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The Inheritance

by C.T. Muchemwa

 

Taona did not shed a single tear when his baba died. Not when he heard the news. Not when he greeted his father’s wife and she wailed at the sight of his face. Not even when they lowered his father’s shiny black casket into the grave and his sea of half-sisters wept.

Those who watched him at the funeral would say that Taona stood like a man. But he really stood as an only son whose father had never recognised him because his mother refused to be a mistress. She was holding out to be a second wife. A lot of good that had done her. She lived in poverty while her competition enjoyed the benefits of being the girlfriends of one of the richest men in Harare. So, no, Taona had not cried.

But now, standing outside Baba’s lawyers’ offices, a solitary tear formed in Taona’s right eye, and gently rolled down his cheek, a perfect drop burgeoning with feelings of absolute joy. For he was now holding the keys to a second-hand Honda Fit. It wasn’t new, but it was his. His inheritance. The bespectacled old man standing next to him told Taona the message his baba had left for him.

“Your father said this car will make a man of you,” the lawyer said. “It’s the kind of gift that forces you to decide who you want to be. Choose wisely.”

Choose wisely? What was there to choose? Taona jumped in the car and soon he was driving through Harare, hoping he would run into someone he knew, someone to witness this, the only gift his deadbeat father had ever given him.

Suddenly a voice spoke in the back of the car. A deep guttural voice whose steadiness chilled him.

“Taona Mudede, my boy,” it said. “I’m so glad we finally get to meet.”

Taona looked up quickly into his rear-view mirror and saw, perched on a headrest and gently flapping its wings, a chicken.

In his confusion, Taona tried to do three things. Simultaneously. He stepped on the accelerator as if to speed away from the talking chicken. He tried to unbuckle his seatbelt and jump out the window. And he tried to turn around to get a good look at the talking chicken. But all he managed to do was drive off the road and hit a small boulder. People walking by rushed to help him out of the car. Even though he was shaken, Taona was not hurt. As he sat there in the dust, watching as strangers inspected the slight damage to his left front light, Taona thought about what the lawyer had said. Choose wisely.

He stood up and dusted off his jeans. And then he walked away.

Taona talked to himself as he walked home. What had Baba got him into? He had only glanced at the creature, but he knew what he had seen. It was a chikwambo, a money goblin. Chikwambos came in many forms. Taona knew about the money snakes, about the sticks covered in feathers, and about little men who ate children. And who would ever forget the story of the woman whose lizards started talking in her handbag while she was on a bus? Now he had one, too.

For years, Taona had marvelled at his father’s wealth. The man had multiple properties dotted across the city, and everyone in Harare knew his Viola Lamborghini. No one really knew where the money came from. He was just another Harare man with unexplained wealth. Taona thought of all the years he had spent admiring Baba from afar, wishing he had just one iota of his business acumen. And all this time, it had been a chikwambo? What price had Baba paid for that wealth?

 

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When Taona finally reached home, his landlady, Mai Simba, sat outside the front door, looking at her phone, probably reading messages in one of the several religious WhatsApp groups for which she was admin.

“Good evening, Mai Simba,” Taona said.

“Sit down, my son.”

Taona’s stomach turned. His landlady only ever called him son when she wanted to have a difficult conversation. He sat down. Mai Simba tilted her head, peering at Taona over her glasses.

“I know it’s been a tough week, Taona.” she said. “But I need my money. The Lord says, ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.’”

“You are right. I should make sacrifices to get your rent. I promise I will get it to you tomorrow.” But they both knew that tomorrow he would come home once again with no rent.

When Taona had walked away from the car, he had hoped that no one could ever track it back to him. But three days later, he received a call from a garage in a neighbouring suburb.

“Sir,” the anxious voice said, “we have your car. You need to come pick it up and . . . your things.” Taona cut the call.

On Tuesday, the mechanic sent a voice note. “Sir, you know what you left in the car. We can’t do anything with your car. Please come fetch your car.” Taona shrugged as he deleted the message.

Wednesday: “Sir, your car is crowing. And when anyone tries to open the car, a voice inside says that only Taona is allowed to touch it. Please, I’m begging you. Come get your things.”

Thursday: “Iwe Taona, you’re taking things too far. I know your name. I am going to call Kwayedza so that everyone can read in the newspaper about the things you get up to. Come fetch your things!”

That message Taona could not ignore. He had to face up to his inheritance.

 

---

 

The mechanic got rid of him and his “things” as quickly as possible. Now, Taona drove in the car with his father’s chikwambo, steadfastly faced forward. He did not turn his head, not even when he heard shuffling in the back seat. And the chikwambo did not speak. It was as if they had wordlessly agreed that they would remain silent until they could do it face-to-face.

Taona drove to Lake Chivero. The car park was deserted. No one would see him here. He switched off the car and took the keys out of the ignition.

“Okay,” he said out loud. “I’m ready.”

It was only then that he noticed the creature was sitting in the passenger’s seat. Taona got his first good look of his father’s chikwambo. A golden-brown hen with black feathers on its front and an oversized prominent black comb on its head, grinned at Taona, sharp, white teeth gleaming. They were human teeth.

“So, Taona,” the chikwambo said, tilting its head to the right. “You are finally brave enough to meet me.”

“I don’t want you,” Taona said.

“Now, now Taona.” It jerked its head to the left. “That’s not a polite way to begin. Aren’t you going to ask me how I survived in the days you abandoned me?”

“I really don’t want you,” Taona repeated. The chikwambo jabbed its head forward, and Taona recoiled until his back pressed against the door.

“Your father always said you ran away from responsibility,” the chikwambo said.

“That man didn’t know a damn thing about me!”

“He at least knew that if you were going to amount to anything, you would need me.”

“You’re wrong,” Taona said. “I don’t need you.”

“You don’t actually have a choice. We are bound together now. Anyway, you should be grateful. You are one of the lucky ones. You didn’t have to give up anything to get me.” When Taona did not respond, the chikwambo said, “Let’s go home, Taona.”

Taona capitulated. He couldn’t think of anything else to do at this moment. His head hurt and he was hungry. He needed some sadza, then he could think clearly and come up with a real plan to get rid of this thing.

 

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The drive home was silent. When Taona got back, he parked the car in the front yard. Mai Simba didn’t have a garage. And then he sat, deep in his thoughts.

“Are you ever going to get out?” said the chikwambo, startling Taona.

He turned to see the creature staring at him expectantly.

“Just a minute.”

“I can’t get out of the car, you know. I’m tied to it. But you look like hell. Go to bed.”

Taona frowned. This couldn’t be right. The chikwambo almost sounded maternal with that last bit. No. Taona wanted no part of this.

“Look, I don’t need a chikwambo,” Taona said. “This is too much for me.”

“You don’t need more money?”

“Not this way. Look. What should I call you?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Well, what did my Baba call you?”

“He called me Chiki.”

“Chiki, it is then. Look, um, Chiki, I don’t want a chikwambo. I’d rather die in poverty than play around with chivanhu magic. You say you’re mine, but I didn’t ask for you. There must be a way I can get rid of you, right, somewhere I can return you?” He felt silly saying it, as if you could walk into a store with your chikwambo and a valid receipt asking for a refund.

“You can’t get rid of a chikwambo, boy. This is for life.”

“Taona, is that you in that car?” Mai Simba suddenly asked. Her voice almost made him jump out of his skin. He threw his jacket over the chikwambo’s head as she approached the car.

“Good evening, Ma,” he said.

“Where did you get that car?”

“It’s my inheritance.”

“Really? That’s okay then. Maybe you can sell it, and then you can pay your rent. I know your father died, but it’s been a week now. The Lord says, ‘The wicked borrow and do not repay.’”

“Tomorrow, Ma. I’ll have your money tomorrow.”

He held the jacket down until he heard Mai Simba shuffling back to the house. Then he lifted it. The chikwambo grinned at him sinisterly.

It said, “You know I could help you with that? Finding money for your rent would be no problem at all.”

 

---

 

At three in the morning, Taona woke suddenly to a blaring car alarm and the persistent crowing of a rooster. His room lit up with the blinking lights. He ran out of the house, desperately pressing the car remote in his hand, but it had no effect. He opened the door and the car fell silent immediately. Chiki glared at him, then gestured for him to get in. Reluctantly, Taona got into the driver’s seat. But before he could shut the door, Mai Simba appeared at the front door of the house in her sky-blue robe.

She called out, “Taona, what is going on?”

“Sorry, Ma,” he said. “I must have rolled onto my keys in sleep. My head is all over the place.”

She visibly deflated at the reminder that he was a grieving man. “Well, don’t do it again.” He waited for her to waddle away and shut the door, but right before she did, she turned towards him again. “Maybe you can take the car out tomorrow, my son, and get a few passengers so you can pay your money. The Lord says, ‘If you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you.’”

Taona turned to the chikwambo, sitting quietly with a satisfied smile on its face.

“What was that?” Taona asked. “You woke up the whole house.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Oh. What am I supposed to feed you?”

“Fresh chicken blood.”

“Chicken blood? Where am I supposed to get that?”

“You have to kill a chicken, Taona.” Its eyes narrowed.

Taona gulped. “And that’s all you need?”

“For now . . .” Chiki settled itself again on the seat and shut its eyes.

Taona did not return to bed. The look in Chiki’s eyes had terrified him. Taona felt like he might be on the menu if he didn’t get Chiki its chicken quickly. So, he set out into the night. No stores were open, but Harare is the city that never sleeps. He used his last five dollars to buy a live chicken out of the back of a bar. Lord knew where he would get the money to buy another chicken tomorrow. He strangled it right there. Once home, he quickly dressed the chicken and prepared Chiki’s meal, mixing the blood with some mealie meal. Taona tried not to watch as Chiki devoured the bloody mix, the head bobbing up and down, black comb swaying from side to side. Chiki ate every speck, ending with a mighty belch. Then it smiled at Taona with its blood-stained teeth.

“So, you need that every day?” Taona said.

“Yes.”

“A chicken a day?”

“Is that too difficult?” Chiki said.

Taona wanted to shout of course it was too difficult. That he was just a guy trying to survive by selling whatever he happened to get his hands on that day. That he couldn’t even pay his rent. That he had had to borrow money from friends to make sure his mother could hold her head high at the funeral. He couldn’t borrow any more. And Mai Simba was a quarter to kicking him out on the streets. Taona stared at the streak of blood on Chiki’s comb. In the future, Taona would look back to this moment and wonder why he hadn’t pondered harder on the lawyer’s words, why he hadn’t thought more about the man he wanted to be. But in this moment, all he could say were the words that changed his life forever.

“If I needed some money, how would we do that?”

 

---

 

Taona and Chiki soon fell into an easy routine. Taona killed a chicken and fed it to Chiki daily. And when Taona needed money, he gave Chiki the innards of the chicken, especially the heart. Once it was full, Chiki laid tight rolls of money like they were eggs. By the end of the week, Taona had enough money to keep a chicken coop, something Mai Simba had no problems acquiescing to now that money flowed freely from Taona to her.

Taona quickly discovered that money was the lubricant for a smooth life. All the quibbles he had with Mai Simba disappeared. He could visit his mother regularly now because he no longer carried the shame of not being able to take care of her. And he didn’t have to hide from people he owed money.

There were moments when the thought this is too easy flitted across Taona’s brain, but the alcohol and marijuana he was indulging in now quickly dispelled any doubts. He and his friends went to the clubs downtown and sprayed money around. He was having fun. Too much fun.

And maybe that’s why he forgot to feed Chiki.

One very early Thursday morning, he stumbled into the yard. As he walked past the car, it began blaring. Even in his drunken haze, he knew well enough to get in the car immediately. As always, Chiki was sitting there on the passenger’s seat.

“You’ve been neglecting me, Taona,” it said. “I’m hungry.”

“Shit. I forgot to kill your chicken. You’ll have to wait until the sun comes up. Then I’ll even go to the store and buy you some of those lovely broilers you like.” Taona giggled.

“You forget who I am.”

The temperature in the car suddenly dropped. Taona was immediately stone-cold sober.

“No. You’re right. Let me — let me kill one now. You shouldn’t have to wait.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” Chiki’s voice cut through him like a razor in a mother’s hand slicing a wart. “I don’t want chicken blood, Taona. I want human blood.”

Taona didn’t know what to say. His heart beat wildly, his hands shook. What was this thing asking him to do?

“Taona, did you hear me? I want human blood.”

“Wh-where am I supposed to get it?”

“You’re a smart boy. I’m sure you’ll think of something. But for now, I’ll just have a taste of you.”

“A taste of me?”

“Don’t look so horrified. I’m not going to eat you. I won’t do anything they wouldn’t do at a blood donation clinic. I’ll just latch onto your arm a little bit, sink my teeth in, and suckle like a baby. You’ll barely feel a thing.”

Taona held out his arm, and Chiki sidled up closer. At first, it felt like Chiki was kissing his elbow pit, but then Taona felt two sharp stabs as the incisors sank in. He gasped at the sudden rush of pain radiating from his arm throughout his body. He struggled to keep control of the impulse to push Chiki away. Eventually, Chiki finished suckling and settled back. It grinned at Taona with blood-stained teeth.

“You’re just as sweet as your brothers,” Chiki said.

A chill went down Taona’s back. “I don’t have any brothers.”

 

---

 

Taona did not like this latest development in his relationship with Chiki. Nightly, Chiki suckled on his arm and Taona knew it was unsustainable. He always felt so weak and lethargic afterward, but what could he do? He had thought of procuring blood from the blood bank, but Chiki was adamant that it had to be fresh. How did other people manage this? Taona had heard once about men getting their girlfriends to suckle their money snakes. Maybe Taona could get one of his many new female friends to suckle Chiki. In the end, it was Chiki who provided the solution, Chiki who said older women have more flavour in their blood, Chiki who said Mai Simba would do.

On a Thursday evening, Taona picked up Mai Simba from church. She sat in the car humming church songs under her breath, as she always did after these meetings. Taona offered her a drink that he knew would put her to sleep. But it made her chatty before it made her sleepy.

“My child, is everything okay with you?”

“Yes, Ma. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just, you’ve been different since your father died, since you got your inheritance.”

“A lot of things have changed since then, Ma. I’m just adjusting.”

“Just be sure you keep adjusting your way to God. Young men these days will do anything for money. Don’t fall into the jaws of . . .” Taona would never find out what jaws he was meant to avoid as Mai Simba drifted into sleep.

Once at home, he parked the car and walked into the house. He sat down on the edge of his bed. He tried not to think about what was happening, but his mind kept conjuring up the image of a helpless Mai Simba sitting in the car she had entered because she trusted him. And Chiki contentedly stuck to her arm, sucking away. In his mind’s eye, Mai Simba kept morphing into his own mother. This couldn’t be life. He thought again of the lawyer’s words. He had to decide what kind of man he wanted to be.

After half an hour, he went back to the car. Chiki slept in the backseat quietly snoring, balls of money surrounding it. Mai Simba slumped in her seat, her arm bleeding. Taona didn’t know how he would explain those wounds to her, but that was a problem for the morning. Right now, he had to deal with the problems of tonight. He carried Mai Simba out of the car and into the house, surprised by just how little she weighed. Then he returned to the car.

Chiki stirred when the car roared to life but did not wake. So, Taona drove. He drove until he came to a big field on the edge of the city. The government had bought the land a decade ago to build a new hospital, but there had been no progress since, and it was now just a dumping ground. At this late hour, Taona knew the only people here would be drug fiends.

He opened the boot of his car and pulled out the jerrycan of emergency petrol he always carried with him. Gingerly, he poured the fuel over his car and carefully made a trail away from the car until the fuel ran out. Then he pulled out his box of matches and lit one. He ran a safe distance away before turning to watch.

Orange flames quickly surrounded the car. In the window, a panicked Chiki’s black comb bobbed in horror as fire engulfed the creature. Taona stood there all night until the car was reduced to a husk. He approached the smouldering pile, but the lingering heat wouldn’t let him get too close. Nothing could have survived an inferno like that.

Silently, he made his way back home. The streets of Harare were still quiet, but the market women were already returning from Mbare Musika with the produce they would be selling on the street corners. He saw young men like him, some jauntily heading out to find a way to survive another day in the city, others slouching their way home after a night of nefarious deeds. What future did any of them have in Harare? When he was younger, when he still believed that his father loved him and his mother was the one who kept them apart, he had dreamed of a day when his Baba would come to him in a big fancy car and whisk Taona away to a different life on the other side of town. He had thought that all he needed to make it in Harare was his father to notice him. How wrong he had been.

He could not help but smile as he entered the final street home. Somehow, he felt light, like if he didn’t pay attention, he would forget to keep his feet on the ground, and float away. The gate wailed as he opened it and entered the yard. The sun wasn’t quite up yet, but it was light enough to see. Taona winced as the gate wailed again as he shut it. The other members of the household would have something to say about his disturbing their sleep at such an hour. But at least, he wouldn’t have to worry about Mai Simba. She was always up, usually sweeping the veranda or washing her clothes by now.

As he crossed the yard, a tingle raced down his spine as he walked over to the empty spot where the car had stood. Was something watching him? He furtively looked around. No one there.

Don’t be silly, he told himself. But still, he walked faster towards the front door. And that was when he saw the pile of ash on the doorstep. A trail of ashes led away from the door. Despite his fears, he followed it. Down the side of the house, his fingers tracing the lines of the bricks, half out of habit, half to steady himself. The trail went past the house, and followed the narrow path to the chicken coop, where the hens were deathly silent. None of them stirred. And then he saw her, Mai Simba, lying on the ground, right by the coop entrance, a bowl of feed next to her. Blood covered her chest. Something had ripped out her heart.

Taona could hardly breathe. His heart was pounding, and it took every ounce of self-control not to turn and run in terror. He steeled himself and moved forward.

Something small and brown nestled in the crook of her arm. Could it —?

No, it couldn’t be.

Taona let out a small cry. The small brown body lifted its head, and Chiki regarded him.

“Oh, Taona,” Chiki said. “You’ve finally made it back.” Blood dripped down from sharp teeth. “Thank you so much for freeing me from the shackles of that car, my friend.” It smacked its lips. “Now, let the real fun begin.”

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Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was “The Inheritance” by C. T. Muchemwa, and if you enjoyed that then there’s another of her stories kept safe in our archives: episode 780, “The Captive River”. There’s also more speculative fiction linked from her website, chidotmuchemwa.wordpress.com, as well as literary short fiction there, including links to her short story collection Who Will Bury You?, released 2024.

Chido sent us these notes on “The Inheritance”: I got the idea for this story from a local newspaper in Zimbabwe that reported that a garage in Harare was being plagued by a car that would cry in the middle of the night for its owner to come and collect it. The car was clearly housing a chikwambo and I kept thinking about this creature being stuck in the car. And I kept thinking about the person who had abandoned the car. What would drive you to the point where you would feel compelled to abandon this thing that gives you all this money?

I am quite the scaredy-cat, so it was quite a surprise to me when my dark fantasy story turned into a horror by the end. I even gave myself nightmares a couple of times. But I am glad I persevered and stuck it out because I feel like I produced a very Harare story. Everywhere you look in that city, there are all these people with unexplained wealth. They have all this property and fancy cars, but it is unclear where the money to get all of that came from. But the city is also full of these young people who have never lived in a functioning economy and are looking for shortcuts to wealth.

The story asks how far they are willing to go in search of wealth. Where do they draw the line? And by the time Taona seriously considers that question, it is already too late.

Thank you, Chido, for that background and for the story. The concept that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is, if not quite so mainstream as to habitually discuss over dinner with your extended family, at least common enough that it was a major plot thread in The Good Place. The harm embodied in the foundations of the system is literally unavoidable now: accessing modern society requires electronic devices containing rare-earth metals largely mined with toxic chemicals that pollute the groundwater; and then we use these devices to access services running in data centres that steal drinking water from the local population.

We know that the majority of what we buy has designed obsolescence, so that we are forced to replace it within five years, or is built with lower standards on the assumption we’ll want the shiny new thing soon enough anyway, and never mind the issue of throwing it into landfill; and that in an effort to reduce the cost of these items they are made by people on poverty wages, if not by outright slave labour like the Uyghur Muslims in China. But often there is actually no other option: nobody makes devices built to last anymore, and when they do—like Instant Pot—the system at large declares them a failure, as anything short of constant quarterly growth is literally and legally an abrogation of a company’s fiduciary responsibility. Gods know I would like to only purchase from local businesses using ethically sourced materials with audited labour chains, but then I am kept so busy by my own job that there is no time to undertake that research—and, of course, I’m so underpaid that I couldn’t afford it anyway.

But that all rather begs the question, doesn’t it? It treats capitalism as some sort of inescapable external force imposed upon us, a fact of nature, rather than a system that society has chosen and shapes and supports. Possibly a deliberate shaping of the discussion, of course, and the Ursula K. LeGuin quote comes to mind again, but the reason there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is that the capitalists at the top are unethical.

One does not become a billionaire by accident—unless, topically, by inheritance—but, of course, by exploiting surplus value from labour on an industrial scale. By striving, in all aspects and by all means, to drive down the costs they might pay, and to drive up the prices they might charge, to create ever larger numbers beyond any possible personal benefit. Setting aside tedious technicalities of liquidity, and assuming a lifespan of 100 for simplicity, a few quick calculations:

·        Jeff Bezos, at 62 years old and a net worth of 239 billion dollars, has a daily budget of seventeen million dollars for the rest of his life

·        Larry Ellison, 81 and worth 245 billion dollars, has a daily budget of thirty-four million dollars

·        Elon Musk, at 54 and worth 852 billion dollars, has a daily budget of fifty million dollars

In my whole working life, fifty years long, I reckon I will earn a gross total of 5% what Musk could spend every single day across that whole entire same span of time. These people do not need more. Yet they are compulsively, obsessively driven to make those numbers bigger no matter the cost to other people, to the planet, to the survival of our entire civilization and/or species.

Jess Bezos is not an idiot: he knows that Amazon drivers are forced to carry bottles in the van instead of having time to stop for a toilet break. He just doesn’t care.

Today’s story was rather the perfect, apt metaphor for all that then, wasn’t it? The whole process is fuelled with blood and built on mechanisms of predation. Even those who only inherit, rather than the first generation of robber-barons, still know the immoral source of the wealth, such that any action short of immediate disbursement is still complicity and will corrupt you. It may be cliché to end on a Marx quote, but the world keeps on keeping him relevant in so many ways: “Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.”