Scarlett Bride
By
Brenda Barrett
Published by Jamaica Treasures at Smashwords:
Copyright 2016 by Brenda Barrett
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Prologue
She was in the missionary chapel, dressed in white and staring squarely in the face of Bekele. He was tall, dark and ugly. A monstrous man with rotting teeth. Tufts of hair gathered in patches along his head in sparse congregations of matted grayness.
His white bush jacket was ill-fitting and he had an annoying tick at the side of his left eye. He smiled at her and wet his flabby lips, leaving behind a fine film of white spittle that spooled at the side of his mouth.
“Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, Ashaki Azanga?” the mission pastor, Pastor Obagi asked, blatant concern swimming in his dark eyes.
She had always liked Pastor Obagi; he was like an uncle to her. She understood the concern.
Ashaki nodded jerkily as Bekele squeezed her hands, gripping them tightly in his wet grasp, willing her to answer verbally.
“You need to speak up,” Pastor Obagi whispered. "Say, I do."
Ashaki spun around in panic. The wide chapel was filled with people from the village.
Bekele's three wives were sitting in the first row and their many children surrounded them. Her friend Emanuela, Bekele's third wife, looked as if she was crying.
"I don't know." Her lips were trembling. "I have diamonds; I can escape! I don't need to do this. My father told me on his deathbed where to find the diamonds that he carried back from Kinshasa!"
"The correct response is I do." Bekele chuckled, squashing her fingers between his. "I found your precious diamonds yesterday and they are now mine, like you are mine."
Ashaki jerked in shock. "No, that can't be--my father gave them to me. They are my only way of escape!"
"Why would you want to escape me, sweet, sweet Ashaki? You are the only wife I will have that has any teeth left."
He leaned toward her and grinned. "The most beautiful one--let's see how long that will last, eh? After I breed you like the others. What do you say, Ashaki, a child every year?"
The wart on his nose seemed to increase in size to meet the huge pockmark under his eye as his face moved closer to hers.
"Let me go!" Her voice was weak. "Let me go. I can't marry you. You're a monster!"
Pastor Obagi stood and watched her struggling, his round face scrunched in sympathy, but then he continued as if nothing untoward was happening.
"Do you take this man, Bekele Odoah, to have and to hold till death do you part?”
Ashaki shivered. "No. God, please no!"
This wasn't happening—to have and to hold. Those were two powerful words. ‘To have’ was a double entendre of sexual proportions. ‘To hold’ didn’t just mean to grasp but it meant to stay with this person for the rest of her life.
In a few minutes she would be this man's wife. She would be expected to sleep with him, to bear his children, and be tied to him for a very long time… what was she getting into?
“No,” she croaked through chapped lips. A convulsive shaking had started somewhere in the pit of her stomach.
"No! No! Never! I'd rather die first!"
****
"Ashaki!" A firm voice interrupted the ceremony. "Ashaki!"
"Huh?" Ashaki blinked twice and focused on the face in front of her. It wasn't Bekele's but David Wheeler's.
She had fallen asleep in the kitchenette of the clinic. The hand that she had dreamt was being squeezed by Bekele was actually being squashed against the blue mug she had placed in the corner earlier after drinking chamomile ginger tea.
She rubbed her hand absently and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.
No wonder she had dozed off. She had been up most of the night helping the nurses with their unusually high caseload of patients that descended on the clinic. The nurses had welcomed the help and she was more than happy to escape her hut in the village and the thoughts of her upcoming marriage to Bekele.
David snapped his fingers before her face. "Hey!"
"Sorry, Dr. David," Ashaki sighed. "It was a tough night."
"Just David, please. Remember we have gone past the formalities, or at least I thought we had." David sat across from her. "That was some nightmare you were having. I heard you screaming ‘No, No, Never.’"
"I have to stop talking in my sleep." Her neck was stiff. She twisted it right and then left and right again. "I was dreaming that I was marrying Bekele."
"Again?" David frowned. "That's the third time now I have caught you having one of these episodes."
Ashaki flushed and lowered her eyes. The first time she had been so distraught she had poured out her heart and told David that she was dreading the marriage to Bekele. They had never really talked like that before. Though she knew that David watched her with more than a friendly regard, he had more or less kept his distance, sticking to the formalities and lending her his textbooks if she asked him.
But now, he was right. She had told him a lot more than she had ever told anyone about herself, even Dr. Oliver, and she considered him her closest friend in the compound. Dr. Oliver was easy to talk to but she had not been brave enough to breach this topic of her rising panic at the thought of marrying Bekele.
She had bottled up the fear to the point where it was spilling over into her dreams. Her subconscious was nervous. Her very being was nervous. She had been praying to God for deliverance but the answer was not forthcoming. Bekele, who had been in a boating accident some weeks ago, was getting better.
"Healing nicely," one of the nurses had reported to her with a pleased smile on her face.
Ashaki wished he would take a whole decade to heal.
"I can help you with this." David leaned toward her and lowered his voice.
"How?" Ashaki whispered back, looking at him skeptically. And why would he even want to?
"I could marry you myself," David murmured. "It would be my pleasure."
Ashaki laughed and then slapped the table hard.
"I am serious." David wasn't joining in her mirth; in fact, he wasn't even cracking a smile. "Listen, I have given this much thought and you marrying someone else is the only way out."
"But you are already married, Doctor...er, David," Ashaki pointed out slowly as if David was retarded.
She had overheard two of the female nurses who were both from Dr. Wheeler's country gossiping about the handsome doctors and who was available or not.
David's name had come up, and one nurse had said, "David is married, very married. I went to school with his wife, Miranda, and let me tell you, he is not getting the divorce that easily. Miranda does not believe in divorce. Her parents hate each other and are still married."
And the other nurse had sighed dramatically. "Oh well, there is always Dr. Oliver Scarlett. Now, that is a good, solid alternative."
The other nurse had giggled, "You think? I made the moves on him a long time ago and was soundly rebuffed."
"Me too," the other nurse muttered, "but I was very subtle. I think he is not into our gende
r."
"Maybe," the other nurse said, "but how can you even be sure? He treats everyone the same."
"Ashaki!" David said urgently, breaking into her thoughts once more. "Focus here; we need a plan to get you out of this mess."
"Yes, sorry." Ashaki cleared her throat and looked at him.
He was drumming his fingers on the table as if he had now zoned out.
She zoned out too going back to the conversation she had overheard many months ago and her feelings when she had heard it.
To be honest, she had a secret crush on Dr. Oliver that just would not die. It continued to fester months after she had heard the conversation, and she considered herself quite restrained for not asking him whether he liked women or not. She had asked him all sorts of questions and he had answered easily. Maybe he would answer that one, but it never came up.
She sighed and looked down at her hands. She had bigger problems to worry about than a silly crush on a missionary doctor who would never return her feelings.
David bounced back from his contemplation and gathered her hands in his. "I am in the process of a divorce that will not be final until September. Five months from now."
She nodded. "It's okay."
David looked at her piercingly. "Where I am from, having more than one wife at the same time is frowned upon."
Ashaki nodded. "I know, David."
"Oh yes, I forget sometimes—you are very smart."
Ashaki chose not to be insulted by this statement.
David cleared his throat. "I have a plan for you though. My plan is stupendously simple."
"It is?" Ashaki perked up. His excitement was infectious and he was squeezing her hands with vigor.
"In order to get you out of here, you have to marry Oliver," David said in a rush.
"As in Doctor Oliver?" Ashaki widened her eyes. "But...but he is gay."
"He is not." David frowned. "But I really don't know, maybe he could be. All I know is he is a good guy. One of the best. He would be only one willing and able to help you out now. After my divorce is finalized, you guys can get an annulment and I'll marry you myself."
Ashaki inhaled. "Dr. Oliver will not agree to this, and marrying you afterward is kind of extreme."
David brought her hands up to his lips and kissed them. "I am a far better option than Bekele." He jiggled his eyebrows. "Can you honestly tell me that you would prefer the old chief to me?"
Ashaki swallowed looking at him. He had sandy blond hair and green eyes, but besides that he was light years ahead of Bekele in the looks department. He was proposing a way of escape from Kidogo, from the Congo. She would agree to anything to escape from here.
"Oh Ashaki, you have no idea the things you are missing out on, trapped in this place with one conflict after another, the constant quest for survival, devoid of even basic human rights. Listen, I could carry you to restaurants and plays. We could explore nature together and just have carefree fun. You could be anything you want to be; at this juncture in your life the world is your oyster.
Ashaki nodded eagerly. Her father had told her the same things. The world is your oyster, when you find the diamonds.
In his delirium he had told her that they were buried safely in the hut, but her nightly diggings had yielded nothing.
She didn't need to marry anyone if she could find the diamonds.
Ashaki was on the verge of saying that all she needed was to find the diamonds. But as much as she liked David and he was looking at her like he would give her the moon, she didn't quite trust him.
If she was going to tell anybody about the diamonds, it would more than likely be Oliver.
"Don't you worry." David closed his hands over hers once more. "Oliver will rescue you for me."
Chapter One
"Look at her, Oliver. Seriously, take a look," David whispered loud enough for Ashaki, who was arranging the medical supplies, to look across at them and give one of her shy smiles.
She had perfect white teeth, dark red—almost black—lips, a straight as an arrow nose and deep-set, almost sultry eyes.
She was really a striking looking girl. He could understand why David found her so attractive. For the past eighteen months since they were stationed at the mission base in Kidogo, she was a constant source of fascination for his friend.
And to a lesser extent him, if he was to be honest. And not because he was attracted to her as David so obviously was but because in a village of nearly two hundred natives and growing, she was exceptional.
She spoke English almost without an accent, which was probably due to the missionaries who were in the village on and off for the last ten years since the last great war. She also spoke French flawlessly, as well as fluent Swahili and Lingala.
She was a great help to all the doctors at the clinic, sometimes working as a translator and doing basic nurse work. She was an intelligent and intuitive girl and she knew David had an obvious crush on her.
Like now, as soon as he walked in for the morning shift, her posture changed. She started acting shy, unlike the confident girl who had teased him just an hour ago about his rusty French and his very poor Swahili; she kept shooting them little shy glances and then turning away jerkily as if she didn't know what to do with herself.
Oliver allowed himself a smile. Ashaki only got that way when David was around. He used to tease her about it but now he just felt sorry for her. David and Ashaki would never be a thing.
They had to relegate themselves to admiring glances across the crowded clinic. She was promised to chief Bekele, a marriage that would take place as soon as the chief recovered from his unfortunate boat accident that had rendered him useless below the waist for a while. David was still married.He was undergoing a messy divorce, which was the impetus for him ceasing the missionary job in the first place.
"She could walk the runways anywhere in the world and make a ton of money." David kept up his running commentary in Oliver's ear as he headed for the small break room where there were a few lockers for both nurses and doctors.
"Look at her, statuesque, with perfect matte skin that does not need a lick of makeup. She is getting prettier every day."
Oliver opened his locker and put down his stethoscope wearily. He rubbed his eyes. He was bone tired. He hated the night shift, especially when half of his patients had malaria. He glanced at David.
"I see her as I do every single day, and she looks the same. You, my friend, are obsessed."
"Oh yes." David savored his words. "Obsession, but that's not a medical condition, is it, Doc?"
"No." Oliver shrugged off his white coat and put it in the clothes hamper. "But fever is and not of the malarial kind. You have jungle fever."
Oliver pulled on his longsleeved white tshirt and headed for the small canteen area that was adjacent to the locker room.
David quickly shrugged on his white jacket and followed him. “How many times do I have to tell you I am mixed race? I have a black grandparent. I am not fully white. So technically I don't have jungle fever."
"Yes," Oliver grinned, "you inform me of that every day but you have green eyes and sandy blond hair. A DNA test is in order for that claim to pan out."
Oliver took out a pack of tea bags from the cupboard and paused. He had taken to sharing the different flavored teas with Ashaki after his shift was over so that she could taste the different flavors.
He enjoyed seeing her eyes light up when she tried something new.
He had grown accustomed to talking to her after his shift. They had a routine, he realized belatedly, but the routine would be over in just under a month.
He was going home soon. He felt a sharp feeling of homesickness when he thought about it. His time in the Congo was anything but boring and he had learned a lot, but home was where he really wanted to be, and not home in the States where his mother lived now, but home in Jamaica.
He was seriously considering the offer to go into private practice with Doctor Levy in Junction, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. It
was close to his brother Reuben and his other family members at Treasure Beach and it would be a welcome slowing of pace to the Congo. He now understood why they recycled missionary doctors every two years in the Hands for Hope mission. This place was a burnout zone for even the most zealous, bright-eyed medic.
"Hey," David, snapped his fingers in front of his face. "You falling asleep standing?"
"No." Oliver blinked. "Just thinking."
David put on the kettle. "For a while now I have been thinking about the Ashaki problem."
"Ashaki problem?" Oliver cleared his throat. "What problem?"
"Man," David ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, "we can't let her marry that old guy, the chief. She cannot be that man's fourth wife."
"I am too sleepy for this," Oliver murmured.
"Just hear me out." David spread his arms beseechingly. "She is too good for here. Yes, I have a crush on her but think about it, Oliver. She speaks a couple of languages fluently. She is extremely bright. She reads my medical texts and understands them. I think if she had the chance she could be a doctor or who knows? She would never get that chance here. Besides, she looks like a chocolate dream."
"Chocolate dream?" Oliver grinned. "I hear you."
"If she stays..." David did not join him in laughing. He was serious. His face creased into worry lines. "If she stays, her life will be wasted. Think about it: she has no ties here; her father died of tuberculosis, and her entire family was killed in the war. She is at the mercy of the village chief. Imagine her in four years, if she lives. She is eighteen now and looks young and carefree but all her spark will be gone soon, all that potential wasted away. All that..."
Oliver sighed, interrupting David's passionate speech. "I know; I feel it for her. She is special all right but there are hundreds of women like her scattered across this country. What am I to do about it?"
"I don't want you to do anything about the hundreds of women we do not know." David raised his sandy eyebrows at Oliver. "I want you to do something about Ashaki."
Scarlett Bride (The Scarletts Page 1
