Grisly Murder

Grisly Murder

            Every morning at breakfast Sara likes to read out the latest horror story from the Daily Nail, which now headlines a new grisly murder for us every morning, to keep us entertained and to take our minds off the strange behaviour of the government.

Monday

          ‘Listen to this,’ said Sara, as she poured her cornflakes.

‘RITUAL KILLING AT HIGH COURT. The dismembered corpse of a woman was yesterday morning found outside the High Court. Workers at the court claimed that her name was Zambia Justice, and that she had been employed as a malonda to protect the High Court from any injustice. Her head had been cut off with her own sword, and her scales were found hanging from the railings with her heart on one side and her brains on the other.

          ‘When contacted for a comment the Lusaka Chief of Police, Dr Sillyman Jelly, said that the members of the victim’s family were always the first suspects in any murder. Therefore three judges had been arrested, and the Chief Justice fired, pending further investigations.’

Tuesday

          ‘What a terrible story,’ said Sara, as she savagely dismembered an apple with a steak knife.

‘FULL EMPLOYMENT FINALLY FOUND. There was drama outside the gates of Slavery and Exploitation Ltd on Lumumba Road when a woman began screaming and weeping inconsolably.  Apparently her husband, Mr Full Employment, had gone to the factory a week ago looking for work, but had never returned. Apparently Full Employment had been promised by a man called Patriotic Manifesto, a well known politician.

          ‘After a full search of the premises, the missing person was finally found in the long grass outside the factory wall. There was nothing left except a cleanly picked skeleton. Apparently the rats had found Full Employment.’

Wednesday

          ‘Things are really getting quite frightening,’ said Sara, as she poured herself a cup of tea. ‘Listen to this:

‘MURDER AT LEALUI. The Litunga and his indunas awoke to a terrible shock yesterday morning. When the Ngambela opened the palace door he found the corpse of an old man lying in a pool of blood. Further examination revealed that this was the body of Barotse Agreement, the long lost son of Barotseland, who had promised to restore the glory of that great empire, but who had suddenly and strangely disappeared on 24 October 1964.

          ‘When told about this sudden and sad death, the government spokesperson, Mr Patriotic Manifesto, declared that there would be a State Funeral and seven days of mourning. In line with our election promises, he had said, we shall honour Barotse Agreement.

Thursday

          ‘My God,’ said Sara, ‘things are getting worse. THOUSANDS OF GRADE SEVEN LEAVERS DISAPPEAR. Concern is growing throughout the country after reports that grade seven leavers have suddenly disappeared from their homes. Many of the bereaved parents have said that an old man in a green uniform was seen lurking near the house before their child vanished.

          ‘An expert from the Ministry of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs has expressed fears that these children may have been murdered for their body parts, to be used in a gruesome ritual to resurrect the dreaded monster that haunted youngsters in the 1970s, the mindless and much feared Zambia Nutty Serpent. He advised parents to lock up their children at night and to beware of an ugly old man in a mouldy green uniform smelling of the one-party state.

          ‘In a telephone interview the Curator of the Livingstone Museum, where the remains of ZNS are kept, has reported that a rhinoceros, giving his name as Chipembele Kambilimbili, last week burst into the museum, ripped open the coffin and made off with the remains of ZNS.’

          ‘But when contacted, government spokesperson Patriotic Manifesto advised that all these developments were merely part of the youth training scheme promised by the ruling party.’

Friday

          Sara was buttering her toast angrily when I found her at breakfast. ‘Nobody told me about this,’ she complained, ‘it seems I missed a most entertaining funeral. Look at this headline:

‘PATRIOTIC MANIFESTO PUT TO REST. A strident voice of the people, who had promised so much, was yesterday put to rest in the Field of Broken Promises at Leopards Hill.

          ‘In his eulogy at the funeral of Patriotic Manifesto, Father Ukwa of the Perfect Faith declared that the departed Patriotic Manifesto was a prophet whose predictions were misunderstood. Some misguided people had claimed that he had promised Heaven on Earth in ninety days when he had actually said ninety years. They had even tried to blame Patriotic Manifesto for the spate of murders that had swept the country over the past few days.

          ‘Father Ukwa assured the mourners that Patriotic Manifesto would resurrect in the year 2016 and would return by boat across the waters of Lake Mweru, as the congregation chanted Hallelujah! Pabwato!

          ‘A police spokesperson had earlier announced that the post-mortem results had shown that complete loss of face had caused a massive haemorrhage of popular support.’   

  

The Refugee

The Refugee

I was sitting on the veranda sipping a brandy and contemplating the infinite when round the corner came a scraggy figure with a bandage round his head. Heaving his backpack onto the ground, he clasped his arms around me. ‘Uncle Kalaki!’ he exclaimed, ‘Bwanji! How nice to see you again!’

‘Bwino! Good gracious! It’s Henry! Aunty Alice’s boy! I hardly recognized you! What has happened? You look like a refugee from a war zone!’

‘I am,’ he laughed. ‘Most of the boys got rounded up, but I managed to get on a bus. The conductor hid me on the luggage rack.’

‘Come and have a bath,’ I said, ‘then I’ll find some of Jumani’s old clothes, and clean up that wound on your head, then you can tell me all about it.’

An hour later he made a second and more civilized appearance on the veranda. ‘Now tell me all about it,’ I said. ‘Did you set fire to the headmaster? Kill his dog? Impregnate his daughter?’

‘It began from almost nothing,’ he said, as he sipped a cup of cocoa. ‘On the first day of term, my friend Simukoko was sent home for not bringing his school fees. He had only 330 pins instead of 700. He pleaded with the Headmaster to defer the remainder until next term, since his parents were both unemployed. But Mr Wopusa wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘So you were all annoyed.’

‘Simukoko is captain of the school football team, and we were due to play St Joseph’s the following Saturday. That evening we called a meeting and decided to send a delegation to talk to Mr Wopusa the following morning.’

‘But he still refused?’

‘He said he couldn’t make an exception for one, and without money he couldn’t run the school, and we were trying to undermine his authority. Then he put us all in Saturday morning detention for insubordination.’

‘Wasn’t he over-reacting a bit?’

‘He always does. He seems to have no confidence in his position. Some say he’s got no degree and others say he only got the job because he’s related to the minister.’

‘So you called another meeting.’

‘Yes. And a lot of things were said. It was pointed out that the government has declared that education is free, but this Wopusa has invented a lot of fees. We have a computer fund, but no computers. A bus fund but no bus. A swimming pool fund but no pool. Meanwhile Wopusa sends his children to Simba School at $2,000 a term and drives round in a Jaguar. So we resolved to go on class boycott until Simukoko was reinstated.’

‘So Wopusa expelled the ringleaders.’

‘Exactly. How did you know?’

‘Incompetent bullies always overreact, and then get deeper and deeper into trouble. So you had to call another meeting.’

‘This time we invited the press, and voiced our complaints that the national education policy wasn’t being followed. There were not supposed to be fees, but the Headmaster was collecting fees and misusing them. There was supposed to be equality of opportunity, but other schools are much better than ours. We demanded the sacking of the Headmaster.’

‘So instead Wopusa sacked all of you?’

‘Exactly. The next morning we all got expulsion letters, which stated that we would be allowed to return only after we, and our parents, had signed a declaration that we would never contact the press, would never organize a class boycott and would never hold another meeting.’

‘But you called another meeting?’

‘We had no choice. The next morning we congregated in the quadrangle to plan our march to the Provincial Education Officer, to demand our educational rights as laid out in the Education Policy, and our human rights as laid out in the Constitution, as explained in our Civics textbook.’

‘And did you march?’

‘No. The Police Mobile Unit arrived with batons, tear gas and guns, surrounded the school and attacked us. The battle lasted for the rest of the day, leaving two students dead, ten with bullet wounds, two hundred in prison and five hundred hiding in the forest’

‘So that’s when you burnt the place down?’

‘Yes,’ he said ruefully. ‘That battle saw the end of Limulunga High School. We razed it to the ground. The best bit was burning the Jaguar, it went up like a Tunisian fireworks display.’

I walked into the house and collected Jumani’s old baseball cap, and a large blue RB chitenge. Then I went back to the veranda and asked Henry to stand up. I put the cap on his head and the chitenge as a gown round his shoulders.

‘You have now learned that all law and human rights are not worth the paper they are written on, and the parasites in charge are a bunch of idiots who will do anything to stay in power.’ Then I rolled up a copy of Sangwapo and gave it to him as his certificate. ‘Congratulations,’ I said, ‘Your education is now complete. You are now a graduate.’

‘Thanks, Grandpa,’ he said. ‘A graduate of what?’

‘A graduate of Political Science.’

‘Shall I be able to get a job?’

‘You’ve already got a job,’ I said. ‘You are now a political thug. You’ve been educated by the government.’