Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [47]
K looked at me. “And guess what happened?”
My mind swam with all the available evils. I shook my head.
“Two weeks later he was bitten by a black mamba. They brought him to the house—his relatives—in the middle of the night in a wheelbarrow. I was here sleeping and I heard the dogs going benzi, and the watchman beating the gong and I could hear women—you know the sound—ululating. That’s when you know the shit has hit the fan in some major way—either someone was dead or dying.
“I went up to the workshop to investigate and there’s Mapariwa in the wheelbarrow, barely alive. I put him in the back of pickup and told Michael to run and switch on the generator, so I could have some light and see what was going on. So the lights come on and I see Mapariwa. Shit, he was in rough shape. I knew then that he was going to snuff it, so I put a blanket over him and as I was pulling it up we looked into each other’s eyes and he knew. He knew that I knew. We both knew.” K shuddered. “To look in the face of the power of the Almighty like that, it was chilling.
“I told him, ‘I forgive you. But you’d better make it right with Mwari pretty fucking fast, because you’re on your way to the big, fat, fucking oven downstairs if you don’t.’
“And his lips start to move, but there’s no sound. You know? Just that noise—have you ever heard it? When someone’s about to croak? It’s like their lungs rattle.
“So I tell him, ‘Speak up, my boy, the Almighty needs to hear you.’
“Then he makes this sighing sound and snuffs it.”
THE NEXT MORNING, while K went to his office to make sure that his foremen knew what work needed to be done on the farm in his absence, I went from the kitchen, to the workshop, and on to the banana fields, asking the people who work for him what they thought of him, of the farm, of their lives. Of course I have no way of knowing what they really thought of K, or of me. Grinning politely they told me that yes, working for Bwana K was very good. Better than before when there was no job. No food. No school. So now things are okay. They are much better, in fact. Thank you for asking. And they obediently went back to the task at hand. For all they knew, I was spying on K’s behalf. For all they knew, I was in line to be the new madam of the farm.
Michael, the foreman, was more talkative. We sat in the shade of the workshop sharing a tray of tea and he told me about his previous work as a welder for an Indian mechanic in Lusaka.
“Those Indians are even worse,” Michael told me, echoing the common prejudice that many black Zambians have against Asians, “greedy and cheating. Bad man.”
“What about here?”
Michael smiled. “This Bwana, he’s tough. He’s tough, but very square.” He shook his head. “He made a good house for the workers even while he was sleeping in a tent. Himself, he still sleeps like a black man, in a black man’s house. And I think he understands Mwari. Maybe they have a way of talking together.” Michael told me about the incident with the burrowing adder and the black mamba. “It’s hard,” he said, “to find such a man who understands God in this way. I hope I will be here until I die.”
When I told K what Michael had said, K said, “Ja, he’s a good gondie. I really love that man. He’s honest, he’s godly, he’s really one of the best managers I’ve ever had. And let me tell you something about Michael. When I found him, he didn’t know much about farming. But he was willing to learn. I taught him everything and he caught on quickly and he showed that he has a head for responsibility.
“Now what usually happens around here is that you find a decent gondie, you train them, and then the poor bastard gets Henry the Fourth and dies. Now how do you explain this? Michael can’t get a stiffy. I have the only gondie in Zambia who can’t screw himself to death. Do you think that’s a coincidence? And he’s so bloody good. He’s sent by God, and he has been protected by God.”
I said, “Poor Michael. I am sure he’d rather not be impotent.