The Matobo Price

The Matobo Price

The midnight air bit sharply against Mthokozisi’s tailored Italian suit as his 4×4 crawled past the granite kopjes of Matobo, just south of Bulawayo. In forty-eight hours, party delegates would cast their ballots for the parliamentary seat. His rival was surging. Desperation, cold and toxic, had driven the deacon, philanthropist, and rising political star into the shadows.

A kerosene lantern flickered inside a cave concealed behind thorn bushes. Gogo MaKhumalo sat on an ox-hide mat, white cowrie beads plaited into her silver hair. Her blind, milky eyes fixed directly on him as he ducked inside.

“You want the seat of power, Honourable Moyo,” she rasped, her voice cutting through the thick smoke of burning mpepho herbs.

“I have money,” Mthokozisi whispered, placing a bulging brown envelope of US dollars on the ground. “Ten thousand. I just need the ancestors to turn the votes.”

MaKhumalo chuckled, a dry sound like rattling bones. She swept the envelope aside with a bare foot and cast four carved ivory divining tablets across the dust. They landed crossed, tip to base.

“The spirits do not eat paper, Mthokozisi,” she whispered. “Blood cries from your past. Your late brother’s wife… the fire at his Luveve home ten years ago that gave you his inheritance and business capital. You locked that door from the outside.”

Mthokozisi’s blood froze. His knees hit the rocky ground. “Nobody knows that. Nobody.”

“The seat is yours,” MaKhumalo said, leaning close, her breath smelling of bitter bark. “The ritual requires only one offering. Tomorrow at midday, at your final rally at White City Stadium, you will take the microphone and confess it all before the crowd.”

“Are you mad? That is prison! That is ruin!” he gasped.

“The spirits grant true victory through total cleansing,” the old woman smiled, extinguishing the lantern with her bare hand. “Refuse, and your brother’s ghost takes your breath before dawn.”

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