African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441) (9 page)

Christine's feet in borrowed grown-up shoes hurt her. She undid the long red straps. She was tired of this place, the whole of Entebbe, in fact, filled with buildings that had been alive in the past, but now were small and irrelevant, ruins, almost. The three flowering plants, the only sign of new life around, now looked so stridently and annoyingly red and perky. She glanced over her shoulder, then went and pulled at the plants roughly. The stems were tougher than she was: taut, elastic. She tore at the tender petals. The flyaway pollen made her sneeze. She used her hand to wipe her nose and cleaned it off on her skirt, staining her nice tight jean skirt. That made her even angrier. Christine pulled harder at the green stems, leaning her body back.
Aaaah,
she felt the roots tearing, the dark brown earth moving, loosening, the plant breaking free. The release made her stumble back, almost fall, and she laughed through her tears, holding the limp, useless plant in her hands. Now there was soil all over her borrowed open-toed shoes and her feet. She threw the plant carcass back onto the soil, disgusted and feeling silly. Childish. Christine wiped her tears with the back of her hand and cleaned it on her blouse, smudging it red and brown with lipstick, tears, and dirt. What a mess. Nicholas should see her now. She had better go home; they would all be back, asking for her. Maybe there would still be some cookies left for tea.

S
TEVE
C
HIMOMBO

Steven Bernard Miles Chimombo was born in 1945, in Zomba, Malawi. He received his BA from the University of Malawi and a teaching diploma in English as a second language from the University of Wales. He earned an MA and PhD in teaching at Columbia University in New York City. After studying at the University of Leeds in the UK, he returned to Malawi, where he edited the literary bulletin
Outlook-lookout.
Currently, Chimombo is Professor Emeritus of English at Chancellor College at the University of Malawi. He has published in a variety of genres: plays, poetry, novels, short stories, children's literature, and criticism. Among his books are the novels
The Basket Girl
(1990) and
The Wrath of Napolo
(2000), the plays
The Rainmaker
(1978) and
Sister! Sister!
(1995), the collections of stories
Tell Me a Story
(1992),
The Hyena Wears Darkness
(2006), and
Of Life, Love, and Death
(2009), and a work of literary criticism,
The Culture of Democracy: Language, Literature, and the Arts and Politics in Malawi, 1992–1994
(1996).

Another Day at the Office

(2009)

H
e joined the throng of people at the top of the small street leading from the marketplace. The main road marked the central artery of the main stream of people. They formed a vague column of marching feet kept in line by the fact that where the shops did not prevent them from leaving the main column, the ditches or the embankment did so further down.

A quarter to seven. Plenty of time. From the shop at the corner, the street leading from the marketplace to the office would only take fifteen minutes using Adam's mode of transport. The bells and the whirl of bicycle chains sounded a quicker form of locomotion which kept to the edges of the tarmac. This ensured that they were not directly in the path of the four-wheeled monsters that were the owners of that black road. But sometimes the cyclists violated this truth, only to be rudely reminded by the horn of an irate motorist and an oath that tore past at fifty miles per hour to leave the culprit shivering from its passage.

His faded, size seven brown shoes pinched a little after turning the corner. As traffic was heavier here on the main road, he was forced to keep to the pedestrian path. The dust formed a fine film over the polish his wife had applied that morning, as he was hurriedly washing his face and gargling his mouth to get on the road in time. The shoe repairer who worked opposite the vegetable stall in the marketplace had remarked in a friendly manner, “Why don't you let me keep this pair for patches on other customers' shoes? Another repair job on them and the makers won't recognize their handiwork.”

He had muttered something to the effect that he did not see anything remarkable in the shoes. Just because he wanted another patch added to the areas where they pinched most did not warrant that he should turn into a charitable institution. Did he want him to go barefooted to the office? Still, the man had done a good job. It would be another two months of daily wear before the customary slight limp reappeared.

The familiar face he met at the top of the street leading from the marketplace had greeted him amiably enough. “How are you this morning, Chingaipe?”

All he got in reply was the most overused cliché in the Civil Service—“Fifty-fifty”—which could be understood to mean anything from “I'm broke” to “I've got the grandfather of all hangovers.” After that, Chingaipe did not show any signs of interest in developing the theme. The familiar face continued on its way, silently falling in behind Chingaipe.

The street leading from the marketplace was flanked by the Indian shops. Old structures built in a random, absent-minded fashion. Garish colors and dusty spaces sprinkled with wild grass. But as soon as you turned the corner at the top, you met the shops that made a pretence at being modern: cemented car parks for the customers, wide shop windows boasting imported merchandise. Chingaipe did not glance at them. His vision always centered on a spot vaguely ten feet in front of him.

The sound of water forming the background to the hum of engines, whirl of bicycle chains, and voices informed him he had left the shops far behind and was nearing the bridge over the small river they called Mzimundilinde. This receded as he climbed the long hill, still in the column of other workers heading for duties.

It usually took only fifteen minutes to walk from the top of the street leading from the marketplace to the office. Chingaipe noted subconsciously that he must have used ten minutes already, for the column of which he formed a part was now noticeably thicker and faster-moving. The October sun was already making itself felt. He traced the course of a trickle of sweat from his armpit along his ribs down to where his vest, shirt, underwear constricted him round his waist on account of the leather belt he used to keep his trousers up. The trickle down his thighs was from a different source altogether.

Chingaipe had dressed with his usual care. In spite of the hurry in the morning, he had looked at himself in the mirror to see that the parting on top of his head followed the usual groove. The spiked bamboo comb he used for this purpose never failed him. He could perform this action in the dark if the need arose. The small knot on the cotton tie had been slightly to the left. He had pulled it right and shouted to his wife, Nambewe, in the kitchen, that he was off. Apparently, she had not heard him. The children, who were preparing to go to school, were making too much noise.

The road rose steeply after the river. Chingaipe felt the tie round his neck also constrict him, but he did not loosen the knot. The Higher Clerical Officer would give him a cold, disapproving stare if he noticed something faulty in the appearance of his clothes. Chingaipe's cheeks puffed a little and he breathed with some difficulty as he trundled up the steep incline. Only fifty yards to go.

He checked a little as he turned into the drive that led to the department he worked in. It was a huge, sprawling building that had belonged to some top government official in the pre-independence days. With the shortage of offices, the government had converted the residence into a block of offices, without changing the original design or the gardens surrounding it. The green corrugated iron roof was also the same. If you wanted to use the front door, you climbed the steps and came to a short passageway that led to what used to be the drawing room. It was now used by half-a-dozen young clerks, fresh from their School Certificate. Chingaipe's desk occupied one corner of this room.

The smaller path led to the back of the house—now office. You went through a bewildering maze of little rooms, including the bathroom and toilet, before you came to the same drawing room—now office—where Chingaipe had his desk.

Chingaipe took the smaller path to the back door. He always used the back door to his office, and every morning the Higher Clerical Officer's short but effective speech came to his mind: “Mr. Thomson has approached me about having a word with you lot in this room. Miss Prim, his secretary, has complained that, each time you clerks pass her desk by the front door in the next office, you stare at her. She doesn't like the way you look at her. Where are your manners, you people? Have you never seen a white lady before in your lives? Why do you have to gape at her each time you walk past her desk? Imagine all six, no, seven, of you marching past with eyes on her. What do you think she feels with fourteen eyes piercing her? You should be ashamed of yourselves. From now on, all junior clerks, typists, messengers, and telephone operators must use the back door to get to this room. That's not all. The toilet and bathroom on the other side of this room are closed to all junior staff. You're to use the toilets in the servants' quarters at the back of the house. I don't want to hear any more of this nonsense. Is that clear to everybody? I am going to write a memo to that effect right now. Copy to Mr. Thomson, one to Miss Prim, and a third to be pinned on that notice board to remind all of you.”

Chingaipe opened the back door. It was seven o'clock. It seemed the only people around were the messengers and laborers. The rooms were so quiet. Even the girl who operated the switchboard had not yet made her appearance.

It was cooler inside. Chingaipe breathed a little easier. He passed the Executive Officer's office. The next one was the Higher Clerical Officer's. Both had originally been bedrooms. The drip, drip, drip was from the bathroom.

Chingaipe opened the door to the lounge—now office. It too was empty. He crossed the room to the far corner where his desk stood. He opened the window nearest to him and sat down with a sigh. He eased his feet a little out of the shoes to rest them. He dared not take them off all the way—the Higher Clerical Officer might walk in suddenly and find him in his holey socks.

He took the plastic cover off the typewriter, folded it carefully, pulled open the bottom right-hand drawer, laid it on the top of the papers there, and pushed the drawer shut. The keys stared blankly at him. He glanced at the two trays on the desk. The “IN” tray looked as full as it had been yesterday morning, the day before yesterday, last week, last month. It never seemed to be empty. The only empty one was the “OUT” tray.

Chingaipe put his hands on the desk, looked at his fingers for a brief moment, and pulled the top right-hand drawer open. He felt inside for what he wanted, and his hand came out with a razor blade. He proceeded to cut his nails slowly, piling the bits in the ashtray in front of him.

The other clerks found him sharpening a pencil, and to their enquiries about his state of health he said, without turning (he faced the window with his back to the room), “Half-half.”

He recognized the individuals behind each voice and his tone of voice reflected how he felt about each of them. The six “Half-half's” varied slightly in their lukewarm nature. He felt rather out of place in this room. They were all products of secondary school, compared to his old Standard Three, taken twenty years ago. They must have thought him a bit odd too. Him with his slight limp, tight jacket, and baggy trousers, banging away like a thing possessed at an equally battered typewriter amidst their loud talk and sometimes lewd jokes.

Chingaipe looked up and noticed that the laborers outside had started work. That meant that the Higher Clerical Officer was coming. He opened the top file from the “IN” tray, took out a rough draft, and laid it on top. He pulled open the top left-hand drawer and took out three blank sheets of typing paper. He shut it, pulled open the drawer beneath, and counted two sheets of carbon paper, which he put between the typing paper. He shut the drawer and inserted all the sheets into the machine. He set the typewriter margins and began to type:

 

“Dear Sir,

With reference to your communication dated . . .”

 

He could not type as fast as Miss Prim. There had been a time when he could have competed with her and not come off the worse. What did she type for Mr. Thomson which he didn't or couldn't anyway? Her with her superior secretarial airs. She was just a wisp of a woman really. Short, thin, almost angular. Long nose, thin lips. No bosom, no buttocks, no meat. Did she really think the young African clerks had any designs upon her? They might be fresh, but they knew there was no juice from that quarter. If it had been the telephone operator . . . Now she was altogether different. The type that they really would turn and look at. Not that they had not, but they had come to grief. They were no match for her. That girl could be rude. He remembered the time he had been ready to go for the lunch break. She had preceded him into the passage with a friend. She had been speaking Yao so he could not understand, or so she had thought.

“At four o'clock, Chingaipe will knock off,” she announced. “Hurry to his wife. Mrs. Chingaipe will stop pounding maize and hurry to the kitchen. She'll prepare food for the tired husband who is a copy typist in a big government office. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

The girl had not realized how close to the truth she had been. Chingaipe paused in his typing. Neither had she realized how it had cut him to the core to be dissected and classified as she had done. True, his wife prepared food for him as soon as he reached home after work. Only because he did not go for lunch like the Executive Officer, like Miss Prim, like Mr. Thomson, like the telephone operator and her numerous well-paid boyfriends. The other junior staff had formed the Lunch Break Union and had their meals of
mgaiwa
and dried fish prepared for them by one of the laborers in the servants' quarters at the back of the house. The rest contented themselves with boiled or raw cassava and bananas down by the Post Office.

He did not go to lunch. He could not start now. He had trained his stomach not to expect such a luxury. Instead, he drank a glass of water at noon and then went in the usual direction to a definite spot under a tree in the extensive gardens. There he loosened his tie, took off his jacket and shoes, and with obvious relief lay down to sleep, ignoring the inevitable rumblings of his stomach.

The beginning of the afternoon session always found him back at his desk banging away furiously. He could go on like that the whole afternoon, the noises of the keys interrupted at intervals by the loud guffaws of laughter from the secondary school kids.

There were six of them, four boys and two girls. Chingaipe knew intuitively who was going out with whom from the occasional snatches of dialogue he caught while changing carbons or rummaging in his drawers or puzzling over the handwriting of the Higher Clerical Officer. In one of them, he had heard the kid called Mavuto talking to the older girl.

“Of course, there are different types of hair,” he had remarked loudly.

“Mine is called love hair,” she had replied, unabashed.

“I'm not talking about your wig, baby.”

They would have gone on and on like that if one of the others had not noticed how rigidly Chingaipe had sat and so told the two to shut up. Chingaipe had continued to grope about the bottom right-hand drawer, embarrassed. He did not know where the world was going to. In his day . . . In his day . . . He found what he was looking for.