The Boy Next Door (27 page)

David is watching wide-eyed, his hand in Bridgette’s.

“Aunty Bridgette, a monkey stole Mummy’s scones.”

Bridgette lets out a squeal. “Scones, David, that’s funny. But why not? They’re our cousins, after all. Did he also get hold
of some Five Rose tea?”

David looks away from Bridgette to me and says, “But… but monkeys aren’t humans. They don’t talk, only in cartoons.”

Months ago Ian and I took David and two of his classmates to watch
The Lion King.
In the car Ian entertained us with his rendition of the theme song and lots of “Hakuna Matatas” were flying about. I got
into a ridiculous argument with him while the boys were playing table football in the ice cream parlor.

“Typical,” I said.

“What?” said Ian who was itching to join the boys. At school he was the table football champion, and he received “mahobo hidings”
for sneaking out and playing and honing his skills at the back of Baysview bottle store with garden boys and tsotsis. From
the way he talked about it, it sounded as though he were a legend in his own lifetime.

“Of course, it had to be the baboon with the African accent.”

“What?”

He was half-sitting, standing.

“Sit down, Ian. The baboon with the thick African accent. Rural, primitive, undeveloped, lower down the evolutionary pole,
bush.”

“Lindiwe, you’re not serious.” He was standing now, his hands deep in his pockets, looking down at me.

“Ian, sit.” It felt like I was ordering a dog about.

“So now a cartoon is racialistic,” he said, pushing his bottom on the very narrow chair.

“It’s not just cartoons, Ian. Fairy tales, folktales, movies; how come anything to do with evil is always black? How come
the lion king, boy, whatever, had the with-it American accent while—”

“Lindiwe, it’s an
American
movie, and the lion king was the main character. Simba, Mufasa, check, African names, and I really dug that hornbill, what’s
his name, Zaza… I don’t even believe I am having this conversation about a cartoon.”

“Exactly the point I’m trying to make, Ian. African names, fine, for African animals, and so why not African accents? It’s
happening in Africa, but no, they can’t have the lion king, the top dog, be African. And don’t say, ‘it’s just a cartoon’;
it’s about messages, a philosophy, it’s the image—”

“Lindiwe, how about we joll it the other way? The baboon, and I’m not even sure it’s a baboon, minds. Anyways, the baboon
is the wise elder, Mother, okay, Father Africa, cradle of civilization, positive. And man, he was a fricking majestic baboon.”

“Ian, please, you Rhodies have been calling blacks, that’s us majestic Africans; you’ve been calling us monkeys, baboons,
and don’t start changing history and saying that it was all a misunderstanding and it was said in praise and adulation as
in ‘as wise and clever and enterprising as monkeys,’ huh?”

“History, Lindiwe, history. The Past. Feenished. But one thing I agree is that they should have left the entire singing to
Africans, Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It sounded like them, they were sweet over all that wilderness, really gave you the heart
of Africa. Man, that chorus at the beginning gave me chills down my spine, and then we have that chick and then Elton John.
Please man, not in Africa; at least get Johnny Clegg, the White Zulu, to belt out that shit, African style. Come on, Lindiwe,
please chill. Too much education, that’s your problem. It’s just a cartoon, entertainment, no great shakes. Hakuna matata.”

“For you.”

“Not that again; it’s like a stuck record with you.”

He made to get up and then changed his mind.

“Okay, how about Scar, the baddie? Definite hoity-toity British accent there, and the hyenas, I checked a British one… On
the other hand, I think you might have a point there… hyenas, British… yes man… come on, Lindiwe, crack a smile… please.”

“Lins!”

I look up at Bridgette.

“Where were you at girl?”

On the drive back we stop at Nando’s and have quarter chickens. Then we move to the ice cream parlor next door and Bridgette
treats us. I see Heather in the queue wearing her dark glasses.

And here is Duncan.

Great.

“Howzit,” he says.

“Hi,” I say.

“So heard anything from Ian?”

“Yes, he phoned. He’s fine. Very busy.”

He grunts.

“Well, don’t you get up to any hanky-panky,” he says and gives me a grotesque wink and a wag of the finger.

I watch him muscle his way through the queue, snatch the slip of paper from Heather, shove it into the hand of the ice cream
parlor attendant.

I watch Heather edge herself out from the crowd. She stands by the stools looking at herself on the mirrored walls. Then she
turns around, sees me, or maybe she doesn’t. She walks straight out of the room and waits outside.

And here is her husband, victorious, two cones in hand.

“Heather, where the fuck…?”

And he, too, is out the door.

I wonder if Heather ever wishes that one day the parachute doesn’t open, that one day his great, bully body falls in one heavy
mass, obliterates itself on impact.

“You like Aunty Bridgette, don’t you, David?

He nods.

“Well, how would you like to stay with her while I do some work out of Harare?”

His breathing changes, his body tenses up.

“It will only be for two days.”

He stands there, already defeated.

“Yes,” he says at last.

I pick up the other thing Ian’s left behind for me, the tattered schoolboy’s exercise book that could have notes on a subject
such as history, geography, or English or its pages could be filled with bored scribbles and doodles, sketches and comic strips,
anything to pass the time while a teacher drones on and on.

But there is no innocence on these pages. I know this.

I open it and begin to touch the fragments of his life; so many years past when he was a boy alone with a stepmother while
his father went off for months at a time to fight in the war.

I close the book and sit on my bed, the book on my lap, the pictures moving furiously in my head.

In the bus
going to Rusape, my head throbs with the single thought, I should have taken David with me.

I see him standing there in his pyjamas, the giraffe in his hand again. He looked like he wanted to cry. And I put on a show.
All hustle and bustle and distraction (just like Ian). And then I dropped him at Bridgette’s and ran away. I didn’t even kiss
him good-bye. I could hop out of the bus, hitchhike back. I could… but I don’t. I carry on sitting there, here, letting the
bus take me further and further away. It’s only for two days. He’ll be all right. I’ll ring as soon as I can get hold of a
phone.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Herbert says, taking my bag.

It’s good to see him.

The cooperatives I’m going to be interviewing are dotted around the Makoni area, and Herbert, who has been working with them
for the rural market project, introduced me to them. “Your questions might motivate them,” he said. “Improve their output
and enthusiasm for us.”

“Do you know,” he said, the last time I saw him at the Alliance Française with Jean Pierre, “the whole infrastructure at the
Nyamidzi market was stolen over one night, door frames, window frames, roofs, bricks. I’m sure it’s Mrs. Masasa who has been
very successful in her campaign to hinder us.”

Mrs. Masasa was a legend in the area. A ZANU-PF stalwart, who had threatened to beat up all those little boys from Europe,
who had come to disrupt her profitable rural shops where the markup for anything was at least 200 percent. She had long ago
driven out the Indians.

“That shopkeeping lady is tough. But one must remain optimistic. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course; everyone has been
quite happy to sell their one, two, five tomatoes in the open, on the ground, along the road, until the experts come along.
But this is the nature of the aid business in Africa. At least we give a little employment.”

It was the only time I had ever seen Herbert downbeat.

I get into the Land Rover, which looks like it has been involved in yet another accident.

Herbert catches me looking at the smashed-in rear door.

“Nothing, nothing. A little fall into the Mucheke riverbed. Nothing to worry about, my dear; I have improved very much recently.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“First we get a little to eat and then we are off. We pick up Wilfred at one o’clock.”

We drive out to The Crocodile Motel. I order a cheese sandwich, Herbert a steak with chips. The water of the pool is yellowish
green.

“Not very inviting,” says Herbert. “Chlorine is very expensive these days.”

I’m thinking of Ian and me sitting here; it seems such a long time ago.

“How is Marie?”

“Good, good. She is painting again. You will see her this evening. She is preparing a grand dinner in your honor.”

I wait for Herbert to say something about Jean, but it’s me who finally says, “Have you heard from Jean Pierre recently?”

He thinks something over and then he says, “He has told me a little of what happened. You are happy, yes?”

I don’t know how to answer that.

As we get up to leave, he adds, “Don’t worry about him, you understand?”

“Good afternoon, madam!” Wilfred greets me cheerfully. He’s the office messenger at Herbert’s NGO and he is going to act as
my translator.

He is old enough to be my father, perhaps even my grandfather, and even though I have repeatedly told him to call me Lindiwe,
somehow being with the expats makes me an irrevocable “madam.”

“Good afternoon, Wilfred.”

Wilfred insists on sitting at the back. I give him the pack with all the questionnaires to lean against.

“Ready?” says Herbert.

“Ready,” I say. “Please don’t fall into any riverbeds.”

Herbert laughs and puts on his Humphrey Bogart hat, and then we’re off.

The members of the Poultry Cooperative are waiting for us at the school. I greet Mrs. Chiwana and the others. I thank them
all for participating in the project. I hand out the questionnaires, which have been translated into Shona. Then one by one,
Wilfred gives them a quick interview, which I record on a tape recorder. Afterwards Mrs. Chiwana thanks me for my interest
in their small cooperative. She also thanks the most wonderful French people who are helping them with funds. Herbert says
that the French people are very happy to be part of development in the region. Everyone claps and is happy.

Things also go smoothly at the Uniform Sewing Cooperative.

At the Bakery Cooperative there is pandemonium. Mr. Maxwell, the husband of the energetic chairwoman, has absconded with the
bakery’s savings, the money that they were collecting for a new oven. Mrs. Maxwell is sitting on the floor, smacking her head
with her hands. Some of the other members are commiserating with her. I stand at the door. Herbert steps inside.

“Oh, Mr. Herbert, it is a disaster, a disaster.”

Mrs. Maxwell looks up, struggles to her feet.

“He has betrayed us,” she wails. “All the hard work. Everything, it is over.”

Herbert pats her on the shoulder. “These things, they can happen. You must not panic. How much money is left in the savings?”

“He took all of it,” cries Mrs. Maxwell. “All of it. I was going to take the money to Rusape tomorrow, oh, oh.”

One of the younger members of the group, who is standing by the old oven, mutters something, and Mrs. Maxwell looks sharply
at her; she starts banging her hands on her head again.

“Oh, oh,” she cries. “Now I am being accused to be an accomplice, oh, oh.”

“Shush, shush,” remonstrates a woman next to her. “It is not so. We know you are a good woman; it is only the men who create
problems.”

I don’t give out the questionnaires. We don’t do any interviews. We’ll come back another day (if the cooperative is still
in existence).

In the car Herbert scratches his head.

“They are finished now. They cannot compete with Lobels. Their prices are too high. The locals complain that their bread does
not look nice and straight. Imagine, my dear, in Europe people are willing to spend much more for homemade bread. Life.”

“I wonder if they’ll report him to the police.”

“I hope not. It will completely destroy poor Mrs. Maxwell, and she has six children to support. I must try and find some way
to help, look for another donor, maybe the Swedes; I’ll talk to Stefan this evening.”

We end at the Soap-Producing Cooperative. All goes well, and we leave with a bar of soap each.

“If they could only get funds for packaging; they could sell this in France. Organique, c’est en vogue, très chic. I have
to bring Marie here. She could help.”

I can’t imagine his Parisian wife and the cooperative ladies getting on, but stranger things have happened.

“I’ll try and arrange a meeting with a pottery-making cooperative tomorrow and you also have the other two to interview.”

“Thanks, Herbert. You are so Bogart, the way you rescue damsels in distress.”

And with that ringing endorsement he takes the Galois from behind his ear and lights up.

I give Wilfred an envelope.

“A small something for all your help today, Wilfred. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, madam, thank you, madam, you are too kind. Christmas is come too early now,” he says, clapping his hands.

Herbert drops Wilfred off at his house, Number 203 Vengere township, and soon children are swarming the car calling out, “Murungu,
Murungu.” Herbert cheerfully waves before covering them in a swirl of dust as the Land Rover takes off across the Mutare Road
into the suburbs.

“Ah, Lindiwe, darling.”

“Marie.”

She gives me three air kisses. She smells of red wine.

“Come, come,” she says. “I’m finished in the kitchen. Herbert can take over.”

“Mmmmm, it smells delicious.”

She shows me to the guest room.

“I will leave you to get ready. It is such a pleasure to see you again.”