How long has Aziz Pahad known? And when were his quiet diplomats going to tell us? How much longer were they going to creep about in the Palace of Revolutionary Tranquillity in Harare, their government-issue silk slippers skimming soundlessly over the splintering parquet of the ballroom, keeping mum on the horrible metamorphosis taking place in the dark red velvet antechambers, where mirrored ceilings reflect satin sheets embroidered with the official ‘Bob 4 Grace†motif? Didn’t they think the world would find out, as they slipped quietly behind the great tapestry in the main hall, a huge map of Zimbabwe embossed with the Mugabe family motto, ‘Mine all mineâ€, and listened to his panting as he fought with his cummerbund on the loo?
Of course the truth is out now. The footage has been broadcast, and denials and evasions are useless. We have seen him, and the evidence is plain.
Robert Mugabe is becoming Katharine Hepburn.
Only a select few in Harare and Pretoria will know the specifics, so it would be irresponsible to suggest, for instance, that the transformation of Zimbabwe’s president is being assisted by hormone therapy and selective plastic surgery. One need only think back a few months to the curious case of Marthinus van Schalkwyk to remember the pain and confusion that his family suffered as the media speculated over the inexplicable disintegration of his spine; how hurt and disoriented he became when it was mooted in a Sunday paper that his reincarnation as a champion of the rights of Nature was the result of accidentally ingesting radioactive baboon dung picked up near Koeberg and mistaken for a packet of Whispers.
No, we must keep an open mind and allow for the possibility that Mugabe’s metamorphosis into the great American actress of yesteryear is an organic, natural one. Certainly the process seems well advanced. The slightly flared slacks, impeccably pressed, revealing a boyish waistline and long legs; the floral print shirts, always buttoned at the wrists and neck; the deerskin moccasins sounding a light but firm tread; all these have been evident in recent weeks.
Add to this an increasingly familiar wobble in the president’s voice, and an incipient tremor in his wrists and neck, as if he were resting on a pillow in a large bowl of jelly (a treat reserved for senior Zanu-PF officials visiting the Mugabeland theme park outside Bulawayo), and the picture becomes clearer. His diction is clipped, but his accent, once Trans-Zambezi with shades of Knightsbridge fop, has slowed and mellowed into an embryonic mid-Atlantic drawl. It is not impossible that his State of the Union address, scheduled for 2pm to 2.07pm next week, will be delivered with a fully developed New England buzz-saw nasality, and that his first state visit (a two-day tour of King Mswati of Swaziland’s new Maybach) will see him tie his hair up in a sporty but chic ponytail.
Why is Mugabe turning into Hepburn? Wouldn’t a less wilful actress have been a better option, such as the radiant Audrey Hepburn, perhaps, or the winsome Julie Andrews? Surely the delicate machinations of the Southern African Development Community would have been better served by the latter, capable of taking a strong stand against genetically modified food but still able to comfort children during thunderstorms by citing whiskers on kittens and warm woollen mittens as a few of her favourite things? Does this have anything to do with George W Bush’s promise of $10-billion in aid for Zimbabwe once Mugabe disappears?
And is that $10-billion American, and if so, wouldn’t Z$10-billion- trillion buy Kate just the most darling little retirement villa? On a golden pond, perhaps —