the Goma Lakes. He ran after her. They raced across the stepping stones like kids and then clambered up a grass hill to sit. The eucalyptus trees drooped in the distance, ministering spirits. It was cool and clear – it was May, the rains were over and the moon was as big and fat and yellow as a sun.
‘So, you a fresher?’ he panted. The collegiate slang felt like mush on his tongue.
‘Ya, you?’
‘Ya,’ he sniffed. ‘But I’m gonna transfer soon. UCT.’
‘Shit, men. I wanted to go there too.’ She picked at an intentional rip in her jeans. ‘I didn’t get in either.’
‘No, I’ll definitely get in,’ he said and hated himself.
‘Why aren’t you already there then?’
‘The protests,’ he said. ‘It’s crazy right now. End-times shit.’
She laughed so hard that it rocked her onto her back. ‘Are you joking?’ she asked the sky. ‘That’s why I wanted to go! They’re frikkin trying to do something! Fight the power and that!’
‘How about fight the power cuts?’ He was surprised to hear himself echoing his grandfather. ‘Why make free education a priority when people still don’t have food or electricity or running water?’
‘They did it in Chile!’ she exclaimed, sitting up again and crossing her legs. ‘They made it completely free. Uni for everyone, paid for by those corporate oil companies and shit.’
‘Are you sure you want to use Chile as the example of democratic progress?’
‘Who said anything about democracy, men? Democracy’s bankrupt. People from the West shout “democracy” but they’re vampires, sucking our resources. Bloody capitalist stooges.’
‘Stooges?’ he chuckled. ‘You really are Zambian. So what, you give all your money away?’
‘I’m Marxist,’ she said with disgust. ‘I’m not stupid.’
There was an awkward silence. She plucked at the grass between her crossed legs. The music from the student bar thudded and crescendoed like doom approaching. He turned to her but before he could speak, she swung her face at him and kissed him. It was awful. Her tongue was thick and musty, like the slugs he dissected in lab. His penis responded eagerly anyway and he kissed her back. She broke away first and looked across the lake and asked him a question about his parents. He blinked, nonplussed. This girl had no brakes. No steering wheel, either. He furtively adjusted the fly of his khakis and replied politely. When he said his father’s name, she pummelled his arm with her fists.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ he said, flexing it instinctively.
‘I know your dad,’ she nodded, her high-crossed hair bun wobbling.
‘What?’
‘Yessss!’ she seethed. ‘Your dad’s my hero. He saved my life!’
Something dug into his stomach. ‘He was a doctor,’ he began but she had launched into a story about a compound and a tree and a boy who pushed her, or actually, kind of bounced her—
‘Wait. Naila?’
‘Ya! Lusaka’s a frikkin village, men,’ she laughed. ‘Wait.’ Her face zoomed into his again. ‘No. You’re joking.’
‘What?’
‘You’re the coward! You’re the one who ran away like a frikkin weasel!’
He frowned. ‘I – I ran for help. I’m the one who fetched my father. My father who saved you?’ He stood up and dusted his seat off. ‘Look, I have class in the morning. Good to meet you. Again or whatever.’
She stood up. Her eyes looked like black pebbles under water. Her lips had a duck-like pout and for a moment, he thought she might kiss him. Instead, she slapped him. Shocked, he put his hand to his cheek. She mouthed ‘ows’, wringing the impact off her hand, then turned and strode back towards the car park. ‘Don’t run off again!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Coward.’
He stumbled after her. By the time he reached the car park, she was in the driver’s seat of a blue Mazda, mugging for him through the windscreen. The passenger door was open. The smokers in front of the bar laughed as he got in. Benzes and Beamers still meant something in Lusaka, and the guys drove the cars, not the girls. But Joseph didn’t care, and neither did his penis.
* * *
He woke up in her narrow bed in one of the UNZA hostels outside Arcades – her roommate was out of town. Naila was awake, arms crossed over her bare breasts, glaring at him.
‘What the hell, men?’ She sucked her teeth. ‘Do you have no manners?’
‘What?’ he asked, blinking the blur from his eyes. ‘What time is it?’
She sucked her teeth and rolled over to check her phone. ‘It’s half five. Looky here, men. No handouts. This is a tit-for-tat