If winter was over, why was I still feeling cold? Was it climate change?
I found Fatso and Rasta taking videos of each other at Fatso’s car wash.
They hardly noticed me. I knew what it was about. They wanted to post the videos on TikTok.
Fatso was not only looking for views. He was marketing his car wash.
“Use my phone. It takes better videos,” Fatso said.
“You better take the videos,” Rasta replied, handing me the phone.
I moved into position. They stood beside a Toyota hybrid that had just been washed. Its body shone in the afternoon light. “Bring the hoover closer to you,” I said.
They dragged it nearer.
“Hold the hosepipe in your hands. People have to see the action.”
Rasta picked up the hosepipe. Some of the water splashed onto his brown jacket.
“Be careful,” I said, stepping back to frame them properly. The recording lasted five minutes, though it felt much longer. Fatso gave a short speech. I caught only a few of his words.
“Come for the best deals in town. The best car wash in the business.”
A few people had stopped to watch us. Rasta was grinning from ear to ear.
“If you make the video too long, people lose interest,” I said. “Let’s do a shorter one.”
Fatso did not want to hear it.
“You’re not in the video,” Rasta said.
I shook my head.
“I’m not interested.”
I knew the power of social media.
For me, however, it was better to stay out of the limelight. Once something was posted, it could follow you everywhere.
Rasta posted several videos on TikTok. In one of them, he appeared too drunk to stand properly. No one who saw it could forget him swaying beside the car wash, laughing at nothing.
I stayed there for about two hours. After that, I left Fatso and Rasta behind. I passed through Zororo Bar, hoping to find Baba VaTata, but he was not there.
When I got home, Mai VaMaidei had not yet returned from the market. All my children were back from school.
I made myself black tea without sugar.
It tasted horrible. The doctor had told me to go slowly with sugar. The sensible thing would have been to stop drinking tea altogether, but I would never do that. For a man like me, with blood flowing through his veins, tea had to contain sugar. That was how I had taken it all my life.
I swallowed the bitter drink and told myself it was still tea. Then I went to the small patch of garden behind the house and harvested some vegetables. I rinsed them, took one of the large black pots from the kitchen unit, filled it with water, and put it on the stove.
By the time the water boiled, I was sure, Mai VaMaidei would be back from the market and would take over the cooking.
I heard voices before I saw anyone.
Then someone knocked at the door.
I opened it without thinking, expecting to see Mai VaMaidei. Instead, Fatso and Rasta stood on the front porch with two policemen, a man, and a woman I had never seen before.
The woman’s face was pale. The man stood beside her with his hands clenched at his sides.
My chest tightened.
“What is it?” I asked.
Fatso looked at the ground. Rasta kept his eyes on the phone in his hand.
“He’s the one who was taking the videos,” Fatso said. The policemen looked at me. One of them took out his phone and held it towards me. “Have you seen this video before?” he asked.
I leaned closer to the screen. It was the video I had taken at the car wash. Fatso was standing beside the Toyota hybrid, smiling into the camera. Rasta held the hosepipe, water shining on his brown jacket. Behind them, people had gathered to watch.
“Yes,” I said. “I shot it.”
The second policeman, who had not spoken until then, pointed at the screen.
“What else do you see?”
I frowned. “Nothing.”
“Look carefully.”
I watched the video again. Fatso was talking about the best deals in town. Rasta was grinning. A man walked past. Someone laughed.
Then I saw the little girl.
She stood near the edge of the crowd in a pink dress.
“Do you see her?” the policeman asked.
I nodded.
“Where is she?” the woman asked.
Her voice broke on the last word. She stepped closer to me. “She has been missing since this morning,” she said. “They told us she was last seen at the car wash.”
I looked at the screen again. The girl was there, clear enough to recognise, but too far away for me to tell what she had been doing or who she had been with. Behind her, people shifted and disappeared in the moving picture. My mouth went dry.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t see her.”
“But you recorded her,” the woman said.It was not a question. It was an accusation, and I could not blame her for making it. Still, something inside me recoiled. I had been holding a phone, not watching the crowd. I had been thinking about Fatso’s advertisement, about how long the video was, about getting home.
The policeman put his phone away.
“We have to take you to the station for questioning.” I turned to Fatso. He did not look at me. Rasta’s fingers tightened around his phone, and for one brief moment he glanced at Fatso.\It was a small glance, but I saw it.
“What did you see?” I asked them. “You were both there.”
Neither of them answered.
The silence between us felt heavier than the voices outside. Somewhere in the kitchen, the water in the black pot had begun to boil. I could hear it rattling against the metal, waiting for someone to return and lower the heat. I stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind me. The evening air touched my face, but it did not cool me. My hands were trembling. I tried to remember the girl’s face without the phone screen between us. I tried to remember who had been standing beside her.
Nothing came. As we walked towards the police car, I thought of the question that had followed me all day:
If winter was over, why was I still feeling cold? Now I knew. The cold had not come from the weather. It had been waiting inside the video, inside the silence of my friends, and inside me.
*Onie Ndoro, For Feedback: X@Onie90396982/oniendoroh@gmail.com