THE PRICE
Short story by Linda Chisoni
Time was hanging heavy on Gertrude’s hands. About two months had passed since her mother left for Australia where she went for her masters’ degree. And to the poor girl, there was nothing to write home about. She had come across what she had never anticipated. She had never anticipated that her own father would rape her.
She lay lowly in her bed with little knowledge of what she would come across that day. Her father’s house seemed to be no more a salubrious place for her. She could sniff more tough times ahead.
At the age of fourteen she had already been raped thrice, and to make matters worse, by her own biological father. She had only heard about fathers raping their own daughters but she had never thought she might be the victim one day.
Now she seemed to find no reason why she had to continue living. She tucked herself in her eiderdown but she could hardly drift off to sleep. It was not night time but she wanted to have a nap anyway.
After failing to sleep, she went out and walked into the garden where she plucked twigs and rosebuds. That was all she could afford to do that time. All her hopes of a brighter future had abruptly broken into smithereens the first time her father invaded her room at night.
As she walked back into the house, her father glided out and sank into a sun lounger near the garden. He was watching her with a roving eye and it seemed he had not yet reached the end of his satiety.
The writing was clear on the wall that he was yet to abuse her some more.
In the house, Gertrude found the maidservant slaving away over a hot stove and she helped with a few things that did not call for absolute attention like putting the plates in their cabinet and placing the squeegee and the mop in the store room. She also cleaned a clapped-out gas cooker for the hell of it.
When the food was ready, Gertrude told the servant that she would eat together with her, ignoring the tradition of eating together with her father. “I won’t eat with him again,” she said.
“Why Gertrude? He will be terribly annoyed. I am nothing but a servant, not worthy a fig. he will think I am coaxing you not to be so close to him,” the maidservant said, almost pleading.
“You would be doing a very excellent thing.” She beamed. “He scares the hell out of me and I no longer want to be so close to him.”
“You already are. You are living in the same house.” She placed Gertrude’s father’s food on a tray and carried it delicately into the dining room.
Gertrude’s father asked the two to join him with their food in the dining room. There they ate their grub quietly such that the only noise that could be heard came when one of them broke a bone or munched some rubbery stuff.
“Tomorrow I want to take you to the lake,” Gertrude’s father said to salve his conscience, yet the kind of fear that had settled in his daughter’s heart was as strong as an inborn trait.
“Tomorrow is Sunday and I will go to church.” Gertrude fearlessly looked into his father’s bloodshot eyes.
He smiled spuriously. In front of him was a spread out newspaper which he was neither reading nor looking at. “My dear, everyone at least worships but what matters is who they worship. I don’t regret not going to church. It has now turned into a centre of silent transgressions. Everywhere, news about quirky things happening in churches is like adverts. It is better to sin out of a holy sanctuary.” He lifted the paper in front of him and showed her a heading which read: Pastor caught red-handed with women guild chair.
“The most sacrilegious things which used to happen at beer drinking joints are now happening in the church. Now tell me one hell of a single reason why I should go the place and I will instantly be convinced.”
“The things you have said are happening in the church are the more reasons why you should go there. Disapprove of the acts right in front of everyone and you will save a soul,” said Gertrude.
“I am not convinced. Their decisions and principles are cut and dried. They can’t listen to anyone. They make judgments; unfair judgments. They are corrupt and they are trying to corrupt each and everyone. They stick rigidly to unfairness. The church was supposed to be the last place where prejudice would exist.”
Gertrude did not want to make any further arguments. She just looked at him and ate her food quietly. She had heard a strident tone in his voice and she knew that if she continued arguing, he would fly into a rage.
“Gertrude, I am cruel to be kind. Sometimes you may feel I am a threat to your life but I am acting the way every responsible father would act.”
She wanted to say that he was not being responsible by ravishing her but the words melted in her mouth. She just nodded her small head gently. It was not that kind of nod that was meant to show that she approved of what he had said, but one aimed at putting paid to the subject. She knew that she was in a very delicate situation: much of what she would continue uttering was likely to rattle his cage more than somewhat. Her head was encumbered with the agony she had gone through which appeared not to have stopped completely.
That night, Gertrude had a very bad dream. Arrayed in a white dust coat, grey flannels and black suede shoes, Dr. Mulambia stood in front of her and told her that she was expecting. She flaked out.
The servant flipped the lights on and stared into Gertrude’s drowsy eyes. “You had a dream I know and it must have been a very bad one. You were speaking audibly. You were also crying.” She moved forward and glanced at the wall clock. “It is still night. Three past one. Go back to sleep.”
At about the same time Gertrude was getting lost to the world, his father was sitting up in his bed. He was in his nightwear. It was 1:30 and he was filled with a terrible desire to abuse his daughter; his own blood daughter.
In his illusions, she was sitting in front of him, smiling coyly like a maiden on the first day of her courtship with a decent stripling. He tip-toed into her room and raped her. She tried to scream but her screams were suppressed.
The following morning, Gertrude was found dead on her bed. Beside her was a tumbler half-filled with a crimson liquid. On top of her clothes closet was a note where she revealed that she had decided to commit suicide after being raped by her own father for times without number. Her father destroyed the note studiously.
Two weeks passed and to Gertrude’s father, her daughter’s death was now a dead letter that would only be revived upon the arrival of his wife who was still abroad. Had he known!
Just the other week, he began to have terrible nightmares where his dead daughter pestered him to explain what he had done to her and why she had decided to take her own life. He would scream and breathe a sigh of relief after realizing that he had just been dreaming. It happened several times and he just took the dreams to be nothing but dreams.
This other night, his daughter visited him again in a nightmare. “Go and tell each and everyone your wicked acts. Otherwise you will find no peace of this earth. What did I do to deserve what you did to me, you wicked man?” Gertrude’s ghost told him.
He screamed and saw a real ghost standing beside his bed. He could feel his body turning floppy, his legs wobbly. Then he passed out. When he came to, the ghost was still there. He rushed to the pastor’s house and explained to him what had happened. But he never said anything about what he had been ordered to do.
Prayers were conducted in the house. All evil spirits were cast out and the house was declared safe from any interference.
Yet the following night, the ghost returned. It told the troubled man that he had one last chance to do what he had been ordered. His freedom had to come at that price. The ghost ordered him that if he failed to do what he had been ordered, he was going to die a very painful death.
He had no choice. He could not stand the second return of the ghost. That was his price.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
NO BIG DEAL
THE INTERVIEW
By innocent Masina Nkhonyo
The reporter shifted his head and cleared his throat. The forenoon sunbeams were filtering into the room through the limpid curtains and the atmosphere was deliciously cool. The prisoner that he had come to interview walked lethargically into the room that was completely different from her cell, where she spent most of her time. She was only allowed to have a feel of the outside atmosphere for six hours under extreme guard for she was regarded as one of the greatest criminals in the country. Now, her head filled with dandruffs and lice nits, she seemed to crave for the milk of human kindness.
The reporter was already seated on a chair behind a flat desk that stood in the middle of the room and he was wagging his fountain pen patiently. The prisoner entered posthaste and preferred a squat plastic stool to a sizeable chair that was similar to the one occupied by the reporter.
“My name is Kennedy Msukwa and I am a reporter for a newspaper called Malawi Eye and I have come to interview you. Our paper has a column called “The prisoner’s voice” where we publish stories of different prisoners who are there in different prisons in this country,” said the reporter.
The prisoner looked at him without saying a word in the first place. She swept her hand across her head, feeling the messy hair that was tough and dirty. “But I don’t find any reason why I should talk to you. I don’t want everyone to know that I’m a prisoner. The gates of hell have already opened for me and I feel you’re disturbing the little peace that I pretend to have. You don’t know what it feels like to be sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for an offence that you never committed,” she said, flashing him a cursory glance. “It’s not going to mean anything even if my story gets published in your paper. It’s too late for me to protest my innocence. This damned world…”
“It’s never too late,” said the reporter, breathing hard. “I just want you to explain everything that led to your conviction. I’m sorry that I’m trying to remind you of such hard memories, but you never know I might be highlighting your plight. Maybe after reading your story, someone out there might be willing to appeal on your behalf.”
Finally, the prisoner decided that perhaps it was proper that she explained what had happened. Maybe indeed someone out there might be willing to appeal on her behalf. “Alright, I’ll tell you what happened,” she said.
The reporter organized himself and held his fountain pen steadily. “Thank you so much. Your name first,” she said, looking in her eyes that appeared to be tracing how innocent she was.
“Melissa.”
“Fine, you may carry on.”
“I was living with my aunt who was a nurse. She was a woman of advanced years but still I called her Aunt Susan. My parents had passed away five months before. Aunt Susan was a very kind person. The five months that I lived with her were like a week.”
Kennedy did not find the necessity of that part but he let her continue anyway.
“When I looked depressed, she always tried her best to show me the best kind of motherly love she could afford. Due to thoughts about the sudden consecutive deaths of my parents, I began to look unhealthy and I lost so much weight each passing day. After trying in vain to help me retain my health, Aunt Susan was obliged to go and take some drugs from her workplace which would help me have appetite and regain my strength and it worked.” She paused to give the reporter enough time to write what she had said.
“Then what happened next?” he asked.
“This day was hot and windy. Aunt Susan told me that we were living in a crazy world. I didn’t know what she meant until two police officers came in the afternoon to search her house, saying the had been advised to do so by the District Health Officer who had suspected that drugs were missing at the hospital. They found only 12 tablets which were remaining after I had taken the rest.
“After interrogation, Aunt Susan returned home temperate but depressed. I didn’t ask her any question because her imminent suffering was all because of me sake. Later, I learnt that she had been arraigned before a court of law where she was to answer theft charges. She won the case after the presiding magistrate quashed it, saying the drugs that were found in her possession were not enough evidence that she was behind the disappearance of cartons and cartons of the same at the hospital.
“The DHO was not satisfied with the ruling and he appealed. His desire was that aunt Susan should be found guilty and she was indeed found guilty. She didn’t say anything in mitigation and the High Court judge who presided over the appeal case continued delivering his ruling, dwelling at every point that could be pressed in favour of her. But as he continued, it was slowly becoming clear that he had found her guilty. He deliberated for a minute and finally dropped the bombshell, but she was given a two-months sentence suspended to 12 months during which she was not to engage herself in any criminal offence. At her workplace, she was under suspension.
“Although the sentence was not severe, she was not satisfied. According to her, there was a terrible injustice that needed not to pass on. However, she never appealed but wrote a number of articles on injustice and the articles appeared in different newspapers and were being read on different radio stations.”
“What happened after that?” Kennedy asked just to keep the conversation alive.
“At least there was some improvement especially when different human rights bodies joined her bandwagon, but unfortunately, she didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of justice which she had fervently fought for,” she narrated, grief glimmering in her eyes. “This other day, the sun shimmered through the wood, filling us with unbridled warmth. ‘Sometimes life is full of cheap thrills. Life has no meaning at all,’ she said to me without explaining further. The following day, I stood in the garden, my eyes gazing at the fluffy white clouds in the sky. She came behind me and told me that her days were numbered. Her last day was very strange. She behaved as though she had taken leave of her senses. She gave me her Bible and a posy of white roses and mints and larkspurs and her most loved dress and told me that she pitied my welfare. She pulled down every picture-frame and laid them haphazardly in one corner.”
Kennedy had now stopped taking down notes. He was listening with his whole attention, even though Melissa continued including unnecessary parts. He let her obliterate from her mind whatever she wanted to. Perhaps it was going to change something in her.
“I just watched her, completely struck with bewilderment. She told me that I should take very good care of myself and to be always self-controlled. She also advised me to keep my eyes peeled saying the devil was prowling like a hungry lion, seeking who to stray. That night two thugs came to aunt Susan’s house and shot her dead. I had never been horrified in my life like I was on this night. She had always said: life is a fugitive adventure. She was lying in the corner of her own sitting room, as unfeeling as a stone. I stared at her frigid body like a child frightened by the horrifying cry of a nightjar. The thugs threatened that they would let me leave if I agreed to leave the house that very same night and get out of that place.”
“It is clear that she died for your sake,” the reporter said after being silent for some time.
“Yes. Yes…” She reached for the bottom of her prison garb and squeezed it against her eyes.
“But it appears to me that that was the only way.”
“It was a sacrifice for my welfare, yet two weeks later, I was arrested. Her blood had just been shed in vain; her life had just been taken in vain.” Melissa sobbed.
“It is alright,” said the reporter, touching her shoulders endearingly.
“The police never investigated the murder but instead they arrested me. I failed to defend myself because I had run away after the thugs had threatened to kill me if I dared stay there. According to the police, I was running away after murdering my aunt. This is the journey that finally dropped me in this place. If only justice could prevail…”
“Thank you for your cooperation. I am greatly concerned. I will make sure something happens to your advantage,” said the reporter assumingly.
After Melissa’s story appeared in the Malawi Eye a week later, one lawyer, the founder of Bandawe Legal Practitioners, a law firm whose main objective was to help people who had been hauled up before a court of law but could not afford a lawyer, appealed on Melissa’s behalf. After numerous proceedings, the real culprits were finally found. The District Health Officer of the hospital where the late Susan had been working was behind everything. He had been stealing cartons and cartons of drugs from the hospital and had been selling them to private hospitals owners. He had tried to implicate Susan in the scum and when she had not been given a custodial sentence, he just decided to put an end to her life.
The thugs who had been hired by the DHO testified in court and the doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour together with the thugs. Melissa was released and she was handsomely compensated.
By innocent Masina Nkhonyo
The reporter shifted his head and cleared his throat. The forenoon sunbeams were filtering into the room through the limpid curtains and the atmosphere was deliciously cool. The prisoner that he had come to interview walked lethargically into the room that was completely different from her cell, where she spent most of her time. She was only allowed to have a feel of the outside atmosphere for six hours under extreme guard for she was regarded as one of the greatest criminals in the country. Now, her head filled with dandruffs and lice nits, she seemed to crave for the milk of human kindness.
The reporter was already seated on a chair behind a flat desk that stood in the middle of the room and he was wagging his fountain pen patiently. The prisoner entered posthaste and preferred a squat plastic stool to a sizeable chair that was similar to the one occupied by the reporter.
“My name is Kennedy Msukwa and I am a reporter for a newspaper called Malawi Eye and I have come to interview you. Our paper has a column called “The prisoner’s voice” where we publish stories of different prisoners who are there in different prisons in this country,” said the reporter.
The prisoner looked at him without saying a word in the first place. She swept her hand across her head, feeling the messy hair that was tough and dirty. “But I don’t find any reason why I should talk to you. I don’t want everyone to know that I’m a prisoner. The gates of hell have already opened for me and I feel you’re disturbing the little peace that I pretend to have. You don’t know what it feels like to be sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for an offence that you never committed,” she said, flashing him a cursory glance. “It’s not going to mean anything even if my story gets published in your paper. It’s too late for me to protest my innocence. This damned world…”
“It’s never too late,” said the reporter, breathing hard. “I just want you to explain everything that led to your conviction. I’m sorry that I’m trying to remind you of such hard memories, but you never know I might be highlighting your plight. Maybe after reading your story, someone out there might be willing to appeal on your behalf.”
Finally, the prisoner decided that perhaps it was proper that she explained what had happened. Maybe indeed someone out there might be willing to appeal on her behalf. “Alright, I’ll tell you what happened,” she said.
The reporter organized himself and held his fountain pen steadily. “Thank you so much. Your name first,” she said, looking in her eyes that appeared to be tracing how innocent she was.
“Melissa.”
“Fine, you may carry on.”
“I was living with my aunt who was a nurse. She was a woman of advanced years but still I called her Aunt Susan. My parents had passed away five months before. Aunt Susan was a very kind person. The five months that I lived with her were like a week.”
Kennedy did not find the necessity of that part but he let her continue anyway.
“When I looked depressed, she always tried her best to show me the best kind of motherly love she could afford. Due to thoughts about the sudden consecutive deaths of my parents, I began to look unhealthy and I lost so much weight each passing day. After trying in vain to help me retain my health, Aunt Susan was obliged to go and take some drugs from her workplace which would help me have appetite and regain my strength and it worked.” She paused to give the reporter enough time to write what she had said.
“Then what happened next?” he asked.
“This day was hot and windy. Aunt Susan told me that we were living in a crazy world. I didn’t know what she meant until two police officers came in the afternoon to search her house, saying the had been advised to do so by the District Health Officer who had suspected that drugs were missing at the hospital. They found only 12 tablets which were remaining after I had taken the rest.
“After interrogation, Aunt Susan returned home temperate but depressed. I didn’t ask her any question because her imminent suffering was all because of me sake. Later, I learnt that she had been arraigned before a court of law where she was to answer theft charges. She won the case after the presiding magistrate quashed it, saying the drugs that were found in her possession were not enough evidence that she was behind the disappearance of cartons and cartons of the same at the hospital.
“The DHO was not satisfied with the ruling and he appealed. His desire was that aunt Susan should be found guilty and she was indeed found guilty. She didn’t say anything in mitigation and the High Court judge who presided over the appeal case continued delivering his ruling, dwelling at every point that could be pressed in favour of her. But as he continued, it was slowly becoming clear that he had found her guilty. He deliberated for a minute and finally dropped the bombshell, but she was given a two-months sentence suspended to 12 months during which she was not to engage herself in any criminal offence. At her workplace, she was under suspension.
“Although the sentence was not severe, she was not satisfied. According to her, there was a terrible injustice that needed not to pass on. However, she never appealed but wrote a number of articles on injustice and the articles appeared in different newspapers and were being read on different radio stations.”
“What happened after that?” Kennedy asked just to keep the conversation alive.
“At least there was some improvement especially when different human rights bodies joined her bandwagon, but unfortunately, she didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of justice which she had fervently fought for,” she narrated, grief glimmering in her eyes. “This other day, the sun shimmered through the wood, filling us with unbridled warmth. ‘Sometimes life is full of cheap thrills. Life has no meaning at all,’ she said to me without explaining further. The following day, I stood in the garden, my eyes gazing at the fluffy white clouds in the sky. She came behind me and told me that her days were numbered. Her last day was very strange. She behaved as though she had taken leave of her senses. She gave me her Bible and a posy of white roses and mints and larkspurs and her most loved dress and told me that she pitied my welfare. She pulled down every picture-frame and laid them haphazardly in one corner.”
Kennedy had now stopped taking down notes. He was listening with his whole attention, even though Melissa continued including unnecessary parts. He let her obliterate from her mind whatever she wanted to. Perhaps it was going to change something in her.
“I just watched her, completely struck with bewilderment. She told me that I should take very good care of myself and to be always self-controlled. She also advised me to keep my eyes peeled saying the devil was prowling like a hungry lion, seeking who to stray. That night two thugs came to aunt Susan’s house and shot her dead. I had never been horrified in my life like I was on this night. She had always said: life is a fugitive adventure. She was lying in the corner of her own sitting room, as unfeeling as a stone. I stared at her frigid body like a child frightened by the horrifying cry of a nightjar. The thugs threatened that they would let me leave if I agreed to leave the house that very same night and get out of that place.”
“It is clear that she died for your sake,” the reporter said after being silent for some time.
“Yes. Yes…” She reached for the bottom of her prison garb and squeezed it against her eyes.
“But it appears to me that that was the only way.”
“It was a sacrifice for my welfare, yet two weeks later, I was arrested. Her blood had just been shed in vain; her life had just been taken in vain.” Melissa sobbed.
“It is alright,” said the reporter, touching her shoulders endearingly.
“The police never investigated the murder but instead they arrested me. I failed to defend myself because I had run away after the thugs had threatened to kill me if I dared stay there. According to the police, I was running away after murdering my aunt. This is the journey that finally dropped me in this place. If only justice could prevail…”
“Thank you for your cooperation. I am greatly concerned. I will make sure something happens to your advantage,” said the reporter assumingly.
After Melissa’s story appeared in the Malawi Eye a week later, one lawyer, the founder of Bandawe Legal Practitioners, a law firm whose main objective was to help people who had been hauled up before a court of law but could not afford a lawyer, appealed on Melissa’s behalf. After numerous proceedings, the real culprits were finally found. The District Health Officer of the hospital where the late Susan had been working was behind everything. He had been stealing cartons and cartons of drugs from the hospital and had been selling them to private hospitals owners. He had tried to implicate Susan in the scum and when she had not been given a custodial sentence, he just decided to put an end to her life.
The thugs who had been hired by the DHO testified in court and the doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour together with the thugs. Melissa was released and she was handsomely compensated.
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