The Stone Virgins Page 14

  Nonceba, who had shared a room with her sister after their mother left and commanded them to take care of each other, and they had both survived that departure because they had each other always. And then their father died, and they survived that, too, because they were adults and could survive the present even much longer than the past. And now Thenjiwe has died, and how is she, Nonceba, supposed to survive all that? Nonceba was so close to Thenjiwe, she could hear each of her dreams and tell her about them, because they dreamed the same dreams, only found different words to explain them. She knew nothing about Cephas, not this stranger with a tongue sweet like honey, saying all there was to say about Thenjiwe except the words that would bring her back, make her walk in the room and find them both with their hands on the table and their eyes staring into an absent past. None of that. Instead, a stranger is sitting in front of her and acting as though he knows all that is right and wrong for her, telling her about all her hurt and his hurt, saying Thenjiwe’s name easily and without hesitation, as though he has a shape and a laugh and a personality to attach to that name as much as she does. Today, on this afternoon saturated with marula, he has just walked in and made himself at home. At home. Asking her to find a suitcase and pack her clothes, fold them, one by one, and follow him to the city, risking the battalion of soldiers rising like locusts from the bush, swarming the road, the guns slack and easy under their wrists. He wants her to leave everything, as though she does not belong here and could just leave because it makes sense to do so, makes sense to him, his view of the future and his past. Wanting to help, he says. How? To take her away. To remove her from her memories, as though that indeed could be done as easily as tossing a coin. His version of escape; her version of surrender.

  Not kindness, perhaps. Something else. Then a terrible thought enters her mind and she turns from him, ashamed to think it, but she has already let it slip into her mind and has to follow that thought to the end. She has to think through that thought, then cast it aside, then keep it if need be, but she has to think it, because that is what she has to do. She has to think the worst first. Does he perhaps know who would have wanted to murder Thenjiwe and why? After all, the most unimaginable event is not only possible but probable in Kezi. As he says, it is a naked cemetery. This is what he means, surely, that there is not even a faint line between life and death in Kezi. Is he standing on that faint line? Is this his special task, to make sure that the dead cannot choose their dreams, or the living? This is what the men loose in the bush are doing and the soldiers—both equally dedicated to ending lives. Since he is a man who can take risks with tenderness, perhaps he can tell her what exactly it took for a man to look at a woman and cut her up like a piece of dry hide without asking himself a single question about his own actions, not even the time of day. What did it take for a man to possess that sort of obedience? It is in her mind, so she says it to herself, murmurs till she is satisfied, silently, accusing the stranger who is offering her a journey out of Kezi.

  They are quiet for a long time, till they are both comfortable to be silent and to say nothing at all, just let the time pass. They do not speak. They say nothing, only gather their own thoughts. Finally, he takes her right hand and cradles it in his, as though he is counting each of her fragile bones. She lets him take her hand and hold it, not wanting to say anything, preferring this language of silence that they have found. He turns her hand over, holding her as if she were the most precious thought in his mind, not wanting her to leave his mind at all. He looks at her and down at her hands till she bends her fingers and folds them in his. She lets him hold her, as though she is no longer in control of her own desires, and indeed she is not. He looks up at someone else in the room, not her, as though someone else has said something and he is listening to this other voice speaking to both of them and making it unnecessary for them to say anything at all. In this long and surprising silence, Nonceba sees the longing in his eyes, the despair, old and well kept. He holds both her hands together between his own, palm to palm.

  17

  The sign outside the flower shop reads JOAN THE FLORIST in large silver letters. The first part, JOAN, is written in a curling, cursive print. Standing along the pavement, you can look through the glass partition into the interior of the shop. Another sign, directly on the glass door and waist-high, says CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF THE WEATHER. However, it is sunny outside, a bright, clear day in November. On the vinyl floor, there are many different flowers contained in baskets of varying sizes, arrangements ready for delivery, some posies, nosegays, presentation bouquets encased in cellophane.

  There is a door behind the low counter with its yellow Formica finish; the design on the counter is like rock, brown cracks on stone seeping into a pale yellow background. Every so often, a woman swings in from the back room with a finished arrangement of flowers, which she places gently on the floor. She wears a simple white gown and a white apron over it, and flat white shoes. She does not linger. She has a concentrated and busy demeanor, purposeful, diligent, precise. She turns and goes quickly back into the recessed room, where the flowers are being watered, prepared, cut, trimmed, pruned, then pushed and set into wire-mesh bowls, on platforms, on sponges, slid into champagne glasses and held up somehow, while others are prepared within fruit arrangements.

  In the front of the shop, there are more flowers—dry flowers and silk flowers—placed on glass display stands, and potpourri, and scented soap with ribbon tied on it, and colorful floating candles, and, on another metal stand, cards for all occasions. Mostly, however, the flowers are freshly cut. When the door opens, the perfume from the mixed blooms is provocative: carnations, roses, gladioli, baby’s breath. There are a few potted plants, portable, with pieces of driftwood set attractively in the basins supporting them. The glass door opens and a bell rings inside the shop; a lady at the counter looks up. The door swings back, then closes. A man is leaving the shop with an armful of roses arranged in a pyramid that touches his nose. He leans back so that he can see around the flowers and then opens the door. He rotates, clockwise. He turns his back to the door so that the flowers are safe and undisturbed on the opposite side. He moves around the door, then steps easily onto the pavement. He walks down the street with the flowers held high, higher than the approaching flow of people. The bell inside the shop rings as his figure disappears. The lady at the counter looks up. Her hair stands in neat large brunette curls, sprayed. She wears a thin pink scarf tied around her neck, held down by a metal ring over the open collar of her blouse. A thin black skirt ends at a modest length below her knees, accompanied by high-heeled sandals. Her blouse is soft, neat cotton. She is tall and wears half-rimmed spectacles, which continuously slide down her nose. With her right hand, emerald and ruby-ringed, a ballpoint pen wedged between her fingers, she slides the glasses up absentmindedly and raises her head. A thin line of red lipstick, a face carefully powdered. Mascara. Eye shadow. She opens a receipt book and starts to write rapidly. She stops and carefully slides a blue carbon paper between the pages, then continues with her writing. A phone rings. She picks the phone up and holds it tucked under her curls. She holds it up expertly with her right shoulder, freeing her hand. She speaks and nods in agreement. She replaces the receiver. She flips the pages and moves the carbon paper. She writes. A delivery van parks in front of the shop. On the back of it is written JOAN THE FLORIST. A man gets out of the van with an empty basket and enters the shop. He limps as he walks. His body is leaning slightly to the right. He wears a white overcoat. The door swings open. The bell rings. The woman adjusts her spectacles as she looks up.

  Nonceba moves past the glass wall at Joan the Florist, walks past the shop door, which opens onto Fife Street. She crosses Ninth Avenue and goes toward the Standard Chartered Bank, where there is a long, winding queue of people extending the length of the building. Inside the bank are recently employed black bank tellers and trainee managers newly graduated from the Economics Department of the University of Zimbabwe. The queue from the bank stre
tches to Edgars Clothing Store. Unlike the Standard Bank building, which boasts stylized features and intricate architectural details on its entrances and facade, Edgars is modern, all high tinted glass with imposing concrete pillars, and mannequins poised all the way around its two sides. Edgars was the first large shop in Bulawayo to use black mannequins on its windows soon after independence. Three years later, every passerby still looks through the windows at the black faces, the arms of the figures stretched out as though supporting layers and layers of cobwebs. The black customers step up to the front entrance and walk into the regulated air with a look of both pleasure and amazement.

  Suddenly, the clanging of a bell fills the city avenues and streets. The sound comes straight from under the clock at City Hall, in the center of the city. Nonceba hears it again and again as it sucks the clamor of traffic and pedestrians and hooters and bicycle bells. Every fifteen minutes, the air stirs with the sound of the bell on Fife Street. She enjoys the din, a sound that fills the city and gives it an alertness, a sense of expectation. Nonceba looks to her left at City Hall. High on a pillar over its facade is the large wall clock; it reads quarter past two. She quickens her step, walks past the man selling watches and belts, who raises his arms at every passerby to display his watches. Past that. Past the Chips Corner, which releases a greasy smell of cooking oil and potatoes and vinegar. In front of City Hall with its gardens of peach roses grown en masse is the disused well, the first water source when the city was settled by the pioneer column. Today, only a bench remains affixed there, and a protective circular wall with an inscription on the edge of it. In front of the old well are the dozens and dozens of flower sellers, of all ages and apparel, mingling and haggling. Here, there is a spray of activity and a colorful array.

  The flower sellers range from one side of the street—that is, from Ninth Avenue down the entire block of City Hall—on to the other side, at Selborne Avenue. It is a dazzling scene. Above the sellers, the flamboyant trees are in bloom; they cast a protective shade over the flowers, and a red and sizzling hue over the sellers. The petals are long, thin, multiple. It is a distinct panorama. The flowers are placed in buckets of water resting directly on the ground, at the feet of the sellers, whose voices rise like miniature bells into the petal-ridden air in order to welcome customers and identify each flower and declare its quality. “Fresh roses … flame lily … madam … flame lily very special flower … I give you bonus … madam …” Their voices clutch, flatter, cuddle, sweet-talk, and cajole. They bargain with the shoppers, exclaiming and then surrendering. A woman holds her hand tightly to her waist, arguing about a price, excited, shrill, then calming down. She laughs and turns her head away, moves from the customer and the blooms, and, using a small metal basin, sprinkles the petals with water. When it suits her, she looks up, and decides to change her mind, tightens her brow, leans forward, and lowers the price. Behind her, on Fife Street, the cars zoom past. Hooters blare. Cars skid, and miss, and move on. Drivers curse and slide with the traffic; they slow down at the intersection and roll down the windows impatiently. Pedestrians rush across the street and dart between cars at the Rixi taxi rank on the corner of Ninth and Fife. The woman finally exhales, accepts a bill, and surrenders a bunch of flowers. The sellers lower the price, then raise it for the next customer, then lower it even further than before. They breathe the fluorescent blooms, watchful. Red petals fall and cover the empty track within the pavement where the buyers linger; they walk over the fallen jacaranda blooms. It is a colorful exchange, the rows and rows of flowers of every tint and flourish, budding, falling, fully opened; pollen coats the tips of fingers held out. Each bunch of roses is wrapped in a piece of rippled cardboard, an elastic band wound tightly over it. The stems are cut at a slant so that the pores are not damaged and the flowers can breathe. Each seller has a metal bin full to capacity with flower stems, wilted blooms, discarded leaves, and crushed cardboard boxes. The sellers sit on the bins and press the flowers down, rest, and chat among themselves. Then they rise into the red flamboyant blooms and embrace the chrysanthemums.

  Along Ninth Avenue, on the other side of City Hall, is the bus terminus catering to those going to the eastern suburbs: Four Winds, Kumalo, Iloana, Montrose, Southwold, Matsheumhlophe, Famona. The benches and sheds are full, lively with the repartee of conductors selling and punching tickets, the cry of orange sellers. The buses are lined up against the pavement, their engines droning. The women drag their children along. There are black girls recently enrolled in “A” schools, who wear neat blue uniforms from Montrose High and Eveline High; boys from Gifford High and Milton High; and toddlers from Thomas Aquinas, and Henry Low and Greenfield Primary. Across the way is Haddon and Sly, where you can buy silverware and the most expensive glass and chandeliers.

  Nonceba avoids the crowds all around City Hall and remains on the opposite side of Fife Street; only when she has passed the next block does she cross over to the other side of the road, turning from Q.V. Pharmacy at the Kirrie Building, to O.K. Bazaars, past Woolworth’s, over to Stella Nova Photo Studio, onward to Fifteenth Avenue and Wilson Street. Cars are parked facing the pavement and a man in a faded blue uniform is checking for expired meters and issuing tickets and sliding them under the wipers of each car. On the corner of this street are varieties of magazines and newspapers laid out on the ground—back copies of Drum, Moto, and Parade. The seller keeps his change in a hat turned upside down beside him. He has a mound of coins held in it. Nonceba greets the seller with a slight lift of her fingers. The magazine seller holds out a copy of The Chronicle to her. She shakes her head and opens the door at the corner of this street. She enters, steps quickly through. The door slides back and closes. The sound of the city is behind her. Ahead, a flight of steps, neatly polished. She walks slowly up the stairs to the second floor.

  Nonceba stands in front of number 341 Kensington Flats. She unlocks the blue door and enters, turning on the light, then dimming it. The apartment has a parquet floor that spreads from the small corridor into the lounge, and there are two bedrooms facing each other, a bathroom, and a balcony. From the corridor, there is an arched entrance leading to the kitchen. Inside the kitchen are a small fridge, an electric kettle, pots and pans, a double sink, a stove. There are fitted cupboards; inside them are plates, more pans, and food. A pantry to the extreme left extends full height to the pine ceiling. Nonceba slips the package of fruit from her arm and places it in a basket near the sink. On her left is a small breakfast nook with a bench attached to the wall; two freestanding chairs with covers of red-and-white fabric face the wall. A broom closet is in one corner. She bends down to open the fridge door and takes out a bottle of Orange Crush. Then she gets a glass from the cupboard above her and carries it and the bottle into the lounge. She slides onto the three-seater couch and places her drink on a coaster in front of her on the coffee table. There is a small side table with a telephone on it. Two small windows look out onto a large square, where a rotating clothesline is positioned. She can look out at the balconies of the other apartments, which house potted plants and some outdoor chairs. During the weekends, the children play under the sheets, which have been put out to dry; garments are pinned all along the line. Often, one of the tenants shouts down from the top floor, telling the children to stop screaming. This increases their excitement, and they race through the clothing, pressing their faces into the drying white sheets; they are quiet, transformed into shadows. The sheets blow against their bodies, shaping them into smooth white stones. They wave their arms under the sheets and turn into giant birds too heavy for flight. The adults watch quietly from the balconies, regarding the children with amused impatience.

  It has been a year since she moved to the city, and life has assumed an even pace for Nonceba. When she first arrived in Bulawayo, she went into the hospital several times for more surgery. With some powder on, she looks almost unharmed. Almost. At least no one stares. No one turns to look. No one asks questions.

  Cephas has done exactl
y as he had stated he would do when he went to see her in Kezi. He gave her the bedroom across from his own. They live together. He deals with the hospital and arranges everything for her there; he enables her spirit. She finds strength through each of his unexpected gestures. They live in each other’s solitude. In a way, they live separately.

  In her room, there is a small single bed, a wardrobe, and a radio, but no mirror. Nonceba has added other touches of her own—like the picture on one wall, something she impulsively tore out of a magazine, showing a field of yellow daisies. Cephas placed the picture carefully in a frame for her. They hammered a nail into the wall. He asked her how high she wanted the picture. She picked a spot and kept her finger there till Cephas was standing beside her. He marked the spot with a pencil. After the painting was raised, they both stood back and looked at it. “Perfect,” she said, straightening the picture a little. This room is now completely hers. She has a small round table, where she throws some of her things when she comes home, a catchall for a book, a magazine, a pen. She likes the soft yellow bedspread with its frilled edges.

  A window looks out to the busy street below. Pigeons perch on the roof of the building opposite. She can see into the offices across the road. On the edge of the building, a flag beats against the air. It is darkened by the smoke from the cars; torn, flapping in the wind. A flag for a new nation. Nonceba watches the street in all its changing moods. At this stage, she knows by sight the people who work in the buildings across from her window. She sees them walk in, walk out, stand on the steps. The pigeons flap … flap … and fly away. They cry out, dirty the ledge, swoop between buildings, and disappear from her view. She can hear them beyond the window. They sit in every nook under the eaves, tapping on the roof of Kensington Flats.