When Freedom Came

By Benjamin Sibanda

The hero of the book, Godknows (an unusual but fairly common name in Zimbabwe) Kuzvida, is a young black African in Southern Rhodesia (Rhodesia since 1965). Like many other young blacks, he finds that his educational prospects after ‘ordinary’ levels are bleak. By chance, he gets the opportunity to go to the United Kingdom to further his education fully expecting to come back to a still racially segregated Rhodesia and get himself a job.

This starts him on an adventure of discovery as he, for the first time, realises that the rest of the world is different from what he had always considered “normal”. While he is away, independence comes to Zimbabwe, and he returns home to a country totally different from the one he left.

His vision for Zimbabwe is based on his experiences in the United kingdom. He wants to see Zimbabwe become like the United Kingdom socially, economically and politically. After joining the Zimbabwean civil service he realises quite quickly that not everyone shares this vision; that not everyone has the same work ethic or indeed the same ethics as he does. Unwittingly, he finds himself drawn into the get-rich-quick mentality that everyone seems to have and soon becomes quite wealthy by means that are opposed to everything he has always believed in.

Unfortunately, when things go wrong, it is him that ends up in prison while those who got him involved are home free. Too late he realises that he has been used by many around him, including those he thought were closest to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Dec 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482804263

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Copyright © 2014 by Benjamin Sibanda.

ISBN:      Softcover     978-1-4828-0427-0

                eBook          978-1-4828-0426-3

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Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my children:

• Lindelwa

• Bongiwe

• Nontokozo

• Stabile

• Vusumuzi

Who continue to prosper in spite of me

SPECIAL THANKS GO TO:

• God Almighty for his leading throughout my life and particularly for his guidance as I worked on this project

• My wife, Irelean Carol, for putting up with my cluelessness

• My friend and brother, Ian Ronald, for being a friend indeed

Prologue

The stench was overwhelming. Sewage was everywhere; on his driveway, his lawn and even coming into his palatial home in the Northern Harare suburb of Glen Lorne. Yet no one seemed to notice. His gardeners – all five of them – were standing around leaning on their tools, apparently oblivious to a very serious crisis. He was shouting at them but his voice was clearly not carrying; he was banging on the window but no sound came. The harder he tried to draw the attention of others, the smaller the room seemed to get. He could not breathe; his legs felt so heavy that he could not even stand. Still the sewage continued on its relentless march, threatening to engulf him.

Then he heard voices. Voices so close that he could feel the breaths of the speakers on his face.

Get up, one of the voices seemed to be saying.

Wake up, wake up! the voices were getting frantic.

Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. It was dark, as it always seemed to be in the dungeon that had been his home for the last few months. He was drenched in sweat as a result of being tightly packed with nineteen others in a cell that had clearly been meant for a much smaller number.

The one hole in the corner that served as a toilet must have been overflowing again, hence the stench that was, as it always was in the morning, overpowering.

Others around him were stirring too. He could not see their faces but could well imagine them. There would be the hard, seemingly uncaring faces of the professionals, who seemed to do their best to get back into prison every time they were released; the forlorn blank looks of those who could not afford lawyers and seemed destined to spend the rest of their days in this dungeon, even though most of the crimes they were accused of were petty and many of them believed that they were innocent. One man had killed his wife in a fit of rage when he had caught her cheating on him. He generally kept to himself and would probably be staring into what space there was in the dark, crowded cell.

All this had run through Godknows Kuzvida’s mind in the first few seconds of his becoming awake. Something was wrong, clearly, this morning. There were prison officers in the crowded cell who were barking commands at the still groggy prisoners. It was them that had been shouting at him to wake up.

Stand up, Shefu, one of them addressed Godknows in mock respect, Shefu being one of the words that had come into Zimbabwe at independence, borrowed, he believed from the Portuguese-speaking Mozambicans, and denoting respect – from the Portuguese Chef (for Chief or Boss). Godknows was, clearly, in a much higher class to his inmates hence the officers always addressed him as Shefu.

Why? What is wrong? he asked in confusion.

One of your friends has kicked the bucket and we need to move him out of here before he stinks up the place. The officer sounded genuinely amused.

It was the third prisoner that week that had died. And the prison officers seemed to take particular delight in getting Godknows to help carry the emaciated bodies to the room that served as a mortuary. It was the one task that Godknows loathed the most. Two of them would be given the task of carrying the feather light body into the mortuary, in which there were other, already rotting bodies covered in sand and drenched with water to try and delay the inevitable decomposition process. They would have to step over maggot ridden bodies to place the newest addition before going outside to fetch more sand and water to pour over their body.

Godknows found himself hating his lawyer with ferocious intensity. Over the years, this firm of lawyers had made a lot of money looking after his business interests. Yet when he really needed them to extricate him from what seemed like a minor case of corruption – certainly much smaller than some cases involving powerful government ministers – they seemed powerless. He was waiting to go to court again, to make his fourth bail application, three earlier ones having failed on the grounds that he would interfere with witnesses or leave the country!

As they carried the body, covered in an old, torn, louse-infested approximation of a blanket, Godknows was thinking about the reasons given for the failure of his bail applications. What could he possibly do to the many state witnesses, some of whom were party to what he was accused of? His passport had been surrendered to the state so he could not see how he could skip the country. All he wanted was a chance to go home and enjoy some freedom before the actual trial started. He needed a chance to spend time with his beautiful wife, Consider, and his son, and to talk to his lawyers – change lawyers if necessary. Why would they not let him go home? And what did his lawyer mean that there was political interference in his case?

Later that day, as he sat against the wall of the exercise yard, hungry because he had not been able to eat after his excursion into the mortuary that morning, he considered his day. Consider, who had brought him some home-cooked food, had seemed cold and distant and could not be drawn into any meaningful discussion about his case, about his son – about anything really. She seemed to be in something of a hurry to get away from him.

For the first time in many years, Godknows found himself praying. He closed his eyes and started.

Our father, who art in Heaven.

He could not think of anything else to say. For a long time, he sat there; eyes closed tightly, fists clenched. He was oblivious to the goings on around him as he tried to make sense of what had happened to him.

He was crying now, uncontrollably. He sobbed openly, unashamedly as it seemed to dawn on him that he was in a much bigger fix than he had ever imagined. His life, which until a few months earlier was envied by many, now lay in ruins around him, and he could not see how it could ever be reclaimed. How could he have allowed himself to be drawn into the get-rich-quick mentality of post-independence Zimbabwe? He knew better! He had been brought up with the very high ideals of hard work, honesty, integrity and Godliness.

Like many of his fellow Zimbabweans, he had laughed and scorned at the many stories of corruption that came out of independent Africa, particularly Nigeria. Yet here he was now; in remand prison, accused of corruption. He cried because he knew that he was guilty. He cried because he knew that he had gone against everything that he had believed in and that his grandparents – committed Christians – had tried to instill in him.

He cried most of all because he knew that others, who had committed much bigger crimes of corruption than him; who had got him involved in the first place, were walking free with no possibility of them ever being prosecuted. They were, in fact, some of the key witnesses against him! He had not blown the whistle on them when he had the chance. Now, nobody would believe him if he tried. It would just look like he was trying to save himself by implicating others.

In any case, they had made it clear that telling on them could cost him his life. And he believed them.

Chapter One

Godknows Kuzvida loved his grandparents. They had taken him on as a ten-month old baby when his parents divorced and brought him up. For a long time, they were the only parents that he knew. They had raised him on their farm almost as if he was their youngest child. His grandfather, a retired pastor had been the spiritual leader in the home, teaching Godknows all that he knew about Christianity and God. He was also a great believer in education and had instilled in Godknows the value of a good education. His grandmother was the most loving mother he knew. Had it not been for the fact that he knew that they were not his parents and that his cousins lived with their biological parents, he would not have felt deprived in any way.

Until he had to go to boarding school after completing primary education at the local school, Godknows lived with his grandparents. Of course he had to move on and when he completed his secondary education, he went to live with his father and step mother in Bulawayo, where he worked in a factory for three years.

In that time, he had begun to stray from some of his grandparents’ teachings and had even stopped going to church – preferring, rather to hang out with his friends. In time, he started to drink and smoke the occasional cigarette, and even started to discover his own sexuality. But his grandparents remained a central part of his life.

So when the chance for him to go to the United Kingdom to further his education came, it was to his grandparents that he went for final advice and instruction.

They were, of course, sorry to see him go, but were pleased that he was going to better his life.

When the time came to say his good byes, his grandmother walked him out of the farmyard – for a short distance only as she was, by this time, blind.

Remember your favorite childhood memory verse at all times, she said to him as they were parting.

Of course, granny, he answered flippantly. He had no idea what she was talking about, but loved his grandmother too much to disappoint her by telling her that he could not even remember having a favorite memory verse.

’The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’. She seemed to have guessed that he did not remember. If you remember that always, my grandchild, you will never go wrong.

I will always remember, he promised insincerely. He was worried about missing his bus and had no time to argue the point. But as he walked away, he smiled at his grandmother’s naivety. He was going to England to learn and gather wisdom. The wisdom that is relevant to the modern world. His grandmother was too old to understand that but he would show her, on his return, how much wisdom he would have gathered.

He had no way of knowing that this was the last time he was to see his grandmother.

Ever since he left school with his mandatory six O Levels, Godknows had wanted to go abroad to further his studies. The racially structured Rhodesian education system did not offer much to a mediocre black student after O levels. He could have become a teacher, but that did not really appeal to him. Other decent jobs – in offices where he could wear a tie - were hard to come by, with only a handful of lucky blacks landing these. So he had applied. To every University, college, institution anywhere in the world that looked like it might offer a course, any course that might mean a good job at the end.

A good job, in his book, was one that paid well. Well enough for him to buy a car, a house, marry a beautiful wife and send the resultant children to a good school. It never occurred to him at the time that there might be some value in actually having some interest in the job, and deriving some enjoyment out of it. Nor did it seem like the political situation in his country would ever change. It was all he had known and, as far as he could tell, all he would ever know. There was some talk of terrorists trying to fight the government of Ian Smith but, by all accounts – and all the accounts he knew of the situation came from the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation – they were losing very badly.

Chapter Two

A few days after the visit to his grandparents – on August 1st, 1975 - Godknows was walking across the tarmac at Bulawayo airport towards the ageing Air Rhodesia Boeing 720. It was a warm early August afternoon and he felt rather than saw the excitement of the small retinue of family that had come to see him off. His eyes were fixed on the aero plane. It was the closest he had ever been to one of these marvels of technology and he wanted to see all that he could of it. He would, as he had seen other people do when he had gone to see them off, turn at the top of the stairs and wave to his family just before disappearing into the ‘plane.

Apart from his mother who was holding a white handkerchief to her face and seemed to be crying, they were waving and cheering frantically. He felt like some pioneering family hero off on a journey to conquer the world.

Suddenly, they were airborne. For the first time in his life, Godknows was in an aero plane. For the first time in his life, he experienced life outside the racial straitjacket that he had grown up in.

Would you like something to drink, sir?

Godknows was startled. The speaker was a young white man in a uniform that suggested that he worked for Air Rhodesia although he could not imagine in what capacity. He had heard about air hostesses, because many a black Rhodesian girl dreamt of becoming one someday – although they would have had to leave the country to do this. As far as Godknows knew, these jobs were reserved for white girls. So, was this a male air hostess, or rather, host?

Anyway, what was he doing calling him sir? - a quick look round had confirmed to Godknows that it was indeed he that was being addressed. White people did not go round calling black people sir! Not in the world Godknows had always known anyway.

He thought about the few British Pounds that he had in cash and about how far he still had to go. He could not afford to start spending this early on the journey.

No, thank you, he said in his politest English.

He tried to remember if he had ever had such direct communication with a white person at any time in his life. He had been spoken to by some white people before but he could not remember holding an actual conversation like the one he had just had. He was rather pleased with himself that he had answered in grammatically correct English. His English teacher would have been proud of him.

It’s on the house.

The young man seemed keen to carry on the conversation, but, what was on which house? Godknows stared blankly at him.

You don’t have to pay; you can have a coke, a beer, brandy or whiskey.

For free! Godknows had never tasted whiskey but he had heard, and read in all the novels that he liked to read how all the heroes drank whiskey and he remembered how they always described it. And James Bond drank whiskey, did he not? But, would it not be taking too much advantage of Air Rhodesia’s hospitality to ask for such an expensive drink when he did not have to pay?

Can I have a Coca Cola Please?

Perfect grammar again. He congratulated himself quietly as he sipped his coca cola, which had been served to him by a white man. He seemed friendly enough. Was he one of those white people who did not believe in the racial segregation of Ian Smith? This was, after all, an Air Rhodesia ‘plane and it seemed that the racial policies of the Rhodesians would surely be present in their aero planes.

He sat back to enjoy the flight and wonder what lay ahead. He knew that he was going to spend a few hours at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg while he waited for the connecting flight to London. He knew absolutely nothing about South Africa – except of course that they had much worse racial policies than Rhodesia. He was going to spend time in the land of Apartheid! He felt some apprehension. Would he be shoved away into some dinghy backroom until it was time to board?

Jan Smuts Airport was a big surprise. He had never seen such a large airport, which was not surprising considering that he had only ever seen Salisbury and Bulawayo Airports – which were, by airport standards minute. They were even several ‘planes on its apron – Rhodesian airports were empty for long stretches at a time, whole days even. He remembered going to see the airport as a school outing and coming home disappointed because there were no ‘planes at the airport that day. The school children in South Africa were so lucky, he thought.

At the bottom of the stairs out of the aero plane, the passengers were filing into a waiting bus. Godknows hesitated. Where was the bus going? Was he meant to get on the bus, which may, after all, have been taking South African passengers into Johannesburg? He was going to London and he did not want to find himself lost in Johannesburg and miss his flight.

E-xcuse me sir….

Yes, sir, can I help you?

Another white man had called him sir. What was happening? Were there more liberal whites out there than he imagined.

Where is the bus going?

Get in, sir (that word again), It is here for your convenience; to take you to the terminal building.

They take you to the airport building by bus here, he thought to himself. It makes sense. It would be a much longer walk.

He was hungry. There were four hours between his arrival and the flight to London. He did not know what to do with himself so he just sat and gawked at the shops and the people – so many of them – scurrying around purposefully. Everyone seemed to know where they were going except Godknows whose hunger was growing by the minute. He thought of the beautifully roasted chicken that his mother had so lovingly prepared for his journey. Somehow, it seemed inappropriate to open his provisions in this busy, gleaming edifice. He would have to wait until he got on the plane.

What a large ‘plane it was. There were easily five hundred people in there, he estimated, all sitting in rows, ten across as though they were on a very large bus. He had wondered when he got into