Mooching into the study, Farai stares at the telephone. Damn it, Piri the dancer had said she had no phone, and he had not been sober or focussed for long enough to get a specific address, or to find out what she would be doing today. ‘It’s funny,’ he thinks, ‘how those precious names and numbers salted away in bulging purses or glove lockers have the knack of disappearing, just when they are most needed.’
He bathes, puts on a clean change of clothes, locks up the house, and like a dazed, deodorised assailant, drives out to assault the city. His old Mazda 323 is still a good runner – he plans to buy a new model once his overseas stint is finally over. One more year out there, alone, is a long time. Again he wonders why he accepted the job.
While he is filling up at the local garage who should pull up but Wilbert, the only man he can perhaps claim as a real friend, as their friendship goes back to their schooldays nearly three decades ago. They studied together in the hockey fields, picked mazhanje in the forest and raided neighbouring farmers’ maize fields for kanga on full moonlit nights. Wilbert is now the quintessential family man, marrying off brothers, chastising errant sisters’ husbands, burying clansmen and overseeing enormous weddings. Modest Wilbert, now a financial director, but still trundling up in his old pick-up truck with a little boy on the front seat. Within seconds Farai, laughing, bursts out of his car to give Wilbert a hug.
‘Man! Hey! When did you get back?’ The months slip away in a few jokes and Wilbert invites him to have ‘one one’ at a nearby bottle store. His friend volunteers little about his life besides bemoaning the rigours of work and domestication and the approaching mid-forties. Farai knows Wilbert envies him his freer career and ability to travel. He talks expansively about his experiences in America, his problems with Veronica, and with drink, but he says little about the women cluttering his life.
‘You ought to eat before you go drinking, Farai. And try going to church with the missus and the babies once in a while.’
Wilbert’s advice sounds mundane; the kind gleaned at smoky barbeques and crowded bottle stores. Most men don’t take advice easily, even from friends. But they like to drink together all the same. ‘One one’ becomes ‘two two’ and ‘two two’ becomes ‘three three’ and ‘three three’ often becomes ‘four four’. Wilbert typically refuses to allow Farai to pay. The baby is fidgeting on the seat and has had enough chips and Fantas and his wife Clara must be wondering where he is with the milk, tomatoes and potatoes. He has to go. He leaves with promises of a further meeting tomorrow afternoon, when he is free.
Left alone, Farai ponders his fate. He has money, and time to kill, but no one to spend it with. The beer so early in the day is exhilarating him but intensifies his loneliness. He thinks perhaps he should have a small house, but he has never had the patience to run one nor a woman to try it out with. Besides, he has never been a small house man. He fears attachment. He is a man waiting to be found; a confused being waiting to be rediscovered and restored to himself. He hops from pub to pub, jesting with women, arguing with old acquaintances and is somewhat amazed at how adept he is becoming at it. He frequents the pubs in search of familiarity and security but after five pints he feels no better.
At one of his roadside haunts a leggy woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a black dress and purple doek, plants herself on a free chair, opposite him across a cement table.
‘Fatima!’
‘I thought you’d forgotten me. When did you come back?’
‘Three days ago. How did you know I was away?’
‘It was in the papers. And you told me before you left. How was it?’
‘So-so.’
‘You said you would write to me. You probably tore up my address even before you boarded the plane. You have too many of us all over the place. When are you ever going to grow up and settle down?’
‘Cheers! To my ancestors! What are you doing here?’
‘Just having fun.’
‘Are you looking for men?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Are you married now?’
‘Heavens, no.’
‘How is your little boy?’
‘He’s going to school now, in Grade 1. And how’s your wife?’
‘She’s OK.’
‘She must be happy you’re back. You should spend more time with her and your children. Is she still going to that new church of hers?’
‘Zvekuti!’
‘Perhaps it’s good for you to have such a wife. You don’t realise it, but you need her. Make sure you don’t lose her.’
‘You’re gaining weight. Are you sure you aren’t pregnant?’
‘Who gets pregnant these days with funny diseases around and tonnes of condoms at every street corner?’
‘Or perhaps you’re eating lots of fish?’
‘Oh, fish. You love fish. Fish is good for you. Fish is innocent. Pork is bad. Never, ever, eat pork in people’s houses, especially at night. Remember that weird day soon after you buried your father and came crawling to my compound when all the bars closed, caked with dirt and shaking with hunger and I cooked you a big fresh bream from the dam and you put up in my room, and in the morning I soaped and scrubbed you up in my little grass bathroom and you wore my palazzo while I washed and ironed your clothes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I wonder why your wife let you go out like that.’
‘She’s too educated.’
‘Who says educated women should treat their husbands that way?’
‘She never went to chinamwari like you did.’
‘In my country even women with university degrees take traditional courses in looking after their husbands.’
‘One day I’ll thank you for looking after me then.’
‘And yet you brought me nothing. Are you back for good?’
‘I’m going back for another year.’
‘Don’t bring us back a skinny little white woman who is too scared to kill a fowl.’
‘No, I won’t. I love black women. Hey, that big bream – was that the day we woke up and went to see zvigure, the masked dancers from Malawi?’
‘No, that was another day. New year, two years ago. You drank non-stop without sleeping for two days, and talked all night. A woman next door heard you and she said she knew a man who might be able to help you. A traditional healer.’
‘What makes you think I need help?’
‘I can tell. When did you last eat?’
‘Yesterday morning.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Not really.’
‘How many crates of beer have you taken?’
‘Maybe a half.’
‘Do you want to go and see zvigure now?’
‘Yeah, why not? Where?’
‘At a farm not far from here.’
‘OK.’
‘Can we pick up my friend Enesi on the way? She’s my home girl. I