The Sunday News
Charles Dube
The Sun Will Rise Again by George Mujajati
CONFIRMED from last week that such a question requires a lot of time, I did not manage to go into depths with Fatima as more information was left unsaid. However, I only succeeded in giving direction as to how to tackle the question. Today, we will endeavour to discuss the question from Jeremiah’s view point and time permitting we can tackle Sofia as well.
Jeremiah is shown going through some self-examination after facing marital problems. This is almost the same with Fatima who looked back and told us that all her problems came about when she met Joseph Takundwa who had an incurable greed.
Jeremiah tells us that it is six months since he walked out on his wife after catching her in bed with another man. He now wonders why he ever married her. He tells us that there is nothing in common between them.
Jeremiah says, “Ours was a torrid four years of incompatible cohabitation. So incompatible were we that we remained childless after four years of marriage.” He is unsure whether their childlessness was the principal cause of their separation.
Through this introspection, he finds it hard to pinpoint the real cause of their separation. “Could it be the unexpected reunion with Sofia, my childhood sweetheart that had put the death nail into the already troubled marriage?
Jeremiah admits that the unexpected meeting with Sofia plunged him headlong into dreamland again. Of course, he realises a hard fact about dreams, “But dreams are only dreams.” Despite all that had happened he still loved Sofia very much. After spending the last five years in what he calls, an emotional desert, he says it surprised him very much to realise that he could still feel such things again. He wonders how he could still love her, even after the betrayal.
After the reunion, Jeremiah makes it clear that Sofia had started to dominate his dreams. Even in bed it was Sofia lying beside him instead of his wife Matilda. He did not realise the amount of talking that went on during those romantic escapades in the land of illusion. Matilda warns Jeremiah that this Sofia he always dreams about is the wife of a very important person and for Jeremiah to continue flirting with her will result in the loss of the flat she had pressed many buttons to get.
Jeremiah does not hide the fact that there was now a very deep emotional gulf between them. The constant reminder about his failures and how the flat had been obtained had become a thorn pricking deep into his manhood. Being the poor teacher that he was, he says he did not need those constant reminders about what a failure he had turned out to be. He did not need anyone to remind him of his too many failures. He accepts that he knows very well that he is the epitome of failure.
Everything he has attempted has always ended up being of no consequence. Checking his inner self Jeremiah has found out his failures. The poems that he treasures so much have failed to impress anyone else beside himself. All the publishers he has approached have thrown his poems back at him accompanied by single sentence rejections. They all found the poems either “too moralistic” or “over written.” Above all, he had failed to get Matilda pregnant, a fact Matilda would always find opportunity to remind him about.
The last bit really tore his spirit. In this state of mind, Jeremiah reveals that his impulsive nature is all to blame. He says, “Was there any 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 here? Maybe interfere would be a better euphemism. However, if the truth were to be told, the effect of all has been very destructive indeed.”
Indeed, Jeremiah is undergoing some introspection and admits the wrong he has done. The question is, “Is he going to reform after seeing the evil in himself?” He finds it strange that people can tell a lot of things about a person’s destiny by merely looking at their palms. But, impulsively he finds himself staring at the lines inside his palms. He still questions the authenticity of an inert line on a palm influencing such unpredictable things like events.
Jeremiah makes it 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. He remembers writing the following line in one of his poems: “Events are made, all these tragedies that are so common in our lives are a simple reflection of our folly.” Jeremiah had come to self-realisation. He now had a deep understanding of human nature. Foolishness results in tragedy.
Jeremiah was completely shattered when he learnt about Sofia’s marriage to a rich old man, Nyati. When he received Sofia’s letter informing her that he should forget all about her he wrote a rhyme which reads: “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 it’s full of gold!”
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