Taona’s daughter had obtained eleven A’s at Ordinary Level. Her mother was hysterical with joy, but Taona’s joy was eclipsed by a guilty conscience. The secret he and his wife would hide from their daughter forever had taken its toll on his conscience. For three days after reading Rudo’s result slip, he would find a secret place to let his secret tears spout furtively and freely from his skull.
The ghost of his past tortured his mind. It had torn its way out of its grave, shoving rocks aside, rising from the bowels of the earth like a poisonous fruit tree. Now any direction he looked, the ghost of his past stood before him like a colossal bush.
He had had an intimate relationship with a village girl, and Rudo resulted from that relationship. He had denied responsibility at the instigation of his own mother. “My son, you are eighteen and she is twenty-two. Where were her age mates when she made you a bedfellow?” Mrs Mazarira had said to her son.
Taona had looked at his mother across the fireplace, as they conversed in her kitchen hut and said, “Now, mother, if she is the mother of my child, what do you expect me to do, except marry her?”
“Marrying her and make me the object of the village’s ridicule. You are supposed to be four years older, not younger.” She scanned her son’s face, her effort partly deterred by the smoke rising from the fireplace. “Marry her against the will of your father’s bones whose peaceful rest you must respect. Marry her at a sacred price, as I won’t live to endure Chenesai taking root on my turf.”
After succumbing to his mother’s persuasion, implorations, curses and threats, he had left Vhumisai Village to seek employment in the city, lest, as his mother had said, he would chase another village girl and bring more shame to his mother’s doorstep. He did not find his new job as tea boy edifying, but at least it was a way of avoiding conflict with the adult person who mattered most in his life.
Taona returned home from Mutare every fortnight. Updates on how his estranged “queen” was faring always awaited him upon every return. His friends seemed to find amusement in Chenesai’s miseries. Their stories were a source of emotional discomfort to Taona, yet they thought he enjoyed the stories. Gradually, he learnt to shun his friends, and the more he drifted away from his childhood friends, the more he was emotionally drawn towards Chenesai. But reuniting with her would earn him curses from his mother.
Stressful moments made his nights insomniac. Chenesai had laid the treasures of her heart at Taona’s feet, and had allowed him to steal from their future, the pleasures of bedroom life. Now their paths had split under their feet before a shared future had become a reality.
On every visit he made back to Vhumisai Village, he would take a lonely walk down Mushamhuru River. He would find a quiet place and spend the day there. The nearer the day of his child’s arrival, the more contrite his heart became, yet the contumacy of the bond with his mother frowned at any thought of repentance that crossed his mind. No, he would not marry Chenesai. He did not want to break his mother’s heart.
His promotion to a chief messenger at work did not make life easier for Taona. The joy of such upward mobility was the monopoly of those who had no emotional burden.
His lonely walks down the Mushamhuru River proved not to be an escape at all. The result of such excursions was that the realities of his life became more real. His life had lost purpose. The only reason why he lived was to keep his mother happy, not so much for himself.
Every time he reposed at a secluded place, he imagined how Chenesai was feeling, her belly growing rounder with every passing moment, how cheerless her life had become with the prospect of single motherhood.
One Saturday afternoon, his mind full of premonitions, Taona had gone down the river for the umpteenth time. He had resisted a strong urge to take a new direction, like going up Nyarutomboka Hill or visiting Mutsiyabako Caves. But as if propelled by a voiceless spiritual command, he found himself on his way towards the river. The memories of the secret places he had visited with Chenesai flooded his mind. Those were the ephemeral joys of youth. He tried to imagine what joy would remain when one’s sweetheart is always there by one’s side, belly swollen with new innocent life, or feeding a bundle of infant life from the turgidity of her motherly tenderness. He had started a journey but had allowed the road under his feet to disappear, and he was stranded in the middle of nowhere.
His mind weighing with countless thoughts he proceeded with his walk until he came to a pool called Chinyamukurunga. The vegetation around this place was evergreen. Tall trees shaded the pool in such a way that its water looked blue-black. He sat by the pool, sucked in by the splendour that surrounded it. He longed to bring someone to this place, someone he loved. Yes, he was in a new relationship with Nancy, the city girl, but something seemed to tell him she would never be the right candidate.
The young man had not slept for days. His eyelids became heavier and heavier until he could not keep them up anymore. He drifted into a deep sleep.
The cry of a baby awakened him. He looked around him and saw nothing. He thought he had been dreaming and closed his eyes again.
When he heard the cry again, it sounded more real than before. He opened his eyes again and looked across the pool. There was nothing across the pool except the flat rock that gently sloped into the pool and the trees that towered at the upper end of the slope.
Taona continued watching the other side of the pool until a woman surfaced, slowly coming down the gentle slope, shoving twigs aside to find her way among the trees. In her arms, she carried a bundle of white cloths. He sat frozen at the spot as he watched the woman approaching the pool. He remained anchored at the same spot, even after noticing that the woman was Chenesai. When Chenesai reached the edge of the pool, Taona rose to his feet. It perplexed her to see him, standing like a sentinel at the other side of the pool. She stood transfixed at the edge of the pool, thinking that Taona was a spirit as she later told him. She thought his ancestors had sent one of their own who looked exactly like him to save the innocent baby girl.
Chenesai turned in order to go back to the village, but Taona stopped her. “Stop there, my sweetheart. We are going home together!” he shouted. “I know what you were about to do, but it is already past.”
Taona walked thirty metres down the river and crossed over to Chenesai.
“She was not going to die alone. We were going to drown together,“ she said between sobs.
“It was going to be a double loss for me,” he said, tears in his voice.
They sat on the rocky bank, the baby in Chenesai’s arms receiving the baptism of her tears. They waited for the sun to go down before going back to the village.
Finally, they started the decisive walk back to the village, as husband and wife.
