As I stared at the blood stain on the Chitenge cloth, the strength drained from my legs. I couldn’t take another step forward.
I heard a scream that sounded like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It came from my throat, yet it seemed distant. Suddenly, I found myself lying on the ground. Someone was shining a light in my face while a voice from the side was asking if I was okay.

Everything felt like a bad dream from which I would awaken at any moment.
I felt strong arms lift me and carry me away towards the village. I started screaming and kicking because I wanted to see my mother. Someone was trying to calm me down and saying everything would be all right.

When we got to the village, everybody was awake and a large group of women was mourning outside mum’s hut.

The hours, days and weeks that followed merged into one long dark nightmare. I seemed to be floating in and out of reality. As strange as it sounds, I did not feel any emotional pain.

Mum’s body was never recovered from the river. The body I thought was hers was actually that of a man who had been sitting next to the driver in front.

The chief declared after three weeks that her body may have been eaten by crocodiles. The search came to a stop, but not for me. Every morning I silently walked up and down the river banks looking for my mother’s remains.

Esnart joined me during the first week but she left to be at her mother’s bedside in Chipata. Auntie Jessie survived the accident.  She was taken to Chipata Hospital where she spent six months receiving treatment for a broken leg and hip bone.

I continued the search on my own. After all, it was my mother.

One misty morning I spotted a body in the reeds in the middle of the river. I started screaming and splashing in the shallow water. I couldn’t swim. A group of boys who were fishing nearby heard my screams and came running. I pointed to the body. Three of them swam out there. It wasn’t my mother’s body. It was the carcass of a dog.

This made me only more determined to continue my search. The dog got a decent burial, my mother deserved better.

Losing her was like losing both parents. My father was never the same after mum died.

He lost his laughter and rarely spoke. Every morning he got up before dawn and rode his bicycle out of the village. He had declared that he would never rest until the man who was responsible for my mother’s death was brought to justice. This became his mission in life.

The driver went missing. One of the passengers reported seeing him run off into the darkness after the accident.

The driver’s name was Samson. He was from a village not far from ours. He worked for his uncle driving the van. The passengers told the police that Samson was drinking at a beer hall before the journey. The police also found bottles of Castle beer when the van was recovered from the river. Samson was on the run from the police. No one knew where he was.

My father rode from village to village looking for him. Samson’s relatives and friends said they hadn’t seen him since that night.

One day, news reached the village that my father had been arrested for beating up Samson. They said Samson had serious wounds to his head and was taken to the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka for intensive care.

When uncle Jere brought back dad’s bicycle, he told us what he had heard: Dad had discovered that Samson was hiding in his girlfriend’s village.

Samson told his girlfriend that his uncle fired him from the job accusing him of stealing money from the daily takings. He said his uncle had employed an inexperienced driver three weeks before the accident. So, when people later heard that the driver was being sought for by the police, everybody assumed it was the new driver.

Someone in the village told dad where he could find Samson. Dad then followed Samson to the beer hall where he found him drinking with his friends.

Dad grabbed Samson by his shirt but Samson struggled free and ran out through the back door. My father ran after him. Samson’s friends who were running close behind him found dad hitting Samson around the head with bricks. They wrestled dad to the ground and detained him until the police arrived.

He was charged with attempted murder and remanded in prison in Chipata.

One week later, the charge was changed to murder. Samson had died from his head injuries.

My father had never slaughtered a chicken in his life. He said he could never bring himself to take the life of a living thing. That is the type of man he was. Yet all the five witnesses agreed about what they had seen.

When the case went to the High Court in Lusaka, the verdict was the same. My father was moved to Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison in Kabwe.

I wondered whether his anger made him snap in that moment when he saw Samson’s face. Had my father turned into a killer? I never had a chance to ask him face to face until that day I visited him in Mukobeko prison.

I was sitting opposite my father across a small wooden table. I could see it in his eyes that he was telling the truth as he explained what actually happened the day he found Samson.

Earlier that day, builders were putting up a wall which was part of an extension to the beer hall. When Samson ran out the back, he bumped into this wall. A pile of bricks that had been left on a platform got dislodged and fell on Samson, burying his head. My father was picking up these bricks off Samson when Samson’s friends came round the corner. He was holding a brick in each hand and they mistook that for an assault on Samson.

My father revealed that Samson had looked up at him and said he was sorry that his drinking had caused the accident. He said he ran away from the scene of the accident because he was afraid that he would be beaten to death by an instant justice mob. He said, “Please take me to the police. I will confess everything.”

Shortly after that, he lost consciousness. He never regained it.

With his last act, the man who had killed my mother also placed my father on death row.

 

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Find out what happened next week when we post part III of Emily Nyirenda’s story.

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If you missed the first part of this story, you can catch up here

The Bridge – Part I

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