Two Hangmen, One Scaffold Book II: In The Hangman�s Shadow

Chapter 10

103 C Chapter 10 omani Kumanda was completely naked and smeared in ashes, soil and charcoal. Tears mottled his cheeks, having washed away the dirt as he cried to his Gule Wamkulu gods and spirits to mount a palpable presence at Sakis Mine and will Binga to return to his family. Swearing and pointing in the direction of Malawi where the burnt remains of his father lay buried, he promised them menstrual blood. The heat was sweltering. A northerly wind hissed through the boughs of a cluster of tall, eucalyptus trees. Bomani Kumanda sat still on an unmarked tombstone in one of the numerous unkempt and unfenced graveyards in the woods around Patchway Mine. The graveyard was to the south of the mine. He was in a small clearing surrounded by overgrown bushes and tall grass, above which was the whizzing eucalyptus canopy. From the tallest tree hung a red cloth, one of many in the vicinity, a warning to members of the public the cemeteries dotted in the forests around Patchway Mine were out of bounds to ordinary people. When he arrived in the area a week ago, he had carefully scouted for an appropriate site for his team’s camping, going round the semi-defunct mine of about two hundred workers. In the forests around the mine were neglected clusters of unfenced graveyards. Clusters of rustic graves ranging from two to about twenty fretted a large expanse of land around the mine complex in all directions. Bomani settled for a cluster with thirteen graves, mostly earthen mounds and cairns. The nearest mine building, which was the warehouse, was over a kilometre away. When he looked in the direction of the mine above the trees, he saw only the overhead wheels on the headgear over Pioneer Shaft. An earthen bowl on smouldering embers was between his feet. The juju in the bowl, ground herbs and twigs, the skull of a rodent B 104 and a viper, two feathers from an owl, were also smouldering, their smoke most of the time rising vertically in the still air of the confinement. He willed the smoke to drift in the direction of Sakis Mine, which it seldom did, bringing elation to his heart. With a stick, he kept poking the embers. Residents of the mine understood the red cloths meant the presence of Gule Wamkulu camps and avoided the areas with the ‘flags’. Beginning on 12 December, the community, mostly people of Malawian and Zambian decent, knew that the Zimbabwe National Gule Wamkulu Tournament would kick off in earnest in the mine’s football field, an event that attracted gule practitioners from across the country and foreign tourists. The dancers took residence in the graveyards in preparation. Bomani and his group were among them. The period between now and 12 December was for ancestral prayer and rituals, every team performing theirs in confidence among the graves of its choice. However, Bomani wasn’t here for the tournament. This would be his rendezvous with Binga, among the dead, among other gule practitioners, a domain where no police officer would set foot. Patchway was about fifty kilometres from Sakis Mine in a straight line. From the position of the sun, Bomani deduced the hour to be midday of 9 December. By Christmas, he knew he would’ve hooked his quarry by the palate of his mouth, or killed him. He had been at the ritual since midnight, and would stop when the gods gave him signs they had heard him. So far, there was none, though the presence of a swarm of pied crows was encouraging. The birds arrived in pairs and small parties, noisy and gliding, only to perch on distant trees and stare in his direction. More had come, from all directions. At some cue, they’d leave the trees with a loud flap of wings and circle around him before perching again to stare curiously at him. Then one would fall to its death near him, a sign the spirits had heard him. He was a patient man. Juju demanded patience. 105 In the meantime, he occupied himself with recollections of his mother, Cheruna, and his father, Cholooka. Both were deceased. Of course, Cholooka was the first to depart when he fell in the fire fourteen years ago. Bomani recalled the day he returned from Kasungu, the day he discovered his father in the fire. He clenched his fists...