~This
story was previously published in Rosebud
(2010).
Jacaranda
blossoms littered the steps of 36 Katima Mulilo. Tom Jensen knocked three
times. He didn’t feel great about mooching a bed from his dad’s old pal, but
he’d run out of options. When the door opened, he asked the Zambian houseman,
“Is George Wilson in?”
“Now
is not a good time. Can you come back after tomorrow? Maybe next week?” The man
whispered, traces of Shona in his accent.
“George
gave me a standing invite.” Tom started to explain, when the man muttered he
would check with Bwana George, clicking the door shut.
Tom
unslung his backpack, trying to figure out why this guy wouldn’t let him in.
Maybe George’s house was too small to have a spare bed. Zambians lived in this
neighborhood; the houses had wire fences, not like the rich diplomat compounds
of Nairobi and Harare where he had been a house-sitter. Still -- Lusaka with
its flowering jacarandas was as pretty as promised by the bedtime stories his
dad had told him and his baby sister Lucy.
The
door opened and the houseman, still frowning, ushered Tom into a square living
room. Maybe George would help him find a job or at least give him time to
figure out where to go and what to do next. Being expelled from Zimbabwe had
been scary, but he wasn’t ready to give up on Africa and go home to frozen
Minnesota. George would also have news of his mother and Lucy.
On
a wood table, George’s surveying tools, a transit and a light device, weighted
down blueprints. Enormous splashy paintings covered the walls, a sort of Cubist
Victoria Falls, an abstract orange sunset over the savannah, and a Cape Buffalo
herd done in dots against a pink sunrise. All three paintings seemed like
windows onto familiar landscapes, even though they were modern and blurry.
“Tom, welcome to Lusaka,” George’s booming voice preceded him. “College
didn’t work out?”
“Wow, you’re dropped –what – 50 pounds? How are
you, you old scoundrel?” Tom said.
George’s voice was the same but everything else had changed, his lanky
six foot frame now stooped and his wavy brown hair mixed with gray.
George plopped in an easy chair and waved Tom
into the other. “You look as scrawny as ever.”
“Nothing like travelling to keep a guy lean.”
Tom laughed. He was a head shorter than George and Africa had kept him skinny
with a couple of bouts of malaria. He hadn’t seen George since that night
they’d prowled the State Street bars in Madison. George had been looking for
some action but with his bulky beer gut, he hadn’t had any luck with the sleek
young guys. Mid-evening, George gave up trying to score and they’d had fun as
George showed Tom how to look gay when he needed to. Now he was washed up on
George’s doorstep, out of work, nearly out of money, out of ideas. “I was doing
just great until that ass Zimbabwean president shut down all the independent
newspapers and my job disappeared.”
“Your mum told me in her last couple of
Christmas cards to watch out for you in case you got into more trouble. Are you
in trouble?” George asked.
“Not really,” Tom mumbled, thinking how little
she cared. He’d run 10,000 miles away from one DWI charge and a crashed up car
and she still nagged. She’d never help him, but he missed Lucy. Lucy had been
fine in the backseat, even though his accident totaled his mom’s Camry. “Do her
letters mention Lucy?”
