The Sunday News
THE inherent human characteristics in Fatima prevent her from spitting at Takundwa’s dead body and she feels sorry for the pitifully wasted life. Her life is on edge and she contemplates committing suicide by taking an overdose of malaria pills. There are twenty-four tablets in the bottle.
Fatima believes in divine power which makes her hesitate to take the pills just like that. Her voice whispers that life must be the most precious gift from God, as her hand hesitantly touches the cold bottle of pills again. Sofia’s trial is the one and only meaningful event that is now left in her life. She is determined that its outcome will seal her fate. If Sofia is sentenced to death there will be nothing left to live for. One sympathises with her over this because she would have lost all her children in bizarre circumstances.
However, not all hope is lost for her as she resorts to divine intervention as she decides to kneel down and pray for her daughter. Again this demonstrates the side where the tenderness of motherhood lies. Fatima was born into a large family. She does not even have the exact figure as she thinks they were 26, 27 or 28. That they were a large family is supported by the fact that their father did not know the names of his children.
Fatima is from a poor background. She says she vividly remembers that there were so many half-naked toddlers all crammed into three round huts, each belonging to a different wife. Her father, Mr Marume, was one of the most feared n’angas throughout Nharira. Important looking people with beautiful cars would drive from far and wide to come and consult her father. It was said most of those big people came to buy lucky charms so that they could become richer.
The irony of the whole matter is that Marume himself lived in abject poverty such that Fatima says she was never able to understand why her father could not use the same charms that he sold to others to make himself rich. I have already discussed the abuse of women shown in this text and it is through Fatima that we hear a lot of it. For the benefit of those who missed the earlier instalments here are some examples. She says the first thing she and other girls were taught was the art of good womanhood. The virtues of good motherhood were clearly spelt out from the word go.
Of all these virtues, obedience and submission to anyone who was male was the most emphasised. Good girls had to cook for, wash for and serve properly and promptly, every male being that hung around them. The question of age did not matter. That way, girls would grow to become fully groomed productive, reproductive and responsible wives worth paying lobola for. Such a girl would not put her people to shame if she became fortunate enough to get married.
Marriage and bearing of children seemed therefore, to be the only purpose of womanhood. The worst thing that could happen to a woman was to go about without a proper husband. That woman was looked at as an incomplete person and a major threat to other properly married women who would always look at her freedom with grave suspicion. She therefore, was a shame to her parents and relatives and a very big shame to her ancestors.
Diviners would then be sought to provide spiritual answers as to why the shameful daughter had failed to secure herself a husband just like every other normal woman of her age had already done. After getting married, the woman would then face the important task of bearing a male child first, for the sake of her husband’s name. Today’s women would find it hard to swallow this. All what is done seems to favour men. Girls are tied to culture or custom and have no room to express themselves. Giving birth is God-given, what if a woman gives birth to girls only? Her future is doomed and she would be a subject of ridicule.
Good girls should always be on their knees in respect whenever they are serving their brothers no matter the age. Good girls should not look into the eyes of whoever they are speaking to, especially if it is a man. That kind of boldness would lead to witchcraft. Good girls only speak when spoken to. This was the teaching given to Fatima and other girls at the time. It is clear that girls lived stringent lives bound by tradition.
Tradition is intolerant to deviants. Fatima tells us that she felt the biting sensation of her mother’s stick cutting across her back. This was in response to Fatima’s wayward behaviour. She was caught red handed placing a plate of sadza before her brothers without genuflecting as custom called upon her to do. She had stood in front of her father without kneeling. He described it as standing like a gum tree. Traditionally children belong to the mother.
Marume, Fatima’s mother tells his wife that her daughter acts as if she has been picked from a hill where proper manners have never been practised. He goes on to push the blame to his wife saying, “That is why your children grow up to become prostitutes. I can bet this one will become yet another prostitute just like her elder sister!” When children misbehave all the blame is pushed to their mothers. Children become theirs only as men keep a distance and pass the buck to the women. Is this not a form of abuse?
Remember we are still following Fatima. She is on the brink and all hope is almost gone. Only one thing still remains, this little bottle of pills she is holding in her palms. Looking at the black dresses in her wardrobe she is debating within herself as to which one will they wrap her in when the time comes. If they hang her Sofia, then, she too shall die. All is bleak for Fatima. Her husband Joseph Takundwa, the cause of all her misery is dead.
Fatima is lonely now. She says there is no one to talk to here. Nothing to lean on. Only death and broken things, dead bricks, dead wood, broken window panes., broken dreams, dreams sweet and bitter.
“I too laughed, once.” True to Fatima’s word all hope is lost. Dreams have been shattered. All is lifeless. But the story of Fatima continues as she gives us all the basic information on The Sun Will Rise Again.
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