A Tale From a Cell

By Lawrence Kadzitche

I see by the look on their faces that they don’t believe me. I mean those people that come into my cell to visit me at Mulanje Prison where I’ve been remanded waiting trial for an offence of causing death by reckless driving contrary to section blah blah of the Road Traffic Act.

I’ll still tell my story although I doubt if you’ll believe me. Whenever I’m returning to Mulanje I like taking the Midima road. Apart from being a shortcut road connecting Mulanje and Blantyre, there are very few cars on this road. This means I can drive at the speed of my choice.

You know they say don’t drink and drive. But when I’m driving, I love drinking beer. The alcohol boosts my morale. So this Friday night I’m driving from Blantyre back home to Mulanje where I work as a manager at one of the tea plantations. As usual, I stop at a road side nightclub in Bangwe to buy a six pack of Castle Lite to keep me company on the lonely road to the tea growing district.

I turn the CD player to full volume. My favourite musician is Mr. Peter Tosh and I’m listening to one of his numbers. The song is Mark of the Beast. I sing along… “they make pledges to destroy even their mothers so you can imagine what they can do to us brothers, I know them a wicked.”

This is music, I say to myself taking a swig at the bottle of beer. Singing about facts, not about love. To me, music about love is for women. Not men. I’m cruising at 140 km per hour. It’s when I’m entering the straight stretch of road near Mikolongwe Vocational College that I see them. Two hyenas crossing the road.

I believe it’s the beer I’ve drunk that makes me do it. Although I’m driving fast, I could easily have avoided them. The first hyena is in my lane while the second one is in the other lane. My foot falls hard on the accelerator and the car surges forward at a terrific speed.

The first hyena barely makes it across the road but I hit the second one.

“Take that, you thief!” I shout gleefully. “That teaches you not to play in the road.” 

I slow down and take a look back. The second hyena is back in the road attending to the dead hyena. My number plate has fallen. But I don’t stop. For one thing, it is not a crime to hit a hyena. For the other, the surviving hyena could be dangerous looking at the fact that that I’ve just killed its mate.

By the time I arrive at Chitakale, I’ve forgotten about the incident. I stop at Kisi Korner Nightclub. This is the most popular joint at Chitakale. When all other drinking places have closed, Kisi Korner is open to give imbibers drinks.

Flora, my favourite bargirl asks me about the dent on the bumper of my car.

“A silly accident,” I laugh it off. “I hit a hyena at Mikolongwe.”

“A terrible waste. You should’ve hit a buck. Or at least a hare.”

We take several drinks and dance to a few tunes. I tell her I’ve to be off home.

“This early?” she protests.

“It’s twelve midnight,” I point out looking at my watch.

“And that’s the time that fun starts,” she takes me by the arm and pulls me to the dance floor. “Ok. Let’s dance to a few tunes,” she holds me tight and kisses me on the cheek. “I also missed you. I’ve something to show you in my room.”

Well, that does it. Women have this special way of breaking a man’s resolve. And I’m a man like everyone else.

When I arrive home around 3:30 am quite bladdered. I find my wife still awake. You know one thing that surprises me about her? When I come home early, she goes to bed while I’m still watching TV. When I retire to bed, I find her deeply asleep. But the moment I come home late, I still find her awake. Women!

“You don’t tell me you’re coming from Blantyre,” she hisses.

I’m drunk, but not too drunk. But I make believe I’m very intoxicated. “Who is going to Blantyre?” I slur and belch.

That shuts her up.

It’s my wife who wakes me the following morning. “There’re two policemen looking for you.”

The time is 11:00 am by my wall clock. I wake up reluctantly. I still have a hangover. Beer always gives me a hangover. I don’t know why I still drink it so frequently. Maybe because bad habits are difficult to shake off.

I go out.  A police vehicle is parked outside with a uniformed policeman at the wheel. Another policeman is inspecting my car. In his hands he holds a number plate. The one that fell off my car when I hit the hyena. Immediately, I smell trouble. 

“What did you hit yesterday night, Mr. Gaza?” he asks waving the number plate at me.

I tell him I hit a hyena.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I say confidently. “I hit it near Mikolongwe.”

The policeman is silent for a moment. He turns to my wife.

“Did you notice something strange in your husband’s behavior when he came back home yesterday?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “No. Only that he was very inebriated.”

A look of understanding dawns on the policeman’s face. “Well, that explains it. Because you were very drunk, you did not know that what you hit was a man and not a hyena.”

“What?” I gasp, shocked.

“You killed a man and did not stop. We have a witness,” said the policeman. “You will have to accompany us to the station.”

“Officer, I’m innocent. When I hit the hyena, I was not drunk. I got drunk when I arrived at Chitakale,” I say, almost hysterically. “I’m a sane person. How could I drive all the way from Mikolongwe to here if I could confuse a man with a hyena?”

“We’ve a witness,” the policeman says as if I’ve not spoken. “The dead man’s wife. She was there. She says you even looked back at her when she went into the road to attend to her husband but you did not stop.”

Then I see it clearly as I’ll ever see it. The two hyenas! After I had hit the first one, the second one had returned into the road to attend to the dead one. So the dead one was the husband. The other one, the wife.

But how could this be possible? Then I remembered hearing that there are people who turn into hyenas at night so that they can steal other people’s livestock. Obviously, I had hit one while they were still in the form of hyenas. The surviving one had managed to turn both of them back into human beings. But could the police believe this?

My wife seals my doom. “So yesterday you were pretending to be very drunk to hide the fact that you had hit a pedestrian? How could you do that?”

“Madeleine, I did not hit a person. I hit…”

The policeman stops me by producing handcuffs. “Mr. Gaza, I’m arresting you on charges of manslaughter. You’ve a right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law…”

I still protest that I did not kill a person, that I killed a hyena. And while I’m still protesting of my innocence, he drags me to the police van.

End