TWENTY TWO: Choices and consequences

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Luthanda had sustained a broken skull, swelling on the brain, and numerous broken bones. She was placed in an induced coma.

The death of Mr. Chomba devastated the family.

Weeks after the accident, which the police had ruled a homicide, the family waited for answers that would not come. The driver of the Subaru Forester had not been found. The vehicle had been located two days after the incident but led nowhere. It had been reported stolen before the accident.

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Almost two weeks after Luthanda came out of her induced coma, Gershom received a text from Yolanda asking him to meet her at the Carlton Temba Hotel.

He did not want to leave Luthanda’s side. He told her he would be there in an hour.

‘Hey sis, thank you for agreeing to look after Luthanda,’ Gershom said as he hurried in, trying to make himself look presentable.

‘It is nothing,’ Kangwa replied. She watched him straighten his collar. ‘So what is the emergency? Investors?’

‘Ah, no.’

Kangwa raised her brows at him. ‘No?’

He hesitated for just a second. ‘It is Yolanda.’

Kangwa heaved a slow sigh. ‘Her. Gershom, how are you still in contact with her?’

‘She is Luthanda’s mother after all.’

‘She is also a murder suspect.’

‘It has not been proven.’

Kangwa looked at him for a long moment, the disappointment settling quietly across her face. Then she shook her head.

‘ Sis…’

‘You know what,’ she said, picking up her bag. ‘Not my monkeys, not my circus.’ She turned and walked out of the ward without looking back.

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Four months had passed since their encounter at Eleanor Hotel. The fact that she had reached out first did something small and embarrassing to the part of him that still hoped. He sat with that feeling on the drive over and said nothing to himself about it.

He had had plans for them – a growing family. He had always pictured Luthanda as an older sister.

Those plans had sounded perfect in his head… until he saw her bulging tummy.

She was pregnant.

And the child was definitely not his.

They had been apart for many, many months.

‘It does not matter,’ he said. ‘You made a mistake. We can get through this together. This is not a reason to end everything.’

A mirthless chuckle escaped her mouth and cut him off.

‘Oh, Gersh. You cannot seriously expect me to stay here and raise Marion’s child with you. Why would I do that when my son already has his father? My child is the future heir to one of the wealthiest families in this country. Why would I throw that away?’

‘I know the past couple of months have been trying but we love each other. I love you and I know you love me. You went to him to punish me. I understand that. The fault is mine, I did not value you the way I should have, I pushed you away and I am sorry. I will be different. I promise I will treat you right.’

She raised her hand.

‘I am sorry, Gersh. I do not feel the same way anymore. Maybe at some point I did. But if I am honest with myself, I think I was in love with the idea of being in love with you. I fancied it. I do not think it was ever more than that.’

‘You do not mean that.’ His voice came out smaller than he intended. He stood up and went to kneel beside her, taking her hand in both of his. ‘What about Luthanda? Does she mean nothing to you? Yolie, I love you. What will I do without you?’

‘I do not know, Gersh. Go back to your ex-wife. She will take you back. They always do.’

His jaw tightened. ‘I am married to you. I left Feggy for you.’

‘This has gone on long enough. If you will not sign, expect to hear from my lawyers tomorrow.’

Of course she had lawyers. Marion’s lawyers, he thought. Obviously.

‘Yolie, please. Think of our little girl.’

She looked at him with something flat and final in her eyes. ‘Fine. Then I will take her off your hands.’ She said each word separately, cleanly. ‘Will you sign then?’

‘Take her off your hands? What does that mean?’

‘You will find out soon enough,’ she said, and looked away from him.

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A couple of days later, Yolanda arrived at the hospital for the first time since the accident.

Kangwa and Mrs. Irene were by Luthanda’s side when she walked in accompanied by a group of medical personnel none of them recognised.

The family was informed that once the medical team determined it was safe to move the girl, she would be transferred to a private hospital at her mother’s request.

Gershom was in court. He had no idea what was happening until hours later. By the time he reached the hospital, Yolanda was gone and so was his daughter. His mother could only tell him that Yolanda had arrived with her own medical team and an air ambulance.

She had left a letter for him at the nurses’ station.

He opened it standing in the corridor.

I will not have you use my daughter to tie me down to you.

He read it twice. Then he folded it carefully, put it in his breast pocket, and stood very still in the middle of the corridor while the hospital moved around him.

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The five men around the table had the look of people who had already made their decision before they walked in.

Gershom had seen that look enough times now to recognise it immediately. He sat back anyway and let the meeting run its course.

‘Is that your final answer?’ He kept his voice even. The disappointment came through regardless.

‘I am sorry, Gershom.’ The short, dark man to his left set his pen down. ‘The bank cannot extend any further credit. Not at this time.’

Gershom chuckled softly. It was not a happy sound. ‘So that is how it is.’

‘If the outstanding balance is not settled by the deadline, the bank will have no choice but to involve the courts.’

‘The deadline is a week away,’ he muttered.

The young man directly across from him in the pin-striped suit leaned forward slightly. ‘I know the position you are in. I want you to know the application was reviewed thoroughly. It was not a simple no. I am sorry.’ He gathered his papers and stood. ‘I have to get back to the office.’

He left.

One of the remaining men slid a business card across the table towards Gershom without speaking. Another spoke quietly.

‘It is not that we do not want to help you. The truth is your ex-wife did a thorough job. Nobody will touch this with their name attached to it. The risk is too visible.’

The man beside him nodded. ‘Last week Banda tried to use his contacts on your behalf. He nearly paid for it with his life.’

Gershom looked at the card on the table. ‘I understand. Thank you.’

The remaining men stood one by one. Each one paused to pat his shoulder, to offer something – a word, an apology, a look of genuine sympathy. None of it helped. If anything, the kindness made it worse.

When the last one had gone, Gershom sat alone in the empty room.

He ordered a beer.

Drank it.

Ordered another.

The alcohol moved through him and did nothing useful. The problems sat exactly where they had been.

He paid and walked out into the night.

He had gone about half a block when something came down over his head.

The world went dark and rough. A sack. Hands on him, several sets, dragging him sideways. He tried to shout and the sound went nowhere. Then the first blow came and after that he stopped counting.

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‘That is enough.’

The voice was calm. Not loud. The kind of calm that people obey without needing to be told twice.

Footsteps approached. Then the sound of fabric pulling taut – someone crouching close to him, a knee going down, clothing stretching at the joint.

Ten seconds passed like ten minutes.

The sack was pulled from his head.

Gershom looked up through barely open eyes at the man in front of him. The man said nothing for a moment. Then he reached into his jacket and produced a phone. He turned the screen towards Gershom and pressed play.

The video was shot in a hospital room. The camera was close and steady. A figure in the frame moved to a drip stand and held up a syringe and turned to the camera. Smiled.

The needle went into the IV bag.

Seconds later the monitors beside the bed went wild. A small body in the bed began to seize. No one came. The machines screamed into an empty room.

Defenseless, Luthanda’s tiny body jerked uncontrollably.

Gershom heard himself making sounds he did not recognise as his own voice. He called her name at the screen. He tried to reach for the phone.

The screen went dark.

‘Consider this a warning,’ the man said. He dropped a folded set of documents onto the ground beside Gershom and stood. His footsteps and those of the others moved away and became nothing.

Gershom lay on the ground and said his daughter’s name into the dark. Then he found his phone in his jacket, his hands shaking so badly it took him three tries to dial.

JR answered on the second ring.

It was hours before JR and Henry found him.

‘The hospital,’ Henry said immediately.

‘No.’ Gershom’s voice left no room for argument. ‘No hospitals.’ Hospitals mean police reports. He couldn’t risk it. Yolanda was unhinged who knew what she would do.’Pharmacy.’

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They sat in the car outside the pharmacy while Henry cleaned and dressed the cuts with what they had bought. Gershom swallowed the painkillers dry.

‘Yolanda,’ JR said. Not a question.

Gershom was quiet for a while.

‘She threatened Luthanda’s life,’ he said eventually. ‘Directly. She made it clear.’

The twins said nothing. It was not a surprise to either of them. That was almost worse.

‘I cannot keep doing this,’ Gershom said. He sounded like a man who had reached the floor of something.

Henry capped the antiseptic. ‘Let us get you home. It has been a long night.’

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It was late and very dark when they pulled up outside the house.

‘Will you be alright alone?’ Henry asked. ‘Do you want one of us to stay?’

‘Yes,’ Gershom said. ‘Come in.’

Henry got out of the car with him. Gershom limped towards the gate and reached for the handle.

A guard stepped out of the shadows and blocked him.

‘Who are you? What are you doing on this property?’

Gershom blinked. ‘What?’

A man appeared from further inside the yard. Gershom recognised him.

‘Ba Pongoshi?’

The man looked at him with open contempt. JR, who had not yet driven away, got out of the car. Henry moved closer.

Then Gershom’s belongings came over the wall. One bag. Then another. Dropped at his feet without ceremony.

‘Ba Pongoshi,’ Gershom said slowly, his voice very controlled. ‘I know we have matters to settle. But this. This is my home.’

‘It has not been your home for some time now,’ the man said. ‘Yolanda gifted it to me.’

‘She what?’

‘And I have since sold it.’ He gestured towards the gate without looking at Gershom. ‘Take your things and go. You are trespassing.’

‘Sold it? This is-‘

‘Consider yourself evicted.’ He turned and walked back inside. The guard moved to close the gate.

JR put his hand on his brother’s shoulder before Gershom could say another word.

The gate clicked shut.

The three of them stood on the pavement in the dark with a pile of bags at their feet.

‘Though I wouldn’t want mom to see you in your condition, let’s go home. Her doors are always open for all her children,’ JR said quietly.

Gershom looked at the closed gate for a long moment.

Then he bent down and picked up his bags.

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‘Gershom! Gershom!’

Mrs. Irene knocked on his bedroom door.

‘Ma?’ He discarded his bathrobe, reached for a pair of slacks and pulled them on. He grabbed his vest, pulled it over his head, and went to open the door.

‘Your phone has been ringing. It seems important.’

One look at the screen of the phone he had left charging in the sitting room while he bathed had him pressing answer immediately.

‘Ba Mtonga.’

‘Boss. Where have you been? I have been trying to reach you.’

‘Sorry, it was on silent.’

‘Drop whatever you are doing and come to the university. Your wife is here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive, boss. Hurry. She is in the exam hall right now. She has a couple of hours before it ends.’

‘Thank you, ba Mtonga. I owe you.’

‘It is nothing, boss. Just returning the favour.’

Gershom ended the call, grabbed his socks, pulled them on, and reached for his sneakers.

‘Going out?’ Mrs. Irene appeared in the doorway holding his ironed tee-shirt.

He had been living at his parents’ house since the day his ba pongoshi self had signed away everything. Bankrupt and with nowhere to go, he had humbled himself and asked his mother if he could move in while he got back on his feet. He had sold most of what remained of his household and used the money towards his debts.

‘Yes, Ma.’ He looked up at her as she handed him the shirt. Since losing her husband, the light had gone from her eyes. He could not remember the last time he had seen her genuinely smile. The knowledge that he had contributed greatly to that sat heavily in his chest. He looked down. ‘Thank you, Ma. You did not have to do that.’

‘It is nothing, son.’ She twiddled her fingers as she watched him pull the shirt on. ‘Was that news about my granddaughter?’

‘The gateman at the university. Yolanda is writing her exams today.’

Mrs. Irene looked at him with worry written plainly across her face. ‘Are you going to see her? Do you want me to come?’

‘I will be fine, Ma. I will bring your granddaughter home.’

A small, sad smile formed at the corners of her mouth. It did not reach her eyes.

He promised he would handle it calmly. He grabbed the envelope from the dresser and headed for the door.

‘Eat something before you go.’

‘I will grab something on the way, Ma.’

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Yolanda was still in the exam hall when he arrived at the university almost an hour later. He fished the last fifty kwacha from his pocket and paid the old gateman he had asked to keep watch.

Before he had lost everything, back when he was still dating Yolie, he had become familiar with the old man. He used to leave him a few notes whenever he visited. The man had remembered.

At a quarter to one, students began filing out of the exam hall on the third floor. Gershom kept his eyes on the exit. He waited. Then he saw her, walking out with Betty and Benson, chatting easily, unbothered by the world.

Even from a distance he could see she had done well for herself. Her belly had grown. She was glowing in the way that particular kind of comfort produces in a person.

The three of them came down from the third floor but stopped on the second floor landing, falling into conversation with other students. Gershom could not wait any longer. He abandoned his spot behind the tree in the car park and went up to her. He closed his fingers around her arm and drew her away from her friends.

‘What the hell?’ She turned in surprise. When she saw it was him the surprise curdled into anger. She wrenched her arm free, her eyes burning. ‘Gershom. What is the meaning of this?’

‘Where is my daughter? Take me to her right now.’

Yolanda scoffed in his face. ‘Do you think I am stupid? I told you I would not let you use her to tie me down to your pathetic life.’

He pulled the envelope from his back pocket and shoved it against her chest. ‘There are your divorce papers. Now where is my daughter?’

She opened the envelope, pulled out the papers, and skimmed through them. A taunting smirk played at the corners of her mouth.

‘Where is Luthanda?’ he pressed.

She snorted. ‘Not so fast. You will see her once the papers have been successfully processed.’

‘Yolanda,’ he growled through his teeth.

‘I am not the one who told you to use her as leverage.’ She tucked the papers back into the envelope with a cool precision that made his hands shake. ‘I will give this to my lawyers. They will be in touch when everything has been sorted.’ She turned, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and took the first step down.

He reached out and snagged her wrist.

She turned to wrench herself free. Her foot missed the step.

She went tumbling down the stairs.

A single scream tore out of her before she hit the landing, and then she lay there groaning, both hands pressed to her stomach. The gasp from nearby onlookers filled the stairwell like a held breath suddenly released.

‘Yolanda!’

Gershom took the stairs two at a time and knelt beside her.

‘Are you alright? Let me help — ‘

‘Get your hands off me,’ she hissed, wincing hard.

Betty and Benson reached them. Betty pushed Gershom back and asked Benson to carry Yolanda down to the car. When Gershom moved to follow, Betty rounded on him.

‘Do not even think about it,’ she said, already reaching for her phone. ‘I am calling the police and reporting you for attempted murder.’

They got Yolanda into the chauffeured car and told the driver to go. She groaned all the way to the hospital, fighting back tears, her hands never leaving her stomach.

Her greatest fear was losing the baby. The abdominal pain and the back pain had not stopped since the fall. She knew that if she lost this child it would set everything back. Marion and Fiona were officially divorced now. She could only truly breathe once she had given him his heir.

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Sofia met them at the hospital entrance, her face tight with alarm.

‘How the hell did this happen?’

‘Gershom did this.’

Sofia’s eyes cut to where Gershom had followed in a taxi and was now walking through the gates. She crossed the distance between them in a few strides and jabbed her finger into his chest, her face close to his, her voice shaking.

‘If anything happens to that baby, I swear to God, you will wish you were dead. Do you hear me? You will wish you were dead.’

She turned away and pushed through to where the doctors were attending to Yolanda, her voice carrying back down the corridor.

‘Whatever else you do, save the baby first.’

Two minutes after they arrived, Marion pulled up. He was beside himself. The doctor, after running tests, assured them both mother and child were fine. She had experienced a slight placental abruption but it was not serious. She was discharged the following day with strict instructions for complete bed rest until the birth.

Yolanda wanted Gershom arrested. Marion did not think it was worth pursuing. He told her quietly that he understood the man’s desperation – she was holding his child hostage to get what she wanted. If he were in Gershom’s position, he said, he would have done the same. Perhaps more.

What Marion did not know was that a few days after Yolanda was discharged, she tasked Sofia’s father to settle the matter himself.

He found Gershom on a quiet street and did not bother with pleasantries. Each blow he landed carried the particular fury of a man who believed something precious had nearly been taken.

‘You stupid little fool,’ he said, breathing hard between strikes. ‘You nearly cost us everything. Do you understand what was at stake?’

He did not wait for an answer.

When he was satisfied, he straightened his jacket and walked away, leaving Gershom on the road.

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In the weeks that followed, Yolanda was on complete bed rest. Marion hired a live-in nurse and bought her a motorised wheelchair to help her move about the house. He was attentive and unhurried in his affection, and with each day that passed, something in Yolanda that she had never much trusted began to take root.

She had not expected to feel this way about anyone.

In the third week of September, in the early hours of a Tuesday morning, she was rushed to the hospital. Marion wanted to go into the labour ward with her. She would not hear of it.

There was nothing for him to do but wait.

Hours later, after he had nearly worn a path into the floor of the private hospital corridor, the doctor appeared and gave him the news.

He was the father of a healthy baby boy.

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© Ponda

VOCAB

Bapongoshi – father in law/ mother in law/ daughter in law/ son in law