The VW Beetle that has just gone past is Matiedza’s. Mati is the assistant director of the film.
Out there, two hundred metres ahead of him, weaving along the dust path at the side of the road are two people, his little daughter Sharai and their maid Maria. Maria is holding Sharai’s hand and they are walking, oh, ever so slowly down the path, towards the vlei and they must not miss the joy of the historic occasion. He must catch up with them and walk with them so that he is not alone, so that they arrive together. But where is his son, his little boy Ticha? Has he already left with Veronica?
A man with a helmet toots at him from his scooter – this must be the man doing the initial shots, capturing the footwork on Polaroid, perhaps.
The Datsun pick-up truck loaded with a mountain of cabbages, tomatoes and potatoes must be for the market scene in the script and the AFDIS truck must be bringing in the drinks already – didn’t the director say there would be a party every day after the shooting?
And Maria and Sharai are moving oh, ever so slowly, floating towards the vlei. ‘Maria! Sharai! Wait!’
Can they hear him? He lopes after them and now he can hear their chirruping voices and their tinkling laughter. He can see the reds, whites and greens of their clothes and their shoes. Now they have stopped for him and joyously he reaches out to grab Sharai’s little hand.
‘Aren’t we late?’ he gasps.
‘Good morning Daddy,’ Maria says, ‘Mamuka sei?’
Maria of peppered breakfasts and clever lunches and late lazy baths and black avocado-pear breasts, that day he burst into the children’s bathroom by mistake, Maria now smiling her little, puzzled, expectant smile and saying good morning, daddy. Maria, for whom he has brought a dress and shoes to say thank you for looking after everything while I was away and now he has got her a part in the film to show the world how he lived and how he worked and what a simple, undemanding man he was …
‘Can we help you, sir?’
And now he feels a searing flash in his brain and Maria shrinks to a bony, middle-aged mother with a recalcitrant brown skirt and a cheap red Sandak shoes, Sharai stretches up into a lanky, knock-kneed teenager with a schoolbag on her back and her hand wriggles awkwardly out of his grip.
‘Can we help you, sir?’
At the garage the security man is having tea and offers him half a bun.
‘Are you coming to the shooting?’ Farai asks him.
The security man gives him a doubting sideways look and takes a sip from his tin mug.
‘Is my car ready yet?’
‘The mechanics come in at nine.’
‘Tell them to work fast, because I’ll need the car soon.’
There is a pub nearby, one of his favourites, and he goes there to wait. On the sidewalk the vendors are laying out their wares and he greets them jovially.
In The Calabash the workmen have already nailed the cables to the walls and the light bulbs are screwed on in the trees and corners. The bar has been closed for this special event. The spectators have been moved away to the shops where they have assembled and he can hear their voices shouting. Waiting for him to act.
The great writer comes home.
Everything is in reverse. It has to be. And that is why the garden is empty, closed up for the show. He has to retrace every step. It must start with him at the airport leaving, his family waving from the balcony and cheering him off for the umpteenth time. It has to start with journeys into the past and forgotten beginnings. It must capture that stark moment when he spilled out of his mother’s womb and screamed into a blurred world. His very first memories of faces and voices and leering shadows, of the warmth of his mother’s milk dripping into his mouth, of his father towering tall and strong, naked, soapy and wet in the shower above him, with him. Of the vast little four-roomed house with innumerable nooks and insistent ghosts shivering in the bananas, and voices cackling in alien languages inside the radio. Of the sharp odour of Dorothy’s bum inside the hot little rolling drum, and the salt bite of his mother’s peach stick on his legs. Of hunger and crowded, stinking classrooms and toilets awash with filth, of dew in the morning on miles of grass and frivolous impossible girls. Of thorny wars between black and white, black and black, wrangles between fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and couples who can’t talk.
This will be a great big film that will include everything; a film to end all films.
‘How long have I been like this?’
He leans back with his hands on the table and confronts his favourite barman.
‘Why, Mr Chari? You’ve only just arrived. We let you in because you were outside and we hadn’t opened. We’re not open yet but we served you. That’s only your first beer.’
‘Give him soda water,’ says a white man with one arm, a regular patron. ‘I’ll pay for it.’
The barmen are still cleaning the windows and lifting the chairs down from the tables. The woman at the front desk waves and winks at him.
‘Have you ever been really drunk, Sir?’ he asks the white man.
‘Every day.’
‘But why aren’t you working?’
‘I am working.’
‘So what sort of work do you do?’
‘I empty Castle bottles.’
‘How much do they pay you?’
‘Enough to feed my missus.’
‘Are you married?’
‘Yep. Got two sons about your age. Late thirties, eh.’
‘And your wife loves you?’
‘We tolerate each other. There comes a time in life when it’s useless to fight. She doesn’t hump me every day but she tries. She knows if she doesn’t do that I can get me a small house any time.’
‘Small house! Ha! What a dirty old man you are! Who do you think would want to have a small house with a wimp like you?’
‘Anybody. White, black or blue. Small houses are not usually plastered, you see, so they don’t have colours. And they are hardy as bricks. Once upon a time I fought with the missus and came here to drown me sorrows a bit. Bang I started talking with one of your soul sisters who drink here. Before I knew it I was shacking up with her in her boy’s kaya. And she was a damn good fat mama too, cooking, washing up, ironing and all that. African women are great housekeepers. Think I must have gained two kg’s in a week!’
‘What did the missus do?’
‘Don’t know who told her, but when I didn’t show up for a week she drove over in her squeaky little Datsun 120Y and beat me up with her walking stick. I don’t know how, but she bundled me up onto the back seat and drove off like an ambulance. You ain’t seen an angrier woman than that. I still have bruises to show for it.’
‘Served you right. Are you a farmer?’
‘Was. Sold me farm before you guys started all this land grabbing and turning this country into thousands of little villages.’
‘So where do you live now?’
‘In a little flat in town. What about you? You look like a rich black bugger with a bag full of questions and a little arithmetic in your head. Four bedroomed house with