muramu – wife’s younger sister or husband’s younger brother
muri bho? – are you OK?
muzukuru – grandchild/ nephew/niece
mwana vamaivangu – my mother’s child/sibling
mwanangu – my son
namatambudziko – condolences
nhaika – OK?
palazzo – knee length shorts
sascams – Zimbabwean slang for mentally disturbed people
sekuru – grandfather, uncle, older man worthy of respect
sisi – sister
shebeen – private ‘bar’, usually in a private house
tsano – brother-in-law
vabereki – parents
vatezvara – father-in-law
waswera – How was your day?
wena uzaba u – Ndebele for ‘You will be…’
zambias – light, cotton wrappers worn by African women, so called because they are popular in Zambia
zvako – lucky you
zvauriwe – watch yourself
zvekuti – very much
zvigure – traditional masked dancers belonging to certain cults
And what is it, my dear husband, that’s eating you up? What is it that’s making you hate yourself, hate me? Can’t you see that this phoney, artsy life of yours is hurting you, harming me and dragging your children and everybody around you into the steep-sided pits of your despair? You are keeping bad company; your image badly needs sprucing up, you have to be schooled again in the simple ways of trust. The word SELFISH is branded on your forehead, like numbers scorched onto the flanks of mindless cattle. You brook no advice; you have mangled your sense of time and scratched the word ‘purpose’ out of the grammar of your habits. A year out there, after a decade of blame and abuse and you think I’ll take it forever. You think I’ll stay the same, that I won’t change to become ME, MYSELF, I, ME. Be warned, my dear man, that I’m definitely changing; that there are things in store for you…
When Farai arrives home he finds Veronica asleep. Her left arm hangs limply out of the sheets, her wedding ring gleaming faintly in the moonlight that is filtering into the bedroom through the high, curtainless windows. He wanders into the study to look for mail and messages, and then into the kitchen for a bite, but finding nothing prepared, brushes his teeth and climbs carefully into bed beside her. Something, perhaps a large rat, makes a strange, thumping movement in the ceiling but he is too tipsy to worry about it. For hours he cannot rest. Lately, alcohol has not brought him the deep sleep he so badly needs. He shudders at the thought of the binges that characterised the last few weeks before his return home.
In the morning she startles him awake with her hair drier.
‘Why don’t you try natural locks?’ he says, sleepily, longingly. She is wearing a new white cheese-cloth dress with buttons all the way up the front and black high heels. She sprays a subtle perfume under her arms and between her thighs. He feels envious of her and yet angry with her. A woman can change a lot in twenty short months.
He sits up and reaches for her.
‘No,’ she pushes his arms away. ‘If you had wanted that you would have come home earlier.’
‘You left me no supper.’
‘If you’d wanted food as well, you’d have been here earlier still.’
‘Some men come home to find supper waiting for them.’
‘Men who respect their wives and families.’
‘But I’ve only been back three days.’
‘So you’re already trying to catch up on what you missed. Back to your old ways. What about me, alone here, with the children?’
‘You make it sound as if I was over there having a picnic.’
‘Why didn’t you take us with you?’
‘We’ve been over this a hundred times. Why should I drag my family into all that snow and snobbery when I’ve built a nest for them here? Squandering a fortune? To prove what?’
‘It would’ve been a good experience for the children.’
‘Would you have left your job for two years of nonsense, and then come back to find new school places for the children and work for yourself? You’re too ambitious for that.’
‘One can always begin a new career. We’re not working to buy an aeroplane, you know. One day you’ll die and leave your estate to be devoured by wolves. We won’t see a cent of it. You should learn to spend your money while you are still alive.’
‘You take for granted all the little comforts I starve myself to create for you.’
‘Don’t exaggerate. You’re full of self-pity and you just worship money.’
‘No, you do. Secretly. You contradict yourself. On the one hand you preach thrift but on the other you are obsessed with the image of wealth and prosperity held up by your church. You’re envious of me. The real trouble is you think I was over there having fun.’ ‘How can I think otherwise when you start your disappearing act as soon as you set foot at home?’
‘What d’you expect me to do when you go to that church of yours three times a day?’
‘Maybe I’ve found comfort in it. Maybe it’s time I became my real self, and stopped you trying to change me into whoever you want me to be.’
‘We’ve gone through this a thousand times. I wish …’
‘There you go again. Talking, talking and listening to yourself and blaming me for everything. That’s what you have done all your life. I can’t stand it any more. Now take your hands off my dress. I’m late already.’
‘What about breakfast?’
‘You’ve been making that for yourself for ten months, or so you say. Remember, when you phoned home you promised us a surprise breakfast one day. Why don’t you try that today?’
Veronica picks up her bag, her bible and the car keys and swishes out of the bedroom. The children, Sharai, eight, and Ticha, six, are waiting for her in the passage, decked out in their new clothes. Their first daughter, Rumbi, is a high school boarder in the mountains four hours away.
He slips on his gown and follows them to the door. There is no time for good mornings, just the clinking of keys as at a jail-room door. He watches from the window as Veronica drives out through the electric gate in her blue Corolla, the exhaust of the car rattling.
Switching off the DSTV left on by the children, he enters the kitchen to find out if there is anything to eat. The fridge is full of meat, bread, vegetables, milk and the pantry shelves are well stocked with eggs, rice, spaghetti, sugar, maize meal, cooking oil and fruit juice, but he has no appetite, nor the strength or desire to cook. A hangover throbs at his temples. Maybe he should just have an ice cold beer but god no, this is a Christian house and drinking is taboo. Veronica would never allow it, let alone buy him a beer. When they first married there was always a beer or two in the fridge but nowadays, especially since she joined the new church, he is uncomfortable drinking at home. When he has visitors, and these are rare, he has to rush to the shops to buy drinks.