ESTHER

Chapter 17 of the book-“NON-CONTRADICTORY CONTRADICTIONS”

XVII Esther

5  On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. 2 When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre.

3 Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.”

4 “If it pleases the king,” replied Esther, “let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him.”

5 “Bring Haman at once,” the king said, “so that we may do what Esther asks.”

So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. 6 As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

7 Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: 8 If the king regards me with favour and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.”

Esther: Chapter 5:1-8 (The Holy Bible, New International Version)

In this chapter we continue the story from chapter 11-1 Kings-where we left Tambudzai in a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa where she was expecting to give birth to a baby boy. We also know that after her “strange dream” she had resolved to call the baby, Nelson in honour of Nelson Mandela.

1

To everybody’s relief, despite all the problems that Tambudzai had experienced during her pregnancy, the actual birth of the baby went smoothly without any complications whatsoever. Her husband, Jabulani was present in the delivery room during the process.

A little later, Jabulani watched mother and child as the baby was being fed from the breast. It was a pleasant sight.

“He is a big boy,” Jabulani said proudly. “He is going to run this country one day.”

Tambudzai was amazed that Jabulani should say this. She told him about her strange dream in which she had dreamt “re-living” Nelson Mandela’s triumphant release from prison. Jabulani agreed to name the baby, Nelson as he was also a great admirer of Mandela, as were, of course, a lot of people in the world.

2

Tambudzai’s mother, Chipo came to the hospital later on that day. She was accompanied by her husband, Richard Rawlings.

When Chipo held her grandson in her arms she was filled with great emotion. She felt her eyes water as she thought back to the time she had given birth to her own children. First, had been the difficult birth of Tambudzai’s brother, Nhamo. Chipo had only been twelve years old at the time that she had given birth to her first child. She remembered the pain she had experienced and how close to death she had come because she had been too young to be a mother. Now she was a grandmother at the age of forty but filled with tears of joy.

Tambudzai watched her mother closely but was not concerned because she knew that the tears that dropped from her mother’s eyes were tears of joy. She, of course, knew how her mother and both her brother and herself had struggled in the early days of her childhood. But Tambudzai also remembered that her mother had managed to give the best care she could to her two children under very difficult circumstances. She hoped that she was going to be as good a mother to Nelson as her mother had been to her.

3

Chipo and Richard managed to stay with Tambudzai and Jabulani in Johannesburg for a period of three weeks before they had to go back to London. It had been one of the happiest periods in Chipo’s now joy-filled life. Chipo was determined to come back and visit the young family as soon as she could because she knew the importance of being close to one’s loved ones.

On the day that the Rawlings were to leave for London, it started to rain quite heavily early in the morning. Jabulani called the South African Airways office to make sure that the London flight for that evening had not been cancelled. Jabulani could have been forgiven for being concerned because thunderstorms had built up just before they were about to leave for the airport. The airline, however, assured him that the London flight was expected to take-off on time despite the bad weather.

Tambudzai decided to join her husband, Jabulani on the ride to the airport as she wanted to continue seeing her mother up to the very last moment. They left the baby home with the maid and drove through the rain towards the airport.

The rain continued to pour down quite heavily and it was now affecting visibility. Tambudzai prayed silently, asking that they be delivered to the airport and back home to Sandton safely. Just as she was thinking and praying for their safety, she suddenly found herself screaming as their car was hit by a truck coming from an opposite direction. The car was hit directly on the driver’s side and rolled over twice before coming to a rest with its wheels up in the air.

Tambudzai felt blood all over her face as she struggled to get out the car. She had been sitting at the back with her mother as Richard sat in front with Jabulani who was driving. Tambudzai could see that her mother was also trying to struggle out of the car and so was her step-father, Richard. The only person who seemed not to be moving was Jabulani.

Finally, Tambudzai managed to crawl out of the wreckage. She turned back to see if the others were managing to free themselves. This is when she saw that Jabulani’s neck was turned at an abnormal angle, suggesting that it could have been broken. She also noticed that Jabulani’s eyes were wide open but they seemed to be staring unseeing into empty space. She knew straight away that she had lost a husband and the father of her young baby.

She rolled towards the car and let out a loud scream as the true realisation of what had just befallen them came to her in full force. Jabulani was dead!

The next chapter-Job- will be published not later than Sunday, 1 May, 2011

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