Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [80]
H.E.’s actual date of birth was an official state secret, but he was undeniably old and unquestionably old-fashioned. He affected crisply tailored three-piece suits with matching handkerchiefs and went everywhere with a traditional fly whisk, as if expecting perpetual annoyance. “Everyone was scared stiff of him,” Mum says. “You had to bow and scrape and be at his beck and call. And if you upset him, then that was it.” Her eyes open wide. “The end of our first year on the estate, the deputy president of our company had some little disagreement with H.E., and the next thing we knew, his Mercedes had gone over a cliff, mysteriously riddled with bullet holes.”
Days after my parents’ arrival in the country, an official spy was sent to the tobacco estate to keep an eye on their activities, and to ensure that they were behaving in an acceptably Malawian manner at all times: no long hair or beards for men; women had to wear skirts below the knee (no trousers allowed); no kissing in public; no uncensored literature; and above all, H.E. was to be constantly revered and honored. “You weren’t even allowed to throw away or burn a newspaper if it contained his image,” Mum says, “which got tricky because every edition of the Malawian Times, or whatever it was, had lots of photographs of him in it—hovering over this hospital bed, blessing that schoolchild, getting out of another bullet-proof helicopter. In the end, it was safest not to buy a newspaper at all, because where would you store them all?”
Mum and Dad’s letters were steamed open and all their phone calls were monitored by a spy working at the telephone exchange. “You could hear the spy eating his lunch over the line,” Mum says. “Nshima and relish. Squelch-squelch.” And once or twice Dad was dragged off by the police for questioning. “Pages and pages of accusations of all the stuff we were supposed to have been up to,” Mum says. She takes a sip of tea and absentmindedly picks a tick off one of the Jack Russells sitting on her lap. “Oh yes, things could get very sinister in a hurry and it was very stressful,” she says. “I got a plague of boils, Dad’s hair started to fall out, we both had malaria all the time. When our two-year contract was up, we had had enough of that. Two years was all we could take.”
SO MY PARENTS found work in Zambia with a German company, raising maize, soya beans, tobacco and cattle on a farm near the Zaire border. “We liked working for zee Germans,” Mum says. She puts the Jack Russell nose to nose against her face. “Didn’t we, Bumble Bee? Yes, we loved zee Germans.” Mum gives me a look. “Well, you know what Germans are like. They preferred things orderly and picturesque when they came out for their annual visit. So they bought us a couple of bush horses to graze nicely in the home paddock and they got us a set of new wineglasses, all matching instead of just whatever wasn’t broken. And they imported terrifying chemicals to keep the pool blue so they could go for invigorating swims or whatever it is Germans like to do before breakfast.”
Mum brought a Chinyanja phrasebook and dictionary and began to practice on Adamson Phiri, the cook. “Muli bwanji. Dzina landa ndine Nicola Fuller of Central Africa,” she said. She especially liked the Chinyanja word for brain. “Bongo,” she said triumphantly, “bongo, bongo. Isn’t that onomatopoeic? That describes my brain perfectly. ” Then she pulled out her Berlitz German course left over from the days Dad worked for the veterinary-supply company in Kenya (“I knew this would come in handy one day,” she said, triumphantly) and walked around the house asking the animals, “Wie geht es dir?”
And for a few years, Mum and Dad were, on the whole, very happy. It is true that some of their Mkushi farming neighbors were armed and excitable—“all those Yugoslavs and Greeks,” Mum says appreciatively, “very volatile”—but at least there wasn’t a war on. And the