Romulus, Gonzo the farmer and a black Jesus

I sense the coming day’s density around midnight, and try to pull out. A late text that my work is overwhelming — I must stay in cyberspace tomorrow, wrestling invisible work giants. I am drawn to and repelled by the meeting, menisci kissing before finally parting. Steve shoots back. He does not accept this reasoning. He is so adamant that he is at gym before the cock even knows he’s gone. This is important, he insists — the highlight of my visit. My aerials concur. I repeat to myself, in the cold darkness of the empty guest house, the mantra I have given my daughter — my holy trinity: “Ad – Ven – Ture.”

The sun rises. Warm water doesn’t shoot from the nozzle above my shivering frame, it falls to a resentful death. Steve is no slouch, he explodes from the bakkie, bulletproof and all upside. Every second word “Shawari”. Past vast lawns manicured by armies of servants. Gun-runners, renegade traders and openly corrupt men all share fences with the likes of you and me in these suburbs.

Neighbours are desensitised beyond moral indignation here. Mugabe has built a strong people alright. His relentless attack on the immune system of his country has tempered curious anti-bodies. The people are hardy and immune to shock and awe. There is a reality here that makes you stand up a little straighter. Steve is a dancer on a tightrope, like the other survivors, turning neat tricks in the sticks — delicate, beautiful turns in a town where money has been known to grow on trees.

Into the farm land that rings Harare. The bakkie barely contains my guide’s energy. Our motor throws itself at roads dry-humped by ambition and greed. We are in a once-lush and legendary valley, and for the first time, doubt inkles. I feel a sense of isolation. We’re at the fork in the road between a good and bad trip. We are going, says Steve, toward places where blood has fallen over arable land. Then makeshift toll roads — just a man in the middle of the highway, waving us down. Laughable, until we see the machine gunners look on. Disturbing is their lack of purpose. Shoved by armed men at the tomb of Ho Chi Minh I never batted an eye — they knew why they were holding their guns. We pay the almighty dollar bill and push on, past once fat fields now bequeathed to men in Pajeros who come to braai and bang tipsy secretaries from behind, farmer-like, apparently. Their seed somehow failing to turn the soil moist.

My sense of isolation increases and I am grateful. Learning begins as I pass through membranes. The town’s cappuccinos and Apple Macs shrink wrap the well-spoken survivors of the regime. Dollars buy you reminders that you are not lost. Mandy’s wax strips, we must be civilised, $400 whiskey — we are the world.

Finally, the farm. And among majestic boulders — Bob. I expect nothing — I cannot piece together from the conversation in the car who will step out of the farmhouse to greet us. Hunter S Thompson had a farm … young, up-to-speed and shiny — Blake said that excess will get you to the palace — ladies and gentlemen, in a world so adept at pumping out losers — we have a winner … he explains his current project — to set out high explosives at various remote locations, and detonate them with a high-powered rifle from far away. Hunting butane for fun — the man in me roars. I’m ready to march for this guy. Who would have thought — a good Bob in Zimbabwe?

I meet mum, a gem — all the light and strength of a carbon lattice forced through unimaginable heat and pressure — we drink orange crush and move from hushed ice-breaking fluff to full-contact conversation in minutes. Lunch is magnificent, we laugh at the madness of Lindt chocolate sauce and televisions delivered between layers of dynamite — of not knowing who is knocking, and hiding behind your own doors. We talk plainly about death and dildos over curry — this is the heartiest meal I’ve had in ages … good people are rare and imperfect and to be found in interesting places, by Confucius’s reckoning.

Steve and Bob are brothers in spirit — two unlikely figures totally at home in the surreality of their situation — Romulus and Remus, suckled on the hind tit of a wolf. Unwittingly, the mangy scavenger has nourished the two castaways, given them the resolve to build a wall, and finally chase the wolves away … black Jesus will have to wait …