The Death of Rex Nhongo (28 page)

M
andiveyi first met the Irish journalist in the Brontë Hotel on the August night in 2013 that the Zimbabwean election results were announced. ZANU (PF) had won a resounding victory and Robert Mugabe was elected president for a fifth full term. The city was quiet and the hotel almost deserted. Mandiveyi took a table on the veranda, adjacent to a group of white foreigners who were conducting a post-mortem with a mixture of confusion and horror—
What just happened?

Mandiveyi listened as the whites, an assortment of media and diplomats, took turns to tell stories of the stories they'd heard of falsified ballot papers, the manipulated electoral roll and assisted voting. None of them had actually witnessed any corrupt practice, but they were all convinced it had taken place. And now they were bewildered that they should have had the wool pulled over their eyes by the very black politicians they liked to characterize as almost imbecilic. Mandiveyi was amused: it wasn't just in the Central Intelligence Organization that smart men learned to play stupid; it was also true at the heart of government.

One of the men went to the bar and Mandiveyi followed. The man was small and balding with wisps of hair flying in all directions. He was probably no more than thirty-five, but looked older.

Mandiveyi had little trouble engaging him in conversation. He told him that he was a ZANU (PF) activist and the man—Chris, from Dublin—was immediately hooked, thrilled to be drinking with the enemy and looking over his shoulder to make sure that none of his fellow hacks might usurp his good fortune.

“You know, Chris,” Mandiveyi said, with a happy sigh, “we won the argument, the ballot and the rigging. If we had known we were so far ahead in the first two parts of this equation, we wouldn't have put so much energy into the third.”

Chris lapped this up and three days later Mandiveyi found himself quoted in the Irish press as “a ZANU (PF) source.”

Now it is December 2014 and the CIO has been feeding the Irishman occasional stories for almost eighteen months. Loosely, it is instructive to see which make it into the foreign media: a way of taking the temperature of international opinion. Mandiveyi knows that the West loves to report every radical anti-imperialist statement emanating from the Zimbabwean government almost as much as the Zimbabwean government loves to see them reported—a mutually beneficial exercise that allows each side to retain a moral high ground above local political slurry. Mandiveyi has no specific agenda passed down from on high. He is, as he always has been, playing his own small game within the game within a game.

For the last three years, since he finally returned the gun to Phiri, his boss, and his investigation into the American died almost under his very nose, Mandiveyi has been passed over for all important work. He has not found it hard to accept this fate. He knows that he was both too stupid and too smart to climb the ranks of the Organization and he is happy to be free of the associated risks. Besides, it has allowed him to spend more time with his family.

Mandiveyi's son Tendai's condition has deteriorated significantly as he has reached adolescence. The weakness in his legs has now referred upwards in a progressive kyphoscoliosis of the spine and Tendai is permanently confined to a wheelchair, his lungs constricted, looking at his feet.

The boy remains hardy, however, and insists on attending school. It is his neck that causes the most pain as he is forced into a terrible contortion simply to lift his head and look his peers, teachers and parents in the eye.

Mandiveyi and his wife find connection in the care of their son. When they drive to church, ease Tendai into his wheelchair, register the sympathy, fear or plain curiosity of onlookers, they are almost a normal family.

Mandiveyi has a new girlfriend. Her name is Celia. She stays in a small flat in Highfields, which costs him only a hundred and fifty dollars a month. She is very young. They rarely have sex. When he visits her, she pours him a drink and sits at his feet, massaging his hands.

Mandiveyi is coming from Celia's flat when he meets the Irishman at the Brontë again. He finds him at an outside table. He orders a drink from a passing waiter. It was the Irishman who requested this meeting, but Mandiveyi suspects he knows the reason why.

The ZANU (PF) congress has just ended amid high scandal. Vice President Joice Mujuru (Rex Nhongo's widow) has been controversially ousted from office to be replaced by former head of the Organization, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Chris wastes no time in getting down to business. He says, “Have you heard?” Mandiveyi doesn't reply. “There has been a cyanide attack on Mnangagwa's office,” the Irishman continues. “His secretary has been taken to hospital.”

This is news to Mandiveyi, but he doesn't show as much. Instead, he just inclines his head a little—
So?
Then, when the Irishman offers nothing further, he says, “It is a combustible time, as you can imagine. We know that many of our enemies would like to exploit a perceived instability. Even within our own body there are historical rivalries and resentments.”

“You're saying it was the Mujuru faction?” Chris says this with a tone close to scoffing.

Mandiveyi is taken aback. Frankly, he has no idea what he is saying since, until thirty seconds ago, he knew nothing of any cyanide attack. But he is irritated by the Irishman's attitude—as if a foreign journalist could possibly know any better than he. Mandiveyi says, “It was difficult for Comrade Mujuru. Her supporters were much weakened by her husband's passing.”

The Irishman considers Mandiveyi closely. The waiter brings a drink. Mandiveyi sips it. The Irishman thinks while his companion cracks ice in his teeth revealing a large expanse of pale pink gum that is peculiar and grotesque. The Irishman does not like these meetings, but he finds them useful; even as he recognizes that he must take everything Mandiveyi says with a pinch of salt. This thought leads him to imagine that pinch of salt applied to the gum and the idea it might contract like a slug.

The Irishman is aware that he has riled Mandiveyi and he is intrigued by the possibility this offers. He decides to push a little harder. “What are you implying?” Mandiveyi doesn't answer. The Irishman says, “I have good sources who tell me Rex Nhongo was killed by Lebanese diamond dealers. They say a deal went bad and a woman was sent to seduce him who put a small incendiary device under the bed.”

Mandiveyi makes a contemptuous snorting noise. “Who are they, these sources?”

The Irishman smiles. “Come on, Albert. I can't tell you that. Are you saying it's not true?”

“It's not true.”

“What happened, then? What is the truth?”

Mandiveyi stares at the Irishman. He reveals his teeth, less a smile than a simple retraction of the lips.
What is the truth?
He does not know the answer to this question, neither conceptually nor in fact. Truth is not one of Mandiveyi's tools. It is a blunt instrument in comparison to his more refined apparatus. “One day, Chris,” Mandiveyi says, wagging a finger at the Irishman, “one day, I will tell you a story of the death of Rex Nhongo.”

C. B. George has spent many years working throughout Southern Africa. He now lives in London.

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