INSHAZA, The Woman I Loved to Hate

When she walked, everything but the wind that worshipped her went silent. It was as if the gods paused to show off the light that came through Inshaza's eyes, she smiled and a set of sparkling white pearls against a dark gum flashed. Inshaza wore a soothing cocoa body, covering the length of a queen's neck studded with her crown of black hair bunched up in a bun to tease mere mortals. Inshaza was born in Bruanda next to Fenecasi's village in Uanda. Bruandese and Uandese lived across a border that didn't exist in their history until colonial powers rolled the dice. Inshaza and Fenecasi could have been brother and sister in another world. She would have been royalty because that was the allure Inshaza bestowed with her towering height, steady eyes with natural mascara length lashes, contoured body, delicate feet, and soft slender unscathed fingers. Fenecasi was shorter, no one was ever sure about his true smarts, he carried a nervous aura about him, trying very hard to beat the imposterhood that had become his life.Fenecasi did well in maths, but his family was looked down upon because of the extreme poverty and the 'unsecret' witchcraft they practiced in a village neighborhood of poor saints. He played with the children of the saints, became a master at stuffing down ego and the intrusion of his generation's shortcomings. Fenecasi became part of the fold, and almost by osmosis found himself graduating with an accounting degree and a successful career. Fenecasi and one of the saint's children built an empire off tax evasion and correction in a place where many powerful people had profitable secrets to hide. Life in Fenecasis's mind was epic- the stench of his history gone as he had firmly planted himself as a brother of the saints with few people remembering his real roots.

Then, Inshaza happened.

Love at first sight or a familiar attraction to the better human beings he had so masterfully learned to mimic and attach. It wasn't love for her, there was nothing she loathed more than a short Uandan from Fenecasi's tribe, but it was wartime in her land and this would be a ticket out. Fenecasi thought he wooed her with his money to own not to love. Inshaza would never bow or break inside, and on her outside, she chose to weave the pain of Fenecasi's blows at night into her immortal elegancy. They made a home together, she always walked in first, let him father the majority of their children. Inshaza's 'no matter the matter' posture made the earth tremble. Fenecasi however, would suffer for not making an honorable woman out of her- Inshaza had dreamed of a wedding, and Fenecasi who called her a prostitute on several occasions wouldn't give her one- she would suffer for every bit of the pain of Fenecasi's childhood and impostorhood or so he thought. It didn't help that Fenecasi and his entire short tribe nursed a historical inferior complex against the superior beauty of Inshaza's people. She would endure decades of his deranged bed and he would pay bitterly with wallet.

Inshaza was quick to find herself a position with a research firm that attracted foreign business. On one of their field trips with UN delegates, 300 dollars went missing. The Uandan trip director assumed Inshaza's research assistant had taken the money, when they reached the police station the young boy pleaded for a search because he knew about Inshaza's longhand. The trip director salvaged the trip and blamed the assistant to assuage the fears of the delegates. But the thorough and terrorizing investigation had proved that Inshaza took it, the Uandan trip director called Inshaza's husband as a tribes mate favor, they agreed to pay up and cover-up.

The next 30 years would be highlighted with great wealth building, 6 money squandering children possessed with their fathers' addictions except the two who were not his but bore his name. Inshaza and Fenecasi's union gave birth to an intricate and far-reaching pain laden price that their children would pay.

At 65 years old, one-night Fenecasi drank himself into a stupor and locked himself in the guards quarters for 24 hours, and wept. The family's humongous and now over mortgaged house had become a sore sight, three of their grown children had divorced after lavish weddings and returned with the host of grandchildren in addition to his inlaws. When Fenecasi's mother-in-law snack the expensive whisky and this stung --- she saw demons and angels fighting in the living room. The last time the big uncle of the clan spoke to the couple about the disintegration around them Inshaza was still exuberant with the elegance of her first days, Fenecasi, a shell of the shadow boxing life before him lamented. Inshaza's response, "He refused to make an honorable woman of me- so [pourquoi ]why is he crying."

For Inshaza and Fenecasi, we see you. When the time comes we will write your book-" the shadow boxers love tale".