The Woman In The Red Dress
By Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo
The old AVM bus roars adamantly as it ambles along the dull grey tarmac, trailed by a short tail of thick, hazardous looking black smoke. Once upon a time, its chassis had been coated in bright yellow paint, but the years have weathered it to something closer to white. It is a vestige. It trembles in the way that old buses do, determined to reach the end of yet another voyage despite its condition. At inclines, it slows almost to a crawl under the weight of the luggage piled haphazardly along the length of its roof: suitcases, duffel bags, baskets, sacks, shangani bags with their fragile zippers stretched taut from the groceries stuffed inside them and a single green wheelbarrow. At first glance the arrangement seems chaotic, precarious even, but it has been packed with all the expertise and ingenuity of a bus conductor. Nothing will fall off. A rusty white sign stands stoically at the side of the road, jadedly welcoming travellers to the city of Rusape. The driver presses his foot smoothly on the brakes to slow down for the city traffic. The bus continues to roar.
You are seated inside, by the window. Your head is resting against the pane which is decorated with greasy fingerprints, water streaks and dust. You watch unenthusiastically as the world zooms past the glass rectangle, an endless panorama that disappears behind you, into the past.
Sitting next to you is a thin, tired looking middle aged woman with a fidgety toddler perched on her lap, facing your direction. The woman’s head is thrown back and tilted slightly towards you and her eyes are closed. One of her eyes bulges alarmingly out of its socket and you do your best not to stare. Your grandmother told you that it is a sin to be repulsedby other people’s deformities. You can hear her voice, “Laugh at someone else’s deformity when you yourself have died.” At the corner of the woman’s mouth you can see a small pool of froth. Since the woman got on the bus in Ruwa, the little boy’s shoe has brushed against your thigh several times, leaving an atlas of brown smudges on your blue jeans. The little boy is eyeing you enviously, coveting your window seat. He kicks you again. The thing that has been sitting in your chest, the same thing that always accompanies you on these trips, starts to swell. You feel it push against your ribs and begin to crush your heart and your lungs. You clench your fists and close your eyes and breathe in, urgently. One, a blue shoe. Two, a torn, brown leather seat. Three, a dirty window. You exhale.
You turn to the woman and nudge her gently on her shoulder. She wakes with a start, and some drool streams down her chin. You wait for her to wipe it off before you speak. “Mhamha, your son has been stepping on my trousers. Look, they are already full of dirt.” She stares at you for a little too long, the remnants of sleep still clinging to the flesh underneath her good eye. The other one seems discomfortingly cognizant, as if it sees everything, as if it never sleeps. She does not say anything to you, but she takes off the boy’s shoes.
The memory invades you. It permeates your mind almost violently, vivid as a dream. She is bathed in sunlight. Her edges fade into the golden white nimbus that envelops her. In the glow, her disheveled short afro appears to be ablaze. Her face is veiled in shadow. You cannot see it. You can never see it. She smells like camphor. You’re small, very small, maybe two or three years old, you are not sure. She has seated you on a white plastic chair and she is kneeling in front of you, her back towards the window through which the dazzling bright light is gushing in. She is wearing a red dress. Her hand feels delicate and gentle as it takes your tiny foot and tickles it and you break out into a giggle. She laughs too as she carefully slides your foot into a little red and blue shoe but no sound comes out of her mouth. Only a shrill silence. You raise your small arms and try to reach for her face.
You are thrust forward as the bus comes to a jerky halt but your arms act just quickly enough to stop you from a painful collision with the seat in front of you. The little boy who is now kneeling in his mother’s lap is not so lucky. Biting your lower lip is all you can do to stop yourself from laughing as a shriek rips his mouth and jolts his mother awake. She looks more annoyed than sympathetic and throws him impatiently onto his rear on her lap. Sensing his mother’s frustration and fearing any further admonishment, his cries quickly subside to sniffles and he pushes a thumb into his mouth. His little face is wet with tears.
Outside, the bus stop is lined with makeshift stalls, cardboards balanced on top of piles of rocks or bricks that serve as table legs. Each one is a slight iteration of the one next to it, displaying more or less the same assortment of snacks, fruits and vegetables. The vendors have already left their stands and started to besiege the bus, each trying to get as close to the windows as possible so the passengers can get a better view of their wares. They all chant what they are selling, attempting to sway prospective buyers by pointing out what is special about their particular product.
“Freezitsss. They are frozen folks. Five bond only.”
“Yes, mothers and fathers, I have your chips here. I have all the flavours: Lay’s, Simbas, Spuds, Chompkins and Zap Nacks. They are all here. Thirty bond only vabereki.”
“Ehh bananas are over here. Seven for the big ones and five for the small ones. Amai buy some bananas for your child. Can you not see how hungry he looks? See, o he is even crying.”
“My brother do you want something to drink? All your drinks are here. Nice and cold they will properly cool your throat. The sun is very hot today my brother.”
After a while, you begin to detect a phantom rhythm in their discordance.
“Mwanangu.” It is the tired woman. She is holding a dirty, five dollar note, the edges eaten away from having gone through too many pockets and brassieres. You know the vendors will not accept it because it has “Bond Note” written on the corner. They no longer accept such notes as valid currency. You say nothing. “Can you buy some bananas for me?”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. However much they can give you for that.”
You turn towards the window and the moment they spot the money, the hawkers are drawn to you like flies. Baskets and card boxes and trays are pushed into your face. They chant even louder. None of them have bananas.
“I want bananas.” Some of them seem disappointed. Other are angry and curse you under their breath. Regardless of their reaction however, they all disperse immediately almost as if it was choreographed, searching for other potential buyers.
A man who is just finishing transacting with a customer two windows away hears you and shouts that he is coming “faster faster, as soon as he finishes with his current customer.” It is less for your benefit and more for any other vendors who might try to sell to you before he does.
When you hand him the bill he pretends to examine it but you know it is only a performance. He has already made up his mind. “Haa elder, what are you trying to do? Don’t you know money like this does not work anymore?”
You start to turn to tell this to the woman, but in the end, you reach into your pocket and use your own money to buy two bananas.
As you are sitting down, something briefly catches your eye. You are uncertain what it is but it calls to you. It compels you. You scan the crowd of hawkers slowly. Your heart pounds the walls of your chest with a frenzied zeal. You can hear it thumping in your ears. Whatever it is you saw, it is demanding in its magnetism.
The thing in your chest, it starts to swell again.
She is standing across the road, on the crack ridden pavement. She is tall and thin. There is an elegance to her slenderness. Her hands hang limply at her sides and her neck is bent at an odd angle. Her back is turned towards you but you know, in your bones you know it is her. She is wearing the red dress. There is a certain strangeness to the scene, an oddness that taunts you but lingers just beyond your reach. The harder you try to grasp what it is, the more it eludes you. The breeze gathers her camphor scent and carries it towards you. It feeds it into your nostrils and you clamor to breathe in every last bit of her. You immediately realize what the strangeness is. In spite of the wind, her dress hangs about her with an impossible stillness. In fact, everything about her has that same stillness, a quiet deadness.
The word begins to materialize in your mouth. You feel the weight of the syllables settle on your tongue before rolling on to your lips. It comes out as a whisper. Urgent. Needing. Mhamha.
She hears you. You are certain of it. She begins to turn to face you.
The engine coughs feebly before it sputters to life and then begins to roar. The distraction is only momentary. But even before you turn back, you know that she is gone.
Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo (@LazarusPanashe) is a Civil Engineering Graduate from Near East University in Cyprus. He spends most of his time observing and dissecting the world and putting it on paper with as few filters as possible. His work is upcoming in The Shallow Tales Review and The Kalahari Review. He lives in the Sunshine City, Harare, Zimbabwe.
All rights to this story remain with the author. Please do not repost or reproduce this material without permission.
