Life After Death

by Brian Ndingindwayo

  She stepped up the volume on the radio. Zhakata poured his heart out in emotional torrents that tore at her whole being. The song made her feel like life was shredding her. Her nerves were on edge. Nevertheless, she felt like being wild. She could afford it once in a while, and she loved it! She hummed along with the radio as she bathed.

  After the bath she changed into a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt, currently her only set of clean clothes. She would have to do something about that soon. She put a hat over her head and examined herself before the mirror. She seemed to have become bony of late. Nothing that a good meal or two couldn’t fix!

  She locked up and left for RIM.

  It was quite some time since her last visit there. She felt strange going there but she was at a loose end and needed to do something, anything. And she needed that breath of fresh air.

  The sky had cleared up, a notable improvement from the day before. It was promising to be hot though. A number of children met her at the ground. ‘How’re you, boys?’ she said with a radiant smile as she walked past them.

  They were quite used to Natasha. There often were disputes that sometime broke into rows, with each one wanting to explain how their latest toy worked. Today they had smuggled a pot and some water from the house and taken some soil from the flowerbeds. The result, of course, was mud, which didn’t look so friendly to Natasha’s white shirt.

  They scrambled up to her excitedly as she passed. ‘Natasha, Natasha.’ They screamed as they went after her in hot pursuit, but she outran them. Realizing the futility of their chase they gave it up and watched as she approached the car.

  Natasha put the ignition key on, revved, engaged gear and backed out. She expertly manoeuvred the car out of the parking slot but spoiled it all when she turned the wheel too sharply and the power steering belt gave a screech. Women drivers, she said with a giggle. The children waved her off as she drove away.

  She drove through town, wanting to pass along the place she first saw Manata. Unfortunately, she was locked behind a smoking vehicle that obscured her vision of the supermarket. It didn’t make much difference to her, though. For the past fortnight she has been checking, but not even his name existed here.

  The rest of the journey passed without incident.

  As she was securing parking space though, she noticed a shiny, black jaguar beside her. This car had not been here the last time around. Whoever this man was, he was surely making a number of himself. She decided to indulge herself by killing time trying to figure out who he was; half the men at RIM had the capacity to buy a car like this one if they chose to do so. It was probably just a matter of time before the puzzle was solved.

  She walked through reception feeling little less than a stranger. Very soon she would meet her mates and go through the usual routine: the polite greetings, the contrived ready smiles and innocuous little questions about why she hadn’t been coming of late. And Sipeyiye... It wasn’t so easy.

  She wrote down her name against the list of people who had come to the premises. Surprisingly enough, just above her name was Sipeyiye’s. She shuddered when she saw it. Heavens, she could hear the thud of his feet as he ascended the stairs. She followed behind him calmly. She wanted to meet him, just to say hello and know he was coping well. But when she came upstairs, she couldn’t see him. He was probably in the man’s changing room.

  Sue was there, already in her martial arts gear.

  ‘Girl,’ she exclaimed, setting her hand flat on the chest. ‘You break my heart. You couldn’t even let me see you.’ She pinned her in a hug, pressing her face to hers. Natasha returned the hug. ‘And you’re down to bones,’ she remarked.

  ‘I hope I didn’t cause you too much worry. I think I lied to you sometime.’

  ‘Don’t bother yourself, girl.’

  She patted Natasha on the back.

  Natasha changed with Sue still shouting over her compartment. It was a discussion of sorts.

  The two women left together with Sue’s arm around Natasha’s neck. Natasha told herself she was missing this badly. The problem with her was that she couldn’t readily reciprocate the show of love and that made her feel bad.

  Sue had second thoughts about walking on the floor barefoot. Her cologne enveloped them both, completely.

  A man came out of the men’s changing rooms as they walked along, his attention aroused by Sue’s voice which was slightly too loud. She spoke that way deliberately to attract attention.

  ‘Sadza, how’re you?’ Sue called out. ‘Congratulations, I understand your wife was blessed with triplets.’

  He was bashful but quick to reply, ‘Well thanks. A point of correction though! Twins not triplets.’

  Sue stopped. ‘Mm,’ she murmured. ‘In either case, that was a splendid show. You know what you and your wife are: a hard working couple.’

  She laughed out loud. The man retreated into the room.

  Sue followed her in full flight and fell forward against Natasha’s arm which became a buffer between her and the floor.

  Natasha jerked forward from the impact of it. She was thinking, you should expect that sort of thing whenever you’re with Sue.

  They came to the stairs at the end of the stairs and descended. Natasha asked, ‘Sue I was just wondering, what you consider the most important thing on earth?’

  Sue gave a thoughtful little frown. ‘One’s career I think,’ she said

  ‘If I may ask, why are you asking that?’

  Natasha heard Sipeyiye talking in the corridor. Her attention shifted from their conversation to him. They were now midway down the steps. Several men were in the company of Sipeyiye. They hung around most times in the hope of gaining the attention of the Truth. His profile had become that big.

  Natasha’s heart bit faster as he approached. She and Sue squeezed into a corner as the band of men passed. ‘Girls,’ he called as he passed.

  It didn’t mean anything to Natasha at first, but it slowly sank into her mind.

  The man she loved just that, just that. ‘Now let’s start.’ Sue dragged her.

  They practised for more than an hour. Sue held Natasha’s leg in the air, for Natasha to heave up and down.

  ‘Mm,’ she whined. ‘Don’t you think it’s enough for today?’

  Sue let go her leg.

  ‘If you say so, it’s ok with me.’ She snatched at her towel from the hooker and they walked in silence across the hall.

  ‘Natasha,’ Sue suddenly said. There was an alarming seriousness in her voice. Natasha looked her in her eyes. ’I was wondering if you might let me know a number of things.’

  ‘Sure enough, if I can.’ She folded her arms across her chest and walked on slowly. Sue did the same.

  ‘Well, it’s highly private, but I believe I’m a friend.’ And she blurted out. ‘Seems you and Sipeyiye have a minor fracas.’

  Natasha wondered why she was asking this. ‘Something like it,’ she said as she gave a short answer to shut Sue up. She would have preferred to have brought up the subject herself

  ‘Come on, girl, I’m a shoulder you can lean on.’

  Sue said this with the air of someone who was streetwise. This always had the effect of dwarfing Natasha.

  ‘You wanna talk about it? Why did he decide to do that?’

  ‘I had a clinical abortion, you see,’ Natasha said straightening her stomach. ‘I think you know that my health has become somehow complicated of late. But it seemed all he lived for was a baby. So somehow, we parted ways.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry you’re going through all this,’ said Sue with searching eyes. ‘And could it be that you have gone for HIV tests?’

  Natasha stopped dead in her tracks. How could anybody have known that? ‘How did you come to know that?’ she glared.

  ‘Steady with it. We are talking about you.’

  ‘You see, Sue, I don’t want to talk about this.’

  This time Natasha held her in a gaze and she backed away.
/>   ‘But I want to.’ She closed one of her eyes as she said did this.

  That kind of look with one eye closed can provoke a lot of anger, Natasha realized. But she decided to play passive.

  ‘Well then, see you.’

  Natasha walked briskly ahead, but Sue rushed after her and stood in front of her before she could go up the stairs.

  ‘There is no need for this mass display of anger,’ she said quizzically. ‘You’re missing him, aren’t you?’

  There was no sincerity in her voice.

  ‘Sue…’

  ‘Because he did your housework and even washed your pants while you slept, didn’t he?’

  Oh God, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She turned swiftly. The other women were still practising in the hall. None seemed to notice what was happening.

  ‘Now Natasha, we shall put your charm to the test,’ Sue persisted. ‘Suppose then, Sipeyiye is taken away from you, will you be able to claim him back?’

  Natasha removed Sue’s arm from around her shoulders.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she exited the hall. 'I wish you all the best.’

  Sue stinks, she said to herself. She was now blinded with anger. It was a wonder she hadn’t lashed at her. From where she was she could make out a number of men sitting in the shades of the mahogany trees, notably Sipeyiye.

  Out of habit, she followed the pavement. She walked in fierce, angry strides. Her breath came out in rasps. How much exactly did Sue know by now, she wondered? She walked past the gleaming swimming pool. Now, she could hear what they were saying, Sipeyiye in leadership. That’s what he wants, to claim attention, she said as she thought aloud.

  All of a sudden, the men’s attention shifted to her. Sipeyiye had said a joke that everyone else missed. He turned around and saw her. He immediately shut up. Where am I going, she suddenly asked herself? But she couldn’t turn away now. She would make a fool of herself.

  Then she suddenly remembered the keys!

  She didn’t slow down. The men whose outstretched legs blocked her way tucked their legs under their chairs as she picked her way to Sipeyiye. Sipeyiye was deeply alarmed but managed to stay calm.

  ‘The key,’ she snapped and stopped before him just in time to avoid knocking into him.

  He rose and fumbled with a bunch of keys from his pocket. He disentangled a single key from the bunch and dropped it inside her open palm. She clasped it and retraced her tracks. As she left, she looked over her shoulder.

  Sipeyiye slumped in the chair. His face was ashen and his hands were jammed on his face. She suddenly felt sorry for him and all the anger that she had allowed controlling her evaporated. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have done that’

  But maybe, that would remain unsaid.

  Chapter 54

  She slid behind the wheel and slammed the door behind her. The key in the ring, she threw it at the passenger’s seat beside her. It could have been important had Sipeyiye said he would bring it later. Then she could have been assured that the whole thing was a nightmare. It was all over now. She had made a fool of herself. She could still be a bigger fool in the future.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done this,’ she said again to herself. She leaned forward, wishing to cry. Tears would have relieved the knots of pain in her throat. But it was as if she had stopped living then, save for her breathing. She hunched on the wheel, wide eyed.

  After fifteen minutes she heard the doors of the car beside her open.

  Half of her concentrated on driving and the other figured out how she might bring an instant death upon herself. An overdose of drugs will do, she thought. But it was a Saturday and all the pharmacies were closed. She thumped her fist on the wheel, and the car veered out of the lane. She nearly crashed into another car, but she slammed the brakes on the floor quickly. The driver of the blue Nissan cursed through the window. Natasha ignored him and drove slowly to increase the gap between them.

  As she drove past the supermarket, she mumbled to herself about the hell why don’t they sell drugs? Just then she remembered she still had some prescribed to her by the doctor at her apartment. How much, she wasn’t sure, but she had heard of their notorious effect. A little overdose was never too little to kill. Soon, she would leave this cold uncaring world.

  She debated on the idea of having a little prayer before she died. But her mother had stressed it when she was still young. Suicide is a sin. If you choose to die by taking your own life God will punish you. That was a long time ago but her mother’s words still rang in her ears.

  Natasha had had more than half a dozen attempts to her life before she had known the age of eighteen. The reasons were not difficult to figure out. Natasha was lazy. She hated to run around the house, which was expected of a good girl. And when there was a row on why she hadn’t done something, she would get short-circuited and flare up in a temper.

  But each move had taught every person around her that all she wanted was peace of mind. At about the time that her schoolwork began to show promise her mother found her favourite child in her. She became the recipient of lots of freedom and lots of privileges.

  She shook her head to expel the thoughts from her head just as the car came to a screeching halt in the parking lot. It was dusk then, but still awfully hot. The humid air due to the previous rains made her feel the more uncomfortable. As she walked along the pavement, she was glad to see that the children had taken shelter in their air-conditioned houses. It was going to be difficult to say goodbye.

  Her heart was pounding the more as she lumbered up the stairs. This was her last moment here, and she was so certain of that. Why she had this premonition, she wasn’t sure. She assumed that the word goodbye is always associated with living memories.

  Who would see her first, she wondered? Perhaps, she would be here for a day, a week even, decomposing then, but who cared?

  She closed the door behind her with a cold finality. She stared into the air thinking. It was necessary she should do this.

  But what she saw when she opened the drawers wasn’t what she had expected. The packet of the stronger pill was virtually empty; the other packet had only two left. That would hardly constitute an overdose.

  She drove slowly along Robert Mugabe way. She rested her hands on her lap, and leaned back in her seat. She controlled the wheel with only her thumb. She was dog-tired, like she had gone twelve rounds around a soccer pitch. She couldn’t be blamed for what had happened. Her mind quickly went over the events of the day, and once again she was convinced she should die.

  She drove out of habit. She wasn’t even half concentrating and she didn’t care much about anything now. Though deeply engrossed with herself, she spotted the black jaguar making rapid progress towards her in the opposite lane. She adjusted the rear view mirror. She had to admit that the jaguar was a splendid show of horsepower. Bulawayo is a small city and there are hardly any places you can go to without coming across people you don’t want to meet.

  When she came to Fife Avenue, she turned left into the road to the mining and cattle-ranching town of Gwanda. She lowered the accelerator to keep pace with the long distance traffic.

  She had already made up her mind. Somewhere, somewhere, this vehicle was going to be smashed into pieces.

  With its owner!

  It was unlikely that a car crash would be interpreted as having been deliberate. Her new plan was an improvement upon the drug overdose option. She didn’t want to leave anything to confirm she had been defeated in life. Old habits die hard; she reflected upon her chosen fate as if it was just one of those things that she normally would analyse, weigh the facts and make a decision. Hell was beckoning!

  The houses along the road began to disappear some twenty to thirty kilometres from the centre of town. The grass became thicker and there were more thorn trees and bushes. Natasha didn’t want to destroy people’s homes and make a frightening scene, so she was happy to see that there were fewer
houses in evidence here. The time was fast approaching. No more troubles then.

  She shifted in the seat and jerked herself upright. She lowered the accelerator once again and took the wheel in both hands. The jetta responded with a jerky leap forward, keen like a group of hounds on a sledge. She eyed the speedometer. The pointer swung fast towards the top limit and the car was almost literally flying now.

  She shifted the gears again. This time the car began to whine, and the pointer stuck to the maximum speed limit, bounced off a number of times and glued itself there. She felt the car swerve, as gusts of air rushed through the open windows.

  The jetta now tore the road at an aggressive speed, and the road seemed to zip apart to let it pass.

  She looked at the outcrop of mountain ahead and saw the steep slope and sparse bush dotted below and around it. A new spirit rippled through her, an inexorable desire to gatecrash into the world to come. She was confident of a happier life after death. It wouldn’t be long now. Soon she would know what lay in wait for her on the other side.

  As the road came to a sharp turn near the foot of the mountain, she only checked the neighbourhood for approaching vehicles. She didn’t see any. That meant she could go ahead. Everything happened too quickly for the mind to comprehend. Natasha felt the car fly over a gully and land with a shattering crash. She heard the rattling of glass and the clunking of metal. Then there was a rampage of wheels as they made rapid progress uphill. The car destroyed everything in its way: small rock outcrops and trees. It dug into the earth.

  The car slowed down. Natasha leaned towards the passenger’s seat and crawled beneath the dashboard when she realized what was about to happen. She was suddenly frightened. It wasn’t that easy after all. How could she have known? She had never tried to die before! The car came to a grinding halt. Unable to triumph against the force of gravity the car began to slide backwards down the slope.

  She closed her eyes. The front rode up and crashed upside down. The roof fell in. There was a further rattling of glass. Something struck her on the shoulder with an incredible force.