A Zambian Short Story by Emily Nyirenda

(The names and place names in this story have been changed to protect the identity of the people involved – Editor)

The Bridge – kitweonline

Most people have no idea when death will come knocking on the door. My father told me the date and time that he would die. He had tears in his eyes as he whispered the words.

Usually, when I spoke to my father, I knelt in front of him and it was unheard of to stare in your father’s face. But this was not a normal day. I was sitting in front of my father. He was clutching my hands and peering into my eyes and I in his. This was physically and emotionally the closest I can remember ever being to my father. Three days later, he was dead. My father was hanged for a crime he never committed.

Three years earlier, almost to the day, my mother woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning to make her monthly trip from our village to the market in Katete which is situated a hundred kilometers from the Zambia-Malawi border. I was twelve years old but I was excited like a child because she always bought me something from town after selling our farm produce.

On the last Friday of each month, my mother harvested the produce from our garden to go and sell it at the market in Katete, 50 kilometers away. The day before the journey, we gathered pumpkin leaves, rape, bananas, papayas, mangoes, avocados and guavas. She packed the vegetables in a large reed basket and the fruit in two smaller baskets. The contents of the baskets varied with the season.

On the night before the journey, she carried one basket on her head and I carried the other to our local “bus stop.” This was just a clearing on the side of the road under a Masangu tree. During the day time, it served as the local bus stop and market where we sold vegetables, Munkoyo drinks, mushrooms and wild fruit to passing motorists.

My basket was special because my mother weaved it especially for me when I came of age. I was so proud when she told me that I was now a woman and would no longer use the small basket I had used since I was six years old. So whenever she went to the market, I was happy to let her take my basket. She always brought it back to me with something nice that she bought in town. It also made me feel like I was contributing to the family income.

We rolled chitenge material and twisted it into a big doughnut shape to cushion the heavy baskets on our heads. We walked the three kilometers to the roadside. We then went back and carried the bigger basket on my dad’s bicycle. We strapped the basket on to the carrier using elastic inner tyre tube strips. My mother pushed the bike down the narrow footpath while I walked behind her, supporting the basket.

Auntie Jessie was my mother’s best friend. People in the village used to call them twins because they did everything together since they were children. She lived next door to us. My mother and auntie Jessie even had children within two months of each other. My mother had me and Auntie had Esnart. They had gardens next to each other and went to sell their produce together.

Auntie Jessie was always talking loudly or singing. She smiled s lot. She was also a good cook. She knew all the village gossip and would often whisper stories to my mother as we sat around a fire preparing the evening meal. My mother would laugh and weakly protest, “Iwe Jessie!” But she would still listen attentively.

It was the most natural thing in the world for Esnart to be my best friend. We were like sisters. Esnart also helped her mother by carrying a basket on her head. Auntie Jessie and my mother would then go to the roadside at three o’clock the next morning to thumb for a lift from the passing lorries. There were no mini buses or buses in the villages those days. You had to cycle or walk to the main road to catch a bus if you wanted to go to Chipata or Lusaka.

On that morning, I saw my mother off and went back to sleep for an hour before getting up at five o’clock to start my daily chores. I dreamt that Esnart and I were watching Vimbuza dance (a traditional dance of the Tumbuka people – see video below – Editor) . The drums kept getting louder and louder, until I woke up and realized someone was banging on the door and screaming my father’s name.

It was my uncle Jere who lived on the other side of the river just after the bridge.

“Father of Emelia,” he shouted, “It’s the mother of Emelia. You have to come with me right away.”

From the way he was shouting, I knew something was very wrong. My stomach tightened into a knot and I was shaking as I threw my dress over my head. My father was getting on the bicycle with my uncle just as I came out of my hut. They disappeared into the night towards the bridge. I did not wait to put on my chitenge cloth. I ran after them still clutching it in my hand. I took a shortcut through the fields. It was dark and I tripped and fell a few times. I felt nothing. My uncle’s words were ringing in my ears as I tore through the thorn bushes to join the road near the bridge.

Beams from torch lights were cutting into the night sky as people milled about on the river bank below the bridge. As I got closer, I could hear the wailing of women and shouting of men down below. Their screams sent a shiver down my spine. I stopped running and started walking slowly. I can’t describe what was going on in my mind in that moment. My heavy breathing was not just from the running, I have never been so terrified in my life.

A big truck was parked on the bridge, its engine still running. The railings on the right hand side were missing. Baskets and vegetables were strewn across the road. As I came round the side of the truck, the headlights revealed a man kneeling down on the road, rocking from side to side with his arms crossed in front of his chest. It was my father.

On the floor in front of him were three bodies covered with Chitenge cloth. One of them was my mother’s Chitenge that she always wrapped around her dress when she dressed up to go to town. It was soaked in blood in the middle.

I stopped.

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Read The Bridge – Part II here

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Vimbuza Dance Video

Vimbuza Dance – video by Mwizenge Tembo

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