Toziveyi’s ‘primary evidence’

Toziveyi had spent the greater part of his uneventful life waiting for something anything - to happen and make people look up and take notice.

DEAR Reader, here is the first part of a short story anchored on primary evidence: Toziveyi had a fixed, but rather crooked grin that made him look menacing and suspicious.

Unbeknown to most people, Toziveyi’s special skill was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, much of the time.

Life has a funny way of changing people and sometimes making them obsessed with strange fixations.

Toziveyi had spent the greater part of his uneventful life waiting for something - anything - to happen and make people look up and take notice.

He wanted people, for once, to talk about things other than the cracked soles of his feet, his jutting yellow teeth, and characteristically unwashed body in greasy clothes made peculiar by the musty, rich smell of deprivation and country smoke they exuded.

Something will happen, one of these days; it always does! That was why one always had to be watching . . . for the signs. Toziveyi could feel it coming.

Late one afternoon, a boyhood friend of his drove into the village in a luxurious four-wheel-drive vehicle that slid its way gracefully to a halt under an old avocado tree. As it turned out, the vehicle was heavily-laden with goodies for everyone in the small village.

A boy from the village, away in foreign capitals for years, had come back home. He’d remembered sweet-stay-at-home fixtures like him. What a wonderful thing that was. Toziveyi chuckled in what, for him, was a rare moment of mirth.

Word went round about the return of Nomad from the Diaspora. He obviously had been on the road for a very long time. The fourwheel-drive wonder said so, as did the film of red dust on its body. As usual, Toziveyi, the village dunce, was there.

Toziveyi saw it all from his vantage point near the deep well. He enjoyed bringing up the tins of water from deep inside the well for anyone who asked him to.

Nomad’s grandfather had dug that well. He was a crazy old man with a voice gone gruff and hoarse from the drafts of potent village brew he savoured so much. Everyone said what a wonder it was that the old man had actually dug the well and completed it in his lifetime.

Toziveyi liked to make himself useful, receiving the buckets of mud and water one after the other until the precious liquid had begun to rise, slowly at first, then with bubbling alacrity later.

Even then Nomad had been finicky about dirtying his hands. That was one of the reasons why Nomad seemed to like Toziveyi when no one else seemed to. The irony of it all was that though Nomad hated unwashed people, he apparently seemed never to notice the smell of doom and degradation that clung to the person of Toziveyi.

Nomad let Toziveyi help at the well and he in turn shared whatever goodies his mother gave him whenever her husband, Nomad’s father, was home from town.

So, Toziveyi liked, nay adored Nomad, and swore always to look after his interests, then and forever. That Nomad fled the village for years did not change anything.

Nomad emerged from the vehicle looking like he owned the world: affluent, rotund and precious-looking in his expensive clothes. He had lost all his hair and had a shiny dome on which Toziveyi could see, even from that distance, glistening beads of rich sweat. The sweat of a poor wretch could never be the same as the sweat of a wealthy man of the world. That, Toziveyi was sure of.

Nomad’s walk was slow and deliberate, and his barrel of a neck made him look invincible. The dark glasses on the bridge of his nose made him agitated, somewhat. Every minute or so he adjusted the glasses.

Nomad yawned, raised his arms up high and belched as he stretched himself. This movement had the effect of puffing out his huge broad chest. It accentuated his beer belly and gave the onlooker a glimpse of the exotic cross belts.

Unannounced, people began to stream in. The evening was getting shadowy and dark, and Toziveyi could already hear the plovers. From under the avocado tree, he heard the grating whisper of an ugly conspiratorial voice.

“The thief is home,” said the gravelly voice. “He’s fat from his thieving. Let’s drink his beer and go to the police.” The quiet one said nothing.

Toziveyi’s father had always said one should only accuse someone if they had the proof. These days everyone was talking about puraimari evhidhenzi. He had his, and would gather more. And, akin to the old man in Elliot’s “Wasteland”,l setting he could say, “I, Toziveyi, village dunce with a child’s curiosity, saw all and heard all that was spoken in the twilight.”