they have attended and dignitaries they’ve interviewed. I feel like I’ve lived my life in a living room fish tank while they’ve been swimming in the seas of knowledge and experience. Milwaukee does not rate as a citadel of intellectual activity.
The most frequent dinner table guests are Professor Albert Runnels and his wife Rose. Elizabeth describes them as ‘old Africa hands’. They’ve lived in several African countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, as well as Rose’s native Uganda. Rose doesn’t talk much. Her children are grown and living in the uk. Despite being in her mid-forties, she radiates the glamour of a much younger woman.
Runnels compensates for his wife’s reticence. He has a well-grounded opinion on every topic of conversation and counts himself one of a half-dozen ‘genuine experts’ on African birdlife. He’s authored four books on African politics, including a biography of Idi Amin entitled Just Another African Despot.
‘I hate to see young researchers being deceived by the public pronouncements of African politicians,’ he tells me one evening while the four of us finish a bottle of Courvoisier. ‘Mugabe is an authoritarian wolf in the sheep’s clothing of a quasidemocrat.’
Runnels avoids our gaze, preferring to address a space somewhere near the ceiling where an imaginary crowd hangs on his every syllable.
Rose smiles and reaches for her husband’s hand. ‘Perhaps you need to keep Albert’s concerns in mind,’ she tells me, ‘but your work sounds interesting.’
Unlike most African women I’ve met, Rose prefers casual clothes – t-shirts, shorts, running shoes. She used to run marathons. Her legs look like they could still last the 26 miles or 42 kilometres, the unit they use here.
‘I won’t be swept away by rhetoric that doesn’t coincide with reality,’ I tell them.
‘Don’t be naïve,’ Runnels replies. ‘Reconciliation is a public relations ploy. African politics goes one way, down the drain of corruption and repression. Only a fool would think otherwise.’
He adds, ‘I’d hate to see you writing drivel like those intellectual puppets of Zanu, David Martin and Phyllis Johnson.’
Martin and Johnson authored The Struggle for Zimbabwe. After Dlamini’s work, it’s my favourite book on Zimbabwean history. No one else has portrayed the liberation war in such detail.
I’m weighing up the consequences of confrontation. These are long-time friends of Elizabeth’s. They even visited her in the uk. But the man is insulting me.
‘I don’t think it’s foolish to be optimistic or hopeful,’ I reply. ‘The Zimbabweans have achieved a lot already, building schools, clinics, houses.’
‘It means nothing, my young man,’ he responds. ‘It will all go up in a cloud of African smoke.’
I give Elizabeth a pleading look. I want her to intervene before I say what I’m thinking. She and Rose get up and go to the kitchen, leaving the bulls to lock horns.
‘I suggest you change your direction or you’ll end up being a source of jokes within the African academe – the Mugabephile.’
He looks proud at his creation of a new term of deprecation. Without replying, I excuse myself to go and find Elizabeth. She’s slicing a block of Gouda cheese in the kitchen.
‘Let me do that,’ I say. ‘You go and talk to that asshole before I grab him by the throat.’
‘Albert means well,’ says Rose.
I hadn’t noticed she was in the pantry.
‘He sometimes has an unfortunate manner,’ she adds, not coming out to face me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
Elizabeth is trembling, but she is still slicing the cheese. Finally, she puts down the knife and rushes down the hallway. I follow.
She is lying on the bed, her head buried in a pillow.
‘I told you I hate conflict,’ she says in a wavering voice. ‘I love my father, but he’d get drunk and brawl with the Tory neighbour. I need peace in my house.’
She’s sitting up now. The tears have stopped. ‘Albert and Rose are my friends,’ she says.
‘The man is an arrogant bastard,’ I tell her. ‘He talks to me like I’m three years old.’
‘Count to ten,’ she says. ‘You’ll find a way.’
Elizabeth shows no sympathy for my outrage. Maybe Runnels was once the butt of sarcastic comments at African Studies conferences. Whatever his problem, his goal now is to curdle the passion of all around him. What kind of history declares that every African country must travel exactly the same depressing path? Dogma is destructive, be it my parents’ brand of Christianity or Runnels’ cynicism.
Since Elizabeth doesn’t want to discuss this any further, I go back to the living room with no idea how to mend the fences. Albert and Rose are gone. A note on the coffee table informs Elizabeth that Rose will come by and see her tomorrow.
I don’t feel like dealing with this. I’m off to Mrs van Zyl’s.
I give Elizabeth two days. I avoid the archives, rereading Martin and Johnson’s book. I like the style and the comprehensive coverage of the war. After the conversation at Elizabeth’s, I’m more aware of the bias, though. All the quotes come from Zanu leaders: Mugabe, Manyeche, Mawere and the others. Though Zapu combatants also died and many of their leaders are in government, they’re overlooked.
In a way, Runnels is right. This is what they call hotel history, done from the comfort of bars and restaurants in the Monomatapa or Meikles hotels. I wonder if the authors even left Harare while doing their research. But then, who am I to condemn? I haven’t been out of the city either. I’ve lived in the cloistered stratosphere of garden teas, struggling Xerox machines and Rixi taxis. Only the roar of the Boston pencil sharpener and the outbursts of Runnels or Colin have disrupted my tranquil existence.
I want to bounce these reflections off Elizabeth. She is level-headed when we’re not engaged in petty quarrels.
I put the Martin and Johnson book in my day pack and set out for her house. It’s lovely, clear and warm like almost every evening in Harare.The weather is too perfect at times, no extremes in heat or humidity, no torrential rains. No wonder the white settlers chose to defend this country with their lives.
Elizabeth will just be coming home from the archives. I buy a bottle of red wine on the way. I have it all planned. We’ll sip the wine by the side of the pool and discuss how I can avoid the pitfalls of Martin and Johnson. The hostility of the other day will melt away as we interact like mature and rigorous intellectuals. Stimulating discussion always yields dynamic lovemaking.
As I expected, her car is in the driveway. I hope she is cooking some lamb chops with that mint sauce. Meat is cheap here and there are butchers, not supermarkets that offer plasticwrapped, assembly-line packages. Stepping back in time can have its advantages.
The front door is locked. Unusual, but maybe Georgia is away. I knock several times. No response. I walk around toward the pool. I hear voices and splashing.
‘Elizabeth,’
