Grey Sparrow Journal

At the Zambian entrance, black Africans filled the room, their traditional garb and cast off Western clothes faded. At the front of the disorderly queue, a little girl tucked between her parents cried. Ruth watched as they handed their blue, Zimbabwean, passports to the guard, dollar bills plainly protruding. The guard pocketed the dollars and ushered the family through to Zambian soil.

Ruth opened the Zimbabwe door. So many times in the last three years she’d wanted to cross this border and go home to the Highlands. Maybe she could call the old neighbors. Maybe the squatters would have left her house.

“How far is it?” Lillian boosted Nicholas to her shoulder.

“About four hours….” Ruth stopped, realizing Lillian meant their meeting point. “Sorry. The second passport control, getting into Zimbabwe, is the tricky part.  After that, it’s about an hour’s drive.” Ruth walked faster; hoping speed would give her courage.

The Zimbabwe receiving area was empty except for armed guards; all with rifles and holstered handguns. Two men by the door and two behind the counter stared at them.

“Good day,” she called, making her voice cheerful. The counter man, thin and gaunt, extended his hand for their passports. Ruth was counting on a slight deception. Her last name, Cunningham, and Lillian’s, Masakatwane, were not Isaac’s last name, so the officials couldn’t cross-reference them to him on their arrest warrants and watch lists.

The man demanded their purpose for entering. Ruth countered with “lunch at The Cloud Inn,” which was half-true. He flipped through her passport, page by page. All the times in and out of Zimbabwe, England and Botswana had been happy times of holidays, since her arrival in 1983. Then, no one fussed about a white woman traveling with her son and husband who just happened to have different skin color.

Nicholas tugged at his mother’s blouse. Lillian held him tighter and he yowled. Young mothers can be so impatient.

Frowning at the pages, the guard demanded that she must explain each one. Keeping her voice low, she recited locations without any mention of the Mtonga name, while Lillian nursed Nicholas.

Ruth handed him Lillian’s passport, but its pages were blank; she’d never been out of Zambia so he had nothing to fuss over. He stamped it, scowling at the nursing baby, and Ruth hurried them to the car.

“So many guns. I didn’t like that.” Lillian patted Nicholas for his burp and then she snapped him into his car seat. “Nicky will get his nap and be cheerful for his daddy.”

Ruth clicked the ignition, the diesel rumbling to life. Bringing the baby complicated the trip, but Lillian had insisted because she was nursing. In Ruth's rearview mirror, she saw Isaac’s nose and eyes in his sweet face. Driving through the opening border gate, Ruth gripped the steering wheel, wishing she’d taken an aspirin.

The countryside was strangely unpeopled; no walkers, no little trucks hauling goods, no country buses. In the fields, dry clumps of weeds had replaced the melons and tobacco.

On the drive, Lillian fussed about how few people voted in Zambian elections and how Zambia had never had a war. “How do people get these crazy ideas, that marching in the street will make the President listen?”

There was no way to answer her. Even though they held differing views of Isaac’s decision to join the opposition movement, they had tacitly agreed not to argue about it during the months he’d been gone. Ruth knew he did it to honor his father’s part in the War of Independence. What did a twenty-year-old wife know of history and politics? Ruth only said, “In Chiswa, we’ll call and find where to meet him. We can have lunch while we wait.” Nicholas’ saliva bubbled in his snores.

At the intersection of highway and district road, the pastures of big McKenna cattle farm; her landmark, were empty. Ruth pushed her old diesel engine to 90 and 100 kph, faster than she liked to cross these acres of abandoned farms.

Potholes marred the asphalt surface. After swerving for an hour, Ruth gratefully turned at the sign for The Cloud Inn. She drove up the steep driveway; the yellow building crowning the hill appeared suddenly. All the trees lining the driveway had been cut down, but the Inn ’s green awnings invited them to shade and rest.

The Inn itself looked unchanged since she’d last been here five years ago as a family, her husband Michael and her son Isaac—before the exile and before the daughter-in-law. They’d celebrated her fiftieth birthday with a lovely lunch, but this was no time to grieve Michael.

She parked near the door, swinging the car so it faced down the driveway, and they entered the lobby.

Midday sunlight filtered through the southern windows; everything appeared blessedly the same—her memories made her feel warm—the red leather sofas under the trophy heads of antelope. A closer glimpse revealed dusty end tables and the sofas’ leather cushions—sliced.

“This way to the dining room.” Ruth turned from the injured upholstery.  Lillian set Nicholas down and they each took one of his hands to balance him. At thirteen months, he stepped on his tiptoes.

A young waitress, her uniform too big across her shoulders, greeted them. Two men wearing blue uniforms glanced up from their drinks when they entered. Blue wasn’t the army.

Ruth requested a table by the rock wall so they could look out over the Inn’s gardens and the lovely view of the town below. She inhaled, anticipating the smell of the roses and the bougainvillea.

The rose garden was gone; tomatoes, beans, and melon vines now covered the Inn’s lawn. The houses at the bottom of the hill no longer had flower gardens, but instead had straggly cornstalks. 

Ruth shifted her chair so she couldn’t see the landscape and ordered coffee and sandwiches. Lillian asked for tea and began fiddling with the cell phone, while juggling the baby on her lap. Hovering near them, the waitress set down a breadbasket. Ruth reached for her grandson so Lillian could dial the number.

“What?” Lillian pressed her hand to her mouth.

Ruth tapped the table to caution her. Who knew who those men were? Local police might help them; men from President Mugabe’s militia would not. “Those ham and pickle sandwiches will be fine. Thank you. That’s all.”

The waitress bowed and left. Lillian clenched the phone, whispering, “Isaac has broken ribs.”

“Are they coming here? Or do we need to go to them?” Ruth offered Nicholas a chunk of bread to quiet him. The men walked across the veranda, carrying their beers.

‘We should go to them.” Lillian laid the phone on the table, like an abandoned chocolate candy she no longer had the stomach to eat. Ruth had never seen her look so frightened, not even when Nicholas ran a 104 degree fever.  Her daughter-in-law wove her fingers together, folding her thumbs like in prayer. Then Ruth recognized that fear, she’d felt it the night Michael died from cerebral malaria. Lillian whispered, “They’ll be here soon, but they know we’re here."

“Who? Isaac’s friends? Manny? Abraham?” Ruth murmured, and bounced Nicholas to a standing pose on her lap. He whined, 'down, wan down.'   “We might miss them on the roads. We need to stay here.”

“Manny and the militia. Manny thinks they’re being followed by them.” Lillian swatted Nick’s bottom. He howled. “Hush now.”

“Don’t—.” Ruth stopped and instead offered the baby another chunk of bread. Hitting never works—another thing she and Lillian disagreed about. Nicholas, the sunniest baby, grabbed the bread. Ruth stood him so his little arms rested on her thighs. He could crumble his bread all over her blue skirt—it would distract him and calm Lillian. They must stay calm, so they could react quickly.

“We’ll have our lunch and wait.”

Ruth sipped her coffee and glanced at the two men. She, the experienced traveler, the mother, had devised a plan to get everybody safely back to Zambia. They’d hide Isaac in the trunk under the baby’s blankets and clothes and stroller, a couple of used nappies to deter any searches by border guards. And they’d put dollars and Euros in their passports. Ruth forced her mouth to smile. “Try the bread. It’s very fresh.”

Lillian picked at a bread crumb. The men now sat at a table along the veranda wall.

“Say nothing,” Ruth whispered. “I’ll hold Nicholas.”

The waitress delivered the sandwiches. They ate slowly, nibbling and tearing the sandwiches into bites for Nicholas. Ruth stirred in milk, and the coffee became a lovely milky brown, but the taste was bitter, not the same as other afternoons in her kitchen, in her home, talking to Michael. She ordered a pot of tea, they drank it. Lillian asked for more and they let it go cold. The men still sat, drinking beer.

“They’re here.” Lillian half rose, pointing to a brown van on the road below.

“Wait,” Ruth whispered. She considered how to leave the Inn without those men following them. She twirled the baby and he laughed. “Phew! Your nappy smells terrible. Lillian, pay the waitress from my handbag and then come along.”

Ruth sashayed across the veranda, swaying Nicholas like a bell, keeping him between her face and the men.

Outside the Inn, Ruth wanted to rush to the van, but it would never do to race ahead of Lillian. Her son, her handsome boy—what had he seen while he was protesting the election results? Unlike his father who fought Ian Smith and the white minority, he’d been fighting against other black Zimbabweans, brothers against brothers.

Lillian cut through the vegetable plot, running to intercept the van on the road. The van stopped and the side door slid open. Isaac emerged, unsteady, and fell against the door. Ruth hurried as fast as she could with a wiggling, laughing Nicholas.

A young man in a torn T-shirt got out of the van and waved to Ruth. He stood in the middle of the road, hand raised to shield his eyes. She recognized Isaac’s friend, Manny, from the Tsvangirai headquarters group. Isaac’s friend since boarding school, he’d visited her home many times on holiday.

Lillian wrapped her arms around Isaac. His face was a contradiction—eyes squeezed shut, mouth open in a toothy grin. He uncurled her arms, cautioning her about his ribs.

“Where else are you hurt?” Ruth asked.

“Sorry to be a nuisance, Mom, all beat up like this,” Isaac turned to her, grinning until he saw Nicholas. He rubbed the baby’s head. “My little guy? Why in blazes did you bring him?”

“I’m nursing him.” Lillian sobbed into Isaac’s shirt.

“Isaac, I think I lost those guys on that last turn, but we got to get going.” Manny’s right eye was swollen and bruised. “This town isn’t a Mugabe stronghold yet, but…” 

“More likely they are too frightened of the militia,” Isaac snorted. “There won’t be any help for us here.”

“You couldn’t get proof of election fraud like you hoped?” Ruth asked. Nicholas squirmed, fussy in her arms, probably because his mother cried in noisy gulps.  Ruth wished she could tell her daughter-in-law to shut up.

Isaac shook his head no, murmuring about journalists jailed and beaten, judges locked out of their courtrooms. Ruth looked at Manny’s eye and Isaac’s hand protecting his ribs. Lillian was right—protests had made no difference.

“I gotta run. You need to go home, Mrs. Mtonga,” Manny said. All the while, he was watching the road.

“Certainly the Inn is safe,” Ruth said. Manny shrugged.

Isaac draped his arm around Lillian’s shoulders. “Help me to the car, hmm?”

His touch seemed to galvanize her as she supported him, marching up the driveway. Lillian was a loving wife, even if she was a foolish young mother.

Ruth murmured ‘Godspeed’ to Manny, positioned the baby on her hip and followed Isaac and Lillian toward the Inn’s car park. She turned at the shouts she heard.

Six or eight young men, teenagers only, had climbed out of a blue sedan. Manny jumped into the van, slammed the driver’s door and cranked the starter.

The teenagers, cursing in Shona, carried iron poles and broom handles.  Two carried pangas; tools Ruth has used for cutting brush. 

As Manny’s engine stuttered, the teenagers circled the van and rocked it. Their laughing sounded cruel.

“Mom, we have to go,” Isaac said.

Ruth cradled Nicholas, her heart pounding, her arms tingling. No one would get near him or Isaac. “Say there, what are you doing?” she called out. If a mature woman with an infant called for calm and introduced a bit of civility, she was certain she could make them stop.

The teenagers’ voices, raised in raucous song, frightened Nicholas, and he whimpered. The teenagers pushed the van, its body bouncing and creaking.

“Say there,” Ruth shouted. She was half way up the driveway, above them. She was a short woman, but old enough to be their grandmother. They must show respect to an elder and to an infant. It was the Shona way. “Stop that nonsense.”

One of the teenagers with a panga, pivoted from the van, stepping onto the driveway. He shouted to the gang to get the driver first. His hair cropped to his skull, he looked only fifteen or sixteen, yet he was their leader. His blue jacket, a uniform of some kind, was unbuttoned over a crisp military green T-shirt. “What do you want?”

“You need to leave him alone. He has no business with you. You…” Now she had his attention she could try to talk reason to him.

“Shut up old woman.” He took three more steps up the driveway. His body wasn’t thin like the border guard; he got enough to eat, unlike the waitress. He glanced over her head to the men on the veranda.  His uniform was the same as theirs. These men were not going to intervene. Never in her twenty-five years in Africa had a young man spoken to an older woman, a grandmother, in this way. Never to a white woman, either.

“What would your mother say to this behavior?” Ruth let her words ring out like a challenge, although her head was throbbing. She hoped to shame those uniformed men to speak, but when she looked to them, they had turned their backs.

The teenagers around the van stopped their shoving and stared at her and the leader pointed at her with the panga. She heard Isaac yelling for her and took a step backwards.

“My mother,” the boy snarled. “She would say, ‘Give back the African child. Go home, muzungu bitch.’”

Ruth couldn’t believe what she was hearing from the boy, for he was only a boy. What was happening? The term for outsider, coupled with English profanity; it was both cultures at their worst.

The boy tapped his panga against his palm, feeling its balance and heft. He walked closer; he was tall and in another few steps, he would tower over her.  Ruth heard footsteps behind her but didn’t dare turn her back to the boy.

Lillian wrenched Nicholas out of her arms, almost knocking her off her feet. Lillian ran up the driveway, screaming, “Heyyah, leave us alone.”

Ruth regained her balance now that the baby was safe. She stood squarely on the sloping driveway, a barrier between them and her family. She faced the gang, addressing this boy with the panga. “You must stop this. This is no solution to whatever has you so angry.”

Isaac touched her elbow.

“Get the van first. Then him.” The boy raised his panga over his head.

The teenagers by the van began chanting. Isaac tugged her arm and she heard Nicholas wail. The gang tipped the van.  One with an iron staff smashed the windshield. Ruth heard her old diesel engine rumble behind her.

Her feet rooted to the driveway, Ruth scanned the scene. Above her, on the veranda, the two men in uniform stood smoking, now watching. The waitress clutched her serving tray to her breasts. The vegetables struggled where roses had flourished. Manny was dragged out of the van and onto the roadway. Two boys pinioned his arms and the others circled; dancing and punching.

Ruth's car lurched next to her; Lillian in the front seat, the baby on her lap, revving the engine, yelling ‘Get in, Get in,’ only Lillian didn’t know how to drive.

“Mom—now.” Isaac dragged her by the hand.

“Your friend—he’s getting hurt. He needs help,” she insisted, thinking Manny was someone’s son, too, and he had just saved her son.

“We must get Nicky out of here.” Isaac’s voice was sad. “There’s nothing we can do.”

No one could see their way straight here. No one could fix it, not even her son. Isaac pushed her into the back seat, crushed against the car seat, and he half fell on her.

“Don’t hurt your ribs,” Ruth groaned. Lillian rolled down the driveway, grinding the gears, Isaac reaching to help. The boy charged them. His panga, like a snake striking, swung at the windshield, cracking it. Lillian shielded Nicholas.

Isaac shouted, “Hit the gas.” 

The boy swinging the panga again, missed the rear window and plunged into the vegetable plot. Her old Mercedes shot towards the teenagers kicking Manny. The boy emerged on the road, his weapon ready to swing again.

Lillian twisted the steering wheel wildly. Through Nicholas’s screaming, Ruth heard an awful thud as her car hit the boy with the panga. His body tossed over the hood and onto the pavement. She saw his eyes; jet black, still angry, and blood on his temple. Lillian straightened the wheel, veering around the overturned van, scattering the teenagers.  Manny was crawling away as Isaac was whispering “Hurry hurry,” Nicholas clinging to his mother’s neck.  Lillian, clutching the steering wheel, raced north.

Some sons like Isaac and Nicholas were safe; some sons were not. She would never return to her home. Ruth stared out the back window, the enormous sky, the green hills in the distance, the teenager twitching on the roadway, the panga still in his hand, his leg at an impossible angle.

 © Julie Wakeman-Linn, Brothers Killing Brothers 2010