A Note for Dambudzo
(To the Memory of Dambudzo Marechera)

The riotous knock came with the first cuckoo's call, and his toes searched the floor for a warm spot, he stood up and sailed across the bogswamp of corridors and opened the door.
         -Can we come inside?
         -Not here gentlemen, my room is small, maybe we can knock down a few walls and sit in the kitchen.
         -We have good news to you, they have rewarded the peace prize to the prisoner.
         -God bless you Mary, Mother of our Heavenlyfather, gentlemen, this is indeed good news. And so the work of humanity began knocking down walls not only of the kitchens where big black mamas administered but also the blondes' room, the livingroom and the porch where a tribune was to be built by patient labours of workers and peasants and Stevedores and Longshoremen who staged goslow campaigns in the quays of Portelizabeth and crippled the economy, and students who traded books for seditious Kalashnikovs the only language the enemy understood and streetchildren who until very recently protested piling up old tyres and setting flames on them, that way walls of trade and sports and investment boycotts were removed and our work continued, the tribune was raised for the comfort of our guests and morning quota was served when graceful and noisy, The Woman brought vats of Cocacola and proteinbiscuits, she was an old daughter of the ghetto and thus knew the dirty language of Shebeens which proved useful to convince us, the people, that enough was enough, no more exertion, the time was now to sit down and enjoy the great spectacle, fuck, we deserve this, folks, then she opened a pouch of choice tobacco which was shared evenly with ringleaders of people's workforces without regard for area of their affiliations nor political persuasions or differences in where they had started the demolition, those who broke the kitchen walls got their rightful portion and, it must be said with all fairness, so were leaders of the street units of flamers who in addition she treated with gifts of necklaces modelled on tyres, universal justice, my children, said she elegantly, fine woman (we called her Motherofthenation), inborn gift to squirm into intractable messes and get out unscathed with the assailants sheepishly in-line, combed and shaved in a great burst of energy in anticipation of the entertainment, of course some rebels refused to shave when she asked but that is a minor detail when stood against the feat of bringing rebels out of jungles of theories and causes which had matured and then withered pre-maturely on meagre rations of guerrilla wardom, a shrewd woman with a smart husband we all admired their perseverance and generosity in making peace because peace brings prosperity and everybody who stood in the barricades for democracy and equal rights and bore the brunt of oppressors' truncheons deserves some tobacco to calm their mind and share in smoking fruits of freedom, so the siege was lifted, the sanctions went, emblems were removed from institutional niches and we unanimously agreed that an important milestone as such demanded poise and dignity it properly deserved, how often did a nation became free, we asked, the ceremony should be conducted with decency and if we have to sell the pieces on our back and so be it, as providence would have it, we were spared the indignity of attending our own birth naked, the couple's friends had arranged for the ceremonies to be undertaken with presentation of reward to our combatants, saves money that way, and the international community agreed to sponsor us (on a minor condition which, to start with, threatened to scuttle the ceremony but thanks heavens above we have levelheaded diplomats), to have a prisoner you have to have a warden, the International Community said, and went on to offer a solomonic solution, give the prize to the warden as well, you ease tensions that way, folks, the ceremony was saved and a grand tribune was made, he who will not call this generosity then is suffering a bad case of ingratitude, we would have entered the world of nations full of beards but without a piece of clothing on us, let us at least admit this, folks, imagine us entering independence plaza flapping, old shrunken paps and impotent warriors, if this is not ingratitude I don't know whatelse, witnesses and delegates from sister organisations abroad and our own envoys who were recalled from the farthest corners of the earth to celebrate our coming of age in the community of nations, their arrival in limousines and palanquins and rickshaws or on the backs of peasants and workers entered the annals of nations' rebirth for its uniqueness and cameras were at hand to zoom on Chiefs and Sultans of Sokoto, the Fieldmarshal Alhaj Idi Buffoonkillkilldead (whose name means the cock-with-two-thousand-hens), the Lifepresident of Nyasalands, the Greatlion of Judea, General Zeconquerorof Britishempire, Mzee Jomoburningspear (the old statesman of the region who came with his good friend and business partner, the Rajah of Tsavo), His Eminence the Papal Nuncio, Most Rev. Bananapederast, Ayatollah Kaliganja, Colonel Benzine Ben Pesah (eclectic soldier also a renowned author of a bestseller on irrigations), ambassador Glockenspiel together with Mrs Charity Glockenspiel, patron saints of charities to developing peoples such as us (the couple provided us with lots of resources during the struggle), strongly represented were also the Sokotosultanate concubines in uniform silk agbadas, Ben Benzine's baggage in burqahs and the Fieldmashal's twin daughters in Congo loinpieces custom made in the city of many lights, except for the twin's pubicline pieces, only the bearded bush belligerent's neatlypressed fatigues succeeded to rise eyebrows, also invited were stars of faded popular songs who had held soldout concerts to publicise our struggle and vociferous members of parliaments who wrote and passed bills into laws banning all contact with oppressors, and their spouses who took stealthy holidays in oppressorsland to undermine the prevailing theories that the sun there was only fit for people of hardened skin, and lovers of the wives of the members of parliaments who ran adagencies for the financialhouses and thinktanks to help keep the spoils of solidarity within theoretical frames of skill in solving dreams puzzles in the family of international community, and new poets who wrote party paeans were also invited, and so were entrepreneurs of fishliver who spotted new fishing waters beyond the coasts of oppressorsland and of course producers of proteinbiscuits for the starving masses and janitors of the Motherofparliaments and the multiracial assembly's inhouse doctor with his liveinsame sex partner, folks, those I have forgotten to mention should forgive me, just imagine the multitude of distinguished and not so distinguished guests, it was a festival never to be seen before or after since the great commotion at the turn of the century when the conquered empires were busy in reverse spreading the word into all creeks and nooks and jungles of the Sunneverset Empire, but the empire was invited, For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, the crown-prince and the princess arrived shortly after, his majesty the king arrived approximately quarter to three.
         There was a rustle of expectations when at last the guests stood up and remixed national anthems were played, a hired vaudeville show kicked dust, our traditional dancers wagged buttocks and performanceartists displayed the act of harmonious coition on flatbeds of reconciliation before the main stand inaugurating the nation into the dawn of a new culture in assertion of our new nation's place in the world and no note went unscaled to make the occasion a roaring success as we all sung:

         God bless Africa
         Bless its leaders,
         Let wisdom, unity and
         Peace be the shield of
         Africa and its people

And our delegates rested down eminent posteriors and Mrs Glockenspiel adjusted her strawboater and the overdressed Fieldmarshal, sheltered behind sunglasses, grimaced into the populace before the grand tribune as if searching for next fodder for his killingfields and etiquette required a royal to open the entertainment a task entrusted to Her Majesty who splashed herself in the puddle of international politics backstroking in turgid doctrines through butterflies of negotiation-schema eagerly connecting ends not connected together and her aides reduced to muttered corrections, what Her Majesty meant was Dakar not Dhaka, Her Majesty wished to explain the Casamance not Casablanca accord, later they dropped the regal pretences, an ass is an ass and a fool is a fool, and settled for direct reversion of Her Majesty's innocent blunders, what Her Assness meant was Robben not Robin Island, huh, this is no longer a birds' business but she forgets, et cetera et cetera et cetera, Her Majesty had a learned flair for ceremonial diplomacy and ostrich hats and it was an open secret that she kept a farm of the birds on her holdings as a subtle gesture to fostering relations between countries and, as another gesture of courtesy, it was proposed that Her Majesty should be in the shortlist for the next prize as the one we were invited to witness. At last the Prisonerlaureate sat up and praised the Queen's ostrich gesture in fostering relationship between our impoverished potentially rich country and that was how we came to have a glimpse of the jovial Fatherofthenation since we could not resist the charm of his wit and his articulation of what stayed lodged in our hearts but we also cautioned him, laureate, we said not without understandable bitterness, these people have prospered in the shadow of our bitterness and the prize has a price far too much than bilateral export of large birds or investment in making protein biscuits but our Fatherofthenation used his wiles, ever graceful, with propriety we knew he possessed in spite of all the years of incarceration, to scrap delicately the poisonous fungus from our hearts, you will have a problem getting anywhere if you keep the poison inside of you, he said, it is time to forgive and forget and move forward, let us come away from all that hatred, we are not free yet but that is relative, but now let us export birds, the prisoner accepted his prize and shook his chalice of noble water although we knew that it contained more cheerful liquid than piss prize champagne, and decreed that we were all going to dance to a different tune from then on and that was how he was found in balconies of exile soaked then wrung and then abandoned in a puddle of stagnant tears, he lay calm in the bowl of bitter water floating in memories of a time long gone, held together by a pile of bones and a guilt that none of us at the time could either understand even if we tried, my own memory of that day was that upon entering his dream terrace was the savage urgency which overtook me, this is routine a voice said, as routine as running governments and rising flags and changing names of countries, in other words making up a new identity, but this is a person whom I don't know anything about, I protested, so is the machinery of governance but you are just thrown into it and you start by selling bigbirds and their feathers that is how one learns the ropes of governing, and if you didn't know it is called the art of learning, you make a jackass of yourself and you learn in return, start by picking the body's pockets the way you pick feathers off a chicken, who knows, you might stumble on some useful information there, this is a mess, I said, who told you it wasn't, the voice said, I argued for a while on whether I should resuscitate the body to prise out a history and that was how I ended up in that morning's riotous knock on the door apparently the masses refused to pick pockets or to collect donations of pasteurised shit packed in nylon sacks labelled people to people aid from diplomats although the Glockenspiels, with an eye for the prize themselves, urged and negotiated and handed out more diplomatshit, recycledresource, to fertilise sustainable development farms in export of birds and Botswana beef and that was how every year we attended the prize ceremony and every year the queen in felt ostrich hats and the king who never said a word and the prisoners and rebels and terrorists and bishops and makers of dreams received piss prizes in the spirit of encouraging peace. It was a mess, beyond reasonable doubt, but it was our own mess, locally made and we were happy and proud about that for we too should be allowed to make mistakes and learn to take first step stumbling where one should stumble and crawl on our backsides if we so wished.
         And just how long we shall have to endure this charade of waving to crowds of solid speculators who think we are floating on lovebeds of universal love, there is no love if I am hungry man, and where are the smokes of freedom, and crowds of diplomats who write bundles of treaties which, in these days of toiletpaper scarcity, they don't hesitate to use in the first lavatory when they need to purge foggy bottoms off fermented dinners and cocktails of treaties and accords in the name of the republic, realpolitikk, folks, learning a Kissingerian handwave is definitely in the interests of a nation learning to position itself strategically while taking a leisured ride through a blistered lunarscape of the neighbourhood from Monrovia street down Freetown avenue and to Mogadishu as our Fatherofthenation in his white automobile handed out blessings to masses of beggars of many nations in the main thoroughfare of the town and at that time I was a part-time designer of reality in a market stallcorner, the cavalcade passed me and I was worried when will my turn come to smoke the fruits of freedom and the market urchins said, but of course you are daydreaming like the Fatherofthenation and his petty schemes of exporting featherly ambitions into treaties and treaties into business opportunities and business opportunities into genocide and genocide into negotiations and negotiations into treaties and treaties, to cut a long story short, into business investments for the glockenspiel they all made a bundle, I can tell you, what a mess, I thought, all effort in designing peace and celebratory days in the ticket parades and halls of kings and ad men and popular stars of fadsongs and spouses of parliamentarians have come to these nightmares infected days and histories without beginning or end. What a mess.

         "He's lost it this time," uttered the Woman.
         Maybe. But when you reach the hill tell them desperadoes, "I decompose but I composing still."

         09. May 1999

Hovedside