HoneyCrisp 7. Gala

Question: -

Can the body temperature scanners used during the Corona virus be used to check if my coffee/tea has been made with boiling water? Answer quickly before the café scams me.

7. Gala

On the morrow they took the bus from Windsor Park in Ruwa heading towards Mutare Road to the north east. The driver turned south west for the larger sprawling urban mess of Harare. There was an entourage and assortment of vehicles headed by a Doves Morgan Funeral parlour Mercedes Benz hearse. What a way to advertise funeral policies with a hearse and coach? What a poignant reminder to settle up our scores for the coming day when the sun will be no more in one's life?

A third of the occupants were males. Without horses, mares, mules and foxes, obviously the rest were females. There was a section dedicated to singing United Methodist Church hymns. They had great melodical voices. Most of them did not see where the coach was headed. They sang, danced and played the drums in the passage, looking back. The church folk songs and dances kept the mourners' thoughts away from their loss.

The driver turned north at the huge traffic circle with Jaggers Msasa on the left heading up Harare Drive. Further up they reached Borrowdale Drive. He turned right heading out of the city towards Domboshawa. As usual, a trunk road had vehicles. Vehicles had passengers. Passengers were potential customers. Near the road, a market had sprung up. Domboshawa always mesmerized her. It is a peri urban area synonymous with market gardening. It has high rising massifs which attracted scores of tourists, locals and even church folk. The massifs were used for serious spiritual business by churches, apostolic sects and those doing ancestral worship. Domboshawa had a healthy water table. It was the vegetable and fruit basket of the city of Harare.

There were a lot of legendary stories about drumbeats, whistles, mowing cows and village life which were heard at night by those with ears to hear spiritual utterances of the dark sides. Most of the legendary stories were laced with salt and vinegar. She was yet to know the truth separated from the fables. Wherever mountains were found, rock rabbits, snakes and lizards populated too. She was afraid of one species of these only.

Further down the driver turned left heading west along Glen Forest road. Eyes closed, a passenger could not tell the difference between a rural and urban road. The bone shaking vibrations started. To the left was a hive of coniferous trees that were blanketing the plots. Further on to the left again were the marauding encroachments of Hatcliffe and new suburbs in the making coming close to the road.

This is where the bumps started. They could feel their jarring impact. Had they been no shock absorbers their cheeks would have been ringing. The bus traversed the road until it turned south into another dusty stretch heading downhill thence into the cemetery proper. At least the rattling of the windows and bodywork maintained them in a wakeful condition.

They laid Ayanda’s paternal uncle to rest. Keisha found her seat in the bus. Ayanda was outside somewhere talking to someone. A young man sat down next to her. He brandished a Pentax modern camera. She didn’t know much about cameras. This one she knew had a telescopic lens that allowed the camera person to adjust the images he was taking. It could be timed to take photos a few seconds later and seconds apart.

“Would you mind if I take a selfie of us?” He had politely asked.

“I have never seen one taken using a digital camera.”

“It has a timing device. Smile.”

“Not a problem. As long as you know I am not as old as your mother. If your mother sees the photographs, she will think I am her long lost cousin last seen walking barefoot in Mateta II resettlement area of Gokwe.”

He took several from different directions. He swung his hands left and right. The bus started filling up. There was a smell of peppermint near her. He was quartered close to her.

“You are not a commercial or a professional photographer then?”

“Yes though it’s not a good profession being a graphic artists as well. You only make the bacon when the paintings sell outside the country. Art is not about the remuneration. It is the practice of bringing to life something that was a blank. It is just adding light, image or colour to blackness. What we get paid helps with the standard and cost of living. I teach art at a private college as a side line. It’s like an ice cream vendor with a basic salary on top of which can be added commission. It now depends on your load of customers for someone to make a living.”

“I am called Keisha. We have something in common. I am an interior decorator,” she had replied. “So we do indeed have art as a common factor. Where did you do your staff?”

“I went to Harare Polytechnic. I indeed have a name. They christened me, Gordon. I have worked with interior decorators as far as them commissioning me to do artwork. I do standard paintings for hanging in rooms. I advise on how they can look after commercial paintings manufactured by machines. I do painting of crèche rooms and bedrooms tastefully to suite the young and growing generation.”

“One time we did the upstairs lounge of a house in Chisipite. There was a carpenter and an artiste who had done the children’s rooms. It looked like they were coming out of a rabbit hole when you opened their door. Paintings of the whole two sides of the wall were like a mural from a children’s storybook. It was like a mixture of Noddy, Alice in Wonderland and the Hobbit.”

The engine of the Scania rumbled into life. It shook the metallic structure. He sat next to her precariously balancing on the seat’s edge. The bus was slanted. He expressed his views perched on one sitting apparatus of his body looking at her from her window seat perch. She was taller than him. She skewed her views downwards like a hawk in a tree looking at a lower branch checking if movement was of that of another competitor or prey. She kept projecting her body back to the edge of the bus window because of the slant. This was the disadvantage mainly to ladies of having large hips and sitting apparatus. They took other people's space at times like these.

“Now tell me more about your painting,” she had said.

“My paintings …….,” he rumbled. “It is just a spur of the moment mixing colours. They do fetch a good price is the material and end product are export quality. You laugh all the way to the bank. I have been to Serowe in the home of the Tswana people, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Nelson's Bay to art exhibitions.”

“I have watched painting videos on YouTube. I do not like elements were students have to undress to the bone. They use the nude students as canvas material.”

“It is not in part of our culture taking nudes. It is an abomination to major religions here too. The state adds wait by making it a criminal offence. You can learn art without painting nudes. Because of our culture here I never saw that in college. However nude people are an art form in all countries.”

“With advent of the smart phones and their power video cameras, we now see hosts of nude photos and videos that get conveniently leaked.”

“Besides those our art is still much about nature as given by God. I find most of my paints that sell well have to do with wild animals, wild and free expanses like rivers and their gorges. I was commissioned one time to go into Mana Pools and collect about a hundred photos of animals. The agent selected thirteen for canvas. Hey, I made a good dollar I tell you. Besides I didn’t know that Mana Pools gets seriously flooded by the rising Zambezi River at times during the rainy season. I dined under the moonlight listening to the laughing of a hyena clan tussling with lions over a nearby kill, less than 800-m from our camp. One of my paintings of three lionesses, a dead antelope and seven hyena scavengers stealing antelope body parts born of Mana Pools sold in the Hague. I still remember the lodges set against the rising sun. I saw herds of elephants and buffaloes, hey! I run short of words to describe the experience that I had. Picture a meerkat on a molehill looking out while the rest of the tribe are foraging. A baboon sentinel looking bored sitting atop a dead tree trunk, yawning, rubbing his hands over his eyes bothered by flies. Let a snake come through the grass and you would hear his sudden alarm call. Baboons and antelopes foraging together. The baboons in fruit tree shake the fruit and drop some, the antelopes eat the dropped fruit. The baboons in trees see when both leopard and cheetah are in hunting mood. They set their natural alarms on. They both form the prey of these two especially the tree climbing leopards. They favour setting themselves on baboon and monkey troops when they retire at night.”

Ten minutes later the bus started off leaving the cemetery. Most mourners who had driven to the cemetery were driving back to their homes except for a core few including Ayanda’s aunt, her three daughters and son and daughter in law that were driving back to Windsor Park. When Ayanda came into the bus, Keisha was busy conversing looking at Gordon. She didn’t notice her former school mate, friend and business associate.

“Now tell me about interior decoration.”

“That is my forte,” she had replied.

“I need know everything too.”

“I didn’t do well at Advanced levels so I bumped into Interior decoration at Harare Polytechnic College. Three years later I graduated. I am still working freelance with my bevy of sisters, Keandra, Karla and Kathrine.”

Keisha realized they were in Windsor Park. She hadn’t known that she was such a fluent speaker. That was one advantage of using public transport. You could talk and make new acquaintances. Why hadn't her nursery teacher made her wear a sign saying, chatterbox?

“Can I have your number Keisha?”

She gave him her business cards which were always handy.

“Make sure it’s strictly business.”

“Yes because you are not as old as my mother,” he had said.

“Someone has got a date. Someone went to bury my uncle. They came back with a ravishingly young looking dude for a date,” that was Ayanda.

“No.” Keisha screeched like an eagle coming after an invader to her nest. Her eyes grew larger, black irises swimming in liquid. “We share the same arts. That is the end of the road. I am not into men younger than me. I am just praying for a spouse who understands and cares about me full stop.”

“Now tell me about this date Keisha. Who knows where he may lead?”

“Ayanda! He is not a date. He is a small kid that works with interior decorators like me. We have a symbiotic relationship. If he gives me mulberry leaves I will make silk for him.”

“Talk girl talk,” Ayanda nibbled at her ice cream. “You tell me everything about whom you fancy and whatever girl. If he gives you love and comfort, you will make him a mature loving, dedicated, faithful wife”

They stood at the large bay window of her father’s flat looking at other residential units across the road. Between them the tops of trees as tall as twenty metres appeared like umbrellas made of green leaves. Below them were spotted shades of greenery with mainly jacaranda trees in bloom. Why hadn’t the country made the imported jacaranda the national tree emblem instead of an AK-47 rifle? What was it with arms of war? Oh, the jacaranda was a tree imported from England. It stood for the colonial times yet it washed the city with its blossoms in season.

“He is called Gordon. He is into painting. He does some great stuff I tell you. He invited me to see his designs being showcased at the Art Gallery. He is some of those creators that are making waves in their industry. There are stone or Shona sculptures of repute like the Dominic Benhura(s), welded art sculptures and painters.”

“And what then will happen my sister?”

“The next interior job I had, I asked him to do the bedroom door, two interior built in wardrobe doors for a kids’ room. The lady of the residence liked the art. He showed me places where he had done the same art. I checked his Facebook posts. I liked his painting of a Tswana chief disembarking from a makoro in a river delta somewhere within Botswana. In the background was a hippo taking a bit of fresh air within the swamp. The kids were wild about the cartoon characters displayed there. The next thing the owner recommended him to so many friends. He cannot thank me enough.”

“Keisha, don’t hide it. There is fire in your eyes when you talk of Gordon. How many times has he taken you out?”

“There is always a fire when I talk of a project Ayanda. I go out there and do my best. I get dates too which fizzle in the end. Some guys look at my big body and they go into convulsions thinking if I date her once she will be in between the sheets. It’s just plain infatuation like the old school days when we were stuck by some high school guys. I keep having one date fall out followed by another prospect without anything shaping up. Maybe I will soon be an old spinster.”

At that they laughed like they did when they had crushes on the school rugby captain and the bass vocalist of the boys’ choir.

“Are you not going to ask him for dinner here?” Ayanda asked.

“Whatever for? He is much younger than me. He may be dating a Girls High, Arundel, Harare High or Queen Elizabeth senior.”

“Maybe it’s just me misreading signals. I could measure him up for you,” Ayanda had said. “It is time someone walked you across the aisle.”

“I don’t put all my hopes in every friendly chat I have with someone. That will lead to more heart breaks. My heart has a defensive mechanism now. Are you going to date again?”

“Maybe yes, or maybe not at all, I don’t know. I guess we were young and not soldiers when we went into the home industry. Probably I will catch up with life before seriously considering that in the years to come. Who knows? Some of my college mates are teaching in Namibia, South Africa and private schools here. They are sending me vacancy notices. Who knows?

”Unfortunately, the men who inquire after my likes are those who want to write their history as having spoilt someone’s former wife. To them it is a conquest for a short time be as it may. I am still hurting. I am not sure I need date with two daughters close by needing attention.

“When a lady survives in this economic downturn, it is hard to expect a riding Robin Hood to make you Mrs. Hood when you have two children from a previous encounter. Anytime he phones I still feel goose bumps.”

“Gordon,” she had asked on the cell. “Are you doing anything this evening?”

“I have an engagement at Speciss campus. I will be through by 1830hrs. What did you have in mind?” he had asked.

“I will pick you at 1830hrs.”

“Sure I will be through by then.”

“I am meticulous when it comes to time keeping!”

He had come out into the street looking left and right. She had sounded the car horn switching on double hazards. He came towards the vehicle.

“I am looking for an art patient of mine,” he had said leaning at the driver’s window.

“Get in.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be driving.”

“The last job we did there was a driver because I needed a bigger truck otherwise I always drive.”

“Otherwise how are you doing?”

“I am okay and you?”

She drove them to Imba Matombo Restaurant. Though generally the weather was predicted to be warm to hot in most areas, it was cool now with the occasional wind rustling leaves.

“What will you have?” she had asked.

She looked stunning in a mellowed yellow and red dotted V neck dress. The dress had a button up design at the front. It flared towards her knees. Over her toes she had soft heeled black shoes. At least the restaurant had air conditioners on which kept the temperatures stable.

“As a man used to working with other rough shod artists, I am used to eating from the shovel. I will have roast beef, greens, salad, potatoes and of course a glass of Autumn Harvest wine.”

“Hmm, shovel?”

“Just impatiently eating rough with the guys. Prepared for men by men.”

She had ordered steak and mashed potatoes that she finished with a glass of cold coke.

“I didn’t ask where you live,”

“I live in Msasa Park.”

“Are you with parents?”

“Yes,” he had replied.

“What is your day like?” she asked.

“I teach every day especially in the morning. I dismiss at three in the afternoon. I then use about three hours to do artworks. That is an everyday thing. Besides that I jog for thirty minutes every morning before running a cold shower. And you?”

“I read voraciously if I do not have a design project. I read fiction mostly historical romances, contemporary romances, young adult, war and spy thrillers. I read magazines to refresh my design ideas. I have read and finished all books by Danielle Steele, Rosemary Rogers, Dorris Lessing to name a few. I read Harlequin and if I can, Mills & Boon romances to name a few.”

“Are you married Keisha?”

“NO,” she had replied. “Are you?”

“I am barely twenty-three,” he had replied.

“Tell me more about yourself.”

“Do you exercise in the morning?” he had asked.

“Do I look obese?” she had asked.

“No, I was just asking.”

“When I am very busy I do away with mid-day to midafternoon meals. I have exercise machines at my parental residence in Hatfield. I do a lot of fitness exercises about three times a week.”

“Which side, Logan Park?”

“No much nearer to Cooper Road, closer to the edge of Hatfield. We are much nearer to Harare International Airport. You can actually watch most of the aeroplanes landing from the west to north of west. Others use the east to south east route. I was at your college some time ago as a French student.”

“Why do you want to learn French?”

“French is the language of romance. I don’t want to learn French I can speak French. I did French up to ordinary level. At your college I was brushing up my spoken French. Paris used to be the abode of the artists. It is still renowned as a city for art lovers. That is where the term studio apartment comes from. Where one works at their easels and lives at the same time,” she replied.

Did she need tell him about a hopeful application for a scholarship to which politicians had manipulated until only their relatives and a select few had benefited? Need she tell him about her wasted resources in applying to do a 4-year degree with a year in Netherlands which had all blown into hot air? Where would she speak the French and German she had learnt to grasp now?

“Latin is the romance language.”

“Whatever way you argue I am not moved from clutching onto my French lessons.”

“Paris is now the home of artistes who are mavericks.”

“That is an insult!”

They laughed together. “Can we dance?”

They did two dances. One was an individual dance as the music play mixing with other patrons. Then he held her fingers lightly while the other was on her shoulder or waist as they followed the beat which ended in all dancers throwing their left or right legs following the musician’s antics. A few misplaced kicks in the air were not surprising.

“I didn’t know you were such a marvellous dancer.”

“I dance a lot in church,” she had replied. “I did dancing lessons in high school. Church dances are individual preferences.”

“You sing?”

“No others do that for me. I clap my hands. I shake my body or hips. That is all.”

“Are you a preacher girl?”

“Meaning what?”

“When I say something you quote a scripture?”

“I am not exactly that. I am just younger than your mother.”

“You didn’t really shake your hips did you?”

“I do not do suggestive or indecent dances.” She had replied. "I do dances that can be watched by three generations without closing their hands over their faces."

“I didn’t say you should,” he had replied.

He had put his arm around her waist feeling her closeness. They looked at the dancers on the floor. She drove him home right to his gate. She stopped a few inches from the sliding gate engaging reverse gear. He touched her upper thighs caressing slowly from her knees. She removed the offending hand.

"Is there a future in your artistry?" She had asked.

"At times I want to give in and stop. Then I ask myself why I got this gift in the first place. Then I ask to whom do I surrender the craft? Whenever I see a picture, I start seeing lines for creating a painting. I feel inspired to do another painting. Then there are the nerve racking shuttering moments awaiting a sale in order to recoup labour and materials."

“A good night kiss would do well.”

“Not so fast. I just wanted to find out more about you. We have much in common as we use art as a subject. Keep is strictly business if you prefer. No kissing, no touching until we are committed and ready for the higher calling of a relationship. To me relationships read like customary bridal ceremony, wedding, kissing and all the hunky punkie follows in that order never the opposite.”

“Yeah,” he had exited the vehicle opening the gate. As he closed it, he continued. “Yeah, yeah, yeah you are much younger than my mother at least.”

“Gordon,” she had said with excitement on the landline telephone system. “There will be a youth get together at my home. You know where I live don’t you? You have been there several times. You are welcome to come and mix with the party goers. Public transport is not a bother. You get the kombis at ______.”

“When is that?”

“This coming Saturday in the afternoon,” she had replied. “Our group is very time conscious. It is on 1400 to 1600hrs then most of them will be high tailing it for home. They are under parents who do not favour the sun down hours without them being at home. We do not worship with most of the parents so we have to be time conscious to avoid social problems. There is music, worship plus maybe two addresses by non-church keynote preachers or speakers. You are coming definitely to support me, aren’t you?”

“Let me check my engagements. I asked the other time that I and you visit a flat in Old Mazowe Road in the city and you refused.”

“I told you NO to premarital sex. No to us being alone especially in another person's house. You were with me here at home what was wrong with that?”

“The invitation still stands.”

“When we had a social drink at Kilwinning shops you said you are free this Saturday. Do bring your camera. You have a wonderful sense of capturing treasured moments. I still keep going over the Lake Chivero photos you took of me on that rock, feet in the water. You wanted us to go back to Imire game reserve in Marondera, remember?” She had asked.

“I will see what I can do,” he had replied from the other end.

She was part of the committee that had been arranging the youth event complete with a speaker from another church to spice it up. The date had clashed with a ladies meeting at the last minute. Their pastor had not revealed their main speaker. That way they could remain at edge until the last moment. Instead of them cancelling or postponing she had opted to host the event at their spacious lawn looking forward to parading Gordon as her prospective date. She had hired a tent that could accommodate all the church youth. The youth in turn had spread the word for visitors. She knew they would have a quarter of the attendance being visitors. Such events were the places to see potential dates, learn a few things and relax in the proximity of like-minded individuals.

They finished the youth meeting around five thirty in the evening. All her potential youthful friends known and unknown in the youth fraternity from three assemblies within the church had come up except one that was conspicuous by his eternal absence.

© Copyright tmagorimbo July 2017