says in a soft but firm voice, ‘we didn’t see you pulling out.’
‘You people must learn how to drive,’ the young woman shouts as she gets out of the car. She shakes a finger at the tall man as if she’s scolding a child. Her white jeans are tight, emphasising her not-so-flattering shape. ‘If you’re going to have big cars you must learn to control them.’
The man grins and adjusts his tie.
‘Comrade Manyeche,’ Florence says to the tall man. ‘Kanjani, chef?’ Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, Comrade Chokie. How is Elias?’
‘He’s fine,’ she replies.
Such formalities seem out of place at a car accident. I wonder how she knows this man.
‘We can sort this out,’ Manyeche says, raising his voice slightly. ‘Is anyone seriously injured? My people will take care of everything.’
He speaks with absolute calm, as if accustomed to much bigger crises. ‘We must avoid unneeded publicity,’ he adds.
Florence turns her attention back to the driver. He wants to get up and walk around, but she tells him to ‘stay still until the ambulance comes’.
‘You must pay for all of this,’ the woman says to Comrade Manyeche. ‘What do you think this is? Kyalami race track?’
‘Young lady,’ he replies, ‘stay calm. I can take care of everything. I am not, in case you failed to notice, your ordinary township lad.’
The young woman looks away from him, unsure how to respond.
‘I’m quite prepared to tell your father you were driving if it will ease your burden.’
‘Super,’ she replies, as if Manyeche has miraculously restored the twisted vw to showroom condition. ‘Geoff, do you hear that?’ she shouts. She
walks over to where the driver is resting. ‘The man says he’ll say I was driving. Isn’t that lekker?’
Geoff nods. He’s holding his head.
‘I’ll take you all to the hospital in my car,’ says Manyeche.
The young whites agree and Manyeche heads back toward the Mercedes. Geoff offers the blood-soaked towel back to Florence.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘just throw it away when you’re done.’
‘Thanks for your help,’ he says. ‘This really is a different country. We’re helping each other.’
Florence gives him a quick smile. ‘We’ve always been helping you,’ she says, ‘only now we’re doing it because we want to, not because we have to.’
Manyeche’s vehicle pulls up next to us. The three white youngsters get into the back seat and they drive off.
‘Manyeche loves speeding,’ says Mawere.
‘When he drinks, he takes over from the driver,’ adds Comrade Tito. ‘He ran over a pedestrian three weeks ago – a Mozambican farm worker who came to town to visit his mother. Never made it into the Herald. He’s dangerous.’
We all get into the car. Mawere looks both ways before starting off.
‘Who were the girls who ran away?’ I ask.
‘What girls?’ asks Florence.
‘The ones in the yellow dresses,’ I say. ‘They grabbed backpacks off the back seat and ran up the road.’
‘Were they in the car?’ she asks.
‘I think so,’ I reply. ‘Who is that guy anyway?’
‘Pius Manyeche, Minister of Information,’ Mawere replies.
‘Oh, that Manyeche.’ I’d read about him. If I remember my notes correctly he came from just outside Gweru in Midlands Province. He was in detention with Mugabe from November 1964 to August 1968. He got out, escaped overseas to study and came back to join Zanu in Mozambique in the midseventies.
‘One of Zimbabwe’s most brilliant minds,’ says Mawere.
‘A little too old for schoolgirls,’ says Florence. She’s almost sitting on my lap now. My leg is going to sleep, but I don’t mind. Her neck is so close I can smell the last glimmer of the carnations.
‘We were lucky,’ says Mawere. ‘If you hadn’t spilled that beer, we would have been squashed between Manyeche and those white boys. We’d have ended up like the inside of a boerewors.’
‘The ancestors were with us,’ says Florence, laughing as she leans back and puts her arm around me. I am awed by the way she just took command. And those were white kids.
Mawere drives slowly the rest of the way. As we arrive at my house, Mrs van Zyl is backing out of the driveway on her way to church. She and a friend head down the street in the woman’s yellow Datsun. I’m not sure if they see me.
Florence follows me as I get out of the car.
‘When do we see you again, so we can do a proper interview?’ she asks.
‘How about next weekend?’
‘Phone me.’
‘Your phone never works.’
‘Sometimes it does. If not, just come. You are welcome. You and your history research.’
Her determination embarrasses me. I shake her hand and don’t want to let go.
‘I hope you aren’t too bhabharased,’ Mawere shouts out the window.
‘What?’
‘Hungover,’ says Florence. ‘A bhabharasi is a hangover.’
‘I’ll survive,’ I reply. I thank them all for the party and amble off toward my granny flat.
If Mawere keeps his word, I could be sitting in the Prime Minister’s office in a couple of weeks. A daunting dream come true. At least as daunting, though, is the prospect of seeing Florence again. She’s a fascinating historical subject and a potential source of vast information.
The problem is, I’m not thinking of her that way.
Chapter 7
A couple of weeks later, I get my first big breakthrough, a meeting with Callistus Dlamini, Zimbabwe’s preeminent historian and John Peterson’s former teacher. He offers to pick me up in town and take me to his house for a drink. His car turns out to be a black Rolls Royce.
‘I have a job for you,’ says the Professor, as we leave the city centre. ‘It’s a sensitive matter, maybe a little risky, but one of great importance to Zimbabwe.’ He adjusts his beret, then points from the window to a string of houses along the road. Though the car has no radio, I don’t hear the engine, even when he accelerates.
