Forgiveness

By Nixon Mateulah

Forgiveness' life takes a tragic turn when her father defiles her. Her mother walks in and reacts instinctively to protect her daughter but in the process makes the horrific truth public.
In an effort to escape and regain her life as it was before her ordeal Forgiveness goes to live with her aunt. For a while she feels like her old self. But when she returns home her past comes back to haunt her.
She takes an offer from her uncle's widow to go back and live with her in South Africa; But the promised land is not what she thought it would be.

Can Forgiveness leave her past behind her and make a new life? Or does her past shape her future and send her down another dangerous path?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359848362

Book preview

Forgiveness: A novel

By

Nixon Mateulah

Copyright © 2019 Nixon Mateulah

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-359-84836-2

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections.

1 - The Release

July, 2016

ON TUESDAY, July 5, 2016, Sintekeseka walks out of Mwaula Prison in Lilongwee city – a free man. He cannot believe his eyes when he steps out into the midday sun; the actual feeling of it, massaging his scalp is so liberating – something he has missed for two decades while behind bars. He stands for a minute at the gate and takes one last look at the bleak prison whose brick fence is as tall as a full-grown giraffe. He sheds some tears of nostalgia and joy that God has given him another chance to live a normal life. He has taken an oath (between himself and God) that he would never again subject himself to the whims and commands of fallible hearts, but instead prise himself off from the devil’s lair. He looks up in the sky as if searching for Him behind the clouds for His approval and stamp of authority; that he is now a born again Christian, and that everyone should not doubt him – his heart is now as clean as that of a newborn baby.

He has been released on parole after serving twenty years in prison – first for deflowering his own daughter and second for strangling a fellow inmate to death. Twenty years ago... the very same day that the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Malawi, Dr. Bakili Muluzi pardoned 400 prisoners on July 5, 1996. While those four hundred prisoners hurried to freedom, Sintekeseka hobbled into bondage.

He is sixty years old now: standing frail and emaciated with a bald crown and sporting a bushy grey beard. His clothes are frayed but clean – his sky blue shirt is creased but still the parts that had been folded stand out among the creases. The first buttons are missing; revealing a threadbare white singlet underneath with a low neckline that reveals his hairy chest. His dark brown corduroy trousers are faded at the knees, and his brown shoes - whose heels are eaten away at oblique angles - are unpolished.

Today, the day of his release, his only possession is a bible. In Prison he received Jesus and had been instrumental in converting some of his fellow convicts to Christianity; they anointed him the pastor of their congregation which they called the Last Church of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

He walks to his house in Pawale to find a tenant living in his house. The tenant tells Sintekeseka everything he can about Sintekeseka's wife, Abiti and his daughter. Like a dog, in hesitating silence he laps up the information. The tenant eventually gives him a note on which he has written the street name and house number of where his wife and daughter are now staying. Forgiveness is almost at his feet! He notices their house is in Area 47; a bourgeois suburb in Lilongwee city.

Sintekeseka starts immediately the tedious journey of searching for his family. It is already around two in the afternoon; it is moderately warm, clouds are scattered all over the sky, and there is a gentle wind. Sintekeseka struts through the Kamuzu Central Hospital premises. Walking a little bit faster, he crosses the road and finds himself trotting along the wired fence of Lilongwee School for Health Sciences, and quickly reaches Jomo Kenyatta roundabout. He stops by a bus stop to sit down under a tree to rest. He is sweating. Picking up a small piece of cardboard he starts to fan himself with it. Everything about him looks queer and strange – strange surroundings and the mind-boggling news advised by the tenant that his daughter is now a very powerful and rich woman.

But still the past has not left him completely, he remembers, in detail everything he has done; yet it seems that no one recognises him. He feels that his new image and life as a preacher, will fit well in this new world he is about to enter. He has wondered how his wife, daughter, and son look like now, It has been twenty years since he last saw them. My wife must be advanced in age: old and wizened, and my daughter and son about to climb the middle-age ladder, he mumbles to himself.

Getting up slowly, like a tired bull upon a friendly whip from his compadre; he yawns loudly and resumes his journey at a slower pace, his bible clutched in his hand. A few minutes later, he reaches Chilambula Road. He is transfixed to see the former two-lane road has been transformed into a large four-lane road.

Indeed I have missed a lot, there must be so many things to discover, he mumbles.

He keeps right and walks past the infamous Lingadzi Inn, a place he used to hang out in his heady days. A few minutes later he finds himself in the Area 15 vicinity. Walking briskly now he soon enters into the vicinity of Area 47. The soccer stadium’s covered stands roof can be seen from here. He stops abruptly and sits down by the roadside as he tries to figure out how he should introduce himself to them. He starts perspiring and trembling when the past attacks his mettle and conscience; tears course uncontrollably down his cheeks. He curses himself for putting his life into disrepair.

My life was finished a long time ago. What came into my head that I should leave my wife and defile my own daughter? Why did I commit such an abomination? Was I possessed with demons? I think it must be...demons...demons...it...must...be...Let me apologise to my family, my daughter in particular; maybe I would have a modicum of peace in these last days of my life. Although it is so easy for God to forgive us of our sins, it is not easy for a human being to forgive his fellow human being. I hope they will forgive me. He cries, shedding many tears for his past sins.

In a state of delirium, he gets up, wipes his tears with the palm of his hand and starts to walk towards their house. The street is deserted; no human soul is seen loitering around but occasionally a car speeds up or down the road. Sintekeseka sees the number of the house he is looking for hanging on a fence. His heart palpitates, and he takes a step back. He cannot believe that his daughter can be living in such a big house – it has a huge conical roof that towers above the electrified fence.

Where did she get the money? Is she married to a politician or tycoon? he wonders.

It takes him a few minutes to compose himself. Eventually, he walks forward and timidly presses the bell. A few minutes pass without an answer. He is about to press the bell once more when he hears running feet coming towards the gate. A young girl of about fifteen opens the gate and pops her head out. Her hair is beautifully braided, her face rippling with a smile.

"Can I help you, Madala?"

Is this the house of Forgiveness or Abiti? asks Sintekeseka wondering who this lovely young girl could be.

You mean my mother?

It takes a few seconds before Sintekeseka can answer the girl. He tries to figure out if the girl could be the by-product of the incest he committed twenty years ago. He is immediately incapacitated by that gumption that she could be. The girl looks very young – if she was conceived then she would be twenty years old by now and at a college toiling to get a degree.

Is Forgiveness your mother?

"Are you perhaps the Madala who brings us braai wood and bags of charcoal sometimes?"

Sintekeseka is taken aback. He looks down at himself. A large tear drips down his cheek, discharged by the force of his self-pity.

My young girl, do I look like that old man? he asks tearfully.

Just like him.

Is Abiti at home?

"You mean agogo?"

Sintekeseka’s heart rushes to his trembling mouth.

Is she at home?

"Agogo, my mother, and my dad have gone to Mangochi to see Auntie Che Ngasigala who is sick."

Che Ngasigala!

Do you know her?

She is my wife’s younger sister?

Who is your wife?

When are they coming back?

Tomorrow!

Is Siso around?

Do you know uncle Siso?

He is my son.

What?

Where is he?

In the UK.

Can I come in?

No…no…I don’t know you and I was instructed not to allow strangers into the house.

But, I am not a stranger.

You are and I have never seen you before

Okay, I will come tomorrow.

"What’s your name Madala?"

Sintekeseka starts to walk away.

Just say, Sintekeseka, he says as he walks briskly back towards Pawale.

2 - Life is the heart beat of Time

April, 1996

IT WAS time for the women to sit down, relax and gossip; after being on their feet the whole morning trying to put their houses in order whilst their husbands were still toiling at work. The sun had just glided slightly past the zenith. It was unusually stark, burning from a deep blue sky; being April many people predicted a drought was coming. It was so hot that many people wished God would switch off the sun for an hour and bring a light rain instead; to cool the burning ground.

The three women: Abiti, Mai Lute, and Mai Maluzi from the neighbouring houses were seated on mphasa under the huge shade of a gmelina tree at Abiti’s house. It was lunchtime. Most of the children had just returned from the nearby school. The three women had brought their own foods and lay them out all together. It did not matter if one had brought utaka or khwani and her friends brought meat or chambo fish. They shared the food. The children ate from separate plates not far from their mothers. They too were buried in their own juvenile gibberish.

A stray dog stood nearby and stared at them questioningly, waging its tail. Its pink tongue was sticking out and salivating in anticipation of guzzling any remains. One boy, his belly button peeking below his singlet, hurled a stone at the dog. While not struck, the dog cried at the loud ring of stone against iron and darted away. Only to return seconds later to its former position like an elastic band does when pulled back and released. The belly button boy, busy skinning the chicken drumstick clean, saw that his foe had returned. The dog stood steadily, focused completed on the boy's drumstick like a goalkeeper during a penalty shout out. With the skill of a darts player, the boy hurled the drumstick into one of the dog's eyes; the ringing cries of the dog and laughter of the children went on and on until eventually, the dog disappeared from their sight as it raced away.

Not too long ago most of the men in the neighbourhood worked for construction companies like Terrastone, Group 5, Silicon, Ashanti, Lustania. A handful of them worked in the offices as messengers or cleaners and the rest were either watchmen or hawkers. Yet very few, so few you could count them using the fingers on one hand, owned decent houses or cars.

Mr. Sintekeseka, Abiti’s husband was among the few who owned a car. He had worked in the shoe factory as an operation manager. Sintekeseka and his younger brother, Alex were the only members of their family living in Malawi – the rest had remained in Zimbabwe. His father Willard Sintekeseka left Nyasaland in the '40s to work in the mines in Northern Rhodesia. He married a Shona woman and had seven children with her – five girls and two boys. However, in the '70s, Sintekeseka senior, now retired, decided to return home, but his wife and children refused to go with him. While alone, he traced his family to Mayani, Dedza. Two years later, Joshua and Alex followed their father. Five years later, Sintekeseka senior died of cancer. His family from Zimbabwe came for the funeral. Shortly after the funeral they returned to Zimbabwe; Except Joshua and Alex who adamantly refused to accompany them as they were married and working, and well settled in Lilongwee city.

Some women worked hard and were mentioned proudly by everyone: