FOLLOWING THE FATE DOWN THE DRAIN
By Tatu Maluba - 2026
At the clinic, there was a nurse called Mai Ruru. Everyone knew her. She could put a drip in a baby in the dark, and she could drink a quart of opaque beer before 9 a.m. and still put that drip. She smoked, she took the little white pills from the drawer when the pain of the shift was too much. She had three children - two boys, 8 and 6, and a girl, 4 - and a husband who had left for South Africa and never sent a cent.
She found Jairos on the bench outside, waiting for painkillers that were out of stock.
"So you are now useless, eh builder?" she said.
He laughed. It hurt his back.
She took him home. Not out of love at first. Out of that strange pity that broken people have for each other. Her house had a leaking roof. He looked at it and said, "I can't climb, but I can tell your boys how to fix it."
So he stayed.
He taught Tari and Tino how to mix mortar. He taught little Chipo how to draw a straight line. He cooked sadza sitting down. When Mai Ruru came home drunk, he put a blanket over her. When she was sober, she would clean his wound on his back where the metal was. They were not lovers. They were a house.
Then the band came.
A Congolese tour bus broke down near the growth point. Three nights at the local bar. The lead guitarist wore sunglasses at night. He saw Mai Ruru in her uniform, beautiful when she was sober, and told her she could be a singer in Lubumbashi.
She left on the third night. Left a note: Don't look for me. Take care of them.
The two boys stood at the door holding the girl's hands. Jairos had no spine, no children of his blood, no job. Now he had three.
He tried to go back to the sites. The foreman looked at his stick.
"Jai, my brother, you can't even carry a wheelbarrow. What do you want me to do?"
He went home and sat on a block in the yard. The boys were crying because Chipo said Mommy would never come back. He wanted to pray but he had no words for prayer. So he opened his mouth and sang instead.
It wasn't a nice church song. It was a song about a boy who wanted to build houses and ended up building nothing. About a spine. About a woman who left. His voice was deep and broken and sonorous - the kind of voice that sounds like it has lived in a chest that has fallen.
From the road, people stopped. A woman carrying tomatoes stopped. A kombi driver stopped.
And from behind the tuckshop, three other men came closer. They were the ones who had been left behind when the tour bus left - the drummer, the bassist, and the keyboard man. Disoriented, broke, visa expired.
We're still going.....
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