is weak, and if the family is weak, the nation is weak. So what happens in a home is the business of the nation and the other way around.”
“I don’t need to be lectured. My wife is not our wife; she is mine.”
“You said, ‘my wife,’ but I did not hear you say, ‘my slave. “
“Listen. Tradition is on my side; it is the man who wears the pants in the house.”
“You talk of tradition. Remember that in the past husbands who ill treated their wives faced trials before a council of women.”
“Even the Bible says that woman is man’s rib,” Tajirika said.
“Why don’t we pluck out one of his ribs so that he can show us how a rib turned out to be a woman?” another one added.
Now a big woman wielding a shiny machete emerged from another room. “Why do you let this man give you so much trouble? Let me show you how it’s done. Take his pants off. Let us cut off his penis.”
The woman looked and sounded so serious that Tajirika felt he was about to piss on himself as he let out a single involuntary groan. Suppose these women were actually crazy? Possessed of female daemons intent on destroying man? It was much safer for him to go along with their so-called court proceeding. He would keep them busy while figuring out how to escape.
“Please get off my back; let us talk. There is no court of law that decides cases solely on the basis of a plaintiff’s story, and especially one who is not even present.”
“Let’s give him a chance to defend himself.”
They allowed him to take his seat again but warned him not to show contempt, or else…
“Listen to me,” he said in a disingenuous respectful tone. “I don’t know who you are. And I don’t even know who has accused me of wife beating. Vinjinia and I are
“There are only two people who know what happened. You and your wife. You say she is clumsy and she fell on the cement floor. So we are now asking you: do you want us to summon her here?”
Tajirika was taken aback. This was the last thing he expected, the summons of his wife. But he believed that Vinjinia would never say anything untoward about their domestic affairs to perfect strangers. The Vinjinia he knew was the key to his freedom, and he was sure that she would stand by her man.
“Yes, call her,” he said with braggadocio.
“Give us directions and describe her to us,” one of the women said, to indicate that they were not in league with Vinjinia. “We know only about you.”
After an hour or so Vinjinia was in the room. The women seated her opposite her husband. One of the women chaired the council. The others were the jury. Vinjinia had covered her head with a shawl. Her eyes showed fear, and she did not look at her husband directly. Tajirika gave her a stern look, which he tried to hide with a false smile.
“Tell them the truth that I did not touch you,” Tajirika hastened to say before the chairperson could utter a word. “Is it not a fact that your swollen face resulted from your falling on the cement floor?”
The judge told her to speak her truth as she knew it. The silence in the room was riveting. Vinjinia glanced at Tajirika, at the women, and then looked away.
“I fell on the cement floor,” she said, in a barely audible voice.
The women looked stunned. Tajirika made no attempt to hide his triumph.
“You have heard for yourselves,” he crowed, openly arrogant.
“There is nothing more to say about this sad affair,” the judge said.
Tajirika wished he had the means to wreak instant vengeance on these women. At the door he put his arms around his wife and whispered: “You did well. Anything else and the last beating would have paled in comparison with the one I would have given you tonight.”
Vinjinia trembled. He simply had gone too far. If he could threaten her just outside the hearing of these women, what was he not capable of at home? If she was going to die, at least let there be witnesses. She quickly disengaged herself from him and turned around.
“I am sorry” she said, directing her remarks to the judge. “I have lied to you, and lied to myself while lying for my husband. This man rains fists on me whenever it suits his temper. If he has a disagreement with others in his workplace or in a bar, he takes it out on me. The heart of my husband is as hard as a concrete floor.”
Tajirika lost it before the woman who had just betrayed his manhood. He jumped on her and was going to beat her yet again, but the women were too quick for him. They restrained him before he landed a blow. But even as they dragged him away from his wife, Tajirika continued wagging his finger at her.
“You wait till I get you home! Just you wait!” he shouted at her, throwing caution to the wind.
“But who told you that you are going home?” the machete-wielding woman said as she rushed toward him, waving the machete in the air menacingly. Tajirika jumped back a step, convinced that these women were prepared to kill him if he gave them the slightest cause.
The judge told them to sit down, which they all did, including Tajirika, who was inwardly grateful to the judge for keeping the machete woman at bay.
“You,” the judge said, pointing at Tajirika. Your own actions before our very eyes confirm what we’ve heard. But this court will not condemn you without giving you a chance to defend yourself. Why did you beat your wife?”
“Don’t call her my wife,” Tajirika said, panting with frustration at his inability to teach his wife a lesson. “This woman is a hypocrite. When the police detained me recently, she seized the opportunity to hire dancing prostitutes and gangsters to entertain her.”
Vinjinia, who had not the slightest clue what Tajirika was talking about, shook her head in disbelief. But the mention of dancing women made her recall the women who had forced the government to admit that it was holding Tajirika.
“Who lied to you that I did nothing about your arrest? That I was partying with women dancers? Some people are truly incapable of gratitude. When the police arrested me a while ago, this man did nothing. I even came across a press statement in which he was going to denounce me. But when he was arrested and held in secrecy, there was no police precinct, hospital, or newspaper office I did not set foot in to find out what his so-called friends had done to him. But when he came out of his tomb, instead of asking me how it was at home when he was away, he went about sniffing for gossip, and whatever his drunken friends told him he took as the gospel truth and sound basis for killing blows.”
“The woman has asked you a question,” the judge said, turning to Tajirika. Who made allegations against her? Tell us so that we may fetch him and bring him here to testify.”
Tajirika remembered that Sikiokuu had forbidden him to talk about the photographs or the dancing women because of ongoing security investigations. He did not respond.
“Do you have anything else that you want to tell this council?” the judge asked Vinjinia.
“I just want to say before you all that I will not accept blows on my body anymore.”
“Stop lying, woman. I have never touched you with these hands the way a real man should,” Tajirika shouted, standing up and clenching his fists.
The women pushed him back to his seat.
“Your actions before our very eyes testify against you,” the judge told Tajirika. “We have enough evidence for the jury to issue a just verdict. Vinjinia will be taken back to her place,” the judge said with a tone of finality.
As he saw Vinjinia being escorted out of the room, Tajirika felt like crying out to Vinjinia: Please don’t leave me here with these crazy women! But he did not. How could he, a man, call on his wife, a woman, to save him from other women?
The judge fixed her eyes on Tajirika.
“You are sentenced to receive as many blows as you rained on your wife.”
“But if you ever appear before us again, you will not leave here with your penis dangling between your legs,”
