The Sunday News
Cuthbert Mavheko
“THOMAS Hamadzapera!” The judge boomed. All eyes in the courtroom were glued on me — some with pity and sorrow and others with contempt and hostility as I was shoved into the packed courtroom. My wrists were bruised and swollen from the tight handcuffs clamped on my hands. Pulled and pushed, I staggered towards the dock like a drunken kung-fu master.
An eerie silence enveloped the courtroom. The silence was so thick and heavy, it was like the Almighty was about to announce the names of those who had made it to heaven. I stared blankly at my wife, who sat in the public gallery with her head bowed down like a monk in prayer. Her sullen face portrayed the profound agony and anguish that she felt in her heart. The judge shuffled his papers and barked, “Mr Hamadzapera do you plead guilty or not guilty to murder?”
“Not guilty, your Worship, “I croaked. The judge scribbled something down and went on, “The evidence against you is overwhelming.The police caught you red-handed at the scene of the gruesome murder, searching the deceased’s handbag. This evidence is enough to convict you of murder and . . .” I did not hear the rest of what the judge said because, at that moment, I let my mind wander back to the very day my woes began.
It all began on Christmas Day. The time was 5.30pm when I parked my ancient Jaguar in the parking lot at Masina Sports Bar in Luveve. I nipped out of the car, locked all the doors and sauntered into the cocktail section of the sports bar. I bought a beer and sat down near a quartet of dread-locked youths who were playing snooker. I was nursing my sixth beer when a young woman, who was ravishingly dressed in a sky-blue dress that clung to her curvy figure like a second skin joined me.” I hope you don’t mind sharing the table with me,” she said with a warm and friendly voice.
“Let’s share the table, honey. After all it’s Christmas Day and we may as well celebrate the day together. My name is Bheki and what’s yours?” I said. The woman laughed — the laugh was hearty and akin to a melodious song. “My name is Charity,” she said. I bought her a beer and within minutes we were chatting amicably like old friends while downing ice-cold beers. What happened next is now hazy in my mind. Charity must have laced my beer with a drug because the next thing that I remember is waking up in the middle of the night to find myself in bed with her. I was as naked as Adam on the day that he was created. My clothes were strewn in an untidy heap on the floor.
I was getting dressed when the door burst open, all of a sudden, and a tall, bearded man lumbered into the room. The man was a giant and looked more like a gorilla than a member of homo-sapiens. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house? You can say your last prayers now because you are as good as dead,” he growled, moving menacingly towards me. By now I was shaking like a reed caught up in a hailstorm.
“Please . . . please . . . do not hurt me. Let . . . let me explain what . . .” I didn’t finish what I wanted to say. The man unleashed a ferocious left hook that struck me on the jaw. It was a chopping blow, hard enough to drive a six-inch nail into oak. I crashed to the floor and passed out. When I came to, I found myself in a ditch, near the sports bar. Of the $300 that I had the previous day, not a dime remained in my pockets. A fool and his money are soon parted, they say. I began to look for my car in the parking lot, but there was no sign of it. The parking lot was eerily deserted and as empty as a dead man’s mind.
Dawn was breaking and the eastern horizon was bathed in a faint crimson haze, bouncing between the shores of sobriety and inebriation, I tottered towards my home in Gwabalanda, I was hobbling, step by painful step, along a meandering pathway that passes through the bushy area between the sports bar and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when a blood-chilling scream suddenly shredded the serene morning atmosphere. The scream, which came from a thick clump of bushes, started on a low note and rose higher until it trailed off into a series of strangled gurgles, I heard a car start up and speed away with a rapid change of gears.
Curiosity killed the cat, they say. With my heart pounding like a drum, I crept towards the clump of bushes to investigate, and then I came to a sudden halt as if I had walked into an invisible concrete wall. I stood rooted to the ground in horror, a cold, spooky chill crawling up and down my spine like spiders’ legs. Charity was sprawled in a pool of blood on the ground. Her stomach had been ripped open by a sharp instrument and blood gushed out in a torrent. For a brief moment of thoughtful hesitancy, I stood unmoving, then I knelt down beside her and stuttered:”Who . . . who . . . did this to you?” Her blood-bathed body started trembling and jerking in spasm. Her eyes fluttered, flicked open and fixed momentarily on my own. There was momentary silence and then she quavered, “Please . . . please . . . help me, I am dying. Call an ambulance for me; there . . . there is a cellphone in my handbag. Hurry please.”
I was looking for the cellphone in her handbag when a menacing voice suddenly growled, behind me, “Leave the handbag alone Satan! Now get up on your feet and turn around slowly with your hands above your head.” I complied with the order and faced the two tough-looking policemen, who had materialised out of the blue and were pointing their AK 47 rifles at me. They handcuffed me and then took turns to assault me with booted feet. Later on, they dumped me at Luveve Police Station on allegations of murder . . .
“. . . Find you guilty of murder and hereby sentence you to death,’’ these were the judge’s words that jerked me back to the present. Within seconds of sentence being passed, I was hauled out of the courtroom and bundled into a prison truck. There was no time to say good bye to my wife.
