Bring Back Lost Lovers

A story by BWANGA ‘BENNY BLOW’ KAPUMPA

The sky is weeping like someone owed her money and had the audacity to die. It makes it hard for me to get this chamba onto the slip of old newspaper I’m holding in my right hand. The fact that I’m shaking like a wet cat on a night in June doesn’t help. And even though I’m not directly in the rain, the wind is blowing some in my direction.

Normally, I wouldn’t be trying to roll a joint in public. But I’m bored, and can only conjure so much patience. It’s a cold and wet day, I doubt anyone will bother me. I would sit inside to avoid Mother Nature’s fit, but there is no way I’m spending time in a sports betting club with society’s biggest fools. Gamblers are even more gullible than the “Chrishans” who think Ba Yahweh is coming to save them someday. I don’t have many, but a man should have some principles. I’m only waiting out here for Tembo because I know he got paid, and he’ll be coming to spend half his salary on generating tickets inside ForteBet. He’s owed my client for six months now and has been avoiding her like… well, like a creditor. I’m the person you call when you are at your wits’ end and need to get your money back. Debt collection earns me more money than my private investigation and business centre enterprises. Though I’d be embarrassed if the girl who got me into this line of work saw how far I’ve come, how far I’ve fallen.

Part of me wishes I had an audience to witness me roll this cigarette while balancing in a three-legged garden chair propped against a wall. The joint is a little damp, but moving my lighter’s flame back and forth along its length remedies this. I take a long drag after lighting it, and the symphony of urban sounds grows louder. Two different songs by Yo Maps blare from speakers in the small complex; one inside ForteBet and another from the bar across the wet asphalt carpark. A lady with a plastic bag over her head tows the arm of a crying little boy as they seek shelter from the rain. A blue Toyota’s tyres part a river of mud with a squelch as it exits the carpark and splashes dirt on two young men in matching white jeans. Who wears white jeans in Lusaka on a day like this? Their colourful language is almost visible against the grey sky as my high takes a firm hold.

Where in God’s name is Tembo? We don’t have an appointment, but I warned him that I’d come looking if he hadn’t settled his debt by yesterday. Everything I know about him I learned from his social media posts and, of course, my client. They both sell life insurance policies for Prudential, and I know Tembo has been paid because my client received her wages, too. I know he’ll be here sometime today because he’s always sharing screenshots of his bets and winnings, and this ForteBet was in the background of the only photo he has shared of himself on Facebook in months. Not to mention, it’s Friday. I swear I’ll come back to haunt both him and my client if I get pneumonia and die from sitting out in this miserable weather.

Most times, people-watching is amusing. But I get uncomfortable in places like this. Some of the halfwits inside ForteBet are possessed by devils, and their stench is nauseating. I have a sense for that kind of thing. I was born with what my grandmother liked to call “a gift”. She taught me to be a ng’aka, and I would have risen to the level of sikuyeti if I had applied myself, but the city drew me in like a moth to a fluorescent tube. I had other interests.

A raindrop sends a speck of something into my eye, and it tears up. Rubbing it hurts, so I pull my upper eyelid over my lower one, and the lower lashes brush the pink of my lid clean of the nuisance. While I pull on my cigarette, I try to remember if I learned that trick from an old People Magazine or the inside of a Chappies Bubble Gum wrapper. And here comes Tembo, running through the downpour with an umbrella that does little to keep him dry. He stands about a stride away from me under the awning, shaking water off his umbrella and laughing like a child who has been playing in the rain. He has definitely been paid.

“I hope you have the money today, Tembo,” I say, flicking the chamba cigarette into the rain.

It takes him a moment to recognise me. It might be that I’m wearing a fedora, and I haven’t been eating much since I last saw him. I find that the fedora gives me a look of sophistication, even though my father’s plaid wool blazer doesn’t.

“Ah! Big man!” he says with the enthusiasm conmen have crafted and honed for millennia. “Don’t worry, I’ll have your money next week.”

“That’s what you said last week when I called. I gave you until yesterday.”

“I’m telling you, just let me sort out a small pressure inside and I’ll—”

“Your time is up. Give me the money so I can go.”

“Listen, bwana,” Tembo starts to plead, “I’ve got half of the money. Let me make the rest on some tickets inside, and I’ll even add interest.”

“Do not make me repeat myself.”

“I’ve got some 1XBet codes and I’m telling you I’ll win big! Please, big man!”

I punch the fool before he can say more, and he tumbles into the open door of ForteBet, onto its dirt-streaked floor. I stand above him and slide my fingers into the holes of the brass knuckles sitting in my inner jacket pocket. His lip splits like a ripe grape when I punch him once and then again for good measure.

I can hear the people around us start to make some noise and ask questions. ForteBet is a small establishment. Mounted workbenches with gambling consoles and laptops line the walls on either side. The space in the centre of the room is occupied by slot machines, and all the onlookers on barstools have paused their activity to see what the ruckus is about. 

“Forgive me for my rude entrance, but this man owes my client a lot of money,” I tell the congregation of addicts. Three of them look like they are getting funny ideas. “Please let me finish my business, and I will leave you to yours.”

A large man in a muscle t-shirt moves through the small crowd faster than a snake on snuff—an impressive feat for his size—and clouts me.

“Peleka business yako panja!” he says over the ringing in my ear. “Outside!”

I know I can’t take him in a fair fight; the guy is built like an off-brand John Cena, and I’m sure he’s been itching to flatten noses with the mallets at the end of his arms. I reach into my right pocket for a dried leaf, crumble it and quickly slap its fragments into his palm as I shake his hand with both of mine.

“Sorry, boss,” I say, then back away before he can cave my face in. I am no longer a practising ng’aka, but I keep some charms for occasions like this. The leaf takes effect better than I could ever hope, and the brute’s sphincter collapses, causing his lunch to slide down his pants leg and onto his shoe. He hunches over, and his gut makes intimate noises that no other person should have to hear. The gamblers back away like the man is contagious, and I step back to Tembo, who is on all fours, trying to make an escape.

“Please, boss! Here, that’s my salary! Take all of it!” He cries, handing me a wad of cash. I count the amount owed to my client, include some for interest, count a few more sheets for my troubles, and then toss what’s leftover back to him.

“Gambling is bad for you,” I tell him, and then walk out of that den of vice.

×

The rain has let up, but it is impossible to exaggerate its effects. My jacket is damp and smells like a wet Rhodesian Ridgeback. The lady next to me on the minibus conveys this by turning to look at it and then me, with an expression of disapproval. Outside the window, the drains surge with a sloosh of brown water and bobbing Mojo Energy Drink bottles.

Traffic has stalled worse than Tembo on his payments, and my attention wanders to the torn posters on electricity poles advertising witchdoctors’ services: Promotion at Work. Manhood Enlargement. Magic Wallet… I used to make and distribute some of my own when I first came to Lusaka. I realised soon enough that I would need to trade my father’s blazer for a shiny suit and matching shoes and preach prosperity gospel if I was to convince anyone I could heal them. Even then, I later learned that I couldn’t heal broken hearts. Not my own, anyway.

My grandmother, and thus our family, was respected in a time that seems so distant now. Witches feared her, and diviners apprenticed under her. She was consulted on when to sow seed because the tip of her nose itched when the rains were coming. She knew her herbs and could cure anything from stomach aches to strange lesions. I thought I could offer this help to the poor souls I heard were suffering in the city because they had forgotten our way of life. I had illusions of making a fortune with my knowledge, but that all changed soon after I arrived in Lusaka.

Mukuni Kapita was the second friend I made when I arrived in the city, and he soon graduated to best friend. He showed me how to have fun on a pauper’s budget, introduced me to the ease of paying for sex and became the brother I never had. He and I enrolled into the police academy together, and that was where I learned modern investigative techniques. With my knowledge of the mystic arts and Mukuni’s street smarts, we were promoted faster than you can say nepotism. We mounted impromptu traffic stops when days in the office were slow and collected small fortunes in bribes.

“Can’t you multiply this money with your juju?” he would always ask. I’d tell him there were limits to my abilities and anyone promising ‘magic wallets’ was a conman. He never really believed me, and I’d find out the hard way that he cared more about money than anything else.

I run a private investigation agency and business centre out of a matchbox located somewhere in the armpit of the central business district. The site is not ideal, but the rent is cheap. I don’t advertise my services, so I get my debt collection clients through recommendations. The business centre in the left corner brings in revenue through the internet café, which consists of two desktops that still run the remarkably reliable Windows XP, and an all-in-one Canon printer. It’s amazing how many people need to make copies of their national registration cards and driver’s licenses. Behind a folding room divider on the right is my private investigation agency; a one-man operation, two if you count my assistant, Prince. I don’t get many cases, but I occasionally have to tail an unfaithful husband and break it to his wife that he keeps bags of groceries in his boot to pull out after he has lied about going to the supermarket. At night, I slide the small table of my agency to one end, the two pots, induction plate and crockery to another; and unroll my mattress to transform the space into my bedroom. Every other day, I hand the building’s caretaker a few kwacha notes to use the staff bathroom to shower, do my dishes or take a shit. It isn’t much by some people’s standards, but it’s home.

Two customers are in the business centre when I arrive from my debt collection. One of them is a lady who is typing a document by intermittently punching the keyboard with her index fingers. The other is a man inquiring about printing something.

“You’re charging too much money just to print in colour!” he says. Prince looks relieved to see me and, without saying a word, transfers this complaint to senior management.

“In fact, you should utilise it while it lasts,” I say, “we are discontinuing colour printing due to the high taxes on cartridges!”

The man grumbles something, but I duck behind the room divider and pretend that since I can’t see him, I can’t hear his complaint either. Out of sight, out of mind, I always say. It sounds like he pays anyway. When the customers leave, Prince taps on the wood of the divider and pops his head into my space.

“Hi, Mister Wisdom. Someone came to ask for you in the morning,” he says.

“Was it Tembo’s workmate? I got her money. I’ll call her shortly.”

“No. This lady was… nice,” he replies.

Prince has been working for me for two years. If he has any ambitions, his demeanour and scant conversation betray nothing of the sort, but I’m sure as sunrise that he’ll leave me if some other job falls into his lap. Part of me wishes that he would. He’s a charming boy in his own clumsy sort of way. I used to open the shop at the rear end of dawn, around the time when my bladder threatens to burst if I don’t get up to shit. He would report for work soon after and use one of the PCs for what I assumed were his school assignments. I think I asked, but I forgot what he said. It would be bad form if I asked again. I had to cut him a key after I made him and some customers wait outside because I had gotten blind drunk the previous night and blacked out at an hour when the owls are engrossed in their nightly festivities.

“What do you mean, nice?” I ask him.

“She was very pretty. No, she was beautiful. I was surprised that she was looking for you. I’ve never seen you talk to anyone beautiful.”

“Ohoho! It’s good to know you at least have a sense of humour. Here I was thinking you worked here because you had nothing.”

The boy opens his mouth to respond, but we hear a knock at the door. The clacking of a woman’s heels on polished concrete echoes through the room as the person enters. Her perfume greets us before we see her; it doesn’t belong, its floral accents jostling for attention against the smell of the aged asbestos and mould of my shop.

“Wiz?”

The voice knocks the air out of me, and the day suddenly feels like a dream. I look around the room, and it’s too late to try and arrange the mess of paper on my table, put away my crusted pots or hide my clothes, because Walo comes around the room divider and stands before us. The boy was right. She’s even more beautiful than I remember.

Waloba Mumba, or Walo as the people closest to her called her, is the first friend I made when I came to the city. She helped open my eyes to the fact that people preferred prescribed antihistamine to my no-label mupitipiti. She has a laugh that could make a stone smile, wit that could cut through the thickest tension in a room and ambition that could fill and make a bottomless cup runneth over. She’s also a filthy heartbreaker.

“This is the lady that was looking for you,” Prince says.

“Yes, I guessed as much, Prince.” He stands there for a moment, looks at me, then at Walo, and lingers there.

“You can take your lunch break now, Prince.”

“It’s sixteen hours, I’ve already eaten.”

“Well, you can take the rest of the day off!”

“Thank you, Mister Wisdom,” he says. “Bye, madam,” he smiles at Walo.

I take the seat behind my table as Prince shuffles out of the building and closes the door behind him.

“What brings you here, Waloba?”

“Hello to you, too, Wiz. Why so formal?” she smiles.

“What do you want?”.

“I guess I deserve that.”

“Your sense of entitlement is astounding.”

“Mukuni is missing, Wisdom. I need your help to find him.”

I may not be much today, but I’m no longer the person I was around Mukuni and Walo. They both showed me that life could be sweet, yet they were sometimes willing to destroy flowers to reach the nectar. Their scorched-earth approach to things didn’t always sit well with me. So whenever I could, I tried to avoid them by throwing myself into legitimate police work. I hoped to balance out some of the bad with a little good. The world seemed ripe with possibility at the time; I was even thinking about proposing to Walo. That was until I found out that she and Mukuni were staining the bedsheets of seedy lodges together. I might as well have been there with them. I got fucked too.

“He probably left you for someone who’s younger and possesses a heart,” I tell her, avoiding her gaze. I scan the floor for the unfinished half-jack of Old Tree Whiskey I have lying somewhere in here.

“I’m serious, Wisdom.”

“So am I. Give me a good reason why I should help you find him?”

She comes close, leans against the edge of my table and places her palm on my chest.

“Because you have his blood coursing through your veins,” she says. 

Four years ago, I got stabbed right in the spot that she’s touching.

Mukuni and I had tracked four drug-dealing thugs to their base in Matero Compound. It had been pouring that day, too, and soiled baby diapers and rotting vegetables were carried down a stream of filth next to us. As we waded further into the ghetto on foot, I saw a lady emptying a sack of garbage into the current of rainwater. The city council doesn’t service neighbourhoods like that one, so the rain is an opportunity to dispose of refuse. But god-tier littering was the least of my worries.

When we had requested our arrest warrant, Mukuni and I downplayed the need for reinforcements because we wanted all the glory for ourselves. I kicked down the door to the hideout, knowing that the pushers would not expect a raid on them while it was raining. We went in there too confident in our abilities because we had guns. But we were outnumbered, and the shack only had one exit, which I was blocking. Before I could say anything, a short thug tackled me and stabbed me multiple times as we fell onto my back. Mukuni couldn’t chase after the others as they escaped their hole like the rats they were. He knelt beside me, punching a thumb at his phone and telling me to hang on for help to come. I lay there in the threshold of the hideout and at Death’s door. I was fading fast and needed to act.

I asked Mukuni to use the same knife I’d been stabbed with to cut his hand and share some of his blood with me. I explained that I didn’t need much, maybe a shotglass’s worth.

“That’s a lot!” he said, hesitating, but he could see that if he didn’t do it, I’d be gone in minutes. He unbuttoned my shirt and made a slit in his left palm, wincing in pain. He clenched his hand and groaned as he let the blood drip onto my wounds. I drew the symbol of restoration into the mud and whispered prayers to the old gods.

It was three weeks before I emerged from my coma, and when I did, Mukuni and Walo were kissing softly and whispering something right next to my bed in the hospital. That hurt me more than having steel desecrate my flesh.

“I know you can use your abilities to find him since you share his life force,” Walo says, her eyes pleading with me.

“I don’t practise anymore. And even if I could find him, I don’t want to.”

“But you need to. You wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him.”

I look away. Walo opens the most expensive-looking handbag that I have ever seen and hands me a folded piece of paper.

“That’s my number on the back,” she says. “At least think about it, okay? Please.”

The sound of her heels seems louder as she leaves the shop and closes the door behind her. I slide further down into my chair and pinch the bridge of my nose with my hand. What a day.

I start to lift shirts off the floor and check corners for that unfinished drink. I find it and gulp it in one swig. Need more. Walo’s visit is a good excuse for me to go drench my sorrows. 

Before I leave, I pick up the piece of paper she left. It has some printed text on one side. It’s one of my old posters with a list of services. ‘DOCTOR WISDOM! MASTER HEALER!’ the header declares. ‘Recover Lost Property’. ‘Pass Exams and Interviews’. ‘Cure Witchcraft Diseases’. But the one that makes me sick is ‘Bring Back Lost Lovers’.