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Ignatius Mabasa Shelling Nuts
DURING this just-ended Easter, I saw a man and a woman fighting. The fight was so bad and undignified because it left the woman partially undressed after her clothes were torn.The woman who seemed oblivious of her state of undress, continued fighting with the man who looked like a weather-beaten scarecrow.
They must have been husband and wife, and I don’t know for how long they had been fighting, but it was very clear that both were physically exhausted and traumatised.
I wished I could hear their story because I write conflict in all its states and textures.
I am interested in understanding human trauma and its causes. I am interested in understanding the logic of rage and brutality that caused a man to bite and eventually stab his ex-wife to death in Harare during Easter.
Why do men abuse their social positions to terrorise and dehumanise women like in this story below that was inspired a real life event?
Darkness was falling and the village was preparing to rest after a long day of crying, hungry children and foraging for food.
Cattle, goats and chickens were just beginning to get cosy in their homes. My cat was licking himself and punctuating the game my grandchildren were playing with food-begging meows. He was a thin cat with warm green eyes. In this year of drought, even the mice seemed to have run away. As a result, cats had nothing to supplement the meagre meals they got from their masters.
I was cooking supper for my two grandchildren, but the fire was wet and giving out a lot of smoke. My knuckles ached as I curled them round the wooden stirring spoon. These days all my muscles are in the habit of getting stiff and I don’t sleep well. My body protests at being laid down.
Smoke from the damp firewood stung my eyes and made it difficult to breathe.
I was fighting too many things – wet firewood, stinging eyes, little clean air and stubborn watery mucus that kept coursing down my upper lip. Yet in my heart I was proud of myself and content. Not many grandmothers in this village can give their grandchildren two meals a day as I do. Wet firewood and aching muscles were not going to make me fail to do my duty.
My grandchildren were singing the smoke song:
Smoke smoke go away
My grandmother brought me up!
Smoke smoke go away
My grandmother brought me up!
Yes, children brought up by their grandmothers always receive the best of it. I was blowing the fire, when Mubaiwa burst into my smoky hut like a bolt of lightning. He burst into my hut at the very moment the fire also exploded to life. My grandchildren clapped for the fire with great joy, but quickly stopped to greet Mubaiwa who was standing like a colossus and snorting like a pig.
“Manheru Sekuru vaAnna!” My grandchildren said, clapping their hands in disunity like popping corn.
Mubaiwa did not answer. I don’t think he even noticed the children. There was fire in his eyes. He snarled and discharged a gob of mucus and hatred which landed on my face with a dull splat. The sickening, smelly slime slowly crawled down my left eye to the bridge of my nose. I nearly vomited before wiping it off, using my doek. I could not understand what was happening.
While I was trying to gather myself together and gain composure, Mubaiwa shouted, as if he was chasing marauding baboons from a field of maize. “Witch, today I am not leaving this place until you kill me! You sent your goats to destroy my maize crop so that my family dies of hunger. You must also destroy me!
Isn’t it that everybody in this village says you are a man? You are self-sufficient and I see that you are even cooking supper when everybody else in the village is starving!”
I felt a cold chill all over my body. I was confused. With a borrowed, croaky voice, I ordered my grandchildren out of the hut. Poor little souls! They too were shocked and numb with fear. Their tiny faces were long and drooping, like a candle stick that has been distorted by dripping wax. They stumbled outside. I could hear them crying. The cat too was terrified and purred loudly, bristling its fur before escaping outside.
When my grandchildren were safely outside, I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Out of instinct I knelt before him, clapping my hands. His big boot kicked my clapping hands and they flew like terrified doves. The pain in my fingers was worse than the time I accidentally spilled hot water over them. I panicked. Something in my heart told me that Mubaiwa wanted to kill me.
I apologised using his totem and told him that I was prepared to compensate his loss. He sneered and said, “You witch, is that why you let your goats destroy my crop? You wanted the world to know that you can easily pay your way out. Yes, compensate me, but today you will tell me why the dog can grin but is not able to laugh!”
He raised his hand to attack me, and I screamed. My screaming made him more rabid. He surprised me with a vicious kick in the face. The kick split my lower lip. Pain painted a photograph on the floor with my blood. I hit the ground and blinding darkness came over me. I could not believe that this was all about goats.
I slowly raised myself from the ground. When I spat out sour blood, I also spat out a tooth. I was expecting another vicious kick, so I covered my head. I begged him to stop beating me. I begged him to take me to the chief or to the police. He laughed and said, “I want justice my way. Don’t all the people say you are better than me?”
He pushed me to the ground and I fell exposing my thighs and underwear. I tried to cover my shame, but he kicked my hands. He let out a cold laugh and said, “So you are a woman after all huh? If you are a man, get up! You should know that real men are the ones that remain standing.”
His words cut my spirit into thin strips. Seeing my underwear somehow excited him, and I feared he was going to rape me.
Instead, he beat me with his bare hands on the buttocks like he was spanking one of his grandchildren. He touched me where no man, who is not my dead husband should touch me.
Then he suddenly stopped and looked around my kitchen. His eyes fell on my cat which had probably come back to check on the supper. He swiftly snatched my cat like a rag and hurled it against the wall. I watched in horror as my cat spun towards the wall like a maize stalk caught in a whirlwind. Then, it hit the wall and gave a loud painful cry, before slumping like an empty sack. It died instantly. By then, darkness had enveloped the village and even my fire had died.
When the other villagers arrived, I had got to a point where I just wanted Mubaiwa to kill me. They found him peeing on me. His warm and smelly urine was hissing angrily, aiming for my head. And I know this was not anything to do with my goats. Something in me decomposed and I can still smell it.
I am truly sorry for what happened. My goats escaped and destroyed Mubaiwa’s maize crop. I did not send my goats to do that, especially when hunger has devoured the winnowing basket and every grain of corn counts.
I wonder what Mubaiwa is going to do next? People say I should go to the chief or the police and report him, but I can’t. I wronged Mubaiwa, but also he is a man and I am not. The chief is a man and I am not. The police at our post are men and I am not. In what language do I tell them what he did to me?
This story by Ignatius T. Mabasa was initially published in “A Family Portrait” by ICAPA Trust. www.icapatrust.org
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