‘Do you want a lift?’ he asks. I haven’t seen mutton-chop sideburns like his since Joe Cocker at Woodstock.
‘No, thanks. I’m just taking a walk.’
‘What part of America do you come from?’ he asks.
‘Wisconsin.’
‘I have a brother in South Carolina,’ he tells me. ‘He loves it there.’
‘I’ve never been to South Carolina,’ I reply.
‘How long will you be in Salisbury?’
‘About a week.’
‘I’m heading down south as soon as possible. There is still some sense in South Africa. We’ve lost everything to the communists here.’
‘Thanks for stopping,’ I reply.
I start walking. ‘I need to stretch my legs,’ I tell him. ‘Those long flights can knock you out.’
‘Go well,’ he says. ‘Or I guess I should say “have a nice day”.’ He chuckles as he rolls up his window and drives away.
Before I reach the city centre, two more white drivers pull over to offer rides. The last one gives me a warning: ‘Europeans from overseas don’t realise it’s not safe for us here any more.’
He hangs his head out the window of his pickup and looks both ways. ‘These munts will smile at you and say “yes baas”. Then, the next thing you know …’ He drags a forefinger across his throat and bares his teeth.
Sirens sound in the distance. The driver perks up like a startled squirrel and slams his car into first gear. ‘I must get out of here before the nonsense starts,’ he tells me. ‘I might get stuck here all day. Bloody fools.’
He speeds away.
Half a block ahead, a white-enamelled motorcycle glides to a halt in the middle of the intersection. A man in a sharply pressed green uniform and white helmet gets off the bike. His siren screams as he raises his hand to stop cross traffic.
By the time I reach the corner, four or five cars are backed up on each side of the street. A few of the drivers stand alongside their vehicles, chatting and smoking cigarettes. Dozens of pedestrians gather and look toward the oncoming noise. In the nearby high rises, a collection of black women in servants’ uniforms hangs over various balcony railings. As the sirens peak, a half-ton pickup shoots past. Soldiers in camouflage fill the bed, ak-47s at the ready. One shoulders a bazooka. Behind the pickup come four black Mercedes-Benzes.
As the third Mercedes passes, two women next to me point and say, ‘Varimo. Varimo.’ I snap my head toward the car just in time to catch those dark-framed glasses. The Prime Minister is reading the newspaper in the back seat.
Behind the four Benzes comes a blue-and-white police car, then a second truckload of soldiers even bigger than the first. Another white-enamelled motorcycle trails at the rear of the procession. The driver steps up the volume on his siren as he passes.
I stagger off toward the city centre, feeling like a groupie after an all-night concert. Three hours in Harare and I’ve already seen my hero. I keep forgetting that traffic travels on the opposite side of the road. I look the wrong way when crossing streets, barely avoiding collisions with the dented Datsuns, rusting Renaults and other ancient four-cylinder vehicles that dominate the roads. A Pontiac in Harare would look like a battleship in a yacht harbour.
The cars aren’t the only things out of date. Modern department stores haven’t reached Harare either. I walk slowly past a tobacconist minded by an old white man, a blue ascot riding high on his neck. A rack of pipes and tobacco canisters frames his grey hair. A cuckoo clock on his wall advertises Barclay cigarettes.
The sweet fragrance wafting from the shop reminds me of my grandfather’s living room. As a small boy, I loved to watch him tamp the shredded leaves in his long-stemmed cherrywood pipe. The room filled with wonderful spices when he took that first puff. I’ve never understood why my father smoked Camels instead. But then there are many things I’ve never understood about my father.
A few doors from the tobacconist lies a sidewalk café attached to a Wimpy hamburger bar. A curious glance reveals white women drinking tea and cutting toasted cheese sandwiches into bite-size pieces before delicately forking them into their mouths. Black waiters scurry about carrying red plastic trays. They respond to the curt orders of their customers as if the liberation war never happened.
Some of the men on the street are wearing platform shoes and there are more mutton-chops. White women’s hair is sprayed into lacquered mounds reminiscent of 1960s singer Lesley Gore. The main thoroughfare is First Street Mall, a vast walkway of freshly laid bricks.
I go into Barbours, one of the city’s most exclusive shops. Nearly all of the sales staff are white women in those Lesley Gore hairdos. In the perfume section, a tall black woman in a pink suit sprays something on her left wrist, and then tries a second spray on the right. ‘That one’s lovely,’ I hear her telling a smiling saleswoman. This is a revolution of sorts. Before 1980, stores on First Street didn’t allow blacks inside. They had to shop via kiosk windows at the side of the store or in a back alley.
I look for coloured t-shirts and, instead, run into racks of safari suits – blue, tan, brown, even a crisp white, presumably for weddings. A clerk tells me to try Greatermans for t-shirts.
Back on the street, a newspaper vendor sells the daily for twelve Zimbabwean cents. Headlines speak of the impending wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and of dissidents in Matabeleland. Nothing of consequence.
After a few more blocks, the comfortable distance between shoppers narrows. The broad landscape of First Street Mall shrinks to sidewalks no wider than my reach. Now I’m touching elbows, shoulders, backs and fronts. Children in tow scrape against my knees. A few people do a double take when they see me. Several gaze at my blue-striped Adidas running shoes. Though I’m the only white person in sight, I’m not frightened. I read curiosity, not hostility.
Foot traffic congests behind a white-bearded man who plods along with the aid of an intricately carved cane. As I overtake him, he stops and raises his hand to the brim of his porkpie hat.
‘Good morning, master,’ he says.
‘Good morning, sir,’ I reply and increase my pace.
Many shops profile their presence with three-foot-high speakers set on either side of the entrance. Distorted versions of local hits bounce off the passing crowds. The music complements the smell of chicken, fish and potatoes frying in near-rancid cooking oil. Diesel buses add their pungent billows of black smoke to the mixture.
I stop to examine the wares of a young watch repairman. He’s proudly mounted his 1976 certificate from the ‘Westchester School of Watch Repair’ in a well-worn plastic cover. I pick up a silver Elgin with an analogue dial from another era.
‘That one is self-winding,’ he boasts. ‘You never have to worry. Twenty dollars for you, my friend.’
He stands up and selects three or four other watches from his stock. ‘I also have these,’ he says, laying them across his thick wrist.
‘I’ll give you five dollars for the Elgin,’ I say.
‘I can’t take less than fifteen for such a masterpiece. A man offered me fourteen yesterday and I refused.’
‘I guess I don’t need it,’ I reply.
I’m not sure why I’m haggling with this man. It’s a way of making contact, I guess.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘I’ll take that fourteen dollars today. Special reconciliation price.’
‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ I promise and walk away. He calls me back.
‘Sir, it will be gone by then. Take it for twelve.’ He smiles sheepishly, revealing the huge gap between his front teeth. I pull out a Zimbabwean ten-dollar bill plus two one-dollar coins and