“Baby, no! How could you even think that? I don’t have anything to do with drugs, I swear.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not,” he yelled. “Enough of this talk, Pri. It’s six-thirty in the bloody morning. Do you mind?” He got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
Princess followed him. “Leo, I need to know if you’re into drugs, because honestly, I can’t deal with that.”
“Jesus! Would you stop treating me like one of your clients? I’m not a criminal and you’re not my lawyer.” He slammed the door shut and locked it.
Princess stood outside the door drumming her fingers on the wall.
“If you don’t want to tell me the truth, fine; maybe you would like to explain to the police. I don’t want any shady business going on in my house.” Her head started to spin. The nausea was coming back. Carefully, she moved towards the chaise longue and lowered herself onto it.
A minute passed and the sick feeling vanished. The toilet flushed. Leo came out of the bathroom and leaned in the doorway.
“Look, I know those guys from home. They helped me when I first moved here – set me up with a room and a small place where I could paint. They gave me a start.” He was having difficulty speaking, like someone with a minor speech impediment. “Of course you won’t understand these things. You’ve never been in my situation. You don’t know what the life of a refugee is like. You have no flipping clue how it is to be displaced from your country, to wander hopelessly in a country you don’t know, not knowing where your next meal will come from or whether the next step you take is your last, to sleep on the pavement. You can’t possibly know. You South Africans have no idea how privileged you are to have the freedom and –”
“Leo, please, spare me the bullshit,” Princess said dryly. “I’m the last person to give the ‘Poor me, I’m an immigrant’ sermon.”
“Okay, baby. I haven’t heard from those guys since I moved out last year, and then out of nowhere they show up at the studio demanding money for helping me. It’s blackmail, I know, but I don’t want any trouble, you see. So I gave it to them. It was money in that package.”
Princess said nothing.
“I’m sorry for putting your life in danger. And I’m sorry I yelled at you. The most important thing is they’re out of my life for good. I promise.”
Princess didn’t speak. She kept her frozen stare on him.
“Baby, please talk to me.”
Finally she said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Leo Moyo, but let me make it clear to you now – I don’t want to be part of it. I will not tolerate drugs or other criminal activities in my house, you hear?” Her tone was icy and uncompromising, one reserved for uncooperative spouses, partners, fathers, brothers.
Leo was looking at her with a combination of hurt and contempt. It was a look she sometimes received from men who, out of shock or ignorance, couldn’t believe that a woman could be so vicious; the same men who sometimes called her a family breaker and a tight-ass feminist.
Princess opened the closet and pulled out a pair of khaki chinos and a white shirt. She was thankful for her low-maintenance, ready-to-go look because she couldn’t spend another minute with Leo. She left without saying another word.
Twenty minutes later she arrived at her office in Braamfontein, downtown Joburg. She was the only person there and was glad to have some time to reflect on the events shaping her life. Her eyes landed on a framed photograph next to her computer. It was her favourite photo of Leo, taken on the day they first met at a gallery in arty Melville.
Nandi, an art enthusiast and a collector, had read in the newspaper about the opening exhibition of Leonard Moyo, a twenty-something progressive Zimbabwean painter, and had suggested they attend. Princess was shamelessly clueless about art, and tagged along because her date, Juan, a super-sexy Spanish bartender she was dating – sleeping with, really – for nearly three weeks had cancelled on her at the last minute.
At the gallery, bored and listless, Princess had detached herself from her friends, who were engrossed in the paintings – caucusing, pointing, and nodding in unison as if uncovering the answers to life’s biggest mysteries – and had wandered around the room sipping the tepid champagne provided.
At that moment she couldn’t have been less concerned about Zimbabwe and its daily struggles. Her mind was on Juan. All week long she’d been busy, and she’d been looking forward to a relaxing Friday night with him, especially as it was his night off. He hardly ever got weekends off. She had made an extra effort to make their night memorable, a sizzler. She had bought a sexy red mesh camisole with ruffled feather trim and matching thong, and almond-scented massage oils. An hour before he was supposed to arrive, Juan had called and in his broken English told her he couldn’t make it. She had screamed at him, calling him all sorts of names under the sun, and told him never to call her again. A wasted night; what a fool!
Her thoughts were disturbed by clapping and shouting. “Yes, comrade!” The noise was coming from a crowd gathered in the far right-hand corner of the room. Someone, the comrade, was addressing the audience. Princess stopped and could hear bits of the speech.
“. . . confronts reality. I see my work as the voice of the silenced fellow countrymen . . . issues of involvement . . . issues not everyone is keen to talk about . . .” The voice was melodic and the words poetic. Out of curiosity, to match the face with the voice, she made her way towards the crowd. And there, in shoulder-length dreadlocks, snugly fitting jeans and a black T-shirt with UHURU printed across it in white, stood her lean, long-limbed saviour – the answer to her troubles. Freedom indeed, she thought. Without wasting time she pushed through the crowd, causing a small disturbance, until she got to the front. She watched the artist from up close, mesmerised. Such beauty, and at arm’s length!
“Excuse me, comrade,” Princess said, waving her hand. She was aware of the sudden silence, perhaps even disapproval, and could feel the audience’s eyes burrowing through her back. She smiled unapologetically; she was a lawyer.
The comrade artist stopped midway through his sentence and turned to face her.
“Yes, ma’am?” He wore a lovely expectant smile on his face.
“I just want to say I’m deeply moved by the intensity of your work.” She held his gaze with her expressive brown eyes. “I feel the pain and the suffering of your subjects. You’ve done a wonderful job. That’s all. Thank you.”
The comrade artist nodded politely and said thank you. Then he continued with his talk, but it wasn’t with the same oomph. He seemed to have lost the thread of what he was saying. Satisfied, Princess squeezed her way out of the crowd and went to find her friends, whistling. She made a mental note to thank Nandi for bringing her to the gallery. She knew it was merely a matter of time before the artist came looking for her. And he did, half an hour later.
Princess returned the photograph to its place and stared at the busy street three floors below. The pavements were clogged with wares of every description; a fruit-and-vegetable hawker harassed rushing passers-by by shoving her bright red apples into their faces, a man in a business suit was buying a cup of tea or coffee from a makeshift coffee stand close by. The city was coming to life and she was standing by watching, confused.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed Leo’s change in behaviour in recent weeks. He was staying out late – sometimes, as had been the case that morning, not coming home until the crack of dawn. She suspected he wasn’t painting as much; she no longer smelled the nutty smell of oil paint on his clothes or saw its traces under his nails, and his studio looked as if it hadn’t been used for weeks. And his mood swings! He was like a premenstrual female. Had he always been so easily irritated and defensive? Princess wondered. She had decided not to interfere; perhaps he was experiencing a case of painter’s block. Yet she couldn’t brush aside the thought that Leo was possibly