3:15 am and other stories

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by:

Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd

Suite A

82 James Carter Road

Mildenhall

Suffolk

IP28 7DE

UK

www.carnelianheartpublishing.co.uk

Copyright ©Rudo D M Manyere 2022

Paperback ISBN     978-1-914287-25-1

Hardback ISBN      978-1-914287-26-8

ebook ISBN            978-1-914287-38-1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This collection of short stories is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

Editors:

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure

Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo

Daniel Mutendi

Cover design & Layout:

Daniel Mutendi

Typeset by Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd

Layout and formatting by DanTs Media

Contents

Kurauone

At the end of the month

1965

Farisai

Tamuka

Pamushana

Nyarai

3:15am

Chipo

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the author

REVIEWS for 3.15AM and other short stories

A kaleidoscopic collection of short stories exploring themes close to Rudo Manyere’s heart. Set in Zimbabwe, a motley of carefully crafted characters journey with you through a beautifully executed debut by a gripping new voice.

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure - Author & Poet, United Kingdom

Rudo sweeps the dark corners of history in gentle, simple strokes and out comes the dirt, the ugliness, the dust of human shortcomings and amidst them, the forgotten pennies and marbles, the love, the hope, the determination of human spirit.

Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo - Author, Zimbabwe

Pick on any emotion: disillusionment, relief, grief, shock, guilt, shame, disgust, elation, the list goes on - Rudo Manyere can take you through these in just a paragraph. A powerful collection of short stories that touch on the lives of Zimbabweans, stretching from the colonial era through independence, to the turbulent times that followed. Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for a rollercoaster ride.

Daniel Mutendi - Author, Zimbabwe

Dear thirteen-year-old Rudo,

the fuel behind my love for literature

I hope I have made you proud.

For you, dear Reader

I hope this gives you the courage to write the book you want to read.

"… insist upon your right to go off on a tangent. Your right to put the spanner in the works. Your right to refuse to be labelled and to insist on your right to behave like anything other than what anyone else expects…"

~Dambudzo Marechera.

Kurauone

Previously published in

Brilliance Of Hope - an anthology of short stories compiled and edited by Samantha Vazhure.

Waiting outside WHSmith next to a dilapidated structure that used to be a beauty salon, I see Adesua, Kola's sister, standing across the street. She is hard to miss, with her afro regally crowning her head. The olive-green pin-stripe blouse and the black pencil skirt trace every inch of her curvaceous body and make her look almost professional. However, if I am being honest, the print of her curvaceous hips takes me back to the yester years when the three of us roamed around the streets of Oxford after our service to the city, as cleaners at St Margaret's College. She has not seen me yet, so I am standing here and taking her in. She has aged, she has webs of wrinkles around her eyes and instead of the strides she used to rhythm her walk to, she now has the gait of a pensioner. The green handbag and black pumps with a green flower she is wearing give a youthful touch to her outfit. The earrings carved with the African continent, which I bought for her from this Zimbabwean lady who charged me sixty pounds because they had been handmade and crafted, shipped and escaped customs, all the way from Zakarinopisa in Masvingo, complimented the outfit. They still turned heads, the earrings, the nose, chin and back head of the continent holding on to the corners of each earring.

Even after thirty odd years since our liaison came to an end, she still makes my heart flutter under my chest. I examine my posture and choice of attire on the large windows of the bookshop. My beard seems to connect as the youth say. I stroke it and as much as I am aware, I am still surprised by how white it has become. I only turned sixty-three last week and even though the lines on my face portray wisdom beyond my years, I am still holding on to the intensity of my boyish charm. My tucked in striped shirt and suspended trousers now make me look ridiculous, as my big bele pokes out, stretching my suspenders to my sides. The overcoat which I am beginning to regret because the heat is giving me vertigo, drapes on my shoulders as if it has been hung on. I ignore the sensation and firm my feet which are sheltered by my only pair of formal shoes. I lean on the window and take a minute to collect myself. I am not going to let my anatomy fail me now, not today and especially not in the presence of Adesua. I shake the feeling off and lean on the window. I wave at Susu, that is the sobriquet I had given her. She is standing on the other side of the street obviously searching for my face in the crowd.

Susu! I shout her name walking towards her, but with the earphones plugged in her ears, she obviously cannot hear me. I get closer to her and tap her shoulder. The smile that spreads on her face gives me nostalgia, the curl of her lip that reveals her white, carefully arranged dentition is deja vu of how she expressed her joy when I told her I loved her. Her love language was words of affirmation, and I hope it still is. Kura! She pronounces the first part of my name in her strong Yoruba accent. The "ra" part comes out like the roar of a lion cub. I do not care; I love the way she says it. I have always loved it. She reaches out for me and I embrace her. She stands on her toes and as much as I am tempted to lift and spin her around like before, I know my back will fail me. I linger and take in the smell of her hair which masks my face. It smells familiar, like the hair conditioner one of my housemates, the Kenyan lady, uses for her hair. Kanto, Kanu or Kanyu, I do not remember. She takes a deep breath and pulls back. I look at her and she tries to look away. I touch her shoulder and keep my hand there; she sniffles and places her hand on top of mine.

It was unexpected. Too soon, j-just like that he did not wake up shaa. My Susu says as she digs for a piece of tissue in her bag. I search my overcoat for my handkerchief and hand it over to her. I smile as a wave of nostalgia hits me again, how we used to argue as to whether the word shaa was a Nigerian or Zimbabwean colloquial. I know, he was in great health and had so much to live for. I reply, reminiscing about Kola, her brother, my best friend and the glue between us, who last week had died in his sleep. We stand by the street for a few minutes, ignoring the shoulders that nudge us and the clamour that surrounds us. Come. I whisper, reaching for her hand, If we get on the bus now, we will get there before a lot of people arrive. We can catch up for old times’ sake. She looks at me and forces a smile, I do the same. We walk through Cornmarket Street on to St. Aldates and wait at bus stop 4T. Bus number 5 to Blackbird Leys will take us to the Community Hall where mourners will congregate and discuss how to raise money to send Kola's body back to Nigeria.

We sit in our designated seats, for elderly and disabled people. I look at Susu and laugh. She looks at me, confused, pursing her lips. Do you remember that day when we were coming from reporting, from uhm, ah Eaton House in Hounslow and we swore we would never be caught dead sitting in these seats because in our forties we would be out of this country and living in a villa in France? I continue to laugh, with a mixture of glee and disappointment. Forty years ago, we both were undocumented immigrants, in love and invincible. The Zimbabwean government had failed dismally and in West Africa, Nigeria was facing the same situation. A multitude of us had run away looking for greener pastures. I remember the time I had left Zimbabwe; I had been a trillionaire and had marched at more than fifteen rallies by the age of eighteen. Kola and Adesua used to laugh at me when I told them, they could not believe that a whole nation once accommodated trillionaires, but no one was rich. They began to call me Mr Trilionare Sir. With their thick accents, the sir was pronounced as sar.

Ah, we were so young and naive. If only we had known life would take us here, I would have stayed in Nigeria and Kola would still be alive and I w…

And you would have never met me. I murmur, looking out the window, hurt. I understand where she is coming from, but I cannot imagine her thinking of a world where we never existed. Kura and Susu. Kurauone and Adesua. The Zimbabwean and Nigerian couple. The Shona and Yoruba duo. A concoction by the African gods deemed good and pleasant in a foreign land.

Kura, you know what I mean. I just cannot believe I, we, wasted most of our lives hoping and praying for something that was not meant for us. My Susu is saying this looking down, she cannot say it straight to my face because she knows it is not entirely true. We did not waste time; our love was not a waste of time.

Susu, I know what you mean, and you know what I mean too. It so happens over the last years, I have had time to think. Not being documented for over thirty years will do that to you. I am telling her this and my heart is drumming in my chest. I understand the timing might be off, insensitive even, but I do not want to die the way Kola did. He only got his papers six months ago after battling the Home Office for as long as I have. He died in his sleep from exhaustion. The marathon shifts he took working as a health care assistant also known as BBC - British Bum Cleaner - had caught up with him. You would think at sixty-three he would be getting ready to retire, but just a year from retirement that is when he started working full time as a legal person. Just like me, he had taken small jobs here and there, which was and still is illegal, but it was the only way to survive.

He is survived by two daughters. Oladayo who he last saw when he left Nigeria; she was only two years old and after forty years, she would see her father again, this time in a coffin. Adenike was the daughter he begot with Alina, the Romanian lady he had succeeded in getting pregnant but not her papers. He had proposed I take the same route, get a lady from the EU or even better, an English woman. Get her pregnant and stick around long enough until they include you on their papers, and just like that you are a British citizen. "Gwam gwam, just like that my broda you are in. This United Kingdom will be yours for the taking in Jesus' name!" he would say each time he tried to sway me into following his footsteps. I could not do it, I had Susu. She was the only one I wanted to be the mother of my future children and my only life partner. I would always remind him I was in love with his sister and would not disrespect her or myself like that.

"Kura, I like you, you are a fine man and I am grateful for the way you love my sister but my broda, love is only an illusion. Will love give you paper? Will love give you red passport? Eeh? You need to be wise, by all means necessary get your paper then worry about love later. Ok, even if you choose Adesua, how will you provide forha eeh? Each day you are playing cops and robbers with the police and Home Office because you are working illegally. Is that life?" He would question me but never give me enough time to explain. Which was something that gnarled me about him, but I liked how practical he was. He was a man of action. The 007 amongst us who had a license to kill every obstacle in his own way. I had taken his advice once; we both ended up in prison and that was the last time I took his advice.

We had registered with an agency with fake ID's and documentation to get the jobs. The IDs almost looked original. Manish, the Indian guy from Cowley was behind the masterpieces, after the astounding recommendation from our fellow immigrant peers. I do not know how they noticed or if