The Boy Next Door (31 page)

David struggles a bit with the ancient turnstile but finally manages to get through.

And then, as it happens ever so often, after pushing myself through the turnstile, I step into
Rhodesia:
an enclave of immaculate nostalgia.

Oh, time stand still
and it does.

Heads turn. Eyes dart up and down. Thoughts sharpened, mulled over, whispered into glossed lips.

School gave me enough practice.

“David, do you want to change with me?”

“No.”

I point him towards the children’s changing room, and I stand there watching my growing son rush off, on his own.

I choose a cubicle with a red door and squeeze myself into the very unbecoming swimsuit that smells so musty, and I’m overwhelmed
by a sudden heady rush of the torture of school swim days, where the only way to get out of them was to feign severe period
pains. I must look ridiculous. I should have bought a new one, too. But I
never
swim. Still, it’s embarrassing to be wearing this tatty thing. I wrap my Zimbabwean flag towel (why, oh why, did I bring
this threadbare relic here
,
Daddy’s purchase to mark Zimbabwe’s Independence Day).

“You took
sooooo
long, Mum!” complains David who’s been running up and down the pathway, poking his head under doors, looking for me.

We pass two girls on the veranda flicking through magazines who both stop, give me the once-over.

Come on, I can do this.

David jumps and splashes in the water. I marvel at how athletic he has become. He won a gold medal for the breaststroke at
the school’s intersports this year.

I give him twenty dollars, and he goes off to buy chips and cream sodas at the kiosk.

I’m lying on the grass, my towel wrapped over my breasts like a chitenga, when a shadow falls on me.

“So you’re not even jumping in, what a wuss.”

Ian sits down next to me, and I glimpse the girls on the veranda shooting us looks and chattering away.

“I almost drowned once at school.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and I almost drowned another student, my rescuer. I was swimming in the shallow end and drifted off to the deep end;
when I tried to put my feet down, panic station.”

“And your PE teacher?”

“She had to jump in, fully clothed, wasn’t at all amused.”

He puts his hands behind his head. He takes a look around.

“Best pool in Bullies. Makes North End look like a fricking pond. I reckon it’s Olympic size, this one. Used to come here
for interschools. Some lighties would have towel fights and jeez, man, the warden would throw a major kadenze, threatening
to chuck everyone out of the pool and ban the whole lot of us.”

“Dad!”

“So, my boy, this is what you do when I’m not around, heh, cream sodas, chips, man…”

I watch the girls on the veranda transfixed. Ian looks up at them.

“You forget this place when you’re up in Harare; a village, everyone into everyone’s business.”

“Watch, Dad, watch. Check this dive, from the top one.”

And he’s already running off.

“David, I don’t think…!”

“Leave him, Lindiwe.”

“Do you think he should wear sunscreen?”

“Sunscreen! Man, that was for moffs.”

“Ian!”

“What? No one put that stuff on when I was a kid; come to think of it, sometimes we’d really get fried and then we’d just
slather on margarine. Boy, did that hurt.”

David climbs up the stairs of the high diving board. He gives us a wave when he reaches the top.

“I wish he wouldn’t. I could never do that.”

“To tell you the truth Lindiwe, me neither; I’m shit scared of heights.”

David, our son, knees tucked up to his chest, whoops and jumps fearlessly into the water.

He shakes the water off his body and goes up again.

“The old man was a heck of a swimmer. Told some stories about swimming across rivers underwater to ambush the terrs. Watched
him once here swimming a whole length underwater. Hardcore.”

“What are you going to do, about the house?”

“I don’t even want to think about it; man, did I give them a fright.”

The girls leave the veranda and come down to the pool. They choose a patch of grass a couple of meters from us. They pull
over their tunics and parade their bikini-clad bodies. They jump gracefully in the water. I look at Ian.

“So, I reckon I’ll just leave it.”

The girls climb out of the water, spread their bodies on the concrete, put their fingers under their bikini bottoms, snap
them back into place.

I think of Bridgette and me at Geraldine’s house.

David comes dripping water on us, and he and Ian have a fight with the towel, pulling and tugging at it until they’re both
rolling on the grass.

The girls turn their heads.

And a single thought erupts in my head.

He’s mine!

No, two.

So there!

The drums beat throughout the entire night.

“They are trying to chase away the bad spirits,” says Rosanna.

In the deep darkness I lie on my childhood bed next to David. Ian’s stormed off. He can’t bear to stay near the house; he’s
over at the Holiday Inn.

I lie listening to David’s breathing, and the drums until I fall asleep.

“Sisi! Sisi! Sisi!”

Rosanna’s screams pierce through my sleep. She is standing in the doorway, clutching her head.

“Sisi!”

“What? What? What is it? Rosanna!”

“They are crying, she is dead. She is dead. She is dead.”

“Who? Who? Rosanna, who?”

“Oh, oh, mai weh! Mai weh!”

“Rosanna!”

“Maphosa’s wife. Maphosa’s wife. She is dead. Oh, oh. Ufile. Ufile. She is dead. Mai weh. Mai weh.”

We check that the doors are locked, all the windows closed, the curtains drawn. After some moments, I think to phone the Holiday
Inn.

“Ian, you have to come and get us quick. Maphosa’s wife has died during the night.”

“Shit, shit. I’m there. Five minutes.”

*    *    *

Rosanna can’t stay still. She starts hitting her upper arms with her palms, moaning, groaning, in the hallway. And then banging
her head rhythmically on the wall.

“Rosanna, stop. Please, stop. Rosanna, go and see if Daddy’s fine. Go.”

David sits on his bed, his eyes scanning the walls in the dim light.

“Are they coming to kill us, Mum?”

“No, no, don’t be silly.”

“Did Dad kill her?”

“Kill? Who? Maphosa’s wife? Of course not, David. She was sick.”

“Why didn’t she go to the hospital?”

“I don’t know, David. Sometimes people are afraid to go to hospital.”

“Maybe it was too dark.”

“Yes, maybe that was it.”

“Is Dad coming?”

“Yes, so we have to get ready. Let’s get dressed, okay?”

He nods solemnly. “Yes, Mum.”

My ears are strained to hear, catch any sound, but the morning seems very still.

No bird. No dogs. No cars. No screaming. No chanting. No drums.

The tense expectation of something terrible, retribution. Biblical words resound in my head:
Vengeance. Is. Mine. Saith. The. Lord.

Then a sound so loud, so catastrophic that either the house is being shaken at its foundation or The Lord has Spoken.

Thunder.

Only thunder.

Rolls of it, one after the other, as though God doth speaketh.

The slow patter of rain on the red tiles of the roof soon turns into a roaring barrage. We are Noah, in the ark, tossed about
in the tumultuous waves of God. El Niño is being banished for this one moment by greater, stronger spirits, Amadhlozi. The
spirit world is in mighty turmoil, uproar.

I find Rosanna under Daddy’s bed, her hands clasped over her ears, whimpering, “Eh, eh, eh… Amadhlozi, Amadhlozi…”

I lie on the bed with Daddy (and David sideways, at our feet), two question marks on the bedspread, lulled by Rosanna’s moans
until finally Ian comes.

We drive in the storm in our getaway car, fugitives, fugitives from justice. Off, off, away we go, all along the familiar
landmarks, all the way up until we reach the Harare Road, all the way to Cement Side, and there we are at last surging on
the open road. The rain pouring down, smashing into the metal of the roof, so fragile it seems the torrent could so easily
crush us.

It’s so cold in this car.

“Lindiwe,” I hear Ian, “you’re shivering.”

The car swoops and swoons, the road plays with the car, and the rain tumbles, relentless.

Ian stops the car, puts his hand on my forehead. “Jeez, you’re burning. Shit, I hope it’s not malaria.”

“Is Mum sick?” I hear from far, far away and I don’t hear Ian’s answer.

I feel Ian parting my lips, pouring rain into them. “Easy, Lindiwe, not so fast.”

The rain has gone and now it’s the sun beating fiercely, terribly on me, us. It wants to burn us up, twist the metal.

“I’m too hot, I’m too hot,” I say over and over, and I don’t know if anyone hears or understands for suddenly I am no longer
there, but running as fast as I can, something dark and rapid snapping at my heels.

Lindiwe, Lindiwe, it’s me, Ian. Lindiwe, you’re dreaming, it’s a dream
…

And I’m scrambling, clawing myself out of the earth, breathing, gasping, flash, eyes, wide, open, shut…

Lindiwe, it’s me.

… Eyes open, flash…

“Ian,” I say. “Ian,” I say in the still, still room.

“Has it stopped raining?” I ask him.

“Jeez, man, you’ve been out for two days.”

My lips, dry, hot.

“And Lindiwe,” he says. “You’re pregnant.”

And there, here, he is, with the widest, flashiest, whitest smile, as if he is on a Colgate extra-strength advertisement or
he is a crocodile or a hyena or a shark, something, something that will gnash its whitest teeth, eat me whole.

But three weeks later, the baby dies.

It could be anything.

The fever, a genetic defect, stress, fright at the all too white Colgate smile….

He (in my head, it is a he) comes out in drips and drabs, throughout the day.

I go to the Bronte, rent a room.

No, Ian, I want to be… alone.

And standing, in the bathtub, legs apart; hands pressed against the wall, on my stomach; lips clenched tight, not a cry, not
a single cry.

Ian’s baby.

My baby.

David’s brother.

Wordlessly (no, there’s
Kojak
on the TV, sound turned low), disappears.

And then I drink.

Half a whole bottle of red full-bodied wine.

And pour the rest in the drain.

Rosanna phones to say that the war vets have left.

“Sisi,” she says, “Mother has come back. She is now at church.”

“
Sorry, I’m late
, Bridgette,” I say, sitting down.

“Don’t do that, Lins.”

“Do what?”

“
That.
Checking for symptoms. I’m fine. The pills are working. My blood platelet count is good. So relax. I’m not about to D-I-E.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And don’t do that, either. It’s irritating, you being sorry all the time.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Be yourself.”

We order two cappuccinos.

“So where’ve you been, Lins? I don’t see much of you these days.”

“I’ve just come from the German embassy. I got a big contract.”

“Doing what?”

It’s difficult for me to tell her that I’ll be writing pamphlets on AIDS prevention.

“They’re even sending me to Uganda next week. They’re way ahead of us in tackling the… the epidemic.”

“Lindiwe, excuse me, but this sounds like it’s going to be another well-intentioned but futile exercise.”

“What do you mean? It’s going to educate, get people talking about it, focus on—”

“Oh please, Lins, that’s so tired. Educate who? Do you think it’s actually going to change anything? Who’s going to read them?
And do you honestly think African men are going to accept condoms? And also, which Zimbabwean is going to come up and say,
‘I have AIDS’? That’s a pipe dream, anything but—tuberculosis, pneumonia, a long illness, whatever. Don’t even go there, do
something real with your brains, please.”

“Real? Like what?”

I’m trying so hard not to look at her, not to give her
that
look. I wish I hadn’t brought up the subject.

“Bridgette, there has to be a start,” I say softly.

“A start! A start, maybe when it’s infected all the government ministers, their wives, their girlfriends, their sons, daughters,
maybe then, but don’t hold your breath. For now it’s you go and see a nyanga who tells you all’s fine, you just have to go
and rape a virgin and you’ll be as good as new.”

Her voice is trembling with contempt, anger.

She jerks her head back and then gives me a bright smile.

“Look Lins, look who’s just landed, over to the left. Mr. Black Empowerment himself. That loud shiny suit of his probabely
matches his Pajero.”

“Shush, Bridgette.”

“And there he goes with the latest cell phone, and now we are all going to get bombarded with his First-Class business deals.
God help us if this is what indigenization means.”

“Bridgette! You’ll get us arrested.”

“Don’t worry girl, I have connections. By the way, guess who I bumped into in London on my last trip? One of the old schoolgirls
who gapped it.”

“Who?”

“That Geraldine girl.”

“Oh, her.”

“Yes, and it was at Tooting Bec tube station of all places. I was coming back from the market with all the hair extensions
I’d bought, and there she is by the ticket machine.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Of course, my dear. My word did she look haggard. She lives in Tooting, and I’m telling you, Lindiwe, Tooting is no Matsheumhlope,
a long, long way away from swimming pools, gazebos, and whatever else they had going down there. Remember those boys at her
party?”

“Yes.”

“So, how’s your Mr. Howzit? I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“He’s good. Since he won that big award in the States with his pictures of the Nigerian oil delta and the rebels there, he’s
the man. Everyone wants him; actually, he’s supposed to go to Bosnia next week, but I think he’s tired of all the running
around. He’s thinking of doing more studio work.”