THE LOST EARRING

MY FATHER is scared of water. This is a scientific truth. He says bathing washes away his sweetness. When he cannot help it, my father always makes sure to perform a couple of theatrics as if trying to approach the bath from an obtuse/reflex angle x where x is negative. On such mornings Nkumbudzi wakes up, gives a police rap to my door and announces loudly that he will take some exercise before diving into the sweet cold water. In the midst of our partially furnished lounge, there hangs a box of matches in the manner of a punch bag, attached to a chance appendage on the ceiling by a white shoe- lace. My father and I take turns to jab, hook, uppercut and punch at this unfortunate box. You should try it too. It does not belong to the do not attempt at home category. For exactly seven minutes, Nkumbudzi will engage himself boxing the box of matches, bouncing up and down. He says it’s good for blood circulation. I think he is right. I try it now and then, but fitness is not my major preoccupation. Definitely not now; not when I have this ring that glitters at me like the evil eye.

So I listen to Nkumbudzi bounding on his aerobics, boxing the match. Hit it Nkumbudzi. I try to picture myself after the sale, in possession of good money. A black Range Rover in my garage, an eye- rolling beautiful girl dangling from the crook of my elbow like a shopping basket. But what will I do for my father? This threatens to be a sticky issue. I will let my father run his shop, for I shall not be associated with linen anymore. I shall try to do something different. Maybe get into the car- selling business. I am told there is big money there. But I should also be able to buy Nkumbudzi a stronger truck. Maybe a Land Cruiser. The one we use is reporting. Bhotsotso is our jalopy. We whip her like a donkey every day. Where should I live? Should I continue living in Harare, or go back and try something else in Bulawayo- once I have the money. Going to Bulawayo might make sense, but does not the saying go that all roads lead to Rome. Harare is Zimbabwe’s Rome. All resources a stockpiled in this city. If you really need your passport, Harare; if you need a birth certificate, Harare; if you need an education, Harare. Once the folk in Binga and Tsholotsho, or, to name my very own, Plumtree, vote for MPs, the wretches find their way to Harare, and will only come back to their electorate when it’s time to solicit for votes in the next election. Harare stands out above all other cities as the Virgilian cypress soars above the drooping undergrowth.
Seven minutes elapse, and my father huffs and puffs his way to the bathroom where he further emboldens himself with a Mahlathini voiced song, a guttural deep below that requires you to suspend breathing until the next caesura. The South African music of the 60s. Followed by some Peter Tosh. The two songs, though so separate, talk about broken relationship. They sort of translate one another.

Dali Hamb’zobuya, Dali Hamb’zobuya
Sono sami sinye, sono sami sinye
Ngakushiya lengane, Ngakushiya langane,

Go Darling, Go Darling,
Here comes the storm, there goes the sun
And Its all right, still alright
Bathing. I always feel sad for my father, when he sings like this, but there isn’t much I can do about it, for all my nineteen years. After which Nkumbudzi will emerge out of the bath, pronouncing bathing as the most refreshing discovery by mankind, saying the man who discovered the art should either be knighted or canonized. Sir Bath, Saint Bath.
“You should take a bath too, Nkumbudzi. You must.”
I got up, brushed my teeth, bathed and joined Nkumbudzi at table. There was scrambled egg and two thick slices of bread in each plate. The slabs of bread in one of the plates were plain- that was my plate. I have been having all my meals from that plate for as long as I can remember. The precursor to the present plate was broken by its owner in a pathological fit of temper that attacks the young when they see food. I remember the amount of belt lashes I received from daddy- oh that day. I have been very careful when handling my plate since that day. The result is a white china plate whose lips are decorated with thin flowers like some of the linen we sell at our shop. The plate’s bottom has changed from white into a cobalt green because of sitting various types and temperatures of food. In daddy’s plate the same number of bread slices sat besides scrambled eggs as if daring the eggs to a contest. Dad’s bread was smeared thick with peanut butter, on top of which he had generously spread a thick and winding trickle of honey. No wonder why his head is balding at this rate. Come five years, and daddy boy will have no hair to show off to his girl friend.
“I see we are dressed to kill today, Nkumbudzi,” he said, pushing his chair back just this little bit. Dad was not going to stand up this time. The ritual of standing up was always punctuated by a loud grating sound to the floor. A minor scrape was just an indication of an elated mood and a ferocious appetite. I wondered what Nkumbudzi was driving at by saying I was well dressed. Just a plain blue messenger’s shirt and navy blue trousers to match. You could easily mistake me for a security guard who has misplaced his hat and baton stick. The diamond earring was nestling safely in my hip pocket. It would take all the sensors in the world to guess that I was worth a million dollars. Should I be telling dad about it? I wondered.
“Not really,” I said, pulling a chair.
“You don’t have to chase Indira right away, Nkumbudzi,” he said. “A man needs to take his time when it comes to women.” I wanted to tell dad that he was not an authority on women and marriage, using his separation from mother as a case study. Plus, I did not quite fancy Indira. She was this girl whose Indian blood had been tainted by some cunning negro during the colonial era. That was not the problem, I see beyond colour and creed. The problem was that Indira was ugly. She was raised behind the counter and severely lacked exercise. We called her hippo at Belvedere Junior where she was a year ahead of me. I have just mentioned another setback. Indira was older than me.
I regarded the meal with a disinterested eye. I was not going to eat that meal. Who can eat when they have a million in their pocket? My father grumped and opened his mouth rather too wide. He tossed a fraction of bread into his mouth that would have choked the biggest dog in the neighbourhood. What with the peanut butter and all? For a moment, I thought dad had lost the plot of his joke, especially when his eyes bulged and protruded as if to jump out of their sockets.
“Shall I offer you some water?” I offered with a smile. He who swallows marula seeds needs must have a wide arse. It’s old Nkumbudzi who once told me that adage.
One day my father was lecturing me on the importance of table manners. “A certain man went to a funeral and worked like an antbear digging the grave. When it was time to eat, the man was given a huge and meaty bone as a reward for his painstaking work. The man regarded his neighbours’ miserly pieces and decided he was not going to share his bone with anyone. So he threw the meaty bone into his mouth and choked. He would have died had not a prudent do- gooder given him a nice thump between the shoulder blades. The greedy man disgorged the bone and, when it landed on the ground, a sly dog picked it and fled away to host a party with his friends. You must not chew more than you can swallow, Nkumbudzi.” My dad had said and aimed a beautiful blow between my shoulder blades. I disgorged like the man in the tale. There was no dog to pick the mango seed that I had accidentally swallowed. We also have a mango tree at home.
“No,” my father said, straining his neck like a chicken trying to swallow an outsized maize seed. His eyes narrowed as they slowly went back to their place, and I could see the food straining down his oesophagus in one huge, slow chunk. He craned his neck to force the lump of bread down and, when the size of his neck had shrunk considerably, said, “No, Nkumbudzi. No water this time.” He lifted his cup and sipped at the black tea with a peremptory slurp. I smiled at his narrow escape. I replayed a picture of myself landing a neat blow between dad’s shoulder- blades- and the piece of bread squirming like a new birth on the floor. However I shuddered at the thought of pushing a shoe up his butt to make him clean up his mess as he had done me the day he had helped me disgorge the mango seed. Convention forbids us to think wicked thoughts about our parents. Is there anyone does not know the verse “Honour your father and mother so that your days will be many in this world”?
“Eh, Nkumbudzi,” I said, straightening my collar with one hand and poking a fork at my breakfast with the other, clearly not interested in food.
“Yes,” said dad.
“I need to go and see about the linen order you placed yesterday-I mean Mrs. Gupta is expecting us, isn’t she?”
“I thought it was me going to see The Hag.” Dad said while rummaging his mouth with his tongue so as to dispatch with any traces of peanut butter and honey. “Leave her to me. She is a sly one.” I kicked myself on the shin because that meant dad was not going to lend me Bhotsotso. Bhotsotso is the name of our car. Whose car it is usually depends on dad’s moods. If he is feeling good it is our car, and if not it is his- a product of his own sweat and tribulation. That meant I would have to take a kombi and get to town in a crumpled mess. Don’t worry dad, I reminisced. I will be buying me my own car very soon. I was brow- beaten. I imitated Nkumbudzi’s standing up procedure as a way of getting back at him. Face down, chair back, and up like an arrow that has been shot into the sky.
“You have not touched your food since yesterday,” Nkumbudzi observed as soon as I was up.
I nodded and mumbled something about lack of appetite.
“You better get it back soon. I don’t want people calling me to say you swooned for lack of nutrition.”
“They shan’t,” said I.
“Eh, Nkumbudzi?”
“Yes dad.”
“Life is too short to be spent hungry, yes?”
“Yes Nkumbudzi.”
“Look, I am a poor father, but do you know how many people are hungry right now? Hungry not because they have no appetite, but hungry because there is nothing to eat. They go hungry because people like me buy food for people like you who will not eat, Mfan’ami.”
Seeing my dad change colour, I folded myself into a good boy and regarded the food with a contrived interest. Maybe I should eat my breakfast after all.
“Sorry dad.”
“Eat your breakfast, Nkumbudzi. I saw it on TV that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Look at me. Why do you think I almost choked right now? Eh, Nkumbudzi? I almost choked because I did not feel like any food. You just have to force it down.”
My brain started to function normally. There are a lot of potholes on the roads of Harare. Each time a kombi hits a bump, the arrangement of affairs changes in the stomach, and you are as hungry as a stray dog by the time you get to the city. Once you are hungry, then comes the necessity to buy food. The price begins at one dollar- unless you want to buy dollar for two biscuits. This is bad for business in terms of cost- benefit analysis. The food that me and dad prepare at home is more fulfilling than the greasy left- overs that most restaurants sell. Most of them are closed at 9am, anyway. I was chewing the last morsel of bread by the time I was done with my slogans. After that, I picked the fork and shoveled the scrambled egg without even caring what it smelt like. The tea was getting cold, so it was not a big deal for me to swallow it in three or four gulps. After which I banged the table and proclaimed, “Whoever wants to fight may come now.”
My father smiled and waved me away, promising to wash my plate as well as his. After five minutes I was sitting in a kombi, driving recklessly into the city.