Patrick Achitabwino articles

Patrick Achitabwino

Thank you for taking a sit, mama. Beauty screamed at my door that Saturday morning. No sooner had I bolted the door open than she fell in. She was almost breathless.

“Robbers have shot dad in the ribs last night,” she told me amid sobs as a volcano of tears broke loose out of the chains of her eyes. As I held her on my bare chest, I felt her warm tears cascading down my ribs. She was frail. Her dad was still unconscious at Malingamoyo Private hospital.

There was literally no drop of water in my house. Saliva had gathered its army in my mouth and I could feel the sourness. The closest water kiosk had bursted. The only water hope was the borehole a number of football grounds away, just behind the house of the headman.

You know Mbayani mama. Twice you were lost the last time you visited me. You take this way only to find that it goes straight into the toilet of somebody. You return back and you are lost. The way is just after the toilet. Just dribble past its corner you note that the path continues.

The sad story is that her father did not survive the killing power of the bullet. When we went to the hospital we found nurses coating his body in white sheets. We all cried. Imagine, I was just in a pair of slippers, hair completely unkempt, mouth unbrushed. Beauty’s relatives who were at the hospital seem completely disgusted of my presence. But she clung to me like a little kangaroo in its mother’s pouch.

You see papa, her father was a prosperous businessman living in the wealthy people Mount Pleasant area. He owned a number of vehicles. Mr. Maluwa, a stocky-built man, with a forest of beard lost his wife through an accident many years past, just when Beauty was young. She was the only hope he had.

Anyway, only God knows where I was going when I met Beauty. It was a cool Sunday afternoon. A scrappy vehicle with its lights set on full hit her along the Kamuzu highway. The vehicle sped away. I saw her falling, rolling several times on the tarmac road. I was just too close and I rushed to see her. She had fainted. I stopped a vehicle, thank God the driver was kind to take us to Queen Elizabeth hospital. Her mobile phone kept calling but I did not know how to operate it.

Mama, you should have been there to see how delighted I was the soonest her eyelids parted open. I was afraid that if she dies, I could not have known where to go with her corpse, let alone who to call. She smiled, I smiled. I told her we were at the hospital. I looked at the fairness of her skin, it was more babysh.

“Thank you for saving me,” her accent was too English. She could not complete a mere sentence without infusing it with the Queens language. With the little JC I have I was able to grab a few words she used to spice her speeches with.

“What’s your name,” she asked me in English as well.

“My name is Matiki Mayilosi,” I stammered a little English.

Beauty called her father on her cell phone. In no moment I heard tyres screeching outside the hospital ward. His feet walked lazily against the floor like a slithering snake. The aroma of the smell of his perfume engulfed every part of my nostrils. I itched, honestly I did. She told him everything. He shook my hand, and it smelled perfume even after the hand shake.

“Thank you young man,” he said as he was fishing out a cheque book out of his breast pocket.

“Your name, please?”

I responded.

“Get this K20 000 cheque”

I confessed frankly that I had never stepped my feet in the bank. I do not have an ID to help me cash the cheque. He went into his car only to come back with three bundles of money. Each bundle comprised K10 000 of K500 notes. Mama, never in life before had I ever been blessed to grab such a huge amount of money in my hands. I trembled. I tried squeezing them in my socks but the money was just too much. I thought of buying a paper bag, put tomato in it so that pick pockets would not rob me.

Beauty and I became friends. Close friends. She bought me a cell phone. We fell in love mama.

You see what ma, gossipers rushed to her father. He called us together and said he had no problems as long as it was for real. I confessed it was, so too Beauty did. But she was completing her studies at one of the colleges in town. Mr. Maluwa said we should not go too fast until she completes her studies. He gave me a K100 000 to start business as I was jobless. That was how I ended up shifting from Mbayani to Soche East. My business is doing well.

I know you will be amazed to hear this. Robbers who shot dead my father-in-law were arrested. Beauty was a witness, we were all together. She told the packed court that on the night the attack happened, the five robbers broke the main door and demanded money from her father at gun point. He told them he had no money then they shot him. The most sad thing is that they gang raped her. Medical examinations confirmed the rape. Far much worse, three of the five bandits tested HIV positive.

“For shooting a victim dead and infecting a girl with HIV/AIDS I am sentencing you to death by hanging,” the magistrate ruled.

Pa, ma, I beg you to hear my story patiently. I am the only person Beauty can lean a shoulder on. Her father’s relatives confiscated everything from her home. They even sent her to the village. All her dreams were doomed.

She came home crying. Despite the AIDS threat I still love her. I know my love for her is the highway to death. Ma. Pa, should I not sacrifice for love? Please do not change your faces. Sindinadye mchira wa buluzi. It is only just for love that I love her. No woman in life has ever loved me the way Beauty does. People are dying of road accidents, malaria, floods, and does AIDS make any difference? After all we can live together for twenty years or more. Who knows, perhaps a cure might be found. May be the many stories of Chambe, Malawi Mix, whatever are prophecies of better days to come, the days AIDS shall be like any other curable disease.

Thank you for being attentive. I only pray that you be on my side. I love her, she loves me, we love each other. Not even the threat of death can separate us. END