Ubushiku

Photo: Quaritsch Photography

Remember the night before the sun lies low, when the grinders cease because they are few, when the doors are closed, and the sound of grinding fades. Close your windows and your doors, let not a foot step outside and remind your children to stay silent.

* * *

Monde was left to race against the sun, for the moment it set, the night entertained the dead.

She was left for dead on the dusty road after the men were done with her. The twilight air was cold and violent, adding to her pain. Blood trickled down her legs underneath her ichitenge as she folded herself in a fetal position. Her body was quivering. She could still feel their brutish hands on her.

Her left eye swollen, her lips cut, a searing pain beneath her hips, her body was a canvas of bruises. As she carefully opened her one good eye, careful not to upset the bruises around it, she observed the blood orange setting sun, steadily blinking to get used to the pain in her eye. “Let me die here, let it all end, please,” she prayed.

At about 5 pm, she was coming home to Kwazuku— after her day job as a maid downtown. She always took a taxi home. But since taxi drivers do not like the potholes on the road leading to the village, villagers were dropped off just at the edge of Pakati Market. It was half a kilometre from here that she was violated.

“I’m sorry, Takani,” she muttered, thinking of her ten-year-old son. The pain in her body wasn’t the reason for her hopelessness. Her hopelessness came from the setting sun her eye gazed at, for the whole world was plagued by a curse that separated day and night into two worlds. From the moment the sun rose, every human raced against time to do all that needed to be done. At sunset, all had to be indoors, had to close themselves in. Not because their village was ruled by a dictator. Not because they would be punished by the law. No, for when the sun set, the night became an unspeakable horror occupied by creatures from the unknown.

As soft rays of the twilight sun hit her cheeks, Monde knew she had no chance of making it to her tiny one-room house. She knew she was never going to see Takani ever again. Once she entered the night, there was no chance of returning to the day: she knew this because there were others before her, and they never came back.

As she lay in the dirt, she thought of how Takani would grow up alone, how he would probably be thrown out of their tiny house by lone villagers who needed a place to stay. The Kwazuku community was not kind; it was always a fight for survival. Will you hate me, my little Takani?

Monde never saw the difference between day and night. To her, they both were unkind, unjust. From the moment her own mother chased her out of the house at 16, when she found out she was pregnant, to when she begged for food to keep baby Takani alive. Thoughts of abandoning Takani were alive in her mind in those days, until another woman cared enough to give her a place to stay with the baby. When the woman died, Monde kept the house even though it was not really hers to keep. If Monde was nowhere to be seen, the villagers would take advantage and abuse the little boy. He would starve, begging for food, begging for his mother to come back.

Monde fought to live, not for herself. She fought against the pain coursing through her legs. Not you; you will live, my baby. She willed herself on as the sun was setting. She hoped that someone would have mercy and close her windows or that little Takani would remember to close them as she taught him to.

She limped towards the village, constantly looking back at the sun, estimating how much time she had left. She wanted to fall down and cry, but Takani kept her going, as if he was right in front of her, his pull on her greater than the pull of gravity and pain itself. She went past the first house as the light suddenly vanished, unnatural noises growing loud around her, whispers and howling tickling her ears. No one else was moving around the neighbourhood—doors locked, windows shut. Houses began to morph into a dark forest. Her heart began to beat fast and out of rhythm even when she spotted her tiny house that was about to disappear.

Every step was like stepping on glass. She grabbed the doorknob as it was morphing into the stem of a tree, opened the door, jumped inside and banged it shut. Immediately the noises stopped. She looked around the unkempt room where the kitchen was also the bedroom and realised that Takani was not there and that the window was still open. The world outside that window had already become a dark forest. She rushed to close it, and as soon as she did, through the transparent glass, she saw the world become a village again.

“Baby,” she bellowed, looking around as if wanting him to appear out of thin air. Her call was met with the sound of movement above her. She turned her head to the ceiling and saw a towering pencil-thin woman whose bones touched her pale skin, with long tatty hair dark as her eyes, wearing a dirty tunic. The witch held the young unconscious Takani. She studied Monde as Monde stared back in fear.

“Mpela umwana wandi, give me back my child,” she shouted, afraid but determined to get her beautiful boy back, trying to reach the roof but unable to.

“Windows . . .  open  . . . in our time,” the witch shrieked. Monde couldn’t do anything about it, not with her wounds.

“Penalty, he goes with me!”

“No,” Monde burst out. She could not allow that—the pain of raising him in a vile village, the pain of losing him, the pain of living without him. She didn’t care that she was raped. She reminded herself it was just another vile treat of the cruel world; all she wanted was her boy to stay alive for her. You’ll survive. I know you will.

“Take my life,” she cried. “My life for his.”

Like a soft fabric blown by a strong wind, the witch scooped the young boy to the floor so fast that Monde’s eyes couldn’t keep up. She took Monde through the window and into the dark night, leaving the boy asleep on the floor.

About the author

Mutale is an artist currently residing in Zambia. He studied Fine and Applied Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa but has a true passion for writing and filmography. His writings explore the issues he sees in his community and explore them through fiction, focusing heavily on the character and plot of a story. He likes to run and explore restaurants. 

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