crowded yard. Every possible space is taken up and the road outside is jammed with a long line of ailing vehicles. Farai nods at the two or three other mechanics at work.
In the office he cheerily greets the secretary and explains his problem to the Indian manager, who has his hand clamped around a cash box and is poring over some quotations.
‘What did my mechanic say?’
‘He said perhaps tomorrow, but I need it today. It’s very urgent. Please …’
‘It depends if we can get the parts, and there is a long queue of other cars. Monday mornings are always bad, Sir, with everybody bringing in the cars they’ve bashed up over the weekend. People are driving like crazy these days, you know, and some of them are drunk or going around with fake licences.’
‘But my car was towed in yesterday.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s very urgent. I need that car on the road and don’t care what it costs.’
‘We’ll see what we can do. Come back at three o’clock.’
‘Thank you , Sir,’ Farai says with slight sarcasm, emphasising the ‘sir’. Damn it, he thinks, in the days of Ian Douglas Smith these Indians used to squeeze us of our pennies in their wholesale shops, supermarkets and take-aways, but now with ESAP and this newfangled liberalisation creeping in they are digging up those billions stashed away in ceilings and walls and investing in garages, real estate and even banks.
Damn it. How can his car do this to him when he needs it most with all those people waiting for him. And where has Veronica gone with the children? Where is his daughter Sharai and his little boy Ticha? Will he have to go and pick them up for the shooting? If he doesn’t won’t they be late? And why has his sister Tindo not called him? Damn it, the home phone is dead. He thinks he remembers seeing the unpaid phone bills. What on earth was Veronica up to when he was away? Letting the accounts go do the dogs?
In the road a combi going to the city stops to drop off some commuters. On the spur of the moment he flags it and runs to catch it. The combi is full. He wriggles into half a seat near the door. The fat woman with a bag of maize on her lap refuses to budge. The hwindi slides the door shut and leans against the door and over him, in a position that only hwindis can endure. Farai reaches into his back pocket for the fare. He fishes out a note and holds it up. The hwindi glances at the note and nonchalantly looks away.
‘What is the fare?’ Farai asks the fat woman and she frowns and shifts the bag of maize to another knee. A little schoolboy going to the afternoon ‘hot seat’ class and with a haircut like Ticha’s raises three quick fingers at him and he fishes again into his pockets, extracts a sheaf of notes, plucks two more and holds them up. The hwindi snatches them up, somewhat appeased.
The combi disgorges its passengers right in front of the public toilets at the western terminus. Back on his feet he pauses to check his bearings. The shock of the crowd blasts through him like speakers at a disco. A foul stink blows out from the wretched toilets. In the large sinks on the back walls of the latrines women strapped up in zambias rinse fist-sized tomatoes, fat carrots and rich green spinach. Tables are loaded with oranges, bananas, apples and pears. Over open gas fires enterprising vendors serve sadza, chicken, matumbu and guru to jacketed and suited young bureaucrats with bright impatient ties while municipal police look on. He almost collides with a blind man wearing dark glasses. Combis rev in rows; advancing and reversing, reversing and advancing as if it is their job to taunt the crowd and keep it in check. The touting of hwindis and the vendors is deafening.
He feels trapped. He steps out of the terminus and leaves the noise behind him. He ascends the new pedestrian fly-over smeared already with the slogans of the season, and steeped with the inevitable smell of human waste, past a cluster of fast-food shops, round First Street with its chic boutiques, banks and restaurants, through the Police Headquarters car park to the Customs Office, where his sister Tindo works.
He has been here several times before, so he knows his way around. He bolts up the stairs past protesting commissionaires to the offices on the top floor.
Tindo is sitting at her laptop computer, inspecting a heap of files. Her door is wide open and he marches right in.
‘Mwana wamaivangu!’ she yells and he grabs her from her seat and hugs her tightly.
Oh how nice to hug your mother’s daughter, to hold someone you know in your arms, here, far from the maddening crowd below. Tindo is his youngest sister, the sibling he taught the ABC and 1 + 1, and with whom he went hunting maroro in the vleis of their childhood. She had helped look after their mother when she died, sleeping on the same bed with her, washing her clothes, shaving her head and braving the smells of cancer. Later, after both their parents died, he had supported Tindo at university and then helped she and her husband raise money for a loan to build their own house.
‘Busy as usual,’ he laughs, and adds, dramatically. ‘Wena uzaba uCompany Secretary! Look at you. Laptop, phone, coffee-maker, fridge. Next we’ll hear you’re the Acting Deputy Managing Director.’
‘Kutyei? It’s what our mom and dad wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t it why we spent days weeding in the rain?’
‘I don’t suppose you have any hot stuff around, do you?’
‘No, no. We don’t stock such things, and it’s too early anyway. Do you want a cup of coffee, or tea?’
‘Nikisi, Bantu. I don’t want tea hobvu inovhuna spoon, like those mapostori veku Gwehava. Mapostori ari nani.’*
‘Is that why you are now sporting dreadlocks?’
‘I forgot to pack my afro comb in my bags when I left.’
‘Hesi mhani. So what will vanaAmbuya say?’
‘Who cares?’
‘You gained weight.’
‘I was giving myself chikafu chefeeding everyday. Asi ndowako† wefeeding, remember?’
‘Oh, Mbuya VaDhafu! Do you think she’s still alive? We should go home more often to see the old folks.’
‘So, how is my mkwasha and my little wife Nyasha?’
‘Fine. We were planning to come and see you yesterday, after we heard you were back.’
‘Now Tindo. I know you’re busy and won’t take up your time. Can I make a few phone calls? Your line is direct, isn’t it?’
‘Who do you want to phone?’
‘Veronica.’
Farai dials the number. ‘Premier Discount House? Can I speak to Veronica Chari? Yes, I’m holding. Oh, she’s not there? You don’t know where she is? You say she didn’t say. And you are her new secretary? Your name is – ? Sthabile. Oh, Sthabile. Thank you, Sthabile. Please hold, Sthabile.’
Farai puts the phone behind his back and hisses at Tindo. ‘I don’t know where Veronica is, and her secretary doesn’t either.’
‘Mkoma Farai …’
‘See.
