Two Hangmen, One Scaffold Book I: Baiting the Hangman

Chapter 33

265 C Chapter 33 ith incense pervading the cathedral air as the priest in his fascinating robes conducted Requiem Mass for Jackson Mpaya Gadaga in Chitungwiza’s St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, 1 December began to prove a day for reflection and religious meditation for Binga Jochoma. Mourners sat on every pew in the transepts and cathedral’s main auditorium. On the altar, the silver and gold Eucharistic appointments stood solemn and spellbinding. To Binga the chalice seemed the main attraction of the appointments, large, enthralling, and centrally placed among the numerous intriguing items. Minutes ago, the priest raised it thrice and blessed the wine in it in a voice that reminded him of Bomani Kumanda, the Chiadzwa beast that never accepted defeat, and brought a cold shiver in him. As the priest mentioned something to the effect that the wine was the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands, Binga understood he had blundered by letting Bomani live. He should’ve killed him four years ago when he had the chance, but out of vanity, he sought to humiliate him with copulation. By then he hadn’t known much about the brute until the early morning ambush. Only after he had survived and slain men, did he understand who and what he had fought. When he confided to gold panning acquaintances that he had nearly lost his diamonds and life to armed thugs behind Gudyanga Village, they had shaken their heads in disbelief. When he furnished them with a description of the men whose ambush he had thwarted, the listeners held their breath and stared at him in awe. From his audience he learnt the names Bomani Kumanda and that he was the Beast of Chiadzwa. Very few men had survived his attacks. Those whom Bomani failed to subdue, he pursued to the ends of the earth until he broke their bones or took their lives. They assured him the evil one would come for him. W 266 Binga reminded himself he was in church and had to follow the requiem proceedings. Chiadzwa was very far from Sakis Mine and Chitungwiza, and it was likely offensive to God for one to sit in His holy presence, smell the incense and yet be fearful of evil. Was he a lesser evil? The question caught him off guard. He was reasonably evil; he maimed or killed for the survival of his family and the women in his life. The people he attacked were pagans of no use, benefit or value to God. Illegal gold diggers lived on alcohol, marijuana and unprotected sex. When intoxicated, they blasphemed against God by giving praise to their ancestral spirits for the gold nuggets they extracted from the earth. These idiots, whose reckless whores littered the streets with used condoms, damaged the environment with their unplanned digging, contributed nothing to the economy and were a perceivable nuisance to the government and God. Destined for perdition, to Hell, he was despatching them one by one. Sitting in the cathedral among the faithful, Binga felt he was one with the congregants; God didn’t discriminate and loved sinners. Actually, in the final analysis, he was more of a tool in the hands of God than anything else. God wasn’t going to judge him harshly. Could God afford to be averse to a man who allowed his wife to go to church and bought her all the materials for her religious garments? The army, that world of corporal punishment, patriotic concepts and values, had wrongly ingrained in him the doctrine of hankering after courage, comradeship, honour and loyalty, a veiled attempt to deceive him into accepting that the defence, the love of one’s country and the sovereignty of one’s nation came first above all things including his life, family and parents. The brainwashing was wrong and condemnable. A man’s life, family and parents came first in equal measure. If need be, a drowning man stepped on the heads of others to keep his head above water. As he sat in the cathedral and pondered his life and God’s compassion for His children, every man, woman and child under the 267 sun, he saw that many families in the country were shamefacedly NGO-dependent in an independent country. In the rural areas, households received a wide array of items from basic foodstuffs and sanitary pads to weeding hoes. Non...