Way Back Home. Niq Mhlongo
Somehow she reminded him of his mother, Akila. He had wanted to kiss Anele’s beautiful lips in front of everyone, to feel the orange-red lipstick on them. Instead, he had only managed to give her his business card. She confessed later, when they had been together for a while, that she had lost the card the same day.
Kimathi had spent the next few days tracing the Mzukwana Catering Company. When he finally had Anele’s contact number, he had tried to ask her out on a date. She was not comfortable with it at first, and refused, giving him silly excuses. In fact, she only agreed to go out with him after he had done something extraordinary.
It was Friday, 25 June 1999, a day that Anele had often – when they were still together – claimed to be the most romantic day of her life. After asking some of his female colleagues for romance tips, Kimathi had called Nkele’s Florist, at the corner of Church and Beatrix in Pretoria, and organised for twenty-four bouquets to be delivered to Anele at her workplace in Proes Street. As soon as this was arranged, he’d called Anele’s manager, Mrs Smith, to let her know of the deliveries, which would arrive throughout the day – four per hour. He remembered Anele telling him that all the girls had envied her on that day. Every one of her colleagues had wanted to meet Kimathi, the romantic guy. At least that is what she had told him when they were still together.
Kimathi had delivered the twenty-fifth bundle himself at four-thirty sharp. It was Anele’s knock-off time and she was completely overwhelmed by his romantic gesture. He had met her at reception as she was about to go home, and when he had asked her to meet him for dinner at eight o’clock sharp, she hadn’t even tried to resist. During their candlelit dinner at the Baobab Café in Menlyn Park Mall, she had told him that Sisa, her boyfriend, was a thug and a car thief. She was not happy with him, she’d said, because Sisa had lots of women all over the Barcelona section of Daveyton township, on the East Rand. After two more dinners, she decided to leave Sisa, and she and Kimathi started dating seriously.
Their wedding took place on 14 February 2000. They had sat for hours with Mapaseka, their wedding planner, explaining their elegant wedding dream. And it had been worth it, as every supplier suggested by Mapaseka had surpassed their wildest expectations. The wedding itself took place at Makiti Weddings and Functions in Kromdraai Valley, an exclusive venue in the Cradle of Humankind. The guests had come from as far away as Tanzania, Angola, Zambia, Australia, England and the USA. They were four hundred and fifty in total. Kimathi had chosen Ludwe and Sechaba as his best men, while Anele’s bridesmaids, Aya and Yolanda, came from Daveyton. The day was filled with love, laughter and joy. He had even serenaded her – “Always You” by James Ingram – under the big old trees beside the river that meandered through the garden. It had been their favourite song. Immediately after the song, she had said to him, “You stole my heart, Kimathi Fezile Tito, so today I’m planning to revenge myself. I’m going to take your last name.”
* * *
A black ant biting him on his left hand brought Kimathi painfully back to reality. He squashed the ant with his finger. It is over, he thought. Even the expensive diamond ring that he had given her had been traded at the pawnshop. When he had asked about it, she’d told him that she had sold it to raise money for Zanu’s school fees.
Kimathi looked down into his cognac glass; some ants had drowned inside. He threw the remaining cognac into the garden and, craving a refill, stood up and went back inside the house. But instead of going to the bar, he instinctively opened his bedroom door. As he walked into the room he had once shared with Anele, he tried to force some pleasant images of her into his mind. Opening a drawer, he picked out a red bustier and matching G-string. These had belonged to Anele, but he had hidden them from her when she’d moved out. Souvenirs, he called them, to remind him of her. From the dressing table he retrieved Anele’s favourite fragrance – Lancôme Trésor Midnight Rose – and sprayed it on both the bustier and G-string. Sucking in his breath, Kimathi sat down on the bed holding the lingerie. He stared at the wall, in deep thought. Forget it. Nostalgia is always self-delusion. She is no longer yours. You have lost her forever. You have to move on, brother. She has.
Chapter 3
Kimathi was a real son of exile. He was conceived in an act of unromantic lust in the village of Mazimbu Darajani, also known as Dark City, near Morogoro in Tanzania. His father, Lunga Tito, was a Xhosa man from Dimbaza, a township some twenty kilometres outside of King William’s Town. His mother, Akila, was a Swahili from Kwa-Ngiriki. Kimathi spoke both Xhosa and Swahili fluently. His parents had met in Kwa-Ngiriki in January 1969, when Lunga was in exile in Tanzania. Kimathi was born the same year, on 31 October, which meant he shared a birthday with his father’s struggle hero, Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi Waciuri.
Kimathi’s father died in 1985, after suffering from depression and being suspended as camp commissar at Morogoro. Reports claimed that Comrade Lunga had become frustrated and shot dead six of his colleagues in their sleep before turning the gun on himself. As a commissar he held a critical position in the camp when it came to the education of new recruits. The Movement had suspended him because of allegations that he had lured new female recruits into his bed by providing them with supplies he stole from the logistics section, including clothes, toothpaste, meat and alcohol. On the night before he killed himself, Comrade Lunga asked a young comrade, Ludwe Khakhaza, his most trusted student, to look after his son. He pleaded with Ludwe to take Kimathi to Dimbaza with him once the struggle was over.
After he killed himself, The Movement decided that Comrade Lunga’s actions were despicable and amounted to desertion; therefore he was not given the respect other struggle heroes were afforded. Kimathi’s mother died eight months later.
Ludwe fulfilled his promise to Lunga when he assisted Kimathi with his application for indemnity and a South African identity document in 1991. Obtaining the indemnity was important for exiled freedom fighters like Kimathi, as it was the only way to enter South Africa legally. Otherwise, he would have risked prosecution for crimes committed as a member of The Movement. He entered South Africa on 27 July 1991.
With the compensation that he received from The Movement, which was less than three thousand rand, Kimathi had rented a flat in Hillbrow. He knew little about Johannesburg and South Africa. Before he came to the country, he had imagined cities built on gold. At least, that was what his father had told him during one of their many walks on the banks of the Ngerengere River, near Morogoro. This particular walk had taken place after one of his playmates at Likobe Primary School had derogatorily called him “wakimbizi wa Africa kusini”, Swahili for “a refugee from South Africa”.
“I want you to fight for your country, South Africa,” his father had said to him when Kimathi had come home from school crying. “Tell those morons in Dark City that you’re not a wakimbizi, but a social reformer. Tell them you’re from a country where the cities are built on top of gold and diamonds. You are a revolutionary.”
It was on that day that Lunga decided that he needed to send his son to military school.
Kimathi began his life in The Movement as a student at Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College, or SOMAFCO for short. He became active in 1984, when a rumour circulated that the school might be targeted by the Boers. He was then tasked, together with other youths in exile, with digging trenches all over the campus. It was during this time that he met Comrade Ludwe properly for the first time – he was supervising the trench digging – and learnt of his connection with his father.
Chapter 4
Kimathi hummed aloud to Jonas Gwangwa’s “Flowers of the Nation” as he drove along the M1 North freeway. With one hand firmly on the steering wheel of his X5, he relit his cigar as he passed Gold Reef City casino. Puffing on his cigar, he watched the smoke billow towards the windscreen. He was happy that his gambling habit wasn’t as out of control as it had been in the past. The last time he had been at the casino was about six months earlier, when he lost twenty-five thousand rand in one night.
It was about quarter past eleven when Kimathi arrived at the “super sex market” of Oxford Road in Rosebank. After drinking countless tots of cognac alone at his home that day, the need for passion was bothering him, demanding his utmost attention. He needed a sexual encounter as a matter of urgency and he knew a few girls along Oxford