[Appeared in the Malawi News of August 4 2012]
‘This
is totally unacceptable.’ Asilo sulkily thought again as he had done for the
past seven days. He was walking passing the house of Lino, his immediate
neighbor, whose abusive shouts aimed at Irene, his wife, glaringly hit and
pierced Asilo’s ears. They were daily insulting outbursts, even threats of
murder, which Asilo had categorically refused to ignore as he had disturbingly discovered
to be the case in that locality he had settled a week earlier. But he could not
keep quiet about that distressing disorder. Not with a natural hatred for
domestic violence and finding Lino’s marriage an abusive relationship defined
and described. Yes, he could not ignore that pure portrayal of abuse glaring
him right in the eye. Not with a clear-cut categorization of Lino’s marriage as
a precise descriptive of a violent marriage. Indeed Asilo could not fail the labeling.
Not with a Degree in Eco-Feminism and Applied Feminism to his credit. For sure
Asilo could not; how could he with what he had learned and had read in college,
and had observed from a distance about domestic violence, manifested in the form
of verbal, physical, psychological, sexual abuses, among others, now right there
under his nose? What with Irene, a much deserving human being as Lino, not a
non-feeling stone, but as him equally born, being demeaned day and night
through awful assaults, dreadful names and disheartening insults. Names
vilifying and haunting, taunting, tormenting and traumatizing; insults
degrading and depressing; dreadful and horrid abuse that engraved chronic
nightmare and scarily psychological scars, leaving her reputation in shreds.
What with Irene, being a full human being as Lino, full of emotions and feeling
of pain, not a dead rotten dog or a maggot-infested log, being gruesomely and
savagely battered; sometimes mercilessly and ghastly bludgeoned as if some moldy
rubbish for which even the devil shed tears.
‘I
must do something’. Asilo vowed as Lino’s crazy and maddening outbursts continued.
‘Let my sick-minded neighbors look the other way or vilify me, but I’m
reporting this fool to police.’ He said feeling sickened to the bone, not
dissuaded by even what happened four days earlier when he had intervened in a
heavy trouncing of Irene. That day his incurious neighbors had heavily censured
him for getting involved in family matters they downright said did not concern
him. It was censure that showed they emphatically took the battering as a petty
domestic issue, totally deserving no outside intervention. And being a bachelor
just worsened matters. The people, with pugnacious frowns, went on to firmly
spat insults at him that he was a ‘boy’ who did not understand an ounce about
marriage life, so he could not solve marriage problems, if what he got himself
involved in were problems at all. Asilo was left feeling distraught, and like a
preposterous crown.
‘Why
not just abandon this hell?’ A subject whose probable answers he had perused in
books suddenly ricocheted in his mind. At college Asilo had read some write-ups
that disputed the messages that hypothetically tell abused partners to leave
violent relationships for being easier said than done. ‘But it can’t be the
reason of wanting to save reputations; Lino’s family isn’t that of the prominence
in this neighborhood.’ Asilo thought as he walked on. ‘But why doesn’t she
leave the hell?’ He really wished he knew. ‘Is it for the sake of their five children?
Or was it inferiority complex; thinking no other man would propose her if she
left Lino?’ The thoughts madly chased each other in his head. How he wished he
knew. But knowing or no knowing he vowed again to do something that day or
otherwise Irene would leave the marriage in a casket. He almost stumbled, pain eating
his heart, as he hit the main road.
But
minutes later Asilo discovered his too much engrossment with Lino’s issue made
him forget his mobile. He quickly retraced his footsteps to more welcome of
Lino’s abuse. He was unlocking his door
when he heard Lino shouting, “Bye!”
“Please,
don’t do that. Think of the children!” Another shout followed, unmistakably it
was Irene’s.
“I
said bye…” the shout was cut short by desperate shuffling of feet and touching
pleas of ‘please don’t do that’.
Asilo’s
heart skipped a beat before resuming to pound aggressively. He was jolted by
banked fury upon being hit by a realization of what he understood was about to
happen. He felt a violent gush of blood to his head. Lino was about to kill his
wife; a wife now desperately fleeing. Asilo was totally convinced! But he would
not stand there and watch as his sick-minded neighbors, even if it meant heaven
itself against him. He rushed into his house and took his 14-pound hammer. Within
seconds, Asilo, the Good Samaritan determined to save a life about to meet a
brutal end, was out. With all his might he pounded Lino’s door he found locked using
the hammer. So huge was the impact that it sent the door flying. But seconds
later what Asilo realized his rescue mission had resulted into was beyond
surprise; the shock he experienced was deep, stunning, taking his breath away. He
was stunned to the point of momentary speechlessness. The door had knocked down
Lino who was about to unlock it having decided to leave the marriage. He now
lay dead cold!
