By Brilliant Mukaro.
Have you ever known a person who just has to lie, day one to 31, no apparent reason, lying as if it’s a mandate? There’s a good number of such people I know of and am ready to list, but this article will revolve around Majebhu, a distant cousin of mine who if you ask me, is a born liar, unredeemable even by Jesus himself. I don’t get to meet Majebhu very often, and what’s totally baffling is the mystery of how people living day by day with him accommodate his lying trait. Maybe they don’t know he’s a liar. His fables have such a comfortable, reliable consistency you can go for years without catching a glitch in his fabrications. For me, it took some sort of coincidence, an unforeseen mishap, for the illusion he’d cast over me to burst like a soap bubble. In fact, to say he’s a liar is an understatement: he’s a walking lie.
You’re on a visit to Bikita, the rural homeland, and you’re seated side by side with Majebhu on bar stools, whiling away the afternoon in Zebra bar, that big bar with entrance steps which give you the feeling of boarding an airplane when you climb them.
Majebhu lifts his bottle of Castle lite and gives it a gentlemanly sip. He doesn’t drink cheap, brown bottle beers, let alone the hot stuffs costing 50 cents. Mind you, he doesn’t stay in Bikita permanently, he’s home just for a few days, attending a family function. At least, this is what he says, complementing the impression through the smartly pressed blue jeans, tucked in navy blue shirt and polished safety shoes. When he moves, his stylish step convinces the gullible that he’s indeed your town guy.
His phone rings, and he turns to you.
“It’s the garden boy,” he confides, his voice a near whisper, “Haa, what does Manyama want now?” He complains as he picks the call, dashing away quite a good distance.
He returns a moment later, takes a last gulp and calls the bar lady to order the next round of beers, including yours.
“Whenever you chance to be in Harare, don’t hesitate to give me a shout,” he says. “You see airport road, just after the turn off to Sunningdale shops, just count one-two, the third house, that one with red roof tiles-“
Another sip of Castle lite, and he continues, “Hustling in Harare is no joke, bro. For me to build that house I had to run around. They know me in most corners in town-“
Impressed, you have to agree about the town hustle. “Yah, in Harare they don’t play,” you reflect. “Let me in also, I need to gear up on hustling. What are you dealing in?”
“Toita yese mdhara” (Just about anything).He spreads his arms wide in an all-inclusive gesture. “
Right now there’s a car deal- I’m trying to convince this other guy to buy the Toyota sprinter. If he just blinks, I’ll make off with $1800 profit. Today. Let me call him, he wasn’t reachable in the morning.”
He strides out of the bar, beer in hand, and you see him outside through the large windows, apparently in earnest phone conversation. Before your eye-opening event, you’ll never have an inkling that you might be looking at someone whose phone isn’t on any call, perhaps even power off outright. So when he returns and immediately puts his phone to charge on the adapter right beside you -placed on the counter for the convenience of customers- you don’t think it’s necessary to check if the phone isn’t starting from zero percent.
In all this saying, you’ll have to admit a certain quality of Majebhu’s which deserves respect and emulation: he’s a damn good beer companion. You’ll leave Zebra and stroll along with him, wandering off to other bars, getting a feel of the different vibes as you love to do when on your infrequent visits to the homeland. He’s unlike most other lurk bouts, who pester you to buy them beer, citing kinship ties you’ve forgotten about. You stop being calculative about expenditures. It’s a rollercoaster of joy unfettered by all such concerns; the hours glide smoothly till unknown hours in the night.
Sometime later, he says, ” Let’s go back to Zebra, that phone has a lot of hot deals.”
He’ll type messages for a long time, then suddenly spring up and shout,” wooow, I’ve won. The deal has passed. I’ve just sold a car! Bar lady, give us more beers! Let’s drink my friend”
And so the felicity continues. It’s necessary, I think, to ask this primal question concerning all such chronic liars: why is lying so deeply ingrained in their pysche? If there was some material or financial prejudice, you would say Majebhu is a conman. Maybe that’s what he does to other people, you never know. Because, otherwise, how could someone perfect the art of lying so seamlessly? It’s possible he dupes some gullible people out of real cash, but it’s clear the greater proportion of his lying is done for the mere sake of it, perhaps enjoying an unspoken thrill of some queer sort.
Anyway, there’s always that one day when things have to go south. One cloudy day Majebhu made the mistake of calling me on the phone while I happened to be talking with his father, who had approached me as I was passing through the shopping center on my way to work. The elderly gentleman was inquiring about the tuition fees on behalf of his daughter, who wanted to supplement O level English and Maths, after failing to get the grades in the previous exam. She wanted to enroll with Alakat, the private college where I teach English. In the middle of the conversation, my phone rang, and as I usually do, I picked it on loudspeaker.
“Blaz blaz,” Majebhu’s happy, high-pitched voice boomed out from the other end. “How are you over there? Is it raining in Bikita?”
“The usual drizzle” I answered. “Where are you?”
“Masvingo. It’s cold here. Otherwise everything good. I’m with madam, she called me to sort out the papers for a house we recently bought in Target Kopje. No big deal, I’ll be done very soon. Maybe later in the afternoon I might come to Bikita.”
Target Kopje! I was genuinely amazed. That’s the leafy suburb with big houses, most of them double storey mansions.
“Hoo, ok fine-” I had to say.
I’m short of words to describe the expression I saw on his father’s face. He was listening to the conversation with what seemed at first to be anger, then softened to a curious, puzzled frown, tinged with a strange amusement.
“I’m sure that’s Majebhu’s voice, isn’t it?” Majebhu’s father was sure.
“Yah, that’s him.” I replied, still failing to understand the queried face. “I play with him often”
“Oh, well, I don’t know what games you guys are up to, but that friend of yours -” he shook his head. “A wife- a house in Masvingo? Hee? It’s been three years since his marriage fell apart. I was with him at home just now now, less than 20 minutes ago. He’s likely in the paddock right now, at his usual spot.”
“Paddock?”
“Of course,” he chuckled, lighting a cigarette. “I give him money for beer, from my pension and also, his successful brothers in Harare and Masvingo sent money frequently. All he has to do is to make sure the cattle graze.”
