The Theory of Flight

by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

The silence becomes anxious again.

  He watches as the Masukus look at each other quizzically, then look back at him, waiting for him to explain.

  ‘Those who found the body claim that it is Imogen.’

  ‘It is not Genie’s body,’ the son says.

  ‘Given Imogen’s connection to the Beauford Farm and Estate, The Organisation will go and investigate.’

  ‘It is not Genie’s body,’ the daughter says.

  ‘If anything comes up, Lawrence Tafara here will be sure to get in touch with you. If you have further questions, you can get in touch with him.’ He looks pointedly at Lawrence Tafara, who looks blankly at him for a moment before remembering to remove his business card from his breast pocket and hand it over to the Masukus. It is the mother who takes the card.

  ‘Lawrence here is Chief Superintendent over at Hillside Police Station. Brookside is under his jurisdiction.’

  ‘Yes, I am Chief Superintendent over at Hillside Police Station. Brookside is under my jurisdiction. You might remember me from the eighties. I came here a lot – noise complaints. I was a sergeant then,’ Lawrence manages to rattle before he is cut off.

  ‘It is not Genie’s body,’ the mother says.

  ‘I am going to go to the Beauford Farm and Estate to personally investigate further. Trust me. I am on your side. I will get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘I wonder where that investigation will lead,’ the mother says, giving the father a knowing look.

  It is not lost on Valentine that the father has not said anything since they arrived and that he has not negated the possibility that it is Imogen’s body at the Beauford Farm and Estate.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand, Mr …’ the son says.

  ‘Tanaka. Valentine Tanaka.’

  ‘Does this mean that you will not issue us with form DS 8044 Z?’

  Valentine is about to respond when something catches his eye. He watches in horror as the grandmother’s mouth knots itself into an ugly grimace before unhinging itself. The left side of her face seems to disintegrate. ‘They are plotting to overthrow the government,’ she says out of the right side of her mouth, looking him straight in the eye. ‘They are plotting to overthrow the government.’

  Thankfully, her sudden outburst absorbs the family’s full attention. They hover over her, embarrassed. ‘The beginning stages of dementia. Plus the after-effects of a massive stroke,’ the father explains apologetically. ‘We don’t do politics,’ he adds for good measure.

  Valentine gratefully gets up. ‘We’ll leave you to it, then,’ he says, rushing towards the door, not even waiting for Lawrence. Lawrence has no choice but to follow him, a tea-soaked custard cream in hand. The last thing Valentine Tanaka hears before he shuts the front door behind him is the grandmother screaming ‘You are one of them!’

  MARCUS

  Marcus should not have picked up the phone, he realises too late. The fact that it was the landline that had rung and not any of their cellphones should have alerted him that the caller was not a close family friend. Family friends called cellphones.

  The Masukus had all been sitting at the yellow Formica table in the kitchen, eating a rather elaborate breakfast of porridge, toast, bacon, eggs, grapefruit and coffee that his mother had risen uncharacteristically early to prepare. They were all still reeling from the news that Valentine Tanaka had delivered, all silently hoping that it was not Genie’s body that had been found. Not knowing how else to behave, they had all opted for benign bonhomie. Even Krystle was making an effort, a great effort, Marcus suspected, to be pleasant. She was making a joke that the rest of them laughed at a little too heartily, about her inability, after six years of graduate school, to complete her dissertation. The fact that she called it the ‘phantom project’ made Marcus strongly suspect that it had yet to be written. Whenever he asked her about it, she used words like ‘epistemological’, ‘taxonomic’, and ‘dialectic’, words that did nothing to convince him that the dissertation actually existed.

  Esme said that she understood Krystle’s dissertation perfectly (even though she too had yet to see any pages) and had told him: ‘It’s about the history of your country, how it was never able to become a nation because the state focused belonging too singularly on the land. In colonial times belonging was attached to being a settler and in postcolonial times belonging is attached to being autochthonous. This means that throughout your country’s history there has always been some group or other that has not been allowed to share in a sense of belonging.’ He thought, although he never said as much, that Esme had got the wrong end of the stick because the topic seemed too … political for Krystle.

  ‘Sometimes I feel like a beached whale trying to push this gigantic all-consuming thing out into the world. Other times I feel like Jonah inside the whale wondering where the hell I am and desperate to find a way out,’ Krystle said, her smile letting them know that they should smile or laugh at this too – even though her feeling so anxious and overwhelmed was probably something they needed to be concerned about.

  ‘Did you know that the tongue of a blue whale weighs the equivalent of an elephant?’ his father had said, always reaching for facts in moments of uncertainty.

  And then no one said anything. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. The silence became threatening.

  Then the phone rang. Mercifully. Without thinking, Marcus, who was sitting closest to it, reached over and answered it.

  ‘Hello?’

  He was greeted by a shriek so loud he had to pull his ear away from the phone.

  This shriek lets him know that he should not have picked up the phone.

  He stands up. Walks the little distance away from the table to the window and turns his back on his family. ‘Hello?’ he repeats, this time in a whisper, as though not wanting the rest of the family to hear. But of course they can hear everything coming through the receiver, however faint.

  ‘Is that you, Marcus?’ a voice asks, suddenly sober.

  ‘Yes. It’s me,’ he whispers.

  Then the person on the other end starts sobbing. Unadulterated sounds. From somewhere deep within. Loud, guttural, wet sounds of sorrow, of shock, of disbelief, of despair, of utter pain.

  Marcus wants to think that the outburst is rather too theatrical, and, therefore, not heartfelt – something rehearsed even, a performance. But there is something palpable in the performance that tells him that it is real, that this is not a performance but the expression of deeply felt pain, the communication of the incomprehension of utter loss. He almost envies this person her ability to arrive so easily at this point – to accept the possibility of a certain kind of truth, a truth he knows he has to fight with every fibre of his being. She so easily touches the corners, and thereby defines the parameters, of something he is yet to acknowledge.

  Marcus wants more than anything to hang up the phone. How dare this person – whoever she is – trespass so casually and so callously into their happy home? ‘Who is this?’ He is glad to hear that there is a hard edge to his voice.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ the voice says automatically, used to apologising. ‘It is Jestina Nxumalo. MaNxumalo. Remember me from your childhood? From Beauford?’

  ‘I remember,’ Marcus says, instantly feeling guilty for hating her for calling.

  ‘I’m calling from Australia. It’s where I live now,’ she says, her words made choppy by the heavy heaving that is keeping her sobs at bay.

  ‘Oh. I see,’ Marcus says, knowing that, were this another conversation, he would have interpreted her mention of Australia as her way of letting him know that, despite her late start in life, she too has made it; that, in spite of his fortunes and her misfortunes in life, they were now equals of a sort in the grander scheme of things. In other words, he would have thought the kind of ungenerous thought he afterwards always felt guilty for having entertained. But on this occasion he thinks, rather generously, that Jestina mentioned Australia only as a means of locating herself for him in the vast g
eography of their diasporic world.

  ‘I got a call from a man calling himself Valentine Tanaka. He says Genie’s body has been found at Beauford. Is this true, Marcus?’

  ‘He told us a body has been found. Yes.’

  ‘This man calling himself Valentine Tanaka says that Genie was HIV-positive.’

  ‘He had no business telling you that. That is private.’

  ‘So it’s true?’

  He absolutely refuses to respond to such a question.

  ‘Marcus?’

  He valiantly hesitates before he says, as he exhales, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh my God. What did they do to Genie?’ Jestina asks, with anguish in her voice. ‘What did they do to Genie?’

  ‘Who are they?’ Marcus asks.

  ‘This cannot be how it ends for Genie.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Marcus repeats.

  ‘I’m coming home. This man calling himself Valentine Tanaka wants me to come home, go to Beauford, and I shall. Things need to be made right.’

  ‘Who are they?’ Marcus asks, hearing the quiver in his voice.

  ‘They have never answered for anything. They have to answer for this. We will make them answer for this, Marcus. You hear me?’ Jestina’s voice is suddenly sober again. ‘We will make them answer for this.’

  The ominous and amorphous ‘they’. Who are ‘they’?

  ‘You hear me?’ she repeats with an authority in her voice that he remembers well from their days on the Beauford Farm and Estate. ‘We will make them answer for this.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, once again the obedient child of yesteryear.

  ‘Their eyes are not for beauty to see.’ Jestina’s voice holds both sympathy and scorn. ‘I pity them. They know not what they have. They cannot recognise the gifts that have been bestowed on them. Genie and I spoke of this often.’

  There is a crackling sound and then the line goes dead.

  Marcus hangs up the phone slowly, reluctantly. He has no choice but to face his family. Stalling, he looks at his right hand and is genuinely surprised to see it clutching a pen – a red pen – poised over a long-forgotten and yellowed message pad that lies next to the phone on the windowsill, having apparently written, as evidenced by his red-inked chicken scratch: WHO ARE THEY?

  A sudden fear seizes him, pounds his heart and prickles his armpits.

  He turns to face his family. None of them will look him in the eye – not even the often confrontational Krystle. They all look down at their plates. The food has gone cold by now, but they keep on eating politely, stoically, as though they are martyrs for continuing to shove spoonfuls of sustenance into their mouths.

  ‘That was MaNxumalo.’

  ‘You mean Jestina? My parents’ maid?’ his mother says. It sounds more like a correction than a question.

  ‘Yes,’ Marcus says, sitting down. ‘She says that she’s coming home. Valentine Tanaka has asked her to.’

  His mother and his father share a look.

  ‘I could hear her screaming through the phone,’ his mother says. ‘Rather presumptuous of her. She was always theatrical – overly dramatic. Rather comical, actually. But what right does she have? We are Genie’s family and you don’t see us making a production of it. We could, you know. We could make a production of it. But we’re not, because that would be to lose the plot entirely. Entirely.’

  Marcus, still clutching the notepad and pen, puts a piece of dry toast in his mouth and chews mechanically.

  ‘I don’t trust her. Never have. How did she survive in 1987? My parents died. How did she survive?’

  ‘She says that “they” have to answer for this. I am not really sure who “they” are,’ Marcus says delicately, steering them back to the here and now.

  Suddenly there is a rustling and rattling at the kitchen door. The Masukus turn simultaneously towards the door, all of them – frightened. Something wants to gain entry. It rattles like a benevolent wind, but they know exactly what it is. They see it seep in through the slight opening under the door. They see the thing that they have tried to keep at bay enter effortlessly, almost like vapour. And like vapour it immediately settles, here, there and everywhere. It changes the colour of everything it touches – darkens everything so that the entire house seems shrouded in mourning. Like a sickness it attacks them all.

  His mother goes to fix herself a glass of Mazoe Orange Crush with vodka, heads to the den and looks into the distance as though it holds a future in which she is not particularly interested. His father sits looking intently at the palms of his hands, reading his lifelines as though trying to pinpoint the exact moment it had all started to go wrong. Marcus looks down at his own hands, which are still clutching the notepad and red pen.

  Who are ‘they’?

  Krystle takes the notepad from him and reads what he wrote. ‘We all know who “they” are. We cannot pretend otherwise any more,’ she says. ‘Genie cannot be dead. Not when there is so much still unforgiven.’

  Marcus sees the moment for what it is: the beginning of something that will either bring his family together, make them stronger, or take advantage of their weakness and vulnerability and tear them asunder. He hopes it will bring them together, even as he realises for the first time that they are all of them – all of them – fragile. But, in all honesty, what does he have left to him besides hope? He tells himself, although he is not altogether convinced, that hope is much better than being reconciled.

  He knows that his father is in need of some reassurance, but he does not know what is appropriate to say in a situation such as this, so he puts his hand on his father’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze.

  The eyes that look at Marcus lack conviction even though a small smile touches his father’s lips. It is the smile of the already defeated.

  Marcus returns his weak smile and gets up to leave.

  ‘It all began here, didn’t it? At this very table,’ his father says, running his hands over the smooth surface of the yellow Formica table.

  ‘What did?’

  ‘The end … Our end with Genie.’

  Marcus sits back down.

  Marcus sees himself as a boy of eighteen falling in love under a jacaranda tree as he listens to a story about elephants swimming in the Zambezi River. He sees himself kissing the girl he loves – Genie, his childhood friend. He sees her say, ‘Our eyes are not for beauty to see,’ as his grandmother drags her away. He sees himself follow them into the house – confused. He sees his mother and father sitting at the yellow Formica table, eyes downcast. He sees himself reach out and hold Genie’s hand, intent on pulling her away. He sees his screaming grandmother shake Genie. ‘You can’t have him. Tell them, Dingani. Tell them! You cannot pretend not to see what has happened here any longer. It is time for the truth. They need to know the truth before it is too late.’ He looks at his father. ‘Genie is HIV-positive,’ his grandmother says. He sees the look of bewilderment enter Genie’s eyes. He sees those eyes look at him – pleading with him to somehow prove that this is all untrue. He sees himself – he tries to stop his seventeen-year-old self, but he cannot – he sees himself let go of Genie’s hand. He sees himself raise his hand and wipe his mouth … the mouth that only moments before had happily kissed Genie’s. He chooses to think that the look of disgust on his face has been exaggerated by time, sharpened so that the twist of the knife goes deeper. He sees a look enter Genie’s eyes. It is a look he remembers well. He can still hear Genie’s mother, Elizabeth, saying to eight-year-old Genie, ‘Let him go. You have to let him go.’ He can still see the look that enters eight-year-old Genie’s eyes. It is the look of letting him go.

  ‘But before that we were happy here, weren’t we?’ his father says now, his hands beginning to tremble as they continue running over the table’s surface.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘That’s why I will never get rid of this table. I know it is no longer the fashion … plastic and all … yellow at that … but we were really happy here. Once. Befor
e.’

  Not knowing what else to do, Marcus lightly touches one of his father’s trembling hands.

  ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ his father asks.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You haven’t always.’

  ‘I always have.’

  ‘The way you looked at me that first day in the sunflower field when we came to get you – like I was nothing. No, not nothing – like I was an embarrassment … like I was lacking something … something important … vital.’

  ‘It was the shock of it, that’s all.’

  ‘You were right about me, of course. You were right to think that there was something lacking within me. First impressions, hey?’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘I hope you’ll still love me after.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After the reckoning,’ his father says. ‘We all have things to answer for.’

  Marcus nods. Yes, they all have things to answer for.

  ‘There is no escaping it any more,’ his father says. ‘What happened on the Beauford Farm and Estate in 1987. I was responsible.’

  DINGANI

  Whenever Dingani thought about what happened in 1987 (and he thought about it often), he was convinced that it was directly linked to what had happened in 1965. There was no doubt in his mind that if his father, Mbongeni Masuku, had not been imprisoned for his ‘politics’ in 1965, he, Dingani Masuku, would not have become directly involved in the deaths of all those people on the Beauford Farm and Estate in 1987.

  Mbongeni Masuku had been your typical mid-twentieth-century husband and father: somewhat detached from his wife and child, infrequently – and therefore more terrifyingly – physically abusive, and an occasional drunk. In terms of appearances, he was like most men in their middle-class township: respectable, Christian and educated. There was nothing particularly outstanding about him. Once in a while he would invite some of his teacher friends over and they would talk about the current state of affairs in their country. Talk often led to very loud debate and very loud debate inevitably led to inebriated shouting matches that often became physical and sometimes violent. But even this was not extraordinary – educated colonised men had to vent their frustrations in some way. There was really no harm done. They always went back to work and carried on being the ‘good boys’ – the exemplars of how the colonial system was good for the Africans, of how the civilising mission had been successful, of how the white man’s burden had been lightened and of how soon … but not quite yet … the Africans would be ready to rule themselves.