Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [68]
So on the morning of January 9, 1978, Mum and Dad weighed their options. Our school fees were due, which meant Mum and Dad needed to take a slaughtered steer into the township on the edge of Umtali and scrape together enough money from the sale of meat to pay the bursar. On top of that, Vanessa had undergone a sudden growth spurt, and she needed a new pair of school shoes. Mum bit the inside of her lip. “Safest and best,” she said, “to leave Bobo and Olivia at Mazonwe with Rena, don’t you think?” She looked at the steer, fly-attracting and taking up more than all the room in the back of the Land Rover. “Nicer for the little ones, yes?” Mum strapped the Uzi across her chest, Dad shouldered his FN rifle and we all climbed into the Land Rover, hot and coppery with the smell of the steer’s blood.
“I’m going to get shoes and you’re not,” Vanessa said to me.
“Don’t tease Bobo,” Mum said.
Vanessa pulled a face at me and mouthed, “I’m going to town. I’m going to town. I’m going to town!”
I pulled a face at Vanessa and mouthed, “I’ll see Aunty Rena. I’ll see Aunty Rena. I’ll see Aunty Rena!”
Rena Viljeon, our favorite neighbor, was a kind and practical Scottish nurse married to an Afrikaner farmer. They had four children (also favorites), all older than Vanessa and me (their eldest son was eighteen and in the Rhodesian Special Forces), and they owned the local grocery store a couple of farms west of Robandi. The store was a child’s dream: salty with dried fish and bright with sweets, soap and beads. On the veranda of the store, there was always a tailor, strips of cloth whipping through his fingers as his feet treadled: “Ka-thunka, ka-thunka, ka-thunka.”
On that rainy-season morning, the sun fresh and bright through the washed sky, Olivia and I were dropped off with Aunty Rena. We stood at the security fence and waved at the Land Rover carrying Vanessa, Mum, Dad and the chopped-up steer into Umtali. Mum leaned out the window, the wind whipping her auburn hair into her mouth. “Be good and help Aunty Rena look after Olivia!” she shouted. We watched the Land Rover turn right at the end of the road, Mum’s Uzi and Dad’s FN rifle poking out of the window against the worst that the war could throw at them, and then we turned back to the store.
IN THOSE DAYS, it took more than an hour to get into town–the convoys were slow, following the minesweepers. Dad dropped Vanessa and Mum at the OK Bazaar and went into the markets in the African part of town. Mum and Vanessa each had a sausage roll and a Coke at Mitchell the Baker (brother of Mitchell the doctor) and then went shopping for school shoes at the Bata on Main Street. It was here, in the early afternoon, that the local member in charge of the Umtali Police found them, Mum bent over Vanessa’s stocking-clad foot, a brown lace-up in her hand. “Nicola?” he said.
Mum looked up, a half smile on her lips. “What are you doing here, Malcolm?” But seeing his stricken face, Mum straightened up and dropped Vanessa’s foot.
Malcolm put his hands on Mum’s shoulders. “Nicola, I’m so sorry. There’s been an accident.”
Mum’s knees gave way and she sank onto the red plastic seat next to Vanessa. She dropped the brown lace-up. “No,” she said. “Don’t tell me.”
“I’m so sorry. Oh God.” Malcolm looked over his shoulder. “Where’s Tim?”
Mum shut her eyes, and the breath came out of her in short puffs, as if she’d been hit in the chest. “He’s selling meat.” She swallowed. “Malcolm, what is it?”
Malcolm crouched down