Cion by Zakes Mda Page A

the sincerity in my voice when I begged her to withdraw the case and believed me when I said the young man had no evil intentions. Now that she has heard Obed’s denial she will not withdraw the case and doesn’t see the point of the mediation. The man suggests that perhaps Beth and I should have a private talk to decide whether the mediation should be salvaged or not. He gives us thirty minutes. The woman is not pleased with these repeated attempts to save Obed’s ass, as she delicately puts it. She is obviously disgusted with him and would like to see him rot in the county jail where he rightly belongs. I must admit that I share her disgust, though I think I must not give up on him just yet. Otherwise what am I going to tell Ruth?
    I suggest to Beth that we go to a coffee house downstairs and see if we can sort this matter out, without Obed. I ask him to wait in the hallway and not dare go anywhere until we come back.
    Over steaming mocha I once more plead with her to withdraw the case and continue with the mediation. She admits that she is more inclined to withdraw the charges because she hates the adverse publicity that will surely follow court appearances. However she will definitely brave the publicity if Obed refuses to show remorse. Already she is taking a lot of flak from some of her sisters for even considering withdrawing the charges. If the breast fondler gets off free, they argue, that will help perpetuate sexual assaults on women, which have increased in the city lately.
    I feel very sorry for Beth Eddy. She looks fragile and all the confidence I’d seen earlier has disappeared. She confesses that she feels partly responsible for what happened. She went down to the basement to provoke the ghost. I can see her anguish and this makes me mad at Obed. I am no longer interested in persuading her to withdraw the case, and I tell her so. She must not be scared of publicity, I now argue, because she is the victim here. The press will be sympathetic to her and will expose Obed for the scoundrel he is. Yes, Ruth will find out about it and will be unhappy with me for not letting her know in the first place. But really Obed does need to learn a lesson. I am sick of his attitude: his lack of appreciation for the trouble I took to set this up and for Beth’s readiness to forgive.
    It is Beth’s turn to talk me out of the case. There was a rape in Athens a few weeks ago, she tells me. It was in the papers every day and the case dragged on and on, with lawyers questioning the reputation of the victim. She doesn’t want to go through that. She fears that her reputation will be tainted by the revelation that the girls enjoy playing naughty games with the real Nicodemus. Lawyers always manage to dig up such scandals. She can do without the publicity. After all, she was not actually raped. The scoundrel merely touched her breasts in the manner that Nicodemus had touched them before…to her pleasure. Yes, the mediation should continue.
    “Okay, but if that boy continues with his silly stunts I’ll insist that you do not withdraw the charges,” I tell Beth. And I mean it. “I think it’s high time our breast fondler learned a lesson.”
    After this the mediation continues without further incident. I notice that the mediators listen very attentively. After each side has given its story they summarize the key points, all the while complimenting both parties for trying to work out their differences. Obed’s story is a very simple one. Yes, indeed, he went to the sorority in the spirit of the day. He had heard of the ghost of Nicodemus, who had died at the sorority house more than a hundred and fifty years ago, when it was one of the stations of the Underground Railroad. He decided to appropriate Nicodemus’s identity because there were rumours circulating that he haunted the sorority house and the girls enjoyed his company. He thought he would share in the ghost’s good fortune because in any event Nicodemus was his