emails, texts, social media, jobs, money – Beads could send and receive kwacha like Zoona, and some South African chains let you use them as credit cards. People even used Beads to vote. Why not public health too? Mai’s Bead flashed three times.
Naila unclipped her finger. ‘All set. Shall I escort you out?’
As they walked through the shadowed corridors toward the glare of day, Mai chatted about her fishery in Siavonga, how the workers spent hours playing on their Beads. The Change had brought new cycles of drought and flooding and either there was barely anything to fish or one species was overwhelming the others. When they were outside the Reg Office, Mai leaned in close.
‘I hope you are not lying about those clinics,’ she whispered, wagging her middle finger. ‘If this thing tans me blek? You will be seeing me.’ She turned and duckfooted away.
Naila sighed and scanned the yard with its riverine queues. There he was. Jacob was leaning against a tree next to a man with long grey dreadlocks – it was his grandfather. She had only met Ba Godfrey once, when she’d picked Joseph up from the woodyard in Kalingalinga. The old man looked accidentally fly in his orange corduroy flares and suit jacket.
‘Children, children!’ she mock-scolded as she walked up to them.
‘Nayeela!’ Ba Godfrey looked surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’
Jacob nudged Ba Godfrey. ‘This one is a big bwana here. She is the one giving us Beads.’
‘It’s just a pilot programme.’ She ran her hand up into her hair, stroking the shaved fuzz on the side. ‘What are you guys doing here?’
‘Ya,’ Jacob said, scratching his cheek. ‘My gogo has been arrested.’
‘Yikes, men. For what?’
‘Revolution!’ Ba Godfrey grinned.
‘They say she set off a bomb,’ said Jacob. ‘We came to get money for the bail.’
Naila frowned. ‘I thought you had money from selling off Moskeetoze T-M.’
‘Chapwa,’ Jacob dusted off his hands. ‘I bought that New Kasama house for a woman. Ah, but she left me anyway for the boss.’ Ba Godfrey put a commiserative arm around him.
Naila felt a swell of jealousy. ‘Look, I wish I could help out with the bail but—’
The men looked at each other and laughed.
‘No, bwana,’ Ba Godfrey clasped his hands and wobbled his head apologetically – it was almost a mwenye joke – ‘we came to get the money from his Aunty Nkuka.’
‘Miss Cookie?’ said Naila, putting a palm to her blushing cheek. ‘That’s my boss.’
‘Ya?’ Jacob shrugged. ‘Anyway she has refused. Ati “Matha Mwamba is a spiteful witch with a demon for a daughter chani-chani”.’
‘That Cookie, she is a conservative!’ said Ba Godfrey. ‘But Matha? That one has a true revolutionary spirit! She was part of the Cha-Cha-Cha movement. Revolutionised by Ba Nkoloso, freedom fighter!’
‘Nkoloso?’ asked Naila. ‘Wasn’t that the guy who was going to the moon? I saw a clip online – that was reckless, men! Was your grandmother an “Afronaut” too?’
‘Ya,’ Jacob nodded proudly. ‘Even this one,’ he clapped Ba Godfrey on the shoulder.
‘Matha was hiding all these years,’ Ba Godfrey said. ‘Hiding her revolutionary light under the bushes. But now she has come up! She has woken up! Let me go again and try to persuade the sister to set her free, enh?’
He shook Naila’s hand and strode towards the building. Jacob and Naila looked at each other – this was the first time they had ever been alone together.
‘Soooo,’ they both said at the same time and laughed.
Naila leaned towards him until her shoulder gently bumped his arm. ‘You busy?’
* * *
The New Kasama house was like a castle at night. Its columns and breezeblock heaps became towers and turrets, the sludgy pool became a moat, the frowsy garden with its racket of drones became a forest growing wild as beauty slept and siblings wandered. In the witching hour, the moonlight danced. The music danced. Naila danced. Jacob and Joseph watched her. They had been drinking for hours, listening to the radio, talking about Matha’s arrest. She had refused the money that Jacob and Ba Godfrey had scrounged up to bail her out of Mukobeko Maximum.
‘She will not leave without the other women,’ Jacob said. ‘She calls them The Reapers.’
‘I thought it was The Weepers?’ said Joseph. ‘But why the hell are these women setting off bombs?’
‘Nobody got hurt,’ Naila pointed out. ‘It was at night. And it was just one clinic.’
‘Ya, the One Hundred Years Clinic,’ Joseph said. ‘Why did she bomb my old clinic, man?’
‘Kaya, siniziwa,’ Jacob shrugged. ‘I cannot know her