The Sunday News
LAST week we left Joseph Takundwa on the run. He had supplied freedom fighters with poisoned clothes, therefore according to his nephew Nicholas, one of the mujibhas, the boys, were after him. The writing was on the wall that Takundwa was going to be killed since two of the comrades had already died as a result of the poison.
Takundwa was panic stricken and his instincts demanded that he leaves everything behind him and flee.
Takundwa proves beyond doubt that he only cares about himself and nobody else. This is the reason why he entered into weird arrangements with people like Nyati even if what they were doing was to prove harmful to his family. For example, in this instance Takundwa bolted out of the shop. Had he not bumped into his wife who was coming into the shop to get a packet of salt, he says he would have got into his truck and driven off there and then.
When Fatima asked Takundwa what was wrong, she was greeted with a command ordering her that they should leave immediately. He did not show concern about the children except to tell his wife to go and look for them. He is not assisting to look for them. I am not sure whether he is genuine when told that Lovemore is not around. He exclaims: “Oh my God! Where is he?” Fatima is threatened with being left behind if she continues delaying to look for the children.
But looking for children at this crucial time of life and death was supposed to be a combined effort between husband and wife. Fatima questions the idea of leaving her son behind and Takundwa reminds her that he is leaving her behind if that is what she wants. He denies Fatima the chance a few minutes to run down and ask for her son’s whereabouts from his friends. Takundwa says he has no time for that. It was either she came in or she was left behind.
Takundwa tells Fatima that they should go and appeal to the Almighty that the freedom fighters could be there any minute. But his son Lovemore was left behind. But Fatima, Lovemore’s mother, cannot leave her son behind at the mercy of the freedom fighters and orders Takundwa to stop the car as she wanted to go back for her son. Takundwa eventually gives in and drops her. Takundwa wants to save his and drives on telling Fatima that he would wait for her at Enkeldorn Police Station.
When Fatima drops from Takundwa’s truck she is hopeful that the freedom fighters have not taken Lovemore. She says she should never have left him in the first place. She prays to God to save her son. She decides to run blaming herself for having decided to leave her son behind. She promises never to forgive herself if anything happened to her son. Fatima discovers that the shop is on fire. She starts calling Lovemore’s name. She asks for Lovemore’s whereabouts from Tariro’s mother who does not want to look into her eyes.
The fact that Tariro’s mother does not want to look into the eyes of Fatima signifies that something is terribly wrong. Then Tariro’s mother breaks the sad news that Lovemore has been taken by the freedom fighters. At last Tariro’s mother looking into Fatima’s eyes tells her to be careful. Fatima hears that there will be a pungwe that night near a hill nearby. The freedom fighters had found Lovemore alone in the shop. On realising that his father had escaped they had decided to take him to a nearby hill. All the villagers were invited to come and watch what the freedom fighters could do to a sell-out.
Fatima describes the horrible death of her son. As the villagers sang and danced, they took turns to thrash her son with huge logs, eventually he was thrown into the fire. She arrived when he was about to be thrown into the fire.
From that moment, she says she knew exactly what pain feels like; incurable, unquenchable pain. She says could have passed out there and then. We then get the following eulogy from her: “Tear-drops, tear-drops, Where are you? Come, wash away my pain, Tear-drops, tear-drops, Come, dress my wounds. All including my soul is hurting, Oh heavenly father, Carry me home!”
Indeed, Fatima is in serious pain after losing a son in such horrific circumstances. Takundwa is at cross-purposes with Fatima. He refuses to own up and accept the responsibility of causing Lovemore’s death. He says he cannot understand why his wife blames him alone and no one else for Lovemore’s death. According to Fatima, in fact it was Takundwa who murdered Lovemore. Instead of accepting the blame he calls that absolute madness saying how could he be blamed for killing someone he did not kill.
But Fatima is adamant that it is Takundwa who killed her son by leaving him behind. Takundwa does not understand his point of view. The fact that Lovemore was not present when they decided to flee was not of his own making. He says had they waited for Lovemore, the whole family would have perished. Instead of blaming him, Fatima should in fact be thanking him. But now she calls him a coward? She tells Takundwa that if she were him, she would start wearing a dress from that day onwards. Challenging why he should wear a dress, Fatima is blunt and tells him that he is a woman.
Takundwa did not allow Fatima to finish that sentence as he unleashed a vicious blow that caught her by the chin. Here is a man who after losing an argument, he resorts to violence. He felt both of them, himself and his wife Fatima were to blame for Lovemore’s death.
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