Page 2 of Let the Games Begin
He reminded himself to smile as music poured through the speakers and his mum ran over to embrace him.
“Ezekiel!” she called out as she squeezed him. Mai Moyo was double his age and practically half his height, but still tried to pick him up whenever he came home. She hugged him and then looked up with pride before standing back to show off the new shirt she’d had printed out with a baby picture of him on the front andTEAM MOYO 2024on the back. She had at least twenty shirts with his face printed on.
“This is your best one yet,” Takunda said with a laugh at the photo of Zeke wearing a pair of running shoes ten times bigger than his thirteen-month-old feet.
“Mama, I thought we were just having dinner,” Zeke said, amused, as he looked around at the packed room.
“I only invited a few people, family and friends,chete chete,” she said mischievously as she gestured to a crowd of at least fifty people.
Zeke greeted all of his aunts and uncles, then took photos with his cousins, knowing they’d immediately post them online to remind their friends that they were related to someone famous.
But he didn’t get the same reception from everyone. As he walked out into the garden, a girl with bright blue braids and a denim jacket covered in leftist, feminist, antiestablishment pins walked toward him. As she came closer, Zeke noticed that she’d sewn a bright new patch onto her jacket with the Audre Lorde quote: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Zeke sighed; he already knew where the conversation was going to go.
“How does it feel to be representing the colonial institution that is Great Britain at the Olympic Games of the corrupt Olympic Organizing Commission?” asked Rumbi, his seventeen-year-old, nonbiological cousin, who’d studied the British Empire for one term’s worth of A-level history and never looked back.
“It doesn’t feel as bad as you think it is, Rumbi,” said Zeke. Rumbi was the daughter of one of his mum’s best friends. He’s known her from the day she was born, and while they weren’t technically related, or the same age, she hounded him about his political affiliations, or lack thereof, with the intensity of a little sister who’d made it her personal responsibility to keep him down to earth. Lately, she’d been sending him weekly articles detailing everything problematic about each of his sponsors, with messages like “this felt important to share.” But he handled Rumbi’s comments about “neocolonialism and the hostile environment you’ve chosen to align yourself with” the same way that he handled the firestorms that erupted in his social media mentions whenever he dared to have an opinion on anything other thansports. He pushed down the anxiety, tried not to let it affect the way he saw himself, and just focused on his next run.
When Zeke first started receiving interest from big-name athletic coaches as a teenager, he’d genuinely considered competing for Team Zimbabwe instead of Team GB. But Team GB had some of the best coaches and training facilities in the world and… well, a lot of money. So, his choice was made—he knew he wouldn’t have to worry about sponsorships or the cost of traveling to competitions ever again.
The divisive politics and anti-immigrant rhetoric that he’d lived through for most of his life had stopped Zeke from actually feeling patriotic about being British beyond football games and his friends who worked in the NHS. But while his family was from Zimbabwe, the UK was the only country he’d ever lived in. So, he chose to represent the people and elements of the country who made him feel at home. He knew that if he tried to explain himself to Rumbi she’d probably lecture him about how British wealth was steeped in colonialism, ask if fancy running shoes were enough to compromise his integrity, and then pack an Afua Hirsch book into his suitcase for “light reading.” But he’d made his decision, and it was too late to change his mind.
She shrugged. “As long as you can live with yourself, and the knowledge that this country only loves people like us as long as we play the role of the good immigrant,” she said with the unshakably clear-cut sense of right and wrong you could only have at seventeen.
“I can, thank you for checking in.” He put a hand over his heart.
“Weakest link,” Rumbi muttered under her breath.
“Oh, and did the reference I wrote you for that Oxbridge summer school help?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah… I got in,” said Rumbi, looking a little bit embarrassed. Rumbi never missed an opportunity to call him out, but she also wasn’t too proud to ask him to write her glowing references for internships and preuniversity courses. She mumbled a thank-you, and then the rest of his cousins, both biological and communal, ushered him into the living room. His aunties sang old Zimbabwean hymns, his uncles gave long speeches, then his mother went into a fifteen-minute-long prayer.
“Jesus Lord! May Ezekiel make good decisions,” she prayed, and a symphony of aunts and uncles chorused “Amen.”
“May he have journey mercies as he travels to Athens,” she prayed, to snaps and claps from around the room. Zeke didn’t really believe in God, but his mother was close personal friends with Jesus. So, he’d long accepted that every birthday dinner, family get-together, and competition send-off for the rest of his life would end just like this. With a drawn-out, not-so-subtle prayer that usually aired out somebody’s dirty laundry.
“May he be the head and not the tails,” she prayed, to an echo of agreement from all the adults in the room. One uncle, who everyone knew had a gambling problem and typically bet a few hundred pounds on Zeke winning a medal, said “Amen” extra loudly.
“May he bring honor to Team GB! To Zimbabwe! And to the Moyo name!” An auntie who never left the house without a tambourine shook it in agreement. Zeke was grateful his mum hadn’t declared that he was going to bring home a gold medal. But he could still feel the pressure to win building up in his chest.
“And may he not be led astray,” she prayed, in the solemn tone his mother reserved for the final act of her prayers. She left a dramatic pause, and then she started to cry. Zeke tried not to roll his eyes; he knew his mum well enough to know exactly where she was going with this.
“Almighty Father, keep Ezekiel away from sin!” she shouted, and the uncles began to clap. “Keep himawayfrom the spirit of wrongdoing!” An auntie whose son was a thirteen-year-old walking headache nodded in agreement and whispered an exhausted “Yes, Lord.” Zeke bit his tongue.
“From pride! From…drunkenness…” she continued. Technically, his mum was praying for Zeke, but the whole room unintentionally moved their heads in the direction of Uncle Isaiah, who was notorious for getting blackout drunk at every family function and was already on his sixth can of the night.
“Lord God, Heavenly Father… keep Zeke’s heartawayfrom promiscuity,” his mother yelled, prompting his aunts to “Yes, Lord!” and “Amen” in agreement. Zeke looked at his brothers, who were trying not to laugh. It was just another regular Moyo family get-together.
Eventually the prayer ended, and he stood in the center of the room as each of his aunties and uncles came over to hug him, give him advice, and leave with at least three lunch boxes of leftovers each. The house emptied until it was just him, his mum, and his brothers.
“Good luck, Little Z,” said Takunda as he picked up his car keys. “You’ll make us proud.”
Zeke didn’t really confide his worries to anyone, not even his brothers. But they knew him better than anyone. He could tellthey sensed the way the pressure to win was starting to affect him, because they’d spent the last few weeks reminding him that while they wanted him to win his first Olympic gold medal just as much as the rest of the country, they’d be proud of him no matter what.
“Make sure to have fun with it, all right?” said Masimba.
Zeke nodded.
“I mean it,” said Masimba, looking him in the eye.
