A deep, angry voice floated toward them from inside the house. A sharp back and forth emanated from the background, all muffled and impossible to discern. Paida turned back nervously.
“Make this go away!” a man said as he emerged into view, holding a glass of brandy. Two other men followed behind him.
Shamiso pushed her head forward to see if she could get a better look. Her eyes narrowed.
“Isn’t that the minister?” she asked her mother. Her mother’s face tightened. “Wait, the minister is your dad?” Shamiso turned to Paida in total shock.
Her mother remained quiet. She stood with her hands folded, nostrils wide and eyes refusing to blink at all.
“Mom,” Shamiso whispered. Her mother breathed heavily. Paida trembled with fear, unsure of what to do.
“You murderer.” Shamiso’s mother broke the silence, charging into the house toward the three men. Shamiso watched as her mother pounced. Paida’s hands clasped her mouth. The other men wrestled Shamiso’s screaming mother away from the minister.
“You killed my husband!” she barked, writhing away from their grip. Shamiso had never seen her mother like this.
“Paida! Who are these people?” the minister shouted, dabbing at the cut on his cheek as the men hauled her mother outside.
“They were supposed to—”
“Get them out of here! Now!”
“You killed my husband!” Shamiso’s mother repeated but the words stuck in her throat.
Paida turned to Shamiso. “You really should go.”
Shamiso’s mother gasped for air as she wiped the tears from her eyes. Her heart shook. She glanced at her horrified daughter. All she had wanted was to tap some reality into the girl, show her how their life had changed. Maybe then she would appreciate school. Maybe she would adjust and the fight within her would rise. But all she had done was crumple in front of her daughter and scare her half to death.
She patted her eyes once more and in a calm voice turned to Shamiso and said, “Let’s go.”
47
Paida closed the door.
“Do you think it was linked to that envelope?” she asked her father quietly.
“What envelope?” he said, still dabbing at his cheek as he stared into the mirror in the hallway.
“The one I left in your office.”
He turned and looked at her, eyes blazing.
“What did I say about my office, Paida? I have told you before—my office is out of bounds.”
“But the envelope said something about you taking bribes for farms during the redistribution. I thought I was helping!” she said, her voice rising.
Her father froze. She watched him nervously, unsure if his silence spoke of disapproval.
“What did you say?” he asked, his eyes bulging.
“I found an envelope that girl dropped at school, and it said you were taking bribes and giving stolen farms to your friends.”
“And you left it in my office?” he said, heading back into his office and rummaging through the papers on his desk, recreating the mess that had been there before.
“Where, Paida? Where?” he hissed. “It was probably sent out with the post! Do you know what this could do to us if it falls into the wrong hands?” he raged as he pulled out his phone.
Paida began to explain again, but her father stormed out, heading for his car. She trotted behind him and watched as he sped off. She stood there nervously, wondering what on earth would happen if Mr. Hyde overpowered Dr. Jekyll.
48
The doctor stood in the room, her hands suspended, gloves colored with blood. Tanyaradzwa lay with a tube in her mouth and an oxygen mask over her face. Her throat had been cut into and her bumpy trachea lay exposed.
“Scalpel,” said the doctor calmly. The nurse on her right placed the sharp metal object into her steady hand. As her hand moved to the girl’s throat the lights in the operating theater suddenly blinked. She stopped and looked at the team of nurses around her.
“Do we have a generator on standby?”
“We should, but I will double-check,” one of the nurses said, hurrying out of the room.
The lights normalized. The doctor breathed in her relief. The lights blinked again. And then there it was.
ZESA!
49
Jeremiah sat uneasily in his car, waiting in the parking zone and holding the yellow envelope in his hand. A car stopped next to his and the driver stared at him. Jeremiah looked away nervously and deliberately locked his car doors.
The car drove off. Jeremiah glanced around and turned his wrist to see the time again. Someone knocked on the car window, making him jump.
“Were you followed?” Jeremiah asked, unlocking the door.
“No,” the other man said, confused at the question.
“Here, everything is in there,” he said, moving to hand over the envelope. The man reached out to get it, but Jeremiah’s hesitation held on for a minute longer.
The man pulled out the papers and read through them.
“Muloy had caught a big fish here.”
Jeremiah nodded. He felt satisfied with the part he had played for justice, like a load had been lifted from his chest. His friend’s life had not been stolen for nothing!
“Make sure it gets out,” he pleaded before leaving for home.
50
After everything that had just happened, Shamiso found herself standing at the hospital entrance, unsure whether or not this visit was a good idea. She thought of her mother, and the pain that had been written on her face. It resonated with the panic Shamiso felt inside. What would the consequences be for what her mother had just done?
She had clarity about only one thing: she needed to be there for Tanyaradzwa. The same way she wished her friends back home had been there for her. Fear rode along and stood next to her, its hand in hers.
Nurses and doctors rushed in and out of rooms. The hospital did not seem to have been hit much by the strike. She scratched her neck and swallowed. It had been a while since she had smoked. With hardly any money from her mother, it had become virtually impossible to buy cigarettes.
Shamiso wondered if Tanyaradzwa would even speak to her. After all, there had been so many missed calls and unanswered messages. Her feet carried her forward. A nurse sat there, one hand to her ear as she tended to calls.
“Yes?” the nurse asked.
“I’m looking for Tanyaradzwa Pfumojena,” Shamiso stuttered. The nurse balanced the phone on her shoulder as she typed into her desktop.
“Are you family?”
Shamiso paused for a minute, then nodded. The nurse seemed uninterested anyway. She juggled both the phone and the monitor.
“Room 106,” she said distractedly.
As Shamiso walked to the ward, she worried that her chest might burst open from the drumming of her heart. The walls of the corridors were painted with smells of strong medicine and spirits. Her eyes searched for the right room number. The closer she got, the faster her heart became until she could almost see the room from where she stood.
As the nurses and doctors came and went, her eyes drifted to the water dispenser in the hallway. An overwhelming thirst caught up with her. She walked to the dispenser and gulped down a cup of water. It gave her brain freeze. She stared at the empty plastic cup and found herself pushing the tap for another glass. She took two giant sips and headed for the door.
PART FIVE
The following week
51
Nothing in this world is for keeps. And although Shamiso still failed to say the words out loud, they had slowly become her silent mantra.
She sat in the kitchen head in her hands, tears seeping from her eyes. She had come home to the news that Jeremiah’s son had called. Jeremiah had been beaten to death and thrown in a ditch close to his house. Some men had been lingering near his h
ouse the previous night. Jeremiah’s son suspected that they must have attacked him as he set out early for work—he’d left while it was still dark because his car had run out of petrol and he had to use public transport, which was not so easy lately with the petrol problems. People had discovered him only later that morning.
After wiping her eyes, Shamiso took a deep breath and sat up straight. It was only then that she noticed the newspaper on the white plastic chair beside her. The headline revealed the secret that the envelope had carried all this time.
Muloy Exposes Corrupt Minister from the Grave
Jeremiah had died for that headline, for the front-page news. Fear hissed in her ear, reminding her that everyone was dropping like flies. But how could she allow herself to be afraid? After the courage Jeremiah had shown by fighting for the truth—and her father’s courage in dying because of it?
The silence in the house was unbearable. Images of Tanyaradzwa in tubes and surrounded by beeping machines shook her. How could she not be afraid, when death was so real? It had only been two days, but fear kept her from calling. Maybe if she stayed away, the loss would pardon her. Because how could she lose something she no longer had?
She pressed her hands on her head and searched desperately for the hope Tanyaradzwa had held so vehemently. Tears drooled from her eyes and sobs erupted within her. The lump slipped back into her throat. She needed it all to stop!
She grabbed the bottle holding the candle and smashed it to the ground in a bid to discharge her anger. The wick snuffed out. The room welcomed the blooming darkness. Her senses settled and she groped around for the box of matches, yelping as a sharp, thick piece of broken glass dug right through her palm. And as the blood oozed out, flowing down her hand, onto her shin and dripping to her foot, she fainted.
52
Shamiso opened her eyes, her senses flooded by the strong smell of disease and medicine.
She pulled herself up. Her mother stood a short distance away, talking to a nurse in a white uniform with a navy blue jersey. She tried to move her hand where the glass had mercilessly forced its way in. She winced in pain, realizing that it was wrapped in spirit-soaked bandages. The cut must have been deep.
The man in the bed next to her coughed. He had a tube of oxygen stuck in his nose and his mouth moved as though chewing at something. The curtains purred as a nurse pulled them around the bed of the old woman across from her.
A loud screech broke from behind the curtain. Shamiso’s bed rocked. Another nurse, who was pushing a trolley stacked with needles, had accidentally bumped into her bed.
Her mother and the nurse with the blue jersey were walking toward her. A soft gratitude settled on her. Her mother had always been there for her, through everything.
Shamiso could also see her grandmother heading for the bed. Her tiny black handbag sat squashed by her hand, in her armpit; her dhuku was lightly tied as always. Shamiso wondered when she had arrived. The nurse grabbed the corner of the curtain hanging on the rail and pulled it around her bed. Shamiso couldn’t breathe.
“Mom, let’s go home,” she begged.
“Not just yet, mwanangu. The nurse will give you something for the pain and then, after they stitch you up, they’ll monitor you overnight.” Her mother sounded worn out. Her grandmother stood next to her mother, lips downturned, both hands holding the handle of her bag and head shaking. Shamiso watched the nurse with the trolley stretch her latex glove and pull a gigantic needle from a sealed plastic envelope on her tray. The nurse flicked the tip of the syringe, making droplets of medicine land on Shamiso’s skin. The girl’s back trickled with sweat. The nurse now drew closer, clutched her wrist, and held it tightly. Shamiso’s eyebrows bunched up. She bit her lip and followed the pointy needle as it headed her way. And as the saying goes, when life hands you lemons, you scream your lungs out!
53
Shamiso sat at the back of the house, leaning against the walls of the old cottage. Her palm both itched and ached from the previous day. Her chin rested on her knees. When she had been a little girl, her father used to carry her on his shoulders. She remembered how invincible she had felt. But whenever he brought her down, it was always her mother who caught her.
She curled her toes, pulling them away from the creeping traces of the sun. She glanced at her phone. Tanyaradzwa’s mother had stopped calling since Shamiso had been to the hospital. She wondered if her friend was all right, but couldn’t imagine going back there.
Her blood quivered, trying to convince her that enough time had already been wasted. The oily smell of fried fat cakes came from the house and teased her nostrils. Her grandmother had been staying with them since the “incident.”
She heard footsteps as her grandmother emerged.
“Come eat,” she said and disappeared almost as quickly as she had appeared.
Shamiso got to her feet and walked into the house. Her grandmother sat on the floor ready to dig in. A generous number of fat cakes lay on the plate in front of her.
“Wake your mother up,” she instructed, fixing her dhuku again and mumbling something to herself.
Shamiso headed for the other room. She softly opened the door and stood there. Her mother was sitting on the bed, staring into nothingness, gently rocking herself. Shamiso walked over and sat by her side, letting her mother feel her presence. Somehow it had all gotten to be too much. Seeing the minister, hearing of Jeremiah’s death, reading that paper; her mother must have felt as though she was losing her husband all over again.
Shamiso wondered if the two of them would lose one another too. Her piercing eyes rested on her mother. Tears pushed up against her. She placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder.
“Mom, Ambuya says tea’s ready,” she whispered. Her mother looked at her blankly, then turned her head away and continued rocking.
54
Shamiso walked back to the ward. It had been a few days since she was last here. She wiped her dry mouth and scratched her itchy neck. As she neared the room, she could hear singing. The door was open. She quickened her step, eager to see what was going on.
Tanyaradzwa’s band stood around her bed, singing with their heads hung low as though saying farewell before sending her off. Shamiso peeped inside. Gloom colored the room gray. Tanyaradzwa’s mother sat in the corner, folded into a neat package of misery. Shamiso could understand how she must feel. She had left that same image at home.
She wondered whether or not to run. It was happening again, just as she had feared, but she could not block out the haunting words of her father, delivered to her by Tanyaradzwa like a message in a bottle. Hope.
She could hear the band starting to walk out and looked to see where she could hide.
“Shamiso?”
She turned. Tinotenda smiled as he walked toward her. He seemed a little more serious than usual. Shamiso blinked. Tinotenda put his hand on her shoulder.
“We’re still going to play at the festival if you want to come. A tribute to Tanya.”
Shamiso frowned. “What do you mean, a tribute?”
Tinotenda scratched his head. “Well, let’s see what happens.”
“Shamiso,” she heard a high voice and peered past Tinotenda.
“Paida.”
Tinotenda started for the exit. Shamiso crossed her arms.
“What are you doing here?” she stuttered.
Paida looked down for a moment. “Listen, I’m not here to fight with you.”
The lump.
The image of her mother as she charged at the minister.
“I’m really sorry about your dad. And . . . and about Tanyaradzwa.”
Shamiso frowned but no sarcasm fell from Paida’s lips. No horns grew on her forehead either.
“Thanks, but Tanyaradzwa is going to be all right,” Shamiso said quietly.
Paida nodded and walked away. Shamiso watched her go. For a little lon
ger than she needed to. Perhaps it was easier than entering the room.
Shamiso stepped into the gloom. Tanyaradzwa lay there asleep, just as she remembered. Face swollen, tubes running to and from her face and body. Little beeps from the machines kept her company. Shamiso looked across the room. Tanyaradzwa’s mother was slumped in an armchair next to her daughter’s bed, one hand supporting her head as she dozed.
The doctor entered. She glanced at Shamiso and smiled. Then she walked over to the armchair and gently tapped Tanyaradzwa’s mother on the shoulder.
She opened her eyes with a start. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“That’s all right,” the doctor said, rubbing her arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute outside, please?”
Tanyaradzwa’s mother got up.
“Shamiso! I didn’t hear you come in,” she said in surprise.
Shamiso opened her mouth but no words came out. She only just managed to smile.
Tanyaradzwa’s mother pulled her into an embrace and held her tight for a minute, before following the doctor outside.
Shamiso watched Tanyaradzwa’s chest as it moved up and down. What did people do in these situations?
“I’m not sure what to say,” she whispered.
She glanced outside. She could hear fragments of what the doctor and Tanyaradzwa’s mother was saying.
“Like I said yesterday, we can’t keep her for more than a week if she’s still in a coma. Unless you can foot the bill . . .”
“I thought you said the surgery went well. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“There were complications during surgery, I will not lie to you . . . Overall everything went well . . . Sometimes patients are simply exhausted and they don’t wake up in time. We have four more days.”
Hope Is Our Only Wing Page 10