‘When I went to her workplace for the lease she said she was too busy to give it to me and I should wait for you to come back.’
‘But I left her in charge … OK, OK, how do you want me to help you?’
‘I’ve come for the lease.’
‘Have you paid all your rent up to date?’
‘Well, when I moved in I paid her the deposit but I haven’t been able to raise the rent yet. You, see, I’m separated from my husband and my mother died last month and things have not been easy for me.’
Ms Khumalo is an attractive, probably well-to-do, professional but Farai finds her unapologetic manner presumptuous.
‘Now listen. First you move into my flat without my permission. Then you skip rent for three months. D’you think I’m Father Christmas?’
‘Things are tough for me, Mr Chari.’
‘Look, I’m not new at this game. I can tell a problem tenant in two minutes. I don’t care who’s died or if you’re divorced. Rent has to be paid, ma’am. Have you brought the money?’
She hands him a fat envelope.
He counts the notes and pockets them.
‘Can you give me the lease now, Mr Chari?’
‘I’m running. My car broke down last night. Call me and we’ll arrange to meet later.’
‘How much later? And, by the way, your phone is not working. I tried to call you all day yesterday. That’s why I came to find you this morning. I don’t want to keep driving over here.’
‘If I had to wait three months for my rent you can afford to wait a few days for your lease, Baby.’
Farai grabs the car door and bangs it in her face. She cowers behind the window. The girl from next door – his own daughter’s classmate and best friend – stands at the gate, holding a plastic garbage bag, watching them. She looks stunned. Farai doesn’t even bother to say hullo, and strides angrily away to the industrial sites.
Ms Khumalo shakes her head, starts her car and drives slowly away.
The breakdown haulage truck is out when he arrives and he has to wait for half an hour. The security guard at the gate offers him a tin mug of tea and a bun and he politely accepts them. He sips the scalding hot tea and nibbles at the bun. Food tastes strange, like medicine that has to be taken on doctor’s orders. When the haulage truck arrives they set off at once for his car.
His Mazda 323 is parked forlornly at the shops and the security men he left to guard it are nowhere to be found. He thinks perhaps they left at six when their night shift ended. The break-down man looks under the car and at the wheels and whistles under his breath.
‘Is it badly damaged?’
‘They’ll know at the garage.’
They hook up the Mazda and drag it off to the garage. ‘It’s your suspension and your wheel bearings,’ the break-down man tells him. ‘And one of your wheels needs attention.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘It can be fixed but it might take a couple of days. Do you need it in a hurry?’
‘Yes,’ and he adds, ‘I’m travelling. To sort out some things. I don’t have much time on my hands.’
‘It’s Sunday and the garage is closed. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you get the damaged wheel fixed today, so that we can work on the other problems first things tomorrow? It might speed things up. I know a place that’s open today.’
Farai wheels the damaged tyre to a backyard workshop where it is soon fixed and he returns it to the garage.
‘Come tomorrow morning when the mechanics are here,’ the mechanic tells him.
He takes a combi to the city and goes to an afternoon Jazz club. The place, an open garden with chairs, tables, flowers and plenty of shade, is already full of patrons when he arrives. Waiters in khaki uniforms shuttle among the tables and the bar in the corner serving drinks and snacks. The crowd unnerves him, somehow. Voices are loud and everybody seems to be laughing. He finds a place to sit and orders a beer.
The band is taking a short break and the instruments are on the stage. The disco is playing jazz music. Oh there is Piri, the girl in Thomas Mapfumo’s band. Piri holding a drink and waving at him, laughing and what ... she’s coming over.
‘Oh, my sweet darling, you’re alone again,’ Piri says.
‘I didn’t know you liked jazz as well,’ he tells her.
‘Oh yes I do,’ she says, sipping her gin and tonic. She is wearing a white T-shirt, blue denim hipsters and silver slippers.
‘How was the show last night?’
‘The show? What show? Did you go out?’
‘Don’t know. I was out somewhere watching zvigure and my car broke down.’
‘You like zvigure?’
‘Sometimes. So how is Thomas Mapfumo these days?’
‘I haven’t been to a show of his in ages.’
‘But I thought you were a singer and dancer in his band?’
‘Me, never.’
‘I must have been drunk when I met you, then.’
‘You’re always drunk.’
‘Did you cut your dreads?’
‘Ages ago. I like my hair short.’
‘Really, Piri?’
‘Why are you calling me that? I see you have forgotten who I am. I am Matiedza the film-maker. You did some voice dubbing for one of our videos two years ago and invited me to eat mazondo at kwaMereki. Afterwards we went to hear Thomas Mapfumo.’
‘Oh, Mati! Of course.’
‘Don’t worry. It happens. Can I buy you a drink?’
‘You are the first woman in months to offer me one.’
‘These are not the days of roasting loincloths! After all we’re not starving now, are we?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And we only live once.’
He talks with Mati about anything and everything, and makes her laugh. He likes her because she is almost a tomboy, and seems not to care much about what people think about her as a woman. She is an ex-combatant who has found a niche in the film world. He wonders who helped set her up. A white man, perhaps. Amazing, he thought, how many of these educated ex-combatants go out with white men. Was it because they did not paint them with the same tar and ignored the rumours of prostitution and death? Or because white men were gentle and understanding, and had money? He likes her flashing teeth and her strong dark hands and her wood, steel and brass bangles. He remembers now how she had rolled up a fat joint and persuaded him to smoke it with her in her flat before setting off with him on her scooter to the show, and how they had danced for hours on the stage. And now the jazz band is playing and the sun is warm and the drinks are cold and they are both tapping away to Hugh Masekela, Earl Klugh and Jonathan Butler. And now she’s on the stage singing an old Harare Mambo tune and everybody is clapping wildly and she is back sitting on his lap and ordering more drinks. And now he is dancing on the stage with her and everyone is clapping hands and cheering till he thinks his eardrums will burst.
Eventually Mati drives him back home in her VW Beetle