I was informed that this was because my colleague, Dr T. V. Mubako, who covers Mat North and South Provinces had left the country for further training, while my second colleague, Dr Ananias Rixon Ngabi, who covers Midlands and Masvingo provinces, had had a nervous shock on the previous day which had necessitated his immediate admittance to Ingutsheni Mental Hospital. It was not known when his treatment would be completed.
The permanent secretary informed me that government has urgently sent for at least three pathologists under the health cooperation agreement signed with the government of Cuba. Even if those pathologists arrive, it is unlikely that their English will be of a level such that they can work without direction.
I honoured the directive and the next day, 11 June 2016, I completed my post-morterm examination in spite of my own discomfort. It is a matter of extreme repugnance to me to conduct post-mortems on persons otherwise known to me.
My medical conclusions are contained in the first page of this report. I emphasise that my conclusions are based on an external examination only. I took no samples for toxicological or other tests. Even if I had, the truth of the matter is that government hospitals are simply not equipped with the necessary chemicals or equipment for full toxicological screenings. In any event, I do not believe that further tests would have had any effect on my conclusions.
As I was aquainted with Deceased, I was able, unusually in such cases, to confirm my diagnosis with further information that I gleaned about Deceased at his funeral wake.
In this memorandum, I explain why the most competent verdict for the coroner to reach should be death by suicide.
I need to explain that as a pathologist, I am not normally privy to any information about the subjects of my investigations, and indeed, once my subjects are off my table, I give them no further thought unless I am called to testify in court. In this case, I was driven by a combination of curiosity and, I must admit, pity, to establish what it is that might have caused Deceased to take his own life.
My curiosity arose particularly with respect to the meaning of the note that had been found on Deceased and that said, ‘Come away death, and in sad cypress let me be laid.’
Twenty days after my post-mortem was completed, and after I had made the initial report above, the body was released to Deceased’s family for burial. When I learned about the funeral arrangements, I made certain to attend said funeral and in the process acquired fuller and further particulars of his life.
Deceased may have been alone in death, but no man is ever alone in leaving life. As at all other funerals, his wake was attended by a large crowd of mourners who included his own relatives as well as those of his wife, his workmates and employers.
I spent an entire night at the funeral wake. From talking to various persons connected to Deceased, I managed to piece together a chronology of his life.
As I said above, Deceased and I were in school together until Standard Six. While I passed and went on to St Stephens Gokomere before proceeding to the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland where I completed my medical studies, Deceased found work as a clerical assistant in a government office in Fort Victoria. From Fort Victoria, Deceased moved to Salisbury just after UDI where he continued in government service, but this time, not in a government office but kwamudzviti where he became a court interpreter. After independence in 1980, he remained with the Public Service Commission, and was eventually based at Rotten Row Magistrates Court. There, he spent the rest of his working life.
It was his job to translate the excuses, the lies and the sorry tales fabricated by accused persons seeking to escape responsibility for their actions and to translate also the accusations, sometimes truthful but occasionally spiteful of their accusers.
I have gathered that Deceased never rose higher in his profession than Senior Interpreter, Grade 8 Step 2. Modest as his salary was, it secured him a modest mortgage to buy a house in the suburb of Haig Park, in which he resided with his wife Hester Muponda, of Chitsa Village in Masvingo Province.
Deceased and his wife had three children. Neither his wife Hester, nor his three children survived him. It would appear that I conducted the post-morterm on two of those children, one who was killed in a road traffic accident that was declared a National Road Disaster, and another who drowned with other schoolchildren in the Darwendale Dam disaster.
Having lost his wife and three children, Deceased then moved in with a Ms Gertrude Chinakira of Sunridge, also in Mabelreign, a woman variously referred to by Deceased’s relatives and neighbours as his small house. She herself disputes this characterisation of their relationship and considers herself to have been his second wife.
Shortly after this, the Public Service Commission put him on early retirement. Ms Chinakira says the strain on their finances ended the marriage. Shortly after he was thrown out of Sunridge by Ms Chinakira, his wife Hester died from an unknown illness.
Their house in Haig Park was taken over by his wife’s relatives who refused him access to the house on the grounds that he had abandoned his wife. There were, from all accounts, sev eral unpleasant scenes between all parties concerned. Deceased was blamed for what was considered his wife’s madness and her subsequent death.
Deceased spent a considerable amount of money battling to regain his house. He used his dwindling resources to hire a lawyer to whom he paid the usual retainer. Lawyers, it appears, are the only professionals who are paid handsomely even before they have undertaken a jot of work. Unfortunately for Deceased, soon after he made over most of his golden handshake from the Public Service Commission, his lawyer was declared unfit and improper to practise law and thus struck off the roll of legal practitioners after being caught in a public affray with a prostitute.
This left Deceased in some considerable financial distress. With nowhere else to go, Deceased hired a room in Kuwadzana from where he went to town daily, to his old workplace. There he sought to re-establish contact with his former colleagues, and occasionally filled in for one or two, all without being paid. He was then evicted from Kuwadzana which is when he moved into the Rotten Row Complex. His presence went unnoticed at first as he would hide in the toilets at closing time before occupying an abandoned courtroom at night.
He was, however, eventually spotted by the complex security guards who then banned him from re-entering the complex. A few days following this ban, Deceased was found dead at dawn hanging from the sign outside the Magistrates Court that says, ‘Justice is Free. Don’t pay for it.’ His body was moved by the security guards. A note that fell from his pocket was handed to the police.
On my enquiries at the funeral, I learned that the note was a line from a play by William Shakespeare. ‘Come away’ is in fact an invitation to death, and it would appear that ‘sad cypress’ is a long-winded way of talking about wood from which coffins are made. I must say that I was surprised that Deceased would have known this as he had always struck me as something of a dull fellow who had, after all, not passed his Standard Six. However, as I had not seen him for a number of years it may well be that he turned into the sort of fellow who read poetry and the like.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of Deceased. He had had a wife and three children, none of whom survived him. He lost his job, his house and his money. By the end of his life, he had as little as that with which he had come into the world. If his death could be attributed to one cause, I would say that he died from grief. As that is not a medically recognised cause of death, however, I refer to my conclusions in the first page of this report. Deceased died of ligature strangulation occasioned by use of his own belt. It was, very unfortunately, a painful, and in my view, entirely unnecessary death. May he find in the life hereafter all that he failed to find on Earth.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers!’
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there
be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
– The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians –
Pakupedzisira, hama dzangu, zose zazokwadi, zose zinokudzwa, zose zakarurama, zose zakachena, zose zinodikanwa, zose zinorumbidzwa, kana kunaka kupi nokupi, kana cingarumbidzwa cipi necipi, fungisisai izozo.
– Nwadi yaPauro kuvaFiripi –
Saturday morning, 05:49
As Samson reached for Deliwe and she stretched her arms to touch him, she screamed loudly that she was tired of this nonsense and something had to change. Her voice deepened as she said, no, it was not nonsense and nothing had to change at all because all they needed to do was to be patient. Her voice became louder and deeper until it mutated into the voices of his quarrelling landlady Makorinde and her husband, Father Abraham.
Disoriented from the abrupt end to his dream, Samson reached under his pillow for his mobile phone. It was not yet six. It was not unknown for Samson to fall asleep to quarrelling voices and wake to them again, but the voices could not have interrupted him at a more inopportune time. He found with no surprise that he had a raging hard-on.
He closed his eyes and tried to go back to his dream. But neither sleep nor Deliwe came back on command. He knew why he had dreamt of her. He had read her message the night before. She had sent him a WhatsApp message, probably sent to everyone in her Contacts, in which she asked for his vote in the People’s Choice vote of the Miss Sunshine City Beauty Pageant she had entered. As it was, he had a press ticket for the pageant, and he fully intended to go to the Rainbow Towers later that evening to see her on stage. A beauty pageant is not how Samson would normally have spent his Saturday night, but he belonged to that edifying profession that hopes that, if all goes well, the very worst will happen at any public event. Bad news made better copy than good news. Samson was a journalist.
As he listened to the quarrel outside, he found himself in the position of other eavesdroppers who had heard little that was good about themselves. The quarrel was about his good self. Makorinde was saying he had to go. Father Abraham was saying he should stay. Why, said Makorinde, should they look after a lodger who was late paying his rent? Why, said Father Abraham, should they chase away the only person at this house who actually had proper employment? He would pay when he had it. Makorinde said, well, in that case I will ask when he will have it. And Father Abraham said, Now, now, Chihera mine, we know what you can be like, let me be the one to talk to him, man to man.
Samson would normally have been gratified by Father Abraham’s support, but he knew it came from pure self-interest. He had already paid two weeks’ rent directly to the man. He had only been at this house in Mbare a month and two weeks, and had paid the first four weeks’ rent directly to Makorinde. He had not thought twice when Father Abraham came to collect the next two weeks’ rent directly from him at work. But just two days later, Father Abraham had confided that he had spent all of Samson’s money on his chief passion. As it happened, Father Abraham’s chief passion was to put down certain sums on the uncertain outcomes of sporting competitions.
Thanks to that Dutchman Van Gaal’s incompetence, Father Abraham said, an incompetence that had seen him start the wrong players compounded with playing the wrong formation given the weakness in the midfield, Manchester United had lost to Sunderland, can you believe it, Samson, Sunderland of all teams, surely Van Gaal knows by now that captain or no captain, you simply don’t start with Rooney, you start that young one, uyu mpfanha uyu, what’s his name, Memphis then you bring on Rooney as added arsenal just before the second half.
But Van Gaal did not do that and now Father Abraham was finished, well, not finished but in a bit of a pickle actually, so could Samson just play along a while and tell Makorinde the rent was on its way, and better still, could Samson give him an advance on the next week’s rent, just a twenty would do, maybe even a gumi chete to put on Federer on his match against Djokovic so that he could win back the money that Van Gaal had lost him?
Samson had given him ten dollars just to shut him up. It was then that Samson had realised exactly how the economic power lay in this household, and that he was not the tenant of a proprietor and his wife, but of a proprietress and her husband.
Father Abraham had that nickname from their lodgers because his children seemed to pop up like mushrooms. Any random child who appeared at the house was likely to be one of Father Abraham’s many offshoots with different women. Tired of going to the maintenance courts at The Stables and getting nothing, because Makorinde held on to the purse strings with the same tenacity the president clung to power, Father Abraham’s women ended up bringing their children to the house and leaving them there. His name came from the hymn in celebration of his prolific namesake: ‘Father Abraham has many sons! Has many sons has Father Abraham! I am one of them. And so are you!’
His wife Makorinde’s name was more obscure. She was a big and loud woman with a carrying voice, particularly when she was on her mobile phone. Samson had wondered why she was called Makorinde until one of the other lodgers at the house said, ‘Well, Makorinde is Corinthians in Shona.’
‘I know that,’ Samson said. ‘So why call her that?’
‘Akakoraka, she is big, so she is Makorinde.’
An active member of the ruling party’s Women’s League, Makorinde’s life seemed to afford no greater pleasure than going to kneel at the airport to welcome the president on his many returns home. In the six weeks that Samson had stayed with them, she had gone to the airport once every week, the president’s bespectacled face jiggling a benign benediction from her bottom as she walked, her voice booming out to anyone who greeted her on her way, ‘I am going to welcome the president, they are expecting me now now’, as though she alone had that distinct honour.
Samson hoped that Father Abraham would not make it hard to stay here. He had a history of lodgings, having known all too well the Great Migration of the Common-or-Garden Variety Lodger at the end of every month when the rent became due but there was no money to pay it, and they had to leave, a migration slightly eased by the necessity of leaving some belongings behind in lieu of rent.
He was happy here, at the corner of Chaminuka and Sixth Street. Like many Harareans, he had thought of living in Mbare with some dread. But once there, he realised it had its own charm. The rent was reasonable, the other lodgers congenial. He was a short right from Cripps down to Rotten Row, and from there, a short walk to his offices to pound out his copy. And Makorinde and Father Abraham were relatively prosperous, so there were none of the usual problems here about leaving his meat in the fridge of a landlord who did not have his own meat and thus eyed him sourly when he went to collect it.
Mbare was a place where something was always happening. Close to Makorinde’s place on Chaminuka lived AmbuyaVa Dudley, a curvy and vivacious woman who liked to dilute Chibuku beer with Cherry Plum and wore skintight trousers. When she was possessed, she became the grandfatherly Sekuru Muchabaya. She was a traditional healer who divined misfortune, threw bones and diagnosed and treated illness. From hanging out at her house, Samson had learned startling things about potions and magic, but more profitably, about the people who visited her, many of them well known. For though she claimed powers to heal that were equal to doctors of Western medicine, she did not consider herself unduly constrained by the latter’s vows of confidentiality. Among the many things she promised her clients, discretion was not one of them.
‘You just missed the MP for Harare South East, Samson,’ she would say. ‘And before that, the Minister of Public Works was here. So many problems in his life. And the permanent secretary of that Ministry was here, you know the woman who is sleeping with her boss, the minister. I gave her a charm to use on him, she asked for chipotanemadziro, lizard’s tail, but he also came here for a protection against all love charms, so who knows. Hodo! Zvichasotana zvega!’
Also on Reverend Machingura Street was Manyara, who had become a fast friend of Samson. She needed very li
ttle inducement to entertain him with stories of the clients that she saw, men just as well known as AmbuyaVa Dudley’s, including a man who tried to persuade the girls not to use condoms they insisted on as he was just an ‘old madhala with no disease.’ The next time Samson saw the gentleman was at the opening of the Trade Fair, and he grinned to himself thinking ‘Old madhala, no disease.’
The paper Samson worked for was the Metropolitan, a paper that specialised in salacious gossip and crime. So these tips were particularly welcome to him, and a few had come in handy. He was desperate to get out of the court reporting he was currently doing and move into Celebrities and Showbiz. It paid better because you could always make something on the side by getting people to pay you not to publish something about them, or accept payment to write favourable reviews and puff pieces. If he managed to find the right story, a hot story, he knew that he could move from Court to Showbiz.
The quarrelling voices grew louder as they approached his room. He hoped that he had remembered to lock the door. Yes he had, and he had taken the key out of the lock. Sure enough, there was a loud knocking at his door as the handle was tried from the outside. If he lay still, he could wait to leave after they had left. He simply had to escape Makorinde’s awkward questions and evade Father Abraham’s importunate begging. The president was coming back from Addis Ababa today at about 12 p.m., so Makorinde would leave to go and wait with others at the ‘usual pick-up points’, wherever those might be. Father Abraham would be off to town as usual.
Samson kept still, not daring to move even an eyelash. Luckily, he had remembered to draw the curtains closed the night before. The steps went back into the house. He turned his thoughts to Deliwe.
He flicked to the photos on a folder in his Samsung phone. He rather hoped she would do well in the pageant. She did not have to win it, she just had to do well enough to reach the final three. Her doing well was a golden opportunity for him. This was a potentially hot story, the kind that the Showbiz desk loved. He turned to the other folder, as though to reassure himself, and there they were, his other pictures of Deliwe, Deliwe as nature had made her, in all her glory. He had taken these photos on one of the nights they had spent together and she had fallen asleep without knowing what he did. She still did not know that he had them. He had not planned to use them at all other than for his private enjoyment, but now, if she did well in the pageant, he knew that his editor would pay a fortune to have them.
Rotten Row Page 26
