White Man Crawling

Orthello

61 Orthello Dillard was taking his daily constitutional, a three kilometre round trip, which began at his front gate and ended at his back gate. It was a time for him to reflect on the unfairness of life and to prepare his work for the day. Looming large, at the moment, was his production of Shakespeare's Othello, the rehearsals for which had not been going too well. The performances were due in three days’ time. His plan to cast a black Desdemona and a white Othello had been meeting with resistance. Logistically it made sense since only one white student (a male) had come for auditions; but it had created anomalies in the script, which still needed attending to. It was Tuesday, which meant rubbish collection day for this part of Daleside. Dillard was shocked to see the number of scavengers around the bins, which were waiting to be emptied by the municipal garbage collectors; and the litter they scattered far and wide. The pied crows were worse than the humans who tended to be more selective in their choice of sweepings, rinsings and leavings. One old man with a ragged balaclava pulled over his face, in spite of the October weather, fished out a SPAR plastic bag, which had been tightly knotted. Dillard paused to watch him tear open the bag. Out fell a large dead rat. The old man picked it up by the tail and sniffed it before returning it to the metal dustbin. A small queue had formed behind the old man, mainly of primary school children in their ill-fitting hand-me-downs. A Lucky Dip queue! Even at this time of the morning the heat was oppressive, though the jacaranda blossoms did not seem to mind; and Dillard could not recall a time when the bougainvillaea vines had looked so splendid; such a variety of brilliant colour; such vicious thorns, mind you! Already the sprinklers were going. He could hear them behind the two metre instarect walls topped with razor or electric wire. It was the garbage bins from these houses that were attracting crows, stray dogs and Bulawayo's rapidly growing tribe of human offscourings. Ahead of him to the left, a sleek electronically controlled gate opened for an equally sleek Mercedes Benz driven by a not so sleek representative of Bulawayo's nouveau riche. Dillard recognized 62 Desdemona’s father and gave him a coy greeting, which was returned with bluster. A stanza from one of this year’s A-level poems swam into his consciousness: ‘The city filled with orange trees is lost’, which, interpreted, meant all conspicuous luxuries augur ruinous punishment. Not that many orange trees left in Bulawayo. Not that many mukiwas either. Plenty of jacarandas, though; and silver oaks, and flamboyants, and eucalyptus. Botanical colonization was proving more resilient than its human equivalent. Dillard was one of only three white teachers left at his school, all middle-aged or elderly. The best black and brown teachers had also left for greener pastures – not that you’re going to find too much green pasture in Francistown or Polokwane or Darwin. Five years ago there hadn’t been a single vendor on his route; now he counted thirty: ten for each kilometre. All the vendors were either women or children. They created little tables out of cardboard boxes or bits of paving. On these surfaces they displayed, ever so neatly, their meagre stock: overripe tomatoes and bananas, cigarettes (sold individually), boiled sweets, and the ubiquitous ‘penny cools’. As a consequence of these vendors and their miniature tuck-shops, Dillard’s route had become fouled with tons of litter, dominated by the transparent plastic ‘penny cool’ containers. At first Dillard thought that the vendors worked for themselves until he began to notice a Pajero with tinted windows, which visited each site periodically. He made a few discreet enquiries and was not that surprised to learn that a single entrepreneur, very well connected in ruling party circles, owned all these tuckshops, and many more besides. Dillard learnt, furthermore, that there was a tuckshop war going on in the suburbs of Bulawayo. The tinted Pajero had held a monopoly until the BMW with blackened windows sidled into view. 63 Nowadays Dillard had to make several detours from his regular route since there were so many leaks from the municipal water system. Spreckley Road resembled a Venetian canal, while it would...