‘Pain is a woman’

“PAIN is a woman.” These are Fatima’s words when she was at the brink of committing suicide. She had suffered too much abuse from her husband Joseph Takundwa such that she lost all hope. She wants to take away her life by an overdose of malaria tablets. But she hesitates to take those tablets.
Fatima is doubting whether she will have the strength and courage to take the 24 tablets. She says she has counted them, touching each one of them with the care and fear with which one touches a loaded gun. They have now become a lethal weapon. But it is clear that the writer discourages suicide as Fatima has a lot of questions about death which eventually drive away the vile thoughts she has about life.

Questions begin to rattle through her mind. Fear of the unknown; the uncertainties about heaven. She asks whether the bible underneath her pillow could provide her with an assurance of going to heaven. She asks further: “What about the pain of dying? Is death such a painless event after all? Why do we tremble at the very mention of the word?”

Suicide is discouraged. Death should come in its own way. The holy book, the bible condemns it as well. Judas Iscariot after betraying Jesus Christ went away and committed suicide instead of repenting his sins, therefore, he was condemned. Death by suicide is an abomination.

Chinua Achebe, in his novel, Things Fall Apart condemns it through showing the folly of the character Okonkwo. Okonkwo hated his father Unoka for everything including laziness and when the latter had a swelling of the stomach he was sent to die in the evil forest.

Unoka died of a disease thought to be an abomination in Umuofia but Achebe shows Okonkwo dying of suicide a more abominable form of death than that of his father which was a result of prejudiced opinions by their society. When the rest of his tribe did not support his fight against the whites after he had killed a court messenger, Okonkwo wiped his axe in the sand and went away to kill himself. One of the biggest ironies in the text.

Sorry for the slight digression, I wanted to emphasise the evils of suicide. Even in the worst forms of abuse people should not think of suicide as a solution. Fatima in distress says she knows what pain is all about. She categorically states that pain is a woman. Pain is a woman watching her son being burnt to death while people sing and dance to songs of freedom. Pain is when your six-year-old daughter disappears never to be seen again.

Here Fatima is talking about how her first-born son, Lovemore was killed for selling out the freedom fighters. Remember Lovemore was killed for his father’s crimes who was said to have sold out the guerrillas. The six-year-old daughter Fatima talks about is Tabitha who was kidnapped by her father, Joseph Takundwa, together with Nyati, a businessman. We also hear that her husband Takundwa died by hanging himself with barbed wire.

Suicide is suicide no matter in what form, hence I beg to differ with Fatima when she says that she is sure pills would be less painful than hanging oneself with barbed wire as Takundwa did. Her only surviving child, Sofia, is now languishing in a remand cell, awaiting trial for the murder of her husband. Fatima has imagined fears about prison sentences. She has heard that they cut off the heads of murderers and throw them to the dogs.

Fatima has questions like, how can she live on carrying such a heavy burden? How can she live on knowing that she is the mother of a child whose head and dreams were cut off and thrown to the dogs? She says she will always curse the day that she met her late husband, Joseph Takundwa. His incurable greed has been the source of all her problems. The chain of events that have triggered off his darkness can be traced back to his insatiable lust for money. He spent his whole life in pursuit of wealth. Yet, for all his efforts, he left behind nothing except a chain of graves that have been dug close to her heart.

Joseph Takundwa has been a cruel husband. His greed swallowed both his children Lovemore and Tabitha. Fatima is pained by the loss of her children calling Lovemore the sacrificial lamb who died for the sins of his father. Fatima asks: “How does it feel like to be roasted to death while people are singing and dancing to freedom songs?” She says Sofia will most probably be sent to jail because of Takundwa.

Fatima shows how much she hated Takundwa because of his abuse when she found him hanging from the rafters. She says she will never forget the conflict of emotions that she had to endure at that moment. One part of her wanted to spit at him, dead as he was. However, the more human side, the side where the tenderness of motherhood lies, felt sorry for this pitifully wasted life. Fatima would not foolishly take away her own life.

She whispers that life must be the most precious gift from God, as her hand hesitantly touches the cold bottle again. Women were subjected to many forms of abuse which leads Fatima concluding that pain is a woman. The first thing she and the other girls were taught was the art of good womanhood. Of all virtues spelt out, obedience and submission to anyone who was male was emphasised. Good girls had to cook for, wash for and serve properly and promptly every male being that hung around them.

The next article will show more cases of women abuse as presented in the text.
For views, link up with [email protected] or sms only to 0772113207.