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

Chapter 16

159 C Chapter 16 y noon of the following day, 10 December, the Department of Social Welfare with the forced assistance of a dozen convicts was burying the twelve corpses. The bodies of Madzibaba Tinashe and Gogo Belemina were among the dead. The venue was the local graveyard on the western fringes of Sakis Mine near the obelisk. The atmosphere was sombre. Many friends, relatives and workmates of the dead mourned as if Evans Emedhi had just committed the murders, and the wailers’ lives were intricately dependant on the killed persons. For Matipa, the morning had been long and torturous. The mourning itself a heart tugging caricature of doleful drama. Genuine tears streamed from her eyes from the start of proceedings at about 8:30 am. Because of her husband, or because a prophesied demon thought he was Binga, twelve lives had been terminated and families had lost beloved ones. As Akar’s wife and natural representative in his absence, people looked at her with resentment. It piqued her that some of the workers had approached the mill manager with the intention of having her expelled from the compound. The thought that she was an object of ridicule and contempt tormented her conscience. Rumour already had it the strange veneer would kill more people, an invisible sword hung over Sakis Mine. Because it was a state-sponsored funeral, many government vehicles and people in suits and decorated service uniforms attended. The stately figures lent the occasion some semblance of the funeral of a Provincial or Liberation War hero; a low-esteemed calibre of heroes buried with a token of state rites. The most respected person among the mourners was the Governor of Mashonaland West Province, the same man who presided at the erection of the obelisk over the eighteen illegal gold diggers entombed at the mine. B 160 In the crowd of hundreds, which gathered for a church service in the crude football pitch, Matipa spotted Det, Sgt Tizora and the detectives who interviewed her the day before at Kadoma Central Police Station. Then there were the twelve cheerless convicts in stripped uniforms. The prisoners dug the graves and assisted with placing the bodies into cheap wooden coffins brought to Sakis Mine in an old, squeaky and jerky government lorry marked ‘DDF’ on the doors. DDF stood for District Development Fund, a government department responsible for communal development in the rural areas. Half a dozen stern-looking prison guards armed with pistols and AK 47 rifles watched the convicts. The prisoners were sunburnt, malnourished and sad, sacrificial beings forced to bury strangers. On their arrival, the convicts moved from one house, hut or hovel to the other, road and footpaths. Everywhere, including Matipa’s threshold, they picked human bones and reburied the remains in the open graves in the graveyard. Among the mourners, Matipa saw five soldiers in red berets. The men were muscular and belligerent by appearance. The soldiers mingled with the people boastfully, many people cowering visibly on their approach and giving them way. Matipa looked at them warily, aware they were also looking at her the same. She knew the men in red berets were paramilitary police officers deployed to further investigate and possibly arrest her husband on the suspicion he was indeed Binga Jochoma. As she grieved, she found it weird for anyone to suppose her husband was an ex-commando. There just had to be something wrong with the manner the Registrar of Births and Deaths kept records. Nevertheless, the fact that Bomani had inquired after the whereabouts of Binga whom he seemed sure was her husband sprang occasional pangs of fear in her. If by any chance Akar fell into the hands of these brutes whether he was or wasn’t Binga, the beasts were likely to tear him apart. Nonetheless, inasmuch as she feared for 161 her husband, she knew Akar could break their bones if they failed to practice enough caution. Both parties were at risk of the other. By 10 o’clock, all the dead were in the pitch and in their coffins, and a prison chaplain presided at the special church service for the dead, the subjects of the state-funded burial. The Governor was an aloof politician of a few words. Both his grief and humility were forced. He greeted the mourners and said, “Mashonaland West Province, the government and the nation at large grieves with the...