Someone Wishes to Speak to You (20 page)

Chief Jeremiah Chidzikwee lived in a small, whitewashed bungalow with a red-painted corrugated-iron roof, within the midst of an assortment of thatch-plumed windowless
rondavels
. The
kraals
were surrounded by the ubiquitous poultry, enjoying dust baths or scratching the earth in an attempt to locate any previously overlooked morsels. As Mathew’s Land Rover drew up in front of the chief’s house, an assortment of skinny mongrel dogs got up from their midday slumbers in the shade to start a chorus of barking, while a number of scantily dressed children gathered around the vehicle to see who had arrived within their midst. Two spiky acacia trees stood like sentries on either side of the steps leading up to the small, mosquito-netted veranda, and a boulder-strewn tall
kopje
acted as a backdrop to the bungalow, flanked on either side by tall strands of yellow elephant grass.

Edgar introduced Mathew to his father at the foot of the steps. ‘
Mangwanani
,’ said Mathew, making the traditional Shona greeting. The chief took his hand in a vice-like grip and led him into the bungalow. ‘Meet Emmanuel, my eldest son,’ said Chief Chidzikwee in a clear English accent (which came as a relief to Mathew as his limited Manyika would not have allowed a very fluent conversation). He went on to introduce a number of his extended family, although there were no women present. ‘Can I offer you a glass of the
village-brewed “seven days” beer?’ asked the chief. ‘We make it by simmering maize and rapoon millet with well water. Or you may prefer a bottle of the European Castle lager – it doesn’t taste as good, but it’s up to you.’ Wishing to be as polite as possible, Mathew opted somewhat apprehensively for a glass of the home-brewed ‘seven days’ beer, in the hope that it would be sufficiently palatable for him to consume without any undue mishap.

The chief was a well-built man, over six feet tall with skin as dark as coal and eyes set back in deep sockets of loose skin. He was wearing a Western-style navy-blue pinstriped suit, a white shirt with a maroon silk tie with a matching handkerchief loosely hanging out of his top pocket. His highly polished black shoes demonstrated how well he wished to present himself when he was receiving a respected visitor. Edgar had said that he had told his father a great deal about why Mathew was in Manicaland, and why he had decided to undertake his studies in Castle Beacon, but despite this, the chief maintained a steady flow of questions.

At the start of their conversation, Mathew found it quite unnerving that the chief’s rather bloodshot eyes never for one moment left his own, set as they were in deep sockets behind the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses. Mathew found it impossible to decipher the chief’s expressions in order to identify his mood or his thoughts. ‘So tell me,’ asked the chief, ‘what is your main reason for having chosen the Vumba Mountains for your studies?’ He could not help feeling that his host was trying to establish whether his reason for being in this border region with Mozambique was genuine, or whether he was carrying out his field investigation as a front to cover the fact that he was subversively involved with counter-insurgency activities with the BSAP, or acting as an agent reporting to the Umtali headquarters of the CIO and the RLI.

‘The rest of you, go now. I wish to speak alone with Dr
Duncan,’ said the chief to his sons and other family as he refilled Mathew’s glass for the second time. Once the others had left, the chief came straight to the point. ‘When you first arrived and set up camp, I received a brief report about you from one of my Shona/Manyika tribal informers. I read that on your arrival in Rhodesia, you stayed in Salisbury at the residence of the UK Senior Representative in Rhodesia; you have been seen with the Curator of the Victoria Museum; you had a meeting with a professor at the University of Rhodesia; and before you came here, you did some field work in Zaire. I have now received a subsequent report about you, which states that while you were studying at a university in the USA you were actively involved in the Civil Rights movement. You are known to be a liberal-minded European.’

Mathew was extremely surprised to hear such a résumé of his background, but considered at this stage of his relationship with the chief that it would be inappropriate to ask him where and from whom he had managed to glean so much correct information. As the chief revealed to his guest just how much he already knew about his background, he carefully watched Mathew’s every reaction to what he said. Chief Chidzikwee suddenly moved his chair closer and, staring straight at Mathew, said, ‘Does your presence in Manicaland have any other objectives but those connected with your academic studies?’ Mathew quickly responded to this politically loaded question.

‘Chief Chidzikwee, as with my time in Zaire – where I was also fortunate enough to be granted a visa and a permit to undertake field work – I had been preoccupied with my PhD studies and did not wish in any way to become involved with the politics of a foreign country. . . I always share the results of my research activities with the relevant authorities of the country in which I’m studying.’ After a slight pause, the chief rose from his chair, grabbed Mathew’s right hand firmly with both of his and enthusiastically pumped it up
and down. ‘Everything my son Edgar has told me about you is true! He calls you his young eccentric British gentleman of a friend, whose only apparent interest in life appears to be the monkeys that he spends so much of his time studying.’

Before Emmanuel and Edgar rejoined their father and Mathew on the veranda, the chief mentioned in the strictest of confidence his concern about the increased level of terrorist insurgency from across the border. ‘Some of ZANLA’s freedom fighters have started to come in to the villages of the region, putting pressure on some of the younger members of the tribal communities in Manicaland to become directly involved with their terrorist activities. Ten months ago Herbert Chitepo, the National Chairman of ZANU, was murdered – I was educated with him at St Augustine’s Mission School at Penhalonga. As far as I am concerned, Chitepo’s death was the consequence of the mutual suspicions among the tribal groups within ZANU. His murder represents the climax of the struggle for power between the Manyika and Karanga Shona tribes; his death has led to the Karanga becoming supreme in the party’s command.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Chief Chidzikwee. It’s a worrying situation.’

‘It is indeed . . . And because it’s getting worse, I think it’s important that we should keep in touch with each other through Edgar. Should ZANLA freedom fighters become active in the Vumba region, I will ask Edgar to keep a close eye on your safety at Castle Beacon.’ Chief Chidzikwee’s final gesture of farewell was to grasp Mathew’s hand in his vice-like grip and to say, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you in the future, you have only to ask.’

On leaving the village, Edgar’s face was a picture of happiness. ‘My father is very much impressed by meeting you. He thanked me for giving him the opportunity to meet you – a genuinely honest, courteous and nice Englishman.’

‘And I’d like to thank you,’ replied Mathew, ‘for the
opportunity to meet your father. He’s a very important man, and I know very few visitors would get the chance to talk to him face to face. It’s a great honour.’

‘He said that now he has had the chance to talk to you in private, he is confident that your presence here is totally connected with your academic studies, for one of his informers had warned him that you could be here to carry out subversive activities on behalf of Rhodesia’s security forces. And . . .’ added Edgar rather sheepishly, ‘he’s made me promise that during these troublesome times, I must keep a watchful eye on the future safety and welfare of his new and first-ever European friend.’

Just before leaving the TTL of Mutasa North, Edgar requested Mathew to stop at a small gathering of thatch-plumed dwellings in order to introduce him to a cousin of his, the village headman, Gabriel Nkulu. Gabriel welcomed them into his quite spacious, windowless
rondavel
, and almost immediately presented them with two steaming mugs of over-sweetened local black coffee and a bowl of home-made
sadza
, a mixture of mealie and pumpkin. Mathew found the
rondavel
similar to those of the Pygmy trackers that he had visited near to the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. It was built from the mud of anthills, the floor made by mixing cowpats with water, which sets as smooth and as solid as concrete. In the centre of the floor was a round hearth with a charcoal fire, its smoke managing to gradually find its way through the dried-elephant grass thatched roof. Edgar acted as translator so that the others could converse, discussing Mathew’s studies and Gabriel’s duties as headman of the village.

Later, as they drove away from Mutasa North, the shadows of the eucalyptus trees fell across the corrugated brown earthen roadway, which had started to turn crimson as the sun sank on the horizon. Just as they regained the tarmac road leading into Umtali, Mathew experienced his first road block, manned by a European BSAP Superintendent and two African police
officers. Although the Superintendent was polite in asking Mathew for his identity papers, he noticed the brusque tone that one of the African officers used in dealing with Edgar. He was surprised by the extra interest the police showed when Mathew told the Superintendent that they had just been visiting Edgar’s father, Chief Chidzikwee, but before long they were permitted to continue on their way.

During Mathew’s first eighteen months in the country, as he was almost totally absorbed in his observations of the Stairs’ and vervet monkey family groups, he had only visited Salisbury occasionally. His first return to the capital was to give his promised talk at the symposium called ‘Our Endangered Environment’, about his field studies of the eastern lowland gorillas.

As the symposium had been organised by the Zoology Department of the University of Rhodesia, Mathew was concerned about the nature of some of the questions that he might receive after having presented his paper. Instead of being directed at some of the academic aspects of his behavioural studies, the majority related to what he considered the relationship was between the indigenous African populations and the European; in particular those who had lived in the Belgian Congo prior to its independence, and who had experienced some of the massacres that had taken place in the early 1960s in the Kivu province.

However, Mathew found the majority of the three-day symposium to have been a great success, as some of the presentations provided him with a much better understanding of the pressures to which Rhodesia’s wildlife was currently being subjected. In particular, the slaughter of endangered species, like the black rhinoceros suffering from the increased presence of terrorist insurgents in the Zambezi Valley and within the protected areas of the country’s national parks. He had
also been able to make a number of additional useful contacts as some of the meetings had not only had been attended by the Willocks (with whom he was staying), Michael Lamb, Addie, Simon and Anna Vaughan-Jones and some of Simon’s Victoria Museum staff, but also by a cross-section of university students, national park staff, conservationists, veterinarians, academics, politicians (Europeans), environ mentalists, and even by two of the Arcturus farmers, John and Juliet Stobart, whom he had previously met with the Kinlochs at the Leopard Rock Hotel.

During the majority of Mathew’s subsequent visits to Salisbury he accepted the hospitality of the Vaughan-Jones, whose home was in the attractive upmarket estate in the Gunhill district of Salisbury. The three of them shared so many common interests in natural history, in particular their respective studies in primate social behaviour, that they became close friends. Anna was delighted to compare data between Mathew’s field observations on his habituated vervet family of approximately twenty-five individuals at Castle Beacon, with the smaller family group that she was studying in a semi-naturalistic environment within the grounds of the museum.

As a result of their friendship, Simon and Anna visited his Castle Beacon site on several occasions and were enthralled by the way Stairs’ and vervet monkeys interacted with each other while foraging in the same trees. They were fascinated to observe the way the vervets managed to extract the gum of acacia trees by tearing at the bark with their canines, and how they appeared to be rather inept at catching and handling insects. As Anna had been working on the way her captive vervet monkey colony communicated with each other, she had been particularly interested to see the way the troops of vervets in their wild state always appeared to have ‘lookouts’ stationed around them, in order to warn the rest of troop should any danger present itself.

During one of Simon and Anna’s initial visits to the Vumba, the benefits of such a precautionary regime had been perfectly
demonstrated. When one of the vervet sentinels saw a python slithering through the long grass of a clearing where they had been foraging, it had immediately stood up on its hind feet and screeched an alarm call before quickly following the rest of the troop to the safety of the nearby trees. On another occasion, when the monkeys were feeding on berries in the forest canopy, they saw a tawny eagle swoop down in an attempt to pluck a juvenile vervet from the end of a branch. One of the sentinels immediately used a different alarm call to the one that had been used for the python; as soon as the group heard this, they withdrew to the thicker foliage of the canopy, into which the tawny eagle would find it more difficult to swoop. If it had tried, it would have risked damaging its wings. Anna was particularly thrilled to witness both of these as she had been able to record both of the alarm calls.

During Mathew’s second stay with the Vaughan-Jones, they organised a
braai
(barbecue) in the grounds of the museum. ‘Mathew, you must meet Jan,’ said Anna, enjoying her role as the attentive hostess, introducing her guests. ‘She lives near us on the Gunhill estate and she’s one of my closest friends.’

Mathew was immediately struck by the loveliness of the woman that Anna was steering him towards. She was tall and willowy, with long, slender legs and the elegant frame of an athlete. As Jan turned towards Mathew, he saw the beauty of her fine cheekbones, framed by a soft curtain of blonde hair. ‘Jan, this is Mathew,’ smiled Anna. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ said Mathew rather formally, reaching out to shake her hand. He felt suddenly gauche, his usual self-confidence abandoning him momentarily as he was quite literally left speechless by the beauty of the woman standing in front of him. Anna had to rush off almost immediately to attend to some other guests, leaving Jan and Mathew to talk. Although the exchange was rather stilted to begin with, the ice soon broke and they were deep in conversation.