Nyati rapes Sofia

Charles Dube
NINE thousand dollars salary is too tempting to ignore, especially in an environment where jobs are hard to come by. Naturally Sofia was bound to accept Nyati’s offer of such a highly paying job. She knew very well that jobs were then very difficult to get. Highly qualified university graduates were roaming the streets for more than a year in search of a job.

Those were the days of retrenchments. Getting a job was the same as striking gold. Such an astronomical offer sends Sofia to dreamland. She had already started dreaming about how she would spend her first salary, $9 000. She would give half of it to her mother and would spoil herself with a lot of fashionable dresses. She had seen a lot of beautiful dresses hanging in shop windows which she had always dreamt of wearing.

Nyati plays his cards very well. Sofia surely should have noted Nyati’s tricks. In the days of jobs scarcity she was suddenly offered a windfall. She admits that she had not even thought of looking for a job, yet she was offered a job with a high salary.

When she enquires about the nature of the job she is to do, Nyati is not even specific about it only saying they will find something for her. On this one Sofia should have been suspicious and acted with caution.

However, other forces come into play and influence Sofia to fall for Nyati’s trap. She is unable to make independent decisions hence she decides to talk to her mother about it. Sofia’s mother is surprised to hear that Nyati has offered her daughter a job.

She remembers Nyati’s previous tactics of trying to lure Sofia towards him. Remember Nyati used to spoil Sofia with gifts to the shock of both of them. They could tell that Nyati intended to make Sofia his eighth wife.

Sofia’s mother is aware of Nyati’s intentions and observes that he has not given up on Sofia. She asks if Sofia has already decided to take up the job. She is clear that she does not trust Nyati and she knows what he is after. Sofia reveals to her mother that she does not know what job Nyati wants her to do. Sofia’s mother is indecisive. She has no power to either agree with her daughter’s decision or to disagree with it. She leaves everything to her husband Joseph Takundwa.

Fatima, Sofia’s mother is Joseph Takundwa’s punch bag. She is subjected to emotional and physical abuse by her husband. She is a weakling in his presence and cannot make any binding decisions. Even at critical moments like these severely affecting her daughter she says they should wait for him to hear what he will say about this matter. Fatima does not understand her husband. She is a poor judge of character. She does not see that her husband is secretly working with Joseph Takundwa.

Takundwa is supping with the devil — Nyati. Fatima is unaware that her husband is materialistic and can do anything as long as it is going to give him money. Nyati is aware of Takundwa’s weakness towards money and makes use of his wealth to draw the latter towards him. Nyati uses Takundwa as his tool of committing crimes in return for money. As it is after Nyati has offered Sofia a job, she returns home with a $10 000 cheque payable to “Mr Joseph Takundwa”.

Indirectly this cheque was used to buy Takundwa to influence his daughter towards Nyati. It is clear that Takundwa was conniving with Nyati because after Sofia returned from Nyati, that evening her father returned home early. He was very anxious to know what Sofia had brought from Nyati. Sofia noticed that her father’s fingers were trembling as he opened the envelope which had $10 000. Takundwa is indignant when he hears that Sofia has not yet accepted the job. He tells them that they should be mad. Sofia’s mother still insists that she does not trust Nyati as he seems to have other things in mind.

Takundwa says it is people like them who have nothing in their minds who can only think of such stupid things, people who are good at eating. He tells Fatima that the only part of her head which works properly is her mouth, always eating and talking rubbish.

Sofia decided to take up the job and reported at Nyati’s office where she was to work as his “personal secretary”. The job would give her a lot of opportunities to travel with Nyati on his numerous business trips. Nyati said, “You are the right person for the job. A high profile businessman like me needs a young girl by his side. It sort of enhances one’s image.” Asking what she would do on that first day at work, Nyati dipped into his pocket and fished out a ward of twenty dollar notes telling her to go into town and buy herself all the best dresses she could lay her hands on.

Sofia is traditional and down to earth asking if she was not supposed to do some work before getting paid. Nyati told her that her pay would come at the end of the month, that was just a wardrobe allowance. As days went by, Sofia began to realise that being a “personal secretary” really meant spending the whole day sitting in an office, polishing her fingernails. It also meant accompanying Nyati to his business lunches every afternoon, thus being forced to eat a lot of tasteless foods she had never eaten before.

Sofia realised that she was being used by Nyati because she noticed that Nyati enjoyed being seen with her. Nyati takes Sofia for lunch at the Sheraton Hotel on Valentine’s Day. Nyati tells Sofia that he wants her to enjoy herself since it was a special day but on enquiring what was special about it, Nyati was evasive saying he would tell her later. Sofia presents Nyati with a chance to drug her. She did not eat and decided to go to the ladies room. When she came back Nyati offered her a glass of coke claiming it might stimulate her appetite.

She was definitely feeling quite thirsty and immediately gulped three mouthfuls of the drink. The coke did not taste normal but she took another sip. She felt a strange dizziness. Her head suddenly felt too heavy for her shoulders. When the dizziness got worse Nyati took her to his room telling Sofia that everything would be well.

The rest is history and Sofia says: “As I reflect on the painful memories of that fateful day, I just cannot understand how I could have been so naïve and blind. How could I have failed to see through the vain generosity? In my foolish blindness, I had been ensnared like the rat that died after eating poisoned sugar. All those expensive lunches, all those gifts, even the job were the bait that had been used to trap me.”

When Sofia gets home late at night she tells her mother: “He raped me! Nyati raped me mother!”

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