‘There you go again!’
‘The beauty of the body is very deceiving when you have had a good party, and when you nudge across the sofa like that.’
‘You’re difficult, aren’t you?’
‘I prefer impossible.’
‘And right now. What’s it: heartbeats? No, heart attacks. It will save us heart attacks both if you move back to where you were sitting.’
‘I want to sleep on that lap. I’m tired, and what time is it again?’
‘You will look at the time. Don’t strangle my wrist again.’
‘Heart attack?’
‘Stupid.’ She stretched her hand at him. It was 3:20. ‘But honestly there is something I want to know,’ she said. There was alarm in her voice.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Why do people get tired of loving after some time? Don’t you think it’s a bad scenario if say you put all your efforts into loving somebody, only to realize that the person isn’t what you were dreaming?’
‘That’s stupid. And right now, I’m fighting the urge to jump and lay my head on that lap.’
‘Laps are for children.’
‘You’re right, do you like children?’
‘I don’t like them in the fanatical way like the rest of human race. But do I like children? I do. Frankly speaking, sometimes the thought of a child puts me off. It’s horrible.’
‘In what ways?’
‘In many ways. I got a feeling at times, I don’t need any child. It’s selfish. There are many beautiful things out there that I can expend myself. No, probably that’s not right. I’m a perfectionist. I’m too wise. I’m afraid of my replica. Or worse, I’m afraid I may not have a child who thinks the way I do, who does what I do. Then I may think of myself as a failure. I hate to talk of myself. About you, this age, why don’t you have a child?’
‘Long story.’
None of Sipeyiye’s tricks worked. At five in the morning he was chased out of the room. He left with nothing, except his keys. He drove all the way back to town with a body without a heart, because he had left all of it at Riverside Hotel. Of cause he had lied that he didn’t have a car!
Chapter 33
I need you Jesus
To be my vision
You’re the way
The Truth, and the Life
Teach me understanding
Teach me to pray
Oh, I need you Jesus
To be my vision
You’re the way
Let me understand once more
The sense of the blood
The covenant on Calvary
The blood to serve this world
This is my blood
This is my Bread
Eat it in remembrance of me
I will come again
When you see this happening
Wars, pestilence, famines
Incurable diseases
The times are near
The second coming.
On that night
Before I knew you
You saved my soul
And delivered me from sin
Let me not forget
I don’t know,
Tomorrow there will be another drought
Could be another war
This vast land of the black
The book tells me so
Teach me to understand again
Natasha broke two glasses on the day that followed. She broke the first one when she noticed Sipeyiye walking through the balcony coming at the side of the pool where they were sitting. She gave all the intangible reasons as the caretaker swept pieces of broken glass away.
She broke the second one when Sipeyiye's voice suddenly boomed behind her without her expectation. She apologized again to the caretaker. This time she asked to send him.
'Where do you want to send me?' He was shocked. Imagine, he had already swept two broken glasses in two hours.
'Just around.' She scribbled something on a notepad paper: I guess the next glass I'd have to break it on your head. You can't always be doing this to me.
Irritated, the man impatiently delivered the message to Mr Mohyi.
'Wait a minute, man.' Sipeyiye was quick. He scribbled at the back of the note: And who'll you love, Natasha?
The man nearly clicked his tongue as he delivered another message to Ms Chuma.
'One more message, please.' She scribbled something at the back, in a very unreadable handwriting at the bottom of the paper.
The man walked back, shuffling his feet rebelliously. He even said something aloud about people's feet and the glasses that were still on the floor.
Sipeyiye stared at the paper, trying in vain to read. The words dawned on him slowly and he hugged the back of the man who was walking away quickly, afraid that they might be sent again. The man nearly lost his temper, having listened to most of President Mugabe’s speeches and his stance against homosexuality. He shook Mr. Mohyi off him. He only calmed when he heard about the money.
'Man, you have won five hundred dollars.'
That was difficult to resist.
'Why sir?' he wondered as he saw Mr Mohyi scribbling something in his chequebook.
'Five hundred, sir, you mean? Are you sure it won't bounce?'
'Man, can you read?' Sipeyiye asked. 'There read.' He handed the man the paper.
The man read it aloud and very slowly: I love you, Sipeyiye.
Chapter 34
Her eyes ached as the sun hit them. She was incredibly hot. She quickened her step along the wood floor. The smell of bile rose up her throat.
‘Natasha,’ a voice shrilled from behind her. It was Susan, or Sue as they called her. She wasn’t much, just somebody she knew. She merely waved her off and walked on.
She could make out quite a number of men sitting in the shade. Some were just ducking in the pool. Sipeyiye wasn’t there. Maybe he had been hooked up at work.
No problem.
She squatted in front of the tape and turned it on. She overdid it. The water jetted out in torrents. All she had wanted was a small gulp, which she swallowed gladly. A gust of air swept past her. Surprisingly enough, the mistake had a good effect on her. She suddenly felt cool, her nerves calming again.
She checked for Sipeyiye again, just to be sure. He wasn’t there.
She walked out. In the hall, most of the women had already gone. Sue, too. She jog-trotted to the first floor. As she walked along the corridor, she could hear the showers running in the men’s changing rooms.
She pushed open the door labelled ‘women changing rooms’. Here too, most women had left. She un-slung a key from her neck, the one to her closet. She pulled out her sandals, her sweater and a snake-pink hipster.
She pulled down the blinds around her. She stepped out of her martial arts outfit.
She glared at the mirror behind her for a moment. And that wasn’t unusual of her. She maintained she was still country. She had an extremely smooth face, but she didn’t use obvious make-ups. Her legs were firm and strong. They had to learn to survive the hard way when they had to walk some long distances during childhood.
Beauty is an attitude really. It starts from the way you feel inside. She had absolutely no regrets about everything that she was. Today, she had made her hair into a solid bob. She turned around and massaged her stomach, starting from the pelvis. She squashed her breasts. Hard, full nipples… She drew in air. Her stomach was still as flat as a punctured tyre although she was now expecting a baby.
It amazed her how she was suddenly elevated to having a child. She had never included that on her life catalogue. Her childhood had been hard. There were times when she was convinced that one way of avoiding the sort of problems that had beset her childhood was to have as few children as possible. But now that she was making one she found that she loved the idea.
She slipped into her clothes and threw the marital art suit in the laundry basket. Of course, all the clothing was labelled. Tomorrow afternoon, everything will be wash
ed and ironed. She stuffed her phone in the pocket. She left.
She went down the stairs into the foyer. She ticked against her name to indicate she had left. She checked on a list of the other the names, those who had come to RIM Marital Arts today. Sipeyiye’s name wasn’t there, all right.
She had left her Jetta thinking she would drive in Sipeyiye’s Pajero back home, or alternatively walk with him. Bulawayo is wonderful to walk on a Saturday. The traffic is thin and the crowd would be spacey. It was to be a treat with the sky a clear blue above them. They would watch the sun turn red in the west.
Today, she did it alone, rather absent-mindedly, with her hands stuck in the pockets. She wasn’t even being careful with the traffic. It’s a wonder there wasn’t even one driver who popped his head through the window to shout at her.
She came to a supermarket that opens on Saturdays. Its front was teeming with vulgar urchins, though. Because most of the supermarkets would be closed on a Saturday, they all drifted here. They sold bags made from sacking and offered to help carry groceries. They also begged for money, rather making the cosy supermarket unfriendly. This, plus the fact that they always waited for the slightest opportunity to give people trouble, Natasha opted to use the space between the parking lane and the tarmac.
But a small boy saw her and came rasping after her, ‘Sister, sister, can I have a dollar?’
Begging had become commonplace in Bulawayo. She often wondered if the world was so over-populated that there was too much pressure on resources? You go anyway, you meet outstretched hands. This was more than she could cope with.
‘A dollar, sister,’ he repeated persuasively.
She fumbled in her pockets, not exactly to give, but to get rid of the boy. But a woman who had just done her shopping and should have been driving away suddenly became reluctant to do so. She was obviously waiting to see if she could witness how Natasha’s encounter with the urchin would end. Natasha became aware of her as her hands turned wads of money in her pocket.
Natasha turned to the boy, whose eyes were still pleading. She looked at the woman again, who wore the face of an experienced city dweller. Then she turned at the boy again. She recalled: give the street child money and tomorrow they will be two.
‘You think I grind money,’ she shouted at the boy. ‘I don’t have even a cent’.
And with that she hustled away with the rage she could muster. She heard the banging of the Mazda’s doors, the woman leaving satisfied with her show.
She squinted over her shoulder. The boy had turned way, very much his old self, unaffected by the harsh words.
Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to her apartment. ‘Lonely, lonely,’ she muttered to herself.
Life was going more or less according to plan. She had taken her chances when they came along. A combination of factors had contributed to the upgrading of her life: hard work, intelligence and just plain old good luck. Now she had a good degree in accounting, as well as a good job.
Her sisters had followed their own paths, which always included marriage and strings of children. It was always the same thing, always doing that very same thing they were not supposed to do. In the end they all married abusive and ungrateful men that gave them hordes of babies and many other problems besides
It was this cycle she wanted to break. There were too many of them in that place not to tread on each other’s toes.
They hadn’t been able to share because there was never enough to share. Natasha pondered over all this, reflecting also on that perhaps her withdrawal from her family had been a bit too much. Now, she knew only too well that nothing less than another death and yet another funeral gathering would bring her back to talking terms with her roots. Her mother’s death some years ago had broken her last link with her people out there.
But there is a whole lot of life that lay behind watching sunrises and sun falls.
There wass a full life that’s there beyond champagne in the evenings. Or holidays in Cape Town. Or adding another zero to the bank account.
She wanted a family. She desperately needed a family. She massaged her stomach again. Inside her lay life. She had missed a period. Today, she was going to tell Sipeyiye.
She waited for Sipeyiye, sipping lemonade and watching television. She waited for about an hour. She had a puzzled feeling inside her, but she couldn’t exactly pinpoint why. She gave up her plans for preparing supper and waiting and drifted to sleep.
As she entered her bedroom, fine droplets of water started pelting at the window. She shifted the curtains to look at the city below sprinkled with lights. She could smell the water. She watched the rain building into a steady torrent. Then she remembered something: the boy she had seen in town and how rudely she had treated him. He was in the rain now, she thought. Nobody cares about him, not me either.
She remembered her evening prayer as well, but didn’t appreciate the reminder. Guilt tore at her mind. She knelt down beside the bed all the same reciting the Lord’s Prayer, her voice shaky with emotions.
Chapter 35
The rain hammered down the city. The lights now tinkered against it. In the tall building, where her apartment was few lights glowed in the darkness. Most of its inhabitants had drifted to sleep. A few though were watching late movies in their lounges.
Unlike most of them, Sipeyiye still stooped up the stairs, muttering curses.
The rain had poured down on him without any mercy from the car. It dripped down his head. It had soaked into his shoes. They squelched.
He smiled as he reached the door. He fed the key in the door. He turned it and withdrew. He looked at it again and smiled.
You’re welcome to my heart.
It had happened only a month ago. Natasha was a difficult girl. It took time to be close to her. Like those awful days when he had to come and knock and knock before she opened the door because she would be asleep then. Or not expecting him, although awake.
Then the other day, he saw the key in the jacket’s pockets, wrapped, with the message: you’re welcome to my hut. Well, hut was cancelled and replaced with heart. Wasn’t that romantic, man? He had said his thanks in the evening. She had denied it. But the handwriting was her’s. Perhaps, she was still frightened to surrender her heart. And that wasn’t a problem. Not a problem at all.
Natasha wasn’t there in the lounge. He checked the kitchen. There was no one either. The stove was cold. So the supper wasn’t prepared. The fridge hummed, and the clock tick-tacked in the lounge. Besides the two, the place was dead quiet.
He headed for the bedroom.
Natasha was listening all the while but unwilling to get up. She had lain on the bed, awake and tossing around. The sheets wrinkled around her. She heard the foot-thuds approaching. The door creaked open.
Sipeyiye grumbled as he entered. She stole a glance at him. He was terribly soaked with water. He perched on the bed. He peeled off his socks.
‘Evening,’ he said as he rose from the bed. He flung his shirt on the bed. ‘The rain caught me off guard.’
He crossed the room to plant a kiss on her forehead. Natasha giggled.
He changed into his martial arts suit.
‘I thought you were coming to RIM today,’ she said after a while.
‘I thought I would come as well, I was just too busy.’ He carried his wet clothes out. A moment later, he announced, his head craned in the door, ‘You didn’t prepare anything here. I’m awful hungry.’
‘I’m sorry, I was just …well, and I didn’t feel like preparing anything.’ She wished she had prepared his food.
He shut the door.
She could hear the rattling of utensils. Sipeyiye was preparing his food. Sipeyiye and food! She looked at the watch beside her. It registered past midnight.
Outside was the distant hiss of rain. She was being allergic to it. That boy! Talk to somebody and you will feel better. For a brief moment, she was tempted to share this with Sipeyiye. But how could she phrase it. The boy in t
he street wasn’t going to appeal to him in any way. Nothing less than death especially that of the great North Korean leader would.. He was so insensitive to everything he has never taken to bed this Sipeyiye. She lost her temper.
He popped in again. ‘You can have a bite,’ he offered.
‘I’m ok’. She knew she would go for it eventually. His effort meant a lot to him. It just didn’t appear right to accept it right away.
‘If you can’t come, you know what I will do: I will force you?’ He crossed the room. He flung the blankets away from her. Natasha lay beneath, huddled in a thin nightgown.
Sipeyiye stood over her for a moment, looking down at her. Natasha loved to be admired. He bent over. He slipped his hands beneath her.
Natasha kicked about. He arrested her in a stronger grip. ‘Now there isn’t a thing I enjoy more than a challenge.’ he grinned.
She freed a leg. As it touched the ground, Sipeyiye stumbled into it. There was going to be a disaster, but Sipeyiye took her down with the grace of a cat. They stumbled into an untidy heap with Sipeyiye on top.
The action caught them both unawares.
‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Natasha charged to cover up. She knew she was wrong, though. That did it: Sipeyiye looked around apologetically.
‘Oh, my arm,’ Sipeyiye howled. Natasha looked at the hand still beneath her. She quickly figured pain was false. He was obviously acting up. She might have landed thunderously on it, but could not have hurt that rocky, lean hand of his.
‘Oh, my leg,’ he wailed again, perhaps having forgotten he had started with the arm. They were so near to each other that they were breathing the same air.
Natasha could feel his heart beating on her nipples. His smell clouded her nostrils.
She was almost surprised by his nearness. Something that goes beyond what the eye can see, perhaps. Child games didn’t suit him well. He was too serious a man in general. He was an underachiever who dreamt of power and money. However, dreamer that he was could not afford to play games all the time. Natasha could see that he was trying very hard to give their relationship a chance.
He scrambled up, finding balance at her upturned leg.
She followed him to the kitchen.
At times she was really surprised at Sipeyiye’s efficiency. The floor was clean with no litter. The dishes lay smart on the table. The stove was spotlessly clean. She arrived in time to see him do the last touches to it. She stood behind him, hunched at the shoulders. She massaged her stomach, recalling she had his child.