Max Wild recalls a childhood with Dambudzo Marechera
Tinashe Mushakavanhu interviews Max Wild (Flora Veit-Wild’s son), now a sensational jazz artist, who recalls time with Dambudzo Marechera and the sketches he did in collaboration with the writer to illustrate some of the children’s stories posthumously published in Scrapiron Blues (1992).
The media in Zimbabwe and elsewhere has perpetuated the myth of Dambudzo Marechera as a madman who slept on benches in Africa Unity Square, and a writer who had gone nuts. And the Western academy through their elegant theories of psycho-analysis, post-colonialism, post-modernism, psychosis and many other isms have corroborated the myth in their learned ways. They have continuously denied Dambudzo Marechera his humanity. To them, he is a writer who was always throwing tantrums and breaking everything in sight and insulting people everywhere. They have chosen to ignore the quiet, shy, retiring person who also preferred to be with his personal library than with anything else.
Marechera was intensely personal in his writings and childhood plays a significant influence in his fiction. Prof Robert Muponde of Wits University has a made a prodigious research on this subject. While, all biographical material written thus far present Marechera in the parks, pubs AND other familiar adult places, none reveals Marechera’s interactions with children, especially Max and Franz Wild (sons to Marechera’s biographer, Flora Veit-Wild) and their friends and were also possibly the first audience of some of his children’s stories.
I have been re-reading some of the stories you illustrated for Marechera ‘The Magic Cat’ and ‘Baboons of the Rainbow’. The stories contain themes that dealt with adult cynicism but in a playful child’s narrative voice. You were six, very young, did you understand these stories at all?
I don’t have the stories in front of me, but if I remember correctly, ‘The Magic Cat’ was less cynical, and I definitely related to it in a very childlike way. ‘Baboons of the Rainbow’ got a lot darker, especially as the story went on, I didn’t think twice about the violence and thought it was very entertaining, as you can see from my drawings. I remember not understanding some of the adulty stuff towards the end, like the drinking, cigar smoking and listening/ playing music. For me it didn’t really make sense or go with the story at the time and seemed a little irrelevant. In fact, Dambudzo and I stayed up pretty late that night, finishing the illustrations, and I remember getting tired and him helping me with the drawings. The last couple of drawings he did himself, and I had gone to bed, which you can see if you look closely.
Besides these stories, were there are other children’s stories you worked on with Marechera?
After those two stories I remember Dambudzo talking about a new story about a boy and a bus or something. I think he finished it but I’m not sure if it was published. I think I wanted to illustrate that one too, but it was to complicated for me to understand, which I was a little disappointed about.
Did you suggest any of the stories to Marechera?
I don’t think so. They all came from him. The way I remember it is he would write a page at a time painting a picture in words for me, and then I would draw what I imagined it to be. Dambudzo actually seemed big on drawing and visual arts. We used to have little writing and drawing workshops with him – my brother Franz and I and some other friends. Dambudzo was always big on using one’s imagination. That was the biggest thing I learnt from him to this day.
Can you briefly describe your childhood?
Very carefree. I went to Lewisham Primary from grade 1-6, then Hartman House for grade 7, Speciss College up to form 3 before leaving for Germany. I was into sports, and was sports captain for my house at Hartman. I did all the things kids did in those days, always playing outside, riding bikes, chasing chickens, and generally causing a ruckus. We didn’t have a TV.
How do you remember Dambudzo Marechera then (bearing in mind that you were a very small child and probably not aware of the media frenzy that was going on about him at the time)?
He was very intense and, at the time, I thought he could act a bit crazy. I think the key is, that his mood could change very quickly. But when he was on form and focusing he was very much in the moment, very funny and definitely very nice to us kids. He could relate to us very well and I think he enjoyed it.
He was around our house a lot and sometimes I would think it strange that he would turn up in the middle of the night. I remember him having a fiery temper and he seemed to like to get into arguments with people, which I sometimes thought was funny, and I think he did too. He liked to get a reaction from people. Then sometimes I would see from other peoples reactions to his behavior that it was maybe more serious than funny. I do remember most of the incidences
described in my mother’s source book, like when he called the police etc and they came in the middle of the night. I remember him sleeping in our hammock a lot, which was cool, because he would always be there hanging out, ready to get up to mischief with us.
I wasn’t aware of the media at all. To me he was just an eccentric, funny family friend.
How did Marechera relate to you as a child (obviously basing on the fact that he was considered to be an unpredictable person)?
We got on very well. I think he liked me, and children in general. He could relate to our inhibitions and the way life was so uncomplicated and easy to us. He was always very kind and caring towards me. I could tell when he was in a weird mood or might act ‘unpredictable’ and would leave him alone.
What do you remember about life in Zimbabwe in the 1980s?
It was great, I didn’t have a single worry in the world. Zimbabwe was considered the bread basket of Africa. Mugabe was considered to be doing great things for Zimbabwe at that time, setting an example for neighbouring countries. The schools were good and the economy was strong – back then the Z$ was stronger than the Deutsch Mark and I got 50c pocket money a week. My family coming from Germany, we were well off in Zimbabwean terms, even though I integrated into my school’s social network without a second though, and never felt foreign. In fact, I felt foreign when I later returned to Germany when I was 15.
Tell me more about your musical career: when did you start? your influences? genre you practice in? Is there any African influence in the music?
My first musical instrument was the saxophone, which I started when I was 12. I took lessons from Rick van Heerden, who lead an established band, Mudzimu, at the time. Rick was a jazz musician, so he introduced me to jazz early on. My parents listened to all kinds of music: a lot of classical, German songs, but my dad brought back a lot of local music too (Mapfumo, Mtukudzi etc). We also listened to Shona ZBC when our nanny was babysitting us, and I’m sure a lot of that stuck subconsciously. So when I started composing (much later on in London in 2000, during my undergrad at Guildhall School of Music) many of my compositions where influenced by the [Zimbabwean] soundscape I had been brought up listening to. In fact I named one of my songs ‘Baboons of the Rainbow’ after Dambudzo’s [story of the same name]. Since then, most of my music is Zimbabwean influenced in one way or another. It has been exciting to be perform alongside my personal hero Oliver Mtukudzi and his son Sam on many occasions.
Looking back at your collaboration with Marechera now as an adult, what are your personal reactions to the stories? Do you interpret them differently?
Well, naturally, I now understand them better, and see the different layers. Although they went over my head at the time I suspected that Dambudzo was up to something, hinting at something beyond the actual script – I knew his critical personality, and that he liked to say things with a hidden meaning. Reading them now, I recognize the pain and violence in them, but I remember that this was never an issue for me back then as a child, because Dambudzo made it sound so natural and almost comical. It seems to me that’s how he might have viewed his own life, detached, and through the eyes of a child.