Rotten Row Read online

  PETINA GAPPAH

  Rotten Row

  For three legal eagles and the dearest of friends: Munyaka Wadaira Makuyana, who pushes me to be better, Victoria Jane Donaldson, who pushes me to do more and Silas Xaverio Chekera, who fired the starting gun.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  A Note on Rotten Row

  CAPITAL

  The Dropper

  Copacabana, Copacabana, Copacabana

  The News of Her Death

  The Death of Wonder

  The Old Familiar Faces

  A Short History of Zaka the Zulu

  The White Orphan

  A Kind of Justice

  At Golden Quarry

  CRIMINAL

  ‘The President Always Dies in January’

  Washington’s Wife Decides Enough Is Enough

  Miss McConkey of Bridgewater Close

  Anna, Boniface, Cecelia, Dickson

  From a Town Called Enkeldoorn

  Comrade Piso’s Justice

  In the Matter Between Goto and Goto

  The Lament of Hester Muponda

  A Small House in Borrowdale Brooke

  In Sad Cypress

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers!’

  A Note on the Text

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  A Note on Rotten Row

  In London, Rotten Row is a wide, untarred road that begins at Hyde Park Corner and ends at the Serpentine Road. Established in the time of William and Mary to provide access to the new palace at Kensington, the name is a corruption of ‘Route de Roi’, French for King’s Road.

  In Salisbury, the capital of the Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia, initially administered from London – and the only colony in Africa to be founded by a private company, Cecil John Rhodes’ British South Africa Company – the name Rotten Row was given to the road that was created to begin at the intersection of Prince Edward Street and Jameson Avenue. As the city grew, Rotten Row expanded to become a busy thoroughfare linking the city centre to those of Rhodesia’s famed industries that were based in Salisbury, and to Harari Township, the city’s first black township, home for the men who provided the cheap labour that powered those industries.

  Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe, Salisbury Harare, Jameson Avenue is Samora Machel, Harari Township is Mbare, and the industries have all but collapsed. For now, at least, Rotten Row remains Rotten Row, or, to give it its colloquial, Shonglish name, Roton’ro.

  It is a street redolent with remembrance. From its middle section, you go right to reach the kopje, where Rhodes’ invading force, the Pioneer Column, first raised the Union flag on 13 September 1890, the act that established Rhodesia. At the top end of Rotten Row, just before it merges into Prince Edward Street, stands the towering building nicknamed ’Shake Shake’. This is the headquarters of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU PF), the political party that, together with the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), fought the Rhodesian white minority regime and led the armed struggle for a free Zimbabwe.

  The approach to Mbare is dotted with colonial bungalows that now house funeral parlours, car breakers and colleges of further learning. They make an incongruous backdrop for the thundering traffic, but are protected by the legislation and by-laws that make it difficult for the Harare City Council to destroy buildings older than fifty years without considerable hoop-jumping.

  Also on Rotten Row is the ‘Civic Centre’, comprising the Harare City Library, formerly known as the Queen Victoria Memorial Library, the Museum of Natural History and the Criminal Division of the Harare Magistrates’ Courts. The Civil Division is not on Rotten Row but some metres away on Fourth Street, in a building that was used to stable government horses before the widespread use of cars. For that reason, this building is and is likely to be forever known to all solicitors, magistrates and other court officials as ‘The Stables’.

  It is of the Criminal Division, the criminal courts, that most people in Harare think when they hear the name ‘Rotten Row’. It is these criminal courts that have given this story collection its name. The stories in this volume are not all set in or at Rotten Row but are about the kinds of strife, tensions and conflicts that sometimes end up finding their only resolution at the courts.

  Any coincidences between real life and the fictional lives of my ill-fated characters is only further proof that, as is written in the Book of Ecclesiastes, that which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done and there is nothing new under the sun.

  Petina Gappah,

  Geneva, June 2016

  CAPITAL

  Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

  – Immanuel Kant –

  The Dropper

  Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

  – The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans –

  Musatsiva, vadikanwa, asi mudzivurire kutsamna; nokuti kwakanyorwa, kucinzi: Kutsiva ndokwangu, ini ndicaripira-ndizo zinoreva Ishe.

  – Nwadi yaPauro kuvaRoma –

  Never believed all that blather in all the adverts, all that Rhodesia is super and all that. The first five drops at the end of my rope were as white as I am. Rhodesia wasn’t super for them, that’s for’shore, or for the poor buggers they popped. Misfits and madmen, oddballs and nobodies, the lot of them. Like my first drop, the Wankie train murderer. Bloody big he was, neck like a bull in heat. Needed more rope than I thought. Give a drop enough rope, I always said.

  It all comes down to the rope, man. It’s all about the rope. Always preferred sisal to nylon myself. One inch thick, no more, no less. Sisal is strong. Natural. Nylon blisters the hands. You spend a helluva lot of time tying the knot. Have to get it right. Eight turns is what I used though I know some used thirteen. Much prefer the Hangman to the Gallows Knot myself. Breaks the neck, you see. I reckon it’s cleaner all around. Easier for everyone. Gallows Knot strangles.

  Callous bastard and thick as two planks, he was, the Wankie train drop. Kept wringing his hands just before I dropped him, wringing and wringing his hands. I promise you, I don’t know who was more nervous, him or me. One of the medics up at the Maximum put a bottle of dop, Bols brandy it was, in my hand. Strong stuff. Told me to take five swigs to steady my nerves.

  The Americans and them won’t drop an ’oke who is a little soft in the head. Well, they don’t drop them drop them but you know what I mean. He was like that, the Wankie train drop, a little soft. Come to think of it, the next one was a bit soft too. Had one of those hangdog faces, like life had served everyone else oranges and only he got the lemon, and not even a full lemon either, but a quarter lemon and rotting with it. Up from Umtali he was. Don’t mind me. I slip into the old names every now and again. Mutare, I mean.

  Gave his wife six of the best for breakfast and six of the best for lunch and then six more just for the hell of it. Had a load of snot-nosed kids too, one after the other, place was simply crawling with laaities. Poor as munts they were. Then when she said, ‘I’ve had enough of you, I am outta here,’ he took out a gun and popped her along with thirteen other buggers, just like that. Pop pop pop. One after the other. Fourteen times. Said he didn’t know what came over him, he was out of himself.

  Funny that. They all say that. I was out of myself.

  Came close to dropping a woman once. Bit loose she was. Shot the ’oke who was giving it to her. Not her old man. Some sort of boyfriend who had used her up and dumped her. She was one of those Stickistuff types; she stuck and stuck and stuck to the poor ’oke, refusing to be dumped then
she shot him. She was out of it too, she said. Didn’t know what came over her. Got fifteen years instead of the rope. Pretty thing, she was, man. All eyes. I reckon that’s what saved her for’shore, being a pretty chick.

  Next six drops were terrs. Well, they didn’t think they were terrorists, obviously. Called themselves guerrillas, didn’t they, comrades and freedom fighters and such like. Wanted to bring socialism and communism and the this ism and the that ism. Socialism. What a fucken joke. Britain had said no more droppings, they had abolished their own and wanted the same here but Smith and Dupont and Lardner–Burke and them said to the Queen and all those ’okes up in London: fuck you. We have UDI now; we have our own country and our own government and you can’t fucken tell us what to do. We do what we fucken want and we drop who we fucken want to drop when we fucken want to drop them.

  Phoned me on one of those party lines. Crossed lines with that Bridget van Tonder, old bitch who ran the General Store next to the Chipinga Hotel. Fucken do-gooding Nosey Parker, up in everyone’s business. When she got off the line, the Salisbury lot was saying, ‘Come now, man, you are dropping six two days after tomorrow.’

  A bloody bad business that was, that’s for’shore. My first mass dropping. Helluva mess afterwards. Made a few mistakes, I won’t deny that. Couple died hard, man. Necks didn’t break cleanly when I sprang the trap. Twitched and twitched as they swayed and down their legs flowed rivers of shit and piss. Never did much understand the local lingo. Tricky language. One word can mean six different things, but I know a couple cried for their mothers. Couldn’t shoot them or anything. Had to wait it out. Twitched and twitched, they did. Dead man’s dance. Drank my first full bottle of Bols afterwards. Stopped using the Gallows Knot.

  No dropping is ever like the one before. Some of them walked themselves there. Stood above the door, all straight you know, though they trembled a helluva lot. But most had to be dragged along, screaming out of their senses and shitting and pissing themselves. Some even got a stiffy. Angel lust, one of the medics said. That’s what they called it in what do you call them, Middle Times or Medieval Ages or whatever you call them.

  Funny term for it. Angel lust.

  Never had much schooling myself, man. Always had common sense, though, that’s all you need, bloody common sense, only it’s not that common now, is it? Tried to tell the ’okes and them up in Salisbury, it would make a helluva lot more sense if you gave them muti or dop of some kind, that local kachasu stuff would do it. Cheap as a Chipinga hure and will make them drunk enough to handle. But no, they wouldn’t have that. Had these electric whatnots, these taser things to move them to stand above the door.

  ’73 to ’75 were my busiest years. Eish, man. It was hotter than Kariba in October, I promise you. War was raging everywhere and they were dropping like flies, man. Their lot was shooting our lot. Our lot was shooting back and bombing. That fucken coward Smith sent all those boys and them to war, the Call Up and all that and for what? What did they fucken die for? One of my drops that time was a laaitie, bloody shame that was. They said it was all right because he was nineteen but he can’t have been more than sixteen. Could smell the fear dripping out of him with his sweat. Even after I covered his face with the hood, his eyes were still burning into mine. Taught me something, that one did. Never look directly in the eye before a drop, man, not even when you’re hooding.

  By the time I dropped my fiftieth, I had the hang of it, so to say. I could have dropped with one hand, that’s for’shore. I had the hang of it, but something was shifting inside, you know. And I couldn’t do a drop without the Bols. Got dopped before each drop, then again after.

  It’s all a bit of a blank, to be honest with you.

  People around here knew well enough what I did; it’s a small town, Chipinga. A no town, really. An ’oke can’t swing his cock in the direction of the local hures without hitting the likes of that fucken Bridget van Tonder. I promise, I would not let my fucken dog piss on the fucken bitch if she was on fucken fire.

  When I was not dropping, I ran the cafe up at the Chipinga Country Club. Place wasn’t short of people who came just to stare. Nothing like a dropping to sharpen the appetite, particularly when you are served your burgers and chips by the dropper himself.

  Had this chick once, well, girlfriend I suppose, maybe even, what’d they call it in all those novels, fiancé. Asked her to marry me. Chuffed like hell I was when she said yes. I was that taken, man, I promise you. Wheat farmer’s daughter with tits as big as the Bumi Hills and legs like an answered prayer. She was almost Miss Gatooma but she got rubella, a sort of German measles, she said, and she had to pull out. Stacey, she was called. She’d have won too, beautiful singing voice she had. Really gave it to her. Never was one to turn down free milk if you put it before me in a jug.

  Broke it off after a year. Chipinga wasn’t good enough for Almost Miss Gatooma, was it. She was on at me all the time about the dop and that fucken Bridget van Tonder was on at her all the time about the this and the that and the hures and then she ran off with an ’oke from Fort Vic who was with the railways, he was one of that Bridget van Tonder’s nephews, wasn’t he. Saw her fifteen years later up in Melsetter, kids crawling all around her and the Bumi Hills down to her armpits.

  Lost her chance, didn’t she?

  Gave up dropping round about that time, after the war. But they called me back six years later. Needed a dropper, they said. Thought they’d bin the whole thing, to be honest. Tried to tempt me with my own record. ‘You’ve dropped ninety-seven,’ they said. ‘Don’t you want to make a clean hundred, at least? Go for the century.’ Heard from my connections up in Salisbury that after I said no thanks, they got a couple of ’okes from South Africa and another from Swaziland. Gave up after one or two years.

  They have had a hard time getting a local. Engozi and all that, the fear that if you kill a man, you will be haunted forever by his dead spirit, that sort of thing, haunted down to the next generation and the one after that.

  Never had much truck with all that sort of crap myself. But sometimes, I swear, I hear sighs and whispers all around the hills. I promise, the hills come alive. And no, it is not the dop, that’s what they said, up at the hospital, the useless pricks. I asked them, what did they want me to do about it when the dop is the only thing that stops it.

  And now the comrades and freedom fighters and whatnots are coming for the farms. Started down in Mashonaland, didn’t it, and now they are here. It’s all this indigenisation, isn’t it. The land must go to indigenous people they say, it must all be indigenised, and the likes of me must just bugger off to England. As if I could live on fucken Mud Island. Never even set foot there in my life, born here, wasn’t I, down in Enkeldoorn.

  Well, they can indigenise this farm all they want, and they can indigenise my Zesa electricity bill too if it comes to that and my phone company bill while they are at it and good luck to them. It is no skin off my nose if they take this place, that’s for’shore.

  Got the job after the Country Club collapsed. Manage this farm for some Pommies who know nothing about tea. Come down from Mud Island a couple of times a year to braai and toast themselves in the sun. Couple of ’okes down the road destroyed their machinery and all their this and all their that before they left, but I won’t do that. Not got much to destroy that’s for’shore and besides, I reckon that debts have to be paid. They will be paid one way or the other, man. Debts have to be paid. It’s the way it is, life goes up and down, goes round and comes round again, and that’s just the way it is.

  So when they come, I will go sit up on the terrace overlooking the tea. I’ll finish this novel I’m reading, Hold the Dream, it’s called. I like those chick writers, Jackie Collins and Judith Thingummijig and Barbara Taylor Whatshername. They are the only things that Miss Gatooma left behind her.

  So I’ll read this one and get dopped as I watch the sunset. It’s something else, man, the sun sinking behind the hills and the crickets sounding and the birds flying
against the red and orange sky. That’s the last thing I want to see, the sky lit up with fire above the rows and rows of tea. Then I will do my last drop.

  I reckon I might as well end with myself.

  Copacabana, Copacabana, Copacabana

  Execute ye judgement and righteousness; … neither shed innocent blood in this place.

  – The Book of Jeremiah –

  Tongai zakarurama nezakatendeka, vuye musatevura ropa risinemhosa panzimbo ino.

  – Buku yaMuprofita Jeremia –

  It is just after nine o’clock in the morning. Gidza will die in exactly forty-three minutes and thirteen seconds. At this moment, he is leaning out of the open window of a kombi omnibus that plies the route between the suburb of Chisipite and the city centre. A flea-market Liverpool shirt ripples on his reed-thin body. ‘Copacabana, Copacabana, Copacabana,’ he shouts. ‘Copacabana!’

  He follows this with a piercing whistle. At the wheel, Prosper blows the horn in counterpoint. In the days when Leopold Takawira was Moffat Street, Copa Cabana, two words, was a nightclub. What kombi touts like Gidza and kombi drivers like Prosper now call Copacabana, one word, is the area around the former club. Where once the air rang with tunes from the Devera Ngwena Jazz Band, the Pied Pipers, the Bhundu Boys and the Ocean City Band, it is now a cacophony of hooting horns and yelling touts.

  Their kombi is a death trap. A woman named Shupikai Mukono who lives in Cambridge, close to Grantchester on the River Cam, and who works as a psychiatric nurse at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, imported it from Japan. Her life, nasty, British and short of happiness, is lived in the hopeful expectation that she will give it all up one day and never again have to minister to minds diseased. She has seen first hand the terrible hurts that come when the mind, so fragile, oh how fragile, turns in on itself and poisons everything.