His voice trailed off into sadness.
“Your wife?”
“Yes. My true wife.”
“Do you… remember her?”
“No. I still cannot recall her face.”
“But there are some things you do remember?”
“I remember how we met. I remember courting her. I remember our marriage. I remember our children… but there are no pictures. I see nothing. I only feel…”
The silence overcame him again.
“Do you want to stop?” He didn’t answer. “If it’s too much, we can come back tomorrow…”
He snapped his attention onto me. “No.”
“Kwame?”
“I do not want to do this. I must.”
“Okay then. If you’re sure.” I looked back at the screen. “So all this here, down to…”
“I was elected to parliament in 149.”
“149. Okay. So that’s you starting your political career. What’s happening in column two?”
“I remember many places. Many parts of the world. I think I was in uniform, as an engineer. Perhaps at Mutapan embassies. I am not sure. There are several years of this. And then it ended and I was a civilian again.”
“Do you know why?”
“I think… I think I was injured. I lost the strength in my arm after an explosion. I do not remember much…”
“You actually have that injury, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I was injured in the first column as well, in the fighting in Horonga…”
“So you had the same injury in both memory tracks?”
“I… yes. No. The wound in Horonga… I do not remember how bad it was. It could be the same. It could be.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Okay. So where did you go after the army? I mean in the second column?”
“I found work in Zimbabwe City.”
“And where were you in the first column?”
“Zimbabwe City again. The seat in parliament I wanted to run for was there. The Harande district. A slum. The Free Liberal Party had held the seat for decades — they handed out food and clothing in return for votes.”
“That’s interesting. On both sides you’re back in Zimbabwe again. Is that significant?”
“I do not know. Perhaps.” He looked at it: the year 148 RY, already full of notations. “UserKwame: add note to 148. Investigate proximity of memories in Zimbabwe City.” A note was added to the list.
“Okay, so on one side you’re a member of parliament, and on the other you’re working… where, exactly?”
“An electronics repair shop.”
“Not exactly close to the levers of power.”
“No. It was a humble existence.”
“Would you say the person in the second column was the kind of person that you in the first column would have been trying to help?”
“I… yes. In some ways. But he was a pervert. A disgusting creature.”
“Let’s ignore that side of things for now. Is he someone you would have wanted to help?”
“He could have been… an example. Of how the poor could improve themselves if only they had the education. He had all the talent to be a great engineer… but I suppose… I suppose his position in life made it more likely for him to… fail.”
“Interesting. I think these two people sound related in some way. I don’t mean family. But something is bringing them together.” He didn’t reply to that. He still didn’t want it to be true. “So. 149 onwards. You’re an MP in the first column and a repairman in the second. What’s going on here?”
He indicated the first column. “I was a member of the opposition party. I was good at embarrassing the government. It was easy: they were corrupt and stupid. They would say they stood for reform but their actions were always different. I introduced an education reform bill. They said it was too expensive. But we were spending millions on remedial courses for new army recruits — and the cost of teaching them properly as children was less than half of that. So the bill was passed. My party won the next election, and I hoped I would be appointed to the cabinet…”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. You’re speeding ahead. The next election is… let me just read this… 155?”
“Yes.”
“All the political stuff is in the first column. But what’s happening in the second column?”
He swallowed. This was what he had been dreading.
“I was searching.”
“For what?”
“Mudiwa.”
“Ah. Did you find her? I mean, him?”
“I found him.”
“What happened?”
“It was squalid. He was a prostitute. And a drug addict.”
“He wasn’t like that before?”
“No. But we lost touch after I left Matongu. It was too dangerous. He fell a long way and blamed me for it. He wanted me to pay him for sex. I was angry. He provoked me. I… I took him. And then I ran away. But I could not help it. I had to go back. The second time, I tried to help him, but he did not want my help. And he stank of khat. I hated him, I wanted to hurt him, I became a… customer.” He was almost grinding his teeth as he said it. “And when I went back again, I was arrested.”
“What for?”
“Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The security service was sweeping the slum for drug users and perverts. How happy they must have been to find her. Him.”
“And you?”
“Yes. And me. They took me, put me in a cell. That cell. In the dream.” He stepped back from the screen, his hands shaking. “They gave me a choice, because of my military record. I betrayed him. Mudiwa… Mudiwa would not have been seen again.”
“You mean they killed him?”
“Yes.”
“That’s…”
“Barbaric. Yes. I spoke out against the activities of the security services when I was in parliament, but the government barely restrained them at all. They thought it would make them popular. With some people, it did. No one wanted to defend queers.”
“How do you feel about it?”
He shook his head helplessly. “He disgusts me! But… I betrayed him. I left him in Matongu. He became an addict. And then I let the security service have him…” He could say no more.
“So what did you do next?”
He indicated the next few years on the second column: a few scattered memories but very little of any detail. “I do not know. The memories from here… I am not sure what belongs in the second column. There is not much.”
“Were you still in Zimbabwe?”
“No. I kept moving. Many towns. Many jobs. Until 154 — I remember receiving a letter. I do not know how it reached me. I was recalled to the military. I received an exo-skeletal arm support so I could do my job, the finest Chifunyikan technology. We were still short of trained engineers. They put me to work in… I do not know. An installation. I do not remember much.”
“We’re getting close to the end, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” He indicated the first column. “My party won the election in 155. They made me minister of sport — they did not want me getting in the way of real government. I found a way to gain promotion anyway. I proposed a world passball tournament, which had not happened since before the Great War. I almost had agreement to fix a date when they promoted me to stop it getting too far. So in 156, I was made Minister of Culture. I was visiting Chiwikuru when the nuclear bomb went off in Zimbabwe… and you know what happened after that.”
“Escalation.”
“Yes. The presidency was mine but I had no choice in my actions. Jendayi and the children died. I had to defend the nation. It passed beyond my control… and then there was the bunker. And the final war.”