Pursuing V. S. Naipaul’s Hat

Hat is Miguel Street’s memory. Even though the stories are unified by the character (who eventually tells his story of departure in the last chapter), Hat’s ubiquitous presence in most of the stories makes him a unifying character as well.

THERE is something about “Miguel Street” that reminds me of where I come from. In fact, Miguel Street is so familiar that every time I read it, and try to visualise its geographical setting, I see it at the flyover that looks like an interregnum of Charter Road and Simon Mazorodze Road (or Simon Maz as the Salad Brigade love to say).

I see the ramshackle-like houses of “Miguel Street” sprouting like mushroom on both sides of the flyover and suddenly “Miguel Street” comes to life. B. Wordsworth’s mango orchard seamlessly replaces Holly’s Bar so that where imbibers go to spend money, I see the poet sinking his teeth into a juicy mango and reflecting upon his next line in the 24-year-old poem he is trying to write. So far the first line has been written and it reads, “The past is deep”.

The characters in “Miguel Street” remind me of the characters that surrounded me when I was growing up in Mbare.

It’s difficult to mention “Magamba Hostels” now because I know you, gentle reader, will impatiently ask me to just finish writing the “bloody” book and leave the reading to you. Patience, dear reader, the book is now on its way.

I grew up surrounded by boys like Nodza whose version of masculine dexterity was a hybridised conglomeration of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Rambo, Jet Li and Hulk Hogan (pronounced “How Gogan”). I still remember how he practised WWE’s wrestler Randy Orton’s RKO on Zigo so that another little forehead looked like it had grown on the poor fellow’s already big forehead.

Nodza’s heroes lived outside the country. None of them were Zimbabwean. His favourite afternoon programme on ZTV was the A-team featuring Mr T. Hell, Nodza even stopped going to school altogether in order not to miss Mr T!

So when I read “Miguel Street” and encounter all these characters (Hat, Man Man, Eddoes, Bogart) I feel at home. I

see my life flashing before my very eyes like a movie reel.

For example, Popo the carpenter reminds me of Mudhara Magirazi. Popo is always making something in his carpentry shop although there is no evidence of anything being moved from the shop to a customer’s house. Most of the time, he is making a thing without a name.

The sophisticated nature of Popo’s endeavours is very similar to Mr Magirazi’s who seemed to be always engrossed in the serious business of life but without necessarily giving us evidence of what exactly he is getting out of it. He would wake up in the morning and go to the public bath in which, above the legendary sounds of the showers spewing bucket loads of water on the heads of bathers, he would sophisticatedly tell neighbouring bathers about this country and about where it was going even when it was not.

At one point he even sold the people of the hostel a dummy when he told them that he was CIO. They all believed because Mudhara Magirazi always moved around in a suit. We all believed until that historic day when he was arrested in town for orchestrating a chadonha, which is more like an introductory course (for newcomers) on how to keep your money safe in Harare.

Then there is Laura, this woman in “Miguel Street” who just kept the babies coming and just couldn’t keep them from coming. She has eight with seven different men.

May all the feminists please stand up! She is casual in her approach to life, unfeeling and obnoxious, until the day she discovers that her oldest daughter has followed her footsteps and aborted her education.

On that day she breaks down and cries. I remember many women from my hostel who were like Laura, but none of them beats Mai Owen. She always had babies hanging all over her. One would be sucking a breast while the other one would be screaming and trying to wriggle its way out of the shawl that would have been used to strap it on Mai Owen’s back. And yet another one would be playing around with Mai Owen’s loud skirts. And yet another one…

However, none of these characters fascinates me the way Hat does. Hat is Miguel Street’s memory. Even though the stories are unified by the character (who eventually tells his story of departure in the last chapter), Hat’s ubiquitous presence in most of the stories makes him a unifying character as well.

Besides being Miguel Street’s memory, Hat is many things as well. He is a historian, a father-figure, a connoisseur, an advisor, someone who is always in possession of some coins to buy ice-cream for little boys at a cricket match. Hat is someone who gives you the impression that he has something going on in life when there is nothing really going on.

He is also a victim of the paralysis that afflicts his fellow characters.

But still, Hat is fascinating. His word matters. When something happens in Miguel Street, what Hat says settles the uncertainties. You would hear characters saying to each other,”‘We need to ask Hat what he thinks.” And Hat always thinks. Sometimes, what he thinks is expressed when he rattles off some verses from a calypso for effect.

It is Hat who endorses the blatant machismo of the men of Miguel Street by saying that it is a good thing when a man beats his wife here and there. At one point, he gathers together many children from Miguel Street and takes them to a cricket match, each holding an ice-cream. Hat swims in the people’s stares because they endorse his phantasmal virility.

He reminds me of Ghetto. His fatherliness is an act, a way of giving his dreary life a life-quickening shot. At one point, my mother called my uncle and told him all the misdemeanours that I had committed and how they merited Uncle’s brutal punishment.

My uncle dragged me into the corridor. When my uncle is punishing you, he wants the world to bear witness. But before he could lay a finger on me, Ghetto appeared from nowhere and snatched me from my uncle’s grip and said, “It is not good to beat a little boy in June. Wait until August.” From that day, I became Ghetto’s little disciple.