Jeremiah takes blame for tragedy

06 Sep, 2015 - 00:09 0 Views

The Sunday News

JEREMIAH confesses that he is responsible for the unfolding drama. He blames his impulsive nature for all this just like his marriage to Matilda. He reveals his role in this saga through rhetoric questions. “Was there any good reason for me to keep on chasing after a married woman? No matter how unhappily married she was I had no right to keep on pursuing her. The fact that she had been my childhood sweetheart did not give me the licence to destroy . . . destroy? Is that the right word?”

He thinks maybe interfere would be the better euphemism compared to destroy. However, Jeremiah proves very realistic as he states that if the truth were to be told, the effect of it all has been very destructive indeed. His reunion with his childhood sweetheart Sofia has been destructive. Nyati, Sofia’s husband is dead and Sofia is in prison waiting to be tried for the death of her husband. Those who have been following this story know that Nyati found his wife Sofia together with her boyfriend Jeremiah.

Nyati had gone to Sofia’s flat with the intention of killing both of them. In his mind he was armed with a gun but when the time to use it came, reality dawned on him that he had left it behind. He had revealed to Sofia that he was responsible for the death of her sister Tabitha. More details will follow. Meanwhile, let us follow the impulsive Jeremiah. Jeremiah like most people is influenced by what takes place around him. Communities have various beliefs and one at times finds himself following suit.

Quite impulsively, Jeremiah suddenly finds himself staring at the lines inside his palms. He has heard that some people can tell a lot of things about a person’s destiny by merely looking at their palms. To him this is strange indeed. How can an inert line on a palm influence such unpredictable things like events. He is clear that he does not believe in this thing called “fate”. He says he has always argued that man must be more able to influence his own destiny than that.

“Events are man-made, all these tragedies that are so common in our lives are a simple reflection of our folly.” All this is Jeremiah’s view and he says he remembers writing this particular line in one of his poems. Remember last week he told us that he is an epitome of failure. Everything he has attempted has always ended up being of no consequence. Even those poems that he treasures so much have apparently failed to impress anyone else. Is it not that he seems to challenge even the obvious like the forces of fate which makes his poems fail to appeal to other people?

Fate is a force over which human beings have no control but Jeremiah says he does not believe in it. Is he being realistic? He has to wake up and attend Sofia’s trial that afternoon. We see another dimension of Jeremiah. Scanning around the room he is unsettled by the disorder he sees. In one corner, unwashed stockings are hanging over a dish full of plates. Empty beer bottles and cigarette stubs are scattered all over the floor.

In another corner is another heap of unwashed plates and cups. Jeremiah wonders how long it will take to clean all the mess as there are plates that have not been washed for the past two weeks. What strikes his mind is that he needs a wife. Who will it be? He walked out on Matilda and Sofia whom he has been pursuing is in prison as stated earlier, awaiting trial for the murder of her husband Nyati. Jeremiah has been brought up in a traditional set up where all house chores were carried out by his sisters.

As a young boy he never had to worry about washing plates, cups, pots and clothes. He says he remembers being taught that such things were too trivial to be done by a man. There were more important jobs that required brains and energy. The implication was that women had no brains and energy. Shakespeare says somewhere, “Frailty is thy name woman” suggesting a universal belief that women are weak, they cannot partake in physically challenging jobs.

Jeremiah says he is badly in need of a wife and this time he will never be impulsive about that thing again. He looks back thinking that if only he had married Sofia. If only Sofia had not left him for a rich man old enough to be her father. Before their reunion he had never been able to understand why Sofia had dropped him all of a sudden as she had done. Sofia was forced by circumstances to do that. Sofia was a victim of cultural abuse whereby parents choose husbands for their daughters.

Joseph Takundwa had married his daughter Sofia to Nyati because he was rich. He did not care about Sofia’s feelings as he focussed on getting money from Nyati who was old enough to be Sofia’s father. Sofia had no choice but to get into a loveless marriage leading to tragedy. Jeremiah was shattered when he heard that Sofia was pregnant. He felt betrayed in his whole life as to how Sofia could let someone do that, yet she had never allowed him even an innocent kiss.

Jeremiah remembers that he was still a student at the university then, and can still remember the rhyme he wrote the day that he received Sofia’s letter informing him that he should forget about her then. “There goes the cheat riding on the back of a cheater chasing after the teacher who taught her how to cheat, there goes the sucker carrying a sack, a sack full of sand she thinks is full of gold.” Jeremiah is putting all the blame on Sofia.

He thinks Sofia married Nyati because she is a gold digger, but the truth is far from that. Her father, Joseph Takundwa is the actual gold digger as he was the architect of all Sofia’s problems.

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