House of Stone

by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

  The interior was stuffy, suffused with the sweet scent of strange spices and the earthy smell of chickenfeed, with one aisle leading from the entrance along which he had to sidle, his chest rubbing against sacks of produce, and also television sets, radios, gramophones, bags of mealie-meal and sugar, piping, taps, sinks and steel rods.

  ‘Hello? Yes? May I help you?’ she said in English. Her voice was tantalizing, like a glob of honey on the tongue.

  She was sitting on a high stool behind the counter. A book was perched on her lap, dipping into the col between her thighs.

  ‘Eh … halloo,’ he said. He found he could not look her in the eye.

  ‘Yes? How can I help you? Are you looking for anything in particular?’

  ‘Actually, ehm …’ He rubbed his palms on the back of his trousers. ‘It is you I am looking for.’

  Her face shadowed. ‘What do you want?’ And then, her eyes falling on the Bantu Terrorists: Rhodesia’s Communist Threat newspaper sheet that he still clutched in his hand: ‘Who sent you?’

  He was both taken aback and thrilled by the directness of her manner. No shy giggling, flits of the lids or shrug of the shoulders like the girls in his village.

  ‘Ahem … let me, let me introduce myself. I am Abednego Mlambo, the Mlambos of Lupane, near St Luke’s Mission Hospital, do you know where it is? I, I saw you walking and ehm … you are so beautiful …’

  She threw back her head and laughed, bringing into profile the striking length and curve of her neck. Her breasts jiggled beneath her exquisite little collarbone. He wondered if they were soft and mushy like the inside of an over-ripe pawpaw, or lumpy like the inside of a granadilla.

  He smiled and scratched the back of his head.

  ‘I love you,’ he said finally.

  Laughing still, she shook her head.

  ‘But I do!’

  ‘Th-andi? Vat is it? Remember, you is at vork. No visitors during vork hours.’

  He turned around, to find a large Indian woman in a silver lehenga standing by the ‘staff only’ entrance at the back, frowning not at her, but at him. She pronounced the ‘Tha’ part of her name as the English ‘Th-a’, with her tongue between her teeth, instead of the soft Ndebele ‘Ta’ in which the tongue tapped the palate.

  ‘Sorry, baas,’ she said, in a voice that, he thought, was not without mockery. ‘You have to go,’ she said to him.

  Gone were his ambitions of finding work as a train driver for the Rhodesia Railways, gone Abednego the Great Colonizer, the Cecil John Rhodes, the Christopher Columbus. He had begun to imbibe his brother’s dream; square and bold, black and white, clear lens; but now, Thandi smogged his vision. He spent his days lying on his camp bed in Emakhandeni hostels, which he shared with his Uncle Lungile and Cousin Solomon, huffing in reverie; or otherwise prancing about on the narrow cement corridors outside, giving dramatic little damoiseau-en-détresse sighs in response to his uncle’s increasingly exasperated requests that he come in to the Sun Hotel to apply for the position of dish washer, where he could work his way up to the position of a kitchen manager, just like he, Uncle Lungile, had and Solomon one day would.

  He began hounding poor Thandi, for as far as he was concerned, it was she who hounded him. He was indefatigable in his pursuit, making him reckless with the wad of cash his Baba had packed him off to Bulawayo with – a rare gesture of love that had made him kneel before the old man’s feet. He came each day to Ticki-Tai and stuffed Thandi with chicken pies, showering her with countless bottles of Fanta, until she proclaimed an aversion to pastries and fizzy drinks. He chased after her as one pursues conquest. No, he did not want to forage towns, cities and countries. It was the soft hills of her breasts he longed to scale, the mountains of her buttocks he longed to conquer. He longed to tour the umbra landscape of her body, to discover crevices and fault lines hitherto unknown even to her, to be the first to clamber between the plateaus of her thighs and slide his flag into her summit, naming it like a god, just like Da Gama or Columbus or Livingstone or Rhodes; his own Wonderland.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, finally, to seeing him outside of the stifling confines of Ticki-Tai – where they were chaperoned by the glares of the Indian woman – though I imagine her eyes must have fluttered from weariness rather than delight.

  How to explain to her that he, too, was fatigued? Tired of obsession, drained by mania, enamoured of revolt? Never mind that her surrender was without enthusiasm, a victory still demanded a victory dance; so that later, alone in the communal bathroom of the hostel, he would bend his bony legs, click his fingers and bob-bob-bob to the floor.

  ‘There is a soccer field, down the road, just around the corner from here, on Second Avenue. Meet me there tomorrow, during your lunch break?’

  She checked that there weren’t any customers lurking in the aisles before she replied, ‘Listen. Listen, I’m not one of your makhaya girls, OK, your rural girls you just see and profess love to, and then take into the bush to fuck. OK?’

  She said fuck in English. He gaped at her. Such a vulgar woman! Were hers really the ranges he wanted to colonize?

  ‘You makhaya boys need to learn some manners,’ she continued. ‘I’m not some piece of meat you just happen upon and just prod prod to your liking. I’m an Angela Davis and you’ll respect my feminality. OK?’

  He wanted to ask, Who is Angela Davis? Is she your mother? Is your mother Angela Davis? Why does she have a white person’s name? She looked pissed off, though, so he just nodded.

  She regarded him out of the corners of her eyes. ‘You ask a cultured girl out for lunch. And afterwards, a play.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ He pretended to be considering this, though his heart was in his throat. He had no idea where to take her, what she expected out of lunch and play. What sort of play was this? Did she mean playing under the covers? Was she propositioning him?

  ‘I can get us some nice food from the Sun Hotel,’ he said finally. ‘And afterwards we can … play.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘The Sun Hotel … yes, that’s actually a brilliant idea.’

  ‘No no, I didn’t mean take you there, I mean, you know no muntus are allowed there, right? What I meant was that my uncle, I mean I could get us food from the kitchens and then we could go somewhere nice like maybe Centenary Park and sit under the trees with a blanket …’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘That sort of thing is for people who have nowhere proper to go, and then they end up trying to grope one another behind the bushes. Meet me outside Ticki-Tai on Saturday after my shift. Two p.m. sharp. And don’t keep a girl waiting.’

  The days leading up to Saturday were long, and unnecessarily hot and sticky. He sweated a lot. Cousin Solomon stole a tin of homemade relaxer from Uncle Lungile’s room that smelled strongly of raw eggs. Abednego watched tentatively through a piece of broken mirror as Solomon smeared it all over his kinky hair.

  ‘Are you sure it won’t fry my scalp or burn my hair or anything?’

  ‘Promise always, cousin! I’m just gonna let it sit for a few minutes, then wash it off, and then, trust me, when your girl sees you, she won’t be able to take her eyes off you!’

  His scalp itched after Solomon washed off the mixture, and it began to tingle when his cousin greased his hair with sticky gel and then combed it back so it would lie flat; but the relaxer hadn’t set properly, so his hair rose in a curvy bump, sweeping up and away from his face.

  ‘Are you sure I look OK, cousin?’ he said, tilting his head from side to side, appraising the shiny do. ‘Isn’t my hair supposed to lie flat? What’s this bump?’

  ‘Ah, no, cousin, this is the pompadour conk! You look like a black Elvis Presley!’

  ‘Who’s this Elvis Presley and why must I look like him?’

  ‘Never mind, you look like an American rocking and rolling star, that’s all. We’ve washed the rural off you, cousin. You’ve become the kind of man city girls love. Your girl’s eyes are gonna drop when she sees you!’

  Saturday
arrived, and my surrogate father found himself standing outside Ticki-Tai at the appointed hour, two p.m. sharp, an arm wrapped around the parking meter, the other cocked on his hip, the pompadour conk flourishing up and away from his face. Indeed, at first, when Thandi emerged, dressed in a long, backless floral sundress and in the company of not one, but two young men, one of them white, she almost didn’t recognize him. She stood there appraising him, and then, just as a smile began to spread across his face, she threw back her head and laughed.

  It turned out he didn’t look like a rocking and rolling star and, what was worse, the date was between him and Thandi … and the two young men – Frankie, whose face ripened under his glare, and Mvelaphi who, sniggering, kept calling him ‘merry andrew’.

  Abednego wanted to grab Thandi as they piled into Frankie’s sky-blue Ford Anglia and shout, What kind of date is this? Who are these people? Is it because I don’t have a car? But he just got in, Thandi settling in the front seat with Frankie, leaving him to squash up against Mvelaphi in the back.

  In this way, they drove to the Sun Hotel, my surrogate father scowling ineffectually. When they pulled up in front of the grand entrance doors, out they bounded, he trailing behind, up the steps and across the lobby, ignoring the hushed whispers of the white guests as they hastened into the hotel restaurant, where Frankie, who kept clasping and unclasping his hands, cleared his throat and announced to the brunette hostess that they had a reservation. The hostess paused, looked from Frankie to Thandi to Mvelaphi – her eyes resolved into tiny slits when they settled on my surrogate father – and back again.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I … we don’t allow natives in this establishment …’

  Abednego looked about him sheepishly. Balding and permed heads had risen from the restaurant bowls to stare at them. But the other three seemed neither surprised nor flustered.

  ‘Why?’ said Thandi. ‘Why are you sorry? What, exactly, are you sorry for?’

  The hostess stumbled back as though she’d been slapped. ‘If you don’t leave, I’m afraid I’ll have to call security …’

  As though triggered, Thandi, Frankie and Mvelaphi strode past the hostess into the restaurant, and began manoeuvring from table to table, grabbing food from the guests’ plates. The diners began to yell and shriek, some attempting to shimmy off their chairs, while others flung napkins at the disrupters.

  ‘Citizens against the Colour Bar!’ the three yelled, before stuffing Beef Stroganoff and Peach Melba, Salisbury Steak and Eggs Benedict, Chicken Marengo and Waldorf Salad into their mouths.

  ‘Say yes to black!’

  ‘Citizens against the Colour Bar!’

  ‘Say yes to black!’

  Outside, sirens could be heard in the distance. Upon hearing the wheew-wheewing, the three Citizens against the Colour Bar made a dash for the exit. Thandi shoved Abednego, who had been standing by the restaurant entrance all along, and tugged at his sleeve.

  ‘Run!’

  He raised his head just then, and glimpsed, peeping through the double doors at the other end of the restaurant, the mortified face of his Uncle Lungile, and his astonished Cousin Solomon next to him. He flinched, turned and fled.

  I haven’t heard my surrogate father guffaw like that in a long time! I have been replaying our scene this afternoon in Mama Agnes’s living room, where I found him when I got back from town; the way he threw back his head and roared when I reminded him, as I handed him a glass of Bell’s, which he quickly downed, what he told me yesterday about his first date with Thandi. It was a loud, startling sound, so full and wild and free.

  I found myself laughing too, like a fool, even after the man treated me like shit under his boot this morning at the shebeen, even after all I had done for him, shuwa, printing posters of the boy’s face and accompanying him on his community search. But I couldn’t help it, it pleased me to see him like that; I’ve only heard him laugh like that with Bukhosi. And now there he was actually laughing like that with me!

  ‘So, what happened between you and Thandi?’ I asked, chuckling. ‘Where is she now? How come you ended up with Mama Agnes?’

  The man changed, just like that, nje. The laughter died in his throat. He suddenly remembered that it was Tuesday, and he was supposed to pick up some cooking oil for Mama Agnes from a friend who works at Buscod Supermarket in town. He stood up, with great effort, for he’d been drinking heavily, first the beer at the shebeen, and now my faithful dose of whisky. I rose with him, and we just stood there, in the tiny space between the sofas, he adjusting the waist of his trousers, staring at the floor, me biting my lip, watching him. He looked suddenly so weary. I wanted to reach out and clap him on the shoulder, and to apologize, for I felt somehow responsible for his sudden despondency. But I dared not touch him. I don’t know if I could take his rejection.

  I still can’t believe what he told me yesterday, though; to actually think Mvelaphi, that black chap, the Citizen against the Colour Bar, is none other than our Minister of Mines, the Hon. M. Mpofu. It’s hard to imagine the man as some sort of young, impassioned anarchist; he’s now as conservative as can be, a government yes-boy with the rolls of fat clinching his abdomen like a tyre, and the requisite eighteen-bedroom mansion, private jet and three mines, not forgetting his very own soccer team – all paid for, of course, by his modest public servant’s salary … If only Thandi could see him now! He’s nowhere near that Citizen against the Colour Bar who accompanied her and my surrogate father on some seditious business at the Sun Hotel.

  After Frankie had dropped the three of them off at a shabby building on Customs Avenue, my surrogate father, still overwhelmed by the protest he had inadvertently taken part in, was disappointed to discover that Thandi didn’t want to play after all. Not play play. Instead, she took him to what she called a play.

  The room was cloaked in gloom. My surrogate father remembers a pair of tiny windows hugging the ceiling, but he had to struggle to make out the faces around him. He couldn’t look for too long because the stares he received back were hostile.

  ‘What you looking at, yellow face?’

  ‘You like what you see, heh?’

  ‘Who sent you?’

  Yellow face! No wonder Frankie had dropped them off in his car but refused to come in. My surrogate father studied the floor and followed Thandi’s feet. She was busy exchanging hugs with these strange people, laughing and talking in hushed tones, and he, he had to follow her like her puppy dog. Worse, she seemed to have forgotten him, and was instead busy standing in the crook of Mvelaphi’s arm with her elbow resting on his shoulder. At one point, she tugged at Mvelaphi’s waistcoat, playful like, in a way that my surrogate father longed for her to tug at his chest hair.

  A hush descended, heralding the start of the play. There was nowhere to sit but on the floor, and my surrogate father was surprised to find Thandi next to him, warm in the pack of bodies. She caught his eye, smiled and clasped his hand. Mvelaphi, who had remained standing, noticed and stared long and hard.

  ‘Viva to the struggle!’ yelled Mvelaphi suddenly, his eyes twitching, making Abednego jump.

  ‘Viva!’ the crowd roared back.

  ‘Majority Rule Now!’

  ‘Viva!’

  ‘Down with Smith and the Colonizers!’

  ‘Down!’

  ‘Viva the Book of Life!’

  ‘Viva!’

  ‘Down with Sithole and the Sell Outs!’

  Abednego’s eyes widened as it dawned on him—

  ‘Down down down!’

  —that he was in fact in a terrorist group meeting. Ohmygad! His heart hammered his chest. He needed to get out of there pronto, whatwashappening, all he’d ever wanted was to drive a train, now look where this Eva had led him. Everyone knew what they did to terrorists here, who hadn’t heard the stories? He bit back his panic, however. He would have eaten any fruit for his Eva, braved any serpent, plunged into any terrorist sinfulness, if it meant being with her … Oh, he felt so hot! Her hand in his felt
hot, the room was hot, everything, his heaving chest, the sweat-beaded nook between her breasts, her face sparkling like a river stone—

  ‘This week, we are going to rehash a scene from Césaire’s play Et les chiens se taisaient,’ said Mvelaphi, breaking my surrogate father out of his reverie, and though he was talking to the whole room, his eyes never left the pair. ‘I had the fortune of touching the great man’s garment during a trip to Paris last year, where I was part of a delegate of activists lobbying for black majority rule in Rhodesia.’ He snapped the lapels of his waistcoat against his bony frame. ‘And I have found there is nothing, rien rien, that I, humble man of words, can say that Monsieur Césaire has not dit in so beaux les words. I was so inspired, I said to myself, I must share l’inspiration in my homeland avec the brave men and women of the struggle! So, j’introduis an excerpt from the Aimé Césaire play Et les chiens se taisaient!’

  Still tugging at his waistcoat, he positioned himself on one side of the room, while, to my surrogate father’s dismay, Thandi got up and abandoned him for the pseudo-stage, where she stood next to Mvelaphi and brought his face to her heaving bosom. Thandi’s posture became weary, and Mvelaphi’s boyish. And now, they were one, and the play was to begin.

  *

  I found a copy of Césaire’s play online. I can see how it would have been enticing to the young revolutionaires. It entices me also! It has become, since its production, a minor success, one of Césaire’s crowning achievements, and has toured the world.

  My toes tingle even as I read it now; I can feel my body morphing into its rhythms, contorting itself into the repose of The Rebel, as Mvelaphi must have done playing the lead role in that back room, carried away by the play’s lyricism.