Truth shall set you free
They had called their wives down stairs to the study. Zinhle and Nothemba can tell that something serious is going down. They sit down each next to her husband. Themba clears his throat, “Uhmm…thanks guys for meeting us this late at night” he says. Nothemba and Zinhle look at each other with worry, “What’s going on?” asks Zinhle looking at her husband. Themba looks at Qhawe as if to say it’s your queue bro.Qhawe looks at his wife and Zinhle and then clears his throat, “we felt that it’s time you know the truth now. I mean the whole truth” he says softly. This just seems to make the ladies anxious. “Baby you are scaring us, what’s going on?” Nothemba says as she holds Qhawe by the hand but Qhawe pulls away. “most of the things you see and read on the news did happen. The operations were classified and covert.” he says. Nothemba with a worried face asks, “What does that mean exactly?”
Qhawe first looks at Themba, Zinhle and then takes a huge sigh and then turns to his wife, “it means some of them were off the books. On the need to know basis.”
Zinhle looks at Themba, seeing that he’s struggling to make eye contact she asks, “Okay so what were the operations about exactly?” she asks but Qhawe is rescued by Themba, “They still were peace keeping missions but some villages had more hostiles and war lords than others. So we as special ops we were deployed in those areas with a mission to terminate the threats.”
Annoyed by half answers Nothemba snaps, “Oh for Christ's sake, just tell us.
What did you do to these war lords and dictators?” she raises her voice.
Qhawe looks at her in amazement. “we were given strict orders to kill them.” Themba responds. “and most of these war lords lived with their wives and children.” Qhawe adds with a low voice and obviously embarrassed. “we were not meant to leave any witnesses.”
Now it dawns on Zinhle and a shocked Nothemba. They are beginning to get the picture but they want to hear it from them. “so you killed their wives and children too?” Nothemba asks with a trembling voice. Her eyes are teary. “I’m asking a question,” she says as she looks at Qhawe. “yes babe, we left no witnesses.” he says.
Nothemba stands up and goes by the window with her hand covering the mouth and the other in her head. She’s trembling and in shock. She’s crying. “how many of these people did you kill?” asks Zinhle who is just as shocked. But she's a spy so this isn’t really new to her. “I don’t know honey,” responds Themba, “we killed many.”
Zinhle is trying to be strong but clearly in her mind she’s trying to do the math. And she is thinking, if they killed many war lords then it means they killed a lot of women and children who lived with these men.
There’s silence in the room for a little while. Qhawe can’t go over to his wife who's starring through the window to comfort. That’s doesn’t seem like a good idea at the moment. Themba continues, “guys look, we had our orders…okay? Soldiers don’t ask questions.” But he doesn't finish when Nothemba shouts at him, “but human beings do ask questions Themba…”
Zinhle goes over to her and consoles her. The room is full of tension and regrets. It must be feeling good though for Themba and Qhawe to finally get this out their chests, it was a heavy burden to live with.
Without warning Nothemba storms out the room and goes to her bedroom and locks the door. Qhawe goes out and sits by the pool. Clearly he’s not sleeping in his bed tonight but its 01:30 AM anyway. He takes a bottle of whisky and starts drinking, leaving Themba and his wife in the study.
“so is this the reason you are never ready to start a family?” Zinhle asks his ashamed husband. Themba doesn’t answer but his silence somehow tells Zinhle that yes. “we regret the things we did there,” he says with a low voice.
Zinhle comes over to him and holds him in comfort. Though Zinhle is just as shocked by her husband's revelations she somehow understood where he was coming from. She is a spy who has had to live with that secret for a long time.
“it’s going to be okay” she assures him. They talk for a while. Then Zinhle decides to go and check on Nothemba who is taking this a little harder than everyone else. In her defense, of the four she is the only one who was not exposed to any levels of violence. Even though she is an investigative journalist who wanted to go to war torn countries for stories, it never really came to that. Nothemba lets Zinhle in, Themba goes by the pool and finds Qhawe enjoying his whiskey.
“Well, I think that went well huh?” he laughs. This man has clearly had more than enough. Themba joins him in drinking. “well I can tell you one thing, we sleep in the couch tonight.” They toss and down their drinks.
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