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  He in turn learned about Zimbabwe. The Moyos were optimistic about independence. Arthur, impressed with their well-appointed kitchen, the Whirlpool washer-dryer, and their high-pressure shower, found himself optimistic too. Between their hospitality, the modern conveniences, and the consistently sunny weather, Arthur was beginning to prefer Salisbury to Boston.

  He slept wonderfully there—Africa? A book one thumbs / listlessly, till slumber comes—and woke each morning to find hot tea and milk waiting on a tray outside his door, left there by the Moyos’ house servant. Over his daily breakfast bowl of bota, Arthur read the Herald. Promise taught him how to cook with the coarsely ground maize known as mielie-meal in preparation for his time in the country. In the evenings he smoked imported cigars with Louis Sr. One night the Moyos took him to a football match at Rufaro Stadium, where they pulled past throngs of people and into a private lot jammed with Benzes, leading him into the presidential box via a roped-off entryway.

  “These were some of his happiest times,” Francine told her daughter. “His letters home during those early days were so confident, so certain.”

  * * *

  • • •

  After two weeks Arthur bid the Moyos goodbye and thanked them for their hospitality. Promise hugged him and insisted he come back to visit. He boarded a thirty-year-old Soviet bus with chipped paint to Chiredzi, the small town 400 kilometers south where the Humble Brothers awaited him. As the bus pulled out of clean, modern Salisbury, with its concrete high-rises and purple jacaranda trees, the brutalist skyline dressed in flowering buds, Arthur finally felt homesick, a deferred sadness that he hadn’t had the time to process while he acclimated to the country. He thought of Francine, back home, alone.

  The city collapsed behind him. The buildings thinned out and gave way to rocky kopjes and scrappy huddles of marula and mopane trees. The air smelled of petrol, wood fire, roasted meat, and soap. A red-brown road shot through the hilly landscape, travelers waiting on either side of it. The bus rattled along, slowly filling to capacity. When the bus broke down, somewhere in Masvingo Province, Arthur and the other able-bodied men got out and pushed.

  It was evening when he reached his destination. Chiredzi was a small administrative center in the Lowveld, economically dependent on the sugar estates near the Mozambique border. The Humble Brothers had constructed an outpost a few miles south of downtown.

  Arthur walked until he reached the outpost, a one-story cinder-block structure with a red tile roof. In the distance stood clusters of thatched huts, some of them raised on stilts above the blushing earth. He was greeted at the entrance by a twiggy church representative who introduced himself as Rafter Benson.

  “Is it just you out here?” Arthur asked.

  “Just us,” he said, confirming Arthur’s worst fears. “Here, let me get your bag. Oh, gosh, this is heavy, huh?”

  Rafter had straw-yellow hair and the spindly legs of a cartoon bird. He said he had been living there for two months, preparing the place for Arthur’s arrival. “I’ve read your book a thousand times. Can’t say I understand it. But you sure sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you a missionary?” Arthur asked.

  “Oh, no, no no no,” Rafter said. “The Humble Brothers in Christ do not condone proselytizing. Not explicitly. We prefer a more humanitarian approach. We bring aid to those in need. And if, during that process, those in need come to feel that it’s prudent to adopt our way of thinking, well, then, we certainly wouldn’t stop them.”

  “You’re familiar, then?” Arthur asked. “With this part of the world?”

  “Personally? No. This is my first volunteer post.”

  “And the church? Do the Humble Brothers have any ties to the region?”

  Rafter looked confused. “What do you think we’re doing?”

  “We’re the ties?” He shook his head. “I was hoping you might know your way around. Or at least you might be able to connect me with some other aid workers nearby who might—”

  “Nope! Uncharted territory. So to speak.” Rafter smiled. “It’s going to be an adventure for the both of us. Now, let’s go inside and you can tell me what we’re going to be doing out here.”

  It was, above all else, a mission to restore dignity. As Arthur understood it, many parts of rural Zimbabwe still lacked basic sanitation. The poorest citizens did their business out in the bush, contaminating god knew how many wells and water sources, while those fortunate enough to live in walking distance of pit latrines—the kind of shoddy, makeshift outhouses constructed above holes in the ground—were hardly better off. Pit latrines were expensive to construct properly and often fell apart, sinking under their weight into the overfertilized earth. They stunk terribly and required so much maintenance that most were eventually neglected, left to rot as totems to human waste. But in a country eager to modernize, Arthur made the case that every citizen—not only the Moyos and their well-to-do friends—deserved the dignity and privacy of a long-lasting, easy-to-clean outhouse. They deserved to live full, productive lives, without fear of preventable illnesses.

  “Gosh,” said Rafter, setting down Arthur’s bag. “I can already tell it’s going to be a privilege to work with you.”

  There were no distinct rooms in the outpost. It was one long ranch-style corridor. At one end were two cots. Stores of canned foods, flashlights, batteries, and other supplies were stacked at the other. Halfway between them was a sink, and below it, a bedpan.

  “You can have whichever bed you want,” Rafter said. “Or both. You can push them together and make a double. I don’t mind. I’m happy to sleep on the floor.”

  In the weeks that followed, Rafter made himself useful, gathering sand and cement to mix with Arthur’s special paste, whose consistency was not unlike that of mielie-meal mixed with water. He scouted locations and helped plan the prototype. He was pathologically servile, which made him an excellent assistant but irritating company. He was always asking Arthur whether he was comfortable and whether there was anything he could do to accommodate him. He thought himself a mere serf on God’s great earthly property—but out in Zimbabwe, with few churches or other reminders of His existence, he directed his devotion toward Arthur. To paraphrase a song that was just then reaching Zimbabwean radio, a decade late: If you can’t serve the god you love, serve the god you’re with.

  One night, Arthur made the mistake of asking Rafter how he found his way to the Humble Brothers in Christ. Rafter talked long into the night about his childhood in West Virginia and the snake-handling church where he had been ordained a child preacher at the age of six. He ran away from home at fifteen and discovered Buddhism in an empty freight car while train hopping north, which he practiced until he was taken in by a sect of Messianic Jews in New Jersey. “But the Humble Brothers,” he said, “they’re the ones for me.”

  “How can you be sure?” Arthur asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure. This time, I’m sure.”

  “I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of you guys before.”

  “We’re pretty new.”

  “It’s strange to hear about a ‘new church.’ You don’t think of churches being ‘new.’”

  “There was a time when Jesus was just a guy walking around Galilee.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Where are you based out of?”

  “Montana. Butte, Montana.”

  Arthur had his doubts about the organization, but the work was going well, and the church supported him. Anytime he wrote requesting materials, they arrived in Chiredzi two weeks later, no questions asked.

  And yet, and yet. He missed Francine. Her company, her sense of self, her belief in him. He missed Boston. He grew dependent on Louis’s Playboy. He marked time by the clunky Save the Children pickups that drove along the road past the outpost every two weeks—Arthur regarded their staff bitterly; You could have had me, he thought—and by the Coca-
Cola trucks with their refrigerated trunks, carrying medical vaccines along with soda in a long cold chain of delivery.

  If Arthur wanted to call home, he had to walk into Chiredzi, pray the phone lines were up, wait half an hour, argue for fifteen minutes with operators in Salisbury and Nairobi, and pay upwards of fourteen dollars, all for two patchy minutes with Francine. When they did connect, he found himself at a loss for words. He had to be careful. The distance heightened everything, imbued cursory conversations with heavy subtext. Casual asides could be interpreted and reinterpreted in countless, unexpected ways. Silences were deathblows. It was almost impossible not to become a paranoid on the phone, not to wonder why she didn’t pick up when she didn’t pick up, or if that static hiss across the wires wasn’t a whisper, her playful silencing of a man lying next to her in bed. He frothed with anxiety.

  Because they only spoke roughly once every two weeks, when they did reach one another they were pressured into presenting their best selves. There was no time for expressing sadness or frustration—not daily frustrations, like how a scarcity of rebar mesh was causing a delay in production, and certainly not the frustration of the distance itself. (The distance itself was unsolvable, and therefore unspeakable.) There was only time for happiness and romance. Sometimes, those feelings showed up. Sometimes not. In lieu of actual feeling, it had to be performed.

  Quickly they fell into platitudes. I miss you, she would say after a few seconds of unendurable silence, and he would parrot it back. It was something to say. I miss you. I love you. How awful, to hear I love you and know it was only said to fill the silence. But what else was there to talk about? Day by day they lost common ground, their lives forking in different directions. What did she care about lavatories? He couldn’t personally give two sanitary shits about The Interpretation of Dreams. Every minute on the phone was strained. Was this all it took to fall out of love? A handful of weeks and 7,600 miles?

  * * *

  • • •

  When he wasn’t calling Francine or working on his prototype, Arthur made his presence known to the families who dwelled in the huts outside Chiredzi. They spoke Shona, primarily, some Shangaan, and piecemeal English. Arthur did his best to explain, in simple terms and with hand gestures, what he was doing there, but the bodily aspect of his project did not lend itself well to mime. After struggling to communicate his mission, Arthur would play soccer with the children who’d strung up mosquito netting between goalposts outside their homes. Some of them had Shona names, but others, on account of the language imported by British colonizers and American aid workers, were named in English. In addition to Kudakwashes and Kunashes, Emmanuels and Jonathans, Arthur met kids named Sugar (in honor of the nearby plantations) and Nixon (for the American president), Blessing and Goodlife. One young boy, Jamroll Matimbe, named for the sweet dessert a touring English med student gave his mother on the morning of his birth, took a liking to Arthur, and began paying visits to the outpost. A few days per week he’d come by dressed in western hand-me-downs, plaid or paisley shirts with wide lapels, and watch Arthur work.

  Though Jamroll didn’t know much English, and Arthur couldn’t speak a word of Shona, they enjoyed each other’s company. Arthur lectured to Jamroll about his project while he worked. Explaining his thought process got him out of his head. Jamroll listened patiently, occasionally replying in his own tongue. Though neither understood the other, Arthur took comfort in the familiar rhythms of conversation, grateful to be talking to someone who wasn’t Rafter.

  More than the language barrier, their friendship was complicated by Jamroll’s weight. Arthur had learned of the two types of hunger plaguing rural Zimbabweans—marasmus, the kind that vanishes flesh, and kwashiorkor, the protein deficiency that causes bloat—and could plainly see that the boy suffered from the former. The center of his chest caved inward, and through a drape of skin Arthur could see his sternum and the contours of his ribs.

  Arthur endeavored to understand the boy’s condition through the power of the empathetic imagination. They were both human beings, after all. Arthur recalled a summer he spent with his aunt Terry, his mother’s sister, when he was roughly Jamroll’s age. Terry had never married, and lived alone in East Boston where she had amassed a stunning quantity of pewter figurines. She spoke incessantly about the upcoming election, and the compromising position it put her in. She was a staunch Democrat but believed Kennedy to be an undercover operative for Opus Dei. She was capable of preparing one meal, a dish of her own invention called “fish pizza,” which she served Arthur every night for dinner. He never saw her eat, but she invariably sat at the table and watched Arthur. He became sick of the foul taste and began scooping the cheesy fillet into his napkin when she wasn’t looking, excusing himself to the bathroom to flush it away. He went without dinner all summer. He lay in bed each night, his stomach roaring, unable to sleep. One night he sneaked into the kitchen to scour her cabinets, but they were empty save for a jar of mustard. The refrigerator, too, was bare. At the time Arthur had been unable to imagine why his mother had placed him under the care of this bizarre woman. Years later, he surmised that he had been serving as some kind of suicide watch. In any event, he returned to Sharon that fall with an understanding of true hunger. It was precisely this experience that allowed him to project himself into Jamroll’s body and bridge the distance between their lives. Empathy! He understood the boy completely. He shared his rations of nonperishables with Jamroll, beans and applesauce and powdered milk, though he knew this was only a temporary solution to a systemic problem. Things would improve for the boy, he thought, just as they’d improved for him once he left his aunt Terry and ceased to be her colonial subject—so to speak.

  By July a prototype stood proud, a half mile from the outpost and downhill from the nearest well. A wide cylinder, nine feet tall. A vent on top for light and air. Of the four families who lived nearest to the outpost, Arthur had placed it closest to Jamroll’s.

  “‘Moses built an altar,’” Rafter said, looking upon what they had made, “‘and called it The Lord Is My Banner.’”

  Arthur spent the next few weeks camped out by the latrine, demonstrating to curious locals whom Rafter had recruited how the site was built and how it might be maintained. He showed them how to mix his special paste with the cement, sand, and water, and pour it over the chicken mesh. The paste, he stressed, as best he could, allowed them to save on cement. The latrine had a wooden door with spring hinges, and the whole thing sat atop a round slab with an aperture that led down to a deep pit. The total cost of materials per latrine was twelve dollars. He displayed how the structure could be cleaned with a little water and soap. He watched with pride as one after another stepped inside to take their turn. Never again would the rural peoples of Chiredzi District have to shit in some ramshackle outhouse. Or worse, in the open, by a river.

  Rafter photographed Arthur standing beside the latrine, posing with Jamroll. Arthur kept one roll of film and Rafter sent the rest to his superiors. In turn the Humble Brothers sent more money. Arthur was to build more toilets to the west, near Chiredzi’s sister town of Triangle, and south, in the Hippo Valley. He recruited some young men from town and trained them in the construction process. He delegated more and more to Rafter and the men from Chiredzi. Alter Latrines began appearing all across Masvingo.

  * * *

  • • •

  In September, a telegram reached Arthur at the outpost.

  ARTHUR—

  PLEASE JOIN US FOR A PARTY THIS WEEKEND. YOU CAN RELAX FROM ALL YOUR WORK.

  YOURS,

  LOUIS MOYO SR.

  The white Mercedes picked him up a few days later. “What should I do while you’re gone?” Rafter asked.

  Arthur laid two light taps on Rafter’s cheek. “Just keep building.”

  He slept the whole ride back to Salisbury. The brown leather seat back was cool on his neck; the chauffer didn’t utter a word. Whe
n, at sunset, the Mercedes slowed to a stop in the Moyos’ driveway, Arthur stirred awake. He saw the Moyos’ yellow-brick house, and his stomach sank with shame. When he’d first come to Salisbury, his nearest point of comparison was Boston. But having spent a few months in the country among Zimbabwe’s poorest, he was no longer impressed by the Moyos’ plenitude. It made him sick.

  The nausea stuck with him through dinner, which Promise had prepared with the help of her house servant. Arthur was too hungry to refuse the food, but eating it only made him feel worse.

  “It’s wonderful to see you again, Arthur,” Promise said over dinner.

  “You really cleaned your plate there, boy,” said Louis Sr. “They’re not feeding you out in the bush, are they? Ha!”

  Arthur glared at the beef stew growing cold on Louis Sr.’s plate.

  “Are you making much progress with your work?” Promise asked.

  “I am,” he said. “Our prototype is functional. The next step is to expand. You wouldn’t believe how grateful people are.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” Louis Sr. said.

  “Well, I for one think it’s wonderful what you’re doing, Arthur.” Promise smiled. “An American coming all this way—for toilets! Who knew?” She laughed.

  “It’s bad out there,” Arthur said.

  “There’s a real unwillingness to modernize,” said Louis Sr. “You’ve got to keep up or else you’ll fall by the wayside.”

  “He’s right.” Promise nodded.

  Arthur finished his tea with a grimace. “I’m going to go to bed, if that’s okay.” He tossed in his sleep all night.

  The party, which took place the following afternoon, was honoring the birthday of a ten-year-old girl, the daughter of a close family friend. The party was held on the lush green lawn of the girl’s house. Buffet tables offered top-shelf liquor and shrimp cocktail to the guests, the plump pink crustaceans arched over the rims of the glasses with their heads dipped in as if gorging on the sauce themselves. Roasted guinea fowl and springbok fillets sat on silver trays. Arthur managed to set aside his anger for twenty minutes while he ate. Then, after two Johnnie Walkers, he discovered it again.