Zoo City

Zinzi waits to meet Vuyo at a coffee shop and notes she received multiple replies to her Eloria email. She sees one from a French journalist who wants to meet Eloria; knowing that Vuyo will charge him for a visa application and perhaps try to get the journalist to collect money to rescue Eloria, she deletes the email. She also receives another odd reply to her phishing emails: “You said you would love me warts and all” (191).

When Vuyo arrives, he tells her that Songweza was not kidnapped. He also reveals that Odi has an insurance policy in Song’s name for 1.5 million (currency not specified) and an identical policy on S’bu. Vuyo also has the phone number that Songweza last called. After their meeting, Zinzi gets a call from Gio, who is annoyed she used his magazine as her cover story when she visited Haven. He arranged for her to get the assignment, though he’s still annoyed about the bite from Sloth.

Zinzi heads to a healer’s market for help identifying an herb she found in Songweza’s room. On the way, she is accosted by a teenage boy with buggy yellow eyes who leads her to Baba Ndebele, a Zulu sangoma recommended by Vuyo. Ndebele tells her that he knows she doesn’t want to be there (he received the information from a spirit who contacted him on his iPhone). He mentions that she could cut her shavi loose if she chose to—“you just need a substitute” (199).

Ndebele insists on giving her a reading. He says that Zinzi has “a shadow” on her, which she assumes is the Undertow: “The inevitability of it is crushing. Sometimes I wake up in the night struggling to breathe […] Maybe that’s all your talent is for, a distraction to keep you occupied until the blackness comes rushing in” (201).

Ndebele intuits she is looking for a twin, and he says she has something in her purse that can help her. He takes S’bu’s stolen songbook, sets it on fire, and grinds up the charred pages with a mortar and pestle. He asks Zinzi to collect a drop of Sloth’s blood, to which he adds a milky yellow liquid. He bashes a cup of the liquid against her mouth, and some of it washes down her throat.

The concoction produces horrible visions, including scenes from her brother Thando’s death outside their parents’ home. She tried to pay off drug debts by giving her dealer information about Thando’s new car, which he’d purchased after receiving a promotion. She assumed insurance would pay for the stolen car, reimbursing Thando for his loss while the stolen car paid off her drug debt. Instead, Thando was killed while fighting off the thieves.

Zinzi also sees the World Trade Center in her vision, and she sees Songweza painting the inside of her thigh with nail polish. She also sees herself splashing through garden puddles—only one isn’t a puddle, and it swallows her whole.

From Bibiozoologika: an Entymology of Animalled Terms—The etymology of mashavi: The Shona word “mashave” originally described wandering spirits that took possession of live humans. If the person was unwilling to be possessed, they would be taken over by an illness that European medicine couldn’t cure.

If a diviner found the person to be possessed, the host could either accept the spirit or reject it. Diviners would drive rejected spirits into an animal and then drive it away, like the scapegoat in the ancient Israelite tradition. Anyone who took possession of the wandering animal was then possessed by the spirit. Those who accepted the spirit, on the other hand, were immediately cured of their illness. They were initiated into a cult of people with similar mashaves and could use their gifts to help others. 

Zinzi leaves Ndebele’s with a second jar of potion, still reeling from the aftereffects of her visions. She realizes her cell phone is missing and spots a gang of kids who may have stolen it, including the yellow-eyed teen who helped her find Ndebele. She learns the leader, whom she dubs Nasty, has amputated a back paw from his Porcupine, selling it to be made into muti in exchange for drug money. Nasty threatens to do the same to Sloth, and Zinzi senses real danger.

Zinzi takes Sloth’s arm and slashes Nasty’s face with his claws. Then, she knocks Yellow Eyes into another gang member and jumps into the sewers. Nasty, Yellow Eyes, and a girl named Busi chase after her. After a lengthy pursuit, Nasty grabs at Sloth and pulls him off Zinzi’s shoulders. Zinzi stabs him with a porcupine quill before running off to follow Sloth, who is swimming through the sewer. They emerge into a series of dark tunnels, and Sloth tries to guide a weary Zinzi to safety. Sloth hears a noise, and Zinzi stumbles around the corner, where she is almost hit by a commuter train.