Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART ONE - Sole Valley, Zambia
Uncharacteristic Sole Flood
Characteristic Malidadi Flood
Worms and War
Words and War
Curiosity and Cats
Dogs and Curiosity
The Left Behind
The Leftovers
God Is Not My Messenger
PART TWO - Mozambique
Accident Hill
Cow Bones I
Plagues
Brothers in Arms
Demons and Godsends
Cow Bones II
Beware of Land Mines and Speed Guns
We’re Not Really Lost
We Just Don’t Know Where We Are
Or Why We Are Here
Have You Got a Map?
I Don’t Remember Getting Here
The Big Silence
The Journey Is Now
GLOSSARY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY ALEXANDRA FULLER
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight:
An African Childhood
THE PENGUIN PRESS
a member of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © Alexandra Fuller, Inc., 2004
All rights reserved
A portion of this book first appeared in The New Yorker as “The Soldier.”
Photographs on pages 19 and 126 courtesy of William Higham. All other photographs courtesy of the author.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from Echoing Silences by Alexander Kanengoni, Baobab Books, Zimbabwe, 1997.
The author would like to acknowledge Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock, the authors of Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, c. 1970-1980 and would also like to give special thanks to Sean Jacobs, Jessica Blatt and Oliver Payne.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fuller, Alexandra, 1969-
Scribbling the cat : travels with an African soldier / Alexandra Fuller.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-11880-1
1. Zimbabwe—History—Chimurenga War, 1966-1980—Veterans.
2. Zimbabwe—Social conditions—1980- 3. Zambia—Social
conditions—1964- 4. Zimbabwe—Description and travel.
5. Zambia—Description and travel. I. Title
DT2988.F85 2004
968.9404’2—dc22 2003062375
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For two African writers who stared war in the face
and chose not to look the other way—
Alexander Kanengoni and
the late Dan Eldon
With much respect
And for K and Mapenga
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
—Plato
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a true story about a man and about the journey that I took with that man. It is a story about the continuing relationship that grew between the man and me and it is a story about the land over which we journeyed. But it is only my story; a slither of a slither of a much greater story. It is not supposed to be an historic document of fact.
Even if you were to do as I did—leave your family and your real, routine-fat life and follow a feeling in your gut that tells you to head south and east with a man who has a reputation for Godliness and violence—you will not find the man whom I call K. You will not find where he lives. You will not be able to trace our steps.
I have covered our tracks as a good soldier always does.
But, as a fallen soldier might, I have broken the old covenant, “What goes on tour, stays on tour.”
Because what is important isn’t K himself, or me myself, or Mapenga and St. Medard and the whole chaotic, poetic mess of people that turned this journey of curiosity into an exploration of life and death and the fear of living and dying and the difficulty