The Stone Virgins Read online

  Lovers part again and again. They move on, holding their heads high, as though they have never met, as though they can each command the movement of the sun, yet each feels the other’s absence. When it reaches the earlobe, a word is soft like skin.

  For them to part, it must be something he did not say, something she did not say; it could not be anything either of them said, not with the scent he feels fading along his naked arm, her warm breath, remembered. No. Their fingers have touched. For them to part, it must be the unsaid words between them, the fear of finding out that what has not been said would remain so, long after everything else has been said. The silence parts them, but they remember, their voices foraging.

  What was that he said to her about having a photograph taken at the African Photo Studio on Lobengula Street and Eleventh Avenue? She wants to go to Kay’s Photo Studio on Jameson Street, where they give you a small mirror for one hand and a wineglass for the other while the camera clicks and flashes and another self flickers right past you while you stand still, and time stands still, and the self that you have prepared all week and now set free falls into the palm of your hand as easy as morning. Your finger is curled tight over the slim, long stem of the glittering glass, your eyebrows are pencil sharp, and the smile you have prepared in the mirror hanging behind the door is not all tucked right at the edges, almost not there, but your head is as far back on your shoulders as it could ever be. You are looking just fine; the city is part of you and you are not part of the city. A lift of your arm captures its mood.

  At Star Photo Studio, just across the street from Kay’s, they make you sit on a high stool with your back to the camera and ask you to hold the mirror as high as your shoulder, then turn your head slowly back till the photographer says to stop, and you do, and hold your neck still, or something like that. Two selves emerge out of every picture, so you get your money’s worth, for sure. A backdrop of sailing ships shows that you are not as landlocked in this city as everywhere else in the country. She wants to see that sailing ship and that wide expanse of sea where her own body would fit and float and she would be as far from herself as she ever could be, as well traveled as the camera confirms. She is not sure because she has not been to Star Photo Studio yet. But she will be. If not with him, with someone else. They part too completely, knowing only this.

  What they both know fully by heart are contradictions. They both recall lost chances like warm fires—with fondness. They nurture risks like tenderness; they love uncertainties the way they love the drumming of a brief rain on zinc roofs, the way they love the pale silence after church bells. They love the vanishing quality of things: a woman breathless.

  They love their own voices dreaming, their own fingers dreaming on each other’s bodies. They love memory reaching out, veined as arms. They avoid ladders, stairs, pillars; when they can, they stay on level ground.

  Hats are borne on drifting laughters, then captured below the hemline, under the billowing skirts of the women—hats tossed like feathers, like sentiments. The day is too short, as brief as the turn of a man’s hat falling on bare arms.

  They leave the city, here, where a woman lingers at a corner of the street, her arms heavy with a basket of pomegranates; a cloth is tied over the slippery handle of her basket. She stands, with the basket at her feet, her brow tightened, remembering an unpleasant encounter perhaps, wondering what she forgot to remember, if anything. She beats her gathered skirts as though shaking off grains of sand, while a stream of people hurry to Lobengula Street and pass by without casting a single glance at her. When she is ready, she hugs the basket back to her waist and hurries, too, toward Lobengula Street; the incessant voices, the jostling bodies amid the tomatoes spilling in mounds onto the pavement, the smell of guava fruit, all mingling with the sound of braking wheels. “Tshova! Tshova!” Voices explode and bodies scramble into the overloaded vehicle, which speeds quickly out of the city.

  If you turn from Selborne Avenue into Grey Street and go west, you can drive all the way out, without turning either left or right, to the ancient Matopo Hills, those tumbling rocks reaching out to the lands of Gulati, past that to Kezi. Kezi: two hundred kilometers from the bustling porch of the Selborne Hotel, where parasols mingle with disgruntled miners, bankers, and day-to-day merchants, where industry is brisk. Here the delivery boy, with telegrams and the day’s post, waits outside before someone finds him and relieves him of the mail.

  2

  Kezi is a rural enclave. Near it are the hills of Gulati. When you leave Kezi, you depart from the most arable stretch of flatland there is. There are towering boulders of rock, then hills and an undulating silence for a whole bus journey, till on the horizon you see Bulawayo beckoning. If at night, city lights glow like a portion of the sky.

  The Bulawayo-Kezi road leads finally to Thandabantu Store before the bus heads back to the city. Beyond Thandabantu Store, the huts spread evenly on each side of the dirt road, their grass roofs so low that they sag, spread, and fall over the mud walls. Almost touching the ground, the roofs create circles of cool earth close to the mud walls and the rectangular entrances. The walls appear reduced in height, shortened by the thatch and the shadows beneath. The huts are flattened and, from a distance, form perfect circles of calm merged with the land, though often finger-painted designs mark the surface closest to the ground. When it rains, water settles briefly on the grass, not running off smoothly or quickly. After the rain, the top layer of wet, partly decomposed thatch is the softest scent of living things there is—it is life itself. Tall dry grass stands between the sparse trees, as brown as the soil and as still as the heated air, the abundant silence. There are tumbling rocks resting between the trees, sliding along the sides of the small hills. In another distance, trees grow wildly at the bottom of a large flat boulder, crouched, whose back rises into the sky; the land here is rock. Under the large rocks, there is water. Meanwhile, a tree extends its branches over an expanse of rock. The tree clings, and curls underneath with roots; large, wide, plastered against the smooth surface, the roots are as hard as stone; each is a gleaming gray, peeling, firm. And everywhere there are thornbushes.

  Within this view of the huts emerge narrow, meandering footpaths leading in and out of every homestead, to the river, to the road. Elongated boulders of granite perched on flat ground rise among the sedate huts that stretch into wider settlements separated only by vast clearances of cultivated fields, and an unending canopy of daylight. Breaking the pattern are a few brick buildings, which can be seen throughout—scattered, permanent structures with asbestos roofs. The land dips briefly into a small valley, farther down, away from the fields; the trees here are higher. In the far distance but clearly visible to the eye are the lands of Gulati, whose hills shape the entire eastern horizon. Even from this distance, these are the greatest heights, soaring above any of the hills or rocks of Kezi, swallowing the earth around them, beckoning. Each morning, the sun climbs softly from behind those hills and casts a furtive glow. It is full light before the complete shape of the sun appears above the towering hills of Gulati, at midday it is directly overhead, and then finally it sets properly on flat ground, where land meets sky, in Kezi, opposite the immense horizon of stone hills. At night, this difference is visible: on one side, the stars vanish suddenly into the density of the heavy rocks, now a quiet and impenetrable mass of darkness; on the other side, the sensation is that of walking directly on the stars. So near and infinite is the sky that the mind floats, imbued with the most enigmatic sight. Darkness is fluid, the sky and land inseparable.

  Thandabantu Store is suspended just off the edge of the busy and winding Kezi-Bulawayo road, where the ground dips unexpectedly, then flattens, located right where the road rises steeply and determinedly from the narrow bridge over the Kwakhe River, now dry. In truth, the bus drives from Bulawayo to Kezi, then back to Bulawayo. But on the slim wooden plaque suspended next to the conductor’s window, Kezi comes first, and in the minds of the residents of Kezi, of course, Kezi comes
first: the bus, therefore, is seen as driving from Kezi to Bulawayo to Kezi, over and over again during the entire week. Some of the population has been to Bulawayo, and people go back and forth as they please. Some dream of nothing but Bulawayo; some seldom think of leaving Kezi.

  Whenever the Kwakhe River is full, the bus fails to cross the bridge; it lags, and people have to spend a day and maybe half a night waiting on the other side, nestling their treasured wares gathered from the city, while listening to the river sulk. The bridge becomes covered entirely, as if it had never been there. The river always subsides quickly no matter how full, the water chasing the rocks, then disappearing farther down, released into the earth, sinking—that retreating part of the riverbed is a mystery—the soil sucks the water down. The river suddenly wanes and loses its curves; it is slim, narrow. The remaining water trickles outward to pour into the wider and more resilient Nyandu River, way past Umthetho, that tranquil granite rock in the distance, large, where old men go to recline, and die, in silence. For a long time, there has not been enough rain to bury the bridge; the rain is sporadic, apologetic. The river has been so burned by the sun you can measure it grain by glittering grain, and by the number of children swarming on it like bees.

  Young boys run through the soft soil with their naked feet cushioned; the soil slides a warm touch between their toes and they leap into one another’s arms, their joy, their voices swell to the river’s smooth and naked bank. This same soil is littered with empty packets of Willard potato chips—onion-flavored, vinegared, salted. Then broken bottles of Coca-Cola, sharp and dangerous, empty red one-liter cartons of Chibuku beer. The smell of urine emanates from every nearby rock. The children take empty plastic bags from O.K. Bazaars, brought from Bulawayo, stuff them with newspapers, shape them into firm sizable balls, and scream with delight each time they kick not only the plastic ball but clouds of pink Kwakhe River dust higher than their own shoulders, higher than the caps on their foreheads, which they have just received from Toppers Stores.

  The caps have been distributed to them free of charge by the tall woman who arrives from the city in a brightly colored van. She wears a red pencil skirt, high heels that sink into the river soil, so she has to lean forward to walk, and sunglasses so dark that they never get to see her eyes. She deposits khaki uniforms for boys six to fourteen at the store—for sale. She also leaves ties bearing the Toppers Stores label. The clothes rest on metal hangers held on hooks attached to the walls. The folds on them persist, pleats across the sleeves, stiff with extra starch. The boys consider these shirts with scorn, and a mild curiosity.

  The van drives off in a cloud, and the boys chase after it anyway, for no reason at all, just to show they are neither quiet nor defeated, neither humble nor ignorant, not passive, but full of energy and might, not children either, but voiced presences with a will, with legs that can carry them in any direction they please, with instinct and jovial command, so they run in their longest strides, tumbling downward right down to the bridge, and watch the van sink and rise faster than even their own senses can recall, then gather a speed and turbulence that swallows them whole. And they wave. And stand. Puzzled. And drop their caps. And pick them up from the dust.

  The boys tidy their minds and rub the dust off their noses, and sniff the air for its odor and surprise. Then they sit down on the edge of the dry river with Madeleine razors held tightly between their fingers and sharpen their pencils, rapidly spreading fine lead onto their knees. Sometimes the sharp blade of the razor slips, grazing a finger and slivering the skin off, and the boys, brave, choose to ignore that minor hurt and proceed, instead, to write at the back of their torn notebooks whatever comes easily to the mind, such as descriptions of the large pale green telephone booth that has just been installed but has no handset yet.

  The green telephone booth. It can hold two people, standing, hidden from the stars, that is obvious. So in the night, lovers meet and whisper messages to each other, and pretend there is a vast distance between them, when in fact all there is to separate their bodies is nothing more traceable than a whisper, and much less substantial than darkness. Here, in what exists of this hopeful machine, they insert disused Rhodesian coins, copper pennies and silver shillings, and try different voices, which they whisper close to each other’s ears—an angry pitch and nuance when they call for Ian Smith or call Geneva and Lord so-and-so, a sedate tone for their inner escapades.

  Their voices more temporary than the darkness, they swing toward each other, having first retrieved their halfpennies, to secure touch, their knees holding, their lips tender, moving toward each other in order to ponder their proximity, to match their own voices, in synchrony, breathing in and out at the same pace, syllable for syllable, inhalation, pulse to pulse, wondering how long they can be this silent and this discreet, wondering if they can fulfill all those other promises that require daylight in order to be true, and instead offer each other what is easy and achievable, copies of Nick Carter novels and Agatha Christie stories. Novels the Kunene Mission School has confiscated and thrown out to the old women to use for their cooking fires, but which these hungry few have retrieved, salvaged, wanting to possess anything that is printed and can be read out around a fire, something that is not a birth certificate.

  In this green booth, they hold hands where the handset should be, having sought the mouthpiece, the hearing piece, and found none. Having sought the telephone cord that would link them to the city center, with Bulawayo or even Salisbury, with Gwelo or Gatooma, and found none. Having sought the directory with all their names listed, and found none of their own, the one copy chained to the booth revealing the small printed names and addresses only of Bulawayo residents, people entirely unknown and uninteresting to them. Not Kezi, not their Kezi, just this tantalizing contraption left in their midst to mock their lack, to rouse their want.

  The delay is part of the signature of their lives. This is familiar. Like the tarred road that ends abruptly at the Thandabantu Store and goes no farther, as though there were no possibility of the mind ever wanting to wander off steadily into the distance, farther than the eye can see. Indeed, as though it would never occur to the mind, to the body, to want simply to disappear from view. The road ends as though the builder ran out of materials and had no choice but to leave things exactly where they are, suspended, rough. The rest is dirt road going nowhere, for who knows what is right at the end of it, so narrow and tight that two cars cannot pass on it and each vehicle has to place one set of wheels on the road and let the other slide on the grass. The dust rises higher than the trees and boulders. When a car approaches from the opposite direction, you see the dust first, not the car. The car appears later, when the dust has settled and tomorrow has almost arrived.

  They will have to wait months, maybe longer, for the telecommunications van to come again, all the way from Bulawayo, with its swaggering, young, newly trained black technicians in tight orange overalls, who suck at ice mints and spit into fires, their hair cut neatly, who speak in spurts because they have gone to mission schools like David Livingstone in Ntabazinduna. Their only fear is God; mankind they can deal with.

  So elbows rest on top of the metal unit, which has digits carefully engraved on its buttons. This is unfinished business, clearly. Meanwhile, they collect telephone numbers belonging to factories and wholesale centers they have heard of—Blue Ribbon Foods and Security Mills and Archer Shirts, Kaufmann Shoes and Gees Refrigeration—all those places necessary to the city, but just workstations to the people in Kezi, places where one can locate long-lost uncles and relatives who have taken the Bulawayo bus all those many months ago and not come back, not written, not sent a message. They have faded into the city.

  Now the store is hidden from view as though by a luminous, darkening wall; the colliding particles of dust dance, spread, and float out. The sun’s rays move through it, and the dust glitters. The voices emerge from the bus, the laughter, the people calling to one another. The store emerges slowly as the orange f
ilter settles, its edges and asbestos roof rising first like an outline drawn out of charcoal. Out of the dust upon which this edifice floats, the roof appears next, red, rippling to the front, where the figures on the veranda slowly rise as though wading out of water. The orange dust settles along the waists of the men, and the one man bending is buried from view, with only his raised arm visible, like a man drowning. The air forms a thick, blinding mist.

  It is slow, this dust. It settles gradually once disturbed. The voices rise above the sound of the grinding bus wheels, above that heavy squeaking as the bus clambers up the bridge; then the store is suddenly present. The print on the facade reads clearly THANDABANTU STORE, large black letters on white paint. The radio from Thandabantu is louder than the voices emerging from the bus and calling for their goods to be brought down from the roof, where they have been tied down and have safely endured the long drive from the city. A shout for a discarded newspaper to be thrown through the window. A child crying for its mother stands under the wheels of the bus. A drunk man is awakened and told he has arrived in Kezi and must now disembark. He tumbles out, missing the last step as he drops out of the bus and leaps to the ground. He cries out, suddenly awake, for his purse is missing. This dust makes sound as slow as dream.