The state of Grace

First Dressmaker:
Robert Mugabe
and his wife
Grace,
the village-girl-
made-supergood.

Her Grace has spoken. Mai Mugabe has declared with all the authority of a First Lady: "Morgan Tsvangirai will never step into the White House." She reportedly even put it rather graphically: "Morgan can only dream and see the White House from the outside, but even if Baba loses, Morgan will never see the inside."

Vintage Grace. The presumption. The arrogance. Why no biography has been written about this person is a mystery. We all know she holds huge power and has a strong hold over the supposed leader of Zimbabwe.

But who the hell is Grace Marufu-Mugabe? G, Gigi, or Gire (we call her so many names) remains a figure of ridicule among Zimbabweans. She came into power literally via the office carpet. She was Mugabe's secretary and one can only imagine what words and actions were communicated between the geriatric and the young, beautiful and rather vacuous woman.

But there was a catch that needed to be resolved by the two love birds -- both were married. The dear leader had a dying wife and the secretary had an airman for a husband. Easy -- send the airman to China for permanent training. Then G steps into the groove and waits for the inevitable -- the death of the first Lady. But all is hush-hush. Two kids later a wedding is arranged, but not before two journalists have been charged with criminal defamation for having prematurely given us some details about a civil marriage of the Dear Leader and the Secretary. Their crime was to put in black and white what we all knew.

Months later G's is a wedding to end all weddings, with every SADC leader present to wish the young-old couple well. But for the ordinary Zimbo, we know we are in for it. Marie Antoinette and Imelda Marcos breathe their spirits into the former secretary. She shops by the truckload -- Gucci, Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, you name it. But because she is actually a village-girl-made-good, the crudeness doesn't disappear. Looks like you can loot the coffers of the state as much as you want but you can't buy style. And of course she is not the most discreet of people -- of her several lovers one is reportedly six feet under (victim of a suspicious car accident) and the other is on the run in London.

Not a particularly intelligent person, she has not given us much in the way of quotable quotes. Once she referred to us as "my people". We could only shudder at that. Her husband had claimed the country as his personal property ("Tony Blair keep your England, and I will keep my Zimbabwe") and now she was even claiming to own us. Visions of slave plantations. Visions of King Leopold III in the Congo.

Then she raided the funds civil servants had been contributing towards securing government-built housing. With that loot she constructed some hideous Neverland dubbed "Gracelands". She never stayed in that mansion. When asked how she had come about her wealth, she answered quite sincerely (red flaming lipstick and twisted mouth): "Ndinongosona zvinhu ndichitengesa [I just do my dressmaking and sell what I make]." My aunt of 70 nearly fell off her chair. Grace can do that to you.

But she can be creative at times. Like when she suggested that the African First Ladies should network while the big men were doing the big business. At one meeting she was accompanied by Hajia Mariam Abacha, wife of that hateful dictator. Mariam was to be caught at the airport in Abuja fleeing to Saudi Arabia with suitcases filled with millions of US dollars. Her husband had died suddenly (reportedly in bed with some sex workers), but not before salting away about $5-million. Does Gigi remember all this and see the parallels? I doubt it.

But G is also a disappointment in one area Zimbos hold dear. She is not the most literate of people. She failed her A-level examinations when she was already in the big white house with the Bwana. In a country where education is prized, having a semi-literate person at the side of someone boasting seven academic degrees (on top of the "degrees in violence") was a national scandal.

But now we are even more worried. Bob's sight is failing. Who is going to read the Mail & Guardian to him? G would stumble over a sentence like "Zimbabwe is an unmitigated disaster". Cartoonist Tony Namate has suggested bigger spectacles, like the Karoo telescope, might work better.

Bob himself, probably at the suggestion of Gire, has demanded of The Herald editor: "Please increase the size of the font so I can read."

So, you publishers in Cape Town and Johannesburg, pondering what next bestseller you can bring out after Mark Gevisser's book, you have a tip here: Gigi: Memoirs of A First Lady