The Sunday News
PAIN is a woman watching her son being burnt to death. Pain is when her six-year-old daughter disappears never to be seen again. Last week we left Fatima having come to a dead end. She has lost almost all her children in bizarre circumstances and her only hope now lies on her daughter Sofia whose life is also hanging by a thread. She says if they hang Sofia she shall die too. She is already trying dresses she wants to be buried in.
But she is terribly frightened and asks herself why it is so? She tells herself to be brave and a cloud of loneliness engulfs her mind. Rock hard silence prevails around her. This is the silence of death as no single sound prevails there. She realises that the silence is only external. Inside, she can hear screams of children burning in gigantic flames of fire. She hears Lovemore’s burning cries and people singing and dancing to freedom songs as they celebrate her son’s pain.
All these are past experiences which are just in her mind. She is reliving the past and fails to forget the fateful day when her eldest son Lovemore was killed. Her mind is preoccupied with events of that particular day. She realises that she is lonely now. There is no one to talk to here. There is nothing to lean on. There is emptiness around her. Only death and broken things, dead bricks, dead wood, broken window panes, broken dreams, dreams sweet and bitter.
For weeks now Fatima has talked to no one else but herself, asking herself bitter questions about fire, pain and death, living with nothing else but ghosts of dead children, as if they were born with death in their veins instead of life. The tenderness of a mother’s love preoccupies Fatima’s mind hence fitting images of Lovemore and Tabitha pass through her mind. Lovemore; the one they hacked and cooked as they sang and danced and Tabitha murdered and mutilated.
These children did not have decent burials, more so with Tabitha who just disappeared and was never seen again. Even her dead body was never found. Pain is a woman. Fatima is pained about what happened to her children. She cannot do anything but appeal for divine intervention as she prays: “God have mercy upon my children’s souls. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy ghost . . .”
“Broken dreams. Dreams sweet and bitter. I too laughed, once.” Fatima once thought she lived a normal life and like many children had big dreams about her future. However, all this came to nothing when she stopped going to school. Tradition became a stumbling block. Tradition meant she could not proceed with her education beyond Grade Seven. She relates that she would never forget the day she went to collect her Grade Seven results.
She had passed with flying colours. She had done better than her step-brother Jerasi who had been in the same class with her. Her dream of becoming a nurse was within sight. She was definite she would get a place at the prestigious Assisi Secondary School from where she would go on and train as a nurse. She had always cherished the dream that one day she would be donning a spotless white dress, spotting a neat cap on her head just like nurse Muodzi who worked at their local clinic.
Her results slip in hand she had confidently approached her father. Her proud mother was just behind her. Excited Fatima tells her father that she passed and surprised he asks her what she passed. “Hu-u, passed what?” Her father has no clue of what his daughter passed, even when shown the results slip he still questions what it is. He does not know that his daughter was in Grade Seven thinking that she was in Grade Five. We are of the view that Marume is of the opinion that children are for women. He is unconcerned about their welfare. He just sees children growing up and does not know more about them.
Marume sees girl children as money-making tools. He cares less that Fatima has passed as he says she has grown up and very soon he will receive a lot of cattle from a rich husband. He contemplates marrying Fatima off regardless of her age. When Fatima tells him that she came out with the best results at the school, he commends her as very clever. Hearing that she did better than the boys, Marume goes to extremes as to question nature.
He says: “God must have made a mistake when you were born. He surely wanted to make a man out of you — a very clever and strong man just like your father.” This is heresy of the worst kind. Just after this, Fatima’s dreams are shattered. All started when Fatima’s mother suggested to her husband to take her to Assisi Secondary School either that day or the following morning — otherwise she would find the Form One places filled up. This suggestion shocks Marume.
Fatima’s mother relates that it is her teacher who said that she should take her to Assisi as soon as possible. Marume is livid and asks: “Her teacher said what?” Fatima’s mother insists that the teacher said he should go with her. Angrily Marume asks: “So who is this teacher now to tell me where to and where not to go with my own daughter? Tell me now — what has this teacher become in my house? Go and tell that teacher of yours that he can take his own wife or daughter to Assisi if he wishes to do so. Tell him to leave my children alone . . .”
Marume immediately folded Fatima’s results slip and handed it back to her. He never spoke about the issue of school anymore. That’s how Fatima’s dreams of going to school met a solid end. Her brother Jerasi, who had just scrapped enough points to qualify for secondary school, was fortunate to find a place at Assisi Secondary School. Now as she looks out of the room through the broken window-pane painful memories begin to surface. This broken window is a reminder of her broken dreams.
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