“I see. So this is when you were born. 116 RY.” I pointed at the top of the leftmost of the two main columns.
“Yes. These are the memories I know to be mine.”
“And the second column is…”
“The other memories. The other man.”
“Where’s the first time you have conflicting memories?”
He sighed and walked to the wall. “Here.” He pointed to a period during what must have been his childhood, around 129 RY. “I went to a good school. My father was a university lecturer, my mother… my mother did everything she could to hide her politics. But she still made me aware of the issues of poverty. One summer she left me with a family she knew in the slums in Zimbabwe City. It opened my eyes. And I remember there was a film showing, a war film my mother would have hated. My hosts took me to see it — it was a terrible imperialist thing about the Great War but the kind of thing boys like. At the same time…” He indicated the second column. “I remember I was in a street gang. We robbed a drunkard and used the money to go to the cinema and see the same film. But I was never in a street gang. My hosts were poor but they never let me do that kind of thing. That is the first problem…
“And then later, I think here…” He pointed out 132 RY and a note on the second column. “I remember… we beat up a queer. I mean a homosexual. We found a club they went to and started robbing them. None of them could call the police. They would have had to explain why they were there. But… there are two things. I was at school in that year, a private school far away. So I could not have been there, on the streets. And also I remember being… ashamed. And guilty. These men we were beating… I knew they were queer and that was wrong but still…”
He shook his head. “I felt… I looked at the boy who led us… and I felt… I felt… he was so…” He lapsed for a moment, unable to give voice to the desire. “And I think, I think I was scared because I realised what they would do if they found out what I… that I… that I felt… that.
“So I stopped running with the gang. I stopped avoiding school. It was a horrible place in the city, not the one my parents sent me to. I remember the other school as well, in the country, the private school. I could not have been at two schools…”
“So there are two boys here,” I said.
“Yes. Two boys.”
“When’s the next time the memories clash?”
“Around here. The late thirties, the early forties.” He indicated a period from roughly 138 to 143 RY. “When I finished my schooling, I did national service. I did not have to but I think I had something of my mother in me. I wanted to serve with the ordinary men, not go straight into the military as an officer. But the dates are wrong. I should have done national service here—“ He indicated 134 RY on the first column. “But I remember doing it here.” He indicated 138 RY on the second column. “It is four years too late. By this time I had finished national service, been to university and joined the army as an officer. And then I was deployed to Horonga.” Horonga seemed to equate to the Straits of Hormuz, which were narrower on his world, and apparently a frequent flashpoint for conflict.
“Ah. So the other man is younger?”
“Yes. About four years.”
“So what happened in his timeline? Column two?”
“No war. I remember being in the army, but not fighting in Horonga. I was… it is complicated. It is…”
“Just go slowly, Kwame.”
“I met… men. I remember doing things… I feel I should be disgusted. But the disgust is… hollow. I do not understand it.”
“Let’s stick to the events. Where were you stationed? In the second column, I mean?”
“The first year was national service. That was a guard station in the south of Mutapa, the border watch. When it was done, I think… I seem to remember they asked me to stay. They said I had skills for engineering and electronics and they wanted to train me.”
“You do have some aptitudes in that direction…”
“Yes. I know.” He seemed distinctly troubled.
“Go on,” I said.
“They sent me to a college in a port city. Matongu. They had Chifunyikan teachers there. They were assisting our military in updating our equipment. I learnt how the new systems worked. Biofeedback, conscious control, detection of the enemy through biological signatures. Things such as these. But this is not all. It was a military city. There was always a laxness in the armed forces. There were many places used by homosexuals.”
He paused, and swallowed, as though trying to settle his stomach.
“I went looking for them. And I found them. I became one of them. I mean to say… I remember these things. I remember doing this. And I remember him.”
“Who…?”
“The man in my dream. The one dressed as a woman.”
“Do you remember anything else about him…?”
“I married him.”
I couldn’t help my surprised expression. “Oh…”
“It was blasphemous! Disgusting! They would do this at the bars, two men would… they would have a ceremony in the bar, one of the men dressed up as a woman… I cannot say more…”
I felt he had much more to say despite his protestation, but did not press him.
“And all this time, the war in Horonga was going on. Good men were dying for their country and I was… fucking a man. Or was I? I don’t know…”
“Let’s keep moving. What happened next?”
“The bar was raided by police. She, he… agh! I keep thinking of that creature as a woman! He. He fled. And then I was posted overseas. To Horonga, of course, though the war had ended. I did not see her — him. I did not see him for many years.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me?”
“He called himself Mudiwa. A woman’s name. I do not know his real name.”
“Mudiwa will do.”
“The name is a lie. A disgusting lie. Like him.” At some point we were going to have to deal with his homophobia, but I didn’t want to push him too far while he was making so much progress, so I decided to move on.
“Okay, so we’re up to 143 RY on the second column. What about the first one?”
“I was still in Horonga.”
“Still fighting?”
“No. The war was brief. We held the straits and controlled sea traffic but Sanganyikan forces invaded from the north. We beat them back and occupied the northern shore of the straits; then we built a wall to keep them out. The Chifunyikans helped us with automated defensive systems. I left when they were being installed. I could have stayed and had a career in the army but… it was not what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted to make a difference. There were soldiers coming to us who could not read, who did not know the most basic arithmetic, and yet they were expected to operate the Chifunyikan biofeedback systems. Mutapa had become a backwater. Poor children were playing in mud while the rich amused themselves with imported video games. Our education system only trained the poor to operate machines in factories, but we needed to give them more, much more.” He sighed and looked at me. “Of course I do not have to convince you…”
“No, you’re right. Education is vital. I take it this is all in the first column?”
He looked back at the wall. “Yes. I left the military here. In 143. I took a teaching job at a university, I joined the Free Liberal Party, and the Mutapan Education Society. We campaigned for educational reform. I would even hand out leaflets in the street. And that was where I met Jendayi…”