environment every day, he too would write with a poison pen.

  ‘Jesus,’ Bhekithemba Nyathi says.

  ‘The name is Vida.’

  ‘Vida de Villiers. I know. How may I help you?’ Bhekithemba Nyathi asks, managing, somehow, to look professional.