The Bed of Injustice, a Short Story by Lazarus Nyagwambo
The empty space next to her felt too expansive. The absence of Rewai, her husband of fifty years, weighed on her heavier than it had on previous nights when he had not shared her bed with her. She longed more than ever to reach out and feel his stolid sturdiness, a quality of his that had served as a tether whenever her own emotions became so overwhelming that they threatened to draw her to some place far away.
A somber nostalgia caressed her bones; a wistful reminiscence of the nights when he had lain next to her, nights when he had quietly rolled her over and pressed himself upon her, gently, tenderly, as if she were the most fragile thing in the world. In those moments she felt between the layers of the connection that bound them, a secret dimension, their own private sanctuary, populous with feelings that she knew his manhood would not allow him to express and words that she accepted were too sentimentally feminine for her to utter.
Her memory extracted her from the present and cast her fifty one years back, the first time she had laid eyes on him. She was sixteen, uninitiated in the pangs that come with loving someone and sharing a life. He came to Bharabhara, her growth point township, from St. James, a small village on the other side of Nyamhembe Mountain. He was part of a soccer team that was to play in an annual tournament which was being hosted by their local side, The Bharabhara Warriors who were the current champions. He immediately stood out, with his skin which was the color of a custard-apple fruit and his thick head of hair that was much darker than the sun browned hair of everyone else in those times. That and the almost perfectly symmetrical oval shape of his face made her turn and scratch her friend’s shoulder and say, “Look at that boy. He is beautiful. Not handsome ba, no. Beautiful.” They broke out in laughter, loud guffawing sounds that had the practiced gaiety of excited teenage virgins who wanted to draw attention to themselves without being too obvious.
She was surprised, after the tournament ended, when a girl came and asked to speak with her. She recalled having seen the girl around a few times although she did not know her name. The girl introduced herself as Serbia and was the beautiful boy’s cousin, the daughter of his mother’s sister. Serbia told her that her cousin had seen her and taken a liking to her and was interested in starting up a relationship with her. She declined. She was currently going to school, wanted to focus on her books and did not want anything to do with boys but she feared, from the look of amusement on Serbia’s face, that her objection had been too needlessly longwinded and gave away her true inclination.
A week later, she met Serbia again at the village well. Serbia had relayed her message to her cousin and he had said that he was in love with her and he was prepared to wait for her to finish school before marrying her. He himself was currently working in Salisbury as a cook for a murungu and the money that the white man gave him would be enough for him to be able to pay her lobola by the time she graduated. His patience had impressed her, the fact that he was willing to let her, a girl, finish school. She had already been charmed by his looks and to completely alleviate her uncertainty, Serbia handed her four half-crown coins. Even though she said she would think about it – because it was customary for a girl to refuse a man’s preliminary advances – the jingle of the silver coins as they landed onto her palm was the melody that soundtracked the start of their relationship.
She returned to school after the holiday and there she was the envy of many girls, in part due to the billets-doux that he sometimes sent her, but mostly because of the coins that would sometimes “accidentally” drop out of the brown envelopes that she made sure she opened only in the vicinity of an audience. While she was at school he informed his parents about his prospects. They had gotten to the point where their hints about wanting a daughter in law from their eldest son had evolved to outright requests, so they did not object to the fact that they had to wait for one more year to finally have their muroora. They in turn wasted no time approaching her family for the asking ritual. By the time she completed her course, it was already time for the ceremony of counting the cattle after which she would officially become his wife.
***
When she had left him in the hut that night as she went to bed, she had been hoping that he would finally join her. It was after all, the seventh day that her junior wife, Lucia had not been at home. For the six previous nights he had not come to her. She had stood in the doorway for a long time, watching him as he sat on his favorite wooden stool that their son, Chari, had carved for him as part of his woodwork project in secondary school. He liked to stay behind after everyone had gone to their sleeping quarters and sit close to the fire, so close that his feet would partially cross over the threshold of the hearth and into the ash and she often had to remind him to wipe them before he climbed into bed with her. He would sit for hours in the dim orange glow of the embers long after the fire had exhausted itself, sometimes as far into the night as midnight, arms folded in his lap and eyes closed, only half awake. She found it odd, this custom of his, and she wondered what thoughts haunted him in that quiet darkness.
She did derive a small, complacent kind of pleasure, the kind that comes from inconsequential internal victories, from the fact that he liked to do his meditations in her hut rather than her co-wife’s. She was unsure whether he chose to do so because of her status as senior wife or it was simply out of habit, having been married to only her for thirty three years before he took his second wife. Another possibility still, was simply that her hut was larger and more airy but since that particular explanation did not bring with it any sort of self-satisfaction she brushed it aside hastily. Even on the days when he went to eat in Lucia’s hut, after his meal he would leave her smaller, thatched round kitchen on the far side of the compound and come to her nearly identical but larger one on the opposite end, trudging with the deliberate lack of urgency of a man who had power over both the things behind and ahead of him.
From the stagnant silence that pervaded the night, she estimated that it was some time in the earliest morning hours, maybe around one or two. There was the kind of eerie calm that only comes when the world holds its breath as the things that roam the nights come out of their shadowed homes. She stretched her hand out into the darkness. It was met with the hollow coldness of a void where he should have been lying. It stung, knowing that he opted to go and sleep alone in the bed of her junior wife than with her. She had wanted to ask him why when she was watching him from the door that night but the question could not escape the cage of uxorial subservience, a cage whose walls were fortified by five decades of servitude. In spite of the circumstances leading to Lucia’s departure she had not been able to stifle the small sense of elation that she would once again have him to herself, the way it used to be, the way it was supposed to be. So she had felt slighted when on the first night of her absence, she did not hear the familiar dragging of feet which always signified his arrival. She waited. And waited. But he did not come.
Thinking about her co-wife, a familiar feeling began to creep into her gut: jealousy. It slithered up her spine, coiling itself around it, its scaly skin wet and chilly and it made her skin tighten. She knew it too well, this sensation. She had endured it for seventeen years. It had visited her on nights that she lay alone in her bed, foraging through the past and wandering to a reality where her life had taken a different trajectory. It whispered venomously into her mind, its voice icy and cutting and its breath acidic. Is he as gentle with her as he used to be with you? Does he take her with the same desperate need that he once took you with? Or is their intimacy dispassionate, a frugal exercise in the fulfillment of conjugal obligation? Does he hold her afterwards or does he roll away and sleep with his back to her the same way he does with you, repulsed by your wrinkled skin and your sagged breasts? What secrets are there, lingering in the air of their little bedroom?
***
Lucia’s arrival into their life was like a candle suddenly going out on a dark night. It slowly took apart their marriage, breaking down the comfort and security that had been built over three decades, scattering the pieces about her until even she could not recognize what it had once been.
When she first heard the story, she was pregnant with Chari. It was her second pregnancy in the eleven years since their first daughter Petina was born. By that time, chatter about her infertility had risen to a deafening decibel. It was everywhere; at the river where she washed her clothes and bathed, at the monthly village meetings, at church. It was loudest, however, under the roof of her in-laws’ house, tucked discreetly behind closed doors or scattered about at family gatherings. So she had been overjoyed when she discovered that she was expecting. She started to go about the village advertising her new status to everyone. At the river, a woman would ask, “How are you? How are they at home?”
And she would reply, “Everyone is well mhaiyo. We are all excited about the new baby that is coming.”
The other woman would immediately brighten up, anticipating being the recipient of the latest bit of village gossip, before she asked, “What baby? Is someone expecting?”
She would raise her hand and caress her belly before saying, “Me. I am pregnant.”
“Ehuu glory to God kani Ma Peti iwe. Congratulations!”
Then she would tell them, if they failed to ask, that she was two months along before proceeding to recount a dream she had had the day that she discovered she was pregnant. In it, she was being charged by an enormous bull and she concluded that this meant that the baby would be a boy. Because of this, when her father in law, Baba Sarisi, summoned her and Rewai to his homestead she had assumed it was to offer some sort of congratulations. Maybe slaughter a goat in their honor or at the very least, a chicken.
She was slightly puzzled when they arrived and found Rewai’s entire family gathered inside the smoky hut; Baba Sarisi and Mhai Sekesai, his parents; Rewai’s younger brothers, Maziwangei and Razaro; his younger sister, Fransisca and the two wives of his brothers Ma Chido and Ma Chipo, the names of whose children she sometimes got mixed up. The only person who was absent was Rewai’s elder sister who was married to a man who lived in a village far away from St James and had likely been unable to come on such short notice. There were also three elderly men whom she did not recognize.
Her attention however, rested on a strange looking woman who was sitting on the ancestral shrine that sat against the wall at the front of the hut. The woman’s head was crowned by a mop of dusty brown dreadlocks, decorated with an assortment of shells and beads and twigs. She wore a rosary around her neck that was beaded with the bones of some small creature, a horn shaped pendant the size of a finger dangling at her chest. Cloaking her large frame were layers of dirty black cloth that were tattered at the edges that grazed her grime crusted bare feet. Her head was bowed but she kept jerking it intermittently from side to side as if she was being startled repeatedly by sounds that only she could hear and she was muttering something through her smoke blackened lips. She was cradling a baby in her arms who seemed strangely unperturbed by the odd behavior of its custodian. Apart from her appearance, it was also unheard of, downright blasphemous, for any person, a woman and a stranger nonetheless, to sit on the sacred ancestral altar. Only the head of the household or his sons if he was deceased was allowed to kneel in front of it when he was communing with the spirits of the ancestors.
She took her place amongst the rest of the women on the floor and waited for her husband to initiate the greetings. A brief ruckus ensued as they all simultaneously beat their cupped hands together and asked after each other’s health and the wellbeing of each other’s families. After that a thick, uneasy silence shrouded the small kitchen, disturbed occasionally by the strange woman’s incoherent mumbling.
Everyone turned to Baba Sarisi. For a long while, he kept his eyes fixated on some point on the floor at his feet, pondering how best to begin. Eventually he looked up and slowly reached into his breast pocket. He took out a small black wooden snuff box, the varnish on the edges corroded from frequent use. He knocked some of the powdered tobacco into his palm. With a tremulous right hand, he took a pinch and snorted through each nostril. He sneezed loudly, the force catapulting his frail body backwards. He rubbed the remainder of the snuff between his hands and then into his kinky grey hair. His watery cataracted eyes, now bloodshot, scanned the room before he finally cleared his throat and began to explain the presence of their visitors.
He spoke carefully, maneuvering the past with the measured wariness of one traversing an unfamiliar land. “Ehhh…” he began, “…these men you see here are from the Mbinde family. I am sure you all know the name. They are the chiefs down there in Gandanzara. Ehhh across the Nyatande river. Close to Osbourne damn. Is that not so?” The three men nodded simultaneously in confirmation, an off key concord of bobbing heads.
“Now what they tell me happened a long time ago, when even my grandfather still suckled on the breast of his mother, before the arrival of the men without knees. Ehhh so what happened is this: one of ours went in search of a hearth to warm himself in their home. His name was Tsindimbewa. And he found himself a woman amongst their people. But because he had no kraal, he could not pay the lobola, so he had to work for them for some time before he could take his bride home. Ehhh as these things go, it so happened that there was a war between these…the Mbindes and another tribe and Tsindimbewa was killed in their home before he could take his bride. Am I correct?” The heads bobbed once more.
“Now because Tsindimbewa’s blood was spilled in their home and he did not get what was his due, his spirit has come back. Ehhh I am speaking of ngozi. It has wreaked havoc on them and a lot of misfortune has befallen their family in recent years. After they consulted this spirit medium, this woman who you see sitting there…” he gestured in her general direction, careful not to point at her, “…she has told them that to resolve this matter, Tsindimbewa’s wife must be brought here to his home and only then will their debt be repaid. Is that so?”
“And the son.” It was the one of the three men, the eldest looking of them.
“Ah yes yes. Forgive me, these teeth have chewed many Christmases, my memory is not as sharp as it used to be. Ehhh the woman that they bring to us must bear a son and he must be given the name Tsindimbewa. After that she is free to stay here or go back to her people if she wishes. Ehhh I think this time I have said everything is it not so?” When everyone murmured their agreement he then went on to explain the arrangement they had made, the one that would undo her and Rewai’s twenty one years of matrimony. Each syllable felt like pulling a thread from the fabric of her life, unravelling it.
“Ehhh that baby that you see there in the hands of the medium is the compensation that they have brought us. There will be a ceremony also where they will brew beer and put a bull into our kraal. But all of this can come later. For now they have brought us Tsindimbewa’s bride. Ehhh as the eldest member of the family she was to come to me but you can see that she is still on her mother’s breast. By the time she comes of age I will no longer be strong enough. So I have decided that she will go to Rewai, my eldest son. The girl can stay in my home for now. I will take care of her until the time comes that she is able to fulfil her duty.”
She tried her best to care for Lucia or at the very least to be impartial, to understand that nothing was her fault and that she was as much of a victim of the same circumstances as herself. She fed her when she came to play with her own children. She bathed her. She did her best to be motherly. But something had wound itself around her neck that day Lucia came that tightened each season that passed and the girl grew, that she came closer to being a woman.
When at fourteen, Lucia came and told her that she had bled, she wept that night. She mourned what she knew would effectively be the death of her marriage. When Rewai attempted to console her his efforts only served to supplement her grief with anger. It was unfair. Why did she have to bear the consequences of the actions of some men who had lived and died in some far away land and a far away time? She had done and been everything a good wife was supposed to do and be and yet, that had not been enough.
That year the Mbindes came once again. They were shown a plot of land to build a hut and a house for Rewai’s soon to be bride. After it was completed there was a drinking ceremony and she and all the daughters and daughters in law took Lucia into her new hut where they explained to her the duties she would have to perform.
Initially Rewai was polite enough to feign impartiality, distributing his conjugal visits equally between her and Lucia. He ate both the plates of sadza that they set before him, even favoring hers because she was the more experienced cook. But as time went by her edge over Lucia slowly began to slip away. Where her age had once been advantageous it started to become a handicap. She was becoming old while her junior wife was transforming from a girl into an attractive young woman. She could not compete with her youthful beauty and vigor. She was now a relic, an ancient artefact that her husband only appreciated out of nostalgic sentiment while Lucia was his new exciting jewel. She looked on helplessly as the nights that he spent with her became fewer each passing month and he no longer made love to her. Eventually she was grateful to have him come at all, once a week or sometimes once a fortnight, only as a courtesy.
When Lucia became pregnant she dared to hope that she child was a boy so that Lucia could go back to her people. She prayed to God, to the ancestors, to anyone who would listen. She helped her to look for herbs that would ensure the child would be a boy. Her naïve junior wife took this to be well wishing. She was completely oblivious to the resentment that was harbored towards her. But Lucia had a daughter. Lucia had four daughters over the following nine year. And with each birth she grew more resentful of both her and her children.
A bitterness planted itself inside her, nurtured by each night that she waited for Rewai to come to her, by each of Lucia’s births, each event bringing with it yet another disappointment. It rooted itself in her mind and its gnarly branches spread throughout her body. Her heart festered under the shadow it cast over her, turning into an ugly putrid lump. It was this bitterness, her attempt to free herself of it that had driven her to go to the medicine man.
***
She turned again in her bed. It was the fourth time she had woken up and now her bedroom was faintly illuminated by the murky luminescent tinge of dawn. She climbed out of the bed and slid open the bottom drawer of her bedside cabinet. She groaned as she bent down and reached inside. She rummaged through her slips and underwear until her fingers grazed the soft, leathery skin of the cow hide pouch that the medicine man had given her. She held it by the string that was wound around its neck and extended her arm to hold it as far away from her as she could before she got up and walked to the outhouse as briskly as her arthritic legs would allow. With trembling fingers, she untied the little bag, being careful not to spill any of its contents on herself. She knew one needed to ingest the mystical white powder for its magic to affect them, but after she had witnessed what it did to Lucia the very idea of even touching it now terrified her.
It had been easy enough to get Lucia to take it. She knew her junior wife was particularly fond of eggs so she fried several and then put one aside which she seasoned with the powder.
“This is good muti,” the small, shifty looking man had assured her. “It will make your problem go away…” he snapped his fingers, “…like that.”
She had waited for Lucia to pass by on her way to fetch water at the well. She invited her in and offered her the tainted egg.
“This is very good maikuru. What did you put in it?” Lucia licked her fingers as she gave the compliment.
“I did not use anything at all. Inga you know when it comes to pots no one can stand with me.” She searched Lucia’s face for any kind of distortion, any sign that would hint that she had not been conned but she saw only the younger woman’s savor. When three days passed and there was still no change in Lucia’s behavior, she knew that the medicine man had tricked her.
The fourth day she woke up to Rewai banging loudly on her bedroom door which she had resigned herself to locking, an effort to deceive her mind into thinking that keeping him away was her choice.
“Come. Hurry up. Something has happened to Lucia.”
When she got out Lucia was standing in the middle of the compound, completely naked. Her head was thrown back and she was staring at the sky as if she were in a trance. She was shivering slightly.
“I tried putting some clothes on her but she kept kicking me away. Help me grab her.”
They started to walk towards her. Abruptly she turned to face them. The serenity that had been masking her face began to contort into an angry scowl. Her arm shot up. A shaky finger pointed at them. However, she could not help feeling as if Lucia’s noxious glare was focused on her. “Look!” Lucia shrieked.
Her heart leapt.
“See me. I said see me! I have come. You will pay. I said you will all pay. They plucked the egg from the lion’s roost. They ran away with it across the starless sky. They threw it into the lake. Amongst the weeds and the crocodiles. Yowee kani! The river runs red. Oh you who dwell in the sky see me. You see what happens under these roofs. What happens in the dark. I am your child. I am your bride. Turn these stones over. There are maggots crawling underneath. Above them. Everywhere. They are everywhere do you hear? The pigs will eat them all up. I have finished. Maiwee kani I am finished.” As suddenly as she had started, she stopped and went limp again. Rewai took an uncertain step towards her. Without warning, she turned and fled. He hesitated briefly before he followed after her.
She remained glued in place, stunned. She had not expected this. She had not truly believed that anything would happen. More than anything, she had gone to see the medicine man to indulge her jealousy. It was why she had not asked for further details when the man did not tell her what would actually happen aside from the vague promise that her problem would go away.
She looked around quickly before she allowed a smile to creep onto her face.
When Rewai finally brought Lucia back, it was she who had suggested that they take her to an apostolic church. “They know how best to deal with these things Ba Peti,” she crooned. He took her the next day, a rope tethered to her waist in case she tried to run away again. He stayed with her there that night and only returned the next afternoon. At first she thought the change she saw in his demeanor was simply fatigue – there was a visible weariness about him. But over the following days she began to sense that it was more, something that had made him recoil from her and treat her with a coolness that he had not shown her even after Lucia’s arrival.
She emptied the contents of the pouch into the latrine before she let the bag drop in. When she walked out something compelled her to look towards Lucia’s hut. Rewai was standing in the doorway, hands thrust deep into his pockets, watching her.
About the writer
Lazarus Nyagwambo is a civil engineering graduate whose true passion is writing. He is an aspiring novelist and is working on a short story collections he hopes to publish in 2021.
