Africa39 (51 page)

Sometimes Joanna wanted to shout at the older woman and tell her, ‘She was convicted for shoplifting! There are others who have committed worse crimes. Whoring and counterfeiting coins!' Even if she dared to say so, she was well aware that it would not change the old woman's mind. She knew that in her grandmother's eyes there was no difference between her aunt's misdemeanour and other, more heinous crimes.

‘She's dead to me,' her grandmother said once. ‘She's as bad as that John Rolfe for she has killed me also in cold blood. She has made me the mother of a convict. She has tarnished her family's name. How is she better then than a murderer?' John Rolfe, hanged on the Ely gallows three years previously for killing his poaching partner and friend, was at once the most despicable character ever heard of in recent time and the subject of fascinating anecdotes retold at dinner tables across the country. Many people had gone to witness his hanging – as many as five thousand, if stories were to be believed – and up until this day, the impression his body made encased in a gibbet cage and suspended from a twenty-four-foot-high gibbet erected upon Padnal Fen for all to see was still fresh in people's minds. It was said that he had a sneer on his face, so lacking in remorse was he of his crime, so unmindful of the fact that he was destined to burn in hell, even though some people who were there testified that they heard the fires of hell crackle at the very moment that he died and felt a surge of hot air envelop them in a terrible embrace.

Joanna shuddered to think of John Rolfe on a day such as this, and dragged herself back to the present moment. She arranged the curls about her face, and reached for a bonnet. She could have a maid do this for her but she would rather do it herself. She would not say she was embarrassed at how arduous a task it was to brush hair the texture of hers, but she did not wish to make a spectacle of herself in front of a maid, crying out in pain. Maybe she should ignore fashion and chop it off. Oh what liberty then! She imagined the freedom of short hair, shorn like a sheep's. She could almost hear Aunt Charlotte goading her on, telling her, ‘Your life is yours!' But she knew that she would never do it, never have the courage to go so against polite society in so brazen a manner. But this was not her only rebellious thought. She had many more, planted by her aunt, but she dared not let them in now for once she did, they wormed their way into every part of her body and filled her with a heaviness that she could not bear. Today of all days, she must be happy. She must block out that voice.

She tied her bonnet, pulled a shawl across her shoulders and smoothed her gown. It was a yellow dress, devoid of any decoration, very much like a mourning dress save for the colour. The fabric was slightly faded, as if it had seen its fair share of the washing tub. Nevertheless, it was easy to see that the material out of which the dress had been made was of superior quality. It had a low neck, a rather low waist and was designed to be worn with a corset. It was obvious for its old-fashionedness that the style belonged to another century, certainly not in vogue in 1816. But Joanna, young and fashionable at other times, wore the dress with some pride. She had a sentimental attachment to this dress which had once belonged to her mother. Besides, she knew it would make her grandmother happy to see her in it, especially today. She ran a hand over the dress, slipped her feet into a pair of beautiful leather boots, a present from her grandmother for her birthday, and wriggled her toes for circulation. Then she let out a deep sigh. On a day like this, it was impossible for her not to feel inconsolably sad. Her sorrow today was not brought about by a vigorous young mind, open to what she saw as the injustice of the world in which she lived, but was precipitated instead by personal loss. It was of a deeper, insular quality, making her lethargic. She would have liked to have family around. That is not to say that she did not appreciate the company of her grandmother – the woman who spoiled her with love since she was an orphaned toddler, but she would have liked to have her parents, her sister, her Aunt Charlotte. She felt the weariness setting into her bones so that she felt not just twenty-one years of age, but five times that.

Joanna scanned her face again in the mirror, a habit that was becoming more frequent the older she got. She was amazed to see that she did not yet look as old as she felt inside. She had inherited her mother's nose and her high, fashionable forehead too, according to her grandmother. From her father she inherited some colour and tenacity. Her grandmother called her tenacity stubbornness, telling her off often for it, admonishing her that strong headedness was not an attractive trait in a woman, certainly not a woman such as herself. ‘Your father needed it to succeed. You are a woman, a young woman. It's got no place in your life. See how far it got your aunt!' She never contradicted her grandmother. But she often thought the opposite.

‘It is because I am a woman, that I need to be tenacious,' she said to herself. Apart from the strong headedness, she also inherited her hair from her father. And today she was turning twenty-one and would inherit a lot more. Close to a thousand pounds! Her father, Gustavus Vassa Esq., also known as Olaudah Equiano, had made for himself not only a name but some small fortune too. She picked up her parasol. Uncle Audley would be waiting.

Migrant Labour

Zukiswa Wanner

‘I am sorry my broer. I know that you were to get a salary review every six months when you signed the contract with us. Now,’ pause, ‘your work has been exceptional but the organisation is not in a position to give you a raise right now, our budget just does not allow it,’ the Secretary General of AfriAID, James Congwayo said, giving me the same response I had received from his predecessor, Livingstone Stanley.

I was AfriAID Regional Manager for the SADC region. The only person in the organisation since Mzi had left who had on my Rolodex several powerful SADC ministers, influential MPs, knew on first-name basis the leaders of the regional national organisations we worked with and yet again I was being told that I could not get a raise.

I wanted to curse but couldn’t. This was not working for me.

I had done everything right that those go-getter male magazines said one needed to do before asking for a raise. I set up a meeting for a salary review highlighting the major things I wanted way in advance. I made sure the email requesting a meeting (and the meeting) were both on a Friday (when bosses are said to be more relaxed and therefore feeling more generous) and yet here I was, being told that the organisation had no money to give me a raise.

Me, Tinaye Musonza. With my vast knowledge of regional relations.

And yet the Secretary General’s monthly salary was large enough to fund a few wars in the region.

I had had enough. Perhaps I could transfer my work permit and go and find work elsewhere? There were many organisations willing to pay someone with my expertise a better salary. A friend had told me of a job that he could hook me up with in the corporate sector right up my alley. Director of Diversity or something. Had to do with political correctness in the corporate world. More title than work but I could use the relaxed hours as well as the large salary with incentives.

‘Perhaps you would allow me to transfer my work permit and look for a job elsewhere?’ I asked tentatively.

Congwayo looked at me intently, his blue eyes seemingly staring straight into my soul. Yes, I said blue eyes. His own gaze was harsh enough but add the blue eyes in the dark complexion and when he gazed upon you, you could not help but feel as though you had erred greatly. For some strange reason ever since he married an Afrikaner woman a few months back, he had started wearing blue contact lenses. He had also started ranting against the system and how the whites exploited ‘our people’ which was rather rich coming from him if one knew his history.

Congwayo, you see, was one of those South Africans with a wonderful ability for reinvention. A former Special Branch man, according to the Human Resources Manager and my colleague Maki, when the winds of change were beginning to blow towards South Africa – way after Harold Macmillan’s speech but before Mandela became president – Congwayo aligned himself well. He started feeding bits of information about his colleagues in the Special Branch to the UDF, making himself appear as though he had a Saul-like conversion. The leadership of the UDF accepted him as an informer for the other side but there were those who still looked at Congwayo with suspicion. It’s said that until now, there are certain neighbourhoods he can’t walk in Soweto without encountering threats of grievous bodily harm for responsibility for the deaths and disappearances of many locals.

He talked a good game, did Congwayo, but I was proving a wee-bit too clever, so when I suggested I transfer my work permit elsewhere his pupils dilated before he said in a voice full of disappointment, ‘After all the resources we put forwards so you could come here, you want us to transfer your work permit so you can work elsewhere?’

He paused meaningfully before continuing, ‘Are you aware, young man, just how many young people in this very country are looking for jobs? Do you have any idea how many of your fellow Zimbabweans with degrees are sleeping at the Central Methodist Church because they have no work permits?’

Why did South Africans always do this when someone complained of unfair labour conditions in their country? I really couldn’t give a hoot at that moment how many of my compatriots were sleeping at the Methodist church or wherever. After all, this was a meeting about
my
salary raise. I would have told him this but I couldn’t afford to be disrespectful when I was the one who wanted a favour from him.

I shook my head, ‘No, Comrade James.’

He insisted on being called comrade. I think it made him feel like a benevolent leader. Or made him feel like he was making up for his shady past (his work CV conveniently forgot to mention about his Special Branch days but waxed lyrical about his contribution in the UDF).

‘
No, Comrade James?
’ he paused as though talking to a three year old. ‘Right. Plenty. The way I hear it, half of your country, qualified or not, is in this country because your damned leader thought he could run the country without white capital. ’

Congwayo sometimes overstepped his mark. He forgot that he was supposed to be politically correct – working in the NGO field as he did. Did he also forget that South Africa was an African country?

‘I am disappointed in you,’ he said, shaking his head again. ‘I really believed you were out to make a difference.’

I answered, seeing the blackmail before he had finished, ‘Of course, sir. But if I am going to make a difference, I need to do so on a full stomach. It would be hypocritical of me to tell everyone to stand up and speak out against poverty when I am not speaking out against my personal poverty.’

Congwayo’s eyes twinkled. He seemed to enjoy my turn of phrase but then he continued as though I had not said anything at all. Or maybe I hadn’t? Maybe that was what I
wanted
to say? What I would have said? Then why did he smile? ‘So here it is, Mr Musonza. If you want to leave you can go ahead but you can’t transfer our work permit elsewhere. Those who are offering you a job will have to get you a work permit as well as pay us for the rest of your contract. Now. Are you staying or are you going?’

‘I am staying, comrade,’ I replied in a whisper.

‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you,’ Congwayo stated, seeming to relish my discomfort.

‘I said I am staying, sir.’ I said a little louder, emphasising the ‘sir’. Comrade my foot.

He patted me on the shoulder with a smile that did not quite reach his blue eyes. ‘You are a good man, Musonza. A good man. Maybe after the next six months our donors will see that we have men of your calibre and give us more funding so that our finances will be better and I’ll bring the possibility of your raise to the board. If that is all . . .’ he said dismissively.

I stood up wishing that I was financially well-cushioned enough to tell him to take his job and shove it. But I had become a slave to this job. If it were just me, I would have survived but my father’s salary – which had seen me through one of the best private schools in Harare – now seemed just sufficient to get him to work and back. The family depended on me to send money for my sister’s tuition (which for some unknown reason was paid in US dollars and constantly had to be topped up every term) and to pay for other essentials like the telephone and DSTV (Yes, I just called that essential. Anyone who has had to sit through an hour of ZTV will tell you why). If my younger brother Rusununguko – or Russ as he called himself – had been getting an income it would have helped but he had decided he wanted to help at the farm, which really meant selling what he could whenever he could get away with it and driving around picking up girls in the city although he had a wife with two children staying at the farm.

Then there were my own expenses. Sure, I wasn’t starving. I was renting a two-bedroomed house in Melville. I could afford to take myself to a restaurant for dinner every once in a while but add my parents’ expenses and mine and I often found there was, as the saying goes, always so much month at the end of the money.

My contract was for four years. Three years and the extra trial first year. Just a year less than it would have taken me to qualify for residency. I had been in this country for three years. From the way Congwayo looked at me after I asked for a raise, it was highly unlikely that I was going to get the contract renewed after it lapsed. I was in a quandary.