First I see his clean white North Star, old-man shoes, propped up by wheelchair stilts, then his professor knees, then folded body, then white-haired brain top. He pushes himself into the worst lighting possible (I have my camera with me) and doesn’t move.
He speaks to a man about Nigeria, who talks back about Zimbabwe, then to another man who talks some more on Nigeria. This goes on for some time. They all shake their heads in disappointment.
I’m with several journalists and activists at Chinua Achebe’s home to discuss the things that journalists and activists discuss. All are exiles from their native Nigeria, and I’m here simply to record the event on camera.
We’d arrived at Bard College, snugly tucked away in autumn-coloured upstate New York. It’s a quaint little school with a quaint little cottage home, driveway littered with fallen leaves that make it look like the road to the famous Umuofia village in Things Fall Apart.
That was the iconic script from the man who inspired me to eat more of this kind of fufu. “Why Shakespeare? Why Jane Austen? Why Tennessee Williams?” it made me ask. Why is it that I had to leave school before I was exposed to Ngugi, Chenjerai Hove, Chinua Achebe?
Bard is where Achebe teaches as a professor and artist in residence, though I doubt he does much chalkboard teaching any more. I imagine him to be more like a pharaoh or a living sphinx sitting on his wheelchair throne as privileged American college kids pop by the house up the hill to pay homage and sit at his feet, just to say that they did it — that they met the man and heard him speak of African protagonists whose names they could not pronounce.
I do not blame their zealousness; I, too, became overwhelmed as he slowly made his way into the living room. Now he and the other exiles continue speaking about Zimbabwe and Nigeria: one has turned from the breadbasket of Africa to a wasteland of hungry orphans, the other from oil wells of black gold to black blood.
He wants change, the old man. They still won’t let him go home, he says. He’s very upset. My cameras are rolling.
Hours later, equipment packed, broken glass swept up (yes, I broke a glass in Chinua Achebe’s house, well done Tarisai) and dishes done (it is an African household, after all; I must play my position, feed the men, do the dishes), he talks to me.
My heart jumps. Perhaps it is my outfit. (I am dressed for the occasion, you see.) Or maybe it is the gods smiling on me, singing a song collectively that says: “Happy birthday, dear daughter of the African soil. Here, a gift!”
He asks: “You’re from Zimbabwe, eh?” I nod yes as I respectfully sit down next to him. He continues. “I was there once when it was still Rhodesia. They wouldn’t serve me and my colleagues beer because we were black. I had to leave there.”
After promising him that we could now, at the very least, serve him a Castle Lager without, you know, all the racist stuff, we proceed to exchange more Zimbabwe stories.
“I met one of your writers too, what’s her name?” There are few Zimbabwean women writers so I offer up the first name that comes to mind: “Tsitsi Dangarembwa?”
“Yes,” he says, “she came here once with friends and asked me, ‘Should I kneel?’ I asked, whatever for? and she said: ‘It’s our custom.’ Well, it is not mine so, no, you don’t have to do that, my dear!”
He smiles. He is a gentle man.
“Some years later I was invited to the book fair in Harare as a speaker and presented Mugabe with my latest book, Anthills of the Savannah. In it I wrote: ‘May what happens in this book not happen in your fair country.’
“He looked at me puzzled — he had obviously not read the book — then he said: ‘By the sounds of it, me neither!’ We had a good laugh. That was the last I saw him. I used to defend that man, maybe until perhaps a year ago, but now, it’s too difficult.” The mixed feeling is mutual.
I am amazed at how, even nearing 80, he remembers the words of an inscription written at least two decades before and the details of that encounter, so lucidly.
I haven’t read it so I make a mental note to pick up a copy of Anthills, and say a silent prayer that this fictional story of military coups and turmoil does not transport itself from book pages to country.
I am holding up the group — they are standing around in the dining room, waiting for me to finish. I excuse myself, shake Chinua Achebe’s hand for the 15th time, and cup my hands to clap in the way we Zimbabwean women do, the way that gives a deep, hollow “boop boop” sound.
“What is that?” he asks. I reply: “It is our custom.”
Born in Harare, Tarisai Gombe moved to New York at 18 for her Âuniversity degree and is now an assistant film editor there