Within The Eye of A Camera

July 10, 2022

6,300

The lush green leaves, sprinkled with pollen from lofty tassels, rubbed gently against each other creating a coarse, yet rhythmical sound By Nhamo Muchagumisa The maize field flourished with maturing green plants. Their lush green leaves, sprinkled with pollen from lofty tassels, rubbed gently and continuously against each other creating a coarse, yet rhythmical sound that kept Chitere's senses alive. Stealthily, on tip toe, he approached the place he had visited on the previous day, and concluded that it was the place where everything that held his marital life to ridicule was happening. The place was empty when he visited it towards sunset the previous day.

The lush green leaves, sprinkled with pollen from lofty tassels, rubbed gently against each other creating a coarse, yet rhythmical sound

By Nhamo Muchagumisa

The maize field flourished with maturing green plants. Their lush green leaves, sprinkled with pollen from lofty tassels, rubbed gently and continuously against each other creating a coarse, yet rhythmical sound that kept Chitere’s senses alive.

Stealthily, on tip toe, he approached the place he had visited on the previous day, and concluded that it was the place where everything that held his marital life to ridicule was happening.

The place was empty when he visited it towards sunset the previous day. Today he had visited it before noon and expected it to be hosting, or to soon host, a human presence whose pastime should be considered debauched by anyone whose conscience had not been swayed by the does it matter syndrome that had wrecked so many marriages.

Chitere paused behind a rock that he hoped would be shelter enough against the wary eyes of the lovebirds that he hoped would approach their rendezvous from the opposite direction.

A better idea struck him and within a minute, he was up a tall tree that stood a few metres from the place where the weeds had stopped growing. The tree’s branches towered over the mealie plants and afforded Chitere’s eye a perfect view of the empty rendezvous.

Securing a place to sit among the leafy branches, he set his camera with its sensitive lens peeping at the place where stolen love was consumated, far from society’s inquisitive eyes… Finally, before Chitere started getting disappointed, a male person approached the place within the focus of his camera from one side, and a female person from the other.

The two found each other’s embrace and a long ritual started.

Within the sight of the camera, Matende and Hazvina went down and concluded their act in a horizontal posture.

“Thanks darling,” Hazvina said, rising to her feet. “I have everything to hide about you today, but on judgement day, I will happily confess everything we have done.”

“You will definitely make things easier for me, as I will simply say, ‘It is as she has said, nothing to add or subtract’.

As the love birds left their meeting point, taking opposite directions, Chitere clicked the save function on his video camera, and sat among the branches for an agonising thirty minutes more before alighting from the tree.

Chitere and his wife were renting this field from a local family as they had realised that Chitere’s salary was no longer sufficient enough to cater for their needs. Matende was on four months vacation leave, but had chosen to spend this rather long break on campus.

He would go bird shooting with a catapult on various occasions and Chitere even complimented him for being ingenious, even though he seldom brought a dead bird home. And then rumour reached Chitere’s ear that Matende and his wife were spending intimate moments together in a field by the hillside about two kilometres away from the school.

Three days after Chitere had recorded the surveillance footage, Matende was found dead in the river that ran not far away from the school where he and Chitere were teachers. He had apparently drowned and the three fishermen who had found his remains were helping the police with investigations. A long bridge towered above the section of the river where Matende was found dead.

Police investigations added more light to the narrative of Matende’s death. He had left the school for a drinking escapade with a workmate whose name was Chitere. Chitere was taken, and within less than an hour of investigations, his wrists were secured within the lothesome bangles and he was dragged into the holding cells as a suspect.

On the following day the story of Chitere’s arrest, accompanied by his picture and that of the high bridge, appeared in the press. The radio also took it up. A case involving a virtually unknown school teacher had excited public interest to unprecedented levels.

It was not surprising that the whole city of Mutare turned up for Chitere’s remand hearing, following the case’s initial publicity. No sane mind would imagine him being granted bail.

Meanwhile, Hazvina had left the school with her four minor children to live with her aunt in a village, five kilometres away, claiming that her presence at the school was traumatising her.

Within a period of three weeks in the confines of grim prison walls, Chitere was howled back into the courtroom. Once again the court attendance was overwhelming, as if the case involved a celebrity or a high-profile figure.

Chitere stuck to what he had said during the inquisition by the police, claiming that that night he had left the waterhole earlier than usual as he was feeling nauseated.

Witnesses testified how on many occasions Chitere and the deceased went drinking together, but no one gave precise details on what might have transpired on the night when Matende’s lungs got inflated with river water. The bottle store cashier had also been summoned as a witness.

“Your Worship, I remember serving the two teachers with drinks several times, but I did not notice them leaving the bottle store, whether they left together or they left separately,” the cashier testified.

“If they are your regular customers, you should have noticed their departure,” the magistrate enthused.

“Workers from a mine neighbouring the school had been paid on the day in question, so there were too many patrons for me to notice the movements of my two regular clients.”

The court was adjourned to the following week to allow more witnesses to testify.

Then, after the sensational pause, Chitere’s trial resumed. The courtroom was choked with people who would not afford to miss the conclusion of the case.

A larger crowd was waiting outside to just hear the outcome while it was still fresh. They wished there were television screens to broadcast the trial to those who had not gained entry into the courtroom.

More witnesses came forward, including the wives of the accused and the deceased. Both women testified to the effect that the two teachers shared a great deal of each other’s company, but they could not ascertain what really transpired on the night when Matende surrendered his life to the water that flooded his lungs.

The court adjourned again, and its resumption in three days attracted the same attention as previously. Attention was fixed on the magistrate as he sat in his great chair, white wig superimposed on his head as if without it he would deliver a deranged verdict.

He then raised his mallet, and down it came on a wooden surface as if he was hitting the final nail on Chitere’s coffin.

The man of law scanned the ocean of faces that focused their attention on him, as if to appeal for sympathy. He began to read from an enormous volume of papers.

“After careful consideration of the prosecution’s presentation, various accounts from the witnesses to the case under review, and the accused’s narrative of his movements on the night the deceased met his death, the court finds Winfrey Chitere not guilty of murder or any related offence like homicide. The prosecution failed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt, and by virtue of the authority vested in me, I hereby declare this case closed.”

Mrs Chitere covered her face with the palms of both hands and began to sob. Mrs. Matende began to weep convulsively, while Chitere remained composed as if he was still waiting for the determination of the case.

Two days after the determination of the case, husband and wife getting ready for the night’s rest in their bedroom, Winfrey Chitere, perused the files saved on his laptop, and finding the desired file, he played his wife the footage of her quality time with Matende in the maize field. She only watched a minute of it and made an effort to leave the bedroom.

“No, I will not harm you, but if you do it again, you will join Matende sooner than you desire. I pushed him over the metal edge of the bridge and he plunged to his death,” Chitere boasted.

Mrs Chitere said nothing; she was in mortal terror of what her husband might do. That was exactly how her husband wanted her to feel. He did not even care what she was going to do next.

Another week passed, and Mrs Chitere held on to her gloomy mood that had been catalysed by Chitere’s confession. Then one day, Chitere had to spend the whole day away from work, attending a subject related seminar.

On his return, he realised that his wife was not at home, and she did not come back that night.

On the following day, a woman’s handbag was found among the reeds on the bank of the river in which Matende had drowned, not far away from the very spot.

The man who found it opened it without hesitation. In one of its pockets was a note was written in a woman’s handwriting.

“I must confess that I betrayed the prosecution in the murder trial of Winfrey Chitere. Had I told the court that I was in an intimate relationship with Matende, the verdict might have been different. You will find me where Matende’s remains were recovered, and so the police recovered her corpse from the very spot where they had taken Matende’s remains.
But Winfrey remained a “free” man.

Nhamo Muchagumisa is an English Language and Literature teacher, and he writes from Odzi. He writes in his own capacity and can be contacted on +263771271478 Email him at: muchagumisan@gmail.com