Short fiction

Grandmother came home drunk

We heard her singing when she was still a fair way from the homestead. I always marvelled at how far sound seems to travel in the rurals. My brother, Thabani, explained that it had to do with population density and the distance between the compounds in the rural areas. Thabani was the only one of us in school and was always explaining things using big words. I was not won over but I did not challenge his explanation. I thought it had something to do with ancestral spirits because Father always brought us ‘home’ to the rurals when he needed ‘to talk to the spirits’. I figured that people were quieter here than in a big town like Bulawayo where we lived in deference to the ancestors. Whatever the explanation, we heard Grandma singing,

    ‘Handizaguta, kana ndaguta ndicharova mai.’

    It was as if she was standing before us in the small round hut that was at once her kitchen, living room and bedroom. We looked at each other but nobody moved. Father just rolled his eyes, mother looked away, my two older sisters exchanged a look and my brothers looked at the cow dung-smoothed floor. I felt an overwhelming urge to laugh. Grandma was singing the song about not been so drunk as to make the mistake of assaulting her own mother. It had been her favourite song when she used to brew traditional beer for ritual ceremonies. Then Grandma would get to ‘taste’ the beer first to make sure it was good enough for the ancestors and everyone else. The singing and dancing that were a result of the testing were legendary. That was before the district commissioner declared the beer-brewing illegal and punishable by whipping and a custodial sentence. Grandma gave it up and went to work at St Patricks’ Mission, cleaning and cooking for the nuns. This was well before I was born.

    She was singing both the call and the response. I bit my lower lip. I was not going to risk laughing. Not in the present circumstances, anyway. Besides, Mother would give me one of her ‘prostitutes lectures’, which would then definitely make me hysterical and her livid. “That is exactly how girls like you become prostitutes, laughing too much. Laughing and giggling when there is nothing to laugh about. Showing your teeth to the whole world all the time, advertising yourself, that’s what it is,” she would say.

    I found it hilarious. I took every opportunity to laugh the ‘prostitute laugh’ when Mother was out of earshot. Sometimes I just couldn’t help myself, though. I suppose the urge to laugh now was relief at hearing Grandma’s voice and realising that she was alive and well. There might still be opportunity for the ‘prostitute laugh’ tonight, I hoped.

We had arrived in Gwanda that morning, come to visit Grandma because we had not seen her for over a year. It was 1978 and the Rhodesian forces were suffering a lot of casualities and unable to mount as many roadblocks and effect restrictions on movement. We had missed Grandma so the first opportunity Father got to get some days off from work we piled into the Peugeot 504 station wagon and made the two-hour journey to Gwanda. When we got to the gate Mother shouted a greeting but there was no response. One of my brothers unhooked the gate and we all filed into the yard. The three-roomed brick house father had built for her was locked but the little round hut behind the house was not.

    A neighbour came to talk to Father. He wouldn’t speak to him in our presence. I had the feeling something was wrong. When he asked Father to come outside I took a cup and followed, pretending I needed to get a drink from the drum that stood just outside the door against the wall. The man told Father that Grandma had been arrested earlier that day. I caught the words ‘assault’,‘involvement in illicit trade’ and ‘BSAP’. I quickly filled the cup and went back inside, wondering if we would ever see Grandma alive again. Father came back into the room with a beaten look on his face.

    That night when we heard her high-pitched drunken singing we just froze. Grandma hadn’t sung this song since before her days at the mission. We all just sat there, until Father said, “The gate, girls.” He never addressed any of us specifically. When none of us moved, Mother shouted, “Don’t just sit there, Tisa. Go open the gate!”

    I stood up and left without protesting, although I thought that at that time of night, it was more appropriate for one of my brothers to go and open the gate for Grandma. My two sisters exchanged a look. They were always doing that, talking with their eyes.

    Outside, a big silvery moon sat on the horizon. The cattle kraals were visible from the yard. The air was still and everything was quiet, except for occasional barking from the neighbours’ dogs, and Grandma’s singing. The singing was at once obscene yet pleasing.

    I looked around and scanned the main road that ran past the homestead, but I didn’t see Grandma. In the glow of the moon the anthills scattered around, between the homesteads and the fields, seemed to be walking towards me. I shivered. A huge cat jumped out of the shadows and ran across the road. I went back inside. Everyone looked at me. I just shrugged my shoulders and sat down.

    Father made a clicking noise with his tongue and stood up so abruptly that he stumbled over my sister’s legs and swore as he tried to regain his balance. My three brothers stood up with him and they left. Mother busied herself tidying up in frenzy. Grandma had very little crockery but Mother wiped, arranged and rearranged it on the little mud shelf on one side of the room. I dared not look at anyone; they would see it in my eyes. Whenever I tried to stop myself by clenching my jaws and pressing my lips together the laughter would find its way through the eyes. I considered leaving the room but I knew Mother would want to know where I was going. I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth yet. We sat quietly and waited. My brothers walked in first. Father came in and sat down without saying a word. Grandma came in last. She sat on a mat and slowly looked around the room at all of us and then started talking.

    “What are you all looking at? Have you never seen a drunken person before?”

    We all look away. Embarrassed, I think.

    “Don’t blame me, it wasn’t my fault,” she says pointing at herself with both hands. I look at Father. When he catches me looking at him his eyes go blank. Although I was happy to see her I knew that the explanation for why she was in this state would not be that she had gone drinking with friends to celebrate her release. I wanted it to be that, though.

    “We had to drink all of it ourselves. It was either that or the sjambok,” she continues.

    What was I to do?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Even the men chose to drink the beer. No one ever opts for the sjambok when Hofmeyer is swinging it.”

    Hofmeyer was the District Commissioner and the most feared man in Matabeleland South. I had never seen him and I hoped I would never need to.

    “We threw some of it away when he wasn’t looking.” Her eyes light up. “When it came to the questioning I was the spokesman. Tomasi and Dube had become babies as soon as Hofmeyer walked into the cell. They were hurdled in a corner like goats on a stormy night. You should have heard me. I thanked my ancestors for that year I spent at the Mission. Hofmeyer says I speak English like white man.”

    “What is your name? he asked.”

    “Anna, I said. Born Chibi, I added. You should have seen how impressed Hofmeyer was.”

    “Tell me about the beer, he said.”

    “What beer, Baas?”

    “The Seven Days.”

    “Oh, the Seven Days... No beer Nkosi, just drink for traditional ceremony, Nkosi. Just a little something for the ancestors.”

    “It seems to me that your bloody ancestors are not getting any of it.”

    “Sorry, Baas.”

    “And what about pouring the disgusting brew on my officer?”

    “Sorry, Nkosi, his hat. It fall into drum. I get it for him. I put it back on his head for him. Just help, Nkosi.”

    “I know what you are all up to. Where are the terrs you have been feeding? Feeding and harbouring terrs are treasonous offenses. He starts banging his desk and his face has gone redder than the red soils of Chinamora.”

    “I don’t know terrorists Nkosi.”

    “Why do you need so many ceremonies anyway?”

    “The way of our forefathers, baas.”

    “We know you feed and harbour terrs, pretending to be holding rituals and ceremonies. Where is your son?”

    “Bulawayo. Work at factory.”

    “The younger one.”

    “Not here.”

    “Did he join up? Is that why he has disappeared? Crossed over to Zambia did he?”

    “I don’t know, Nkosi. Dead, I think.”

    “Dead? Dead indeed! That’s what he and his terrorist friends will be when we catch them.”

    “We swear on the graves of our ancestors Nkosi we have never seen them. Tomasi and Dube just nod their heads.”

    “You kaffirs are like children...”

    “Sorry, Nkosi, we all said.”

    “Get out of here bloody kaffirs, get out of here! If I catch any of you baboons brewing that disgusting brew again I will make you swim in it! No more ceremonies either.”

    “You should have seen us. Do you know you can run faster when you are drunk than when you are sober? You should try it, Jabu.” Father doesn’t respond. He still has the blank look on his face.

    Grandma was a great storyteller. It was riveting but when she started laughing, I found that my urge to laugh had disappeared. I stood up and stumbled out of the room in tears.

Ethel Maqeda