Rebel Soldier

By Solomon Mwapangidza

Lizzys twin, Lucy, had committed suicide because they would not let her marry the man of her choice, and her aunt dies single, frustrated and bitter because they killed her fianc. Lizzy vows to fight for justice in a highly oppressive, male-dominated society. In solidarity with the two women she had loved, she swears never to get married nor fall in love. By pledging thus, however, the freedom fighter might have opened a front too many, for almost inevitably, she is caught in the snare of her own beliefs and principles. What happens to a yearning repressed, a yearning sacrificed to principle and loyalty? Does it merely vanish like a dream?
Rebel Soldier takes you through a long, twisting, often tumultuous psychological journey of a strong-willed, rebellious, but also romantic woman who struggles to balance social obligations with emotional needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491801413

Solomon Mwapangidza

Solomon Mwapangidza was born on 5th April 1977 in Chimanimani District of Zimbabwe. He attended Ratelshoek and Chikore High schools between 1992 and 1999 before proceeding to the University of Zimbabwe where he studied B.A in Literature and Theatre Arts (2002) and, later, the Graduate Diploma in Education (2005). He also holds a Special Honors degree in Communication and Media Studies from the Zimbabwe Open University. Currently, he teaches Literature in English at Dangamvura High School in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Rebel Soldier is his first novel.

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© 2013 by SOLOMON MWAPANGIDZA. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/05/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0140-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0141-3 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

To my father who made me believe and my mother who inspired me to work hard

CHAPTER 1

Lizzy was tickled out of her blissful dream by a warm, crawl-like movement across her face. She rose to sitting position, still struggling to clear her eyes. Let’s go, she heard a cooing, unmistakable voice say. The owner of the voice took Lizzy’s hand and gently helped her up. He led the tall, plump beauty through thick tea bushes with the protective care of one who fears to lose the only possession upon which his life depends. They stepped out of the dewy bushes onto the narrow road that was supposed to have separated the boys’ sleeping area from the girls’, according to the school captain’s previous night command. They could hear mixed voices—male and female—from either side of the road. There needed no explanation; it was clear the captain had been defied—spontaneously so.

The eastern horizon had reddened to herald dawn, which was received with several hearty tunes from tree-tops. Each species of the birds seemed determined to out-sing every other, but the result of these competing tunes was—surprisingly—one harmonious song, a song of defiance, of renewed will to live on in spite of the devastating events of the previous day. What better distraction could there be from the crashing explosion of bombs and the ear—splitting sputter of anti-aircraft guns that had drowned every other lovely sound for the better part of the previous day?

There had been bombings the previous day, and these had taken place at and around Cherry Tea Estate, which encompassed a secondary boarding school. It was unclear why this area had been targeted, though rumor had it that the state suspected the estate was harboring guerillas.

The war was far from coming to an end as jingles on state radio stations would have people believe. In fact, it was intensifying; word had spread of students and farm workers who were crossing into neighboring countries, especially Mozambique. State media were silent about these crossings, but were awash with tired songs of ‘capitulations’ and ‘defections’ of freedom fighters.

There was heard a familiar whistle and people began crawling out of the bushes in droves. In a moment, all were gathered on the road, anxiety writ large on their faces.

Ahoy comrades! the captain began. There was a languid response, and, apparently, only the addresser lifted his fist. He took a pause, seemingly taken aback. Then he made as if to repeat the slogan but immediately thought better of it. The crowd was difficult to predict, with the trauma of the previous day’s events still hovering over it—like a shadow of impending doom.

Comrades, the captain resumed, we are all wanted back at school. The situation is back to normal and the Headmaster is going to address us. Let’s go and hear what he has to say. He was through. He did not wait for comments from the skeptical crowd, but he heard a general murmur of disapproval and a few distinct shouts of ‘No! No! Collaboration! Let’s not go’ as he slipped into the crowd.

A haze of confusion engulfed the place, and this thickened as the nearly two hundred students started walking toward virtually all directions: some toward the school, some opposite and others toward nowhere in particular; just walking.

Part of the school-bound crowd was the couple that was among the earliest risers of that morning. Hand in hand, it moved slowly, almost reluctantly, like a bereaved pair leaving the grave of a loved one just buried. Apart from the ‘Let’s go’ by the young man, the couple had thus far remained dumb. It was superfluous to talk; these were friends who understood each other as much in silence as in talking, an understanding born of two years of closeness, of each nursing the pulse of the other; two good years of merging into one another—becoming one—as it were, with neither realizing it.

To Lizzy, Alex had filled the gap that her twin sister had left two years back, but she had been cautious not to let him know this for fear it might make him feel he was being used merely as a distraction; an emotional prop. The two were thus inseparable, and because of this, everyone—including teachers—thought they were in love. Yet there was not a single day Alex and Lizzy had talked about love; they were friends—or so they thought.

The young woman had occasional moments of reflection, times when her memory torch would shine through the mists of time as she traced the origins of their friendship. Oftentimes that reflection was triggered off by a scar on Alex’s wrist, which he incurred the day he thwarted an attempt by a rogue group of boys to strip her naked in the school soccer stadium to deter her from coming to play soccer with boys after school. According to these zealots, she was invading a male territory and so the practical joke was meant to put this queer where she belonged. Lizzy never forgot that day, how Alex had fought like a spirit medium to repel a regiment of club-wielding, slogan-chanting warriors powered by a fierce patriotic zeal to cleanse their sacred territory of the invading whore. The valiant patriots had made it clear as they advanced that they would make no distinction between the invader and the traitor who sought to protect her.

Several months had gone by since then, and thoughts of the event should—as might be expected—have succumbed to the scourge of time, but they remained etched on her memory, immortalized by something that the incident had awakened inside her, something that she religiously refused to acknowledge and even fought to banish.

If truth be told, Lizzy’s feelings about the incident were mixed, if not confused. There was Alex’s disarming kindness, his compassion, but there was also men’s revolting callousness which threatened to obscure all their positive attributes. For a long time she had sought for one adjective that could adequately describe men, but she could not find any. She had made a decision though, that she hated men, and had a hazy notion that she was in a struggle against them. The death of her twin sister had strengthened her resolve to join the liberation war. She wanted to help change the world, to give it a human face. It should become a world of equality and justice for all people regardless of sex, race, color or creed.

But she was not idealistic about the issue. She knew too well the hurdles that lay in the path to freedom. The struggle for women’s rights in Rhodesia lay within the broader struggle for independence, which meant that women had to work extra hard, six times harder than their male counterparts. She was aware of the danger of leaving the struggle for independence to men. How would women claim power in the post-independence state if they remained at the periphery of the struggle, playing the role of ululating, bemused hand-clappers?

With hushed rumors of more and more people crossing into Mozambique growing by the day, Lizzy knew she would have to do what her people least expected. Her twin sister had rebelled against their father in her own way; she would have to show solidarity with her by standing up for what she believed to be right.

Memories of her twin sister always generated pain and anger in her. She bore a grudge against her own father, a grudge whose temperature and size swelled each time she recalled the day they buried her twin six feet deep. That death had changed her completely; life and death had become to her just two cosmic jokes; the one lewd, the other stale.

Alex felt Lizzy’s hand getting moist. He looked at her face: she was already sweating despite the fact that quite a few people were still folding their arms in the chill morning breeze. He knew, almost instinctively, that she had fallen into one of her occasional reveries. He had felt, for a long time, that there was something that constantly nibbled her heart like a mole, a painful secret that occasionally surged without warning, claiming control of her better part. He had noted that she very rarely talked about her twin sister, and when she did, he detected on her face something more closely akin to anger than sadness.

Lizzy, he began and she started, Look at those clouds. Do you see that they are beginning to ease, getting lighter, and their movement is much less clumsy than was the case late yesterday? He just wanted something to distract her attention, anything to cajole her out of her brooding.

No, I do not see them that way. They seem to be getting thicker and darker and they don’t appear to be moving at all.

He laughed. They walked on, again in silence. Then Alex stopped. Lizzy stopped too. He regarded her countenance for a while, then cast his eyes sideways and downwards, and up at her again now with bold determination. She did not blink; she looked him straight in the face with challenging eyes.

They were nearing the school, some had already arrived but others were still far behind. Those who talked did so mostly in hushed tones. No pair nor group nor individual did seem to mind anyone else’s business.

The air was getting thick. To the north, the remains of the tea factory were still belching out monsters of smoke that strangled the thin, tired spiral of the other smoke from the rubble that was the administration block.

Lizzy, can you promise me two things?

What two things?

One: that you will not cross into Mozambique.

And two?

Let’s deal with this one first.

Just tell me, Alex, you are crossing, everyone else is crossing; do I look less of a patriot, and more of a weakling? I mean why should I be ruled out of the struggle?

I am not saying do not participate. In fact you must participate and every Zimbabwean should, only that I suggest you be based here.

Tell me one camp here in Zimbabwe where I can get training.

I don’t know of any. But holding the gun is not the only way to participate. Those that remain here participate in various ways. Their major gun is the cooking stick. And believe you me; in this struggle no contribution is insignificant.

"Very well. Since no contribution is insignificant, why don’t you, sir, remain here to fight with the cooking stick? Only yesterday you were at pains to convince me that there are some men like you who take women seriously! Now, tell me sir, do you maintain that you take us seriously?"

"I take you seriously, and to prove my point, can you make the next promise?"

Go on, I’m listening.

Promise that you will marry me.

The school siren wailed. It wailed on for a stretching moment as students rushed to the assembly point. Let’s join others, said Alex, and the two burst into speed. Just as they approached the main gate, they were stopped by the Boarding Matron who handed a letter to Lizzy. She muttered her thanks to the matron, stuffed the letter into her brassiere, and ran on.

CHAPTER 2

I stand before you this morning, Sir Allan Johnson, the Headmaster, began after greeting the students. He was white, tall and soft-spoken. He stood on the platform flanked by two black Rhodesian soldiers who clutched AK 47 rifles.

I stand before you this morning a sad man. Saddened by the events of yesterday, a day that certainly all of us would wish to forget in a hurry. You will have already noticed that some of our buildings have been destroyed. It is alleged—it is believed—that freedom fighters were responsible. They…

"Correction: terrorists, not freedom fighters," lectured one of the soldiers.

"Yes, terrorists are said to be responsible. You will have noticed that two of your own are missing—school vice captain, Rangarirai Sipambi and Rigobert Ferendo. There was apprehensive silence in the crowd. Sir Johnson continued: They got caught up in the fire and were rushed to hospital upon discovery. When I left the hospital yesterday both of them appeared to be on the path to recovery, but when I visited them this morning I was greeted with news that both of them had passed on."

There were gasps of shock and sorrowful murmuring.

The Headmaster called for a minute of silence which, however, was observed with sniffing punctuations.

The head continued, We have just received a directive from the Ministry of Education to close the school temporarily. We will notify you through the press when we reopen. From here pack your belongings and submit dormitory keys to the Boarding Master and Matron. Three lorries have been made available to transport you to Chisengu Town this morning.

Students began to disperse amid confused noise. The Headmaster’s words had marked the end of a chapter in their lives. That time had come—like a cruel joke—when they had to face the reality of parting. No, they had no choice but to depart this place they had come to adore and regard as their second home. Even the hard job of plucking tea had become to them their second nature. New Cherry Farm had never been a place of milk and honey. In fact, it was an institution for poor pupils who could not afford school fees charged in the various mission schools across the country. It is a wonder in life how sometimes the human spirit gets so deeply attached to what is commonly despised.

If the decision to close the school was a blow to everybody, that blow had the most painful impact on Alex and Lizzy. Neither could dispense with the other; they felt so much part of each other that parting was to inflict permanent wounds inside their hearts.

So it’s come to this? Alex broke the long silence of gazing,