Sweetest Taboo 2 Part 1

Part two

Mwaka

I stopped for a moment wondering whether what I heard, what I am hearing is right. Surely Bana Kulu Themba has got it wrong! I must have been standing there for what seemed a lifetime unable to do anything. I am paralysed. How can this be true? 

I watch as my baby is taken to the bedroom by Bana Kulu Themba. Towela takes me by the hand and straight into the bedroom that I share with my husband. I am speechless. I don’t know what I am. I am in a dream I mean I must be. What on earth could Bana Kulu mean by Trevor had turned my baby into a woman? How could she be so sure? I mean the boy is my nephew. He is a good boy and his father was a pastor! There is no way that he could hurt my baby!

‘Mwaka, Mwaka are you OK?’ Towela says rubbing my back. I feel a tear clog up in my throat but I am determined not to cry. I want her to tell me it is not true. To tell me this is all just a bad stupid dream. A nightmare of some sort because God knows I…I cannot take it. I turn and look desperately at her for some good news. My friend has always been loyal to me. For years we have been good friends. She knows all that I have been through. She knows I would go through hell fire for my own but mostly she knows what I am capable of. What I have been capable of.  Yet she still holds my secrets and allows me to be the new person I have chosen to be….a Christian. 

‘Towela, I need to wake up. I need to breathe because I feel like I am out of air. Talk to me. What the hell is going on? I asked you to do something for me last night with my baby, why… why is she talking about virginity! Tell me what I am thinking is wrong girl!’ my lower lip is trembling. My friend looks at me and takes my hand.

‘Mwaka, I am so sorry. Someone has raped Shey and there are some scars down there which do not look so old. They seem to be fresh. Which makes me think they are fresh. You know I have seen a lot of these things at work and….’

‘Yes yes I know what you mean. I. Oh gosh, I just do not know what…. I never thought it would be something that happens to my baby. Are you sure of what you are saying?’

‘Girl this is not something I would say if it were not true. That’s why she been walking funny. Bana Kulu Themba thinks it is Trevor and that is why she hates him so much…’

‘No…..it can’t be!’ I interrupt. ‘I know Trevor he….he….he is my nephew, he looks after the store, after the girls and I trust him. There is no way he could have done this because you know that if he has I am not going to help myself and I need for it not to be true!’ I am now standing and pacing up and down the floor because I just do not know whether I am coming or going. My heart is doing little flips and I was warned about this. I was warned that it may happen but I still had to take matters into my own hands. I am sweating from every pore. 

‘Has she told you anything else Towela?’

‘No. Just that she does not want to go anywhere with Trevor.’

Then it hits me. Bana Kulu said the door was locked the day the girls closed school. She also said Trevor was acting funny and that she heard a scream from the house. Oh dear Lord what have I done. I do not waste a second more and charge out of the room with a desperate Towela trying to catch up with me. ‘Mwaka, Mwaka breathe please eh.  Please I am begging you let us find out for sure what is going on please.’ Towela is trying to block me from going past the corridor into the kitchen where I hear the cockroach talking. ‘Clara where is your father please can you find him?’ 

‘Aunty he has gone out to his friends place but I do not know which one.’ Clara says as I am trying to make it past Towela. I am fuming. I will kill him! If he has touched my daughter I am going to kill him.

‘Mama….’ I turn and see my little baby girl hair as troubled as her soul. She is like me. Just like a lighter more refined version of me. An innocent version of me. It is like looking at myself in a different world. My heart breaks as her small voice calls me. I feel the pain and disappointment grab my heart strings. I have failed her when I had promised myself I would protect her. But I have not failed yet. She gotta know that she has a mama around.

‘Shey baby, go inside your room and wait for mama OK. I want you to stay in the room and let aunty Towela and I just have a word with Trevor OK?’ I walk over to her and kneel so that I am face to face with her. ‘I need you to tell me what you told aunty Tee and I promise you mummy is going to believe everything you say OK? It is important you tell me the truth honey. I don’t need to know more. Just tell me. Who was it baby?’ Her big brown eyes look frightened to death. I have never seen my baby this fragile. She takes a lot of drama and still comes out strong but this…this looks like it has crushed her to the point of no return.

She takes a moment to answer and I let her take her time. ‘It was Trevor’ 

That is all that I need.  Shey begins to cry and says that Trevor said he was going to kill me but what makes it even worse is what she says after. My sister told her it was her job. I tell Shey that she needs to get back in the room right now and lock the door. She obeys and when I turn around to head for the kitchen, the look on my face warns Towela not to dare stop me. She has known me long enough to know better than to interrupt this anger especially where my sister is concerned. The bitch knew just like she did those years ago.

‘Trevor you son of a bitch come here now!!!’ As soon as he emerges from the kitchen my hands rush straight for his scrawny little neck and I squeeze with all my might. ‘You idiot of a boy I will kill you today! Bana Kulu pulls on me and Towela begs me to let go. I have no idea where I am getting the strength from but Trevor with his little muscles finds it hard to fight me off. Chisanga comes into the room and shouts for me to stop. Damn it! Children’s voices are so damn distracting. I let go and find Chisanga and my sister behind me. Someone is going to pay for this.

Horrible flashes of this little demon child flash before me. His disgusting penis inside my baby girl. I am tortured by the images of where he had her. Did she cry? Did she call out my name? The mark on her face which he said was from her fighting at school…oh hell no! I pick up the pan that is resting on the table and swing it Bam!! The room falls silent. Dead silent.