that word on everyone’s lips. Tiyende pamodzi ndim’tima umo, she sang under her breath as she mopped the floors. The bwana insisted that she wear a blue frock and a silly white hat but as Z Day approached, she started tying her patriotic chitenge wrapper around her waist too, the one with a pattern of Kenneth Kaunda’s face. That perfect brown oval with its widow’s peak, grinning cheeks, twinkling eyes and teeth, was everywhere these days: on posters and on flags and even – Grace rotated her hips in subtle circles – on her own two buttocks.
She hadn’t had the chance to vote for Kaunda. Only married women could vote, and the law had only just been changed to allow Africans to marry at all. But Grace had jealously examined her Aunt Beatrice’s red-stained thumb – those who could not write their names had voted by dipping their thumbs in ink and rubbing them on the roster. Grace had exhorted Ba Agnes to vote, too, believing Madam’s choice of a black husband would surely lead her to the correct decision. But Madam had begged off, saying she did not feel that she had the right. In the end, it did not matter. Kaunda’s United National Independence Party, UNIP for short, had swept the African vote.
On Z Day, Lusaka was overflowing with bodies and vehicles – coaches and trains had been secured to bring people in from the provinces – and Grace was among them. Fallen jacaranda blooms carpeted the roads in purple, flame trees lined them in red, and the whole city flickered with little green flags. It was a joyous fete of dust and ululation, Independence Stadium at its centre. The crowds swarmed towards it down Great North Road, passing word along as the ceremonial events unfolded. Someone listening to the radio would tell someone else who would shout it out to the others, who would recount it to those behind them. Waves of news – ‘The president has arrived!’ ‘The dancing has started!’ – cascaded this way across town, fading to simpler language and softer cheers as they went along.
By midnight, Grace found herself huddled with a group of students around a saucepan radio. They hushed as the announcer intoned: ‘We see the British flag coming down. We see the Zambian flag going up!’ A thunk, a whistle, a bang – an umbrella of fire opened in the sky. Everyone looked up, gasping as one. The bright spots of light dilated into teary hexagons in Grace’s eyes. Zambia was born.
Spent with emotion, she threaded her way through the partying crowd towards home. A parked bus ahead was visibly bouncing up and down. Grace shook her head and shifted her path to avoid it. She was not against happiness per se, but she disdained any excessive display of it. Then something pale caught her eye – a hand gripping the sill of an open window of the shaking bus. Grace stared at it, trying to work out why it looked so familiar. Then she saw the ring on the fourth finger. Copper with a green stone.
‘Madam?’ she murmured. ‘But it cannot be.’ She squeezed through the crowd towards the bus window and reached up to tap the pale hand. It vanished like a startled spider.
‘Madam! Ba Agnes!’ she shouted. Madam’s face came into view, framed by the jolting window. It looked like a puddle of Maheu malt drink, shivering and yellowish.
‘Grace?’ Madam squeaked.
The bus hiccupped to life, then growled.
‘Madam, but you do not belong here! Where is bwana?’
‘Oh, Grace.’ Madam reached her hand out of the window and Grace grabbed it. ‘I’m so glad you found me. I had absolutely no idea how on earth I was going to get home and—’
The bus belched and rolled forward. They both cried out and Grace started jogging alongside, their grasped hands tethering her to the bus. As it picked up speed, she banged at the side of it with her free hand, shouting for it to stop. She heard Madam shouting too. Their wrists were sliding painfully on the edge of the sill. The bus finally lurched to a stop, engine still running. Grace bent over, one hand on her knee, the other raised to clutch Madam’s hand.
‘You can let go now, Grace,’ Madam said breathlessly. ‘They’re letting me off.’
As they walked along under the orange street lights, catching their breath, Madam explained that she and bwana had received invitations to Z Day from Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, who was there in