Chioniso and Other Stories by Chinodya Shimmer

Author:Chinodya, Shimmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC029000, book
ISBN: 9781779221919
Publisher: Weaver Press
Published: 2012-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Prisons on the Road

Simon fed the dog another tiny rye biscuit enquiring cheerily, ‘Anybody else for one, folks?’

The huge Alsatian bitch was getting on my nerves. It kept leaping about, switching restlessly from seat to seat, licking my face and burrowing into my crotch.

There were four of us squashed in the rickety BMW sedan: three men, a woman and the dog.

It was 1990, a few days after the Berlin wall had fallen. The road from East Berlin was packed with incredulous Germans fleeing decades of communism for a foothold in the more affluent West. It was a period during which the world would heave: Gobachev's perestroika was taking root, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would splinter and yield to change. Africa shivered while the world waited with bated breath as the planet's best-known prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was released from jail to commence the long, tricky, final walk to free his beleaguered country from apartheid.

But here we were stuck on a four-lane highway chock-a-block with cars crawling at tortoise pace or not moving at all. Horns blared, tooted and honked rudely, impatiently, in the searing heat.

An inauspicious start.

The dog stank. We stank. The car reeked of entrapment. Outside, the air was heavy with the metallic tang of combusted fuel. We'd been on the road for twenty-six hours without stopping to bathe or eat; only getting out now and then to stretch our legs or pee on the side of the car – all prudishness had left us. We had driven from the sad slums of East Berlin, where we'd been to participate in readings and discussions, and God only knew how much longer it would be before we reached Frankfurt.

The few roadside shops had been stripped of all edibles by the migrants – all we had now was Simon's packet of rye biscuits and a case of bottled water. Vera held the dog up and kissed its nose, murmuring, ‘Poor, poor Bingo. Poor girl.’

Ezeulu, who was sitting in the back between me and Esrome shoved Bingo's snout from his face and adjusted his elegant, earth-brown bubu, flapping it over his shoulders as if he was beating back a swarm of irksome flies. He fingered his impressive grey beard, cleared his throat and began again, irrepressibly, ‘You guys think this is a traffic jam? Come to Lagos if you want to see a real jam. The roads there are something else. Of course, the concept of “the road” is so much a part of our culture and psyche. It's the very artery of our history, the route to our modern conscience. Many of our artists have used it in their works, including our very own Wole Soyinka, who has exploited it as a major symbol in his literature…’

‘Great writer, Soyinka,’ Simon cut in, stroking his receding hairline and tapping on the steering wheel with his small white fingers. ‘Great personality, too. Last year he stayed at our flat for three nights while I was translating his papers. What a time we had of it.

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