Rungano, a short story by Mavhu Wakatama
Grace and Jameson were leaning against each other watching soccer when the phone rang. Grace shifted the two-year-old asleep on her lap and answered it.
“Hullo?”
She shouted it the second time,
“Hullo? Yes, I can hear you.”
Jameson raised his eyebrows at her.
“My mother,” she mouthed, laying the baby on his lap and going into the study. An hour later, the match over, Grace had still not come back. Carrying the baby with him, Jameson followed her first to the study and then, finding it empty, to their bedroom. She was throwing clothes into an overnight bag.
“What’s going on?”
“He is too old for this.”
Jameson couldn’t keep himself from smiling; he knew his father-in-law was up to something while Ambuya Josie was laid up in Harare. He turned to hide his smile under the guise of finding a blanket to cover the baby; then he sat on the bed quietly, afraid to say the wrong thing.
Early evening brought both of Grace’s sisters, Everjoice and Patience to the kitchen table. Jameson watched from the door. Everjoice had a soft face and large, heavy-lashed eyes. Her pear shaped body was so well proportioned that four children later she still made men passing in the street stop for a backward glance, no matter what she was wearing, and yet he pitied Everjoice’s husband because she had the shortest temper. Patience, the oldest, was home on her yearly month-long visit from London where she had been working since her early twenties. Unmarried, she was the most travelled yet most traditional of the sisters.
Patience suggested that they approach their father to discuss this new development. Everjoice, already on edge, blew up, “Some lazy, hot-in-the-pants bitch wants to sit in that big house and suck up everything my mother has worked for and you want to talk? I will kill somebody when I get there!”
Grace listened calmly and said nothing.
When they left, Jameson closed and locked the door behind them shaking his head in sympathy with the old man oblivious to the female hurricane on its way.
Tadiwa dozed on the couch while his wife Josie crocheted on a chair across from him. He heard a car and hurried outside looking slightly worried. He knew his children all worked and they never came to visit on a Sunday unless there was a holiday. Josie must have heard the car too, but she did not follow him out of the house. That meant she was expecting them. Although the Tadiwa daughters’ first stop had been to the rural general store to buy groceries they did not unload the car upon arrival. Tadiwa was surprised to see them coming empty handed. He greeted them warily and led them indoors to where he had been sitting with Josie. There was no one in the living room and no sign of her crocheting.
He walked behind his daughters to the bedroom where Josie had arranged herself on the bed with her bad leg propped on pillows and her eyes closed not in sleep, but in the saintly attitude of bearing pain without complaint. She held a chipped tea cup of water. Her daughters entered. She gave them a moment to absorb her state and then opened her eyes slowly. She spoke in a hoarse whisper,
“Girls, you are here?” she began digging in her purse for pain medication. Patience took the purse gently and found them, Grace added water to the cup and Everjoice looked at her father accusingly,
“You can go back to whatever it is you were doing!”
Her voice was laced with danger; at last he was sure of the reason for this visit. He closed the door gently behind him, happy that he had hidden Rungano safely away at his uncle Mandebvu’s house.
The next morning Grace woke her sisters early. The day was still cool and unlit. Mbuya Rosie heard the car first, her heart jumped as Everjoice stepped out of the car shameless in a pair of jeans that curved where she did. Everjoice’s face was set for battle. Grace and Patience were right behind her. The three sisters stood together feet firmly planted in front of the house. Mbuya Rosie tried to start a normal conversation,
“We were worried to hear someone so early in the morning, but I see it is just my nieces.”
Tadiwa had chosen a good hiding place. Mandebvu’s wife, Mbuya Rosie was a dizzy little woman who lived her life for the approval of men. She was always the one to reveal a girl’s pregnancy to her parents or report a young ambitious wife to her mother-in-law for receiving birth control pills from the clinic. She would be the one to hide a potential second wife and even find a reason to feel righteous about it.
They did not greet her. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her lips seemed to be sticking to her teeth. She soldiered on,
“Is everything good where you are coming from?”
Everjoice’s eyes were blazing,
“Mbuya! We are not here to talk nonsense…”
Grace stepped in front of Everjoice. She greeted Mbuya Rosie briefly and then spoke formally to diffuse the situation a little.
“Excuse Everjoice’s rudeness, Mbuya Rosie, you know her she cannot control herself.”
Rosie understood the implication of Grace’s statement. She was expected to do what Grace wanted or she would have to deal with Everjoice without Grace’s protection.
“We don’t mean to bring conflict to your home but there is a woman in there that is bringing conflict in our mother’s house. Bring her out and we will take her and leave.”
Mbuya Rosie immediately feigned rage on behalf of her nephew so she wouldn’t be made to answer for her part in the affair.
“Mandebvu! Come and see for me how brazen these city girls are. They think they can come here in their trousers and dictate in their father’s matters. Nobody is going anywhere!”
Mandebvu came out, pulling on his trousers and blinking into the weak sunlight.
“What is all of this shouting?”
Emboldened by her husband’s presence, Mbuya Rosie picked up a log from a nearby pile of firewood and stood in front of the sisters.
“Today I will beat the three of you as your father should have done!”
She thumped the ground with her log demonstrating the power in her blows.
“I said nobody is going anywhere!”
Mandebvu shook his head. All he wanted was to sleep in a bit longer in his old age. Why anyone would want to be bothered by a young wife who would only produce screaming babies with endless needs? He had agreed to hide the woman in his house when Josie returned from Harare because it was temporary and because his wife had insisted.
He was also reluctant because if it wasn’t for the monthly monetary gifts from his nephew’s three daughters it would be impossible to manage their houseful of grandchildren left behind when his own children had been taken, in age order by AIDS.
Inside the kitchen Rungano woke up with a start. She heard the angry shouting and peered through the wooden slats covering the window opening. She could see a car and almost make out Tadiwa’s daughters. If she could get to the old man he would protect her. But the door to the kitchen could not open without the sisters noticing she stood trembling, unsure what her next move would be.
Mbuya Rosie thumped the ground a second time. “I said nobody is going anywhere!”
Everjoice walked over to the pile of wood and chose a log twice the size of Mbuya Rosie’s.
“There will be no beating here today. There will be a fight, and you will be fighting a lion today, old woman. I will fight you and your husband too. Bring her out!”
Grace waved her hands above the shouting, still speaking formally,
“Ambuya Rosie, Sekuru Mandebvu. We do not mean any disrespect. But Everjoice is right; we will break the rules and suffer the consequences. If there is a fine to be paid for fighting our parents, we will return and pay it. Do not goad Everjoice’s anger. I cannot control her. The woman must be brought out.”
Mandebvu was not in the mood to pull apart brawling women, Tadiwa would have to figure this out. He called out in the direction of the kitchen,
“Rungano! Come on out. Nobody will hurt you while I am standing here.”
Rungano cracked open the door and Patience approached her speaking softly,
“Rungano? Is that your name? We are here to take you home, to your people. Take your time to wash and pack, we will be waiting in the car.”
Rungano was surprised at how much younger she was than the three sisters. She had seen their pictures in the main house - all of them glamorous with salon perfect hairdos, brand new clothing, kind faced smiling husbands and fat, shiny children. She had wanted a little of that for herself. Now faced with one of them, she felt a little stupid. The dreams of being driven back and forth to Harare in their cars to buy groceries and be clothed as befitting Tadiwa’s new wife vanished quickly.
Sekuru Mandebvu sat on the steps and waited. Rosie stood in front of the house deflated but still holding onto her log. A few minutes later Rungano appeared fully clothed with a bundle of clothes in her arms. Grace opened the trunk of the car and Rosie gasped, Sekuru Mandebvu and Rungano had the same thought. She was to be stuffed into the trunk headfirst. He stood up and Rungano stepped back and turned ready to run. Everjoice was a step ahead of her and grabbed her arm. Grace took a suitcase from the trunk. Mandebvu exhaled they had lost their minds, but not completely. Rungano, accustomed to adjusting to scenarios that change without warning bowed her head and gave a little clap and curtsey of gratitude before accepting the suitcase. Her bundle fit into it easily. Grace sat in the driver’s seat and then, on second thought, got out and told Everjoice to drive. Rungano sat in the middle of the back seat with Grace and Patience on either side of her ready to prevent any attempts to flee from the moving vehicle.
Mbuya Rosie was still holding onto her log when they left. Mandebvu came and took it from her throwing it back on the woodpile before returning to his bed. It was still warm. His nephew’s girls were crazy. He fluffed the pillow under his head; he would speak to them very sternly, later, when he wasn’t feeling so proud of them.
They drove to the second bus stop close to forty minutes away. Everjoice was furious,
“Look at you, young enough to be my daughter, too lazy to find your own husband and sniffing around for old men. Thought you’d bought yourself a one-way ticket to wealth? Thought all you had to do was lie on your back and tolerate an old man for a few minutes? Hah! You came to the wrong place. You are lucky my sisters are Christian women or today would be your last,” she glared into the rearview mirror,
“You are not answering me when I am speaking to you. Where did you think you were going when you climbed into my father’s bed?”
The thought simultaneously disgusted and recharged her anger she reached behind and tried to slap Rungano who cried out and hid her face in her hands.
“Drive the car, Everjoice!”
Grace patted Rungano’s leg.
“Don’t come back and everything will be fine.”
At the bus station the passengers were seated, only the driver and a thin boy selling boiled eggs and peanuts wrapped in newspaper were outside. Grace carried the suitcase and walked Rungano onto the bus. Everjoice paid the bus drive and led him onto the bus to point out Rungano.
“You see this woman? Make sure she does not get off this bus before getting to her village. She is causing our mother problems and wants our father to have a heart attack!”
She added a few bills to the bus fare with a flourish and a slap into the driver’s hand to seal the deal. Everyone on the bus was laughing; no further explanation was needed. Patience took her wallet out of her purse and discreetly handed Rungano a generous wad of money,
“This is for food on the way home.”
Rungano counted the money at one side of her lap. It was more than she used in a month. She poked out her bottom lip to mask a smile.
The bus driver looked at Rungano with her long neck and bright eyes. She saw his look and pushed her pout further out, folding her arms and then looking out of the window to let him know that she was paying him enough attention to be symbolically annoyed. Driving a bus was steady income. It would mean free bus rides to Harare. She cut her eyes at him and sucked her teeth hard, rolling her eyes away from him and back out of the window. The bus driver smiled broadly, this would be a good day after all. He honked his horn and backed the bus onto the road.
The sisters were silent, they all felt a little lost and humiliated. Rungano was gone. It was time to repair any hard feelings before returning to the city to manage their families.
Back at their father’s compound, Grace put some of the drinks and beers on ice. Grace, Everjoice and Patience sat in the living room of the main house and waited for their father. He came in smiling.
“Baba, we have something to tell you.” Grace spoke with her head bowed. “This morning we sent Rungano back to her home.”
Tadiwa stood up, furious,
“Wait here!”
He went out the side door to get his bicycle; he would catch that bus and bring the girl back. How dare they do such a thing? Mandebvu was weak; he should have put Rungano somewhere else. He put on his hat and mounted the bicycle, adrenaline pumping, ready to catch the bus. Everjoice called him from the house,
“We left her at the other bus station.”
He got off the bicycle, threw it down violently and sank down on a tree stump with his head in both hands.
Patience, Grace and Everjoice called their mother to see the groceries they’d laid out in the living room. The spread included all the extras they usually only brought at Christmas: packets of lemon cream biscuits, bags of mixed boiled sweets and cans of condensed milk. After clapping her thanks Josie sat down and folded her arms.
“Where were you girls this morning?”
“Everjoice, tell Amai where we were while we prepare breakfast,”
Patience and Grace went outside leaving Josie listening to the description of how Everjoice had stood log to log with Mbuya Rosie.
Grace carried two chilled beers and set them down beside the tree stump. She called for the farmhand to bring a chair then motioned for Patience to sit in it.
“Talk to your father, Patience, I can manage breakfast”
Tadiwa and Patience sat without speaking until he was almost finished with second beer,
“Baba, we shouldn’t have come like this. We should have been here more often while Josie was recovering. It is our fault you were lonely. You gave us everything we needed growing up. We owe everything we have to you. Amai is not well. It will be hard for her to recover if you are angry. Please forgive us on her behalf.”
Tadiwa took a swig of beer,
“You do not come and tell a man how to run his household!”
“We cannot.”
“You have really shamed me today.”
“We have.”
“Did you hurt her?”
“No, Baba.”
“She was very young.”
It was Patience’s turn to listen
Another swig then a deep breath,
“I don’t know how it happened. One minute she was helping us with harvesting the maize, the next minute I was telling her that marriage would not be a problem. The one I have is too much.”
He allowed himself a short laugh.
“Don’t tell your sisters, but you really saved me today.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Are you sure Everjoice did not…”
“The girl was not hurt, Baba.”
Grace came out of the kitchen with a tray of fried eggs, tea and bread. She carried it across the yard, into the main house and set it down in front of Josie. Patience and Tadiwa followed her in. The sisters took all three armchairs so that Tadiwa had no choice but to sit next to his wife on the loveseat.
Josie motioned at the bags of groceries,
“You see what our daughters have done for us?”
“Yes, I see. They would not remember us so well if you had not taken such good care of them.”
The two old people sipped their tea and stared ahead. Josie buttered a slice of bread and put it on Tadiwa’s plate. Tadiwa topped off her half empty mug with some hot tea from the pot.
That afternoon the sisters said their goodbyes. Josie and her husband waved cheerfully until they could no longer see the car.
“They should come to spend the day with us more often.”
Tadiwa said venturing a nervous grin in his wife’s direction, she scowled before returning it.
“They should.”
Josie was going to call some of her women’s group from church, including Mbuya Rosie, to have drinks and biscuits tomorrow. Just like that, in the middle of the week with no special occasion - because she could. They would see that the rumors were untrue. She was, and would remain, the only woman in her household.
About the author
Mavhu Wakatama is an American-born Zimbabwean who spent her childhood and teenage years in Harare, Zimbabwe . She has beenn published in "Chicken Soup For the Cat Lover's Soul" and Granta Magazine. She currently lives in Maryland and works in Washington, DC .
“Hullo?”
She shouted it the second time,
“Hullo? Yes, I can hear you.”
Jameson raised his eyebrows at her.
“My mother,” she mouthed, laying the baby on his lap and going into the study. An hour later, the match over, Grace had still not come back. Carrying the baby with him, Jameson followed her first to the study and then, finding it empty, to their bedroom. She was throwing clothes into an overnight bag.
“What’s going on?”
“He is too old for this.”
Jameson couldn’t keep himself from smiling; he knew his father-in-law was up to something while Ambuya Josie was laid up in Harare. He turned to hide his smile under the guise of finding a blanket to cover the baby; then he sat on the bed quietly, afraid to say the wrong thing.
Early evening brought both of Grace’s sisters, Everjoice and Patience to the kitchen table. Jameson watched from the door. Everjoice had a soft face and large, heavy-lashed eyes. Her pear shaped body was so well proportioned that four children later she still made men passing in the street stop for a backward glance, no matter what she was wearing, and yet he pitied Everjoice’s husband because she had the shortest temper. Patience, the oldest, was home on her yearly month-long visit from London where she had been working since her early twenties. Unmarried, she was the most travelled yet most traditional of the sisters.
Patience suggested that they approach their father to discuss this new development. Everjoice, already on edge, blew up, “Some lazy, hot-in-the-pants bitch wants to sit in that big house and suck up everything my mother has worked for and you want to talk? I will kill somebody when I get there!”
Grace listened calmly and said nothing.
When they left, Jameson closed and locked the door behind them shaking his head in sympathy with the old man oblivious to the female hurricane on its way.
Tadiwa dozed on the couch while his wife Josie crocheted on a chair across from him. He heard a car and hurried outside looking slightly worried. He knew his children all worked and they never came to visit on a Sunday unless there was a holiday. Josie must have heard the car too, but she did not follow him out of the house. That meant she was expecting them. Although the Tadiwa daughters’ first stop had been to the rural general store to buy groceries they did not unload the car upon arrival. Tadiwa was surprised to see them coming empty handed. He greeted them warily and led them indoors to where he had been sitting with Josie. There was no one in the living room and no sign of her crocheting.
He walked behind his daughters to the bedroom where Josie had arranged herself on the bed with her bad leg propped on pillows and her eyes closed not in sleep, but in the saintly attitude of bearing pain without complaint. She held a chipped tea cup of water. Her daughters entered. She gave them a moment to absorb her state and then opened her eyes slowly. She spoke in a hoarse whisper,
“Girls, you are here?” she began digging in her purse for pain medication. Patience took the purse gently and found them, Grace added water to the cup and Everjoice looked at her father accusingly,
“You can go back to whatever it is you were doing!”
Her voice was laced with danger; at last he was sure of the reason for this visit. He closed the door gently behind him, happy that he had hidden Rungano safely away at his uncle Mandebvu’s house.
The next morning Grace woke her sisters early. The day was still cool and unlit. Mbuya Rosie heard the car first, her heart jumped as Everjoice stepped out of the car shameless in a pair of jeans that curved where she did. Everjoice’s face was set for battle. Grace and Patience were right behind her. The three sisters stood together feet firmly planted in front of the house. Mbuya Rosie tried to start a normal conversation,
“We were worried to hear someone so early in the morning, but I see it is just my nieces.”
Tadiwa had chosen a good hiding place. Mandebvu’s wife, Mbuya Rosie was a dizzy little woman who lived her life for the approval of men. She was always the one to reveal a girl’s pregnancy to her parents or report a young ambitious wife to her mother-in-law for receiving birth control pills from the clinic. She would be the one to hide a potential second wife and even find a reason to feel righteous about it.
They did not greet her. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her lips seemed to be sticking to her teeth. She soldiered on,
“Is everything good where you are coming from?”
Everjoice’s eyes were blazing,
“Mbuya! We are not here to talk nonsense…”
Grace stepped in front of Everjoice. She greeted Mbuya Rosie briefly and then spoke formally to diffuse the situation a little.
“Excuse Everjoice’s rudeness, Mbuya Rosie, you know her she cannot control herself.”
Rosie understood the implication of Grace’s statement. She was expected to do what Grace wanted or she would have to deal with Everjoice without Grace’s protection.
“We don’t mean to bring conflict to your home but there is a woman in there that is bringing conflict in our mother’s house. Bring her out and we will take her and leave.”
Mbuya Rosie immediately feigned rage on behalf of her nephew so she wouldn’t be made to answer for her part in the affair.
“Mandebvu! Come and see for me how brazen these city girls are. They think they can come here in their trousers and dictate in their father’s matters. Nobody is going anywhere!”
Mandebvu came out, pulling on his trousers and blinking into the weak sunlight.
“What is all of this shouting?”
Emboldened by her husband’s presence, Mbuya Rosie picked up a log from a nearby pile of firewood and stood in front of the sisters.
“Today I will beat the three of you as your father should have done!”
She thumped the ground with her log demonstrating the power in her blows.
“I said nobody is going anywhere!”
Mandebvu shook his head. All he wanted was to sleep in a bit longer in his old age. Why anyone would want to be bothered by a young wife who would only produce screaming babies with endless needs? He had agreed to hide the woman in his house when Josie returned from Harare because it was temporary and because his wife had insisted.
He was also reluctant because if it wasn’t for the monthly monetary gifts from his nephew’s three daughters it would be impossible to manage their houseful of grandchildren left behind when his own children had been taken, in age order by AIDS.
Inside the kitchen Rungano woke up with a start. She heard the angry shouting and peered through the wooden slats covering the window opening. She could see a car and almost make out Tadiwa’s daughters. If she could get to the old man he would protect her. But the door to the kitchen could not open without the sisters noticing she stood trembling, unsure what her next move would be.
Mbuya Rosie thumped the ground a second time. “I said nobody is going anywhere!”
Everjoice walked over to the pile of wood and chose a log twice the size of Mbuya Rosie’s.
“There will be no beating here today. There will be a fight, and you will be fighting a lion today, old woman. I will fight you and your husband too. Bring her out!”
Grace waved her hands above the shouting, still speaking formally,
“Ambuya Rosie, Sekuru Mandebvu. We do not mean any disrespect. But Everjoice is right; we will break the rules and suffer the consequences. If there is a fine to be paid for fighting our parents, we will return and pay it. Do not goad Everjoice’s anger. I cannot control her. The woman must be brought out.”
Mandebvu was not in the mood to pull apart brawling women, Tadiwa would have to figure this out. He called out in the direction of the kitchen,
“Rungano! Come on out. Nobody will hurt you while I am standing here.”
Rungano cracked open the door and Patience approached her speaking softly,
“Rungano? Is that your name? We are here to take you home, to your people. Take your time to wash and pack, we will be waiting in the car.”
Rungano was surprised at how much younger she was than the three sisters. She had seen their pictures in the main house - all of them glamorous with salon perfect hairdos, brand new clothing, kind faced smiling husbands and fat, shiny children. She had wanted a little of that for herself. Now faced with one of them, she felt a little stupid. The dreams of being driven back and forth to Harare in their cars to buy groceries and be clothed as befitting Tadiwa’s new wife vanished quickly.
Sekuru Mandebvu sat on the steps and waited. Rosie stood in front of the house deflated but still holding onto her log. A few minutes later Rungano appeared fully clothed with a bundle of clothes in her arms. Grace opened the trunk of the car and Rosie gasped, Sekuru Mandebvu and Rungano had the same thought. She was to be stuffed into the trunk headfirst. He stood up and Rungano stepped back and turned ready to run. Everjoice was a step ahead of her and grabbed her arm. Grace took a suitcase from the trunk. Mandebvu exhaled they had lost their minds, but not completely. Rungano, accustomed to adjusting to scenarios that change without warning bowed her head and gave a little clap and curtsey of gratitude before accepting the suitcase. Her bundle fit into it easily. Grace sat in the driver’s seat and then, on second thought, got out and told Everjoice to drive. Rungano sat in the middle of the back seat with Grace and Patience on either side of her ready to prevent any attempts to flee from the moving vehicle.
Mbuya Rosie was still holding onto her log when they left. Mandebvu came and took it from her throwing it back on the woodpile before returning to his bed. It was still warm. His nephew’s girls were crazy. He fluffed the pillow under his head; he would speak to them very sternly, later, when he wasn’t feeling so proud of them.
They drove to the second bus stop close to forty minutes away. Everjoice was furious,
“Look at you, young enough to be my daughter, too lazy to find your own husband and sniffing around for old men. Thought you’d bought yourself a one-way ticket to wealth? Thought all you had to do was lie on your back and tolerate an old man for a few minutes? Hah! You came to the wrong place. You are lucky my sisters are Christian women or today would be your last,” she glared into the rearview mirror,
“You are not answering me when I am speaking to you. Where did you think you were going when you climbed into my father’s bed?”
The thought simultaneously disgusted and recharged her anger she reached behind and tried to slap Rungano who cried out and hid her face in her hands.
“Drive the car, Everjoice!”
Grace patted Rungano’s leg.
“Don’t come back and everything will be fine.”
At the bus station the passengers were seated, only the driver and a thin boy selling boiled eggs and peanuts wrapped in newspaper were outside. Grace carried the suitcase and walked Rungano onto the bus. Everjoice paid the bus drive and led him onto the bus to point out Rungano.
“You see this woman? Make sure she does not get off this bus before getting to her village. She is causing our mother problems and wants our father to have a heart attack!”
She added a few bills to the bus fare with a flourish and a slap into the driver’s hand to seal the deal. Everyone on the bus was laughing; no further explanation was needed. Patience took her wallet out of her purse and discreetly handed Rungano a generous wad of money,
“This is for food on the way home.”
Rungano counted the money at one side of her lap. It was more than she used in a month. She poked out her bottom lip to mask a smile.
The bus driver looked at Rungano with her long neck and bright eyes. She saw his look and pushed her pout further out, folding her arms and then looking out of the window to let him know that she was paying him enough attention to be symbolically annoyed. Driving a bus was steady income. It would mean free bus rides to Harare. She cut her eyes at him and sucked her teeth hard, rolling her eyes away from him and back out of the window. The bus driver smiled broadly, this would be a good day after all. He honked his horn and backed the bus onto the road.
The sisters were silent, they all felt a little lost and humiliated. Rungano was gone. It was time to repair any hard feelings before returning to the city to manage their families.
Back at their father’s compound, Grace put some of the drinks and beers on ice. Grace, Everjoice and Patience sat in the living room of the main house and waited for their father. He came in smiling.
“Baba, we have something to tell you.” Grace spoke with her head bowed. “This morning we sent Rungano back to her home.”
Tadiwa stood up, furious,
“Wait here!”
He went out the side door to get his bicycle; he would catch that bus and bring the girl back. How dare they do such a thing? Mandebvu was weak; he should have put Rungano somewhere else. He put on his hat and mounted the bicycle, adrenaline pumping, ready to catch the bus. Everjoice called him from the house,
“We left her at the other bus station.”
He got off the bicycle, threw it down violently and sank down on a tree stump with his head in both hands.
Patience, Grace and Everjoice called their mother to see the groceries they’d laid out in the living room. The spread included all the extras they usually only brought at Christmas: packets of lemon cream biscuits, bags of mixed boiled sweets and cans of condensed milk. After clapping her thanks Josie sat down and folded her arms.
“Where were you girls this morning?”
“Everjoice, tell Amai where we were while we prepare breakfast,”
Patience and Grace went outside leaving Josie listening to the description of how Everjoice had stood log to log with Mbuya Rosie.
Grace carried two chilled beers and set them down beside the tree stump. She called for the farmhand to bring a chair then motioned for Patience to sit in it.
“Talk to your father, Patience, I can manage breakfast”
Tadiwa and Patience sat without speaking until he was almost finished with second beer,
“Baba, we shouldn’t have come like this. We should have been here more often while Josie was recovering. It is our fault you were lonely. You gave us everything we needed growing up. We owe everything we have to you. Amai is not well. It will be hard for her to recover if you are angry. Please forgive us on her behalf.”
Tadiwa took a swig of beer,
“You do not come and tell a man how to run his household!”
“We cannot.”
“You have really shamed me today.”
“We have.”
“Did you hurt her?”
“No, Baba.”
“She was very young.”
It was Patience’s turn to listen
Another swig then a deep breath,
“I don’t know how it happened. One minute she was helping us with harvesting the maize, the next minute I was telling her that marriage would not be a problem. The one I have is too much.”
He allowed himself a short laugh.
“Don’t tell your sisters, but you really saved me today.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Are you sure Everjoice did not…”
“The girl was not hurt, Baba.”
Grace came out of the kitchen with a tray of fried eggs, tea and bread. She carried it across the yard, into the main house and set it down in front of Josie. Patience and Tadiwa followed her in. The sisters took all three armchairs so that Tadiwa had no choice but to sit next to his wife on the loveseat.
Josie motioned at the bags of groceries,
“You see what our daughters have done for us?”
“Yes, I see. They would not remember us so well if you had not taken such good care of them.”
The two old people sipped their tea and stared ahead. Josie buttered a slice of bread and put it on Tadiwa’s plate. Tadiwa topped off her half empty mug with some hot tea from the pot.
That afternoon the sisters said their goodbyes. Josie and her husband waved cheerfully until they could no longer see the car.
“They should come to spend the day with us more often.”
Tadiwa said venturing a nervous grin in his wife’s direction, she scowled before returning it.
“They should.”
Josie was going to call some of her women’s group from church, including Mbuya Rosie, to have drinks and biscuits tomorrow. Just like that, in the middle of the week with no special occasion - because she could. They would see that the rumors were untrue. She was, and would remain, the only woman in her household.
About the author
Mavhu Wakatama is an American-born Zimbabwean who spent her childhood and teenage years in Harare, Zimbabwe . She has beenn published in "Chicken Soup For the Cat Lover's Soul" and Granta Magazine. She currently lives in Maryland and works in Washington, DC .