All That It Ever Meant, page 9
We are on the small beach of the island, keeping a beady eye for crocodiles and other wildlife, after a really nice lunch, with cake in honor of Tana’s birthday. Somehow, Baba managed to arrange that with the captain before we came; I’m beginning to realize this trip wasn’t just an impromptu decision for him because of some big fight. It’s crazy how one thing can take you in a direction of thought that’s not even the truth. Now that the effects of the Big Fight have worn off, I can see everything more clearly.
Anyway, we are told to get back on the boat without delay because there are lions in the area. Imagine! Actual lions roaming about in the place where we were hanging about having drinks and things. But as if that weren’t enough of the surreal, we watch as the lions take down a kudu, three of them. It’s brutal and strangely beautiful to see with our own eyes something we’ve only ever seen on television. My heart is hammering. Tana is outside of himself completely—he asks Baba to put him on his shoulders so he can record on the phone. No one moves on that top deck, I’m not even sure if we are all still breathing for the time it takes to bring the animal down. The sounds make the hairs all over my body rise like I’m also in danger. Chichi digs her nails into Baba’s arm, whispering, “Dad! Dad! Oh my gosh!” the whole time.
That’s the end of getting off the boat for us, because after that comes hyenas. We don’t see them, just hear them in the bushes. One of the guides on the boat tells us that lions and hyenas are enemies for life, like street gangs, because they’re always coming onto each other’s turf. Tana wants to see a fight between them, “Baba, that would be really brilliant!” he says. He looks like a kid who’s eaten a whole bunch of spiked sugar or something, like he could take off flying any minute: overly bright eyes, looking like he’s running a fever. He’s been given his whole life today.
“Look, Baba!” He’s playing his video. We all lean in. It’s surprisingly good quality, I would have thought he’d be all shaky and the picture blurry, but it turns out the boy has skills. Go Tana!
He actually looks a year older. Beaming, he presses replay on the video. There’s no denying him his eleven years today. It’s like on this trip he’s growing in real time.
It’s been gorgeous weather since we’ve been here and today is no exception. The sky is open and endless, the sun is warm without being too hot and sometimes there’s a nice breeze blowing. Chichi and Kwaku are sitting across from each other at one of the outdoor tables on the deck and Baba is having a drink with the other men. What’s funny is that everyone joined in for Tana’s birthday so it was like an actual party, only with strangers who are friends because of being in such close quarters together. It was nice, really easy and light. But for me, it wasn’t his best birthday.
When Tana turned eight Mama cooked the biggest, best feast of a birthday. We had all his friends and some of ours as well. All day the party spilled from the house into the yard. I don’t know how Mama did it—the decorations, the food, I mean she cooked and planned for a whole two weeks. It was so much fun because for that day there didn’t seem to be any rules. Us older children ran riot, playing music and dancing, Chichi and her friends put makeup on and spritzed and primped all day, and when it was all over we were exhausted and the house was a mess. Tana was knocked out. Baba had to go to an emergency. We started to clean up but Mama said leave it, we’ll do it later, let’s have a break. She made our favorite mixed sugar and salted popcorn—a big bowl. She shut the doors to outside, pulled a throw from the sofa, and said sit. Me and Chichi, we sat on either side of her, ate popcorn, and watched an eighties movie called The Last Dragon, and then Coming to America. Mama loved Eddie Murphy. We weren’t really paying all our attention to the movie, we were talking a lot about what had happened during the day, what was happening in the movie, and laughing at Mama when she told us how Baba had “courted” her. We laughed mainly at the word “courted.” She said, “Of course he did. He was so forward but also very charming and sweet and patient.” This made us laugh even more. Baba! “What would you know, you guys just say, ‘Hey what’s up, what’s up!’” I don’t know why but all this was so hilarious. Me and Chichi laughed so much we rolled off the sofa and into each other’s arms on the floor. Then for some reason we started throwing popcorn at each other. It was a mess and we left it like that. By the time we woke up the next morning, Mama had cleaned everything and we went back to our routine of good day, bad day.
“You see how you are?”
I almost cry out in happiness. Meticais!
“You’re back!”
“I never went anywhere.”
“You’ve been quite absent.”
“I’ve been unobtrusive, there’s a difference.”
“Why?”
“Is a letter that comes after X and before Z.”
It takes me a brief second.
“Ahh, come on, don’t be like that. And anyway, that’s a really old one.” I laugh because it’s just a really silly joke.
They shrug. “All this time I’ve been asking for you to tell me another part of the story and you start it when I’m not there. I see what you’re doing though, you wanted me to come back.”
They smirk and wink. “I got your number, kid.”
Today they are dressed in a long orange smock with a beaded leather waistcoat. Their dreads are caked in red ochre again and there is a pair of ginormous rhinestone studded sunglasses on their face. Dangling from one ear is a blingy chandelier earring and on the other side, a cascade of beaten silver rings joined together. The bejeweled rings are back on every finger and the ganky pipe is in one hand.
“You’re smoking again.”
“What sharp eyes you have.”
I give them stank eye, and they laugh. “I missed it—my pipe. Started asking why I should put myself through missing something if I didn’t absolutely have to.”
“I guess there’s enough things to miss because you have no choice, no point in making things harder for yourself if there’s no real need.”
“You’re beginning to miss her now, aren’t you? You haven’t wanted to talk about yourself in the story because you know you’re angry too, and you feel like it’s too much if you and Chichi are both acting out. You don’t have to be the sensible one, you know. I thought you were the one who didn’t hold on to things.”
“That’s different,” I say. I’m wondering why I even thought I missed Meticais.
“I don’t have to be here, you know.”
“So go.”
“I could, but I already packed for the trip and I didn’t bring all these looks out here for nothing.”
“Where do you come from, anyway?”
“You tell me.”
“Ugh!” I honestly can’t be bothered with them sometimes.
“Oh, it’s okay for you to be saucy with me, but with everyone else you play the good girl.”
“I do not.”
“Oh yeah! Chichi did this, Chichi did that, Tana is like this, Tana is like that. Me, I’m perfect.”
“Go away, honestly, just go away and this time don’t come back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I never said I was perfect. In fact I can be a bit of hard work, just in a different way than Chichi. For instance, even though I don’t follow the rules of the way things are, I really don’t like it when people break the rules we’ve agreed on together. Fair is fair.
I go to a special after-school program twice a week, because the teachers say I think differently from a lot of people. Some things make perfect sense to me and others don’t. I have to practice letting them make sense and we do mental exercises there that help to make my thoughts work with those of everyone else. They also give me puzzles and things that test to see how much I know that they don’t know. On these days, Mama usually picks me up. After the program—in fact that’s what it’s called, The Program—we sometimes go and have coffee and cake.
This day, we went to a café she liked where she was friends with the chef. It was warmly lit in there and it made me feel like I was somewhere really special, but in a way that wasn’t complicated. You could be yourself there, any way you wanted to be, and feel right at home. Mama looked through her menu for a long time then ordered lemonade for both of us and Caesar salad with chicken and bacon chips—sometimes it’s more than coffee and cake—then she looked at me for a long time and I looked back at her.
“What people don’t know about you is that you like to tell stories but you’re not a great talker. It’s a strange thing, you would think that one can’t be without the other, but somehow you seem to do it.”
“It’s because the stories are real. If I just talk then it’s only bits and pieces, like I’m leaking stuff. I need to put it all together first.”
“I hope,” she said, and stopped to think first about how to say what she hoped. “I hope that you will find someone who understands how special you are. Complicated, interesting, and so . . .”
“So what?” She stroked my face and hummed a little hmm.
“Your father had that same look in his eyes, like he knew things. It made me want to know him.”
“And did you?”
“That’s the thing,” she said, “one of the things he knew turned out to be me. That’s what drew me to him, he knew me.”
I knew then that what she was saying was, sometimes what we see in others is what we’re looking for in ourselves. She wanted him to help her to know herself the way he knew her, but that’s the thing: if she couldn’t find it out for herself, no matter what he told her, he might as well have been speaking a language she would never understand.
Another time, completely out of the blue, she said, “Never sleep with a boy if you don’t know that he will be nice to you the next time you see him.” I wasn’t sure it was the time to tell me about sleeping with boys, but Mama was like that—she could be really random. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. When we fell in love with Armando, I never once thought of anything other than just feeling in love. I liked how it felt and that was the whole thing for me. Maybe because it was easy to leave the other feelings to Caroline. It felt like he was hers anyway, so I didn’t have any responsibility for that part. She didn’t sleep with him—it was tough but we realized he never liked her like that. He only kissed her, on both cheeks all the time, as if he was saying hello or goodbye to his aunt or grandmother. We didn’t care though. It was contact and we felt like we were flying those days. Sometimes I’m not sure of my sanity when it comes to the story of Armando. It seems crazy and the feelings were wild, but I think what it really was, was safe. When it’s not your story, you can be in it however you want and it won’t just about kill you when it goes wrong and it’s easy to talk about.
I don’t even break my stride now. I know it like I know my next thought, Meticais is here.
“She should have told Chichi that about boys.”
“How do you know she didn’t?” they say.
I shrug.
“She would have listened, I think. It was the way Mama said it to me that made me believe her. Chichi thinks she’s really cool but we can’t help ourselves, there are some things Mama and Baba say that don’t leave us even when we think we’re being rebels.”
“Is that so?”
“You know it’s so. Isn’t that why they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”
“I don’t know, you tell me,” they say.
“I’m telling you,” I say.
“Okay then.”
“How come you’re back, anyway? We had a tiff and I told you to go away.”
“But I didn’t, did I? See? Here I still am.”
I can’t help it, I laugh. I really don’t understand this person but for some reason it’s comforting to know that there is someone around me who is this unfettered. Things that exist outside boundaries give me comfort, not things that are within boundaries trying to break out. It’s too much conflict, it makes me anxious. Sometimes I feel like two people—one who has to walk within the lines and another who doesn’t know about lines. The two don’t really work unless they stay back to back and do what works on their side.
“I’ve never been more or less than what I am,” Meticais says, “I have always just been.”
“Lucky you,” I say. I don’t even bother to ask again where they come from and what their life might be like there. I am starting to understand that the reason they are hanging around me is not about them. They are waiting for something and it’s got to do with the story I’ve been telling. I’m having a faraway feeling that I know what it is and it’s making my heart do the thing I don’t like.
“I have to go and join the game of cards,” I say, and I get up from the sofa to go out onto the deck.
“Is that right?”
“Yes,” I say, “that’s exactly right.”
The boat trip doesn’t pace itself. After Tana’s birthday and Chichi’s shenanigans of the night before, not much else happens. We play cards, we eat, the adults have drinks and talk about things in the world, we hang out, read, play games on our phones, watch the water. Kwaku is actually nice and funny. There’s no more funny business with him and Chichi. It’s like she’s stopped throwing herself against walls inside herself, she’s really calm and they seem to be becoming real friends. Kwame and Tana have the run of the boat, having the time of their lives. The night is uneventful, everyone stays in their beds, and we arrive at Kariba in the morning. Lo and behold, our truck is there to meet us. We have such a laugh. For some reason we’d thought that the last we’d see of it was when we left it at Binga, but Dad hired someone to drive it to Kariba for us while we were on the houseboat.
We drive to the dam wall and walk for a bit, looking at how high up from the water we are. It’s nothing special, but it feels strange after being two days on water, to be back on land, like everything is tilting. I like how it feels—like nothing is sure or determined and at any moment the ground could tip you right up and off. When things around me aren’t fully decided of themselves like this, it makes me happy because it means if you don’t like how something is, it can possibly change.
Meticais is on the dam with us, but they act like they don’t know me. They walk down the length of the bridge and back with a bright yellow cloak floating behind them, as if they’re on a runway. Their dreads are coiled up and entwined in a huge crown of sunflowers, eyes behind very big dark sunglasses. They have a Nyaminyami walking stick with a blingy gold head and this, they hold aloft like a scepter. I try to hail them but they sweep past me in a cloud of fragrance that smells fresh and green. It even smells yellow, don’t ask me how, it just does.
We don’t stay long after that, shops and things are not quite open. Baba stops at a service station to fuel up and buy water and drinks from the kiosk.
“What a change from the luxury of Changamire. But it also kind of feels like home.” Chichi sighs as she shoves her bags under the bench that’s become her bed and general living quarters. Baba gets in the driver’s seat, Tana is up front with him. He calls through the partition, “All good back there? We’re on the move!” And off we go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ON my bench, trying to read, I doze off to the rumble of the truck. We’re going to the last place on Baba’s itinerary. Tana called Bingo yesterday when he saw a wildebeest from the deck of the houseboat. It wasn’t really fair because he had a pair of binoculars that Kwame’s father let them use, but that was his luck, I guess. The prize is fifty pounds. Baba said he would get it when we get back to England.
It’s funny, I almost said, when we get back home, but it felt wrong somehow. I was born there, lived there, but for some reason I’ve been thinking of Zimbabwe as home for a long time and we don’t even have a home here. I think it’s because Mama and Baba also think of it as home. “I’m going home for two weeks,” Mama would say. “I have to go home for a week or so,” Baba would say, “there are some things I need to sort out.” There were always things that needed sorting out here. Back in England things seem to always be sorted. “No wahala,” as Femi—a girl in my class—would say. No big deal.
I look out when the truck slows and stops. There’s a police roadblock. I wonder what they’re looking for. In the movies the roadblock is always to catch a fugitive or something, but here, every time we’ve stopped it’s to check if we have a hundred things, including a fire extinguisher ee tee cee ee tee cee. Sometimes the cops just want to chitchat. They literally just chat for five or so minutes, asking where we’re going, where the truck is from, is it hired, do we sleep in it, how fast it goes—all this while the queue behind us grows. Some people lose their patience and drive right around the police and their barriers and no one says anything. Baba says maybe they are plainclothes cops because otherwise they are taking a risk; sometimes up ahead will be a sharpshooter in the grass waiting for people who try to get away when they’ve been stopped. Baba is very patient; he has time to be in a good mood on the road, unless we’ve annoyed him.
Mama was also a very patient driver. She liked to put music on and sing along. She liked Afro beats and something called urban grooves from here. Sometimes she’d play some real golden oldies. She especially liked the songs that had our names in them, the names we used at school, not our Shona names. When she first took Chiwoniso to kindergarten, the teacher kept botching up her name. Mama said, “I don’t know why she couldn’t just read it the way it was spelled, because that’s how you say it. She looked at it and decided it was too foreign and she couldn’t say it. It made me so angry. And for some reason, because this one teacher decided this, it seems they all went along with it—they just wouldn’t try. So instead of fuming every time I had to talk to these teachers, I yielded. It wasn’t a fight I wanted, so I registered all of you under your English names.”
I’d asked her how come we had English names in the first place. Femi only had Nigerian names and most of the other kids only had one name. Mama said it was something they were used to from back home where children always had to be given a Christian name that was English, because of colonization years ago, and it stayed that way. It’s normal, she said.
