Lost and Curious

Chapter 2

Saturday was just as moderate as the previous day. The atmosphere was sunny and hot, one that made you appreciate God when you get in a shadow. The workplace was calm; less noise and medium stress level for Theresa. She entered her office, dropped a small feminine luggage aside and sat on her chair. Theresa greeted a few mates who were already in the office and opened her laptop bag. She flipped her laptop like she always did and began to type some reports for the past week. Within a few minutes James knocked at the door, entered and began to look around definitely for someone. Theresa began to pray silently, hoping James doesn’t persist on his idea of looking for Theresa’s sister. Unfortunately the prayer wasn’t heard. Everyone in the office stood up in respect. James was not working directly with this office because he was in the investigations department, but he was a well known and reputable senior. He then pointed at Theresa.

“Chibaya, can you come to my office, now.” He instructed.

“Okay sir.” Theresa rolled her eyes before closing her laptop and she followed the inspector out into the corridor and upstairs to his office.

“I know what you called me here for, James.” She claimed as she closed the door behind her. James went behind his desk laughing and sank his well-built self into the black rolling chair.

“You are required to remain silent ma’am, for everything you are going to say will be used as evidence against you in the court of law,”

“You know very well that I’m not good at remaining silent,”

“Then you will remain guilty,” They both cackled as they took their seats. Theresa was right, and James was indeed serious when he said he would help find her sister. Finding someone who supports you and is concerned wholeheartedly about what you go through is one of the rarest and yet most fortunate things in this day. Probably that was the missing link to Theresa’s motivation. James explained that the only way she was going to discover her family, if it was there was to start from what she knew, and that a missing part of her happiness laid in her family. This was as liquid as water and Theresa could easily swallow.

After a long time of arguments and agreements on the worthiness of the trip, James stood up and went over closer to where Theresa was seated. He stood right by her side and lifted his hand towards her shoulder. Theresa looked at that hand from the time James pulled it out of the pocket until it reached her shoulder. She must’ve been thinking he’d touch somewhere weird and she was already prepared to yell.

“So Theresa tomorrow is a Sunday, we’ll visit mother Zinguwo and talk to her, and then we’ll see what we can get from there.” He concluded.

“You must be kidding me, you mean tomorrow?”

“There are no two tomorrows, and I’m not asking I’m letting you know,” He smiled.

“We need to prepare James, logistics and other things, and I might be called for…” She was interrupted.

“I’m the officer in charge; I’ll take care of that,” he replied as he went back to his seat.

“Huh,” She was surprised James could sacrifice his everything for her sake that way. She appreciated and agreed to the plan. At least she trusted him on issues like this one. Theresa was about to exit when James stopped her.

“One more question before you leave,” James exclaimed.

“You always have more questions to ask, don’t you?” she blinked her left eye and turned her head back. James laughed uncontrollably.

“And you always have arguments to make. Well that’s not important. ‘Chibaya’, is it your dad’s surname or it’s... fictitious.” He asked.

“On the fictitious part I’m not sure, but I was told dad refused to go with me for certification. It’s not dad’s surname.”

“We’ll find out. He must’ve been a qualified criminal,” James said in a lower tone.

“He must’ve been trained by the Boko Haram,” Theresa added. She went out of James’ office cackling, but with a handful of hope, relief and expectation from the new itinerary that they were about to embark on. Of course Theresa’s family was supposed to be there. No human being falls from the sky. That’s why there are genealogies, lineages and family trees. You may not find your close relatives, but you can find their close relatives or close relatives of close relatives, going on like that.

As soon as she entered her office, someone handed her a phone. That’s when she noticed she had left her phone in the office when she went out with James. She didn’t normally do this; miracles always did happen in that office and to the present moment the bad apple was not known. It was funny to imagine, a thief amongst the police, amongst the people who catch thieves. Yes, the police are human too but they should at least respect their own badges.

“Theresa, your boyfriend was calling.” Constable Sibanda said, giving Theresa her phone.

“Ahh boyfriend..? Who is that? Wait… Did I leave my phone here? Oh thank God,”

“I noticed and I kept it safe in my drawer,” Sibanda said, sitting back into her chair.

“Thanks Maggie, it would be history right now as we speak,” They both laughed.

Matsika quickly thought of a revenge mechanism, probably he was irritated by this gadget thief issue.

“You mean you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked.

Theresa knew where the conversation was going and decided to cut it short, “Well I have many I asked which one?” Everyone burst into laughter. She looked into her phone and dialled.

“Hi, yes its Theresa... and who is this?” Theresa wrinkled her face and sighed in boredom. She quickly hung up the call and threw the phone on the desk. She put her both hands in her waist and began to ask, specifically to a few men who were in the office.

“Tell me you guys, what exactly will be in your mind when you see a woman at the bus stop, you talk to her and she shows no interests. You then hunt for her number and call claiming to be her boyfriend? Is it demon possession?” Indeed the world has changed; it took years for people to fall in love, now it takes seconds. With the prevailing social media communication technology, unlike in the ancient days where communication from home was impossible, people can communicate twenty four-seven. “How can you assume someone is that cheap, really?”

Toyie answered, “So you want us to come formally to your home and ask for permission to talk to you? What really do you want us to do; we are men all we want is women. That’s not a lie, and we can sacrifice.”

Theresa continued whilst taking her seat, “All I’m saying is things should just make sense, not to try to make some cheap creature out of someone of high value,”

“Love doesn’t make sense, Theresa, if you look for sense in love you’ll never find it, and if you try to force love to make sense, you destroy it. There is no reason for love, if you look for a reason to love someone, then you are definitely not looking for true love,” Toyie explained.

She looked at him and paused, “Toy, I guess that’s the only thing you said this week that makes sense. By the way what’s your name in full?”

“Toilet” Someone shouted from the far corner of the room. That was a jawbreaker. They were all used to calling him Toyie, but no one knew what the shortcut was for. He always bragged saying it’s Toyota. This Ndebele guy was talkative but a very small fraction of what he said made sense. At least a radio that has lost its signal can be switched off. As for this one; he just couldn’t shut his futile mouth.

Those who knew Theresa from afar thought she was a loose person, but far was that assumption from reality. She didn’t have many female close friends, she was always around men. She had her own reasons, the same reasons you have yours. She loved going out with friends whenever she was free, or off.  One Saturday, about a month gone past she went to Bethany Gardens with four of her friends, three of which were male and Sibanda (Maggie) was there too. Theresa always arranged these outings, mainly because she had her agenda different from others. She just wanted to jump like a twelve year old, shaking all her family worries off. The team met in town around 11am and packed everything that they were going to use into Theresa’s new Toyota Allion that she had saved for from her very first salary. In another description, she was celebrating the arrival of this new baby. The team checked into Bethany at 12pm. It was too hot to start a braai so they rested for a while taking pictures round about the place. While they were walking around, they came across a swimming pool. Upon seeing it, Theresa shouted to Maggie and they both went back to the car to change into swimming costume. Theresa liked the swimming pool like it was an apartment of paradise. She enjoyed swimming like no one’s business. That was one of a very few things mother Zinguwo got angry at her for, because she would skip some classes whilst swimming at a nearby river.

Theresa and Maggie came back in their shorts and before they jumped into the pool, they took turns taking pictures with the guys they came with, some of which were immediately posted on social media. Of the three guys who came, one was Maggie’s cousin and the other two were Theresa’s old friends who trained together with her in Morris Depot, Harare. After the photo shoot, the two went ahead and enjoyed themselves. The guys couldn’t stand to see them swimming, so they decided to put the braai apparatus in place in preparation. Tinashe, Maggie’s cousin went to the security officer to ask for a braai stand and he was given a very big and neat one, he indeed had excellent negotiating skills. He brought it near the car and started off towards where others were standing. He noticed they were already coming to start their core business. Theresa and Maggie got satisfied and left the swimming pool. The braai went on very well and they enjoyed themselves.

It was around 5pm when Theresa decided to walk around the premises alone while others were packing their belongings back into the car. She went to the far ends of the garden taking pictures. She was about to come back when she noticed a girl who was lying under a healthy bush, seemingly lifeless. Theresa went close to her and discovered she was half asleep. She tried to talk to her but she looked very tired and exhausted. 

“Hey are you okay?” Theresa asked. The girl was scared and she lifted her head in anxiety.

“Who are you?” The light skinned teenager asked, struggling to seat with her lower body.

“I’m Theresa, and you?” she noticed something was wrong and began to look all over her body.

“My name is Rumbi, can you please help me?”

“Sure, what is it? You don’t look okay, tell me,”

“I just want to go home please can you just take me where I can get transport,” Tears began to drop in Rumbi’s eyes.

“Look, whatever it is I want you to trust me and tell me. I am a police officer, so I’m your friend, what happened?” Theresa insisted, sitting next to Rumbi who now had her face full of sorrow and grief.

“They took turns on me,” she raised her voice and started crying.

“What? Were you rapped?” Theresa’s face suddenly turned to that of an invigilator.

“Yes, they put something in my drink, that’s what they wanted I knew it,” she lamented more. Theresa put her arms around her and began to ask more questions.

“Who are they?”

“Please just help me go home; I can’t even walk on myself,” she weeped.

“Rumbi, I told you I’m a police officer and I’m your friend. Please tell me everything that you remember and I will help you out,” Rumbi calmed down and began to narrate what had happened. This colored girl was relatively new in Masvingo. Her parents had recently moved from Victoria Falls when her dad was transferred. She had only one term at Victoria High school where she was doing her O level. When she came, she associated herself with the wrong people and her immediate friends were bad guys who did all sorts of mischief at school. Some of them had tried their luck on her but she was not that easy. The crew then arranged this outing with the main aim of playing her. What she remembered very well was that she did not take alcohol, but she suspected someone mixed her drink with some drug that made her feel dizzy and all sorts of strange feelings and eventually it was lights out for her.

“After rapping me they took me out of the car and I was still not fully conscious. They drove away leaving me here. They even took my phone and all the money that I had,” Rumbi explained everything that she remembered and Theresa’s anger was kindled against these culprits. She called her friends and told them, they all hurried her to the hospital to get rid of unwanted guests in her body before it’s too late. Her parents were informed and all papers were processed. Theresa worked on the issue with all her passion and that very night; all the criminals were detained.

Rumbi’s father gave Theresa a trip to Victoria Falls as a token of appreciation and she was yet to go, just waiting for a leave and one more thing, she didn’t want to go alone. Entertainment scared all the stress out of her. She would find something to do whenever the thoughts of being alone came. Things were not supposed to be like that forever, she obviously needed a permanent solution. At least now she had someone on her side, James. The rest of the day went on well and Theresa knocked off at exactly 5:00pm to do some preparation.

_End of Chapter 2_