Zebra Crossing Read online

  ‘Do not complain,’ David told him after his first evening of work. ‘What did you think? That a company would snap you up and make you CEO? You know Isaiah, the tall waiter from Senegal? An accountant back home. And the other new fellow, Jeremiah? They say he was studying for a master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Zimbabwe! That’s how it starts for us. At the bottom. With time, God willing, our fortunes will improve.’

  Arriving at the Home Affairs office in Maitland an hour and a half later, we learnt our lesson. The queue reached all the way back to Lagos, Harare, Kinshasa. So this time we are taking no chances. As we walk, the last of the Long Street revellers are hungrily gobbling down boerewors rolls and kebabs that they have bought just as the food stalls are closing. George yawns. He doesn’t bother to put his hand up to cover his mouth. If Mama were here, she would tell him off for lax manners.

  My feet are cold, my body shivering. From the pre-dawn chill, yes, but also from anxiety. Anxiety does not rhyme or sound like anything. It is unique and terrible. And George? He is anxious, too. His right hand fidgets with the pack of cigarettes in his pocket like he has something to hide. I have heard that trips to Home Affairs are what every African immigrant in South Africa dreads most. The only thing he dreads more is the police.

  Last night, David and Peter spent a long time reminding us of what we must and must not do and say. They made us repeat all the answers for the officials’ questions until they were satisfied.

  Name?

  Date of birth?

  Place of origin?

  Why did you leave your home country?

  ‘This is the most important question. Do not tell them you have come here to look for a job. Starvation will not get you a temporary asylum-seeker’s permit. Tell them you were politically active with the opposition party and feared for your life.’

  They gave us some names of opposition-party members and dates when the government cracked down on MDC rallies and made arrests.

  ‘If you are lucky, eventually you will receive refugee status.’

  Refugee sounds like flea. That is how, we are warned, many at Home Affairs view us. Like fleas that need to have their heads squeezed off.

  ‘Remember, Home Affairs officials like to lead us African foreigners up the garden path. So don’t lose your temper. And whatever you do, don’t give them a bribe. They will ask, but in the end they will do nothing for you.’

  When we arrived at the Maitland building the first time, we saw a large sign saying Zimbabweans will be served only on Thursdays from nine to twelve and on Mondays from nine to eleven-thirty. Malawians and Nigerians on Wednesdays nine to twelve. Somalis on Fridays nine to twelve, and so on. Thankfully we knew about this and had come on the correct day.

  Here is what happens when you reach Home Affairs: you wait. Eventually an official comes. His voice reminds me of the voices of the border guards. He doesn’t talk to us; he shouts. I begin to sweat and my stomach is cramping. The first ten, he says, ‘Go in!’ The rest must continue to wait. Those who are rich enough to pay an agent on their behalf are lucky because those agents seem to have an arrangement with the officials. They pass directly through the doors to the front of the queues with their piles of passports and paperwork. The poor, like George and I, must wait – me in the queue for women, George in the queue for men. The first time, we never made it past those front doors. The second time, arriving much earlier, we are more fortunate.

  Patience is a virtue. Isn’t that what they say? I watch my brother’s queue move more quickly than mine. I am afraid. Will I be left behind? Hours pass. One form, then another and another. And all the time, questions. The hands of the clock on the dirty white wall move onward. Overhead, a strip light buzzes and twitches as though nervous on our behalf. It is lunchtime. We have been queuing since five o’clock. But we are not yet finished.

  What is a temporary asylum-seeker’s permit? A magic piece of paper. It grants you permission to stay in South Africa while the government considers your permanent-residence application. All foreign Africans must carry it. Once they have a permit, most are so afraid they might lose it that they take it with them everywhere.

  When I eventually come by one, I stare at the magic piece of paper. It does not look so very important, but it is. I read it once, twice, three times.

  I look so shy behind my thick spectacles. My hair and eyelashes – so white. Yellow like custard powder, just add water, George used to say when we were children. I remember how the bright lights made me squint even more than usual, and the photographer’s gruff instructions made me especially nervous.

  ‘Face forwards. Look at the camera. Don’t smile.’

  My current sun rash – is it really as bad as this? I hold the paper at the tip of my nose and squint through my glasses like a scientist trying to find a hidden virus through his microscope.

  Who is this girl? Who is Chipo Nyamubaya? I think to myself as I examine the document. Before I can decide, George pulls the paper from my hands.

  ‘You are bound to lose it.’ He folds the permit and puts it in his wallet for safekeeping. ‘Without this piece of paper,’ he warns, ‘the police will arrest you and deport you, no questions asked. If there is a fire or any trouble, it is this piece of paper you must grab first. No one will try to help you if you do not have it. You cannot even buy a new cellphone without it.’

  George’s warnings are later reiterated by Peter. Last year, he tells us, a young Zimbabwean man died of starvation after waiting for weeks to be seen by Home Affairs. It was reported in the newspapers.

  ‘That was when Home Affairs was still at the Foreshore. Afterwards they moved it far away to Bellville, Maitland. People waited so long in the queues that a squatter town of sorts sprang up. It was terrible. The man was supposed to be staying in this very building, but he dropped dead while standing in the queue outside Home Affairs. He had returned day after day for months. Each time he was turned away, told to come again tomorrow, next week, in two weeks. So eventually in desperation he just stayed and eventually starved.’

  Afterwards, I cannot get Peter’s terrible story out of my head. That night, as I lie in bed trying to fall asleep, there is a commotion on Long Street. Blue lights bounce off the walls in our room. But all I can think of is a man as thin as Limpopo-river reeds. His body is so light from hunger it can no longer weigh itself down. So it floats, lost to the wind. It is carried over the Foreshore and up into the city. Looking down, confused, he asks himself: ‘What is going on? I am losing my place in the queue!’

  Only when he is hovering above President’s Heights, looking down at the pigeon shit and feathers on the roof, does he realise he is dead.

  Five

  David is reading a book he found at the restaurant where he works. A tourist forgot it and the manager said he could keep it. It is called The Death of Shaka Zulu. David is devouring it. I am stirring the sadza, waiting for the pale maize grains to grow stiff and darken in colour so that I know they are ready. George and I have been in Cape Town for four weeks and life has fallen into a sort of routine, although tonight it is just David and myself in our flat. Peter and George are out, following up the possibility of a better-paying job for George at a small café where they have heard the owner is looking for waiters.

  ‘Is it true that you did your legal studies back in Harare?’

  David nods and turns another page. With no sofa to sit on, he has put a pillow behind his back and is lying on the floor, his back against the wall.

  ‘Yes, but what good was it?’ he replies. ‘I didn’t have the money to bribe my way into a firm to do my articles, and jobs were so scarce that I couldn’t even find work at a supermarket.’ David looks up from his book for a moment. ‘I remember you were very diligent in your studies. I am sure you were an A-grade student…’

  I blush with pleasure and massage the sadza with the wooden spoon. Nearly ready. But my proud moment is short-lived.

  ‘Grade A? Chipo? Ha ha. A good joke.’ My
brother. How could I not have heard him come in? I look at him. Immediately it is clear that his job search has failed to bear fruit. He is in a foul mood.

  ‘Yes, A-grade for scrub, cook and clean. Speaking of which, why is dinner not ready yet, hey? Can’t you even manage that, Tortoise?’

  He flops down onto our mattress and tugs at his laces.

  ‘Oh shit!’ George’s face crumples with disgust. He has trodden in vomit on the dark stairs of President’s Heights.

  ‘Bloody drunk Congolese bastards!’ He holds out one sneaker, then the other, for me to take: ‘Tortoise, quick!’

  It was not George who first named me ‘Tortoise’. I have my school peers to thank for that.

  ‘Maaam, Chipo works like a tor-toise!’

  I am twelve and it is the third week of my first term at secondary school. Mrs Guchu, the class teacher, sighs and, taking off her spectacles, rubs her eyes. She is a Christian woman who knows that the Scriptures say that Jesus favours the meek and mild, but sometimes it seems she is not so sure. The other learners grumble and fidget as I press my nose so close to the board that I can smell the chalk powder and the sour residue of the water used by learners on detention to wash the blackboards the previous day. Afterwards they must tip the water onto the school vegetable garden. My classmates groan and throw insults at my back like rotten eggs.

  ‘Why must we all wait for her before continuing the task?’

  ‘And I cannot see anything with her standing so close to the board.’

  ‘She is blocking the middle lines!’

  ‘Tortoisetortoisetortoise.’

  Soon the whole class takes up the chant.

  It makes me sweat with shame. But what am I supposed to do? This is the only way I can see what is written.

  ‘Silence!’ Mrs Guchu slams her palm on the board.

  ‘Chipo, you must tell your mother to get you stronger spectacles if the ones you currently possess are inadequate. You cannot be allowed to delay the rest of the class. They are falling behind in their studies, and we have not even discussed osmosis or photo-synthesis yet.’

  Impatiently, Mrs Guchu closes her worn, government-issued textbook and leads me to my desk.

  ‘But it is not her spectacles,’ my mother explained after school in the headmistress’s office later that week. I stared down at the desk, wishing it would open its wooden jaws and swallow me, like a hippopotamus.

  ‘It is the sunlight coming in through the windows. Her eyes are light-sensitive.’

  ‘Are you suggesting the other pupils work in darkness in order to accommodate your daughter?’

  ‘Of course not…’

  ‘Or perhaps you would like the school to switch its schedule and conduct our lessons at night, by candlelight, so your daughter might better see the board? This isn’t primary school any more, you know, Mrs Nyamubaya. Students must sit their O-levels in a few years’ time and the pressure is on.’ The headmistress folded her arms and pursed her lips.

  My mother stood up. ‘Come on, Chipo, we are going.’

  Once outside, she straightened my sunhat and took my hand. I squinted up into her face. Concern simmered beneath anger: ‘You will be all right. Just do your best.’

  My best is to stay in class after the other learners have left for break, or even for home, and copy the teacher’s blackboard notes in my own time. Sometimes, though, some of my fellow learners thought it a good joke to erase what was written before I had time to finish. It was David who came to my rescue, who chased them away. He carried some authority with the children my age.

  There was one girl. Her name was Violet. Her father worked for local government in a modest position. But the whole family thought themselves the better for it. Violet always had sweets and chocolate that she shared only with her friends. Together they would sit in a circle and I would listen as the girls begged: ‘Please Violet, just one small piece.’ Taking her time, Violet would apportion their rations according to their degree of bottom-kissing. One day, Violet and her friends were sitting in the classroom during break. It was hot outside and they had ignored the school rules that said they must be out in the play yard. They were all chewing on the buttery toffees that Violet had finally apportioned – just one sticky toffee each, after much begging – when David came in.

  ‘What are you lot doing in here? You know the rules.’

  I began to pack up my things, my heart heavy. I would probably not have another chance to complete the notes on the board about Charles Dickens.

  ‘No, not you,’ said David gently. His smile like a glass of cool water. ‘It is OK if you finish first, Chipo.’

  ‘Not fair!’ Violet and her friends puffed their cheeks in annoyance. They, of course, all had crushes on David. He shrugged and went out.

  ‘Chipo thinks David is her boyfriend,’ Violet hissed to her friends as they gathered their bags. Then, standing so close that I could smell the toffee still on her breath, she turned to me and spat: ‘He only helps you because he feels sorry for you!’ And, as she was leaving the room, ‘No one will ever want to marry you, sssssope!’ She and the other girls laughed like jackals.

  The truth is that in spite of George’s grand promises, in some ways life does not change much for me these first few weeks in Cape Town. In Beitbridge I cleaned for the General and his family, and cooked and cleaned at home for George and myself. In Cape Town I cook and clean for George, David and Peter. But I do not mind. Every day I do my work happily if I receive one of David’s compliments. He is the only one who seems to notice what others take for granted.

  ‘No one washes shirts like you, Chipo. The sweat stains are completely removed.’

  And when I have swept or scrubbed the carpet, he always takes his shoes off before walking about so as not to give me extra work.

  One day David was sitting on his mattress examining a pair of trousers whose inside thigh had worn through again and certainly could not be repaired a fifth time. ‘No use. These cannot be patched up again,’ I heard him say.

  I was determined to find a solution. I had seen the sign on Jean-Paul’s door advertising clothing repairs. Jean-Paul, it seemed, had a reputation as one of the best tailors around. Every day people brought him fabric to be sewn into something, or clothes to be altered and mended. Men and women. Mostly people from our building, but even some locals. When no one else was around, I pulled the pair of trousers out of the rubbish and hid them among my things. Once a day I would take them out and smell them. Soap flakes. Aftershave. This is how David’s skin must smell, I told myself. I wondered what it would be like to be even an ant tickling that beautiful skin so that the hairs on David’s arms stood on end.

  Still, it took me several days to gather the courage to go and knock on Jean-Paul’s door. It was a Friday morning in early November. If you are going to do it, Chipo, go now, I told myself, or throw them back into the rubbish, you stupid coward. I passed the area that acted as our kitchen and the bathroom and went down the short passage. My hand hovered for a moment. Then, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I knocked.

  Six

  ‘Yes, come in. Oh, it is you. Please put your finger here.’

  I blink. The curtains are wide open, the room too bright. My eyes begin to water, and for a few seconds, until he moves away from the window, I cannot make out Jean-Paul clearly. He is just a voice, surrounded by a shimmering watery halo.

  ‘Here.’

  Shyly, I shield my eyes with one hand and approach. This is better than Home Affairs, I tell myself. What’s the worst he can do?

  ‘Put your finger here, please.’ Jean-Paul is standing in front of a mannequin. He has folded the fabric onto it as though onto a body, and I can see now that he is making a dress for a woman with a body as round as a cooked bun.

  I do as Jean-Paul asks, and watch as he slips a pin into the fabric. He continues to work, not asking yet why I have come, only directing me to hold the fabric in place where he needs to do his pinning for a sleeve, then lower, wher
e there will later be a belt. It is only when he takes up his cane and steps around the mannequin that I notice that his left foot is lame. It does not move quickly and precisely like the right, but drags behind as though fast asleep.

  As Jean-Paul works, I take in my surroundings. I have never seen anything quite like it before, not even on television or in the General’s wife’s magazines. Everywhere there are pictures of Jesus Christ or some or other twinkling religious relic. In one corner of the room there seems to be a sort of altar. A small statue of the Virgin Mary and, beside it, a photograph of a smiling woman and a child. Also a vase of fresh yellow flowers.

  Jean-Paul shakes his head.

  ‘I do not know how I can be expected to get this done in time. The bride’s dress, yes, but now three bridesmaids and one getting fatter by the day.’

  Then, looking at me properly for the first time, ‘You know, with your complexion you should avoid beige.’

  He is referring to the simple cotton dress I am wearing. It is only one of three that I possess. Not the sort you would find in the General’s wife’s magazines or even on Jean-Paul’s mannequin. Rather, they are what I have been able to buy on sale from the Chinaman shops. Zhing-zhongs all of them, of inferior quality, like so much of what those people sell.

  ‘Do you want to live a life without colour? Like some housewife in the suburbs? Beige is for those types. You are an African. Try yellow instead or, better yet, blue.’

  I nod. Will I actually find the courage to tell him why I have come? David’s trousers are still under my arm.

  Jean-Paul turns back to the dress taking shape on the mannequin. He is on his hands and knees now, measuring the hem with the tape measure that hangs around his neck. The cane he uses to help him walk is propped up against the table. For David’s sake, I swallow and speak up.

  ‘I have come about these. They belong to my roommate. Do you think you could mend them? They are very worn. I do not know how I can pay you, perhaps I could clean…’