The Gospel According to Jane, a widow and divorcee in her mid-forties, grew up in Zimbabwe, and a victim of Mugabe’s purge of the white farmers. She studies in England, but is forced to leave for Miami. Though qualified as a doctor, she becomes a hospital nurse until she is able to get certified in the USA.

 

Synopsis

 

I looked at the machete in the boy’s hand. He was watching me but frequently glanced over his shoulder to check the progress of the loading, and to listen to the sounds of Maggie screaming, whimpering, and crying upstairs. That machete was my weapon. The only problem was that it was in his hand, not mine. The boy was nervous. He was not a regular member of this gang, or he was about to be expected to do something new, and it made him nervous. I noticed his other hand, the one without the machete. It was on his crotch, and he began to rub himself through his buttoned pants.

“Stand up,” he said to me.

I stood. There were beets on the floor. My white sock of one foot was splashed with beet juice. It was darker than Agnes’s blood, almost purple. But the blood was thicker.

“Turn round,” he grunted.

I turned but saw - just before he disappeared from my periphery - that he was fiddling with those buttons on the front of his pants.

“Lift your skirt,” he said.

“What?” I didn’t expect that.

“The skirt. Lift it up,” he said louder and banged the machete against the doorframe. He shouted in a voice like the preacher at church when he told us we were going to hell if we didn’t ask god’s forgiveness.

I lifted up my skirt in front, then all the way around, front and back. I was wearing blue stretch cotton underpants which could be worn swimming or running a race without any thought of impropriety. I stood without moving. A minute passed, maybe two. Then I heard what brought a shiver. Unmistakable. It was the sound of the machete as it was set down on a box of canning jars by the door. The sound of opportunity.

I would turn. I would rush him screaming, hands directed to his face, but at the last second, grab the machete and swing. I would move soon. Move quickly.

I took a breath.

Before I could act, there came another sound, a welcome sound. I recognized Zachary’s bakkie revving up the drive. He would bring his gun, maybe a friend. He would save Maggie.

A short distance from the house, Zachary shouted Maggie’s name. Maggie screamed a wordless reply. Flesh hit flesh, likely a fist to Maggie’s face. A gun was fired. I turned and let my skirt fall back in place. The boy was bent away, stooped, buttoning his pants. The machete lay on the box of jars just as I’d imagined.

I walked to it in two strides. The boy looked up at me as I picked up the long silver blade in both hands. He looked embarrassed. I caught him buttoning his pants. I thought again of Dad, blood pouring from his neck, and I hated this scar-faced young boy. I swung the blade. A hand came up, suddenly without its fingers. The machete was sharper than any knife in our house. I swung again.