What Belongs to Caesar

Shona custom was clear on inheritance issues: sons of the deceased inherited first, daughters next and any grandchildren would then get any minor sums that were remained. And it was with this general understanding that the meeting began. A short, plump lawyer waddled to the podium in the front of the room, opened a sealed box and commenced reading its contents in a voice so monotonous and sluggish that under any other circumstances it would’ve put half the listeners to sleep. The inheritances were read out by name, starting with the eldest son and then gradually moving to the grandchildren. On the whole, sekuru (grandfather), had been generous with his grandchildren, leaving them a few thousand dollars each and it, therefore, came as a surprise to Kudzai, that when his name was read out, no cash amount was announced. Instead, he was called forward to receive what appeared to be a little black notebook. He accepted it with a somewhat bewildered and confused expression on his face and despite his every effort, failed to hide the disappointment that was etched on his face as he returned to his seat at the back, walking down the aisle of chairs that split the room in two, filled with all his relatives.

Sekuru had passed on a few weeks earlier but the family had decided, in a clear break from Shona custom and tradition, that division of his estate should not take place shortly after the burial. The estate was simply too large and there were too many potentially interested parties. What is more, unlike many of the black men of his time, sekuru had left a will and a very comprehensive one at that. The document, which was said to be over a hundred pages long, was enclosed in a sealed mahogany and ivory box which had been handed to his team of lawyers with express instructions that no one was to open it until after his death and at a meeting of all his relatives. There could be no doubt that this specific instruction was from sekuru, who in life had tried - often futilely - to bring the various factions of his family together and so it made sense that even in his death, he’d be trying to do exactly that. Unfortunately, however, there was never a more inflammatory topic in the Moyo family than money. It was a constant cause for bickering, jealousy, intrigue and conspiracy amongst both the older and younger generations of the family and sekuru should have foreseen that a conclave of family members convened solely for the purposes of determining money-related issues, was a disaster waiting to happen.

As the family’s patriarch, sekuru had made his fortune selling sugarcane ethanol, a by-product of sugar cane, which is grown on plantations in the Triangle and Chiredzi regions of South Eastern Zimbabwe and blended with petroleum for a cleaner fuel source. His fortune had only doubled when the Zimbabwean economy collapsed in 2009 and the country adopted the US dollar as its currency. He was a well-spoken, gentle and pious old man and it was this soft manner- which was so juxtaposed to his own father’s brash indifference- that had drawn Kudzai, his oldest grandson, to his sekuru very early on in his life. As a child, Kudzai had been shy and nervous but something of a child genius, mastering the periodic table by the age of 5 and being moved up several grades throughout school so that he graduated high school by age 16. When he hacked into the South African government’s treasury accounts as an 11-year-old and swapped the salary amounts for teachers at State schools with those of high-ranking government officials, only his father’s position as Zimbabwean ambassador to South Africa had averted a full-on diplomatic crisis between the two nations.

Sekuru, who had been the son of a war veteran (a general in the Zimbabwean African National Liberation Army during the Liberation struggle of the ’60s and ’70s) had the advantage of being educated in the best schools available to black people during those times and had gone on to obtain several degrees, including degrees in divinity and philosophy from the universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews. It was this unique background that allowed the old man to create a warm environment for the inquisitive young mind that was his grandson and like a moth drawn to a flame, the boy was ever so willing to bask in the warmth of that glow. He’d often found school boring and unchallenging. By comparison, he found other children dull and insufferable. Having no brothers or sisters and having found no suitable playmates amongst any of his numerous cousins, he looked forward to the school holidays when he could take the long ride south from the family home in Harare to spend the holidays with sekuru and gogo (grandmother) on the farmhouse in Hippo Valley.

It was the long nights in sekuru’s study that he remembered the most. Even now, Kudzai could remember the cold winter nights as a child where he’d sat in his sekuru’s lap, his distinctive scent of Old Spice and mint (for he always said that a gentleman’s breath must never offend) mingling with the smell of burning oak from the fireplace. Puberty had been kind to him, bestowing the gifts of height, good looks and a devilishly alluring smile, turning this insecure boy who had been a nerd and shunned by his peers, into the consummate playboy. He’d gone on to study at the University of Florida, barely getting through his degree between drunken binges, bouts of depression and even picking up a DUI charge. Upon coming home to Zimbabwe after school, the condition of obtaining a university degree that was holding part of his trust funds in suspension fell away and he got access to a good percentage of the trust money, which he’d almost completely blown through over the 3 years after graduation despite living in one of his mother’s houses in Borrowdale, Harare and having no discernible work or business that he was involved in.

Through it all, however, sekuru had remained a constant voice of reason and had been there for him, never judging and never proselytising, despite being a devout Christian, who’s dedication to sobriety of habit and manner, rivalled the monks of old. One of his earliest memories had been of his sekuru reading the book of Matthew to him from his armchair in the study. He always read in a deep, deliberate, metred voice that was all at once sombre and melancholic but familiar and inviting. That particular night he was reading from the 22nd chapter of the book of Matthew. It was the story of how the Pharisees had come to Jesus asking if it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar and Jesus, taking a coin, asked those present whose image was on the coin. They replied that it was Caesar’s. To which he then responded, “So render unto Caesar the things, that belong to Caesar and unto God, the things that belong to God.” Kudzai who was 7 years old at the time, having pondered the statement then asked: “But sekuru, what belongs to God?” to which sekuru responded “Whose image is on you?”

Despite his grandfather’s gentle influence, however, Kudzai thought the idea of God futile and having taken a great interest in science and philosophy early on in his life, admired Nietzsche and Russell particularly and was a self-proclaimed hedonist, drawing heavily from the life of Lord Byron, whos’ writings he had read several times over. Despite this fundamental difference of opinion however, he was clearly his sekuru’s favourite of his many grandchildren, a fact which the ageing patriarch had made no secret of. It therefore came as a crushing blow, when Kudzai had heard the news of his sekuru’s passing. He had mourned him bitterly, isolating himself for days on end and even now, entering the inheritance meeting, he was still grieving.

A little black notebook? That was it? All at once his grief for sekuru’s passing washed over him again but this time it was mingled with a deep sense of incredulity and even some anger over the insult that was his portion of the inheritance. It wasn’t about the money for him, it was more about what it represented about his place in the hierarchy of his sekuru’s heart – quite frankly, he had expected to be bequeathed the most among the younger members of the family. Dizzily walking out of the large house in the suburbs that had been his sekuru’s Harare home but as of an hour ago now belonged to his uncle, he picked his way through the small crowd of relatives that had gathered outside, headed straight for his BMW 5 Series without saying a word to anyone, threw the notebook onto the front passenger seat without opening it and began to drive.

Initially, he didn’t know where he was going and drove aimlessly through the city for about an hour. He’d started drinking early in the day but the new wave of grief that had washed over him after the meeting slowly began to lend an unexpected lucidity to his thoughts and as sobriety returned to him, he suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to drive south and not to stop until he got back to the place he felt most at home and most loved, his grandfather’s house on the plantation in Hippo Valley. It was a 6-hour drive across country, which became all the more treacherous at night due to a combination of bad lighting and bad roads but he didn’t care, he had to be there and be there now. So, he took off due south at 160km/h, bottle of Jack in hand and stopping for nothing.

As he drove, images flashed before Kudzai’s eyes, some in black and white, some in colour, some complete memories, some mere fragments of his life. He grasped at them, trying to piece them together and make some sense of the cacophony of sounds and voices in his head but for all his trying, the jigsaw puzzle that was his life continued to elude him, mocking him, jeering at him, daring him to try and assemble the ever-shifting picture of what had become his life. All he could think as he sped over landscape after starlit landscape, was “How has it come to this? How have I become this person?” It was then that it happened and the last thing he remembered seeing was the front of his car careening through the guard rails of a bridge and then all was black. All was still. All was at peace.

The first man to the scene, a police officer who had been stationed on night patrol near the bridge and heard the sound of the crash, had run to the bridge and clambered down the ravine to the vehicle which was sitting upside down, totally wrecked in a shallow part of the riverbed. There he found the body of a young man which had been thrown out of the car, approximately 26 years old and after checking his pulse, quickly determined that the person he was looking at was dead. Searching his pockets for any identification and finding nothing, he began to search the wreckage and found a little black notebook a few feet from the car. He opened it randomly and at the first page he opened he saw the following written in neat black handwriting: “Remember my son, to always render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God” and on the very next page, lay a cheque with the instruction to “Pay to the bearer the sum of $20 000 USD, twenty thousand United States Dollars.” The officer calmly looked around, slipped the cheque into his jacket pocket and then radioed headquarters to send help.