Curfew Violation

I’ve had my first scrape with the Zambian police. It was on Friday night, and we had ended up at a braai somewhere not too far from where I am lodging—in a part of town called Northrise. Braai is the Afrikaans word for barbeque, for the record. And by we I mean myself, my Western friends Randolph and Minerva, and Bart the driller. The three of us Westerners had been out to Indian food at a place called Starscape, and I’d given Bart a call when we’d taken down the last scrap of naan and dollop of curry. Bart was apparently too drunk to drive, because he rolled up riding shotgun in the tow truck of a colored Zambian named Marcus. After I’d met my namesake and Bart had met my friends, we were off. Marcus drove, and Katie sat with him up front while Bart, Randolph and I arranged ourselves around the towing fork in the bed. When we’d got going, the ever-smoky Ndola air began to run pleasantly over my scalp. A peaceful feeling set in, and we began to joke around. Man, said Bart, I’m fucking drunk. Then he launched into a series of questions aimed at ascertaining the availability of our female companion. But that’s hardly the point:

After a time we pulled into the braai. There I met various members of the colored community. All of them were involved in some capacity in services to the mining industry, whether as drivers, cooks, miners, drillers, wholesalers, whatever. I aim to tell you more about the colored community over here in a separate post, because they’re very interesting—just note by way of disclaimer that ‘colored’ here refers to those of mixed race, but that the colored community, culture and argot extend to certain black, Indian and Arab Zambians—but for now let me get to the point.

At around midnight, Randolph and Minerva started getting edgy. They were working tomorrow, and needed to get to bed. We began saying our goodbyes, but were warned by Bart to stick around and wait for a ride. It’s late, he said. You’ll either get robbed or picked up by the police. But the imperative to get home was strong, so his caveat was pooh-poohed and we set off into the night. Personally I had no idea where we were going, and contented myself to follow Randolph. Real mist and the omnipresent smoke from charcoal fires combined to saturate the night the fuzzy and swirling smog. I was feeling somewhat expansive, and began to imagine that we were approaching the shore of some Styx. Cerberus could be heard as a thousand latter-day incarnations howling desolately in the thick gloom, while above us we could see the entire vast blanket of the southern firmament allowing us brief glimpses of this constellation and that as our closer, earthbound blanket of mist-alloyed smoke thickened and parted by turns. Up ahead was a bona fide pack of wraithlike dogs that flitted in and out of the driving smog. My courage was alloyed by beer, and I promised my companions in steps that my kicking foot was cocked and ready. When they seemed unconvinced I burdened my pockets with stones for good measure. We drew close to the intersection and the dogs stood at howling attention. Minerva made some sound of fright, and Randolph cautioned her just to look straight ahead.

Just as we entered the gantlet a Toyota Landcruiser pick-up pulled up and sent our canine foes scurrying into the ditch. With several armed men riding at attention in the truck bed, it was the type of vehicle referred to in Somalia as a “technical.” Spotting us, the vehicle stopped at a rakish angle in the middle of the intersection. The men came piling out, and we were soon surrounded by a sizable number of armed men. We are the police, they declared. Their leader, who had been riding shotgun, asked us what we were doing on the streets so late at night. In Zambia, he explained, it is illegal to be in public on foot after twenty-three hours. It was for our own safety—if we were on the streets there was no guarantee that we would not be robbed or come to grief. Still feeling jaunty, I asked if they might not give us a ride home in that case. But both the humorous and the sensical side of the request slid right off their ears. No, the captain said, we’d have to proceed to the police station and sort the issue out there. This was a matter for the constable. Randolph protested that we lived very near, and that as the administrators of a family counseling and AIDS clinic, he and Minerva would have to work the following day. But his protest availed little, and we soon found ourselves trooping the hundred yards or so over to the Northrise precinct.

And that is where things began to get interesting. We were dropped off by the patrolmen at a small cinderblock building with a desk and a holding cell that corresponded to what we would call “the tank” at home. The close confines were lit by a single grimy bulb that made the faces of the men inside glow a dim and greasy gold. I may be stretching a bit here, but now that I consider it, the light reminds me of that in Rembrandt’s autopsy of Nicholas Tulp (I don’t know if that’s the name of the painting, but I believe that was the name of the condemned man whose dissection was captured in that famous painting of the cadaver surrounded by a gang of self-satisfied physicians bathed in a glow of softest gold). In this narrow cinderblock building were perhaps ten or twelve people besides us. No one rose to attend to us when we filed in. There was other business at hand, and it appeared to revolve around a young fellow crouched down at the foot of the wall just outside the holding cell. The officers were questioning him, accusing him, and he was making loud protestations. Of course I had no idea what was being said since they were speaking in Bemba. The interrogation went on for about five minutes, and it appeared to be going in circles. The questions grew louder, but the “perp” kept warding off his interrogators with the same protest. Things changed quickly and conclusively when the constable nodded to some men outside, who then brought in another fellow—his accuser. Also a young man, he was disheveled, naked from the waist up, and highly agitated. On his bare torso were two large lacerations that I gathered had been inflicted on him by the accused with the help of a screwdriver. My insight into the attack weapon came not from native linguistic ability, but from the mouth of the victim, who kept using the word ‘screwdriver’ in the middle of a Bemba phrase that, upon questioning by the constable, he repeated with the greatest vehemence. If pressed, I would venture the following as a possible translation: This prick stabbed me with a fucking screwdriver!

Then something quite nasty happened. The victim strode over and delivered a vicious kick to the head of his attacker, who let the blow fall unguarded. There must have been some secret commerce or understanding between the victim and the officers, because none of them moved to stop him as he wound up again—and then again. I take it that that sort of impromptu physical retribution is standard practice in Zambia—and I would imagine throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa as well, where tales of vigilantism are rampant—but it was still a highly sobering sight.

Next some officers dragged the accused out of the miserable, bleeding pile he had collapsed into and tossed him into the holding cell with a kick to the rear and a thump to the head. As they finished taking the victim’s statement, I sent a quick volley of surreptitious texts to my Zambian friends lest (the fear was irrational, I recognize) we too should end up in the holding cell. All unnecessary of course: Once the constable had booked another offender and committed him to the tank with a good deal less violence, he gave us a cursory look, then tossed his head quickly to one side to indicate that we were to be dealt with in some other way. We were soon escorted out of the dusty cinderblock Rembrandt by some senior personage in uniform. I hung back and let Randolph do the talking. With two years of Zambia under his belt, he made a natural mzungu-Zambian police interface. Besides, I wasn’t carrying my passport. It took some explaining and apologizing, but lest you think Zambia is the type of place where all public officials are out to rip you off, allow me to dispel the notion. Once Randolph had clearly and respectfully told them that ‘we’ were in Zambia doing good work and that ‘we’ and worked the next day and really lived only a few blocks away, the man said that, although we had been taken in for our own protection, he was sorry for the inconvenience. He spoke to his men, and soon we were being taken to our respective places of sleep in the “technical” vehicle. We paid no fine.