The solution to our problems had eventually come when Frances had remembered that she and Jake were well known by the owner and staff of a local Mutare company called Peter Genari. Fortunately, the Superintendent had been happy to accompany Frances (chauffeured by Frances in Jake’s car) and to accept their personal testimony that she was, indeed, who she had claimed to be.
Afterwards and outside Holiday Inn again, Frances had asked me what I wanted to do next.
“I want a drink, Frances,” I had told her. “A very, very stiff drink!”
Under the pool shelter, I sat up and closed Frances’ book. It was a charming and non-violent story about an old Englishwoman, her flashbacks to her younger days and her three spoilt and selfish children. Reading it in a country like Mozambique made me feel as if I was reading about people who were living not in another country but on another planet.
After a refreshing swim and a light lunch of bread and cheese and a salad, I curled up on the sofa in the sitting room to watch a video. Although the sofa was as comfortable as a cloud, it was perfectly hideous in appearance. Covered in pale brown dralon, the colour matched the rest of the weird décor in the sitting room, which had obviously been planned by a tobacco-mad farmer. The walls were painted a sort of pale Virginia tobacco brown. The floor tiles were darker squares of Burley tobacco brown, intermingled with cigarette paper white squares. On top of this, lay an even darker, tar brown carpet. The curtains, limply framing the windows, were a nicotine khaki colour – with a surprisingly adventurous little touch of red in the form of a stripe. At night, the thirty watt light bulb added to the murky look of the room and gave our complexions a jaded, sallow appearance.
I started the video and settled back to watch Humphrey Bogart in black and white. Biasse wandered in from the kitchen, suddenly finding some dusting to do in the sitting room. I always watched innocuous old black and white videos if I wanted to see a film during the afternoons because I didn’t want to pollute Biasse’s mind with the Western world’s ideas of entertainment and morals. He thought that what he was seeing in a film was real life and I was fed up with having to sit with the remote control in my hand in order to stop the film whenever the characters were suddenly and inexplicably overcome with Hollywood passion and ripped clothes off each other in lifts, on park benches, in taxis, on top of mountains, under water in the sea …
“Better to get the other one, Madam,” Biassse told me, comparing his favourite video with the Bogart one and finding the smart-aleck dialogue and lack of action boring.
“Next time, Biasse,” I said.
Biasse’s favourite video was Tarzan. He’d been unable to believe his eyes when he had first seen it and had discovered that there was a scantily clad white man somewhere in Africa who was not only living in trees like a monkey but also living WITH a bunch of monkeys. The film thrilled him, fascinated him and he joyously discussed it often with Jacques, Conceicao and Maciel’s one-eyed cook who had lost an eye in a drunken brawl.
“Is true, Madam?” he had asked me.
“It’s possible, Biasse,” I had told him, not wanting to disillusion and disappoint him. “Maybe there is someone … white … in a tree somewhere … in the Congo, perhaps.”
At six o’clock, I sprayed myself all over with Autan mosquito repellent and filled a glass with red wine from a carafe all the way from Portugal. There was no food in the country but there was alcohol. I turned on the old-fashioned shortwave radio we had bought in Harare and sat down on the verandah to wait for O’D, and watched the sun set. The terrible drought was still going strong and during the day, hot winds swept across the sun-baked countryside, sending clouds of dust swirling high up into the sky. Now, the dust in the atmosphere turned the sinking sun into an enormous blood-red globe, which loomed alarmingly over me like an alien planet out of a science fiction film.
I sat waiting outside until mauve twilight took the place of the day, until the sun had gone and I was enveloped in damp, velvety blackness. Thousands of stars filled the sky. Gladys Knight and the Pips sang ‘Midnight train to Georgia’ on Zimbabwe Radio One. An owl in a nearby tree exclaimed “Whoo! WHOO!” as if it had just seen a particularly succulent mouse.
Gladys stopped singing and was replaced by someone pounding urgently on drums, to tell the listeners that the Zimbabwe news was about to begin.
Seven o’clock ...
“This afternoon,” the newsreader told us importantly, “President Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe opened the new chewing gum factory built by Denmark …
In Mrewa district, the construction of 36 Blair toilets has been successfully completed and there are plans …”
When the news ended, I sat on outside, on the verandah, and waited for a glimpse of headlights shining around the corner in the road, bouncing off the walls of the barns and coming towards me. Mosquitoes whined around me but I ignored them. Where was O’D?
Eight o’clock ...
I stood up and went back inside the house. The aroma of a Zimbabwean roast chicken wafted into the sitting room and I suddenly remembered Biasse. I walked into the kitchen. He was sitting patiently and sleepily on the white metal dustbin.
“Oh, Biasse. I’m so sorry. Please go home. I don’t feel like eating anything. Just leave the food in the warming drawer.”
He stood up. “Oh, thank you, Madam. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Biasse.”
Twenty past nine ...
I stopped pacing around the sitting room and went into the bathroom to run a cool bath. After my bath, I wrapped myself in my red capulana and lay down on the bed. Worrying. In my mind I heard an echo of O’D’s voice from the morning again. “I’ll be back no later than seven tonight. Seven tonight. Promise … Promise … Promise … ”
Half past ten …
Oh, O’D, where ARE you?
Oh, if only there was someone to talk to! Oh, if only there was a phone I could use, to speak to my family, a friend. To tell them that O’D was missing … missing in MOZAMBIQUE … and what should I do, do, DO?
There was nothing worse than waiting … and waiting … for someone to come home when you lived in a dangerous country.
ELEVEN O’CLOCK!
Sound carries clearly at night in the countryside and I heard Maciel opening his front door and talking to someone in his gruff, rumbling voice. A pang of pure fear knifed through me. I knew Maciel was hearing news of O’D. I remembered what had happened to Clive and my heart seemed to stop beating. Sitting slowly up on the bed, I listened to footsteps walking along the brick path towards my house … and then up the steps and onto the verandah … listened to someone tapping softly on my screen door …
So … my premonition had come true after all!
I threw myself off the bed and ran to open the door.
An ancient and wizened man stood under the dim yellow verandah light bulb. “Boa noite, Senhora,” he greeted me, and handed me a tiny, square, scrap of paper.
I took the note from him and strained my eyes to read the even tinier handwriting in the dim light.
‘19 November 1994,’ I read. ‘22.00 hrs.’
‘Val, I have been arrested by the police - they are keeping me overnight. In the Primeira Esquadra - maybe Maciel can come and get me out tomorrow - I am fine. O’D.’
The blood drained out of my face and for a moment my legs lost their strength. Jail! I leaned numbly, weakly, against the doorframe for support. Help, I needed help from someone. Then I pulled myself together and ran down the path to Maciel, who was dressed and standing in the dim light on his verandah.
“Maciel! Oh, Maciel! O’D’s in JAIL!”
“Yes. We go to the jail now, Vaal. I have U.S. dollar if you need.”
Bail. Of course!
“Thank you, Maciel, but it’s alright. I have some. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I ran back into the house and into the bedroom. Threw on a dress. Stepped into shoes. Rummaged in the cupboard for the U.S. dollars we kept in a suitcase for times of need. I
stuffed one thousand U.S. dollars into my shoulder bag, a small fortune to the Mozambicans living in a poverty-stricken country. Surely more than enough to bail O’D out of prison?
I ran back to Maciel’s house again. He was waiting in his Nissan pickup, the engine already running, and leaned over to open the passenger door for me. I climbed in and we drove off along the farm dirt road towards the main tar road to Chimoio.
“What do you think O’D did, Maciel? What do you think happened?”
Maciel’s face was grim in the starlit night. Somewhere in his fifties, he was still a handsome man. His strong clear cut features and his dark hair and neat beard always made me think of a Spanish conquistador. His English was minimal, as was my Portuguese. He shook his head.
“O’D is not careful here in Africa, Vaal. He should take more care. He is not in Inglaterra now.”
Although I knew O’D was careless – reckless - there was a certain tone to Maciel’s voice that made me think he knew something about O’D that I didn’t know.
“What do you mean, Maciel?”
But he just shook his head again and as we turned off the dirt road and our wheels bumped up onto the rough edge of the main tar road, he warned me.
“Now listen very carefully to me, Vaal. Africa is very dangerous place for white peoples. Near Chimoio is roadblock. They will stop us. You must keep your lips like so.” He took a hand off the steering wheel and put his fingers onto his own lips and held them closed. “Whatever happens with police at roadblock, you must say nothing. NOTHING.”
“Yes. Yes. I understand.”
The road was empty of traffic. As our lone vehicle approached Chimoio, I saw lanterns and the shadowy shapes of several police and soldiers with rifles standing near some drums and a barrier, blocking the road into town. Maciel slowed down and stopped the car at the barrier and soldiers walked up to my side of the pickup. They wrenched open my door and shouted “GET OUT! GET OUT!”
I grabbed my money-filled shoulder bag and got out.
We stood at the side of the road while the soldiers searched the vehicle. After some minutes and finding nothing except a Zimbabwean loo roll in the cubbyhole, they ordered us to get back into the car. Maciel began to obey but then, forgetting his own advice to me to say nothing, NOTHING, he turned to them.
“Are you the ones who arrested Senhor O’D Pixley?” he asked.
A soldier moved menacingly up close to him. “Yes,” he said, “and if you don’t SHUT YOUR MOUTH WE WILL ARREST YOU TOO!”
Maciel clamped his mouth shut and climbed back into the pickup. He turned on the ignition and we slowly drove off, without speaking.
The atmosphere in the town was chilling. It was now well past midnight and the streets were deserted, like those of a ghost town, with no sign of life, human or animal. Not a light showed in any of the houses and not a sound could be heard. The meager lights from the few street lamps threw a dingy, sickly yellow glow here and there in the streets until finally, we arrived at the Primeira Esquadra.
Maciel parked the pickup in front of the jail and we climbed out and walked up the stairs into the building. Immediately, a powerful and nauseating stench of urine filled our nostrils, so strong and sharp I choked and almost gagged.
Maciel said something to a chubby policeman standing idly just inside the doorway and he showed us up more stairs to a room where a man sat alone behind a small desk. “We have come about Senhor Pixley,” Maciel said. “We would like to know if there is a possibility of paying bail for his release.”
“No. No bail. Only the Head of the Traffic Police has the authority to release him.”
“I have the money here,” I told the man, taking out the bundle of U.S. dollars and showing it to him.
He glanced briefly at the money. “No.”
“But surely ….”
“Can you tell us why Senhor Pixley was arrested?” Maciel asked. “Is there anyone in authority we can talk to about this now?”
The man ignored the questions and sullenly shrugged his shoulders. We realised we were wasting our time.
“Come, Vaal,” Maciel said.
We turned away and walked back down the stairs. As we were about to go outside, the chubby policeman stopped us and said to me “Don’t worry, Senhora. Senhor Pix didn’t commit a serious crime. He only made jokes to us in his usual English way.”
Jokes?
“Then why is he in JAIL?” I asked, my voice rising. “If he didn’t do anything serious, why is he in here? And what did he DO? Tell me!”
The chubby policeman gave me no answer. Just a smile and a shrug.
“We cannot do any more tonight, Vaal,” Maciel told me, as we drove away from the Primeira Esquadra and left O’D still securely held in its foul-smelling embrace. “Tomorrow we will try and see the Head of the Traffic Police. Be ready to leave the farm at six o’clock.”
Back at the farm, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I slept well now that I knew O’D was alive, although in a spot of mysterious trouble. It was just as well I woke up rested because the day ahead of me turned into a gruelling one with some strange little aspects Maciel and I didn’t expect.
In the morning, we drove to the Primeira Esquadra and asked to see the Head of the Traffic Police. He wasn’t there, they told us, but in another building across town. At this other building, they told us he was at a meeting - somewhere else – and gave us directions. From there, we were told we would find him at his house. At his house, his wife told us he was at the Primeira Esquadra.
For more than three hours we drove fruitlessly around Chimoio from building to building, following a false trail. Every now and then, we stopped at the Primeira Esquadra to ask if he had arrived, only to be sent away again.
The sun burned down on us ferociously and glittered off the windscreen into our eyes, turning the interior of the pickup into a sauna. Large dark wet patches developed across Maciel’s khaki shirt until his back was completely soaked. My cotton dress clung to me, wrinkling and crinkling until it looked as if it had just come out of a dirty laundry basket. I mopped at my face and neck with a long strip of Maciel’s loo paper.
“Maciel,” I asked, hot and thirsty and weary, “have you ever read a book about someone called the Scarlet Pimpernel?”
Maciel took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at me blankly. “What?” he asked. “What is scarlet pimp …?”
“It’s a man no one can find. They seek him here … they seek him there … they seek him everywhere. This Head of Traffic is giving a good impersonation of him.”
We turned a corner. Maciel slowed the pickup and pulled up in front of a bar. “I think now we drink a Coca here, Vaal.”
The small bar was fractionally cooler than the pickup and fairly clean. Four men sat on stools around the bar counter and drank tiny cups of sugarless black coffee. There was no milk or sugar in the country. “Bom dia,” they greeted us.
I leaned limply against the counter and gulped down a glass of Zimbabwean Coca Cola. The Coke was warm but it was liquid and full of energy-giving sugar. “There’s nothing bom about this dia,” I told them. “My husband’s in jail and no one will tell us anything except that he’s in there because he told jokes!”
They perked up at my news.
“The police don’t like jokes,” one man said.
“They’re the real criminals,” another man said. “They’re the ones who should be behind the bars.”
“Perhaps your husband told some bad jokes,” a third man said.
Maciel gulped down the last of his Coke. “Now,” he said, “we try Primeira Esquadra again.”
This time, at the Primeira Esquadra, the Police allowed us to see O’D. They waved us curtly over to a barrier and pulled open a large metal door. They shouted his name.
When he walked out of the cell, I stared at him. Oh, O’D …
His dark hair was wild and his grey eyes looked pale against his dirty face. Dust and earth stained his clothes. He was fi
lthy and looked as if he had been rolling around on the ground.
A feeling of outrage filled me. “Did they hit you?”
“Only once.”
“What do you need, O’D?” Maciel interrupted, more knowledgeable about African jails than I was.
“Something to drink. The jail hasn’t got any water to drink.”
“Enough!” A policeman shouted at us. “You go now!”
He shoved O’D back into the cell and clanged its metal door shut again.
Ordered to leave, Maciel and I walked back to his pickup. We hadn’t even been given a chance to ask O’D why he’d been arrested.
Inside the pickup, Maciel turned on the ignition. He looked worried. Very worried. “This seems more serious than we think,” he said. “First, they don’t accept bail money, and now, the Head of Traffic is avoiding us.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked, beginning to panic. “What are we going to do, Maciel?”
“Perhaps,” Maciel said thoughtfully, “it is necessary I arrange to speak to Pedro Paulino, of D.P.A. But first, we go to the Sports Clube.”
At the Sports Clube, Maciel arranged for food to be taken to O’D at mealtimes while he was held in the jail. As well as not having any water for its inmates to drink, the jail, naturally enough, didn’t provide them with food either. We bought several Fantas and Cokes and stopped off again at the Primeira Esquadra where we handed the bottles over to a policeman to give to O’D. And then Maciel drove me back to the farm.
While Maciel spent the afternoon in his house talking about O’D with Pedro Paulino, the Director of Agriculture, I spent the afternoon drinking cup after cup of coffee and walking up and down the sitting room, asking myself questions.
If Pedro Paulino couldn’t - or wouldn’t - help us, how were we going to get O’D out of jail? There were no lawyers in Chimoio. What crime had he committed? Why would no one tell us what he had done? And why was the Head of Traffic avoiding us? What if this all went on for weeks or months … What if they never let him go …
My mind reeled with these unanswered questions. Perhaps if I managed to contact the Browns, O’D’s large Zimbabwean cousins, they would be able to help … perhaps even help me to organise a jailbreak … O’D and I would have to flee the country, of course, but who cared!
Monkeys in My Garden Page 10