He is talking to you, but his eyes seem lost in the area just below your neckline. No, you haven’t spilled Coke all over your top. And no, you aren’t wearing traffic-stopping bling-bling either. In fact, all you have on in that region is a plain chemise.
Nothing is particularly interesting about this chemise; just a milk-white thing with buttons, all tightly fastened, running down the front.
So you deduce that there can be only one other thing that he is gawking at. Actually, make that two things.
It must be the twin shapes smoothed out against the crisp whiteness of your chemise. You try to guide his eyes back up towards your face by first looking down at your chest and then throwing a polite glance back at him.
“This is embarrassing” is what you are trying to convey with this glance. But his orbs have failed to register the subtle gesture and are still fixed and focused.
If it were any other man, you would express your offence, tersely end the conversation and walk off in a self-congratulatory huff.
But this man is one of Harare’s most revered; a man who can always be found in the front pews at Sunday service church with a leather-jacketed King James-version Bible and enough voice to drown out the choir when it comes to singing hymns.
So you must be imagining things. He is, after all, one of God’s nearest and dearest children. Perhaps, you justify to yourself, he is just mulling over a deep thought and resting his eyes for a bit.
Rather than accept what is taking place, you instead feel obliged to make excuses on his behalf because, based on his track record, he just isn’t that kind of freak.
Yet still the leering continues — as do the grunts of approval of every suggestion you make. Someone could decapitate you and he wouldn’t even notice.
Finally, the spiritless conversation wraps up and his eyes stir from their dormancy and gaze into your face.
“Be blessed,” he whispers, cupping your hand into both of his. His hands are moist and he reeks of too much cologne and bravado. “Here’s money for a drink,” he says, pulling a US$10 note from his shirt pocket.
“I am fine, thank you,” you say politely. But he insists and takes the hand that still bears the moisture of his sweat and crams the note into your palm, curling your fingers shut around the money. He holds on, a second too long, before finally releasing you.
Repulsed and confused, you walk off wondering why you didn’t say anything, why you didn’t confront him about the way he was making you feel uncomfortable, why you accepted the money, why you let him rob you so easily of your power.
And then you start to think that, maybe, this is how it starts for a lot of women. Forgiving the small sins, taking the blame and all the while maintaining outward silence like a plug to the rage and offence building within.
This is what you remember someone telling you about a lecturer back at university, the one who threatened to fail girls if they didn’t give him favours. “Small” favours like a pinch and a grope that eventually avalanched into big favours.
Who owns women’s bodies, you wonder. How sacred and private are they when so many women don’t even scream or shout when they are invaded? And who would come to their defence when they eventually find the voice to protest?
You walk away thinking that you must write this incident down some time, give it over to other people to ponder.
After a short thought, you put the money into your purse, deciding that you will give it to the first person you meet who has need of it. It still smells of that musky cologne — and of that unnerving encounter.
But you realise that, unlike memories, it is just paper and that it can pass through hands without leaving a history.