admin“Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage”, so reasons Ambrose Biera; and in William Shakespeare’s view: “Love is blind and lovers do not see.” Love is such “a wonderful thing”, as Michael Bolton aptly sums it up. Imagine what this world would be like had it not been for love! Just conjure a picture of a loveless world, where everyone is too busy minding their own business without giving a hoot to anyone else’s plight; a world of adversity, pain, hopelessness and suffering. In a world where dogs live off dogs, the humongous fish of prey feeds on the small fish that eke out a non-existent life on the periphery of the shores and the muffles of the frail and vulnerable are bamboozled by the torrential gusts of the powerful and well heeled; who will give voice to the voiceless, if love is relegated, like their dreams, to the ever receding horizon?
In the absence of love, life would become unbearable, as indeed for every one of us, there is someone who cares for our well-being and gives us hope to face another day – another challenge and soldier on with a new zeal.
What happens then gentle reader, if the object of your desires turns out to be the vital cog in the machinery designed to exacerbate your suffering? If indeed it is proven true that the “temporary madness” called love “ends with marriage,” should one keep hanging on to a reverie that stretches thousands of miles into the abyss, with the hope that maybe, only maybe, the past glow can be rekindled?
Does love really die, or is it worth dying for? Is it possible to trust again once betrayed? Is it worth it to trust anybody in this world when communication jujitsu posits that there is no good reason why one should trust anyone?
Gentle reader, there are times that answers alone are not solutions to questions – they fall short of expectations, because as in the eyes of the philosopher Socrates, the best way to answer is to ask questions. The more one asks questions, the more one gets leverage over one’s adversaries, who are engrossed in attempts to respond, thus exposing their own foibles.
It is against this background that questioning is more rewarding than answering, that the reading of Munashe Monica Rupazo’s sizzling, thrilling and resonating novella “Loving Trust” (2015) becomes apt. The book purveys the darkness of Man’s heart – that voyeuristic ancient part which draws excitement from trauma and suffering.
In the rat race against time, Man finds himself at the mercy of his own machinations. In his quest to extricate himself from the labyrinthine snare of his creation, he finds himself in an even more precarious predicament than he could have been before. In the thick of events, he has to love or hate, be loved or hated, trust or trusted. Caught between limited options, he finds himself sprawling on bedrock that either hurts him or those that he loves, and at the end of it all, he has to bet his soul on chance.
But deceit being Man’s way of settling scores, one has to be really careful of who to trust. However, the question remains: Does a trustworthy man still tread this earth?
Set in the fictional country of Vienna, the book tells the story of love, selfishness, resilience, avarice and betrayal. It is the story of two young people, Ternado and Manathe, who marry, not “out of love”, but as is the case with many a woman born with no silver spoon in the mouth, so was it with the heroine and her sister, for “poverty gave them no chance to decide which man would marry them.”
Tern, who is described as “a barmen’s valuable customer,” works as a handyman at the Platinum Trust Ltd, 100 miles off the harbour where Manathe and her sister live. Like her sister, the protagonist does odd jobs like cleaning bars, houses and fishing nets at the harbour, to keep body and soul together.
With poverty playing hide and seek with their souls and gnawing at their fragility, the young couple gets “married”; but as fate would have it, a major company that the predominantly poor community hinges on, relocates, leaving in its wake “retrenchees, empty houses and bleak prospects.” Poverty intensifies and dreams are set afire.
It is in this turmoil that the young couple is mercilessly thrown into.
Tern, who reels under heavy debts due to his gadabout nature, gambling habits and improper association, finds himself taking all this brunt on his wife, who seems to be a willing pawn; perchance out of desperation. She becomes his slave, spending 100 miles away from home, selling her wares at the marketplace and handing over all her daily takings to her husband. Like most men, Ternado takes his wife for granted, and the turbulent nature of their relationship robs them of the intimacy required to bear children.
Manathe’s barrenness is symbolic of the fruitless nature of worldly possessions in general and the void central to their union which reflects on the national discourse. The hopelessness that this barrenness pervades throughout the story spells doom for the familial, communal and national psyches as regeneration is strangled.
Everything comes to a head when an old debt comes back to hound Ternado. Through interacting and merging of episodes in the couple’s travails, the third person omniscient and omnipresent narrator highlights the tempests that marriage has to weather to keep afloat.
Timon, the brutal and bloodthirsty don, who considers the town his own backyard, is involved, and what follows is a compelling story of mind games, the devious nature of financial muscle, deceit, death and ritual enigmas. The train of events that unfolds through adept use of language, suspense and metaphors leaves the reader aghast, which places Monica Rupazo a shoulder above most of her contemporaries in the genre, considering that “Loving Trust” is her debut novel.
Williams, who is sent by Timon to capture and murder Manathe so that her cadaver is sold to the dark world for ritual purposes, reneges on his promise to deliver, as his close acquaintance with Ternado in the past knocks sense into him. His decision to spare his erstwhile friend’s wife costs him his life at the don’s brutal hand. Marko also betrays their boss and Marten, who is a cousin to Williams, has to play the kin and kith card and side with Tern against their common foe. He sets Timon’s bar on fire and dooms him.
In response to the pangs of love that he thought had already died, Tern finds himself fighting for his heart’s desire as a new spasm of love for his wife is released into his system. As death stares at both of them, he realises how much he loves her; and scolds himself for neglecting her and straddling on their vows to stand for each other.
As is always the case with romanticism and sentimentalism that the writer elects to depict, poetic justice is achieved, as the bad guys are punished and the good ones are rewarded. Love conquers all in the end, for nothing beats the power of love after all.
On the flip-side however, the book exposes the bane of haste and inexperience which most emerging artistes find their lot caught up in, as the desire to see their works in print compromises the quality of the final products.
Without taking anything from her prowess with language, Rupazo’s use of an exotic setting, alien names, French phrases and words, as well as a rather far-fetched fictional experience, rob her book of authenticity, because the storyline articulated is detached from the African or Zimbabwean experience. It is the sharing of experience which gives depth to any piece of art, and it is this that is glaringly missing in this otherwise compelling story. The story also follows a very thin and predictable plot, which though romantically apt, is realistically amiss, as the debt which pivots the story is not clearly validated, or monetised so as to give impetus to the final outcome – as death settles everything.
There are also minor inconsistencies that careful editing could have arrested.
Notwithstanding the teething glitches highlighted, Munashe Monica Rupazo’s “Loving Trust” (2015) remains a moving read which puts her on the path to a great career as a writer.
Online Reporter