Harare North (5 page)

'What did you say?' Shingi ask Tsitsi.

'Nothing. I don't know.' She shrug she shoulders and hop
around on one leg like naughty likkle flea and stomp upstairs to
she room.

'It's because of Shingi's Chipinge roots,' Aleck say.

Farayi start making fun of Shingi and saying that maybe
MaiMusindo want to learn tricks from Shingi because people with
Chipinge roots is supposed to have dangerous knowledge of sorcery
and stuff, especially
mamhepo
, the avenging spirits.

Farayi laugh all morning. Aleck now also jump into making fun
of Shingi saying he have
mamhepo
spirit pursuing him; Farayi is
making joke but anyone can sniff sniff that Aleck really mean it.
Shingi don't find it funny.

Mamhepo
; the winds – someone can raise them against you and
your family if you kill they innocent relative. That's what Aleck
say as he pace about in our room with hands in his pockets.

Farayi keep quiet now. Aleck continue his lecture in his style
of talking without looking at person that he talk to.

There is grandmaster Banda who can do all that stuff and heaps
more, me I know. He live in the dry and dusty malaria district of
Chipinge, the rural home of Shingi's family. He is witchcraft grandmaster
with big reputation. He can shrink any beast down to the
size of grain of sand. He do that to dozens of herd of cattle, and
use his wife's straw broom to sweep them into old envelope and
then board bus to whatever part of the country he choose. On
arriving he undo the spell and sell them cattle having suffer zero
transport costs. Many people go to Banda but some of them things
they ask him to do don't involve shrink cow, but the frightful
business of invoke
mamhepo
for families that want revenge if family
member has been killed by someone. They say some fat cat try
to patent Banda's cow-shrinking magic but get stuck when, while
filling them patent forms, he feel desperate to pee and run to
toilet only to discover that his tool has vanish clean off him. Me
I know all this but I don't go
paparapapara
showing off like
Aleck.

Banda is big man. But sometimes his magic don't work as
expected. Especially with them other things that is not the winds.
Like when he shrink cattle down to the size of grain of sand and
sweep them into envelope. In some cases, even if the cattle reduce
in size, they weight remain the same, so people find that the bus
they board, under weight of tons of cow, either break down or is
not able to crawl out of the bus terminus.

Me I get £2.45 per hour. Eight hours per day. Five days per week.
That make £98 per week. But after they do emergency tax code
it come to about £68.

You spend them weeks shifting mud with shovels and sweat
beads come out of every pore in the body because you is putting
out heaps of effort while your buttocks point to high heaven and
migrant flesh start to stink around you as shirts and underpants
get damp. Here you quickly know that the weight of your buttocks
increase by the hour and come down only by night when you is
sandwiched between blanket and mattress.

Then one day you hear: Take them your things and move it.
That's what they say to us in Wimbledon. The graft end without
warning. Everyone on the site have to move it now after we go
to work one morning to find the site closed. One servant come
out of the house, and looking pleased, tell us that there is disagreement
between the owner of house and our employer because them
pavings that we have lay and the retaining walls that we have build
is not up to standard. And most of them plants that we have plant
in the past months have dead, he add. He have been tell to advise
us to contact our employer, in Romford, if we have any issue to
complain about.

We have been stitch up, I know straight away. But there is
nothing we can do, so we scatter without quarrel.

Samuel, who is from Senegal, tell us that there is another
company in Finsbury Park that is looking for labourers. There is
also one street corner in Mile End where if you is foreign labourer
you can go and hang around with your toolbox. Soon some van
come and someone, sitting in the van, will point at people that
look like they is up to hard graft. If you is lucky you get picked.
We don't have no toolboxes to pose with on this street, so we
don't go there. Also there is now too many Polish builders to
compete with there, someone say. And they all have toolboxes.

Finsbury Park is better, that's what everyone agree as we wait
for bus. But with this kind of graft, now I see there is big danger
that you can work until you grow horns and still you won't catch
US$5,000. But Shingi is keen on Finsbury Park so me I keep
quiet.

If you find graft as porter at some hotels that is visit by Saudi
princes then you can land your native bum in butter because them
princes give good tips and can drop £1,000 in your pocket if you
is sweet when you carry they luggage for them. That's what I
have hear. But right now I don't even know which hotel to look
out for.

The bus arrive and we queue up to get in. Suleiman is first.
He flash his fake bus pass and immediately put this hard-set look
on his face, looking straight ahead rigid as he march like soldier
past the bus driver.

'Excuse me, sir, can I see your pass?' The driver stop him. It's
at moments like this that the city can get chance to break your
disguise with them questions: what's your name, sir; where did
you get this, sir; you know this is crime offence, sir?

'Where did you get your card from, sir?' the driver say playing
big mischief with politeness. This title that the mud-shifting boy
have been given is too heavy for him now.

'Sir?' The driver pull down his glasses in professor-style so they
sit low on his nose.

This 'sir' thing put Suleiman in proper straitjacket. His tongue
weigh same as hippo and he can't lift it now. He turn his head
to the door, spot an opening and go for it. His trousers explode
and rip at the crotch as he leap over pram. He land on pavement,
stumble and regain his balance. Quality people in nice clothes at
the front of the queue have already turn into heap of arms and
legs on the pavement. They struggle to free theyselfs from each
each as mud-shifting boy take off. Frightened, he plunge into
them pedestrians, shoots past pub, past the supermarket, he take
a corner and take his ruined trousers elsewhere. Near me the
mother of the baby in the pram is like ice sculpture; she is so pale
she is nearly transparent. Not one drop of blood in she face.

One by one we fall out of queue and march to another bus
stop.

Harare North is big con. We have already put many Mars bars
inside people's pockets, and now look.

We show up at contractor's plant yard in Finsbury Park, along
with handful of them other guys from the Wimbledon graft. Some
foreman with fierce face say he is looking for people who want to
work on drain repair project; workers who is prepared for challenging
work; excavating and stripping them old drainpipes out
of the earth, laying new ones, and going down pipes to remove
blockage when necessary. All for £2.40 per hour, take it or leave
it. I have not been in London long time but me I can smell big
con from miles. Especially that we was getting £2.45 per hour in
Wimbledon. And that was the lowest rate Shingi have ever do.

'Does anyone have any question?' the foreman ask, with cigarette
in mouth. He don't sound English. The cigarette in his mouth
is in big trouble – on one end he have put it on fire and on the
other he is chewing it with them long brown teeth. Me I am not
doing no graft for this man, I make up my mind quick.

'Does anyone have any question?' Them migrants fidget and
grind they teeth; the foreman have hit they heads and get them
out of gear and they is not able to say anything.

The foreman nod with big satisfaction and give the cigarette
another crazy bite while he scan them faces and smile. He bite
and chew. He bite again. The migrants shake and blink like convicts.

'Hands up people with work permits?' the foreman demand.

Shingi have one finger raised in the air.

'OK, only three. Rest of you have to get new IDs. Passports.
We do it for you but it cost you £300.'

Me I am not having none of that con, I tell Shingi when we
leave. I warn him to stay away from people with them funny habits
like biting cigarettes. That is suspect style. But Shingi say he have
do lots of graft in London before. How many graft have you done
in London? he ask me.

I can't argue against that. Shingi can be stubborn; just like
them millipedes. Mother spend decades sweeping millipedes off
she doorstep. You sweep millipede away and half-hour later it
come back to your doorstep, right where it was. Grandmother
keep telling Mother that if you don't want millipede to come back
you also have to throw away the straw broom that you use to
sweep it away. 'But here in the township how many straw brooms
will I have to buy to throw away with every
zongororo
?' Mother
always ask, shaking she head. Sometimes she throw the broom
away to make Grandmother happy but the
zongororo
always come
back to the same spot, until someone step on it.

Now, me I also throw away my straw broom and watch.

Civilian people sometimes don't have nothing to say about bold
plans. I lay my big plan to Shingi and ask what he think: I have
to start checking out which hotels to mau-mau. But Shingi don't
have nothing to say.

Every day now, Shingi come back from his new graft and tell
everyone about how good them fake EU passports is because
one of his workmates have even used it to go to Belgium and
come back and no one catch him. He have heaps to say about
this.

Big ginger for this idea of having fake EU passport start to grow
inside Shingi's head. He don't even need the fake passport except
maybe to catch illiterate girls by telling them jazz numbers saying
that he is French man.

At first I ignore this talk because such stories is all over Harare
North. Soon the idea start to grow into proper tree and it bust
out of the back of his head, tilting his head back. Now he can't
pull his head back to look down where he is stepping. But because
he look after me, buying all the food and paying the rent, I don't
want to upset him and say this is getting out of order. So me I
sweet him and tell him that maybe soon he will have French passport
too and become big Frenchman. He go kak kak kak about
this. Soon I call him Mr Chirac; you know what it's like when you
have to keep big cheer on the face of your comrade while you is
planning next move.

Maybe when I get French passport I give you my Zimbabwe
passport so you can use it to look for job, Shingi laugh. He have
hear from his graft that everyone that don't have the right papers
have got French passports organised for them now. French passport
is easy to thief, that's what people that sell fake passports on
Tottenham Court Road say.

Maybe when you get back home you can tell big story about
life in Harare North; big story about how you can become labourer,
sewage drain cleaner and then French President; being many people
in one person.

I tell Mr Chirac this because these kind of stories rolled into
one can be sweet story if telled while one big mug of
chibuku
brew is passing around the table until the teller have also forget
which part of story is just sweet jazz number and which is true;
when you only tell truth by accident.

Now give me pocket money for small packet of cigarettes, I
ask Shingi after giving him this suggestion.

Before I have even finish doing list of hotels, Shingi disappear,
and in the house President Chirac take his place. It is up to me
to feel free to use Shingi's Zimbabwean passport and National
Insurance number whenever I feel like I want to.

'I . . . I am not original n-native now,' Chirac tell us all, Tsitsi,
Aleck, Farayi and me. 'W . . . we is not the same any more, Aleck.
Wh . . . while yo . . . you graft hard in Harare North, me I will
soon be hitting French wine and wiping my bottom with them
butter croissants,' Chirac say, leaping into squiggly dance and disappearing
to the kitchen.

History is littered with them ruined underpants of small people
leaping about in vex style and trying to save they bread from the
long throats of big people. Me I have already lose one pair of
them underpants trying to save my Mars bars from long throats.
That is one pair of underpants too many. Now is time for new
tactics. I am about to finish investigating which hotels to check
out.

Shingi have give me £20 to go buy food for us for the week
but that is too much money so me I only use £15 and make saving
of £5. When I come from Tesco supermarket I can see our house,
this Shingi's head, looking at me like it accuse me of things.

I step inside, put bread on table and drag myself onto the
cupboard by the kitchen sink and sit with my back to the window.
Everyone else have go to they graft and Tsitsi is washing them
dishes in the kitchen. Sometimes when she wash dishes she also
start talking to me about how she used to climb them guava trees
when she was small.

'Just like boys,' she say.

'You wanted to be boy?'

'No; boys always get cysts on they eyes.'

'Why?'

'Because they always peep up skirt of girl if she climb tree.'

Me I have nothing to say. She mind is already made up on
everything: boys get cysts on they eyes; if you is small girl and
take chicken egg that has just been laid and rub onto your chest
you never grow breasts; if you is boy and rub the egg on your
chin you never grow beard. Evil spirits can imitate voices of people
that you know and call your name at night and if you answer your
voice will never come back. Owls can call your name too. If
someone jump over you while you is sitting down you will never
grow taller unless they undo they jump.

Tsitsi start singing as she wash them dishes. She always sing
them songs that she have carry from she rural hills where them
women sing while carrying they buckets of water from borehole.
But some days she sing them real ignorant songs by villagers that
have never even peep inside classroom window:

Look the train go
geje geje
rolling through dusty land

Look the white man's iron puff smoke

Look it grind itself through the hills

Look the puffing iron take my child away to the city.

Now this big moth fly through the air and land on she shoulders.
I stretch my hand so I can pick it off but Tsitsi brush me
away with wet hand.

I take it off myself, she say without even looking at me. Then
she continue washing up and singing.

Tsitsi finish washing and go out to visit MaiMusindo and she
friends at the hair salon. I have nothing to do; I spend the afternoon
in our room lying down and reading one of them Yellow
Pages books that junk mail people sometimes leave outside our
door. There is hotels inside it.

Shingi's passport and National Insurance card is on my pillow
while I read hard and make final list of hotels.

Tsitsi come back inside the house. She have come with bunch
of sunflowers. She throw the bunch of them flowers on Farayi's
bed and also throw she baby there. I rub my eyes because I was
about to fall asleep. Now I feel like I want to be useful so instead
of just talk talk talk with she, me I open my suitcase, get my shirt
out and start to sew back my button that have fall off. I light my
cigarette; now smoke is coming out of my nose and mouth.

Where you get all them flowers?

From the salon. Eunice go to buy flowers this morning to decorate
salon but flower vendor is friend so he give away too many,
she say.

MaiMusindo give them to me because no one else in salon want
them.

MaiMusindo have also give Tsitsi bottle of some funny perfume
–
Moschino Parfum
it say on the label. It look like old people's
kind of perfume but me I don't say nothing.

She go to kitchen and come back with knife so she can start cut
stem ends of them sunflowers. But before Tsitsi have even sit down,
the baby start to cry. She sit on Farayi's bed and start to feed him.

What's his name?

Tafadzwa.

She start singing to she baby:

Dance around together
Holding hands together
Dance around together
Holding hands together
Tissue, tissue, we all fall down.

I know that from when I was smaller than teaspoon, I tell she.

Yeeessss! she eyes bulge and she start talking with hand and all:
yari yari yari we hold hands together in circle and go round and
round singing
Dance around together
; oh when it get to
tissue
you
get ready because when
we all fall down
comes you all crouch
down; oh then you go on and on again.

No, you throw yourself complete down to ground.

But your clothes get dirty, she say in very sharp way.

Tsitsi start talking that baby language to she baby. Me I am
smoking and sewing. When she finish feeding baby she sit him on
the bed with Farayi's pillow behind because the baby always fall
backwards.

My screwdriver is on the floor. Tsitsi pick it and give to she
baby to play with because it have bright yellow-and-black handle
and babies like them such things like that. Now the baby is trying
to pick it up but only manage to dribble all over it and me I don't
like baby dribble on my screwdriver. But I don't say nothing.

Tsitsi start cutting them flowers and putting them inside big
jug.

You hungry? she ask me when she have finish cutting them
flowers.

Me I don't want to break them these house rules or else people
start throwing ugly kind of mouth around, I tell she.

Tsitsi curl and twiddle she small toes and say nothing. There
is funny silence between us. Me I don't want to talk too much
to Tsitsi about them house rules because I have to be careful with
she; she is bubbly bubbly likkle mother but she is also just simple
girl that can ruin your life by telling people things without knowing
that she is ruining you. You know that kind of madness that is
always inside them rural people. I don't want no one to start
saying that I only stay inside the house so I can hit they food
while they is doing graft. Me I am principled man.

Tsitsi come back from the kitchen eating bread and baked beans.
She start to talk about the rat that have been eating food in the
kitchen, how it get she head out of gear, the rat manage to do it
even if she put the food on the highest shelf in the kitchen; the
following day she find it have been nibbled.

I don't have answers for these questions so I give she them
one-word answers and small grunts and try to sew while she go
yep yep yep yep. She is now sitting in funny cross-legged way on
bed, with she pointy breasts jumping out at me and she have no
idea that this kind of sitting can give people funny ideas. But it
don't do nothing to me because me I am not civilian person but
military person. Tsitsi, she is just rural mother. She is also just one
small child. I don't need to worry about Tsitsi. Me I am not
civilian.

Chirac is civilian person and have this tree growing out of his
head making him not able to see where he is putting his foot. Fix
him up with this rural thing maybe he can also drop me cigarette
pocket money. It don't matter that he still have not buy the French
passport. But Shingi is scared of Aleck because he is still not good
at defending himself if someone start to accuse him of leading the
child, Tsitsi, astray. Even at school, after Thoko beat him up,
Shingi still don't know how to fight for himself. Even when I'm
trying to teach him every week at school. His stepbrother Chamu,
who is one year ahead of us, also try to teach him how to fight
because Chamu is not always there to protect him, but that never
work. Only one time in his life Shingi have stand up for himself
and that was the last time. That was few years after we leave school
for ever. Shingi have got graft as tea boy at Central African
Pharmaceutical Society (CAPS) and for some funny reason he spill
tea on company's biggest boss and his big visitor; the whole teapot
splash all over the big man's desk and trousers. His visitor's trousers
too. And important papers. Everything get wet and this is big
mess-up and of course if you do big mess-up you get fired. One
week after he have been fired them people at the local beer hall
start throwing that usual mouth about: oh poor Shingi; the winds
that he get from his father now giving him bad luck; yeee he will
never have steady life; yeee maybe he don't get fired because of
tea but because of all that liquid paraffin he thief. People was
saying that because Shingi had also start to sell liquid paraffin that
he bring from CAPS. No one know how he get it, but he get it
and people like to use it on they skin.

Then when Shingi come to the beer hall after losing graft
someone make big mistake of making fun of him by saying now
that he have no more liquid paraffin, maybe his family going
to start using cooking oil on they skin. Because he don't do
talk, Shingi jump into this style of big quiet vex. Now everyone
start going kak kak kak and Shingi don't know how to deal
with this and soon pull out of his pocket the oldest style in the
book; you know how someone get upset by someone but they
don't know how to deal with it except to play out they is now
possessed by old family spirit. Shingi groan, spit and growl until
them veins in his neck writhe under the skin like fat worms,
and the guy that make fun of Shingi is still laughing because
he think this is big pretence. But before he know it Shingi have
pick up half brick and hit him square on his face.

Shingi spend six months in prison for that but when he come
out he have change style of talking and now don't say even one
word more than is necessary if he is talking to you; no one want
to throw they mouth around in front of him now because they
know he can waste your face if you hassle him.

But this is Harare North and people change back into they old
self here.

I finish sewing my button on and decide to do them others
that look like they is wanting to fall too. Then Tsitsi go to kitchen
again to make milk for baby. She shout from the kitchen asking
again if me I am hungry.

What you going to say if Aleck find out you been giving me
food? I shout back. She don't answer. This is food that Aleck
have buy, but that's not the problem. Tsitsi have also been
worryful that they is not going to have enough food this week
because Aleck have send heap of money back home to pay for
some stand in Highfield township. £1,000, that's what he wire
back for the stand. US$1,910. But it hit his pocket hard because
now every food item that he and Tsitsi buy have already get
affected except the old bread and beans which everyone is tired
of. Meat is already out of the shopping list that week and Tsitsi
worryful she is becoming big burden on Aleck now. But maybe
Aleck don't worry too much because now Tsitsi have start to
bring in small money by going out to the salon; MaiMusindo
and them other women is helping she rent out the baby to
other women that want to apply for council flats as single
mothers. For £50, any woman can take Tsitsi's baby to the
Lambeth Housing Department and play out to be single mother,
fill them forms and take baby back to salon as soon as she have
been interview.

I finish sewing the buttons and I am putting my needle and
thread back inside my suitcase and Tsitsi is again sitting in crazy
rural way – crouching in front of me in she lopsided skirt that is
full of lint, bobbles and all the fluff. She is feeding milk to she
baby.

You can sometimes go through life and never get laid. That's
Shingi. He never get over the fear of girls that Thoko put inside
him since we was at school and end up only trying to make people
laugh. I know of people who have pay up heaps of money to lose
they virginity. Like the blind singer in Harare that end up paying
US$200 for people to organise him woman.

But I have not even have chance to talk to Shingi and things
happen fast. The cigarette-biting people – they exorcise Chirac
out of the native without no warning. Just like that.

During graft, Shingi and his friends have always been digging
out heaps of them drainpipes, repair some, lay new ones and
getting used to crawling in them dark holes to clear them
blocked drains. Always with long rope tied to foot in case you
get overcome down there and pass out in the slurry, mud and
poo. Now they get frogmarched out of the site by hard men
holding scaffold poles. They have been forced back into they
original native selfs again. And it's all because they have been
talk talk talk too much about them French passports until
someone hear of it and sell them out. Cigarette-biting people
don't trust none of them now because they think one of them
tip them immigration people. President Chirac vanish. Now the
original native appear again.

Because this is Shingi, and you know what Shingi is like, it
take him days to come out and tell what happen. After all them
squiggly dances and talk of hitting French food he feel embarrassed
now to tell us that he have lose his graft. Me I knew this
was going to happen. But me I don't want to talk; I throw away
my straw broom long time ago and leave the
zongororo
to do
what it want.

On this day when Tsitsi have spend all afternoon sitting in
front of me in that crazy way, that's when Shingi's story come
out. I am still talking to she thinking that Shingi have go to
graft but he only have go for graft hunt without telling no one.
He have been doing this style for days, now it come out. Now
he arrive pushing this face that is as long as shield of Matabele
warrior.

Where have you abandon your spear and knobkerrie and
do you know that this is one offence that is punished by
death if you had live during time of
Mfecane
? That's the first
question you want to ask when you see someone carrying that
face. But Shingi don't look like he is in mood for jokes so I say
nothing.