THE PORTRAIT

Wake up! Wake up! You do not have time to sleep like students here! This is not a boarding school!

Nthamyo could hear the voice in his deep sleep, at first, he thought he was in a fairyland until he felt a beating to his feet. He hurriedly woke up from his sack mat like a person who had just resurrected from the dead.

‘Who the hell just hit my feet?!’ He exclaimed.

He saw a tall, fierce, and muscular man with a club in his hand approaching, the man looked into his eyes with a hostile facial expression that made Nthamyo shudder a bit.

‘And he said, welcome to the land of celibates; fold your mat and move.’

Nthamyo bowed and did exactly what he was told and joined the rest of the inmates at the assembly point. It was his first day in prison, the first time in his life to be called a convict, serving a sentence for a crime he did not commit, he never thought a day like this would unveil at a time such as this, but here he was, criminal number B1221. For once in his lifetime, he was wearing a suit, white was ideal, and it made him feel like an angel, pure at heart and soul. He observed his colleagues looking at him including that fierce man who made him feel like a priest. He looked at himself, thinking that possibly something was wrong, but there wasn’t, and brusquely he switched his focus to the front where the senior station officer for the prison was addressing the inmates.

‘I would like to welcome all new inmates to our home, which has become their new home. I might not know the transgression of each one of you but what I can assure you is that you belong here. Do what you are told, do not make living here tough for yourselves, you will be given drudgery, perform to the best of your ability. The world outside these walls looks for qualification based on your education stance to work, whilst the world on the inside, your offense is the qualification to serve, now get to work!’

The boss was a man of few words, after the speech chants could be heard at the back of the crowd.

Mpalamamba! Mpalamamba! Mpalamamba!

In praise of the senior station officer, as people were dispersing to their respective working stations, Nthamyo seemed lost and he was static not knowing where to go until another new inmate approached him.

‘Are you as lost as I mate?’ He asked.

‘Yes, man,’ Nthamyo responded.

‘Let’s ask that prison warder to allocate us.’

They moved toward him and they were both taken to their working places. Nthamyo was given the task of working in the office of a senior station officer for the prison before proceeding to his hard labor of breaking stones meant for the foundation of a new prison cell.

‘Greetings, Sir, my name is Nthamyo, and I have been assigned to clean your office daily.’

‘Welcome, but call me mpalamamba, you will understand more of the name as you go along, you better not comprehend it after I have pounced on you.’

This explanation made Nthamyo freeze but he commenced working as mpalamamba went out of the office. It was a small office with a lot of work to do. He was given several tasks at the prison and the one of mopping in Mpalamamba’s office was the easiest of them all.

‘How did I come to this?’ He thought to himself.

‘I do not know how my children or wife are at the moment, are they safe?’ He lamented.

Nthamyo was poor and illiterate, and he knew of all the people who might decide to visit him whilst at the prison, his family would be the last. Not because they did not want to visit him but due to lack of funds, he was the breadwinner for his family from some pieces of work he could find daily. Taking him to prison signified desisting his family from eating. It will be better for his family to spend a penny they got from well-wishers on butter and bread than spend it on visiting him at the prison.

As he was about to begin that day’s work, he observed something hanging on the wall a few meters up from mpalamamba’s chair. He gazed at it for a few minutes and later began talking;

‘Hello there, my name is Nthamyo, what I am going through right now is the true definition of my name. I was charged and convicted of a crime that I did not commit, the real convict is out there innocently walking and enjoying life whilst I am languishing on his behalf, I thought justice is well served in courts but I have just realized that there exists a bunch of hypocrites who are there for the money and not justice’

As he was talking he got interrupted by the sound of some footsteps, he took his soaked mop from the bucket and continued mopping the floor. He noticed that the footsteps were not heading in his direction he went back to the same spot and kept talking;

‘I have a wife and five children; they all depend on my hard-earned income from some pieces of work I find in communities.’

He realized that tears were forming in his eyes, got the courage to avoid that, and said;

‘I will be back tomorrow, see you.’

The day passed so quickly but he was sore due to work that day, he hadn't bent his back to mop and sweep for ages, this would be a taboo in his house, and his wife wouldn't let him do such kind of a thing. No matter how long it would take until his release, Nthamyo was already gathering stories to tell his wife and children.

Darkness invited everyone to slumber, Nthamyo couldn’t find his mat where he left it in the morning, and he did not hesitate to ask;

‘Who by any chance is keeping my mat?’

The whole cell broke into laughter; he could hear a few individuals spitting offensive words, something he thought was unusual. This night was one of the unforgettable nights of his life in prison. The floor was to serve him as a bed and his clothes act as a duvet for the evening.

‘It is time to sleep! Tie that chain on your ankle! Lie on your mat and look to your left. Your leaders will advise you on which side to face at midnight! Dream about your release!’ That was the prison warder speaking to the inmates.

He heard his neighbor praying to the God of Christians and since he was of African Traditional Religion he wondered if this religion still existed, this took him back to the little knowledge he had of the colonial era that was destroyed back then, he always thought that the independence was achieved to deal with the injudicious federation and the confusing religion of Christianity that the colonial people brought to Africa.

‘What this man is doing is an insult to the true religion of the land’, he thought to himself.

Just after a few minutes, he heard the voice of their leader speaking

‘May we all close our eyes and pray for God’s protection.’

He did not close his eyes.

‘Do they see their god when they close their eyes?’ he questioned himself.

‘Why do we have to ask for god’s protection when we are already in prison?’ this is insane, he muttered.

Amen!!

He heard almost everyone saying this word signifying concurrence to the prayer that was offered. Nthamyo started pondering in his mind and ignored what he was thinking in the first place. He couldn’t wait to clean again in Mpalamamba’s office. He already loved working there, he could talk alone without being disturbed and he never went hungry because he turned out to be a bin of all food residues in the office, he was eating three times a day whilst his fellow inmates were on a meal per day schedule, due to the small budget that the government was allocating to the penal system.

His arrest bothered him for the fact that he was wrongly accused, he didn’t have anyone to testify for him and the victim testified against him under coercion. The real offender was a prominent figure in society who had money, power, and control, he had everything and he couldn't sacrifice to let go in exchange for a prison cell. Being a rape case, it destined him to be in prison for life. What even made it harder was, that he had no witnesses. He surely needed a miracle from M’bona.

Lights went off; sleep started gathering momentum in his eyes, he felt being caressed at the back, and as he was about to get hold of the hand, it moved down to his buttocks. At this moment he couldn't turn to see who it was because they were all looking in one direction, he had to wait for midnight, even then, it would be difficult to see when darkness had engulfed the whole cell. He was frightened when the hand got inside his shorts and felt the pulling down of his underwear.

‘I have been told you are here because of rape’, he heard a whisper in his ears.

‘A felony you committed against a girl young enough to be your last-born daughter’, the voice continued.

‘Actually’

‘Quiet, I did not say that you should respond’, Nthamyo got interrupted.

‘Now listen, I have a wife too but here you will be my concubine’, the man concluded.

That night Nthamyo got raped, that was a nightmare of his life, an experience never to be shared.

A new day unveiled itself with a clear sky, as always he began his day’s work at Mpalamamba’s office, a good day to vomit his worries to the two-dimensional shaped figure hanging on the wall. He was over the moon when he noticed that the boss was not in, he knew he would have time to bond with that object, so he went straight close to the wall, looked up, and began speaking like a mad man;

‘It is me again, I do not know when exactly I will be out of this misery people call place but I am not in despair like the rest. Yesterday night I got raped. That’s the system you have created. Somehow, you are involved in all this, it is you who put those injustice people in those positions, it is you who is letting them deliberately ignore the truth and embrace lies in their mouths without proper evidence, leaving many of us languishing behind bars!’ he explained.

‘I need your empathy now,’ he said in a low tone.

‘There are conjectures that you will be releasing three hundred inmates, if it is true, my request is, may, my name be among the three hundred, even though I am just a fresh inmate’

This is when Nthamyo had just spent eight months in prison. He went out of the senior station officer’s office after the outburst, he felt relieved. He kept hoping for the better and no one could ever destroy the faith he had.

Later that day, a siren sounded signaling that people would have to converge at the assembly point. Nthamyo together with the rest of the inmates went there. The senior station officer, Mpalamamba was there with other designated officials and he said;

“Good evening, everyone, I am here to make an announcement that three hundred inmates will be released in two months, which is a direct order from his Excellency the president”

Upon hearing this, Nthamyo was excited, even though he had just spent eight months of his life sentence, his chi was telling him that he might be among the three hundred. Finally, what his friends were saying was true, the rumors concurred with what the senior station officer of the prison announced.

Time moved so fast; a year went by as quickly as a flash; everybody was anticipating seeing his name on the list. It was pasted on the notice board close to the assembly point, just a few meters from the office where Nthamyo was working he was the first one to check it out, the list was in alphabetical order he went straight to the letter that represented his designation but his name was missing, he burst into tears like a newborn baby in disbelief of what he just saw.

‘How long will I be in this place? Why is my name missing from the list?’

He had a lot of queries but he did not know where to run to, with all the questions he had. To him life imprisonment felt like a joke, he was living in shock and disbelief that he was to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He will have to pass one more year in the hands of that malicious man, who couldn’t hold his sexual desires but rather express them to his fellow man, he felt blue because the victim of this trap had to be him.

The president did this as one of the strategies in quest of running for another term in office, the elections were just around the corner, and releasing those three hundred inmates was a political move, he wanted them to be youth cadets for his political party and others were his relatives. When Nthamyo heard about this he was furious, he knew that the whole system is a rotten pig and he had no chance by any means that he could have made it.

‘So, you knew all this while, giving me that fake smile pretending as if you are hearing what I am telling you!’ He fumed at the portrait.

‘I am sure that most of those people you released might be related to you, and some have been released to help you in achieving your selfish ambitions, you will use them as machines of killing and causing pandemonium, well, break a leg!’ He concluded

What motivated him all this time to be speaking to the portrait was the saying he heard from his grandfather who died a decade ago. Before his death, he advised Nthamyo to be careful of what he says behind people’s backs and used a phrase that he will never forget "Walls have ears" Every single day that he was talking to the portrait in Mpalamamba’s office he thought to himself;

‘If walls have ears, well then, this portrait has both ears and eyes.’ This means it was listening to every word he was speaking and seeing how he was travailing in the prison, especially all the days he was toiling in Mpalamamba’s office. He made every possible effort to express his depression and say convincing words, but the results proved to him that whatever he said landed on deaf ears.

Nthamyo had spent three hundred eighty-five days in prison, for a while he neither spoke to the portrait nor looked at it because Mpalamamba was always in the office. Elections took place, but he had no idea who came out as a victor, it was of no use to him. It was just by coincidence that in the morning hours of one of the days, Mpalamamba was not in his office. He was pleased because he knew it was a good day to talk to the portrait. He moved at a snail's pace going into the office to carry out that day's work, when he reached the door, his eyes caught the sight of milk scorn on Mpalamamba’s table, he took it and hungrily ate it. He was missing these give away, due to the presence of the boss. For a while, he felt the pain of eating once a meal in prison. He threw the remaining piece of the milk scorn in a trash bin, all this while he was avoiding looking at the portrait. So, he began speaking with his face down;

‘It is me again friend, I have missed you, this is the only moment I see you close, it is a privilege because in the outside world, I can’t have an opportunity I have now, of speaking to you like this, now let me continue from where I stopped last time, and my rage is ongoing.’

He raised his head as a sign of courage and determination and began expressing his fury again and he noticed a familiar face on the wall, smiling at him, a replicate of his late father, it was his uncle on the portrait.

‘Oh my goodness!’ He screamed.

THE END