Two Hangmen, One Scaffold Book I: Baiting the Hangman

Chapter 11

101 C Chapter 11 t midnight on 26 November, Binga was at Patchway Mine set to descend to a peculiar world. He vied for brawls to test Mjomba’s juju. Within six months, he guessed, he would be the proud owner of a mansion by any standard. On its walls would hang original paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso and Dali, while human-size sculptures by renowned sculptors would stand in its gardens. Half a kilometre behind Binga stood a hazy silhouette of the mine’s headgear. Mountainous dumps of crushed rocks and the heaps of overburden around it bore witness men for many years had broken their backs underground to be worthy of their meagre wages. To the east, about two hundred metres from the headgear stood a huge ball mill the size of a mini-bus. A conveyor belt and a crushing plant linked the two structures. All the machinery was stationery. The plant wasn’t dead, though its British owners had closed shop. Before closing the mine, the proprietors cited viability concerns and cashflow constraints rooted in a depressed economy worsened by an erratic supply of electricity. However, there was something proverbial about descending. Matipa, in one of her unpremeditated sermons to him, stressed the Son of God had to descend before He could be exalted. He, Binga Jochoma, would descend now. After several hours, or days, he would ascend and elevate himself. In Paris lay the springboard to his selfexaltation . Juju would elevate him to celebrity status. As he stood in the bush about fifty metres from the mine’s main ventilation shaft, the breather, he brushed aside the religious thoughts. It was time to descend. He focused on the breather, which used to be a strategic hole, technically a life support line, about half a metre in diameter through which compressed air was pumped to the mine’s tunnels and caverns several fathoms below the earth’s surface. A 102 Though the sky was starry, it was relatively dark. God created nothing in vain; the darkness would aid him. Seven years of listening to his Bible-thumping wife saw a remote Christian perspective creep into him, like second-hand marijuana smoke. From that distance, he could only make out the silhouettes of humanly figures that came to the breather from all directions. Crouching men came to the opening and literally vanished at the spot. From the same spot figures jutted out one by one, speaking in low voices and looking warily about. Visibly exhausted and grunting figures also came out carrying heavy sacks and satchels on their backs. The emerging figures disappeared from the scene at a trot, wobbling and panting. At times minutes passed without anyone coming to or emerging from the hole. There was nothing illusionary about the scene. The breather was now the entrance to a lawless world beneath the earth’s surface. Two kinds of people ventured to the subterranean world. The first category was downright murderers in the form of avowed axe-killers. The second was the condescending type that descended into the tunnel with a sacrificial attitude. The latter were people who expected the cutthroats to kill or sexually abuse them, or be robbed of the object of their toil. If they were lucky, they emerged with small gold nuggets. People who ventured underground referred to the tunnels as mortuaries. Looking at the breather from the shadows, Binga understood the illegal activities at the opening and down in the tunnels where it used to take compressed air were a result of irresponsible, substandard and wolverine politics. Economic sanctions and a ballooning national debt pauperised many workers who now had to descend the breather without the least protection or concern for their own survival. Refocusing and telling himself he wasn’t at the mine to ponder politics, he braced for action as he waited for a lull in the movements at the breather. 103 When there was a break in the movements, Binga broke from the shrubs and quickly walked to the breather. He pulled to his eyes a woollen hat he wore and peered in the square hole. A familiar putrid odour hit his nostrils and he recoiled as if he had smelled a glass of vinegar. What would one expect from mortuaries no one emptied? He mused to himself. The smell coming from the breather required a bit of getting used to. The opening was pitch-black...