Valerie Pixley - Monkeys in My Garden: Unbelievable But True Stories of My Life in Mozambique

MONKEYS IN MY
GARDEN

Unbelievable but true stories of my life in Mozambique

Valerie Pixley

Copyright 2013 Valerie Pixley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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PROLOGUE

THE NIGHT THE BANDITS CAME

Saturday, 4thDecember, 2010

We were happy that day, I remember. It was a day of sunshine, of laughter, and perfect for filming. The sky was a pure, pure blue and light danced and sparkled all over the leaves of the Nhamacoa forest around us.

I remember the simple pleasure on Douglas face when he spotted the female bushbuck in the trees right in front of our house and came to call us. Quick, quick, get the camera before she goes back into the forest! I remember our laughter while we were filming the little Mupupu tree and the hundreds of insects feeding on its beautiful mauve-pink flowers rained their water down all over us. Dont let them pee on ODs camera, Lee, I had told him. Its the only one weve got!

How innocent and carefree life had seemed and how naive we had been. Completely unaware of the danger that was on its way to our secluded little forest completely unaware that in a few short hours our lives were going to be turned upside down.

Actually, Lee had sensed the danger but had been side-tracked by something very strange and almost supernatural that had happened to him.

One evening, earlier in the week, he had been overcome with a premonition that something terrible was about to happen. The premonition had been so dark, so powerful that he had even phoned his mother in Zimbabwe to tell her about it.

Then, a few evenings later, when he had been opening the gate to his rented cottage in Chimoio, he had felt something moving under his right foot, something wriggling and struggling under his shoe. He had looked down and had got the shock of his life. He had been standing on the head of a black mamba!

Leaping high up in the air with terror, he had made a wild dash for his cottage and had locked himself in. Peering through the window he had seen the snake coming after him, as if hunting him down, but then his landlords cat had appeared on the scene and launching a series of attacks, had sent the snake slithering off.

I dont think that snake could have been a black mamba, Lee, OD had told him.

It was a black mamba, Lee had insisted stubbornly. I know what a black mamba looks like. I saw one in the Harare Snake Park.

Overwhelmed by his narrow escape from death and convinced that the snake, a symbol of the devil, had been sent to take him out, Lee had relaxed, thinking that the danger was all over. But he had been wrong.

His premonition hadnt been about the snake. It had been about a dark blue Toyota Mark II that was about to set off from Chimoio that very afternoon for the drive down to our forest and whose occupants were to prove just as deadly as a poisonous snake.

It was late afternoon when Lee and I finished editing the last of ODs films about the little genet he had raised. We were working at the table in the sitting room and the chairs were hard.

We need a break, I said, standing up and stretching my stiff back. What about a Coke, Lee?

Thanks, Val, he said. His eyes were bloodshot from the long hours we had spent working at his computer. But I think Ill go for a walk first.

We didnt know that the dark blue Toyota had been cruising around the area asking questions about us and that while Lee was walking around under the trees, it was pulling up next to the ramshackle little bancas at the entrance to our forest.

A big man climbed out of the Toyota. Im a friend of the foreigner who lives here, he told the staring locals. How do I get to his house?

After he and his companions had walked off along the path to our shop, the locals examined the shiny Toyota with wonder. Cars like this never drove around rural areas.

Its a Mercedes, they decided. Its foreign. Look at the number plate. Its not Mozambican. AAM 201 MC. It must be from Alemanha, Germany.

In the shop, Douglas was busy setting up the television, DVD player and speakers. Saturday nights were the nights we showed free films to the local people and tonight he had chosen Special Forces U.S.A. It was an exciting film, full of action. Just the kind of film the locals enjoyed.

He didnt know that the big man who walked up the steps into the shop had been asking questions about him and had come to look him over.

Four GTs, the big man ordered, handing over a 200 meticais note, and a Fanta.

Everyone stared while the big man lit a cigarette and then drank some Fanta. No one in the rural areas bought four cigarettes and a drink with a 200 meticais note!

The staring made the big man uneasy. Halfway through the Fanta, he put the bottle down on the counter and abruptly left the shop. Douglas and the locals stared after his retreating back. No one bought a drink and then left half of it to go to waste!

When dusk fell, I plugged in a lamp and put it close to Lees computer so that he could see his keyboard. Douglas had turned on the generator to show the film so we had electricity.

Look at this, Val, Lee said, look at what Ive done to Amelia in Images of How We Live.

He had speeded up the film of Amelia ironing with the charcoal iron and now she ironed away furiously, flipping ODs socks down one by one onto the ironing table in what looked like a very petulant manner. At the end, there was a shot of me holding up the ironing blanket which was full of iron-shaped burn holes.

I burst out laughing. Oh, I like that. Lets see it again, Lee.

Suddenly, the cats began to growl. They had been lying all over the chairs, the sofa and the carpet but now they ran out of the room in a small bunched herd, growling and milling around uneasily in the corridor.

Thats strange, I said. I stood up and walked to the door. There was nothing to see and nothing to hear. It must have been the male buck, I told Lee. They always growl when they hear it bark. For some reason they dont like the sound.

We didnt know that while we had been bending over the computer laughing at Amelia, men had crept silently up the back stairs and had been watching us through the window. Watching and making a note of Lees computer, ODs camera, the solar inverter and the batteries.

We went to bed around about half past ten. As I drifted off to sleep, Douglas turned off the generator and I heard the large crowd of filmgoers making their way down the path through the forest to their huts. They were talking and laughing at the top of their voices loud always so loud. My eyelids closed and I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep until about three oclock in the morning

BANG!

OD and I started awake.

What the he said.

The loud bang was followed by smashing, crashing, cracking sounds as our back door shattered.

OD jumped out of bed, and grabbing his torch, ran to the door. He opened it and stepped into the corridor. The light of his torch picked out a horrifying sight and his heart quailed.