Finding Ravi Part 2

 

Part 2

He parked a few metres from his gate, from a distance he could see familiar cars parked outside his home. Friends and family coming to commiserate. He did not want to go home, he felt like there was something about friends and family saying nematambudziko or nedzinoparadza that would make amai’s death more real. He was happy to park his car and pretend for a few more minutes that was she at the village, alive.

He thought of Ravi and amai. It was twenty five years ago when baba had succumbed to AIDS after a long and excruciating illness. He was fifteen and Ravi was twelve. He could still remember helping amai carry baba’s lifeless body to the verandah in the morning and back into the hut every evening. Sour porridge with peanut butter or bread dipped in tea was all he could take.

A year after baba had breathed his last VaMwenda became a part of their life. The thought of VaMwenda made him seethe with anger. VaMwenda visited amai’s hut as and when he pleased; leaving groceries and money while taking away her dignity. He had long forgiven amai for her decision to entertain VaMwenda, nevermind that amai was labelled all sorts of names for her dalliance with VaMwenda, she would have never managed to take care of them alone. VaMWenda was a means to an end.

Ravi told him and amai what VaMwenda had been doing to her, how he would sneak out of amai’s hut under the guise of going to relieve himself and pass through the kitchen hut where Ravi slept and relieve himself in other ways. Once amai called Ravi a little liar who was ungrateful for all that VaMwenda did for them. Another time amai called Ravi a shameless harlot who had seduced her own mother’s lover. In the end, a dejected amai pleaded with Ravi to keep it to herself, until we had completed our O Levels and found jobs in the city, a horrible VaMwenda was better than hunger and not going to school she explained.

One day Ravi told him she was going to run away from VaMwenda.

‘Unotiza ucheienda kupi’? he scoffed.

‘Ndoenda ku Harare ini’ she responded confidently.

‘Unosvika sei ku Harare kwacho?’

‘Ndine mari yandakabira VaMwenda vhiki yapera, ndiyo yandichashandisa’

‘Kana wasvika kuHarare kwacho uchanoitei’? he probed sensing the resolve in her tone.

‘Ndonotsvaga basa. Gore randinodzoka ndinodzoka ndichifamba nemota ini!’ she laughed.

‘Haiwawo’ he retorted.

He chose to believe that she was joking, making up fantasies to keep herself going. He did it too sometimes; imagined himself living in a big house with many cars, eating rice and chicken every day. It helped the days go by.

He thought she was joking until the day she went to the river to bathe and never came back.

They searched the village far and wide and there was no trace of Ravi, a trip to the growth point revealed that she had been seen boarding a Shu Shine bus to the capital city. Ravi was gone. Gone to never come back again, gone to never see amai alive again.

Now that amai was dead, he hoped she would at least come and pay her respects to the mother that he loved and she despised…