A Short Story By Simbarashe Kavenga
She was there rolling and rolling in the muddy waters
by the slow flowing river. The Pastor stood in the still waters of the pool, a
little distance upstream. His red eyes glued to the rolling naked body in the
mud.
In his long white garments he looked like a
ghostly silhouette in the moonlight. The owl hooted as if to confirm its
witnessing the deeds that were done in the silent pool. Poor Rudaviro’s
memories flooded back as she sat by the banks of the slow flowing river. It all
started with a simple invite from her friend Tiyana to join her to the new
church in town.
The church was led by a Pastor – a man of God.
Yes they called him a man of God.
The Pastor was said to be so powerful and
always cast away demons that no other so-called men of God had done before. The
church was now popular in the town and all over the country as it also had
adverts on radios and in newspapers almost every day. He was the man of God so
every troubled soul had to know about this and come to the prayer warrior to be
freed forever.
Every Sunday, and Friday nights, the church was
always a full house. The blind, the sick, the crippled in wheel chairs, job
hunters and many more thronged and stampeded to the church.
For Rudaviro, she thought maybe this was the
man who would free her from the bondage of being single. Many of her age mates
were now all married and blessed with three or four children. Many always
wonder how on earth a beautiful lady like her would fail to tie the knot.
Yes she had a beautiful body made for the gods!
Rudaviro was now in her early thirties and
still searching and failing. Her family had also lost hope that one day she
would walk down the aisle holding dearly to her husband’s hand.
She had a good job in town but her remaining
single was like a dark cloud hovering above her head.
It was like a curse and she wanted it to be
removed from her and find her own man.
In her shocked state in the mud, she remembered
another church man who once told her that she was cursed and being used as a
goblin’s wife by one of the family members who was very rich. She did not
believe the man then but now she was buying into that prophecy.
The Pastor, the man of God could be the answer
to the problem facing her. Her friend had assured her.
It was one hot Sunday at the church when she
stumbled as she entered through the doorway. People who witnessed her near fall
and held her believed that there were demons fighting her and therefore she
needed a prayer. She was then led to the Pastor the all-powerful man of god.
The Pastor could not believe his eyes when he saw such a beautiful woman
kneeling in front of him. He felt like he was about to pray to the goddess of
beauty.
He asked for her name and she said, “Rudaviro,
Rudaviro Kajekete.”
As he placed
his hands on her head he uttered a few strange words while shaking his head and
then he said, “Her problem needs to be discussed one-on-one, please may the
ushers give her my number in the name of our Lord Jesus. May someone say Amen?”
The congregation shouted back, ‘Amen! Amen!’ One
of the ushers scribbled the phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Rudaviro.
At first Rudaviro did not want to phone the
Pastor but the believer in her urged her to go for it. Two weeks down the line
she phoned him. When the Pastor heard
her name he was thrilled.
As they talked on the phone the Pastor said the
Holy Spirit was talking to him at that moment saying that they need to go to a
river, a sacred pool so that she would be cleansed.
They were to go only the two of them and no one
else from the church just the two of them he repeated. By the waters of the
said pool her problems would be washed away.
He said he would ask the Holy Spirit for the date and time and he would
phone her.
Two days later the Pastor phoned her and told
her that they should meet the next day for their journey to the sacred pool. The
pool the Pastor said was found just at the outskirts of the town. Yes, he said
it was just a short distance from the town center towards the eastern side.
Rudaviro agreed yet some voice was knocking
something into her mind. She ignored the whispering voice in the wind. As they
drove out of town she was on the wheel. The Pastor was beside her reading or
pretending to be reading the Bible.
Here and there the Pastor would spice their
talks with words and stories from the Holy Book. And now and again Rudaviro
would catch glimpses of the Pastor glaring at her with lustful eyes. That was nothing to worry about she thought
all men do that to women. All she wanted was to be freed, once and for all,
from the evil that stalked her in life. She wanted to be free from spiritual
bondage and feel free like a bird.
When they arrived at the said sacred pool they
disembarked from the car and left it on the rarely used dirty road. They walked
for a short distance to the river. The Pastor then told her that she should
smear herself with mud. The mud would be representing the evil spirit that the
Pastor was going to wash away. As the mud would be washed away so be the evil
spirit from her also.
Rudaviro was told to remove all clothes she
wore and to roll in the muddy waters naked.
She hesitated at first and the Pastor started
praying and talking in tongues. Rudaviro suddenly found herself rolling and
rolling naked in the muddy waters.
Standing in the pool the Pastor was shouting on
top of his voice, praying. He was praying and pleading to God. He prayed and
swore in the pool as Rudaviro rolled and rolled to no end in the mud. The
Pastor then beckoned Rudaviro to come in the pool. Rudaviro ignored the first
call and the Pastor waited for her. He was the one who was supposed to clean
the mud off her, he reminded her. But Rudaviro could not move even an inch towards
the pool where the Pastor was.
Smiling like a Cheshire cat in the moonlit
night the Pastor stood still. His right hand wandered in the back pockets of
his trouser and brought out the bottle of anointed oil.
Once again, he beckoned Rudaviro to join him in
the pool. Rudaviro wanted to put on her clothes but was told not to worry about
that.
“As it is for now, the shadows of nearby trees would
be your clothes in this moonlit night,” said the Pastor
At last she walked towards the pool slowly
taking a step at a time. She wandered into the pool clothed only in mud
straight to the waiting uneasy hands of the Pastor.
The Pastor started praying, washing the mud off
her slowly, bit by bit. After that he poured the anointed oil on her from the
head down the whole body. He started massaging her while praying even louder,
pretending to be casting the demons away. His hands were all over Rudaviro’s
body as he was now acting like a man in a trance. Rudaviro could not bear the
firm hold of the man of God. The Pastor was now holding her too close to
himself, breathing heavily. She struggled
to free herself from the hard grip. The Pastor was also struggling to keep her
within his reach and to subdue her.
After a while in this dance in the pool, the
Pastor shouted in a triumphant voice, “It’s all over! Sister, the deed is done.
You are now free!”
Rudaviro, feeling the pain, could not believe
the words. They were like spears piercing her heart to shreds. With her eyes
clouded in tears of lost hope she saw the Pastor fixing his trouser. The Pastor
handed her the clothes to wear. He warned her never to tell anyone and if she
failed to keep the secret the evil spirits would visit her again this time in
droves.
Simbarashe
Clever Kavenga (above) is a published fiction writer and poet.
