The silver - grey clouds of dawn were opening up across the eastern sky when Sekai stepped out silently from her hut. Her baby, Takadini tightly wrapped in 'gudzas', was firmly strapped to her back. A few boiled mbabairas (sweet potatoes) and dried meat were wrapped in a piece of cloth. This small package and the long necked gourd of water were slung over her left shoulder. Her left hand held the spear and in her right she swung the knobkerry.
Sekai descended from the slop of the hill on which the village was strategically built. On reaching level ground, she turned to her left, eastwards away from the distant stream and the villagers' fields. She walked briskly, listening keenly for the footfalls of any animals which might be following her. The fugitive mother did not know where she was going. However, she made sure that she was moving away from her husband's people and the nearby villages. By the time the sun arose, dispensing the early morning mists, Sekai was about ten kilometres from the village.
She thought it unwise to go to her people for fear they would destroy the child and return her to Makwati. She hurried along at the a walk -trot pace which ate up the distance but conserved her energies. Her legs and lower body glistened with dew from the grass which bordered the narrow path. However, the infant remained dry and, soothed by the rhythmic bouncing on his mother's back and her soft crooning, Takadini slept peacefully.
Around mid morning, Sekai decided to rest and feed the baby who has awakened and was whimpering. She chose a baobab tree around which the grass was low, and camped between two of its huge buttress roots which offered her some protection. While Takadini sucked, Sekai ate a piece of dried meat and a sweet potato, washing the meal down with a few gulps of water from the gourd. Then, returning the baby to her back, she shuffled closer to the protecting tree and dozed off.
Back at the village everyone went about their usual duties. For sometime nobody realised that Sekai had fled the community. Rumbidzai was spitefully cheerful as she spoke to Dadirai about the coming trail.
"Today we will see if that witch can escape from the judgement of the elders. The old ones were right. Why would anyone but a 'witch' want to keep a child like hers? Any 'normal' woman would have been ashamed to give birth to a 'thing' like 'that', let alone wanting to keep it!"
" I can't understand why she refused to let Ambuya Tikai to get rid of it. Perhaps she thought she could get our husband to defend her in front of the elders. Ha!"
Ambuya Tukai heard them as she shuffled on her way to visit Sekai's hut. But, clothed in the dignity of her years and of her professional status, the old woman remained aloof from such conversations. She accepted their greetings and passed them by. Outside Sekai's hut, Ambuya Tukai paused to announce her presence by clapping her hands. When she entered Ambuya was amazed to discover that neither Sekai nor the baby was there.
Her exclamations of distress and shock attracted Dadirai and Rumbidzai who were still in the compound. They went running to see if Sekai had taken her life. They were as amazed as Ambuya Tukai to discover that Sekai and the baby had disappeared. Soon the entire village was astir with the news. Speculations were rife.
"Maybe she has gone to hang herself..."
"No, I think she has gone to drown 'that thing' and herself..."
"I am glad I did not see 'it', especially now that I'm pregnant again..."
"Perhaps 'it' has taken 'itself' and her to where it came from to escape the judgment of the elders..." suggested another.
As soon as Makwati's brother, Nyajena, an old warrior heard that Sekai was missing, he sent his young son to the fields to call Makwati. The chief ordered his spokesperson to beat the big drum to call an emergency meeting of his advisors to discuss the situation.
Chief Zvedi was old, very old. The eroding years had left his face as gullied as a denuded hillside. Every hair on his wrinkled body was grey; from the rolled up knots on his spindly legs to the wispy beard and horseshoe fringe on his shiny head. Supported by two of his younger councillors, chief Zvedi hobbled to his place under the old and gnarled 'mazhanje' (sugar plump) tree and carefully eased himself down onto the log which had served as his judgment seat.
Humor, kindness and wisdom played in the faded brown eyes that peeped from their deep sockets.
"What is this I hear about Makwati's wife?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his quavering voice.
"She and her child of I'll omen have vanished, my chief."
"Vanished, my son? No, people don't vanish. They either die in the Bush or river, or they run away. Oh, sometimes they find a grave in the stomach of wild animals. But they never vanish," said the old man from his store of knowledge. "And where is Makwati? Can he also not be found?"
"No, my Chief. He is waiting to be called," answered Headman Zvogbo.
"Then call him now," said the chief.
Soon Makwati arrived and, clapping his hands in respectful greeting he squatted before his chief and the elders, and waited.
My son, my eyes and my ears have reported that your wife has left our village. Did you see her go?"
"No, my chief."
"Did you tell her of her trail today and what would happen to her and that unfortunate child?"
"Yes, I did, my chief."
The old man bowed his wise head in thought, then raised it again and stared at the distant horizon before speaking :
"Makwati, take two men with you, go and see if your wife has returned to her people. Tendai, you organise two search parties...one to search along the river, the other in the surrounding bushes. If she has not returned to her people, and we do not find their carcasses, then let us thank the beasts for doing our work for us. We meet again when the men return to report."
Chief Zvedi, having been assisted to rise, shambles off to sit in the sunshine in front of his hut.
Sekai awoke with a start. Some furtive movement in the surrounding bush had reached down into her subconscious and warned her. For a moment she was disoriented and did not know where she was. Then it all came flooding back. She clutched her spear and the knobkerry, quietly she rose to one knee, and looked over the baobab root. A pair of Mongooses scurried away in the short grass, then stopped to take a look at Sekai. After assuring herself that there were no larger animals about, Sekai picked up her belongings and resumed her flight. During the mid-day heat was the safest time to travel ; the big cats and other dangerous animals would be sleeping in their dens away from the intense heat. Only the cricket and the cicadas were alert. They filled the afternoon silence with an interlude of shrill chirpings answering one another in relays from tree to tree.
Sekai made one more brief stop to suckle the child. She was beginning to feel worried. The lengthening shadows told her that the night was not far away; yet neither her eyes nor her ears detected anything to indicate that people inhabited the area. She had no idea of where she was. It seemed that not only her fellow humans, but nature also was against her. What had she done wrong? She asked herself. Was her yearning for a child not normal? And was her son not human? True, he was somewhat different but only in his colour. He had no more finger and toes than his father, and the same number of eyes and ears...she had counted them all. When everything was out together he was more like the others around him than he was unlike them. So why did they want to kill him?
Sekai began to trot; she fretted, almost whimpering, as she hastened along. If she did not reach some village before nightfall, then her flight from Makwati's people would have been in vain. Suddenly, she was aroused from her reverie by the sound of snapping twigs. She stood still, hold her breath, waiting for the sound to be repeated. When it came again, she was relieved That was not a wild animal but someone collecting firewood. Quickly but quietly, Sekai hurried in the direction of the sound. In the early twilight she saw an old man gathering firewood. When she was near enough to be heard, but at a safe distance to flee if he proved unfriendly or appeared to be sick, Sekai called out in greeting :
"Manheru, sekuru, manheru (Evening, grandfather, evening) Please be kind enough to help your child who is lost," she waited for his reaction.
At the sound of the voice, the old man whirled around and raised his axe threateningly. When he saw that it was a woman, he relaxed a little and lowered his weapon. At he moment, missing the rhythm of his mother's walking, Takadini awoke and perhaps sensing the anxiety of his mother, started to cry.