Chuck is not alone. He’s come with his wife Joy and their tiny baby Gary. Joy’s an academic on sabbatical from Georgetown. Though her specialty is African art, she hasn’t said much. Gary’s demands for food and clean diapers have kept her occupied.
As Elizabeth starts to clear the table, Gary spits up all over Joy’s shoulder. The sight of baby vomit gives my Cabernet a rough edge. I adjourn to the living room with Colin. ‘The police are still after me,’ he boasts.
I tell him a little about my research and my high regard for Mugabe.
‘Back in the 70s in South Africa,’ he says, ‘we used to look at guerrilla fighters as our heroes. Then other organisations began to spring up – the unions, student groupings, church formations. Democratic organisations.’
Despite his youthful look, he speaks like a veteran. ‘Remember this,’ he says, pointing at me with an instructive finger, ‘a guerrilla force can never be democratic.’
‘If people support them they can be,’ I reply. ‘Zimbabwe isn’t like China or the Soviet Union. Mugabe was elected. That’s democracy, not dictatorship.’
Colin finishes his wine, then starts a snifter of brandy.
‘These are peasants,’ he reminds me. ‘They can’t control production like workers. You need organised workers to transform society.’
Chuck approaches us and starts in again on how worried he is about Matabeleland. I don’t want to hear it. I ask Colin if he knows anything about Elias Tichasara. I figure that will exclude Chuck from the discussion.
‘The Mozambicans killed him,’ says Colin. ‘Probably with the backing of the Soviets. They feared Tichasara might gain power and get too friendly with the Americans. He was more conservative than Mugabe.’
‘Where did you hear this?’ I ask.
‘Around,’ says Colin, glancing at Chuck. ‘It’s a political hot potato.’
‘There are lots of hot potatoes here,’ says Chuck.
These two are lining each other up in their cross hairs. I move toward Elizabeth. We sit on the off-white couch, the centrepiece of the living room. Chuck’s sneakers squeak on the plastic runners that protect the thick white carpet as he berates Colin about ‘archaic socialism’.
‘You need to help me calm those two down,’ Elizabeth whispers. ‘I’m such an idiot. I should never have invited them on the same night. Chalk and cheese.’
‘A little debate never hurt anyone,’ I reply. ‘It definitely won’t spoil that wonderful meal you cooked.’
She goes shy for a second, then touches my arm lightly.
‘I grew up around drunken fights,’ she says. ‘Not an experience I wish to repeat.’
‘Try some music,’ I suggest.
Elizabeth bounces up and heads for the stereo.
‘Does anyone want to hear something?’ she asks.
‘I’d like to hear some sense from these Americans,’ says Colin.
I think he’s joking, but neither Chuck nor Joy, who’s joined the conversation, is smiling. The marimbas of Thomas Mapfumo’s band drown out the details of the debate, but the body language tells us the temperature is rising.
Elizabeth tries to ignore it all by telling me a little of her life story. The music is so loud she has to snuggle up and place her mouth right next to my ear. I don’t mind. She smells of coconut. Her warm breath along the side of my neck elicits a few faint chills. The argument has become a side show.
Elizabeth is the eldest of seven children. Her mother died when she was thirteen, leaving her as a surrogate matriarch. ‘My father is a plumber,’ she says. ‘He was always either working or drinking. He didn’t know how to cope with a home full of children.’ Elizabeth only started college when she was twenty-seven. Eight years later she’s finishing a PhD. She doesn’t look like an older woman.
‘My father is so proud,’ she says. ‘No Routledge ever went to university before. He even joined the anti-apartheid movement when I explained to him that blacks in South Africa couldn’t vote or live in the same areas as whites. He idolises Nelson Mandela.’
I tell her about my own adulation of Mugabe and reconciliation.
‘Are you a Christian?’ she asks.
‘No. But my parents are. Big time Christians. We barely speak. They’re fanatics.’
‘Lots of them in America,’ she says.
I don’t mind her criticism of my parents this time. We’ve moved on from the exchange over tea at the archives. Besides, the fundamentalism my parents have imbibed is incomprehensible to me, let alone to someone from another country.
When the Mapfumo record ends, Joy picks up Gary who’s just woken up from a nap. ‘We have to go,’ she says. ‘If Gary’s sleep routine gets disturbed, our household goes into a tailspin.’
It sounds like an excuse to escape Colin. How could a tiny baby disrupt the life of two adults? The few times I saw her after Hilary was born, Janet used to moan about the same thing, searching for pity. I didn’t give her any.
Elizabeth walks the Americans to their car.
‘Sorry,’ Colin says. ‘Sometimes I do get a little emotional about my politics.’
‘A little emotional?’ says Lisa. ‘When have you ever been a little emotional?’
Lisa looks a bit like Janet – short, thick, black hair, and a small yet intense body. She wears a gold stud through one side of her nose. She might come from Indian ancestry, but given the complicated racial categories of South Africa I definitely won’t ask.
‘I didn’t mean to tar you with the same brush as Chuck and Joy,’ Colin tells me. ‘Those are real Americans. Our struggles here are life and death matters. Not silly games.’
‘Whenever you drink it ends up like this,’ says Lisa. She’s sitting alone in the middle of the carpet.
‘I hope we didn’t ruin your evening,’ she adds, looking at me.
Colin goes to the bathroom.
‘I think it’s because of his brother,’ Lisa says. ‘They sentenced him to five years this week for refusing military service. That’s a lot of time for a white person.’
She goes on to tell me how the police have harassed her family members, hunting for Colin. ‘Our family name is Abrahams. It’s a very common name in South Africa. Most of the people the police have bothered aren’t even related to me.’
Colin comes back with his hair and beard soaking wet. When Elizabeth returns, he promises to be ‘more polite the next time no matter how ugly the Americans are’. Elizabeth finds a diplomatic reply, adding she didn’t know Chuck and Joy were so conservative. ‘You should have heard them outside carrying on about communists,’ she says.
Elizabeth summons me to the kitchen. ‘I’ll get rid of them,’ she says. ‘Don’t leave just yet.’
She pours me a shot of j&b. ‘The night is still young,’ she adds. She’s drinking peppermint schnapps.
After they leave, Elizabeth tells me she’s in Harare on an exchange with a local academic. ‘He gets my one-bedroom flat in dreary London. I get this three-bedroom house with a swimming pool and Georgia, the maid.’
I’m not really listening. Between surges of sexual tension, I’m considering the prospect that the Mozambicans killed Tichasara. Sounds feasible given Mozambique’s Marxist government. While Elizabeth trails her finger along the back of my ear, a flurry of dates comes on: 1809, the birth of Abraham Lincoln; 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation.