(‘And how, exactly, would you like us to break this ground?’ I can imagine them asking, stomping their feet against the hard and clearly unbreakable ground.
‘By grounding yourselves in what you already know,’ my Thandi would have responded, ever solemn.)
But they were together at Rufaro Stadium on the fêted eve of the birth of the new nation, Thursday, 17 April 1980; it was also the eve of Bukhosi’s birthday, which is also, incidentally, the eve of our Bukhosi’s birthday. Thus, the day felt extra special, as though all those crowds cavorting at Rufaro Stadium had congregated to pay homage to their boy, and thus, their boy was a metaphor for the nation and they, his parents, were its most intimate founders, its closest ancestors. How I wish I had been there at those Independence Celebrations, staggering in that staggering crowd with my surrogate father and especially Thandi! My Thandi who had walked the streets of Salisbury agape, with cautious abandon, for although the most brutal acts of the war between the Rhodesian and guerilla forces had taken place in the bush, where the bantu peoples, victims of chemical and biological weapons wielded by the Selous Scouts, had died hellish deaths from poisoned water and anthraxed meat, soft insides burning, black skin blistering, the city, too, bristled from its war scars: the bombing by the guerillas of the Woolworths store on First Street that had shrilly made the front page news, shaking the city out of its metropolitan reverie; the devastating rocket-blast of the fuel depot in Southerton just two years before the war ended, shocking the whole country and, despite Prime Minister Smith’s assurances, crippling morale; the constant drone of helicopters patrolling the city amidst the Saturday luncheons and Sunday dinner parties; on-the-ground battalions prowling suburban streets to weed out from servants’ quarters the terrs-in-hiding, who were now the liberation heroes. And now, on the eve of independence, the city was riotously loud, as my surrogate father says, where during the war it was said to have been spectral – as though all that post-war jiving in the jazz clubs and the beer gardens was a heady, if not defiant, release of breaths long held.
How rejuvenated Thandi must have been by those cavorting crowds at the Rufaro Stadium, in that backless sundress my surrogate father loved so much, her emaciated frame beginning to fill out after years of refugee living. Perched atop my surrogate father’s shoulders was the birthday boy, their Bukhosi. His plump lips were set in a firm line, his hands wrapped around my surrogate father’s head. My surrogate father caught Thandi wincing each time the guerillas paraded past in their fatigues. They must have brought back memories of her younger, feisty self, and her ambitions of giving birth to the liberation struggle, of carrying it, feeding it, nursing and wiping its buttocks. Perhaps, standing as an ineffectual civilian before these war heroes, a part of her regretted not having gone into the bush with the likes of Spear-the-Blood. She kept telling my surrogate father how she was proud of him, for he was in fatigues too, although he never left her side to join the comrades, probably because he was too ashamed of claiming the status of war hero when he hadn’t spent even a single day on the battlefield.
The air was carnivalesque, merry with military bands and marching troops, chimurenga songs and church choirs, and celebrity songsters like Oliver Mtukudzi and Thomas Mapfumo, before whom the youth swooned, much to my surrogate father’s amusement – he felt terribly awkward, he had been away for too long not just in years but in experience, and wasn’t familiar with the flavours of the day.
How I wish I had been there! Holding Thandi’s hand. Cupping her face, and maybe even bringing it close to mine and filling it with kisses.
This most joyous of days for our Zimbabwe was one of the darkest of days for my surrogate grandpa’s Rhodesia, so dark, in fact, that the memory of it haunts the pages of his blog. He recalls how the day in question found him slumped in his cavernous seat in his lounge, his gaze angled not at the fireplace but across his shoulder through the window at a rural dust storm that twirled and sashayed across his fields; a bad omen. On his lap sat five-year-old Sonny Boy (2.0), the glorious reincarnation of his Sonny Boy (First Generation) who had died what had been not only a premature but was now also clearly a useless death, seeing as Rhodesia, thanks to the treachery of the Mother Country, had suffered a most shameful defeat at the hands of those bantu terrorists puppeteered by World Communist Elements! Next to them on a coffee table was the picture of Sonny Boy First Generation standing proud and tall next to the Honourable Prime Minister of former Rhodesia, Ian Smith, in the uniform of Deputy Commander of the Independent Company Rhodesia Regiment, showing all of his teeth to the camera.
I imagine Mrs Thornton, like many of those dispirited Rhodies, felt compelled to flee the country; she looks, in her photos on the farmer’s blog, with her fiery red hair and russet eyes, like she was a practical woman; she would have tried to talk sense into Farmer Thornton: ‘We must leave. Please, James. Everybody’s leaving, we can’t stay here, the terrs have won, they are running things now, they’re going to turn this place into a communist cesspit, with photos of Stalin and that dreadful man, what’s his name, Marx, everywhere. We can’t stay here, lord knows what they’ll do to us if they find us.’
And that Farmer Thornton, no doubt patriotic then as he is now, would have clung stubbornly to the corpse of Rhodesia: ‘And where shall we go? Where will we go? This is our home. We’ve worked so hard, too hard … damn those snooty Brits! Dammit! But all this time Smith was making speeches on the radio to say we were winning the war?’
‘I know, I know, James, but we can’t stay. They’ll probably ship us off to some gulag. Can you imagine, breaking stones in a labour camp under the command of some kaffir? And what will become of me? They’ll have their way with me. Is that what you want? Please, we have to go, I heard the Fosters say they’re going to try their luck in South Africa…’
‘We don’t have any money to buy a new farm in South Africa. And I’ll be damned if I’ll live in some stuffy block of flats like an abandoned geriatric.’
‘But if they come …’
My surrogate grandpa stroked Sonny Boy 2.0’s hair and cocked his rifle. ‘Let the bastards come. I’ll be ready.’
It would turn out, among many other surprises, that there was nothing to get ready for; that chap, Robert Whatshisname, agitator against all that had been holy and sacred to the nation of Rhodesia, hated terrorist, former prisoner of the state, dangerous Maoist, calculating Marxist, devout Catholic, Husband, Teacher, Autodidact, and now Prime Minister, would turn out to be quite the magnanimous gentleman, extending the arm of peace and reconciliation to the refugees of former Rhodesia.
But on the eve of 18 April 1980, the future seemed bleak to a thoroughly depressed Mrs Thornton and my surrogate grandpa whose conviction, care, hope and doubt had been rekindled by the reincarnation of Sonny Boy.
What of the dead? Could they still see the future they had died for?
O peasant tongues frothy with provincialist rhetoric! O rural hearts pitter-pattering to the vision of dozens of little Dazhai villages culled from the white agricultural scape! O men and women who, having nothing already, and therefore with nothing to lose, clung so gullibly to the utopic postulations of your intellectual leaders!
How drunk you were with ambition!
How voluble were your chants! – For the people by the people.
But, of course, in order to reach your Promised Land, first you had to die.
O Thursday night giddy with swaying crowds and freedom curdled like sweetened amasi and heady scents of flowers mingling in the heat! At around ten p.m., Bob Marley clambered up onto the stage at Rufaro Stadium with the Wailers, and shouted into the mic, ‘Viva Zimbabwe!’
The crowds outside, high on the opium of independence, began to press against the gates, trying to get in. Those inside, propelled by this force, moved towards the stage. Abednego felt Thandi’s moist hand slipping from his. He fired her name into the surge, lifting his boy from his shoulders and pressing him to his chest. But her face was lost in the wave of euphori
a that tided the masses towards Bob Marley.
The police, overcome by fear, slipped into animated violence like a second skin; they began thwacking the people with their batons, and the people wailed, so that their independence brimmed over into the night into a collective howl.
The VIPs, penned in their elevated stand, were caught by the cameras in what was later proclaimed as joyous weeping, overwhelming emotions at this monu-mentous day, this emancipation of the black-and-brown peoples of the House of Stone … but, in fact, the overzealous policemen, in a state of frenzy, had flung tear gas cans whichever way, including at the cordoned-off stand, much to the Very Important People’s pompous chagrin. And at first, uncomprehending, the wailing people below cupped their hands to receive the flying cans, welcoming yet another gift of their independence – was this free Coca-Cola? – and then, when this independence stung their eyes and threatened to make them blind, they cried even harder.
As the crush subsided and calm began to be restored, Abednego managed to catch sight of Thandi at the very back of the stadium, near the exit, where she stood bruised but otherwise unharmed.
‘I thought … I thought …’ he said when he reached her, pressing her head to his shoulder so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes, their Bukhosi snuggled between them.
She laughed. ‘I’m a freedom fighter, remember?’
There was a cheer from one end of the stadium, near the cordoned-off stands. My surrogate father looked up just in time to see the guerillas entering the stadium, marching in their fatigues towards him, across the field, and parading next to them troops from the Rhodesian army. The crowd quelled in a momentary hush, then swelled as His Most Excellent Excellency Prime Minister Robert Mugabe appeared. Even Thandi, who had been disappointed that her Joshua Mqabuko hadn’t won the inaugural elections, screamed. My surrogate father, too, waved a hand and ululated. The Prime Minister purred past them, in a white Mercedes, frilled by a heavy entourage of motorcycles. The Mercedes halted by the flag poles set on the field, where the independence ceremony was to take place.
O Prince Charles lowering the Union Flag!
O Rhodesia Rifle Corps melodizing God Save the Queen!
O fireworks bombing the night, O guitars tickling the air!
Abednego inhaled sharply as the Zimbabwe flag began to rise up its pole. A misty, blue light shone on the flag; somewhere behind them, gun shots cracked, twenty-one of them: a gun salute. The crowd went berserk. His Most Excellent Excellency stood solemnly by a lantern, beside the new flag. He was dressed just as primly then as he dresses now, in a chic, single breasted suit, with his signature toothbrush moustache, his oversize glasses sitting on his cheeks. He straightened his back. Lit the Independence Flame. The crowd rose to a fever-pitch, shouting, screaming and dancing, the pain of the thwacking and the tear gas of a moment ago now forgotten. When Abednego turned to Thandi, she was clutching Bukhosi, smiling at the Independence Flame, crying.
O drunken crowd, O seductress song!
His Most Excellent Excellency took his oath of office at around midnight, 18 April 1980. Even now, his Independence Speech stirs something in me! Although, I admit to feeling a little guilty at being moved by it, knowing what he later did … Oh, but isn’t it beautiful? It’s filled with so much hope, so much love!
My surrogate father has been going on and on about that brother of his, who was invited to perform at the Independence Celebrations. That’s how they were reunited, after the war; my surrogate father saw him on the stage and shouted, ‘That’s my brother! Hey, hey, that poet is my brother! Yes, I know him very personally, he’s my brother!’
I Googled this so-called seminal poem he performed; I found it on some obscure site. He was a darling boy of the nation for a while, after independence, getting invitations to every ambassador’s party, gracing every important function, even making it to the State House once or twice. Then, after his protests against the Gukurahundi Massacres that tainted our country right after independence, forcing him to flee into exile to the USA, he was disappeared from the official records; most of his poetic achievements were wiped clean; it was as though he had never existed. His history was re-rewritten, briefly, heroically, some seven years ago, when he returned to the country in prodigal fashion, after fourteen years in New York. Ha! He’d spent fourteen years abroad in that New York, where he lectured, conducted research and penned numerous essays on his homeland Zimbabwe, which was gradually replaced by liberal references to that country Africa, written in a prose that verged on hyperbole in its lyricism and intensity, and published widely in journals, periodicals and books which were routinely lauded at conferences, not only securing him tenure at New York University but also gaining him fame and notoriety among the secret society of academia.
Each time his works were applauded, he became angry, writing long responses to this inappropriate applause, which were published in the New York Times, earning him more applause, which in turn incensed him even further.
He was a loveless, wifeless man, and instead dedicated his life to studying the foundations of colonialism, that Bergsonian concept of the native as animal, loveable in the way that a dog could be loveable, but not in the way that the human being (sic) the European was loveable.
His writings on Africa were more poetic than prosaic, and tended especially towards abstraction, slipping into florid metaphors that evoked a nostalgic purity, those grand African dynasties in which, he wrote dreamily, there had been no war, hunger or poverty, and where everyone had lived in Edenic peace, and man, having already transcended his destructive nature, had been well on his way to becoming a metahuman, that is, until the barbaric hand of colonialism clenched its fist, of course. He penned epic ode after epic ode to those medieval Sahelian kingdoms south of the Sahara, washed lily-white the Somali states on the Berber Coast, vivified idyllic visions of the Islamic sultanates of Sudan, evoked hazy scenes of the great African city Benin, and produced soppy praise poems in honour of that empire Great Zimbabwe, the rumoured capital of the grand Queen of Sheba. It was time to blind the darkness that had been named Africa with profuse light, he wrote.
The day, in the year 2000, when he learned about the farm invasions taking place in Zimbabwe, he declared, in a final stateside essay, the people of his home country ‘The Niggers of Africa’, praising them for reclaiming their dignity from undignifying white slavery, before packing his bags and returning home.
But he was dismayed to discover that home, upon what he’d dreamed would be a prodigal return, was still tinged with the sinister tones of the past, and his illusions about the Great Emancipation of The Niggers of Africa gave way to disillusions about our government, which further curdled into outright contempt, making him reckless in his disquisitions on the nation’s leaders. Anyone could have foreseen that mysterious car accident in 2003 in which he met with Death.
They tried to obliterate him again from the nation’s history, although it has been admittedly difficult this time, what with the internet and everything; traces of him linger everywhere, online and in archives, obstinately, like a virus.
The poem he performed at the Independence Celebrations isn’t that bad; in fact, it could be said to be good. But I shan’t give him the honour of granting him any more voice in my pages; he doesn’t even deserve these paragraphs I have wasted on him.
It’s my Thandi I wish to dedicate whole chapters to; my Thandi who comes to me now, her umber skin fuzzy in the residual tear gas in the stadium on that magic night of independence, shiny under the lights, like the seed that is found inside a chestnut fruit. Her full lips the fleshy texture of the husk.
He asked her to marry him that night, Abednego, in the most unromantic way; he just stood there, without even a ring, and piped out something to the effect of: ‘Eh, if it’s OK with you, I’d like to make us formal. I’d like us to stand before the courts so I can make you my wife.’
Couldn’t he at least go on bended knee, like they do in the movies?
The Men in t
he Red Berets
I’m beginning to seriously worry about my surrogate father. I’ve never seen him in the state he’s in, at times wet-eyed with sadness and at others wide-eyed with terror. It’s as if he is living in his memories rather than the present day, so much so that it’s even as if he is forgetting Bukhosi. I must record faithfully the calendar of what I see to be the beginning of his evident deterioration – the day is Wednesday, the year 2007, the month October, the date 31st. It is increasingly difficult to get him to respond to me; talking to him is like summoning him from a netherworld; when I asked him about Thandi yesterday, he pursed his lips, hugged himself and turned his back to me. He has told me many stories, most of them roundabout, but at this point I’m stuck, for there’s a gap in his tales. He jumped from being with Thandi at the Rufaro Stadium on 18 April 1980 to being married to Mama Agnes in 1987. I yearn for us to be as we were the other day, Father and Son, when he let me snuggle up next to him on his sofa and we took a selfie.
His behaviour has even alarmed Mama Agnes; she brought the Reverend Pastor to pray for him yesterday evening. He arrived dressed in his signature three-piece Canali suit. Such a fine marvel of craftsmanship, a delicious white against the Reverend Pastor’s sweltering baobab bark skin, with pearly buttons dotting the lapels of the waistcoat, and silver dove cufflinks cuffing the shirt. One glance at that suit, or, for an eye less discerning than mine, one brush against that soft blend of camel and angora, evoking in the body sensations akin to a (lover’s) caress, confirms that the suit is the real thing, one hundred per cent Canali, no Chinese Fong-Kong. This can only mean one thing: the Reverend Pastor must have ordered it all the way from Italy, I suspect with the offerings from his congregation, probably paid for in full by the weathered purses of the likes of my Mama Agnes.
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