With a clammy shirt and dripping hair, I re-enter the commercial fray. By the time I lie down on my bed again, I’m the owner of a soapstone rhino and a four-foot-tall giraffe whittled from a soft, light-coloured wood. Hilary might like it. Along the way I have also acquired a small bag of boom-boom for three dollars, in case I ever need to perform like an African chief.
Everything seems in order, though the giraffe doesn’t stand quite straight on the floor. As I drift off to sleep I think I see it fall over.
Chapter 4
My first foray through Harare leaves me in shock. I expected liberation to hit me in the face. I’m disappointed at how quickly I become fear-ridden and suspicious. I take refuge in the hotel, reading through my notes and books. I make a master list of all 1527 cards, giving each one a number and title. The exercise reassures me. I am still in control.
After two days of seclusion, I visit the hotel bar, the Princess Lounge. I’m not settled enough to contact the people on my list.
The Princess is neither royal nor feminine. The lounge has the same dark panelling as the hotel lobby; the same picture of Mugabe hangs above the door. A pay-to-play snooker table is the centrepiece. Four black college students compete for a coin they have set on the wooden rim of the table.
Behind them, two white men sit at the end of the bar, talking as if in perpetual dialogue. One wears a pair of veldskoens, the local desert boot, with khaki shorts and no socks. The other has on leather sandals. They pay as little attention to the pool table as they have to their grooming.
I sit at a brown plastic-topped table for two. The waiter arrives. His name tag says ‘Obert’. He has a neatly trimmed moustache with a touch of grey and a white towel is draped over his arm. He lists the available beers for me: Castle, Lion and Black Label.
‘What’s cold on tap?’ I ask.
‘Tap beer is finished, sir. Most of the Europeans enjoy a Lion.’
‘Is it cold?’ I ask, remembering that Zimbabwe is a former British colony. I’ve heard rumours that the English drink warm beer. I don’t believe it, but I don’t want to take any chances.
‘Yes, sir. The Lion is cold,’ Obert replies.
‘I’ll have a Lion and a Castle.’
‘Two beers, sir. Are you expecting someone?’
‘No, I’ll drink two. Save you the trouble of coming back.’
‘I’m coming now-now with the beer.’
Obert brings me two brown bottles and two frosted glasses. The beer tastes bitter at first but the flavour lingers nicely. After four sips I’m becoming a convert.
As I finish the Castle and start to pour the Lion, a man with an emerging belly and a blue pin-striped shirt approaches my table. A gold ‘M’ is emblazoned on his cuff links.
‘Shamwari, how are you today?’ he asks.
I assure him I’m well and tell him I’m an American who’s come to learn about peace and reconciliation.
‘I knew you weren’t one of these local whites,’ he says. ‘Something about the style of dressing. They have their own places. Sports clubs and the like.’
‘I thought reconciliation meant everyone came together,’ I reply.
‘In a way that’s true,’ he says. ‘That’s what the Prime Minister is saying. We’ll see if these whites change. I doubt.’ He offers me a cigarette. I don’t often smoke, but I accept. The first puff goes straight to my head.
‘Are none of the whites changing?’ I ask.
‘Some are. My employer, Diane Johnstone, now calls me Mr Mzondiwa at work. Maybe their children will be different. It’s hard after a war.’
He takes a sip of his Castle and holds up two fingers to Obert. He scoots his chair a little closer to the table and leans toward me.
‘Saka shamwari, don’t you think we can do some business?’
‘What kind of business?’
‘You know, import–export. Zimbabwe has been hit hard by sanctions. There are so many things we don’t have. I’m thinking of stereos.’
‘Stereos?’
‘Famous brands. Sony. Panasonic. Here we just have our locally made Supersonics. After a month or two they’re finished. Marantz too. You buy them and bring them in. I sell. We share the money. As easy as eating porridge.’
‘I’m not much for business,’ I tell him. ‘I’m an academic.’ I slide my chair back and try to find a way out.
‘They won’t bother you, these customs people. It’s too perfect.’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve got my hands full.’
‘But you’ll think about it?’ he asks.
‘Okay.’
‘That’s great,’ he says, pulling a business card from his shirt pocket. ‘You can always get me on this number. Let me borrow your pen.’
He scratches out something on the card and replaces it with his name and number. We have two more beers. He tells me he was a mujiba during the war.
‘We pretended to be herding cattle or running errands. We were spies. Who would suspect a nine-year-old boy with no shoes?’
‘What were you doing?’ I ask.
‘Looking for Rhodesian soldiers. We were the eyes and ears of the vakomana, the guerrillas. Girls did it too – chimbwidos.’
I try to ask him more questions about what he did during the war and what he thinks about Mugabe and reconciliation. He steers the conversation back to stereos. He has heard that Pioneer is also a good brand and ‘not too dear’. I leave him with one more promise to ‘think about it’ and retreat to the company of my giraffe.
Harare has only one daily newspaper, The Herald, formerly subtitled The Voice of Rhodesia. The new government took over the paper at independence. Every day the lead story dwells on the latest activities of the Prime Minister, always referred to as Comrade Robert Mugabe. Occasionally his middle name, Gabriel, is added for emphasis. Whether Mugabe receives a delegation from United Nations Headquarters or goes to the rural areas to pick ticks off sheep, his photo appears on page one.
Even for someone who admires the man as much as I do, this treatment is a little excessive. On the rare day that Mugabe’s actions don’t warrant headlines, his wife, Comrade Sally Mugabe, features, handing out food parcels to orphans or accepting donations for the destitute from a local bank.
While the Herald actively propounds Zanu’s vision of a socialist Zimbabwe, the paper remains capitalist enough to advertise on behalf of local landlords. Under ‘Flats to Let’ I find: Greendale: granny flat, kitchen, Christian, non-smoker. Tel. 63721.
I speak to the owner, Mrs van Zyl, on the phone. Van Zyl is an Afrikaans surname. One of my 3×5 cards, No. 25, fills me in: Afrikaans: a hybrid Dutch language spoken mainly by whites known as Afrikaners or Boers, ancestors came to South Africa from the Netherlands beginning in 1652, large Afrikaner population in South Africa, few in lof, typically associated with hardline, racist views.
I travel to Greendale in a Rixi taxi that is parked in front of the hotel. Rixis are fashioned from Renault r4s, the smallest car I’ve ever ridden in. Built in the shape of a work boot, the r4’s cane-shaped gear stick comes straight out of the dashboard. The driver slides it out for first, pushes it back into the dashboard for second.
Mrs van Zyl is short with blue hair. She tells me she is a widow. She sits in a puffy chair and pets her snorting Pekinese. Princess Hildegard, Hildie for short, blinks contentedly in her lap.
While