Father knotted his anger into his red and black paisley tie and went to work. It gripped his neck a little tighter every time his new boss called him into his large office, asking Father to show him how to paste numbers into a spreadsheet without disrupting the formulas.
Yes sir! No problem sir! He replied.
At some point, Boss surrendered the mouse and told Father to sit down.
Unlike his own swivel chair, which had wheels that disobeyed his direction, this one was spacious, had smooth upholstery and a taller back rest. While punching numbers into the keyboard, Father’s gaze wandered over the framed desk photos. In one picture, taken last month, Boss shook hands with the Managing Director who had flown in from the head office in Dar es Salaam to officially introduce Boss as the Branch Manager for Cranks & Bolts Auto. In another, both men donned khaki safari wear, each holding up a big fish as the sunlight sparkled off the Zambezi River behind them.
Now Boss stood by the window with one hand in the pocket of his tailored pants, talking on his cellphone. “Just busy with month-end reports,” he said in a honeyed voice that hinted he was speaking to a woman.
When Father brought his hand up to scratch an itch on his nose, he discovered that it now smelt of Boss’s crisp cologne. For weeks, the female employees had been acting like immature teenagers, sniffing the air whenever Boss walked by and then exchanging sly smiles with one another. Even those who were married!
Ten minutes later, Father told Boss the report was ready to be emailed to the head office. He reclaimed his seat, blinked at the screen for a few seconds, then clicked send.
“Cheers mate,” he said, dismissing Father with a double thumbs up.
On his way to his desk, Father made a quick detour to the staff kitchen for a coffee, his first cup of the day. As he poured water into the mug, the lid of the electric kettle fell off, scalding his left hand. He darted to the sink to relieve the throbbing with running water but the sink was crammed with dirty cups and plates and cutlery. The faint memory of an email he had ignored from HR with the subject SICK came to mind. He realised now that the cleaner had called in sick again. Using his trembling, burning hand, Father emptied the sink and silently cursed his colleagues.
#
“Idiots!”
Mother poked her head into the sitting room. The children were sitting quietly on the sofa, just as she had instructed after their father announced his arrival from work with a door slam. Daughter placed her hand over her brother’s and returned Mother’s questioning gaze with a shrug. We didn’t do anything.
“Look at this!” Father leaned forward in his worn green armchair and gestured towards the TV. On the screen, The President stood side by side with a white man, smiling for the flashing cameras.
“When will our people learn that this so-called investment is simply colonialism disguised in a business suit?” Father threw his hands up in exasperation. “Why not give them the whole country? They’re already running everything after all!”
In moments like this, the ideal response was to listen and agree, so even when Mother slinked back into the tiny sweltering kitchen to add diced onion into the dried kapenta sizzling in the pan, she made sure her husband could hear her enhe in the sitting room.
Father raged on. It wasn’t fair that his brother who lived overseas had to settle for a job as a mall security guard because his Zambian degree held no value there.
“Meanwhile, our government is allowing people who can’t even use Excel to run companies. Expats my foot!”
Mother didn’t even know what Excel was, but she clicked her tongue in solidarity. When she completed secondary school, her grade twelve results were so poor that the aunty who’d taken her in as an orphaned little girl looked at her and said, “ziba vochita.” Mother had been figuring it out ever since. Now she braided hair at her makeshift stand in the market and sold vegetables grown in the small garden in the back of their rented one-bedroom cottage.
Did she want their eight-year-old daughter and their seven-year-old son to sleep in separate beds instead of sharing a mattress on the sitting room floor? Yes.
Did she feel sorry that her husband had been passed up for a promotion, even though their sitting room wall proudly displayed certificates honouring him as Employee of the Year? Yes.
But she didn’t need a degree to understand that Father’s employers and the politicians who appeared in the market during campaigns were singing the same tune. Both promised a better tomorrow. Unlike Father, Mother didn’t live her life waiting for people to make good on their word. When she was five, she’d watched neighbours help her Mama climb into the backseat of a taxi after complaining of severe chest pain.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time to cook supper,” she’d said.
Mama died just as the driver pulled into Mtendere Clinic.
After the funeral, her aunty had stood in front of everyone and vowed to raise her sister’s daughter like her own and yet whenever Mother did something wrong, she faced harsher punishment than her cousins. Even all those years ago when Father propositioned her after making copies of his CV in the business centre opposite Mother’s stand, she had laughed at him for saying, “You’re too beautiful mwaiche, I’ll marry you one day.”
Now, she knelt down to set a tray of food on the small wooden table in front of him as he wiped his brow with the loose tie hanging around his neck. He was perspiring heavily after all that ranting. Living in a house without a ceiling didn’t help either. Mother and the children sat on the carpet with their plastic divided plates. The main news ended and Father switched the TV off, subjecting them to the incessant barking of their landlord’s new puppy.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
Mother glanced up from her plate and realised that he was addressing Son, who was busy pulling the heads off the kapenta on his plate.
“He doesn’t like—” Father’s hand shot up, silencing Daughter.
Son gave Mother a pleading look. She shifted in her spot.
“I’m removing the heads,” he replied in a timid, shaky voice.
“Why?”
“The eyes.”
“What about them?” Father probed.
“They’re looking at me…I can’t eat them when they’re looking.”
Father pushed his plate away and leaned forward again. “Do you know how hard it is to be a man out there?”
Son stared at his food and shook his head.
“You need to stop being a coward. Always hiding behind your sister, relying on her voice, running to Mummy every time the landlord’s son picks on you. That boy is nothing special. Don’t be intimidated by people just because they’re light-skinned or have more money than you. Speak up or the world will leave you in the shadows. Learn to fight!” Father punched the air.
Son rubbed his nose and let out a sniffle.
“Are you crying?” Father turned to Mother and Daughter. “Why is he crying?”
Irritated by their disapproving silence, Father washed his hands in the dish on the table, dried them with the towel and threw it in the frothy water as he rose to his feet. Stray droplets splashed everyone. He lifted his collar, removed his tie and flung it onto his chair.
“What a sissy!” He spat before disappearing into the bedroom.
Mother and Daughter abandoned their meal to huddle around Son, whispering words of consolation, but he shrugged them off. He hunched over, his tears dripping onto the little severed heads on his plate.
#
Daughter ignored the fast-approaching footsteps behind her. She was squatting at the tap, washing her school socks in a weather-beaten plastic bucket.
“My dad bought me a puppy,” Teddy said, crouching down beside her. His breath was warm against her ear and it carried a spicy aroma that reminded Daughter of the samosas Father brought home every payday. She focused on her task, denying Teddy the attention that always brought him out of the main house to the cottage.
“I’m not allowed to bring it outside because of its white fluffy hair. It’s a house dog,” he prattled on.
Daughter pushed the bucket aside. She’d use the soapy water to mop the kitchen floor later. She opened the tap to rinse her socks and Teddy jumped back to avoid getting wet. He still had on his school uniform but without the navy blue blazer that made him look like a grown man instead of a grade four pupil.
“It’s not like these other neighbourhood dogs. It only eats special tinned food,” he trailed behind Daughter to the sagging clothesline where she pegged the socks. He cupped his hands over his forehead, forming a visor against the glare of the sun and waited for her to say something. Loud music from the main house suddenly flooded the air. Last week, Teddy had bragged about the new sound system, how it caused the windows to shake. Before that, it was the school trip he and his classmates would take to Samfya beach at the end of the term.
Not even the teachers wore blazers at Daughter’s school and a bus on the grounds was a rare occurrence, usually reserved to transport selected attendees to funerals or interschool events.
When Daughter entered the cottage, Teddy lingered by the door. “My dad bought me a puppy,” he informed Son, who’d been sitting quietly on the sofa since coming home from school with his sister.
“We heard it,” Daughter said, sounding irritated.
“Do you want to see it?”
Daughter shook her head at her brother. Son wasn’t much of a talker and that was one of the things she loved about him. When her friends complained about their mischievous brothers, she listened in amazement, thankful that Son didn’t deliberately fart in her face or throw lizards at her. If she wanted to play with her dolls, Son went along with it, brushing their plastic curly hair and mimicked breastfeeding them. Father said that he was too soft, like a girl. That’s why he insisted that Son play with Teddy even though he always made him cry.
“Come, it won’t take long,” Teddy said.
Daughter joined Son on the lumpy sofa. He hadn’t uttered a word since last night’s scolding. In the morning, when Mother hugged them goodbye, Son’s arms had hung stiffly at his sides. Instead of walking alongside his sister as they headed to school, he ambled behind her.
Teddy stepped inside and placed his hands on his hips. “You guys are soooo boring. What will we do then? Sit here in this hot matchbox?”
“No one is forcing you to stay,” Daughter said sharply.
For a moment, she considered bringing the upright fan from her parents’ bedroom. Mother wouldn’t mind, but nowadays, Father was unpredictable. Who knew how he’d react if he came home from work to find the fan in the sitting room? Anything could set him off — whether it was an article he read in the newspaper, a reckless bus driver who jeopardised father’s safety by disregarding the speed limit and the pleas from other passengers to slow down during the commute, or a slipper that caused him to stumble because Daughter had left it in the way. And when Father was furious, the entire house suffered. He banged and shouted. While Mother and Daughter bounced back quickly, it took Son longer to recover from the outbursts.
Teddy rolled his eyes and plonked himself in Father’s armchair.
“Iwe, don’t sit there,” Son jumped to his feet. “That’s my father’s chair.”
“So?”
“We’re not allowed to sit on it.” Son’s eyes bulged.
“You’re not allowed to sit on this cheap thing? Teddy chuckled and slammed his hands on the worn, padded armrest.
This was why Daughter didn’t like Teddy. He made her feel poor. The shower and the toilet were outside but attached to the cottage, and he often teased them about that. “You can’t even go to the toilet by yourselves at night,” he’d say and laugh.
When Daughter complained to Mother, she said Teddy didn’t know how to play nice because he was an only child and his parents spoilt him. Then she reminded Daughter that although the house was small, they were fortunate not to live in the shanty compounds.
Teddy smirked. “I dare you to get me out of this chair.”
Just as Daughter was about to intervene, Son grabbed the other boy’s arms. Teddy swatted him away, snickering. Son let out a groan and pulled harder. Soon, both boys were panting and shoving.
Recognising the panicked look in Teddy’s eyes, Daughter felt tingles in her belly and stood up.
“Chimenye!” she egged Son on. Beat him! “Show him you’re not a sissy.”
Son unleashed a flurry of punches on Teddy’s face. He screamed. Daughter hurried to the door and shut it. Then to the window. She moved the table out of the way to give her brother room because Son seemed to grow bigger with each blow he threw. His arms, once thin and weak, now resembled Father’s. Daughter clapped and cheered. Teddy whimpered. He sounded just like his puppy. E
