Kumvela Nimvela

A story by BWALYA S. KONDWANI

You will never feel fright like the time you reach for a strange woman’s breast at a bus station. The fear in her eyes when your hand lands on her chest reflects your own. She didn’t see the wasp you were trying to brush off her shoulder before she turned and set your hand on an incontrovertible crash course with her cleavage. 

When she screams, Kulima Tower bus station noise drains into a not-so-tender silence. 

The first slap nearly deafens your left ear and sends you rolling to the ground. Before you can turn around to see the face of your assaulter, a mob forms, so big that you can’t even tell from where every kick, spit, and slap hails.

On the verge of losing your last thread of consciousness, a voice calls from the crowd— a heat lamp in this storm you stumbled into. 

“Imwe mulekeni please!” 

You have never wanted a person to speak louder in your life. 

“Please stop beating him! Ni chibulu! That man is mute, he can’t speak,” says a tall man emerging from behind the mob. 

The crowd calms slowly, stepping away as the gentleman helps you to stand. Drenched in rainwater, blood, and shame, you stumble to your feet.

“Manje, why was he sexually harassing this poor woman? That’s a crime whether you’re disabled or not!” screams an agitated member of the mob. So you sign to them, explaining the misunderstanding. The crowd is confused, but the man who’d helped you proceeds to translate. 

“It was all a misunderstanding. He was only trying to help, but couldn’t speak,” he says. 

The crowd disperses with dissatisfied mumbles, perhaps disappointed that they couldn’t beat you to death. You’ve experienced the impatience of people before, but this was the first time you were actually scared for your life because of it. What would you have done if that man wasn’t there?

“Thank you so much,” you sign. “You saved my life, but how did you know that I’m mute?”

“Danny, you seriously don’t recognise me?” he chuckles. Your vision is still distorted from the beating, but as it clears up, you finally see the face of your bus station saviour. Shocked, you take two steps backward, scanning him from head to toe.

“It’s me, Chalwe!” he says.

First, you look away and scan your surroundings, wondering whether this is real or the product of an injured mind. Because the last time you saw Chalwe was in grade seven, nearly fifteen years ago, at Bethel Orphanage School for Special Children. And he was mute, just like you.

*

“I'm telling you, Danny, it’s amazing!” says Chalwe. Even his laugh is coated with the confidence of a man who’d long since forgotten how to worry about tomorrow, count coins, or negotiate for bus fares. He brags about his new life, flaunting this magical charm he’d somehow accumulated from seemingly nothing. He takes you to have lunch at Mugz Café near your place in Chelstone. You've liked Chelston, despite the monthly struggle to pay rent. You find it less problematic than living in the kombonis; between the constant groaning of buses along the pothole-ridden dust roads and the loud neighbours, the extra kwachas on rent are a fair trade for a little more peace. Even the people are more understanding here. Still not a place you would show to Chalwe, though. Not with his expensive suit and spotless shoes. Where would he even park his Mercedes? Your yard could barely fit the broken motorbike from your workplace’s special needs fund. 

I need to get that fixed.

“Normally I wouldn’t even be found around Kulima Tower,” he says, “but I have some monthly deliveries I don’t want my wife to find out about, so I have them delivered there. Maybe it was fate that I met you today, my friend.”

How did he do it? How does someone born mute become this person? Did he have some special surgery? Witchcraft maybe? 

You look at your own life and wonder. You sat right next to this guy in school, and somehow, he had found his way into the upper classes of society, while you still scrounge for survival, at the point of spillage from lower middle class into poverty. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” says Chalwe. 

Does he?

“Even when we were kids, you were always so scared. I know, we were all mute and deaf, but the rest of us would always find ways to make noise and get into trouble. Not you, though. “‘Danny wa ma zee ’-that’s what we used to call you. You were never the risk taker.” He picks up his glass and takes a sip. 

“You’re wondering how someone who was just like you becomes everything I am. Unfortunately, the answer is the one thing you fear the most, Danny: taking the risk.”

Chalwe gets up, handing you a black card engraved ‘AJ’. 

“Open your mind,” he says, “and when you feel that you’re ready, text that number. Tell them I sent you, and someone will help you. I’ll pay for your first session. You don’t have to keep living like this, my friend. Either that, or start wearing a bracelet to let people know you’re mute. I won’t always be there to save you.”

You watch him walk out of the restaurant and drive off. Did he already pay for the meal? 

At home, a “rent overdue” notice awaits you at your door, its corners curling from the afternoon heat. As you stare down at that sheet of paper, you think back to Chalwe’s words, and the weight of your affliction has never been more apparent. 

You too are owed a good life, just as much as Chalwe. You too are owed the patience to be heard, just as much as the manic lady at the station. And you too are owed a goddamn good place to live, one that you can actually afford.

You take out the card Chalwe gave you, and open your phone:

Good evening,

My name is Daniel Phiri. I was referred to you by Chalwe Chanda. He said you could help with my current situation. 

You take a moment, thinking back to all the times you never took risks, and all the possible life-changing opportunities you must have missed. You are still scared, still the same little boy from the orphanage, still Danny wa ma zee. 

It’s about time that some things changed. You press send, and let out a breath.

Almost immediately, a message lights up your phone screen:

Hello Daniel,

We are so glad to be hearing from you. Yes, Papa AJ can help you. Come to our office tomorrow, and you will be assisted. You will find the location attached to this message. Send our regards to Chalwe.

*

After the storm that lulled you to sleep through Friday night, Saturday morning is a scary kind of silent. And you know silence. All the world has ever allowed you to do is listen. You hear your neighbour’s electric meter beeping, the trash truck downshifting on your street, and the soft patter from your loose tap. 

Filled with an amalgamation of fear and excitement, you roll out of bed and begin your morning ritual. A Ralph Ellison quote crosses your mind in the shower, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” 

You have felt that way since you were old enough to understand that everyone around you was communicating and you were not. Whether it was that they did not want to communicate with you, or simply couldn’t, mattered very little. The result was still this uncertain and unconfident person that you became.

How many people bother to learn sign language if they don’t have to? How many have the patience for an explanation before they get angry at your silence? How many times have bus conductors taken your change because you couldn’t call out for it? How many job opportunities require “great communication skills”? And how many institutions even bother to provide translators for people like you? Even the organisations that do exist to “help you” are run by corrupt people looking to fill their own pockets.

You are not mute because you have nothing to say; you are mute because the world around you has no patience to listen. Today, all that will change.

*

“Is this your first time?” asks the man seated next to you, twiddling his thumbs over his round belly. The nervous energy about him makes you uneasy. 

You try to sign to him that you are mute.

“Oh, you’re deaf?” He asks before you can finish. If I were deaf, asking me if I’m deaf by mouth would be counterintuitive, don’t you think? This is not the first time - you get asked this question a lot, and sometimes it’s easier to just nod ‘yes’ than have to explain the difference between being deaf and being mute.

You shake your head and try to finish your sentence, but he cuts you off again. 

“Oh, so you can hear, but you can’t speak?” 

You nod. 

“It’s like that Exile song, ‘Kumvela nimvela’.” He says and chuckles, stretching his already wide moustache even further across his face when he smiles. You smile, too. The joke was funny, and the more you think about it, Exile’s lyrics fit you perfectly. 

Kumvela nimvela, ni chalo chakaena.

“My son was born deaf,” he says, “he can’t hear or speak. He probably could speak, but it’s hard to learn language when you can’t hear it. He’s the reason I’m here.”

You touch his shoulder and sign that you’re sorry.

“I’m not sure if this makes me a bad father, but maybe one day he’ll forgive me.”

“What do they do here exactly?” you sign. 

“You don’t know?” he asks, overtly shocked. You shake your head in response.

“There’s a—”

“Mr. Phiri?” calls a subtle voice. A man emerges. His face is soft, almost boyish, with a smile that creases his whole face.

“Papa AJ is ready for you,” he says, directing you toward a door you hadn’t noticed before. You wave goodbye to your waiting room acquaintance and proceed. 

“Just push the door slightly and walk in”. 

You hesitate at the threshold, you look back at the moustached man in the waiting room, still fiddling with his thumbs. You look at the man holding the door open for you and scan the strange ambiance of the entire building. You understand now, more than ever, that there is no turning back. After that next step, your life will never be the same.

The room that you enter is so dark that the only thing you see is the thin stretch of light spilling in from the open door behind you, illuminating only far enough to make you terribly aware of the darkness beyond it. You take one more step forward, bang! The door slams shut behind you, the light strip disappears and you are swallowed into the darkness. You wait for what comes next, and when nothing does, your body splits into equal parts of anxiety and worry. So you turn around and search frantically for the exit. You reach out trying to feel for the door, but nothing is there.

Certain that you would soon be a dead man in this empty room that smells of wet soil. You fall to your knees, tears pooling in your eyes. When a drop falls to the floor, a faint light ripples beneath you, as though the ground were fluid. Your reflection wobbles in the strange liquid you are now kneeling in. Every teardrop sends a faint wave of light ripples in all directions around you, to an endless distance.

When the ripples settle, all you see is your own face, happier than ever to see your own face, but then it moves. The eyes shift, and its expression turns angry.

“What do you want?” it asks. Startled, you pull your palms out of the water, but the reflection follows. You leap to your feet and feel your heart nearly beat out of your mouth as the reflection peels itself from the surface of the trembling fluid floor and stands before you like a mirror. Absolute silence. 

In a single moment, the reflection bursts into a thousand fragments, like scattering pixels, shining a light that reveals an endless room. The fragments then pool back together into an enormous form. Now, surrounded by darkness, you stand at the centre of an endless room, faced by a creature you can only describe as a giant owl-like beast. 

What is happening? 

“Your awakening,” responds the creature.

You can hear me?

“I’ve been listening for far longer than you have, Daniel.”

What do you want?

“Danny, what do you want?”

What?

“I want you to understand. We are here, you and I. A man and an ancient owl-like spirit creature, with nothing to see or listen to but ourselves. What do you want?”

I want you to fix me.

“Then you haven’t been listening. Daniel, there is nothing to fix.”

Then why do I feel this way? Like an afterthought. Why am I overlooked and neglected? 

The creature says nothing. You stand there, the tears in your eyes roll down your face. No ticking clock. No urgency. Just the sound of your own heart, pounding with rage.

“I’ve always found it fascinating, the impatience of humans. If you took the time to listen, you’d understand so much. What you have is a gift, Daniel, don’t you see that you are doing to yourself what the rest of the world has done to you your whole life? Being impatient! Looking for shortcuts. You want to be ‘fixed’, you want to speak.

“Most human speech is just noise auditioning for attention.” It chuckles, and then leans in closer. Its enormous face fills your vision, “Did you know that people eat my faeces?”

The creature bursts into laughter, a soft chuckle at first, growing into a louder cackle. Unsure if you heard it right, you find yourself laughing too.

“I offer a choice,” it explains when the laughter dies down, twisting and lowering its neck so its eyes could meet yours. “I do it just to see how far people are willing to go to escape these imaginary prisons they’ve put themselves in. I tell them that if you want your voice, you have to eat my faeces. A box is delivered to them every month and they pay for it. They pay for my faeces.” 

Wait, is that the delivery Chalwe was—

“Yes.”

That is disgusting… what’s the other option?

“Introspection. I ask you to find freedom within yourself. Understand that ‘normal’ is not what you are looking for, and a voice is not what you need. And I always tell them that this is the right choice.”

But it sounds harder.

“I suppose it is. You know what’s funny? I often know exactly what choice a person will make the moment they walk through the door. But some people come around and surprise me.”

What choice do you think I will make?

“I don’t know, Danny wa mazee, what choice will you make?”

Maybe I've been asking the wrong questions. I’ve lived around impatience for so long, I've become incapable of recognizing it in myself. Chalwe was right, if I want the world to listen, I need to make them listen. 

“What about you? Are you listening?”

There’s a Bemba proverb that sounds ironic right now, “uushumfwa patunono, napafingi takomfwe.” I’m asking for more, when I couldn’t handle the little I was given. I chase a voice as though the world has ever been kinder to anyone simply because they could speak. I understand the choice: is there a line, and am I willing to cross it? Or is it better to understand first what brought me to this line? Chalwe, that father in the waiting room and every person that’s ever come to you understood this. 

The creature leans in, smiles, and then chuckles again. 

“I know exactly what choice you’ll make, Danny wa ma zee,” it says, dissolving back into the fluid floor.

*

Sunday morning is a familiar kind of silent. Yesterday was like a fever dream. You hear your neighbour’s electric meter beeping and the patter from your loose tap. The world was unchanged. 

The details of the previous day come back to you slowly, like the flashes of a drunken stupor. Chalwe. Papa AJ. The moustache thumb twiddler. Big bird. Faeces.

Was I dreaming?

There is a knock at the door.

The landlord, you think.

When you open the door, it’s the receptionist from Papa AJ’s waiting room, holding a black box in his manicured hands, says “Delivery for Mr. Daniel Phiri.”

“Thank you,” you say.