But they don't have any money or anywhere else to go. They are victims as much as anyone else."
A very bold little girl, about six years old, leaps up into Jacob's lap. For a second he freezes, he doesn't know what to do, and Veronica suppresses a chuckle. The girl puts her arms around Jacob and her face against his chest. After a moment he drapes an awkward arm around her shoulders. The girl says something Veronica doesn't understand, and much of the room laughs, including Lovemore.
"She said you smell funny and you should take a bath," Lovemore says, smiling.
Jacob chuckles. "Not a bad idea."
"I don't think we should use their water," Veronica objects. "They don't have much. They've already done a lot for us. And we don't have time."
Jacob nods. "Ask him when we can take the oxcart."
Lovemore and the old man bargain in a good-natured way, as the rest of the room chuckles and catcalls along, until Lovemore puts his hands up in mock-surrender and speaks a word of agreement. Veronica has noticed Lovemore seems much more at ease speaking Shona than he does when he speaks English: it's almost like he has two different personalities, one relaxed and amused, the other serious and intense. The old man, who looks pleased, speaks to a man in his thirties, who gets up and leaves. Lovemore turns to Jacob and Veronica and says, "We will pay them thirty dollars. His son is going now to ready the cart."
A woman enters with a chipped bowl full of some small yellow fruit. Its taste is tart and sweet and it serves as a perfect dessert. Lovemore's eyes light up and he grabs an entire handful. The girl on Jacob's lap is obviously also an aficionado; Jacob and Veronica slip her a few extra and are rewarded by a gap-toothed smile.
"How many of them are sick?" Veronica asks, wondering if this girl contracted HIV from her mother at birth. Or even by other means. She has heard that a widespread African belief that sex with a virgin cures AIDS has led to a horrific rise in child rape.
Lovemore shakes his head. "I can't ask. No one speaks of it. Even in the cities we don't speak of it, we don't get tested, we don't want to know. But in the cities at least we have food. Here it is worst of all. The sick cannot work the fields, so then there is hunger, and hunger makes the sickness even worse."
Veronica winces. A vicious-circle death spiral.
Jacob asks Lovemore, "Have you been tested?"
He frowns and admits, "No."
The patriarch's son returns to the dining room. Their ride is ready.
The whole community follows them out to the gravel road. The cart creaks, and rusty nails protrude from its wood, but it looks solid enough. The bull attached to it is another matter; old, so gaunt that its ribs are visible, walking with slow, fragile steps. Incentive will clearly not be a problem – the driver holds one end of a cord lashed into a miniature noose around the bull's testicles – but Veronica wonders how much longer the beast can work before it simply falls over dead.
Lovemore produces thirty US dollars from an inner pocket. The old man examines the bills closely, smelling them and rubbing them between his fingers, before declaring them acceptable. Veronica, Jacob and Lovemore take their positions behind the driver, the same man who readied the cart. There is a moment of heartbreaking comedy when the girl who sat on Jacob's lap climbs up with them. She is pulled away dejected by a teenager who explains something apologetically to Lovemore before taking the little girl away.
"Her father died last year," Lovemore translates.
Veronica nods wordlessly. Jacob looks stricken. The driver flicks the reins, the gaunt bull begins to walk, and the car starts to creak and jostle forward. Veronica turns around and looks at the little girl with the gap-toothed smile. She isn't smiling now. Her eyes are big and full of tears. She watches Jacob depart like he was her last hope in all the world. Veronica tries to stop herself from wondering what will happen to the little girl. Nothing good will come of that.
* * *
The old bull trudges across Zimbabwe's sunburnt fields, past ruined fences and clusters of koppies. The dirt track is a thin line stitched into a canvas of golden hills. Occasionally they rattle across dry watercourses on bridges made of planks. Dark morning clouds cluster in the