Out of Shadows (10 page)

Although he looked powerful to me, perhaps because his expression or his pose or something else reminded me of Greet.

“Stupid place for a statue,” I told it.

There was a path that might have been a dirt road once
but any sign of civilization had been taken over by the trees. I turned and felt uneasy when I realized I couldn't see any sign of our house or how I'd got here.

“In the middle of bloody nowhere. Stupid.”

A sudden rustling made me jump. For a moment I thought maybe it was an animal, but a couple of young men came through instead, each holding a Chibuku carton and clearly fairly drunk on it. They were laughing and swaying and speaking loudly in Shona. When they spotted me they stopped and just smiled, each black face glistening beneath a thick padding of hair that pushed out at all angles. I could see bits of their gray-pink maize drink in their teeth.

I tried indifference and nodded. One of them copied me and giggled. The other said something I didn't understand, his eyes moving from me, to the statue, to me. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and there was a big scar down one of his well-defined arms from shoulder to elbow. I wondered how he'd got it. He caught me staring and laughed something to his friend, pointing to the monument.

“
Ndipo fojica
,” he called.

I turned away. I heard him make singsong noises while the other blew hysterics.

“
Ndipo fojica
,” he said again.

I just kept walking, hurrying while trying to make it look like I wasn't. Ivan's voice tapped me on the shoulder:
Africans are born cruel
.

My heart beat solidly when I saw them following. I lengthened my stride.

“
Mwana haasati ava nomurangariro
.”

Another reason to laugh. Why did they find everything so damned funny?

I moved faster; so did they. I broke into a casual trot; they dropped their Chibuku cartons and started jogging. Eventually I just ran, I didn't care which way. I barged through twigs
and leaves and leaped over scrub. I couldn't ignore the thorns, though, and had to stop to pull them out.

Still they came, their motion smooth and effortless and relentless as they emerged through the bush. Like warriors.

With a small cry I set off again, only I was too preoccupied to notice the rock in the ground and, before I'd got anywhere, I was down and inhaling dirt.

In no time the two Africans were up to me. I scrambled backward as the one who'd done the speaking walked calmly up to my feet, close enough for me to see the reds of his eyes and draw on his pungent odor. He bared his gums. How many folks had felt what I was now feeling during the war? How many people had this man killed? I wished more than anything that Ivan was with me.

He raised his hand and I just stopped trying.

“
Kanjani, shamwari
,” he said.
Hi there, my friend
. “
Ndipo fojica
.”

And when I made no reaction he gestured his hand to his mouth.

“I want
fojica. Fojica
.”

He only wanted a smoke!

Still smiling, he kneeled low.

“
Shamwari
, why you running a-weh? Do you thinking I will in-ja you?” He pointed to the cut on my leg. “You run fast-fast and now you are in-jad.”

My mouth opened and closed.

“You must see a doctor. He give
muti
to make you better-better, number one. Yes?” he went on. His friend hovered, yawning and digging his fingers harmlessly into his hair. “I am looking for wherk, bhas. I wherk very hard for dollars. Does your fatha need good wherkers in the garden like me, my friend? My name is James.”

He stretched out a giant hand. I flinched and he retracted, looking hurt.

“
Leave me alone!
” I threw at him.

Then I was on my feet again, and this time I didn't stop until I'd stumbled onto the strip road that would lead me home.

I stayed in my room the rest of the afternoon and listened to music with the curtains drawn. Both my Spandau Ballet and Nik Kershaw got chewed because they were local cassettes and instead of trying to fix them I just flung them across the room and listened to my older English ones. Ivan was right, nothing worked in this country. He'd also said Spandau Ballet and Nik Kershaw were gay anyway so I didn't care.

After five o'clock the TV channel started broadcasting. I was bored so I went into the living room and switched on our black-and-white dinosaur. The picture stretched and I groaned as yet another Special Bulletin came into focus.

There was a group of soldiers, proud and pleased and leaning on their guns. They looked like the ones Pittman had messed around with, red berets in their waistbands, and they joked and laughed for the camera while still managing to look menacing. These comrades, the commentator read, had repelled another attack by rebel forces in Matabeleland, in the southwest of the country.

The picture cut to the roadside, where Matabele bodies lay scattered. Maybe fifty of them, men and women. And children. I couldn't see any of their guns around them, though, only sacks of maize.

My father returned from work. I was going to ask him about the TV report but he seemed irritated so I simply turned off the set.

“Where's your mother?”

I didn't answer, so he knew where. He went to be on his own in his study.

Over dinner, he and I sat at other ends of the table while a tray lay outside my mother's door. The room clattered with the sound of cutlery on china.

“You're very quiet. What's wrong?” My father's beard dripped gravy.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Did you speak to your mother today?”

“Yes.”

“About your grandmother?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” He puffed and put his fork down. “Yes. She said she might. I thought it could have been handled better but there we go. I still don't think she should have . . . I mean, I thought she could have . . .”

He coughed.

“Your grandmother and I never saw eye to eye, and when your mother and I got married . . . Life's complicated, Robert, you'll find that out one day. This hasn't been easy for anyone. Your grandmother's friend Marjorie Downe has sorted it all out, so let's leave it there.”

Sorted it all out?
What was to sort out? She'd only gone to a care home. Hadn't she? Why was everyone acting so weirdly?

I wanted to ask but he changed the subject. “What else did you do today?”

“Nothing much,” I told him. “I found a statue.”

“That's nice.”

“Right out there, off the strip road. Lieutenant Willington BSAP, or something, he found gold and built the town. I guess this town used to be helluva rich, hey?”

“That's nice,” he said again, “but only the
whites
in the town would have been rich. The poor Africans who lived here and did all the work wouldn't have got a penny. And don't say ‘helluva,' Robert, it's common slang. Say ‘very.' Maybe you could show me this statue one day.”

“
Ja
. Lekker.”

“When I've got more time on my hands. The office is very busy at the moment. My assistant still isn't pulling his weight.”

“Oh.”

“I don't want to have to fire him. And don't say ‘lekker,' say ‘great.' You sound like a colonial.”

I scooped another piece of meat into my mouth and chewed.

“Dad?”

“Yes, Robert?”

“Do you think the Kaffirs hate us? I mean, they were fighting against us in the war, they hated us then.”

My father pushed his plate.

“First of all, Robert, don't ever,
ever
let me hear you use that kind of language again. We're not sending you to a school that demands the kind of sums it does to raise a racist. Do we have an understanding?”

I nodded.

“Secondly, there is no reason for the Africans to hate
us
. We didn't fight them. Britain and Rhodesia severed ties long ago. Britain was on the Africans' side in the war.”

“Yes, but Britain made Rhodesia. Britain took the land to start with, and you said that was unfair.”

“It was.”

“So the blacks should hate us, too, then, shouldn't they?”

He rubbed his forehead. Once upon a time I might have read that sign and stopped, but I remembered how Ivan hadn't stopped the argument with
his
dad and I wanted to be more like him.
He
wouldn't have run away from those two men in the bush as I had.

“You're right. Maybe they should. Europeans treated Africa abominably. Don't get me wrong, I think some good was done during the colonial era, but mostly it was for the extension of
power. And, believe me, when power goes to people's heads it all turns very sour, very quickly.”

“So . . .”

“So Mugabe is here to put things right. If there is any hatred in the country, black toward white or white toward black, he's the man to douse it and make sure it never flares up again. He won't tolerate it, I truly believe that. He's proved himself to be a very forgiving man. Sadly there are few like him.”

“Ivan says there were black Rhodesians who didn't want Mugabe, like the Matabele workers on his farm. Some didn't even want the country to change.”

“Who the devil is Ivan?”

“A friend.”

“Well, tell your friend he has a weak argument. I thought even you might have seen that. The people he's talking about had no freedom, no choice. They said what they were told to say.”

“Ivan says it wasn't like that. The enemy . . .”

“I hear what Ivan says and he's wrong. The enemy, as he insists on calling them, were fighting for
freedom
. The real enemy was actually the white government. You can't rule by minority and discriminate against the majority, least of all in a country that wasn't even yours in the first place. It's an unfair, morally twisted, and utterly wrong use of power. Like I said, power is a wicked, evil thing. It . . . 
corrupts
. It gets under the skin and turns people into something else.”

“So you don't believe the blacks hate us?”

“Of course not.”

“And they don't want to hurt us? You know, for revenge. Because of all that power used against them in the Old Days.”

“Unthinkable.”

“But Mugabe has power now, and you just said power is evil.”

He waved his hand in the air like he was trying to catch escaping thoughts.

“This country is led by a good, unselfish, peace-loving man with the grace and humanity to forgive and forget. He wants the best for everyone. He wants to see a prosperous country because it's in everyone's interest. The word is
reconciliation
. Trust me, history will remember the name Robert Mugabe for a long time to come.”

I stared into my food.

“Ivan said he promised the blacks he would take all the white land and give it to them if they won,” I said quietly, “and that all the whites would have to be culled. Will we have to give our house to them?”

“White settlers stole that land by force. They drove families apart and killed innocent people without recrimination. Do you think that's right?”

I shook my head.

“No,” he underlined. “If there is to be land redistribution in this country it would only be fair. But Mugabe wouldn't do it by force, he knows two wrongs don't make a right.”

“So he won't fight us? Like Ivan says he will?”

My father said nothing for a while, just finished his meal. I could see his jaw muscles working overtime.

“He won't,” he said at last, as though he'd spent all that time thinking about it. “If you're bored maybe you should ask one of your chums to come and stay. One of your
other
chums. The little chap you bunk next to.”

“Who,
Nelson
?”

“Yes, Nelson.” And then: “What's wrong with him?”

“Nothing, just that he's a . . .”

My father waited.

“He's not really a friend anymore.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged and got a grunt.

“Whereas Ivan is?” He moved his plate to the side and spoke toward the table. “Friends will only let you down in the end. They always do.”

His face was drawn and sad as he said it, he looked lost. I ate the rest of my food in silence. When I was done and asked to be excused, he simply added: “I'm not sure I think much of this Ivan. I'd even go as far as to say you'd do a lot better than hang around with the likes of him. Maybe I should have a word with your housemaster.”

Now, I wish he had. Things might have worked out better that way.

I tried to find out
where my grandmother had been re-homed, but my mother refused to tell me and in the end even stopped looking at me when I asked. If she felt bad I didn't see it because she didn't come out of her bedroom again for the rest of the holiday, pretty much, and I didn't come out of mine.

I'd packed my trunk a good twenty-four hours before I was due back. My father merely arched his eyebrows.

“I think you could polish your shoes yourself next time. I see no reason why Matilda should have to do it.”

As it was my last night, my mother made a special effort and joined us for dinner, but my father had to lead her back to bed when she started nodding into her dessert.

“Hey! Jacko's here!” Ivan cried as I walked down the corridor into Selous.

“About time, Jacklin.” Klompie threw a pair of hockey socks into my face so I nearly dropped my tuck box. “Ivan recks he's checked his wife-to-be, says this chick Adele makes him jags.”

“Jeez, man!” Osterberg barked. “You ever heard of a tan?”

Davidson simply came up and twisted my nipples.

It was great to be back.

I slipped easily into the routine I'd missed: rising, breakfast, chapel, classes, rest, sports, clubs, prep, lights out . . . The solid footing of regularity I didn't get at home, even things like squacks' duties and cold showers. In a bizarre way, Greet was part of it; at least I knew where I stood.