Prologue
Kanua Village, Zambia; January, 1991
There was a murderous glow in the eyes of the ten year old Luyando Chimeko as she stood watch over her drunk and passed out father snoring away on the mat inside the tent that a good Samaritan had lent to them which they had come to regard as their home for the past one week.
Luyando had had enough of living like a destitute at the hands of her vagabond father whose own life seemed to be rotting away ever since the untimely demise of his wife a year ago. On that day, the ten year old had not just lost her mother, she had lost her father as well. The man she was now looking at was only a shell of the man she once called dad…and she had had enough of watching him waste his and her life away like someone who no longer had anything more to live for.
Luyando wiped away her tears with a rage that was beyond her years, her gaze still fixed disapprovingly on her father.
“What about me!” Luyando cried, her hand hitting her chest. “Am I not a good enough reason for you to want to live?”
As if in response, Bernard Chimeko stretched in his sleep and wiped at his drool before turning to face the other way. Luyando took in every piece of his being; the dirty sandals on his feet with enough holes in them that defeated the manufacturers original purpose of production, the tone jeans and the oversized sweater with a colour she was convinced could not be traced on the colour wheel.
“Every single day….” the ten year old cried harder, no sound, just barrels of tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Over here mum!”
Luyando heard a boy shout from outside the tent. She turned away from her father to slightly open the tent so she could peep outside. Not far from their tent was a family of three; father, mother and son.
Right away Luyando could tell they didn’t belong to that compound. It was the first time she was seeing such immaculately dressed people in the market and all the people crowding around them trying to sell things to them told her everything she needed to know about the kind of people they were.
Luyando’s eyes rested on the boy who appeared to be her age as he cheerfully pointed to the things he wanted his parents to buy for him.
“This one too mum…and this one…ooooh look at this dad?” the boy was pointing at items that ranged from foodstuffs to boys wear.
His parents watched on the side as their boy tried on different hats and not seeming to find one that pleased his eye.
What if that was my family? I wouldn’t be suffering here like this. Luyando thought.
If Bernard could see the envy glowing in his daughters eyes, he would have picked himself up and gone out to do whatever it takes to give her the kind of life that she most desires.
Luyando moved to the other side of the tent so she could take a look at what was happening behind and she found exactly what she was looking for; the fancy car of the rich family was parked in the distance under the oak tree on the side of the main road.
Closing the tent, Luyando’s gaze immediately focused on her father who was still snoring away his life, oblivious to whatever was happening around him. With a sudden conviction registering in her eyes, Luyando grabbed her dirty backpack and started throwing some things in there; some of her clothes and a few text books that had been lying on the ground in the corner.
When she was done packing, she started her search for something else that she couldn’t seem to find but just when she thought all hope was lost, her father moved his leg in his sleep and down where his leg had been she saw the knife she had been desperately searching for. Luyando grabbed it and stared at it for close to a minute as she contemplated what to do with it, her eyes shifting from the knife to the figure of her father lying there before her.
Very suddenly, Luyando raised the knife into the air, closed her eyes shut and brought the knife down to her wrist, leaving a deep cut across. She winced in pain and covered the wound with her other hand, quietly jumping up and down in an effort to numb the pain.
And again, she raised the knife and passed it across her skin, this time making another deep cut slightly above the first cut.
Using the blood flowing from her cuts, Luyando rubbed her hand over specific parts of her face leaving red vivid spots there. She then grabbed her bag, put it on her back…all the while wincing in pain and taking one last angry look at her father, she ran out of the tent from the back.
Once their shopping was done, the Mulenga’s settled back into their car and Mr Mulenga was ready to drive off when something…someone…a little girl covered in blood and bruises jumped in front of their vehicle and was waving her arms about to grab their attention.
“It’s a girl dad.” Tulani was peering in-between his parents from the back seat, his eyes staring shockingly at the desperate state of the girl crying in front of their vehicle.
“Stop Bashi Tula,” Mrs Mulenga told her husband and he immediately put the car back in Park mode. “Who has done that to that poor child?” She said as she got out of the vehicle but the girl came panting at her side before she could even step out of the vehicle.
“Please take me away from here before he kills me. I beg you, take me with you and just leave me anywhere far away from here.” Luyando’s face was covered in tears, mud and blood and her desperation was believable since she kept looking around for whoever who was coming after her.
“Who did this to you young lady?” Ayanda Dumisani Mulenga asked.
In a move that caught everyone in the car by surprise, Luyando grasped Mrs Mulenga’s wrist and went down on her knees.
“Please take me away from here, please, please…take me away before he finds me.”
“Who is after you?” Joshua Mulenga asked. “Isn’t there a police station or a hospital around here?” He said, looking at the bruises on her arms and face. “You look like you’ve lost a lot of blood. Whoever did this to you needs to be arrested.”
Luyando was writhing on the dusty ground with her hand still holding on to Mrs Mulenga.
“You can’t take me there!” She cried. “He…he…he….” And she blacked out before she could finish her sentence. She was about to hit her head on the ground when Mrs Mulenga grabbed hold of her arm and raised her.
Mr Mulenga rushed out of the vehicle to help his wife get the collapsed girl into the backseat.
“Go and sit in front,” she instructed her son.
“Put your seatbelt on son.” Mr Mulenga told his son as he got the car back on the road.
“Where are we going?” His wife asked from the back seat, Luyando’s head resting on her laps.
“To the hospital first of course.” He replied.
“You heard what she said; what if whoever did to her comes searching for her? Besides, this is a small town, do they even have any hospitals here?”
“You are right,” he said. “What are we going to do with her then?”
“Why don’t we just take her home with us mum?” Tulani asked.
“What the hell are you talking about young man?” His father said.
“Mum said she wanted a girl and since she can’t have any more children now, why can’t she keep this one? She looks like she’s the same age as me even…maybe this is the miracle Pastor Kennedy was talking about.”
Both parents kept quiet, Mr Mulenga’s eyes fixed on the road ahead while his wife looked at the new hope resting comfortably on her laps, her mind replaying the innocent words of her ten year old son;
Maybe this is the miracle Pastor Kennedy was talking about.
Feeling the soft hand of Mrs Mulenga as she stroked her hair, Luyando moved her toes in excitement, silently thanking the stars for her new kind of fate.
Bernard Chimeko woke up a few minutes passed 10 the next morning only to find no signs of his daughter anywhere. Thinking that she had disappeared on her usual escapades, he dusted himself off and went out drinking again.
When two days had gone by and he had not seen any signs of his daughter, worry and fear started getting to him.
“Did you see my girl anywhere?” He asked everyone he came across in the market but they all said they hadn’t seen her in the past two days.
“You drink too much Chimeko, what if you lost your daughter while you were passed out?” One of the marketeers he used to drink with said.
In a state of panic, Bernard rushed back into his tent and immediately noticed what his eyes in their drunken state had failed to notice the past two days; most of his daughter’s belongings were gone.
“Oh no,” he kept saying as he turned everything in the tent upside down. “What have I done? What have I done to our daughter Tasi?” He then dropped to his knees and started sobbing.
“How can I face you in heaven like this?” Bernard asked the skies later than evening as he stood on top of the hill overlooking the river.
“I am so sorry I lost our daughter my darling Tasila…I lost our little Luyando.” He broke down in tears again.
With an expression that could only mirror the one his daughter had right before she ran away two days ago, Bernard stood up and faced the breathing water below.
Not wanting to give his mind a chance to change, the desperate father leaped forward and went plunging into the river.
Martha Kondwani, a mother of one was drying herself behind a rock after a cold bath in the river when she heard the heavy splash. She quickly put her clothes back on and went to search for the source.
In the two years since Martha had moved to Kanua, there had only been two instances when she caught a group of boys lurking behind the rocks on the hill trying to peep on naked women bathing. Sometimes they just quietly watched and sometimes they threw stones into the water just to make the women uncomfortable.
It was with that mind-set that Martha came out from behind the rock to investigate, expecting to see a huge stone or a group of boys running away. Instead, what she found to her horror was the head of a man peering on the waters of the river.
Martha gasped.
“Is he dead?” She moved closer to the water to take a closer look at the limp body. She thought she saw him gasp for air and she immediately threw caution to the wind and jumped into the water to rescue the man who appeared to be drowning now.
A few minutes later, Martha came up the waters holding Bernard with one arm and using the other to navigate her way out of the water.
“Let me go!” Bernard had started kicking and throwing his arms about, obviously catching Martha by surprise.
“What do you think you are doing?” Martha yelled. “I am trying to rescue you for God’s sake.”
“Who asked you to do such a dumb thing?” He asked, still kicking to free himself from her grasp but Martha’s strength was no match for his puny malnourished self that had been subjected to only alcohol for the past year. “Let me die in here! I have no right to live…let me go!”
“You stupid man,” Martha snapped, only now realizing that the man was on a suicide mission. The man’s kicking and waving was making it extremely difficult for her to keep moving forward and out of the water.
Martha figured that the only way to safely get them both out of the cold water was if she incapacitated him.
Bernard did not see the punch coming and it landed loud and heavy on the side of his face, knocking him out immediately.
He came to minutes later only to find himself lying on a mat in an unfamiliar room. He tried to get up but his head was still ringing and throbbing from the blow. He was wincing in pain when he felt someone’s soft hands on him as the person slowly helped him up.
“I am sorry about that…punching you I mean.” It was the thirty year old Martha Kondwani whose punch had rendered him unconscious not so long ago.
“What kind of woman has such a strong punch?” The thirty-five year old man asked, still nursing his bruised head and ego. He then noticed he wasn’t wearing the same clothes he had on when he went to the river.
He could tell right away whose clothes he had on and he threw her an angry look.
“What’s this?” He was touching the cream white trousers that barely covered half of his leg and the purple silk blouse that was screaming the desperate situation he had found himself in.
Martha started laughing.
Bernard gave her a stern disapproving look and made a move to take off the blouse but Martha jumped and held his hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She asked him.
“You don’t expect me to keep these on even when am conscious do you?”
She laughed again. “I threw away those things you had on…I don’t even know what to call them because they don’t fall in the category of clothes anymore.”
“Who changed me?” The thought finally occurred to him.
“I did,” Martha answered nonchalantly causing Bernard to almost jump from the mat.
“Calm down,” she told him, getting up to check something in the other room and then coming back to look at him. “I am a nurse.” She added. “A man’s nakedness has no impact on me whatsoever. They are just body parts…nothing special.”
“You are a nurse? You work for that clinic in the next town?”
“Yes.”
“Is that where they taught you how to punch like that?”
There was silence, and then, “It’s something I had to learn to protect myself.” She said in a very serious tone.
“You learnt how to fight?”
“Martial arts, not just any kind of fighting. It was out of necessity and not….”
While Martha was talking, something behind her appeared to have caught Bernard’s attention and she turned to check what the man was gaping at.
“Tasha.” Martha rushed to her five year old daughter whose gaze was fixed on the stranger in the room.
“Is he my daddy?” The five year old Natasha asked.
Bernard and Martha stared at each other in disbelief, both of them more than ready to set the record straight.
“Now why were you trying to kill yourself?” Martha later asked Bernard that night after putting Natasha to sleep.
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