IN this dramatic narrative, JAMES SHIMWITWA recounts how he lost and recovered his treasured pair of shoes, the envy of his peers, from a man who committed two sins on a holy day and he says, although it’s immoral to rejoice over another person’s death, the deceased deserved the punishment he received. Read on…

DISTANT voices from the church choir permeated the windy Sunday morning, reaching almost every hut of Koni village in what is now called Mungwi district. Villagers trooped to the source of the holy songs in numbers.
Sundays were special days; every villager reflected on religious dimensions of their lives. Being a day of rest, as the Bible puts it (not to arouse the Adventist argument), the villagers clothed their bodies in the best of attire by village standards, and the best shoes you only saw on Sundays. In contrast, on week days they trod the earth bare footed and dressed in clothes so tattered that you could mistake them for mad men if you met them on Cairo road.
This particular Sunday looked radiant, yet something ominous was inherent in the blowing wind. I was looking for my best pair of shoes when the gong sounded, subduing the voices of the church choir. Soon church service would commence. I had to join the other worshipers punctually.
But where was my pair of shoes? I usually kept them under a straw bed I shared with my late brother Chileshe. I had polished them that morning long after my brother had left for another village to visit our ailing grandfather. Someone else must have tip toed into our hut and  stolen the shoes whilst I was bathing. I always suspected that my shoes would go missing one day. The unique schooner shoes were given to me by a brother-in-law from France; anything imported was regarded with pride. Every man in the village wished they owned them. Mpelembe, a villager known to be a crazy womanizer, was among those that were fanatical about my shoes. He often commented: “If these were my shoes, all the beautiful women would swarm around me like flies on meat.” And so when I couldn’t find my shoes after a fruitless search, Mpelembe was the first suspect that came to my mind. His house was only a stone’s throw  away from where we lived.
A thin string of white smoke escaped from a diminishing fire, ascending until it encountered a thick, but permeable grass roof of a village structure called insaka, designed for men to share food, beer and evening folklore.
A lone dog dosed lazily around the fire. It was so frail and thin that you could easily see its bones through its skin. It shifted its head indifferently in my direction as I approached Mpelembe’s house. No one else was around apart from the lazy dog and a flock of chickens scrambling for sorghum seeds in the yard. I could enter Mpelembe’s house to hunt for my shoes, but I had to ensure that I went in unnoticed lest I had picked on the wrong person.
It was dark inside the house, only thin rays of sunlight squeezed through a small window providing insufficient illumination. If Mpelembe had indeed stolen my shoes, the most likely place to hide them was under his bed.
It was as dark as a moonless night under the bed, but soon my eyes adapted to the darkness.  In a corner, my eyes picked something dark and shiny. Satisfied that I had polished my shoes until they sparkled, my heart elated at the discovery. “Those must be my shoes,” I told myself as I crept to fetch them.
Immediately my fingers touched the object, it uncoiled and dragged its eerie tubular body upwards inside the straw bed. It was a snake, a deadly snake! My heart leapt into my mouth. A scary lesson about the snake from my grandfather one evening popped in my mind.
“Ngoshe is the most dangerous snake in the world. It’s extremely vicious especially if it gets trapped in a tunnel or in a house. It strikes at lightning speed. Once its venom enters a man’s blood stream, they turn into a black mass of flesh and death follows instantly. In my 90 years on this earth, none of the people I witnessed bitten by this snake survived. The only chance of survival when you encounter it is to courageously stay immobile, no movement even if it glides its body over your chest”. The toothless old man had said.
I stayed immobile, listening to my heart pounding violently. I held my breath controlled as much as I could. The few seconds I had been there, felt like many years of incarceration in solitary confinement. How long was I going to be under custody of the deadly serpent?
Suddenly I heard faint foot falls approaching outside. From the rhythm of the footsteps, I judged that the feet did not belong to one person. The sound drew nearer, they were coming were I was. I considered my chances. This was either going to be my parole or my death, depending on how the intruders came in and what they came to do.
The reed door scratched the mud floor as it opened. Two pairs of feet walked in and came to a stop before the bed. I watched them from underneath the bed. One was bare and feminine. The other was cased in my shoes. I recognised my schooner shoes immediately, but I did nothing. What was a pair of shoes for in the presence of death? My brother-in-law from France could give me new shoes, but not new life. I stayed fixed.
The two pairs of feet faced each other closely. It was like their owners stood intimately facing each other in a romantic stance. Their conversation confirmed this.
“Come on dear, let us do it. We know what we are here for” the man spoke first.
“Are you sure your wife won’t find us?” the woman sounded skeptical.
“Listen to those voices coming from the church. The loudest is that of my wife.”
“Anyway I am ready; I have waited for this opportunity for a long time. I hope you will make me pregnant.”
“Of course I will; I am a strong man. Have you forgotten that I am a father of twins?”
“I know. Please make me a mother; I am tired of being scorned by fellow women in the village. Ten years in marriage and not a single child to show for it.”
“Don’t worry, I will show you how it is done. The whole village knows that your husband is a weak man. I will help him.”
The intruders spoke; unaware of death in their vicinity and equally unaware of two scared ears listening to this treacherous episode.
Then I saw an underwear drop around the ladies feet. It may have once been white, but it looked brown with dirt. The man’s trousers also dropped to his feet. A bit of desperate romantic movements followed then the man suggested softly, “Let’s get on to the bed.” My heart almost exploded, uncertain about the snake’s reaction: would it bite me or them?
Suddenly the man cried out as if his bare buttocks had touched fire. His scream died as promptly as it had come. Some commotion followed. I couldn’t endure the situation from my prison any longer; the courage my grandfather recommended was unbearable. I sped out of my hiding place hitting my head against the wooden frame of the bed. I bumped into the woman in the passage. My sudden appearance spooked her further. She had no idea what had happened to her lover.
“Please leave me alone, it was him who … ” she was pointing at the man then stopped abruptly. I followed the direction of her astonished eyes. Mpelembe was standing beside the bed, saliva droping from his open mouth. He was hardly recognisable; his “always”- wear  T-shirt marked World Teacher’s Day revealed his identity. He had turned into a black monument as if his flesh was made of charcoal. Then the snake emerged near him. The woman screamed as if she had seen a ghost. We both bolted for our lives.
A group of church goers who were passing by had heard the scream. They sharp-turned to see what was happening. When they saw a naked woman shoot out of a house followed by me, they saw things differently. A woman was being pursued by a rapist it seemed. They armed themselves with stones, sticks and iron bars and charged towards me, the person they had perceived to be the rapist. Soon I was besieged by an angry mob.
In the presence of genuine innocence, calmness ultimately protects. I was at pains to explain what had actually happened. A few overzealous boys even cracked their weeps on my back.
“Listen, there is a snake and a dying man in that house, lets offer help and save his life if we can. I will explain what happened.” I looked innocent and suppressed my fear as much as I could. They finally listened to my plea. But it was too late.
Mpelembe was buried the same day when the sun sunk behind the horizon. Although it is immoral to rejoice over the death of another man, I felt the punishment for committing double sins, theft and adultery, on a holy day was appropriate.
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