Clemence
God is a lie, Clemence Kuchiva thought as he watched a white car move over the driveway. Inside was one of his father’s regular church attendees.
These people came here every Friday and Sunday to listen to his father preach to them from a thousand year old book filled with wild stories about people who were dead now. As if they had nothing better to do with their lives. He shook his head in disgust and turned away from the window.
He felt sorry for them, wasting their time on something that didn’t exist. But then again maybe they were desperate; he knew what that was like. He was desperate too, desperate to be a success in this life. He wanted to have enough money to buy himself a big house, somewhere nice and first class, maybe in Borrowdale Brook. He had friends who talked about the kind of houses that people had there, and how only big, important people lived there. He wanted a car so that he wouldn’t have to rely on his father’s kindness or Kombis to get him anywhere outside of Chisipite. He wanted to be someone great, the kind of person other people would envy and want to be like. The kind of person others would want to be around.
Yes, that’s what he wanted for himself. Not what he had now, a job as a till operator in a supermarket. Tsk. What kind of person could he become as a tiller, serving other people, wasting time checking out their groceries? No, this is not the life he wanted for himself. But unfortunately it was what he had to work with until things got better.
There weren’t many other jobs he could do, and at least this job gave him money he could call his own and allowed him to escape his father and his constant complaining about how he never showed up at church and his preaching and preaching. Ugh.
He heard a slam, the sound of a door closing, and he knew his father was coming out of his room. He rushed to grab his bag on the sofa. He didn’t want to see him. He would only give him that look of disapproval that made Clemence feel like he had committed a crime, and ask him again why he wasn’t coming to church.
Clemence always explained that it was because he had work. It wasn’t a lie. He did have to work on Sunday, but they both knew that he could change his shifts so that he wouldn’t have to. Or he could at least come on Fridays when his shift started at twelve o’clock.But he always made some excuse about why he couldn’t do that.
‘A pastor’s son must go to church,’ his father would say. ‘And I don’t want to hear this nonsense about you not believing in God. You must come to these services.’
He didn’t have time to argue with him. He made his way to the kitchen and was just opening the door when he heard his father call out.
‘Clemence?’
He winced and swore quietly, but didn’t stop, hoping his father would think he hadn’t heard him or that maybe it was Sisi Abigail in the kitchen. But he knew that his hope was futile. His father would have words for him tonight. Fine. He would deal with that when he returned. For now he had to get to work.
***
When he arrived at the Bon Marche gate there were very few cars parked in the parking lot. A Baker’s Inn bread truck was parked by the side, loading off crates of bread. It was quiet, the only sounds that could be heard were the cars outside the gate and the loud conversation of the men by the truck.
As he walked through the gate, he waved at the guard, Edfun.
‘Hesi Clemence,’ Eddie called.
‘Ndeip ndeip, Eddie. Zviri kufamba?’ Clemence replied.
‘Ya. So-so. You know how things are.’
‘Ya. Maone.’
‘Ko, how far? You are very early today. Who are you running from?’ He laughed.
Clemence smiled and rolled his eyes.
Eddie always greeted him this way. It was a kind of joke between the two of them. Eddie knew how Clemence was always desperate to be away from his house and father and his talk about God. Eddie believed in God, but he didn’t pester Clemence about it.
‘You know the story.’
‘Shem. But you know maybe you should try listening to him. There may be something in what he is saying.’
Alright, Eddie may not have hammered him over the head with talk about God. But he often said things like this, in an effort to try and convert Clemence.
‘You know me, Eddie. Handindi zvaMwari.’
‘Yah, yah. I know. Alright. Ndokubata palater.”
‘Sharp.’
He made his way over the parking lot, past the trolleys and through the doors which had just been pulled open. He glanced at his watch and sighed, it was going to be a long day.
***
The first customer came at eight o’clock sharp. It was an old woman, maybe in her eighties from what he could tell. She came in carrying a brown basket, wearing a floral pink dress. She headed straight for the vegetable section and then disappeared down towards the bread. She spent twenty minutes moving around the shop before coming to his till.
She had placed two loaves of bread, a crate of eggs and a panet of beef into her trolley. It wasn’t much but he knew with the way that things were moving in this country they would be fairly expensive. As she put her items on the counter, she greeted him.
‘Mangwanani, mwanangu.’
‘Mangwanani, Gogo. Mamuka sei?’ He greeted back.
‘Ndamuka.’ She squinted at the screen, as the numbers totalled up. ‘Things are expensive these days, mmhh?’
‘Yes,’ he replied shortly. He wasn’t really in the mood to talk.
‘It’s good then that our Lord is taking care of me. Otherwise how else would a woman like me afford to live? God is good, don’t you think?’ She glanced up at him, a smile like sunlight on her face.
But instead of being warmed by it, Clemence was filled with cold annoyance.
Really? God again? People in this country relied too much on God. They prayed for everything. When prices were getting high. When there was no rain. When there were riots. But their prayer did little for them, was he the only one who could see that?
The woman seemed to notice his less than positive response to her words.
‘Do you not believe in God?’ she asked.
He scoffed, ‘No.’
“Ahhh, but you should. God is very powerful, mwanangu. Very good. He is the only one who can help any of us during the hard times in this life.”
“Alright, Gogo,” he said dismissively as he pushed the remainder of her goods across the counter. Would she stop talking about God?
“You must not discard my words you-”, she stopped abruptly . Clemence looked up in surprise, worried that maybe she had had a heart attack or something. But she was looking at him very intently.
“Mhmm, mhmm,” she hummed.
“What?” Clemence demanded. His feeling of annoyance rising. Why was she looking at him as if she could see into his head; his soul?
“Yes. There is darkness in your heart, my boy. There is darkness in your family. If you continue the way you are walking you will die. But if you let God’s light lead you, you will be saved.”
“Matii?” Where was this coming from? What was she talking about?
“Yes. You must follow God and you will be saved.”
Clemence was left speechless. He didn’t know what to say in response to what she had just said. Before he could think of anything, she had already packed up her groceries and was starting to leave.
She paused just before reaching the till beside him and said “Don’t worry, we will have plenty of time to talk about your faith. You just remember my words, okay? Thank you and God bless you.”
Then she was walking away, trolley and basket in front of her, out the shop and gone.
Clemence wanted to call her back. Talk about his faith? What faith? Hadn’t he made it clear that he didn’t believe in God? And what did she mean by saying that there was darkness in his family and that he was going to die? The thought of death filled him with dark dread. He shook his head. No. No, he was being silly.
There was nothing to be afraid of. He would be fine. He wasn’t going to die. There was nothing wrong with his family. Well, nothing more than usual and he didn’t need some God to look after him. He would look after himself, thank you very much.
With that, he took a deep breath and cleared his mind of all the words the old woman had said, forcing himself to forget them. They were nonsense after all.
But as the day wore on, he would find her words echoing in his head, no matter how hard he tried to erase them.
