The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles)

by Suzanne Popp

  Festal too, aged well. He had never developed a big belly and his legs were strong and muscled, while his chest was thin but muscular with the work of walking, herding, and carrying new calves, milk, water, and wood. They ate the foods they grew and seldom had sweets. Their tea was the only indulgence, except for an occasional biscuit when they went to church suppers or weddings—until Hen taught Royal to bake. Now, life was sweet.

  CHAPTER 42

  SAMUEL AND REUBEN MARRIED

  Two years later, Samuel and Reuben had their weddings. Each of them had met wives at the seminary they attended. They were neighboring pastors in Copperfine, one at the traditional church, and one at the Blessings Healing Center, a tent church that helped refugees and displaced persons from the wars going on in the north. The brothers had always worked together on their dreams, and their father did not worry about their future, as it was clear they were getting guidance directly from the God he had always feared. He waited for a confirmation that they would bear him grandchildren, but his focus was his daughter Rose, the child he felt was his blessing for turning his life around.

  Rose would be the flower girl at their joint wedding, and she could hardly contain her excitement. She had informed her father of what she would require for the ceremony, and he had listened to her make the list and check off each item as he provided it for her. Gift was going to sing at the wedding and had been practicing her songs each morning when she thought no one was listening.

  CHAPTER 43

  BABY ROSE

  From the moment Festal saw his daughter Rose, he was bonded to her by a tenderness and care he had not known before. She was chubby and mellow, and both of them said how much she reminded them of their Lily. What made this child different to her father was a mystery to Myrna. He seemed to celebrate her arrival, and would even carry her around when she was a newborn, resting on his now thin chest. Myrna would come into the house after her classes and see him on his mat with the child sleeping on him. All of the children adored Rose as well, especially Royal. He was twenty, in love, and a graduate of the culinary school. When he visited home, he couldn’t wait to pick Rose up, often carrying her on his back, or holding her while Myrna and his mother prepared food or did chores. Henrietta also loved her, and would make special treats for the child, including roses of sugar.

  When Rose was four, she was able to read. Festal was so proud, he would bring her a book from the store in Copperfine and give it to her. She would tell the story and put her father to sleep with the lilting words. Myrna and Gift would laugh to see the effect this child had on the man. Rose even went to the near fields with her father carrying a slim stick and driving the cattle. If she was made to stay at home, she would sit on the wall of the compound, under the plumeria tree, writing her letters in charcoal on the red clay of the wall, waiting for Festal to come home. She named all the cows and would tell Festal stories about them, if he would not tell her a story first. Each story he told her, she remembered and could repeat. Rose learned the fables of her country and those of Aesop as well. She could see the connection between the behavior of the animals and that of people, and liked to cite the moral at the end.

  As she approached five, Festal began to have panic attacks concerning Rose’s health. He had Myrna keep the curtains drawn across the entrance way. Every dish had to be sanitized in the boiling water, and no one was welcome to come into the house during the fly season before the rains came. Myrna and Gift guessed it was his memory of Lily that made him so cautious. When Dodge said he wanted to come and pay a visit, Festal was adamant that the man stay away. Gift liked Dodge and did not understand this restriction, but she accepted it. She had come to see that Festal had his reasons.

  The Phiri family was growing by leaps and bounds. By the time Rose was finishing middle school, her brothers had each produced a child. She was Aunt Rose. She was a good student and her early interest was to run an academy for girls, as she saw many improvements that could be made in her own school. Her father cautioned her to be respectful, but Rose did not like traditional rote methods and automatic approval of everything the headmaster said, whether it was right or wrong. She was learning how to check out facts in her encyclopedia from the library, and let her father know each time her teacher was in error.

  Festal was now almost 85 and he listened to all his child’s beefs about the teaching methods and the lack of correct information. He had been afraid that his child would be taken, and she was not. He was afraid his wives would abandon him, and they did not. He was afraid his sons would be sterile, as they were twins, but both had produced grandchildren for him. His life was blessed, and he was humble in his thankfulness and gratitude. He had feared getting old, but the young men helped him with the more difficult tasks, and the calves he had raised listened to his commands like his dogs. In short, his life was sweet, satisfying, and longer than he had ever imagined. He chose to be happy, just as Myrna had done when she came to live with him in Copperfine. Theirs was a house of love.

  Not all Festal’s children wanted to continue their schooling, but they were all content to live in Copperfine and remain close to their parents. Iris liked making pottery. Daisy was set on running an orphan school, as the number of children needing assistance had increased with the influx of refugees and displaced persons. Pansy enjoyed drawing and making models of the animals which she would use to dramatize her stories to the young students. She would start an animal out of clay, then get her father to help her refine it. She did not carve them from wood, but molded them in her hands.

  Royal enjoyed storytelling, but he also had the desire to become a baker. He struggled to do things sequentially, to know which thing came first and how to do them in order. Only cooking seemed to hold his interest so that he could focus on following directions through from beginning to end. He knew from his Uncle Joseph that people would pay for baked goods, and his mother Gift was not a cook. This way, he would be able to care for her if they were ever on their own without the family to support them. When Festal did not know if this was a worthwhile occupation, Joseph brought him some of the meat pies and the small breads that were around and so popular and Festal saw this could be a good business. Myrna had applied for a scholarship for the boy, and he enrolled at the vocational school in Blancville.

  Royal was 16 when he started at the culinary school and there he came across a master baker named Henrietta. They formed a friendship and she began to teach Royal how to make pies and other desserts in addition to the Welsh meat pies and bread that were now a staple in the bigger towns. Royal was fascinated by this little woman who had traveled all over southern Africa, and once dated his cousin Benjamin. He wanted to know her story. It intrigued him how they were already connected. She was a girl who had supported her mother, and managed to be independent, but who longed for what he had, a family that was there for each other.

  While he learned about kneading the dough, and techniques of heating the oven, he also connected with her as a person. They were different in age and background, she was petite and limber while Royal was a young man with withered legs, and had never been anywhere, but he had big dreams of what he would be doing in the future. He was funny and he adored women. He loved to read, and in his reading, he had tried different ideas, but always returned to his respect and devotion to home.

  Hen had traveled and enjoyed the clubs and restaurants during her time with Benjamin, but her desire had been to settle down and make a life for herself and care for her mother. Her mother had passed away, and her first love and fiancé had left her. He was now dying of AIDS, she had heard, and she sometimes wondered if she might have it as well. She would have to be tested sometime, but for now, she was loving her work and teaching this young man. In Royal, she recognized a loving spirit that was deeper and more pure than she knew from her twenty six years of making a way for herself.

  Hen enjoyed her position at the vocational school where she was respected by the staff and her colleagues. She was strangely attracted to
this student, and wondered if he thought her incredibly old and out of his range. Day old bread, that’s what she was. And he was orange Danish, waiting to cool.

  When Royal came home during the Christmas break, he brought a box of baked goods for his family. He had grown a couple of inches taller, was clean shaven and dressed in a white jacket that the school had awarded those passing the bakers’ program in the culinary school. Uncle Dodge had brought him out to Copperfine to visit. Royal was glad to see his uncle and discuss what opportunities Dodge saw for employment. Dodge had many contacts, but his real interest was in the four lovely daughters of Myrna. Any one of them could be promoted for marriage on the basis of their mother’s reputation, even if they had not been physically beautiful.

  Iris had the height and the willowy body with the taut breasts that reminded Dodge of protea blossoms. Pansy was curvaceous, chatty, and liked people. She would suit anyone, especially a politician. Daisy was petite and her waist was tiny, with an hourglass figure and a spirited personality that bubbled over when she liked something. She had the singing voice of her Aunt Violet, and a gift for language. She was very positive and friendly to this Great Uncle Dodge she did not even remember. And Rose. The girl was stunning. She looked like her mother, had the mane of glossy ringlets, the long neck, and the elegance of a girl who has never had to compromise, and is beloved. If he was younger…

  Dodge recalled how Myrna had been revealed to him in her bath. If only an artist could capture that sheer sensuality, innocence and beauty. He thought of Bwalya and wondered if he ever needed a model for his studio. Festal was watching his daughter and caught a glimpse of Dodge gazing at her. “Rose, leave the room.” The girl looked at him in surprise at the tone she had never heard before. She did as he said, but he could see her eyes brim with tears. The old fury and fear was back again and rose in his throat. This time it had a name.

  “Uncle Dodge, I am asking you to leave. You are disturbing the peace of my house. We do not have anything that can be of value to you, and I will help my son find a position. Thank you for your concern and take some of the beignets with you. You will find them sweet.”

  Uncle Dodge glanced at the two women, standing together near the doorway, expecting a reprieve. Neither of them moved an eyelash. He turned and walked out of the house, feeling like an unwanted cur. They owed everything to him. Everything.

  For Festal’s sons, this was a time to determine what they needed to do to become men. For the twins, they served the community by feeding the poor, and ministering to the refugees. In time, they saw this as their life’s work, and went to the seminary to be trained as counselors and as ministers. They had never really taken to the life of raising cattle, but they respected their father and told him they were also herdsman and warriors, but it was men that they would care for and protect.

  In the case of Royal, he was protective of his mother, of Myrna, and of Hen. He loved Festal, and he asked his permission and his advice before choosing his profession. His physical difficulties made too strenuous a life impossible for him, but he accepted this, and never saw himself as less a man for it. He wanted to honor his mother and have her life be known, although he knew that it was too new and too common a story in their area to be revered. He would keep his notes, and one day, she would be seen as one of the heroes of the emerging country. He would make it so. When he met Hen, there was an immediate identification with her background and her struggle. All of it had contributed to the love Royal felt for her, and he let her know that she was somebody to him, and would always be. She wished her mother Amnesty could have lived to meet this Prince of Love, as Myrna called him. She would have loved him too.

  CHAPTER 44

  THE STILL

  Whenny was seventy when she immigrated into the Copperfine area from the West. She bought her first sack of sugar with the money she had made selling the beans she had been given by the Copperfine women’s cooperative. She had shown up one day when Gift was telling the women her story, and she could relate to the isolation and enslavement the girl had endured. Her life was a collage of broken promises and crushed dreams. She didn’t dwell on these, as she now had three grandchildren to support. She needed to make money fast. She did not own a building or a way to protect any supplies, but she could use a portion of her younger brother’s house and start a still.

  Within weeks, she was able to feed her grandchildren and her younger brother. He was lying in the front room on a mat of foam rubber, trying to stay clean and clear his head of the constant pain and the infection that made his nostrils and his bones ache. Lamont had been a trucker on the coast route for the past ten years. He had a wife, but she had long since returned to her village with their children, once Lamont was unable to support them. Whenny’s husband, who was several years older than she was, had died a year ago from pneumonia and they had no money for a proper funeral, so the family did not claim his body at the hospital. This lack of decorum was becoming the norm as the fabric of society broke down from the pandemic of HIV.

  Whenny was happy for the first time in months. As the customers came into the bar and she poured the brew into their containers, she counted up the money she had made and sent one of the girls to the butcher’s to get half a kilo of ground beef and six eggs. When the girl returned, Whenny cooked up the meat and took it to her brother. He raised himself up on one elbow and she could see that his eyes were coated and draining. He had bumps on his almost hairless scalp. He smiled at her, seeing the meal she had prepared for him, but he was too weak to eat it. Instead, he had her bring him a pitcher of the brew she had made. He drank it while he told her he loved her, and was glad she was now in business. Whenny continued to serve customers into the evening. The barrel was empty, so she dragged it into the house to protect it. When she came into her room, the grandchildren were asleep on the floor, their clothing and the sleeping cloths around them. They had eaten half the meat and saved the rest for their grandmother, covering it with a banana leaf and putting it under her mat. She had almost stepped in it while going to sleep beside them. Whenny wrapped the money in her headscarf and put it under her head to sleep on, should anyone break in during the night.

  In the morning, Lamont did not stir. He was alive, but he had shallow breaths. Whenny took his jar of waste to empty. The children swept the courtyard and gathered up the calabash bowls the customers had used for their drinks. They carried them to the wash basin, filled it with cold water and soap and scrubbed out the bowls. The sorghum mash barrel was empty and sitting in the front parlor, but a second one was behind the curtain in the sleeping room fermenting away. There would be a good business again tonight. Whenny was afraid that when her brother passed, the relatives would take this dwelling from her, as she had no papers saying it was her business place, or any lease showing she was renting it. She also worried that the customers would molest the children, once there was no man present to protect them. For today, it was enough that they had food to eat and supplies to make their liquor. She had no plan for what would happen when Lamont passed.

  As the evening went on, the crowd continued to come and go. The second barrel was almost empty, one string of colored lights had gone out, but the flashing mirrored ball continued to draw in customers. She would raise the price of the remaining liquor, since it was apparent there was no shortage of customers. When the last group left, Whenny checked on her brother. He was gone, his hands pressed in front of his face and his nose black with dried blood. She was saddened, but more so because this business and her security were gone. When Lamont was living, he was no trouble to anyone and the bar could stay open when she needed the income. No one visited him, maybe she could just move the body to a different room, say the small storeroom, and continue to operate without his relatives taking everything.

  She sat in the darkness with her children sleeping and made plans. At last she hit on an idea. What if she was to just care for someone else’s brother who was in the same condition? No one would check, they would continue t
o fear the disease. She could work out a swap, say with someone who did not want to continue to care for a young relative who had HIV and was taking up space? She would have to be very careful, but she saw how it could be done. She would make the switch on a day when most people were at work, or occupied in their homes. She just needed to locate that certain family or relative who needed a break from their imprisonment. They would have to do the transport; she could use the barrel that was now empty. Whenny went to sleep and slept better than she had for months. In the morning, she locked up the bar, put the children in the bedroom, and locked them in while she went to locate her next tenant.

  Reuben, now a pastor at the Tabernacle of Blessing tent church, looked up from the communion table where he was setting up the bread and wine. He saw the profile of a slim woman in the doorway, pushing a wheelbarrow. Something registered with him that he needed to talk to her, and he left what he was doing and walked over. Whenny was shy to talk to the pastor who greeted her in her own language, smiling at her as though she was important to him.

  “I am looking for a patient to care for, a young man who has HIV. I need a tenant in my house.”

  “We have many who would be grateful for a place to stay. But many cannot pay for board or a room.”

  “I can care for him without wages, but he must come quickly,” Whinney said.

  “I will bring someone to you tonight. What is your address?”

  “My house is the Last Laugh Bar at the end of River No More Street. I am Whenny.”

  “Whenny, I will come and see you after the service. Should I call you first?”

  “No. I have no phone and the children will be sleeping. Just bring the person and I will take care of them. It needs to be a man not older than thirty.”