The Death of Rex Nhongo by C.B. George Read Free Book Online

should, he announced, buy a loose-leaf notebook or two, sign her name on every page and give a sheet to every customer. She would sign it again any time they returned for a meal, and after they had received, say, five signatures, their next plate would be free.
    Fadzai, ever skeptical, ran through the logistics in her head—the possibility of forgeries, guys sharing the piece of paper and so on. But there was nothing too problematic. She told Gilbert she would think about it, even though she knew it was a good idea.
    “And you’ll talk to Patson?” he asked.
    “I’ll talk to him,” she said.

10
    A pril looked at herself in the mirror. She washed her hands and splashed her face. Even in the embassy, the water smelt bad. She said aloud, “This wasn’t what I signed up for.” She had lately read a self-help book that required her to speak her emotions to her reflection. She wasn’t sure it self-helped. She wasn’t sure what she was referring to—job? Marriage? Motherhood? Probably all three. She looked pale and unwell and a lot older than thirty. She thought about Jerry. She looked in the mirror and she said, “Fuck you, Jerry.” Doing so had no impact on her emotional state. Instead, she became preoccupied by her teeth: their pale yellow color, that small brown mark at the top of one canine that had appeared some time ago and now seemed to be a permanent fixture, and the recession of her gums that gave her mouth a somewhat equine look. She took a small pot of day cream from her handbag and began to apply it liberally to what an online skin-care diagnosis had described as her “problem areas.” April never wore makeup to work. She wondered if she should start.
    At their wedding reception, April and Jerry had both given speeches. This break from tradition was partly because April’s father had drunk himself to death when she was sixteen years old and partly because she felt it was right and proper for her to have her say. She had spoken first and mentioned meeting Jerry “at Cambridge.” When it came to Jerry’s turn, he made reference to this and pointed out that, while they had indeed met “in” Cambridge, he hadn’t been “at” the university. April was, he said, quite the brightest person he’d ever met and that was one of the things he loved about her most. He said he was the “eye candy” in their relationship and everybody had laughed. April had laughed, too, but she also felt a slight, but pointed, irritation, the source of which she couldn’t identify. Was it the mild, mocking suggestion that she might have fabricated something from embarrassment at his relative lack of education? Was it that his self-deprecation seemed to derive from some kind of compulsion to be perceived as lovable? Or was it simply that his speech, delivered off the cuff, got a lot more laughs than hers, which she’d spent days writing and practicing?
    April and Jerry had met in Cambridge two days after she had completed her final viva for an MPhil in Development Economics and two months after her affair with Professor St. John Vaughan had ended badly, when April had opened her door to find Mrs. Vaughan standing on the step. She was holding her infant daughter in her arms and declared April the “latest in a long line of stupid, clever cunts.” Moments later, St. John had pulled up in the family Volvo and coaxed and cajoled his wife into the car, saying things like “Not here,” “Let’s talk about it at home,” and “Jesus, Mary, I’m sorry, OK?”
    April had watched Mrs. Vaughan get into the passenger side and St. John buckle his daughter into the child seat behind. Then, as he opened the driver’s door, he had looked at April and lifted his right hand to his ear—I’ll call you. As the Vaughans pulled away, April had realized that she hadn’t actually spoken a word from the moment she opened the door. St. John never called and she was largely thankful.
    April completed her time at Cambridge by working,