The court case is ongoing. All the criminals are in custody, awaiting sentencing, the date of which hasn’t been set yet. I understand my fake father tried to hang himself in his cell, but was rescued promptly and is now on suicide watch. As for the woman who used to be my wife, I understand she has gone nuts and was sent to Itekeng Mental Hospital for observation.
To this day, I don’t know where Mmoloki and Josephine — my kids — are. My father refused to reveal their whereabouts although a rumour recently emerged that they’re living with someone in South Africa. Not that I care. They’re not my children after all. I’m not saying I don’t miss them. I do. But what can I do?
It’s amazing how much truth comes out from criminals once they’re in the courtroom. I guess this is due to a desperate hope of being given a light sentence — or even be let go — if the criminal tells the truth. Human nature. I’ve been present throughout the whole trial so far and I intend to keep it that way. I forced myself out of bed where I had been confined since I learnt of the true extent of the betrayal to attend the trial. The residents of Tsebeyatonki village and anyone else who knew the person I’ve always known to be my father have been supportive towards me so far. They always console me when the tears arrive while I listen to the gruesome details of the betrayal I’ve lived through.
What hurt me most was what happened to my mother. Apparently she didn’t just have an asthma attack. My father had poisoned her, claiming “her time was up.” Apparently that had been the plan all along, that as soon as I was “ripe” to be sacrificed, my mother had to go. Even though I now know she wasn’t my biological mother, I still regard her as such. And I miss her. I cry sometimes when I think about her.
Apparently I was adopted — or rather stolen from someone’s womb, if you want to put it that way. According to my father during the trial, thirty years ago he found a pregnant woman stranded out in the bushes. He claimed he had been led there by the gods, and the woman had been sent to him by them. He took her, promised to look after her. My father is a very controlling, old school man who believes that women have no say when it comes to making certain decisions, so my mother couldn’t say anything about the woman. She apparently took his word for it that the gods had sent her. The woman was a little bit confused and couldn’t remember where she lived or what her name was. She was kept at my father’s house. My father gave her some herbs that stupefied her and confused her further so she would never be able to remember anything about her background. My mother cooked for her, looked after her, made sure she was fine. Then the time of birth came.
Labour pains finally arrived and, with the help of a woman named Nomsa — who apparently has knowledge of midwifery stuff, learnt from home and, to my utter shock, my father had been secretly married to for the preceding ten years — the woman gave birth. Soon after she had delivered, my father killed and sacrificed her. The gods had ordered that this be done and her blood be sprinkled over the baby so the latter shall return good results when the right time came. That baby was me.
When the woman I had all along thought to be my biological mother died, the hospital contacted my father. He came and took the body to the farm. Nobody in the village knew she was dead. Only my father, the woman I believed to be my wife and Nomsa — whom I learnt was my father’s second wife — did. At the farm, they sacrificed her, too. My father refused to disclose where her remains were, maintaining that the gods had them.
Apparently what I thought were my parents-inlaws are in fact my father’s relatives of some kind, and were involved in the whole scheme. My apparent father-in-law is my father’s first cousin and my mother-in-law is my father-in-law’s first cousin and the two had been married for years, and after Dineo, whom I had thought all along was Margaret’s sister, was born they couldn’t have any more children. He was the problem. Apparently when he was thirtythree, three years after the marriage, a thug whose wife he had slept with beat him up until he was unconscious, then left him inside a large deep freezer for five minutes. When he took him out of the freezer, he cut off half of his penis with a sharp knife so he would never sleep with anyone else’s wife again.
He was traumatized and couldn’t tell anyone lest his wife find out. They had been planning to have children and he was afraid she would leave him if he told her. He finally told the man I had thought was my father, who assured him that there was hope. My father advised that they tell my fake mother-in-law the truth. She fainted when she got told, and when she came to, my father reassured her that he could do something and things would get back to normal, the dick would grow back. But it would take a while. He then went to consult with the gods who “loaned” the couple a daughter. The daughter belonged to the gods, and had been living at my father’s farm and was, unbeknownst to my mother, my father’s mistress. The loaned daughter subsequently got married to the gods’ son. That son was me. One of the rules to guarantee results was that I should never be violent towards my “wife,” hence my parents-in-laws’ anger when I threatened her. The results — that is, the return of the missing dick — were supposed to appear gradually as soon as I had been sacrificed. My father refused with the details of how the sacrifice was going to be carried out, but he did hint that it involved a very painful, gory death.
Mothusi revealed the purpose for murdering the woman, and a little bottle of mayonnaise which contained what he and Damon claimed was brain matter was shown as evidence in court. The murdered woman was apparently a divorcee who was living alone in Motsheng, and she and Mothusi had been seeing each other for a while behind his wife’s back. Prior to her murder, Mothusi had apparently found out she was pregnant. He had wanted her to terminate the pregnancy as he didn’t want his wife to find out about the affair, but she had insisted on keeping the baby, threatening to tell his wife and the whole village if he insisted. When Damon approached him with an offer of wealth, Mothusi had seen that as an opportunity to kill her.
The two gangsters, Thabang and Dumani, haven’t been saying much, the former mainly because he was usually asleep and pissing himself during court proceedings. At the last court session his balls, for some reason, exploded and left everyone in shock. When they did, he blamed Dumani, saying something to the effect that Dumani after he had been growing his balls for her, Dumani came out of nowhere and turned “the little doctor down at the hospital against me, now look what has happened!” When the presiding Judge tried to intervene, the goon started crying and knelt down and prayed to Damon to reverse the “worst turn,” leaving everyone confused. I wonder if he is still in hospital. I hope more of his body parts exploded.
With pressure, finally they led a team of cops and forensic experts to where they had buried the woman I witnessed Mothusi killing. The evidence against him was too much. From what I gather, Tsebeyatonki residents wrote a letter to the president requesting for him to be transferred to Tsebeyatonki Prison — a prison which, like most things in the village, was constructed by the locals themselves after raising funds in one way or the other and was yet to be recognised by the government — so they could kill him. The president hasn’t replied yet, if I’m to go with what some guy from Tsebeyatonki said to me at the last court session.
The goon named Thabang made a request for some doctor to be contacted, but nobody really understood what the hell he was talking about, so the matter was let go. Dumani specifically requested to be sent to prison, maintaining that he had “screwed up” and now had “no choice but to face the worst turn that Damon talked about.” They stole both vans they’d used on both occasions that I had a direct encounter with them. The last van was stolen just before finally captured me.
It emerged the man who called himself The Boss had had no intention of paying Dumani and Thabang for their efforts. There had never been any wealth in store for them. All my father had wanted was for me to be captured. By whom, it didn’t matter. He had promised several people wealth if they brought me in — including the man who had attacked me at the dam and the balaclava-clad one who attacke
d me at the place where I once nearly got bitten by a snake. He couldn’t capture me himself and I wasn’t supposed to be captured from home as otherwise “things wouldn’t work” — the gods’ wish.
Damon was a sorrowful appearance. He just sat there sobbing incessantly, begging the judge to ask The Boss to forgive him for betraying him.
Modiri confessed that he did consider snitching me to the Police for the fifty-thousand pula but changed his mind when he decided he would make more money out of this whole sick deal. Apparently Mothusi had promised him “considerable wealth” once the deal was over, hence his decision. I learnt that when I was assaulted at Modiri’s and his uncle’s house, respectively, it was by the same person: Modiri. The head injuries he incurred were in fact inflicted by me when I’d retaliated, although he had blamed these on the gangsters. The bearded man and the rest of the drunks he was hanging out with at the house where all former convicts and were hired by Modiri to subdue me so the other thugs could come collect me. Apparently they whacked me with a little hammer on the back of the head and blacked out, but somehow they managed to revive me.
You see why I have trouble trusting anyone right now? I’m not making any friends. Except one guy by the name of Sidney Baitsile, popularly called DJ Sid, a guy who used to be one of the My Star competition judges, and later lost terribly as an independent candidate during the last elections. A very nice guy, he even suggested some business ideas to me, which I’m seriously considering. I met him at Springbok Motel which, I think, he owns, though I’ve never confirmed this. The motel has a nice bar, with free internet and all. That’s also where I met Patricia. She had been waiting for a friend there when I went over and made her laugh non-stop. My sense of humour is still there, though not as good as it used to be. He mentioned that he will be building a night club in the near future and says he’ll definitely hire me then, suggesting that I might as well start my own construction company. It’s not a bad idea. It will be something to keep me busy while I work on overcoming the psychological mess left behind by this whole sick mess that I’ve lived through.
No one in Tsabong knows about my sudden wealth yet, except Sid. I trust Sid, he won’t tell anyone. Even Patricia doesn’t know, but I know she will soon. I’m still trying to muster the guts to tell her everything. It might take time. I’m not ready yet. I might not stop crying while I tell her, and she might think I’m not a real man. I will need to tell her sooner than later though before she finds out. Hopefully Sid won’t tell her because they seem to know each other.
When the woman I thought was my wife kept calling me in panic mode, she was, of course, not in any danger. She had been with my father all the time, trying to lure me into captivity.
Apparently there was also an Eric in the picture. Dumani and Thabang claimed the guy died in a car accident they got involved in and was taken to hospital. Thabang even said the guy changed into a ghost and, after the judge told him to shut up, he quickly added that the hospital took his body, cut out his body parts and sold them. He insisted the judge should investigate. The judge told him to shut up or else he’d soon regret. Somebody called Lentsweng Hospital and confirmed that Eric was in fact alive, paralysed and unable to talk since the accident. I wonder if the court will still punish him for his role in this sick deal now that God had already punished him.
Vusa wasn’t involved after all. Nor my aunt up in Lentsweng. It was just a coincidence that they had seemed to fit in the picture.
A psychiatric evaluation was done on the man I had known to be my father, Dumani and Thabang, and all was clear. It didn’t look like the woman I had thought was my wife will be cleared at any point. I think she was genuinely mad, ergo, she was involved in such an evil scheme.
I’m currently seeing a counsellor and things are going okay. I just have to hope that things go well between Patricia and I. So far, so good. Fingers crossed. I have a little problem with trust at the moment.
But we will see. That’s just life, eh.
T
his book wouldn’t be complete without the help of certain people. I will mention but a few as they are too many to include on this page. My late father was a natural story teller, and
his stories motivated me to consider writing novels. My mother is also a good story teller. My two brothers, Mpilo and Mbako Mbo, are natural story tellers. They already know that sometimes I steal parts of the stories they tell me and use those in my books. So I come from a story-telling family. My friend Chatwell Habana, as with my previous book, contributed some ideas when I was writing this book. The Botswana High Commission in Australia, but especially Oratile Khama, was instrumental in motivating me to continue writing by helping promote my previous books. I would also like to thank Bianca Ferris who has been supportive of my writing. I thank Juby Peacock for her support also. I thank Lauri Kubuitsile for recommending Dr Bob Rich, who has been my editor since her recommendation. And I will always be thankful to my Facebook family as they have been more than encouraging and this book might not be complete had it not been for their encouraging comments. My English teachers at Shashe River School, especially Mr. Chalibe, nurtured and encouraged my love for writing. There are other people I did not mention on this page. If you are one of those, I'm thankful for your support and contribution. I have not forgotten you. Half of this book was written on Qantas flights. At the time of writing the book, I was doing a lot of flying around Australia. The remainder of the book was written in the beautiful town of Alice Springs, Australia. The beauty of the town and the surrounding areas inspired me to keep on writing this novel. I completed the first draft over a period of two months, and the editing process took about nine months to complete.
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