Uncle Jeffrey by Murenga Joseph Chikowero

Willie fingered the small packet in his side pocket. He had opened it several times these past three days to look over the small pink tablets inside but each time, he had suppressed the urge to throw two of those pink things down the throat. Perhaps this Viagra business was really meant for old white men who live in cold places and could really damage a tropical African like him in the long run. And what if he became one of those users who ended up with a stubborn erection for more than 24 hours? An erection was the very thing he dearly wanted but who wanted a permanent erection, especially over this Christmas holiday at his parents’ rural home? And what in God’s good name was keeping his doctor from making that call?

It was already three days from the day he took the test and two days before Christmas Day and still no word from Dr. Khan. Could it be that the man had visited India? He never mentioned India and in fact made a big deal about being an indigenous Zimbabwean, an Indo-Zim as he called himself, one of the few Indians Willie knew who spoke Shona at every opportunity. Willie sometimes felt the young doctor tried too hard to belong but still found him likeable enough. But what could have held him so, Willie wondered again as he made for the grass bathing house a distance from the home.

Sure enough his mother had put a pail of warm water even if it this was clearly going to be one of those boiling December days when heat-waves shimmered just above the ground and mirages of clear water appeared in the blazing distance. Maggie had dutifully placed the sweet-smelling bath soap and other typically Maggiesque assortments of bath salts and aftershave gels on the washstand. As if to confound her mother-in-law, Maggie had also placed her own bigger pail. Of cold water. Willie smiled as he undressed. The now undeclared war between the two women was still alive although it had long ceased to be a pitched battle; both now seemed to resort to guerilla manoeuvres which Willie found funny and almost ridiculous in their cunning unpredictability. But small guerilla tactics were almost welcome compared to the raging quarrels that characterised the first five years of his marriage to Maggie when Mai Willie, as everyone called her, had insisted she would never have a muKorekore for a daughter-in-law. A cleverly-plotted trip to Karoi, Maggie’s home area, two years ago with Mai Willie had eased the tension a bit.

On that trip, Maggie had surprisingly been on her best behaviour. The headdress, doek, and the wrapper, zambia, had never left Maggie’s body throughout the three-day stay in Karoi. In fact, Willie gently teased Maggie about her new-found traditional ways and asked if this was the end of the activist who usually saw the hand of patriarchal domination even in women’s traditional dressing styles. Willie still remembered Maggie’s gentle response that night under the cool bedsheets in Karoi: “I need to experience oppression in the flesh to know how best to fight it”.

Willie stretched to his full two metres and cast a few glances in the direction of the kitchen. Maggie, his two sisters and Mai Willie must be preparing the afternoon meal in there. These days they shared recipes and laughter as they went about it though they still seemed to be trying to outdo each other in subtle ways. Satisfied that no one was coming, Willie took off his shirt and neatly folded it before placing it on the makeshift shelf. Before removing his grey Bundu shorts, Willie tapped the side pockets to satisfy himself that the cellphone was there. On second thoughts, he unzipped the pocket and took out the slim gadget. He cursed himself for letting Chido, his favourite sister, use up all his airtime. Even Mai Willie’s rather long conversation with Tapuwa, Willie’s older sister who worked in England, was not really necessary. Now Dr. Khan wasn’t phoning and he had no way of contacting him.

Stark naked, Willie took just a moment’s hesitation before looking at himself. Same thing. Though he had tried every trick to avoid sleeping with Maggie in the three months leading to Christmas, his member was limp and thin as a piece of biltong. His mind went back to that day in Woza Woza Hotel when, in a frenzy of soccer celebration, he had bedded that prostitute. It had been the first and only time he had betrayed Maggie. He still didn’t know what exactly sparked the riot in the bar but from the prostitute’s hotel room upstairs, Willie heard the sharp police siren piercing the late Friday night air. It wouldn’t do for him to wait to be arrested and then fined for consorting with a lady of the night or being part of a riot at a seedy brothel that masqueraded as a hotel. Sprinting out of the room, Willie had guessed that the back stairs might not be guarded as yet. It was only after stepping off the last rung onto a jagged broken bottle in the dark hotel backyard that he remembered that he had forgotten his suede shoes in the room upstairs and that he had not paid for services rendered. Or more precisely, services half-rendered. Still, nothing could be worse than having his drunken face in the daily papers. He removed the sock and bandaged the smarting foot before limping off towards his car which was parked some distance from the place of vice.

He had praised himself for at least remembering to use a condom in addition to seeing his old friend Dr Khan for an HIV test the following morning. A few days later, he posed what he thought sounded like a sufficiently hypothetical question to a lowly but reportedly wise workmate at Datanet Research Services where he was a senior statistician: If you were doing research on this muti business, would you find anything solid that is really used to fix unfaithful men? Muzivi, the elderly cleaner that younger university-educated colleagues like Willie still called “Teaboy” behind his back had laughed long and loud at this. He stopped briefly only to start another loud and seemingly unending howl before sniffing a few nuggets of snuff; pouring first into the right nostril then the left. Shaking his spare body almost imperceptibly, Muzivi sneezed once, twice and then nodded before winking at a bewildered Willie. Rather theatrically, Muzivi then walked over to the sink and properly washed his hands as he was required to do by company health regulations before coming back to stand near the younger man who was still trying to make everything appear very casual to the three girls at the reception. It was only the second time that Willie had ever stopped to chat with the older man.

“If you did the thing with one of these women of the night and ran away without paying then boss you are finished. And especially if they steal something like a belt or your shoes,” Muzivi said with a straight face.

“No, not me, just curio-” Willie started.

“No need to lie. You are not the first to ask, boss. Thank God she isn’t married otherwise you might have been on central locking system right now.”

“Central locking system?”

“Yes, boss, same as your car. Stuck together right at the loins,” Muzivi said, now curiously displaying no emotion whatsoever. “Or she could have used her magic to take your organ,” he added.

“To take my...”

“Sure, boss. The whole apparatus so that the whole place would look as smooth as small girl’s,” Muzivi said with a wink.

It was at that point that Willie decided against telling Muzivi that he had in fact been avoiding his wife because he had mysteriously lost his potency after the brothel incident. When Dr. Khan expressed shock at the risks Willie was posing to Maggie through his reckless behaviour he literally felt his testicles retreat into his stomach. In his righteous anger, Khan had needlessly spoken against any sexual activity until two HIV and STD tests had been done, the second of which would be done at the end of the viral window period. The first test’s results eased Willie’s worries a bit but Khan had shaken his balding head and insisted that the first test could mean nothing at all.

“Come back for another test after three months,” Dr. Khan had said.

“What! I have a wife. What will she say?” Willie had asked, horrified by the prospect of confronting Maggie with the news that they would have to be celibate for the next three months for reasons which, well, he couldn’t quite reveal. Maggie had thrown a tantrum after he came up with one excuse after another. He had quickly enrolled for a Practitioner’s Advanced Diploma in Statistics with the Open University, installed a large reading desk in one corner of the lounge and piled thick books on it and pretended to read well into the young hours of the morning. When he resorted to switching off his cellphone and going straight to Manhede Sports Bar after work, Maggie had stormed out and briefly moved in with a female friend.

But in the end, he had survived the two-and-a-half torrid months and had taken the second HIV test a day before they drove home for Christmas. Khan had rubbed his shining forehead and promised to call him as soon as the results came back from the lab in a day or two. But sexual potency seemed to have deserted him forever. At age 30. Just when Maggie had started talking about replenishing the earth with a brood of Willies. After all she was a year older than him and Mai Willie was becoming restless on that front too. Only two days ago, Mai Willie had made vague references to some village girl who, according to her, came from “a good family”. Still, Willie had persuaded Khan to prescribe him some aphrodisiac pills which he had not had the courage to take in the absence of the results from his friend’s lab. He carried the packet on his person at all times and always made a point of lying on it when he sneaked into bed long into the night.

He was almost driving out of the homestead when his wife emerged from the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“To see Sekuru Jeffrey.”

“Oh, I always enjoy Sekuru Jefu’s company. I just have to join you,” she said, tying and retying her zambia and edging towards the front passenger door.

“But Maggie... you are cooking aren’t you?”

“Yes, but Mai Willie will happily finish preparing my soup. And Tete Chido is now a big girl as well.”

“What do you find so attractive in that lazy loafer anyway? He keeps refusing to come to Harare but I heard his pig of a wife gave birth again two months ago.”

Maggie cooed gently like a dove. She stuck her head inside the car and said, “That means he has five children now. Sekuru Jefu must know something that some men don’t. OK, let me go ask Tete Chido to keep an eye on my soup before I tell you exactly what Sekuru Jefu and I are planning to do tonight while a certain man makes love to books,” she said before tapping his cheek and turning back towards the kitchen, swinging her waist suggestively.

“Is that walking or dancing?” Willie asked the retreating backside.

As soon as Sekuru Jeffrey recognised the blue car leading up the dirty path to his home, he walked out of the kitchen and observed the slow-moving vehicle with keen interest. Even before the car eased under the lone muhacha tree, he leapt into the air and landed on one knee, ceremonial axe already stuck in the armpit, palms beating a steady rhythm as he intoned:

Eh! We salute you Shava
The Bull Eland
Impregnable fortress
Beautiful smooth walker
We salute you Mutekedza
You who was given wives in the land of the Njanja
We have seen your good works Great Animal...

It embarrassed and yet fascinated Willie to see the older man do this. Arms stretched out, he dashed towards his mother’s brother who stood up to reveal trousers with holes at the knees and a coat whose sleeves reminded Willie of merciless storms and helpless banana leaves. Still, he let his dusty uncle hold him close and celebrate his annual homecoming.

Maggie was already getting two of Sekuru Jeffrey’s younger daughters to carry groceries from the trunk into the small, smoky kitchen. Sekuru Jeffrey’s own wife, the strangely rotund Mbuya Madhuve, at last emerged from the house, stuffing a large breast into her battered top, and like her pencil-thin husband, fell on her knees to utter brief praises in a high-pitched voice before dashing like a girl to embrace Maggie who was clearly enjoying the show. They trooped into the house where Christmas goodies were quickly shared to much ululation and more praises and brief prayers to God and the ancestors who were keeping watch over the descendant of Mutekedza who continued to plunder the fortress of Harare to bring his relatives all these nice things at Christmas. No reference was made to the ancestors of Maggie even though she had had actually bought most of the goodies from her own earnings but she didn’t seem to mind at all. As soon as Mbuya Madhuve got down to asking Maggie if she wanted her bones to start creaking before starting to have children, Willie winked at Sekuru Jeffrey who obliged with a brief nod. The two men clapped their hands as they walked out of the house, backs half-bent although the door was large enough to comfortably allow even taller men to walk past properly, one dressed in grey shorts and T-shirt in the easy softness of urbanites and the other dressed in battered jacket and worn out shoes.

Back under the muhacha tree, Sekuru Jeffrey quickly found a wet mop and started dusting the blue car as Willie sat on one of two stools and leaned against the ancient tree. He stood up and inched towards the older man.

“You don’t have to worry, Sekuru. The dust can’t do any harm to the engine,” he started. It was an old argument which he never won but one he felt had to be made.

“No, a prince must always show his true colours,” Sekuru Jeffrey protested.

When his uncle had finished his business, Willie opened the driver’s door, slid in Sekuru Jeffrey’s favourite song and from the glove compartment, retrieved a 20-pack Marlboro cigarette case. He extended the box to the older man who pulled long at his own home-made cigarette at one end of his mouth while one hand held the shiny Malrboro case at an angle as if admiring it’s very newness. With much deliberation, he gave it back to his nephew.

“Open it,” Sekuru Jeffrey said.

“But why should I open this for you, Sekuru? You know I don’t smoke.”

“I just wanted to confirm that I won’t be sharing it with you,” Sekuru Jeffrey said with much laughter.

It was another old game they played every Christmas but it never ceased to make both of them laugh with the special satisfaction of two boys comparing the lengths of their penises. Willie held out a long, thin cigarette and Sekuru Jeffery lit it using the butt of his home-made one. Willie then handed back the whole pack and said with a nod towards the kitchen were keen, feminine voices could be heard, “Your niece wants a baby.”

“So you want me to have two wives? I can’t speak English to her,” Sekuru Jeffrey said in mock helplessness.

Willie didn’t laugh. “I had a problem three months ago and things have been difficult since. I am avoiding her.” The older man merely eyed him.

“The Big Eland has gone to sleep,” Willie added quickly although his uncle had already understood.

Sekuru Jeffery closed one eye and pulled at his shiny cigarette, kept the smoke in his mouth for a considerable period of time before expelling it in three neat plumes above his head.

“I don’t have a disease or anything like that but I just, you know...” Willie said in what he later recognised to be a whisper.

Sekuru Jeffrey pulled again and repeated his ritual, this time expelling the smoke from the left side of his mouth with a quiet satisfaction. When he saw that the cigarette was half-smoked, Willie opened the trunk of the car and brought out a large bottle of whisky. Even before he sat down, Sekuru Jeffrey called out to one of his children to bring two cups. The older man turned the bottle over and over, admiring the inscriptions and images that told of places whose exotic mysteries only his tongue would taste. He then handed it back to Willie who uncorked it with exaggerated difficulty. He poured for the older man and enjoyed the little ritual argument over why he still didn’t drink whisky when he had no problem drinking lagers. Sekuru Jeffrey took a long pull and let some run down his wildly unkempt beard and onto the lapels of his jacket. Willie sat and listened to the older man talk about his youngest girl who was showing much promise in first grade, his crops which might still do well if the rains fell before Christmas, in fact, everything but the issue Willie had raised. Only after the third cupful did Sekuru Jeffrey disappear into his thatch bedroom to emerge with a dubious packet that he handed over to his nephew.

“Take just once. Sprinkle a thumbful into your relish. Please fill me another cup,” he said in the same breath.

Willie tried to appear casual as he went into the kitchen to bid the women farewell. They all came out and embraced Maggie all over again before eventually releasing her. Willie was taking precise instructions from Sekuru Jeffrey about exactly how to negotiate the meandering drive to the main road. He made a great show of listening even if that was the same route they had used just two hours earlier.

“I struck a deal to be Sekuru Jefu’s second wife,” Maggie teased. “Mbuya Madhuve has no problem with that as long as I keep the sweet urban things running.”

She eyed him for a reaction before adding, almost as an afterthought, “And in case your friend Khan hasn’t told you himself, the results were negative. I took his call late last night. You had put the phone on vibration so I gently frisked you when I kept hearing the brr sound. I returned the phone to your side pocket.”

The announcement hit Willie so violently the car swerved before somehow steadying itself. His tongue stuck to his upper palate.

A few minutes later, Willie looked across at his wife who was humming along to the year’s hit song and noticed the round thighs just under the thin zambia then her dark brown face. It was, above all else, her smooth dark complexion that had made his beg to carry her books from the university library to her apartment eight years ago. A gigantic snake stirred in his stomach and coiled downwards. The feeling was so urgent it made him drunk. They had not yet reached the main road and to each side, a shoulder-high maize crop waved in the lazy afternoon sun. Willie turned his head all the way back and noticed the family behind him had gone back into the kitchen to enjoy their Christmas goodies. He parked the car under a muzeze tree, killed the engine and went round to Maggie’s door. She was already reaching out when he opened it and together they ran into the maize crop to the right, half-bent at the waist. A strange light shone in Maggie’s eyes as she laid out her zambia while Willie folded his T-shirt into a kind of pillow and placed it at one end. Twenty minutes later, Willie led Maggie back to the car, hand in hand. A thin figure hovering near the car made false throat-clearing sounds.

“I wanted to make sure the car is safe.” With that Sekuru Jeffrey lit one of his new Marlboro cigarettes and pulled contentedly as he walked up the slope towards his home. Bluish plumes of smoke spiralled lazily behind him. At the end of the bend, he said loud enough for the two to hear, “Madhuve tells me you are taking one of my girls to Harare. See you when the holiday is over.”

Uncle Jeffrey was written by Murenga Joseph Chikowero.

Copyright Murenga Joseph Chikowero 2009.

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