conductor, the first violinist, and several other players in the orchestra. That unsurpassed note collapsed into a gurgle just below middle C, thence to a sigh of arterial bubbles, and the greatest tenor the world had ever known was no more. “The amazing thing,” Uncle Siggie continued, “was that his actual death took place exactly when his theatrical death was to take place. So, for quite a while, the audience were unaware that they had witnessed his real death; rather, they took it as a brilliantly executed stage death. Isn’t that sad?”
Yes, it is sad, particularly when I recall Siggie’s own death, one of the first of the Colleen Bawn crowd to be killed by guerillas, in the Chimurenga.
After chatting with us for a while, Sigford would stroll over to the gents’ change room, which was situated next to the ladies’ change room, underneath the club balcony, site of many a romantic moonlit moment for the tiny white and whitish community of Colleen Bawn. While changing into his swimming trunks, Sigford would take advantage of the superb acoustics in that chlorine and foreskin scented chamber to regale us, a troop of baboons on the number nine fairway, and the world at large, with a rendering of one of his favourite songs: ‘Torn Arse Surrender’. Uncle Siggie never knew more than one or two words of the ten or so songs and arias in his repertoire, but he filled in the gaps with bits of fanakalo, Afrikaans and gibberish, and pronounced them in an Italianate way, which we and, presumably, the baboons, not to mention the world at large, found reasonably convincing. The song referred to above came out something like this:
Video Marie’s kuntebelo!
mina funa sentimento,
kom too itchy peperoni,
enza lo roast o baaie sunny.
Guava guava shitso intu,
siente sis aikona hamba;
nu profuma, mandyricedavies,
ini wena funa lapa?
vut seh yay ifarto, addio....
No one really cared about the words when we listened to Sigford Bong’s magnificent organ woofing and tweeting through the concrete walls of that acoustical wonder, the gents’ change room. Years later, more out of curiosity than genuine interest, I purchased, at a flea market in Bulawayo, a long-playing record entitled ‘Caruso in Song’. I listened to the first side and wondered what all the fuss was about: he couldn’t hold a candle to old Siggie. Then I poured myself a Vicks Medi-nite and coke and turned the record over. I barely listened to the first song, which was entitled ‘Manella Mia’ and which Caruso recorded on January 21, 1914. But the second song took me back, instantly, to my childhood in Colleen Bawn, and I felt tears gather in my eyes. I saw again the mopane scrub after the first rains in late October; saw how the bark darkened and the new leaves opened like butterfly wings smelling faintly of turpentine. The incessant din of Christmas beetles came back to me, lazily interspersed by the distant factory hooter calling the men to work or to knock off. And the baking heat! It was one of Uncle Siggie’s songs. I was amazed to see that it was called ‘I m’arricordo e Napule’ because, out of Sigford Bong’s mouth it sounded more like ‘A merry turd o yeh nipple-ee’. It took me back to the Colleen Bawn club, our social centre where we fell in and out of love almost as frequently as we jumped in and out of the swimming pool. The penultimate song on side two confirmed at least one of Uncle Siggie’s boasts about Caruso: he could hit a D-flat straight from the chest. I poured myself another Vicks Medi-nite and toasted, in absentia, the Caruso of Colleen Bawn.
It was in 1974, I believe, when Sigford Bong joined the Police Reserve in order to help defend his beloved Rhodesia from the Communist menace. He was soon in demand, giving unaccompanied recitals in the many pubs and ‘watering holes’ that were patronised by the Police Reserve and other Territorials. Of necessity his repertoire grew and he condescended to sing Irish and Scottish songs, still making up most of the words, but holding true to the melodies.
Possibly because he had never received any training, Sigford could not sustain the quality and volume of his voice beyond four or five numbers. After that, especially when he was in his cups, he shouted rather than sang - not that his fellow pub crawlers, shouters themselves, noticed any difference.
When Sigford Bong hit a D-sharp for the first and only time in his life he wasn’t in the gents’ change room of the Colleen Bawn club, nor was he in the bar of Tod’s Hotel, his favourite wartime haunt: he was in the back of a grey Mazda bakkie riding shotgun, dressed in his navy blue Police Reserve uniform. There must have been at least a hundred cars in that convoy heading for South African coastal resorts (it was school holidays). We were in the very front of the convoy immediately behind the machine-gun mounted bakkie. We children kept distracting Mr Bong by pulling faces at him and making incomprehensible signs with our hands. He responded by taking his eyes off the menacing bush, his hands off the machine-gun, and his mind off his duty.
It happened so quickly. My father, who was driving our Peugeot 404, stuck his head out of the car window and shouted, “Give us a song, Caruso!” Mr Bong obliged. He crawled away from his position behind the machine-gun all the way to the back of the truck, the better to be heard by us. He managed to shout “Video Marie’s...” before the bullets of an AK-47 turned his body into a dancing puppet. Out of his expanding gape came a very high, very pure note, accompanied by a spray of frothy blood, which went all over our windscreen. My father turned on the wipers as if this act would somehow negate the fact that the Caruso of Colleen Bawn was no more.
Of all the girls I’ve seen, these, dying,
are loveliest. Lovelier by far
than leaves outside a bedroom window
turning, petals from a vase of bronze,
some drifting to this very page,
even now as I rend my garments
for these dying girls. Slender they are
but not like anorexics, nor stalks.
They walk on the cycle path along
Cecil Avenue or down Flint Road,
cutting corners, joining queues that stretch
like birth; queues for Paracetamol,
for pretty cloth, for paraffin; not
like models with detached pelvises,
nor storks with bloated midriffs, but like
spectres, half-revealed, presentiments
haunting the smug suburb of Hillside,
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, the World,
the fucking Universe. Loveliest
of girls are these, dying; loveliest
of leaves turning; petals on a page.
The Very High Ranking Soldier’s Wife
The Very High Ranking Soldier’s wife shops at The Neglected Lady, which specializes in garments for very large, extremely large, and enormous wives. She likes to dress in what has come to be known as the ‘late Rhodesian’ style. The fabric of choice for this style is crimplene, which, as its name suggests, is corrugated with small folds, like wrinkles. Crimplene is an extremely resistant fabric; it comes in four colours: bubble gum pink, peppermint green, mustard yellow, and heavenly blue.
When it comes to accessories, the Very High Ranking Soldier’s wife is fussy about hats and handbags, but not about shoes. Her role model, when it comes to hats, is the First Lady, who wears hats that can become converted to ocean-going yachts – should that need ever arise. Her taste in handbags is somewhat eccentric for one of the wealthiest women in Zimbabwe, but it is true to the ‘late Rhodesian’ style, which swears by plastic and press-studs, the shinier and clickier the better. As for footwear, her tonnage gives the Very High Ranking Soldier’s