Authors: Brian Chikwava
'Farayi,
ndeyipi
?' I say.
'Ah, nothing.' Farayi put on this ask-me-ask-me style on his face.
So why let the bum jump jump all over like that?
'H . . . how is the ho-homeboys and homegirls in Luton?' Shingi
jump in.
'Tight tight; they is staring at fire; living rough.'
'What's the news?'
'Now, the serious news . . .' Farayi sigh with big grin on his
face. He have now lie down on his bed and his legs is kicking
with excite like he is trying to swim. 'You promise not to tell
anyone, please?'
'No nooooooo!'
Farayi is trying to make us promise all sorts of silly things and
we is getting tired of this when he spit it out.
'I meet someone who know Aleck. He says he is not shop
manager like he tell us.'
'What then?'
'Eh, that I can't tell.'
'Y . . . you m . . . might as well have not tell us nothing.'
Your psalm-singing buttocks have nothing to say.
Farayi kick his legs on his pillow with more fire. Shingi get up
like he is going to toilet and have no more ginger for this.
'OK, now shhhh.' Farayi put his finger on his lips.
'Yes?'
'They say Aleck actually work as BBC in Croydon.'
'Kak kak kak kak,' Shingi let rip as dive onto the bed and bury
his face into our pillows.
'Aleck picking old people's
kaka
off beds and then coming here
walking around like he is district administrator coming every time
to collect tax money even when we have nothing. Harare North
is funny place; you put them Mars bars inside pockets of people
that is proper citizens and you also have to put Mars bars inside
pocket of some BBC while you is struggling to get back home in
time. Things that is visited upon us in Harare North . . .'
We laugh throughout the night until our ribs is sore, and Farayi
now open up and start talking about this guy that know Aleck
because they was working together in Croydon. He leave because
they was being exploit because they don't have work permit.
Sekai go to Zimbabwe yesterday, that's what Paul say. She brother
have throw himself down from eighth-floor balcony and dead.
'Have you read the news about what is happening at your
Mother's village?' he ask.
'I don't want to hear no more of this propaganda. I have read
everything and I know what to believe.' I hang up on his arse.
Just because Sekai has go away, me I don't go
paparapapara
panicking like chicken or civilian person.
Shingi come from salad-picking and make big cry about how
the work is killing him and how he hate having to get up at 4.30
in the morning every day. Aleck panic thinking that now Shingi
want to stop graft, and he demand that we pay all the rent for
the month ahead.
Someone is going to make fearful leaps inside this house as I
turn him into one bar of soap. Me I'm not touching my savings
now.
Saturday morning. We is going kak kak kak kak into our pillows
again. This is funny. None of us have ever take holiday to reason
proper and put Aleck and this house under microscope. Truth has
always been inside the hole. Now it have come crawling out into
the open without us ever looking for it.
He have spin us this jazz number before about how the house
owner ask him to look after it because they go travelling but we
have never reason it hard because there's too many thoughts raving
and screaming inside our heads and we have to discipline them
to survive.
You can never tell when things is about to change; the morning
start not so bad. Shingi get letter from relative in Chipinge and
he is reading it while I sit on my suitcase smoking my cigarette.
Cloud of blue tobacco smoke hang silent in the air around me
like time is refusing to shift. The mischief priest, Farayi, is taking
shower; Aleck is still in bed. And Tsitsi, after waking up early
because of crying baby, have now go back to sleep. The house is
quiet.
Then Shingi go out of the house for walk because the letter
make him worryful. He come back one hour later hauling bag of
skunk that he pick from skip. Shingi is expect me to jump and
shout but by then me and Farayi have already see the termite and
nothing interest us more than this. Aleck is still in bed then and
have not yet see his mail. There is this postcard card for him with
Indian stamp. It is from Mirjam and Ed and they is saying how,
even after two years away, they don't know when they is going
to be back in England and that if Aleck want to move out of squat
he should email them so they find someone they trust to take
over.
Aleck is lucky boy, Farayi talk. When he come to England Aleck
is one of them people that also get the visitor's visa and on arrival
pull the fast style on the Immigration Department, claiming asylum.
But he get refused asylum and join activist group that is
campaigning for Zimbabwe asylum seekers and they spend they
time dancing and waving they placards outside Home Office
building. That's where he meet this Mirjam and Ed couple who
was squatting in the house, and when they decide to go to India,
Aleck is living rough and so they leave the squat to him. Now Aleck
jump into it and start to invite them natives, whipping £35 per
week out of them when the English people have leave the squat
to him for free. And now he is busy making money and buying
them stands back home.
'So this is squat? Did you know?' I ask Farayi and he sing the
usual chorus of yari yari yari I have tell you everything.
Hmmm, F . . . Farayi know th . . . the score all along, Shingi
laugh.
'No, nooooo!'
'Don't worry, we not going to throw you in bonfire.'
Me I light small bit from the skunk pillow that Shingi pick. He
is also puffing smoke and it's coming out of every hole on his
body. Smoke fill the whole place and before long we have smoke
the mischief priest out of our room because he think skunk is evil.
That's when Aleck wake up and come down to tell us that we
stop it because we is filling the whole house with smoke. We stub
out without even throwing one bad word.
'It's not like we have break into his family house and thief his
mother's petticoat; what's his problem?' My head is full of smoke
now.
'Oh, Minister Zvobgo is dead.' That's the kind of mouth Aleck
throw in careless style. He have spent all of this week reminding
us about the rent that we still owe him. Me I am now getting
tired of knowing that he is going to keep hitting our pocket until
the return of the Messiah. I don't want to get eaten with my eyes
wide open as if I am sardine.
Now he start this yari yari yari: yeee it's only the good people
that die while Lucifer himself not die; yari yari yari even death is
getting disorient by size of Mugabe's evil.
After spending the afternoon hitting Shingi's skunk, me I have
funny light-headed feeling now. JCB bulldozers can clear any
village, I have been reasoning. Anyone's village.
In the sky the moon tremble through the window and make
me feel like I don't belong to earth. Sekai is taking for ever to
come back from Zimbabwe, Shingi is not talking and Farayi is
reading the paper hard like smoke is soon going to start coming
off them newspaper pages. No one is talking. Except BBC boy.
'Shingi, you are Chipinge man; do your rituals, strike the earth
with knobkerrie and talk to your ancestral spirits and see what
they can do about Mugabe,' BBC boy cry as he pace up and down
in our room like district administrator.
Shingi grin like fool. He always say he have no opinion on these
matters about the president.
Sitting on my suitcase me I flick through my new pack of
cards and shiver like the winds. My skin look like that of chicken
but I'm not chicken. Aleck give me them looks like he want to
start me.
'Why you looking at me like that; do I remind you of your
mother?' I take grand stand on him. There is sharp look of surprise
on his face because he think that, like Shingi, I also have no
opinion about the president.
'You should not go around making big talk about things that
you has likkle knowledge of,' I add, shuffling them cards and
trying to find my stride.
Aleck recover, fold his arms, shift his weight to one leg in fancy
homosexual kind of way, fidget above me before he fold his arms
and support his chin on one hand as if to he is saying, 'Here we
go again, let's hear what you have to say this time.'
'You so sure you know Bob well enough to judge him. Do you
know anything about ZANU–PF?' I ask putting my cards on the
floorboards.
Aleck tut-tut and shake his head and laugh at me: yeee you are
just one big ZANU believer; yeee you have been brainwash too
much by ZANU; yeee stop bigging up that that tired old fart!
He have forget that me I can give one powerful look.
'You call me ZANU believer? And you, have you not been
brainwash?' I challenge him but Aleck is just in screaming mood:
yeee it's not big secret; it's not hidden; yeee go back home if you
have forgot what your Bob is doing; people getting clubbed, women
raped, people's houses getting burnt; what is all that?
He hold his hands open up in the air, like you know, he have
win.
'Who has ever see Bob walk around setting fire on them people's
roofs or raping women?' I ask.
Now he go into big sermon about how me is not reasonable;
Mugabe is evil dictator; it's always the case with them African
presidents; they don't know when to leave power; yeee what has
he done for you or your family?
Now this is getting out of order; I have to hit this head with one
stone-question to get it out of gear and let all the oil drain away.
'Me I want to know what give some BBC the right to dismiss
them presidents of one whole continent just like that?'
Aleck have not expect the termite to come out crawling all over
his face so quick and in front of everyone.
'Eh . . . e . . . but . . .' he stumble and blink like lost goat. 'You
know . . . you know,' now he try to talk in English, but I already
find my footing now.
'You have small knowledge of them African presidents that you
is jumping to dismiss. Even all this style of treating us like we is
evil or something just because we have no rent money is silly
games. This is just squat. We all have hear of some witch who
take off in one direction or another screaming and pretending to
be terrified of small lizard when underneath they drapery she have
black mamba tied around she waist. Show us your waist, Aleck.'
Tsitsi, who have just walk in, laugh.
'Shingi, look . . .' Aleck now he try to appeal to Shingi for
support but I don't give him no space.
'I've seen them kind of people, Aleck, and these is the same
people that go around spreading them lies about Bob. Some of
us is here not because we want to spin jazz tunes and have few
crumbs of bread dusted our way by them white people. Neither
is we in Harare North to wipe they bottoms. And everyone know
that this place is squat; them walls have eyes, ears and mouth and
they tell. We supposed to pay rent for this hole? Answer yes or
no, Aleck.'
'I . . . I agree with Mirjam that –'
'No, answer yes or no!'
'But –'
'Answer yes or no, Aleck!'
Now, there is silence in the room. Aleck's mind go blank and
he just look at me with long cheap face.
'TKO!' I blow smoke into the air.
The conversation should have end there, but Aleck have paranoia
and decide to quietly settle down on Farayi's bed looking
broken and hoping that his presence will stop us from tilling his
back if he leave the room. He is hoping that the mention of bum
wiping will be quickly forget so that he can leave without have to
worry about his back.
'Fine. Maybe you think Bob is evil but that's just your opinion.'
I leave the rent problem now because I have win that one clean.
'And that's all it is. Mine is not just opinion; I earn it. I earn it
through what I have see, I earn it through what I know now. And
you will never know who I am unless you have also been where I
have been. Never. Me; me I don't allow myself to be given lecture
by them people who, while life was tossing me about like some straw,
they was flicking
rapoko
grain at they grandfather's beard and listening
to them old fables and old jazz numbers. You see me hiding under
the same roof as you and you think that we is all the same folk.
Me? Me and you being same same? Nooo, Aleck! Some of us have
defend the country from them enemies of the state who have
break loose inside house of stones. Yes! Those people that everyone
despise; the Green Bombers; the boys of the jackal breed; the boys
that drink beer instead of tea for breakfast; they know them things
that BBCs don't know,' I say, my head now getting into fifth gear.
Now Tsitsi laugh. 'Heeee heeeee what is it that you people do
to him?' she ask.
In them other housemates' eyes I see black-eyed fear.
'What country did you defend?' Tsitsi giggle with she hand
over she mouth. Farayi, on his bed, is hiding behind his paper
pretending he is not there. Aleck, broken, is now picking fluff off
Farayi's blankets in absent-minded way. Me I turn around and get
another joint from under them pile of blankets that is my pillow.
'I want to know, honest,' Tsitsi is laughing.
Me I light my joint and ignore she.
Aleck suddenly get up and shoot out of room without warning.
Everyone fall quiet but I don't worry. 'If he is not careful he is
just asking for heap forgiveness now.'
Then Shingi also go funny because he is upset that I have now
bring my Green Bomber past out into the open.
The evening end with Shingi in headache kind of mood which
he hang onto for rest of the week. At the end of that, for the first
time ever, Tsitsi run away from she room upstairs because she say
she is also scared Aleck is in funny mood and will do something
to baby. It's all because of quarrel between them, with him accusing
she of having no conscience when it come to using margarine,
especially when she is not bring much money in.
Shingi say I should not get involved.
Me I am tired of Shingi not wanting to support me. Everything
I have do since coming to the house is to support him and try
to stop Aleck giving him hard time.
If you want to be with Aleck that's fine, but me I am on Tsitsi's
side if Aleck try to toss she about; she is mother, Tsitsi, and don't
need useless people around she, I tell Shingi straight and square.
Aleck, all he have do is thief all our money pretending he is landlord,
I tell Shingi. 'If it was not for this silly rent me I would be
back home years ago.'
Shingi don't like straight talk so he go into headache mood
again and do his disappearing thing.
The day end with Aleck and Tsitsi making up. I know that if
Shingi was around he will have say usual silly wise thing like, 'See,
I tell you not to get involved and you don't listen . . .'