Petina Gappah - The Book of Memory

By the time my trial began, the Law Society had appointed a pro bono lawyer for me. That is how I ended up with my first lawyer. Vernah has explained to me much that puzzled me about him, why he would barely look at me, why he spent more time laughing with the prosecutor than going over my case with me, and why he was so obsequiously anxious to please the judge.

I know now that the Law Society obliges all law firms in the country to take on pro bono cases. And the High Court requires that everyone accused of capital crimes be represented by lawyers. But there are no large fees that the law firms can make from this kind of case. On the other hand, there is money to be made from conveyancing and selling houses and commercial contracts. So the senior lawyers, the most experienced lawyers who know the law best, do the undemanding work that brings in the money, while the lawyers who charge the least because they are the least experienced, the lawyers who are barely out of school, get the murder cases in which they fight for people’s lives.

I was brought before the court for a bail hearing. My lawyer said very little beyond trying to be as agreeable as possible. ‘Accused has been out of the country and has a passport. Accused is likely to abscond or interfere with witnesses. And as accused has already pleaded guilty, accused may as well stay in prison,’ said the prosecutor.

The judge denied my bail. There was the trial, then Chikurubi. The cracking of my skin was the first indication that my nightmare was beginning. It was as though I was going back to the child that I had once been. And when I slept, the dreams came to me and I was drowning and Lloyd was speaking in my mother’s voice and the njuzu that was like the Chimera was telling me that I was dirty, I was dirty, and I needed to bathe.

I have finally understood Loveness’s unexpected overtures to me. I know now what it all meant, the newspapers, the lotions, the extra pens and notebooks, the dropped confidences. Yesterday afternoon she came to fetch me from the laundry, where I was ironing with the others. As we worked, we helped Beulah to prepare for her trial. She had finally been given a date.

‘Make sure you don’t look directly at the magistrate,’ Jimmy was saying. ‘Look down on the ground, like you do with the guards. If you look directly at them they think you are challenging them.’

‘Unless the magistrate is white,’ said Monalisa. ‘I have worked with whites all my life. It is different with them. If you don’t look straight at them, they think you are lying.’

Evernice turned to her. ‘White people, white people, chii chacho? Why are you always going on about white people? Where is she going to see a white magistrate? Where is she going to see one, tell me that. Where have you seen a white magistrate?’

Sinfree said, ‘There is a white magistrate in Bulawayo. He was the one who sentenced me.’

Evernice rounded on Sinfree. ‘What has Bulawayo to do with anything? Is she going to Bulawayo? Are we in Bulawayo? Does she look to you like she is going to Bulawayo?’ She let out an explosive sound of disgust and accompanied it with a matching moue. Then she calmed down as quickly as she had flared up and, her voice less strident, said to Beulah, ‘If they ask you if you are sorry for your crime, just tell them that you are the only breadwinner in your family.’

‘ Ehunde ,’ Jimmy added. ‘You can also say that your sister or brother passed and left you their children to look after, or you can also say the whole thing is based on heresy.’

‘Do you mean hearsay?’ asked Verity.

Jimmy nodded. ‘That’s right, heresy. But honestly, I won’t lie to you,’ she continued, ‘the best thing you can do for yourself is to just say that you have really come to know Jesus.’

Loveness came in at that point. We stopped talking at once. After ordering us to work in silence, she turned to me. ‘I want you to come with me,’ she said.

The others looked at each other. I could not think of anything that I had done that would warrant my separation from the others during the day. In silence, I followed her out of the laundry room, down the corridor and out of the courtyard and into the compound.

The ground was muddy. I blinked in the sun. It had rained almost every day of the week before. We had not been out in more than a week. Synodia and Patience were in the yard, talking while they watched their charges sweeping the rainwater that had collected in the courtyard. Patience waved to Loveness as we passed. I kept my eyes to the ground, keen to avoid drawing any further attention to myself. I did not dare to glance back but I knew that the others must have looked up from their work to follow us with their eyes, because as we passed them I heard Synodia say, ‘What are you staring? Get back to work at once.’

Loveness led me past the garden and the fields, where small clusters of A and B prisoners were resting after planting the new beans. As we passed the administration block, my right flip-flop remained stuck in the mud. I stopped to rescue it. Loveness stopped with me. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘As soon as the next donation comes from the Fellowship month-end, I will make sure to get you some nice shoes.’

Curiouser and curiouser.

On we walked, past the perimeter fence, until we had left the prison compound altogether and were approaching the staff houses. The homes of the guards are set back from the prison; you do not see them when you drive in. Before I could ask Loveness where she was taking me, we had stopped at a little house with a green hedge around it.

A group of children played a game in the open space before the houses. The girl whose turn it was to be in the middle had tucked her dress into her panties. Her thin legs kicked up with practised agility.

‘Sweetie, sweetie, day by day,’ the children sang. ‘Upside down. Tula madhebhula, tula madhebhula. Oh fish!’

‘And fish!’ cried the girl in the middle.

‘And upside down!’ echoed the others.

A toddler sat in the mud, splashing dirty water over herself in happy disregard.

As soon as the children saw Loveness, they ran to her, shouting, ‘Aunty, aunty.’

Was this Loveness, this aunty, aunty that the children clamoured around with laughing faces?

‘Where is Yeukai?’ Loveness asked.

‘She is at Tadiwa’s house,’ a little girl answered.

‘Tell her to come home,’ Loveness said.

Two small girls broke from the rest and ran as with one motion towards the end of the row of houses.

Loveness opened the door to her house. ‘Come in, come in. This is where I am,’ she said. There was an unmistakable note of proprietary pride in her voice as she ushered me in to the pinneat, overstuffed room.

The room felt suffocatingly familiar. The lace curtains at the window, the lounge suite with cloth covers, the display cabinet with miniature figures on doilies, and in the corner, a dining room table, which did not appear, from its resolute position squashed into the corner, ever to be used. I was in a more expensive version of the living room in Mharapara Street from which I had watched the children play.

And just as it had been then, the voices of the children came through the open windows, continuing the game that they were playing as we walked past them. ‘Oh fish,’ they cried. ‘And fish, and upside down.’

‘I have just the one bedroom and a spare,’ Loveness said. ‘I should have moved into the one at the corner after my promotion, the one that is occupied by Patience now, even though she has not been promoted like me, but, well, you know, there is this thing between the Assistant Commissioner and Patience …’