A Family Torn Apart

By Boletilemang Gabokgatlhe

I study my two sisters and my nephew, one by one. We are sitting around an open fire having our breakfast of motogo, home-made bread, boiled eggs and tea. The June morning is somehow harsh and uninviting. The atmosphere is loaded with dread, guilt and sadness. Except for the incessant barking of stray dogs, the whole village is unnaturally quiet for this time of the day.

Apart from my six-year-old nephew Motheo, who seems to have suddenly developed a goliath appetite, we are silently toying with our food. Although by nature my sisters are perennially talkative, today they are completely mute and lost in their own private worlds.

We are a family torn apart. Usually there would have been five of us around the fire but today our father has not joined us for breakfast. I keep taking furtive glances at his house, which stands at the far corner of the yard, as though expecting to see him coming out at any moment with his usual greeting of, “Good morning, my children.”

Our father is one of those people who are said to be of good standing in the community. He is a church minister, a businessman and a member of almost all the voluntary organizations in our small village.

Everyone in our village knows him. To the children he is Rra-Lebitso while to the elders he is simply Ntate Moruti. People from all walks of life come to see him whenever they have problems, be it spiritual, marital or financial. He always receives them with open arms.

Today, as I study my sisters and think of my father, I can feel an alien emotion building inside me, a cold rage which I do not know where to direct. My emotions are like a web and I am hopelessly struggling in the centre of this invisible yet powerful mesh.

Why, God? Oh, why? I agonise over our predicament in silence. My elder sister Lebitso, who gave birth to Motheo at the age of fifteen, is sitting opposite me. She is now twenty-one while I’m three years younger than her. She is a Corporal in the army, in finely tuned physical condition.

My nephew Motheo, who is the spitting image of my father, is shoveling his food into his mouth as though he is racing against time. As I study him, I feel and see only family shame and tragedy staring back at me.

My younger sister Lesego sits on my right, absentmindedly breaking her bread into minute pieces without eating. Her eyes seem swollen. Obviously she hasn’t slept. Who can blame her? After what we did last night, how could anyone sleep, let alone a fourteen-year-old girl?

*

After dinner the previous night, my siblings and I had remained sitting around the fire while Lebitso poured out the most horrendous tale. After speaking for what seemed a torturous century, she paused, looked at us solemnly and said, “So you see, Father must die!”

I was horrified, not only at the suggestion of killing our father but also at the same father’s sinister and hidden side, which my sister had just revealed. My mind was a whirlpool of inconsistent and frantic thoughts.

At first I went into a state of acute denial. I could not believe it. How could Father commit such horrible deeds as spelt out by Lebitso? It was unthinkable, and yet Lesego had also confirmed the warped side of our father’s mind.

From the state of denial, I started to blame myself. I had been careless and irresponsible in not protecting my sisters, especially Lesego, from the evil clutches of our father.

After some sorrowful soul searching I looked sadly at Lebitso and said, “This is a police case, sister. And in any case, patricide is a serious crime.”

“No, brother, we have to safeguard the family honour that has been tainted by this monster!” she said, with the kind of desperation that comes after suffering in silence for a long time. “Besides, we will not be committing patricide. You see, we are just going to encourage the bastard to commit suicide.”

“Lebitso!” I could hardly believe the words coming from her mouth.

“Our father died a long time ago, when he raped and impregnated me,” she continued gravely. “I thought I could live with that, but when he started to molest Lesego I knew that the only way out was for him to die.”

I could understand now why Lebitso had refused to name the father of her child all this time. A father impregnating his daughter was unheard of in our village. Having a nephew who was my half-brother at the same time weighed heavily on my tortured mind. I could not think clearly. The image of Father forcing himself on my younger sister was what finally convinced me that he must go.

“What do you think, Lesego? Should Father die?” I asked.

Sobbing quietly, Lesego looked at me and with a determined but quivering voice said, “That creature is not my father and he should die!”

And just like that, the die was cast. We sat in silence for some time, each of us lost in our own painful thoughts. Then I looked at my sisters.

“Since it seems we all agree, what’s the plan, big sister?” I enquired in a conspiratorial tone.

“As I said, we are going to motivate him to commit suicide.” Lebitso opened her handbag. “He can choose his method of dying at his own dirty hands. We will visit him in his study from here and confront him. I don’t think he will argue much,” my sister concluded, before reaching into the handbag and bringing out her ugly service pistol.

Motheo was fast asleep in his bedroom when the three of us finally trooped towards Father’s house. Although the sky was clear, an unnatural fog had descended upon our yard. Owls were hooting eerily from a nearby dilapidated house, oblivious of our grave undertaking. We approached Father’s house slowly and in silence.

As usual, Father was at his study table reading the Bible by the light of a lamp. He was visibly surprised to see all of us entering his study without the courtesy of knocking.

He tried to break the ice with an enquiry. “What brings the lovely family here at this time?”

We sat down and faced him without anyone responding.

After a full and loaded moment of silence, Lesego curtly told him, “We want to have the last audience with you.” She took out her service pistol and cocked it noisily. She then put it gently on the table.

In my entire life I had never seen a person look as scared as my father did in that moment. He was shaking as though suffering from a bad bout of malaria. He tried to speak but not a word came out through his lips. His eyes were protruding so much that I feared they would pop out of their sockets at any minute.

Seeing him reduced to that state nearly made me feel sorry for him, but I reminded myself that he was not my father. Our father had died the day he raped and impregnated my elder sister. What was before us was simply a shell that had once housed our father.

“Is it true, Father?” I posed the question at last. “Did you truly do such heinous things to my sisters? Your own daughters?”

He attempted to speak several times but only incoherent grunts came out and I did pity him, a bit. He seemed to have miraculously aged by ten years within a few seconds.

“I want to know,” I persisted. “It is important to me that I know the whole truth.”

Although there was nothing to make me doubt the word of my sisters, all the same I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth. As we sat silently watching him and waiting for his reply, he did a curious thing.  He paged through his Bible until he came to the page that he wanted and started reading silently. For some time he seemed to be unaware of us and I could see that his shaking had subsided.

After finishing whatever he was reading, he looked at us with some semblance of confidence and said, “Let’s pray, my children, before anything else.”

The anger in Lesego’s eyes at Father’s words was as ugly as a murder weapon. She whipped her pistol from the table and in no time it was pointing steadily at Father.

“We’re not here to play games! Answer the question now or I splatter your filthy brains against that wall.”

I cringed uneasily at her metamorphosis from the daughter of a church minister to a swearing murderer-to-be.

Father’s momentary courage evaporated as quickly as he had harnessed it. Sobbing with fright and faltering, he said, “It’s true, but I was tempted by the devil. Please forgive me, my children. I really don’t know what possessed me. I…”

“Enough!” Lebitso cut him short with an impatient and contemptuous voice. “Listen carefully, old man. What you have done to us cannot be erased and we will always carry the scars that you have inflicted upon us. These scars cannot heal completely, but we can survive if your presence does not open them again and again. Seeing you is torture. To save the honour of the family, we have decided not to report you to the police.”

Surprised, Father started to babble, “Thank you, my children! It was the devil that took hold of me. I love you, my children, and I can’t agree more that family honour should be a priority. With God we will put all this behind us…”

“Shut up, old man!” I looked at my father for a moment and continued, “We have reached a decision that, for the sake of your family, church and the community, you should commit suicide tonight. The method of killing yourself is entirely upon you, but I recommend that you gas yourself with carbon monoxide.”

Father looked at me in total shock. Then he started to beg and plead for his life. Truly, it was pitiful to watch…

“Please, my children, my own blood, forgive as the Bible teaches…”

“As the Bible teaches, you say? Shame on you, you monster!” Lebitso cut Father short.

“I beg you my children, don’t make me kill myself, it is a sin to commit suicide, please…”

“Shut your mouth, old man! We are not playing here! As if you haven’t already committed unforgivable sins!” I said with finality.

Lebitso supervised Father while he wrote a convincing suicide note. His hands shook the entire time, and he kept pausing to plead with her. But my sister’s mercy had run out. After that we told Lesego to go and try to sleep while we finished the mission. Satisfied with the note, Lebitso told my father to put it into his pocket and we escorted him to his car.

We put one end of a garden hose in the exhaust pipe and the other inside the car. Father had finally realized that there was no way out. He was no longer begging for his life, but instead he had started praying the prayers of a dying man.

“Enough!” Lebitso shouted. “You had your chance to pray for redemption. Now you must pay for your sins.”

Without speaking, Father got into the car, closed the windows and started the engine. We watched until he had slumped on the seat before going to our rooms.

*

Today, after our unfinished breakfast, I finally announce to my sisters that it is time to “make the discovery.” With my heart full of tormented emotions, I drag myself towards Father’s car and peer through the windscreen. As I expect, he is dead as a dodo. I cannot look at him for too long. His face is purple and bloated like some scary alien creature.

I scream at the top of my voice and at once my sisters also start wailing. Within a short time neighbours start to arrive in droves.

What had to be done for the honour of the family is done.

May God forgive us, I silently pray, as comforting hands pull me away from the car.

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Originally published in Kutlwano Magazine, October 2003

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Boletilemang Gabokgatlhe predominantly writes short stories and poetry, some of which have been published in various magazines and journals across the globe. He has a keen interest in documenting the hitherto undocumented history of Boteti River and its diverse people and cultures.