Twenty Chickens for a Saddle

by Robyn Scott

  All things considered, no surprise, I suppose, that everyone is amazed by Lulu. People keep commenting to me about how ‘gentle’ and ‘quiet’ she is. Anyway, she seems to be fitting in well. She’s finding the work all okay and making lots of friends. Doing amazingly in swimming too. “It’s all the sprint training with crocs,” she jokes. Occasionally hypnotise her and Nicky Ball for homesickness, which they both say helps a lot.

  By the way, I wouldn’t worry too much about Lulu, even if she is ostensibly much less tough than me. The other day at break time, I walked outside to see her standing in the middle of the pavement, gesturing wildly, ordering every girl in the school, even the prelects, to walk around her. Couldn’t believe it, as she’s terrified of the prefects, and as you know she never orders anyone around. Also everyone was staring at her, which she normally hates. Only understood when I got closer and saw the long procession of Matabele ants crossing the pavement. “Careful, please don’t crush them,” Lulu was pleading – glaring fiercely in the face of any protest or ridicule. “There re just poor little ants…please step over or walk around…” Felt so proud of her.

  Now, Mum, to the latest results from experimental subject, Daughter 1. Since reading your NLP book in the holidays, I have been trying out some of the memory techniques, in particular this idea that you can activate the visual memory by moving your eyeballs up and to the left. It seems to be helping, and a few weeks ago I was practising between lessons. The girl next to me asked what on earth I was up to, so I explained the theory. By the time the teacher arrived, practically the whole class was at it – alternately looking at their pages and flicking their eyes up to the left. She was pretty bewildered, as you can imagine, and gave me a strange look when I told her it was neurohnguistic programming and that she should really read about it, given all its applications in teaching.

  In the latest on the baptism struggle, Sister Brunhilda is trying the new angle of remindmg me that prefect selection is coming up soon. “Ja, Hobbin, zis vould be helpful.” I told her, affronted, that I wouldn’t want to choose a religion for such a shallow reason. So for the moment, at least, I hopefully have the upper hand.

  That’s about all my news, but before I sign off, I must tell one more story, mainly in a strategic bid to get Dad to write. The other day I was at Tiffany’s house, and her sister’s boyfriend was visiting. He’s a bit of a joker, and likes asking ridiculous questions to tease people. I am aware of this, but I’m mortified to admit that he caught me off guard when he asked me, “So what’s the price of eggs, Robyn?” He is clever and several years older than me, and my first thought was delight as, for once, he had asked a question about which I was really well informed.

  I told him I wasn’t exactly sure what the price was in Zim, but allowing for inflation since I’d closed my business, discounting for non free-range, and adjusting for the exchange rate, I said I’d guess it was x, or whatever I said. Everyone started laughing, and even he was genuinely speechless. I, of course, felt like a fool and tell this story only as a plea to get you to write, Dad. As you can see my sense of humour desperately needs nurturing. You don’t want all your hard work to go to waste, do you? Anyway, seeing Mum is getting so much amusement out of our stories, it seems only fair we should hear a little more about her.

  Await your reply with bated breath.

  Lots of love,

  Robbie.

  Homeschooling, and its aftermath, was not a one-way experiment. From our side – Dad’s, Lulu’s, Damien’s, and mine – the experiment was: what happens when you (a) interrupt the promising scientific career of an eccentric twenty-three-year-old with seventeen years of looking after and teaching three children, and (b) abruptly end the exposure, leaving the bewildered forty-year-old subject in the bush, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people whose language she doesn’t speak, and views she doesn’t share?

  Some of the results we collected during the holidays. But then, when we, the children, were all around, the impact of (b) was somewhat muted. Undoubtedly the best, if biased, results came from Dad, relayed in his sporadic mammoth letters, which always centred around Mum, and for added entertainment, at some point, always slipped from fact into fantasy. Guessing where the switch occurred – by no means easy – was part of the pleasure.

  Dear Chaps,

  Sorry it’s taken me so unbelievably long to get around to writing to you. I’ve been very busy with the clinics and the usual demands of the farm – fixing pumps, chasing poachers etc. I’ve also had to keep an eye on Mum, who’s been in severe book mode, and unpredictably emerges from her screen, declaring dazedly that she has writer’s block. I then have to be ready to go on red alert, knowing she will undoubtedly proceed to create havoc in the house and surroundings. I will briefly put this in context now and elaborate further in the following paragraphs.

  As you know, she’s spending almost all of her time on finishing offLiving on the Fringe. (I suspect she’s determined to get some mileage out of the last few harrowing decades.) I also suspect that when she gets writer’s block, the title becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. she goes forth and surfs the fringe for new material. Anyway, onerous though it is looking after her, I cannot in good conscience neglect your SOS, Robbie. The thought of you losing your sense of humour again fills me with almost more alarm than the very real danger of Mum losing her sanity.

  So to begin. Well, you’ll be nostalgic to know that the house still smells of carbonised chickpeas (and no doubt still will when you return) from Mum’s last attempt to burn it down. If you remember, we were amazed that we could smell the smoke from a kilometre away. It turns out, however, we greatly underestimated the reach of Mum’s haute cuisine: all over the Tuli Block, people are now talking about a strange burnt legume smell, hitherto unknown in the region. (Except for the few residents who’ve had the traumatic experience of dining with us.) Anyway, after days of scrubbing even Ruth gave up on the pressure cooker, which Mum at last threw away.

  This purge turned out to be prophetic of her approach henceforth: i.e. dispensing with cooking altogether, and radical turfing-out sessions. For days, it seemed, I returned to drawers and cupboards open and various precious items being chucked in the rubbish pile and Mum saying, “I feel so liberated.” So it was with some relief that I came home one day and saw Mum bending over into the fridge. You must understand I had been subsisting on a diet of vegetable pie, which as you know is the only dish Ruth can cook, and my least favourite.

  Filled with sudden passion at the thought of my wife at last cooking me a meal – Robbie, this is a test for you, you did ask for it – I affectionately clasped Muni’s left buttock. Now I know, in book mode, she sometimes reacts unexpectedly, but I was nonetheless taken aback by her howl and sudden ability to speak perfect Setswana. Until Mum stood up, and I saw it was Ruth, wearing one of Mum’s long flowery dresses. Ruth looked appalled and rushed out of the kitchen as I quickly apologised and tried to explain. Still blushing, I found Mum at the sewing machine. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ve decided I really need some new clothes, for my new self, and I didn’t want the others to go to waste. They fit Ruth perfectly, don’t they?”

  Sewing ushered in Phase II of the symptoms: frenzied creation. Now never one to restrict herself to womanly tasks, Mum soon abandoned the sewing machine and began hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks to the gazebo, where she’d decided to build a built-in gas stove and a surface area for outdoor cooking (which cheered me up). I suggested she wait until Joseph, Shimane, and I had finished the critical work on the burst pipe and could help her. But Mum insisted she couldn’t wait, and that a bit of heavy labour never hurt anyone. “I’m only worried about skin cancer,” she pronounced, trundling the barrow along with her biggest Washable, Squashable Australian hat and an enormous swimming towel draped over her shoulders.

  Turns out the god of skin cancer took revenge, for a few hours later we heard this tremendous howl. Mum then appears looking white (even for her sun-free skin) and explai
ns she’d felt this thing on her arm but couldn’t see properly because of her sunglasses and had assumed it was just the massive towel. The towel, however, grew increasingly lifelike, and she eventually looked down to see that a large, brightly coloured garter snake (semipoisonous) had crawled out of the wheelbarrow handle and wrapped itself around her arm. Breaking all the keep-still-around-snakes rules, she yelled to high heaven and flung the poor creature halfway across the garden.

  The saga did not end here, however. Mum at last saw some sense and commandeered the help of S and J to do the heavy brickwork, she overseeing proceedings and doing the grouting between the laid bricks. Now I have to admit she did a pretty impressive job, but I must warn you about complimenting her too much when you see it. Self-appreciation has already got her into trouble. The other day, she was admiring it in front of Shimane and Joseph – stepping back to see it from every angle, including the pool, which she walked backwards into, hat, towel, glasses, and all. The two guys were initially too shocked to indulge in the usual Motswana schadenfreude. But when she walked away, the cackles began, and we’ve been hearing eruptions of laughter ever since from down the road.

  Anyway, after finishing with the outdoor stove, Mum was faced with a bit of a quandary for her next project. This was the lounge suite, which she suddenly decided she was tired of. Now she couldn’t very well throw this out. Nor could she hope to find suitable upholstery material at the Sherwood Ranch store. I, stupidly, assumed she would get over her sudden urge and simply wait until her next shopping trip.

  However, I returned from an afternoon of building the new deck by the Limpopo to find that Mum has dragged the settee and the two chairs out onto the lawn. One chair was already looking suspiciously lighter, and as I approached I saw Mum was wielding a paintbrush. “I had such a brilliant idea,” she said. “Fabric paint! I can turn the blue denim into green denim. Look how good it looks.” I pointed out that the green chair had very clear paintbrush streaks. But Mum’s only reply was to say, “Nonsense, not really. Anyway, they give character.” Phu ca change, as she would say.

  Finally, Mum’s latest is to diagnose her writer’s block as being due to a lack of enough natural light, despite the huge windows in the study, which she, I might add, designed. She has thus set up office in the lean-to, displacing my tools from the workbench. She maintains that the breeze and the dappled light through the passion fruit creeper offer the perfect surroundings for making the creative juices flow. Here she sits, typing away, connected with an extension lead, listening to South African radio, which she claims is her only connection to the real world and will stop her going completely mad. Well, who am I to complain? Anything that helps. Must go to bed now for an early night. Monday tomorrow.

  Hope you’re both in good form.

  Love,

  Dad.

  Mum said, indignantly, “Of course I didn’t set up office on the workbench.”

  ∨ Twenty Chickens for a Saddle ∧

  Twenty-Five

  Talking About Lions

  The restaurant in the Harare parliamentary buildings was already almost full when our guide ushered us in. Rich smells of something like beef stew filled the warm air, and the room buzzed with laughter, chatter, and cutlery clinking on plates. Engrossed in their lunches and conversations, most of the smartly dressed diners ignored us. Only a few glanced curiously at the wary procession of uniformed students, each from a different school in a different Zimbabwean province.

  The girl beside me, whom I’d talked to on the way to the restaurant, gasped. She pointed surreptitiously to a corner table. “That’s a minister,” she whispered.

  “Of what?”

  But at that point the minister looked at us, and my companion muttered something unintelligible as her eyes fell to the floor. Despite my nudges, she remained silent.

  Several other government representatives joined us, and we sat down at the table. One of the men said a few words about the history of the essay competition, and about what a pleasure it was to be hosting some of Zimbabwe’s fine young thinkers, who would shape the future of this great country. Then he announced that our meals would arrive shortly. “Please eat,” he said, gesturing to little bowls scattered across the table.

  The bowls were passed around, and everyone except me obediently took a handful. “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, passing on the dish of small, shriveled carcasses.

  The man who sat opposite me smiled. “You must have some.”

  “No thanks, I’m fine, really.”

  The students beside me looked shocked. The speaker looked surprised. “But these are a great delicacy. They are mopane worms. You must try some,” he said emphatically.

  Now the whole table was watching me. I was the only white person at the table, and one of only two white people in the restaurant: I knew what everyone was thinking.

  “I know what they are,” I said hurriedly. “And it’s not because I don’t like mopane worms. I’m a vegetarian. And that’s not because I don’t like meat. But my rule is that I don’t eat anything I’m not prepared to kill myself.”

  Disbelieving smiles broke out around me. “You wouldn’t kill a worm?”

  “They’re still animals. I only kill mosquitoes. Which you obviously can’t eat,” I babbled. “I know it sounds strange. But my family’s quite unusual. My little sister won’t even kill mosquitoes.”

  The man opposite frowned and took a handful of worms for himself. He said, “I have never heard anything like that,” and turned away to speak to the boy beside him.

  Appalled by my disastrous start, when he next paused I was ready. “Out of interest,” I butted in, “do you import your mopane worms from Botswana? I used to live in Selebi-Phikwe, which is surrounded by mopane bush. The worms were big business there.”

  “These are from Zimbabwe’,” he said. “We have mopane trees too,” he added in a condescending tone. Then he said, “How long have you been living in Zimbabwe?”

  “I don’t, really,” I replied, blushing. “I’m just at boarding school in Bulawayo. My parents still live in Botswana. I came here,” I added pointedly, “because Zimbabwe has much better high schools than Botswana.”

  And at last he smiled. “Better than everywhere else,” he said. “You know we have the highest literacy rate in Africa.”

  “I know.”

  Then he told me the Bulawayo Convent was an excellent school, and that President Mugabe’s own daughters went to the sister convent school in Harare. He asked me where I went to junior school. I explained that my mother had taught me. I added proudly that my grandfather used to fly President Khama, whom we both agreed was great man. Then we discussed diamonds and cattle in Botswana, and agriculture, which was so important to Zimbabwe.

  Absorbed in our wide-ranging conversation, it was only about halfway through lunch that I became aware that none of the other students were talking to the adults. They answered questions, but volunteered nothing. Most of them whispered to each other, or watched me in amazement as I opined confidently. Suddenly realising how impudent I must seem, I fell silent and resolved to try and ask fewer questions.

  I forgot, however, as soon as we began our tour of the parliament buildings.

  The tour was part of the prize, and part of the reason I had entered the government-run essay competition, despite its profoundly off-putting title, which asked for a discussion of how various societal imbalances, such as gender, racial, and economic, in areas such as politics, business, and the civil service could be redressed without compromising Zimbabwe’s cultural norms, traditions, and heritage.

  It was impossible to read the question without feeling bored. No other girl in my class had given it more than a second glance. It was 1998, the first demanding year of the A-level syllabus, and even the teachers hadn’t encouraged participation, as they usually did. But I entered essay and poetry competitions as a matter of habit, and I wanted to see parliament.

  Not rating my chances very highly, I scribbled some consid
erably more politically correct opinions than I felt.

  “That’s rather brave,” said my English teacher, when I handed in my entry.

  I said, “I’m banking on no one else in Matabeleland bothering to enter.”

  Evidently, no one did. A few months later, I was announced as the regional winner and invited up to Harare.

  Now, as we walked through the gloomy wood-panelled corridors, hung with dusty pictures of the queen and various ministers, I couldn’t restrain myself. I caught up with our guide. “Are we likely to see the president?” I asked hopefully.

  The closest I’d come to seeing President Mugabe was on the road out to Bulawayo’s airport, which led towards Floss’s farm. The old Bedford had been travelling in the opposite direction to the cavalcade, but at the first sight of the lead motorbikes, Floss had pulled off onto the verge and stopped. It was rumoured, if you didn’t, that you’d be shot at. And even in an ancient Bedford, piled with hay and four uniformed schoolgirls, no one was prepared to test the theory. As the scores of shiny vehicles had roared past, of the president, however, I’d seen only darkly tinted windows.

  The guide smiled at my enquiry. “Of course not,” he said. Then he explained that President Mugabe generally came only twice a year: to open parliament, and then to close parliament.

  We followed him into the viewing gallery of a room where a desultory and tedious debate was taking place. It seemed, judging by the nodding heads and wandering gazes beneath us, to be just as boring to the participants. The guide led us out before I had time to establish what was being discussed. And that was it: we made our way through more slightly worn and faded rooms and corridors, and back into the bright daylight of Harare’s busy streets.

  Later, we were taken by bus to the famous Heroes’ Acre. Disappointed by parliament, I’d been cheered by the news of this trip, which was billed as an important part of understanding Zimbabwe’s history. The journey there was fun, too: by the time we climbed into the late-running bus, the group was starting to relax, and as we wound slowly out of Harare towards the hill where the monument stood, we chatted and laughed about our families, schools, and A-levels. Apart from a few discussions in Shona, everyone spoke in perfect English, and no one mentioned the history we were about to relive.