The Boy Next Door Read online

  The shoes are fellies from Bata, farmers’ shoes, but I’m working on that.

  His hair has been stylishly cut by Les at the Westgate Salon.

  I finally managed to drag him there on New Year’s Eve and the thought of him sitting on that chair squirming, suspiciously eyeing Les’s well-manicured fingers as they whirled and twirled in front of his face; him listening to Les’s excited babbling about what a divine haircut he was going to give this gorgeous boy, makes me smile.

  “No moffie hairstyle, highlights, streaks, or what you may call it,” he had warned me before stepping into the salon. “Otherwise, I’m straight out of there.”

  I let Les work his magic.

  I’m amazed that he has kept up with it, that he and Les have formed quite a relationship.

  And so here he stands. Ian. My man. The father of my child. He looks very handsome. He doesn’t look like a Rhodie at all. He could be an expat. A foreigner.

  Later, after the haircut, he said, “Maybe now you won’t be so shy to show me around, huh?”

  “I think she is going to be all right over there; it looks pretty organized. Everything spick-and-span.”

  The voice, the mannerisms, though. No mistaking those.

  There is no one else in the house. I’m sure that if I’m still enough, I might hear our hearts beating. I’m still holding onto the vacuum cleaner. It would be good if he kissed me now. If he took the one step and kissed me.

  “I’ll be back a bit late today.”

  That’s all he says.

  To prove something to Ian (and myself), I ask him to come along to a barbeque some guys from the Swedish International Development Agency are having. I don’t say anything about the outfit Ian’s chosen. Local jeans, power sales army green T-shirt, and fellies.

  At the barbeque he lays on the Rhodese pretty thick: “Yah, it’s fricking hot today, you telling me…”

  Thankfully I spot Solace who works as a guest liaison officer at the Sheraton and who always has some juicy gossip about Harare socialites. She is in the middle of telling me about a prominent black businessman, who has been spotted on First Street in the early hours of the morning donned in killer heels and a hot pink miniskirt, when I look up and see Ian engaged in a conversation with a pretty-looking blonde.

  Solace finishes telling me the story, and Ian is still with the blonde, who flips her locks off her shoulders.

  I have a drink, another one, and they are still together.

  I go to the toilet, and when I come back, I am in time to see the woman write something down on a piece of paper and give it to Ian, who puts it in the front pocket of his jeans.

  He doesn’t say anything about the woman or the note on our drive back, nothing when we’re in bed, until finally I give in.

  “Who was she?” I ask him.

  “Who?” he says innocently.

  “That girl, the one you were talking to at the party?”

  The lights are off, so I don’t see the splotches of red on his cheeks, forehead—the imprints of guilt, shame.

  “Oh, her,” he says.

  I wait in the dark for something else.

  “Ian?”

  “What?”

  “The girl. Who is she?”

  “Which girl? Oh that, just some chick who knows me from way back, wants me to take some pictures.”

  And then he rolls over, goes to sleep.

  In the morning he gives me a long kiss.

  “What’s that in aid of?”

  He looks at me and starts to get out of bed. I reach out my hand to pull him back, but it’s too late. He goes into the bathroom. I spy the jeans on the chair. I stop myself from going to them, sticking my finger in that front pocket.

  He comes out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist.

  “Ian…”

  Please, please, kiss me again. Please.

  He puts on his jeans. I think of the note in that front pocket. When he’ll remember it, if he already remembers, when he’ll call her.

  Please, please, kiss me again. Please.

  He puts on his T-shirt, runs a hand through his hair. He sits on the bed, puts on his socks.

  “Ian, it’s just that… okay, I’ll say it, the note, from yesterday, you’re not going to call her? I mean, you and her. I just want to know, you were talking for a long time, do you like…?”

  And it all comes out in a rush, leaving me breathless, standing there in my nightie that’s covered in teddy bears.

  He looks at me.

  “Maybe you want, miss, white hair, feeling it…”

  And it doesn’t help that I have a sock on my head to keep my braids from getting messed up.

  “Yah, yah, just like in the Sunsilk advert, Lindiwe, silky, soft, shiny hair. Yah, I miss running my fingers through that. Man, Lindiwe, how many years and you’re still thinking this shit? Come here, you dunderhead.”

  But he comes to me.

  And he pulls off the sock, puts his fingers between my short braids.

  “Sometimes, I think you’ll go off with a white…”

  “Man, now you’re really going to get me really mad, and what about you and your university fundies?”

  I reach out my hand, draw his face towards me.

  “I’m allowed to be jealous, aren’t I, Ian? You being such a charmer?”

  And he smiles and lets me kiss him.

  “Lindiwe,” he says when I let him go.

  And he whispers the words, slowly, in my ear.

  I love you.

  And then, in case I haven’t understood, he says them again in Ndebele and then he adds a bit of Shona: chete, only.

  5.

  “So did he like the pictures?”

  “Shit, Lindiwe, you spooked me.”

  “Sorry. You’re reading.”

  “Yah.”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Come on, show me. Don’t be shy.”

  “Asch man, you may as well know.”

  He lifts the book, hands it over. Rhodesians Die Harder: Selous Scouts in Action.

  “Nice. Any particular reason?”

  “Check out the inscription, first page.”

  “To Comrade Ian, from Bob…”

  “Bob? Who’s Bob?”

  “Bob Bob.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes, Bob Bob. That one.”

  “You mean he gave this book to you.”

  “That’s right. Wish it ain’t so but—”

  “Why? Why would he…?”

  “Got to hand it to the man, he has one helluva sense of humor. Check the pictures, round about the middle.”

  “Selous Scouts. Nice. ‘The infamous rotting baboon that starving recruits were forced to eat.’ Nice.”

  “Check the one at the bottom. The one where he’s standing over a dead gook.”

  “Jesus, Ian.”

  “Read the caption.”

  “‘The legendary Captain Ian McKenzie overseeing the body search of a dead terrorist for intelligence.’ Captain Ian McKenzie? Ian, not your…?”

  “Yes, Lindiwe, my father.”

  “Jesus, Ian. He gave you this book.”

  “Yah, yah. He knows everything. You got to give it to those guys at the CIO. They’ve got their facts, that’s for sure.”

  “What are you saying, Ian? You mean they have a file on you?”

  “Me and every fricking… you know he thought it was one great big joke. He starts asking, ‘How is your son? David, it is? And your beautiful African wife? Ah, but excuse me, you are not yet married.’ That really got me spooked… man.”

  “What? You don’t think he was, I mean, threatening you.”

  “You know the stories that fly around about him. He has this way of looking at you, and you think, jeez, I’m going to get fried, man, and you know he’s just enjoying himself big style, watching you sweat it out. Then he hits me with the book.”

  “Well, they say he has dirt on everyone. That’s why no one…”<
br />
  “Dirt! Read the chapter on Operations. Ian McKenzie, a fricking bloody legend in his own lifetime. I thought all his talk about contacts and kills was bull, trying to show how tough he was, what a man… Read, Lindiwe. Then as he’s walking out the room, he comes out with, ‘I’ll be in touch, Mr. McKenzie.’ Man, I’m thinking of gapping it for sure.”

  I take the book outside and read.

  I read what Captain Ian McKenzie has bequeathed his son, Ian.

  In 1973 Ian McKenzie was one of a troop of Selous Scouts (four Africans, four Europeans, Special Ops) that took part in a clandestine mission to kidnap several ZIPRA terrorists from Francistown, Botswana. Posing as a Polish journalist, he managed to sweet-talk his way into ZIPRA headquarters and to conduct interviews with high-ranking officials. After he gleaned intelligence information from his “interviews,” the targets were captured by his team after being lured into a rendezvous with the promise of good times with some Polish girls at a local hotel.

  After various other operations (internal and external), his bravery and willingness to do just about anything for his country caught the attention of Lieutenant Smith-Avery and he was reassigned to Mashonaland. It was here where he truly thrived and his survival skills and instincts for a kill were fine-tuned and highly valued.

  Operation Take Down is where Ian McKenzie made a name for himself. November 1976. Together with black Selous Scouts, they disguised themselves as FRELIMO fighters and raided a ZANLA training camp in Mozambique. In a matter of a couple of hours, well over a thousand terrorists were exterminated with no injuries sustained whatsoever to the twenty Scouts. On their way back across the border, the Scouts still managed to have enough energy to ambush two Land Rovers loaded with ZANLA big shots, adding to their kills.

  There is other stuff I can’t bring myself to read. I skim over the words. Manuals on how to extricate information from living terrorists. Manuals on how to use torture methods effectively. Manuals on how to prepare for a kill. Quickly. Quietly. Efficiently.

  I ruffle through the pages. I look at the pictures. At Ian’s father who looks so much like him. I think of Ian, how it must have been like to have him back home, after all those months his father had spent away, killing. If his father had had nightmares.

  “The legendary Captain Ian McKenzie overseeing the body search of a dead terrorist for intelligence.” There he is, cigarette in his mouth, just another day on the job, time for a drag.

  I put the book down on my lap, then pick it up again.

  I look at the pictures and stop again at “The legendary Captain Ian McKenzie overseeing the body search of a dead terrorist for intelligence.”

  I look at Captain Ian McKenzie rakishly smoking his cigarette. I look at the dead terrorist. I look at the Selous Scout who is doing the body search of a dead terrorist for evidence. And then I look up from the dead terrorist to a figure to the left of him. I look up. The face is twisting away from the camera, but still there’s enough to see.

  Maphosa.

  I think he must be a terrorist, terr, gook, guerrilla, Nationalist, Freedom Fighter. He must be a Prisoner of War.

  Then I look closer and see that Maphosa is giving the foot of the dead terrorist a kick.

  When I get up again, it’s dark. I put the book on the dining-room table, walk as far as the kitchen, come back, lift it, and look for some place to put it away. I’m standing in the room when Ian flicks on the switch.

  “Second time you’ve spooked me today, Lindiwe. What the hell are you doing in the dark?”

  I don’t want to keep secrets from him.

  “I… Ian, that picture with the baboon… I… I think I saw Maphosa.”

  “Maphosa?”

  “You remember, the war vet who used to live with us. He’s in the picture. Look.”

  He takes the book from me, finds the page.

  “Shit, Lindiwe, is that him? Are you sure? What’s he doing there? And shit he’s all decked out in Selous Scout gear: bush shorts, camouflage T-shirt, FN, beard; man, he’s looking rough.”

  “I know, I… I don’t understand.”

  “He must have turned. Lots of terrs turned once they’d been captured and been wined and dined by the Rhodesian Army.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “It’s Ancient History, Lindiwe. That generation has got blood on their hands all round.”

  “Ian, I think I’ll go to Bulawayo this weekend. I haven’t seen Dad for a while. We’ll catch the bus.”

  “With David, you think that’s safe?”

  “Ian, Maphosa wouldn’t… I don’t believe it. He’s a relative.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, Ian, remember last time. I don’t want to provoke anything.”

  He drives us to the Ajay Motorways depot early on Friday morning. As the bus pulls away, I watch him walk towards the car and his figure, alone in the early morning, hurts.

  David puts on his Walkman and is lost in Bunny Wailer. I haven’t really talked about Bridgette with him. What is there to say beyond the reality of her death, the brutality of it? We didn’t even hug. I don’t know what he is carrying in his head. Ian says he’s dealing with it in his own way; when the time is right, it’ll come out. This is my, our, first visit to Bulawayo since she died. I should go to her grave. Maybe even David should come with me. But I don’t know if I can do it. Stand there looking at a tombstone with her name etched on it, with the parameters of her life fixed forever between two dates.

  I take out some work. I nudge David. He’s singing along to Bunny. He takes the earphones off. “What?”

  “You’re a bit loud.”

  “Oh,” and he puts the earphones back on and bops his head to Wailer.

  I look at the twists of hair he’s growing, much to Ian’s annoyance. I smile. My boy. I look down at my papers. I turn them over, try to concentrate, but my head goes back to Maphosa. Did he infiltrate the guerrillas? If he did, how many men did he betray or kill? For so long, Maphosa has been one thing and now he is another. How utterly wrong I, we, have been. Maphosa, my eccentric, colorful relative is now, what? A killer. But he was that before, wasn’t he? Does it really matter, what side? A traitor. He is a traitor. It was a dirty war. Notorious for it. Civilian planes shot down. Survivors hacked to death. Whole villages mortared. Babies shot. “Ancient History,” Ian said. Gone. It was gone. But Maphosa and his war veterans? My head throbs against the window.

  I look at David, who’s fallen asleep, his lips puckered open. I try to smooth down the twists of his hair, and I switch off the Walkman.

  “Tell me everything,” I say, watching him breathe. “Don’t keep secrets.”

  6.

  Daddy is so thin. I lift his hand; the lightness of it—its lack of weight, substance—shocks me. I look up at my mother busy smoothing the cover at the foot of the bed. She must feel my eyes on her, but she refuses to meet them.

  “Mummy, why is he like this? What happened? Why is he so th…?”

  She won’t look up.

  “Mummy…”

  “It is his stomach. He cannot keep anything in. He must have an operation, but he doesn’t want. He is tired.”

  I look down at Daddy. He is asleep, the breath coming out of him so shallow. I take my hand and lay my fingers gently on his forehead; its coolness, dampness, frightens me.

  I will leave behind a blue jersey and a hat, my guilty offerings. I look away to the door, to David who stands there, the Walkman earphones dangling from his neck.

  When we were standing outside the locked gate, he had been so jittery; he’d wanted to climb over it, already his feet were on the fencing.

  “David, no. Come on, get down. Be patient. Look there’s Granny….”

  “Gran!” he shouted to the figure marching up to the gate. I was struck with how much stronger she looked. How hard she seemed.

  “Gran!”

  She didn’t even look at him. She undid the lock, left the chain still hanging around the ga
te, and marched off again.

  David stood there next to me.

  “Jeepers Mum, she looks pretty mad,” he said softly.

  I knew what he meant, upset, angry, but the literal translation seemed to me spot-on. She was mad. Penga. How did such a sweet boy get two nutcases for grandparents?

  I was struggling to unwrap the heavy chain. “She’s just getting old. Old people get confused.”

  Finally the gate was free of the chain. I pushed it open.

  “Maybe it’s my hair.”

  We made our way to the house. I was shocked by how desolate it seemed, as if any moment, ghosts might come waltzing through. There was no sign of dogs, life.

  “And you’ve grown so much. She remembers you when you were just so high.”

  We were both trying so hard.

  I look up once more at her, then down at Daddy, and then I turn away and go to my son, closing the door behind me.

  “Come, let’s go and explore.”

  We walk through the dark passageway into the kitchen, open the wooden door, and stand outside on the concrete doorstep, the two of us squeezed together. It is cold in the shade of the loping eaves. I step onto the sparse grass. I don’t look left. I’m not yet ready for that house. The chicken coop is deserted, feathers caught in the fencing. David walks over to the dog kennel, peers inside, nothing. He walks towards the boy’s kaya, stands in that place between it and his grandfather’s workshop.

  “I don’t think Rosanna’s around,” I say.

  He turns, screws up his eyes, scratches his forehead with his middle finger, and bites his lip, looking so much like Ian then. I wait for him to say whatever is playing in his head, but he makes a little shrug and turns again, the palm of his hand moving along the rough wall.

  I don’t know how much of Rosanna he holds close.

  I follow him to the boy’s kaya. There are spiderwebs and deep cracks, crevices, running all along the outer wall. Daddy blamed the apostolics for their shoddy work, and every year after the rainy season, he would spend a week plastering and filling in the cracks with cement. Mummy would stand by the kitchen complaining that he was wasting money.