the loiterers, the shitters, the unemployed – the idlers who jam the circulation of money and goods and information. A slow-moving riot. And we start with the signs on the road.’
‘But so what does this SOTP stand for?’ asked Jacob.
‘The Sum Of The Parts,’ said Joseph.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking it should be the State Of The Planet.’
The guys objected in unison, Joseph raising his hands to the heavens, Jacob clapping dismissively. They went in spirals for hours, riffing on the abbreviation as if playing a game, which, in a way, it still was. The conversation devolved into pettiness and jokes, trolling and trifling: a transcript of Internetspeak. This was how everyone talked these days – too many people with too many ideas and too many things to protest. But Naila convinced them that this was the beauty of using an abbreviation – they could always decide what SOTP stood for later. The first step was to generate buzz.
* * *
When Naila got to the house in Kamwala, she anticipated that her senses would be on high alert for Mother: her authoritative step, the smell of her perfume, her imperious voice: And what are you made of? But instead Naila found herself unconsciously reaching for her father instead – those tendrils seeking Where is Daddiji? Where? as she found her way to the bedroom. She knocked on the door.
‘Nonna?’
Nonna Sibilla’s bedroom was as clean and bare as ever – a bed against one wall, a small table under the window. She was under the covers, sitting up, idly plaiting the white hair spilling over her lap. It was Sunday. The workers were out, the girls brunching at Mint Cafe, Mother delivering wig. Upon seeing Naila, Nonna gave a low grunt of pleasure and patted the bed. Naila sat.
‘Nonna, I wanted to ask you about Grandpa. Nonno Giuseppe. His job at the dam.’
Nonna nodded, a smile gleaming under her white veil of hair. She listened as Naila explained what she needed, then directed her to some boxes under the bed, to one box in particular. Inside were green folders full of documents. Naila rifled through them. The pages were old and brittle, with jagged rips on the edges and ghostly ink between the lines. But they were legible. Naila paused over a diagram – arcs swooping across the page, tiny letters underneath: KARIBA DAM IMPRESIT 1957.
‘It’s—’ She looked up. ‘It’s all here?’
Nonna smiled her veiled, gappy smile.
‘Why did he take them from the office?’ Naila had never met her grandfather but he seemed like a company man. It would have been strange to bring documents like these home.
‘Federico,’ Nonna Sibilla sang softly at her lap. ‘Federico.’
Who was Federico? Naila’s grandfather’s name was Giuseppe Corsale – the name printed at the top of each page she held in her hand. Nonna sighed. Naila leaned down to kiss her forehead through the shroud of hair. Well, maybe it didn’t matter how they had arrived or by whose hand. They were here – the blueprints, an X-ray of infrastructure – and now she had them.
* * *
Matha Mwamba’s court case dragged on – no one had been harmed but a vaccine clinic had burned down. Government did not take kindly to acts of terrorism, especially when the accused expressed no remorse. The story stayed in the news like a TV serial: Kalingalinga Bombers. Banakulus of The Revolution. International organisations took an interest and made Matha a human rights martyr. A media outlet called Chronics got an interview with her on the inside – ‘Local Churchwoman Reignites Cha-Cha-Cha’ – and when she mentioned an organisation called the SOTP, the word raced across the country like flame along a gas-soaked string.
Their little revolutionary squad had already revised dozens of STOP signs around Lusaka. As Naila had predicted, this had led to more traffic jams than car accidents. And slo-go had infected the city for so long that government couldn’t attribute it to the altered signs. The effort to catch the perpetrators – the ‘purple traitors’, as one MP called them – dwindled and everyone just blamed the typo on illiterate municipal workers.
In the meantime, Tabitha had figured out how to hack Digit-All Beads.
‘I should have used tabs,’ she tutted. ‘It’s way more accurate than spaces.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Naila whispered. She was standing in a storeroom at the Reg Office, talking to Tabitha on her Bead. Her friend’s face rippled on her palm.
‘Don’t worry about it, darling. Tech speak.’