by Aluta Nite
To his shock and horror, he even found out that they were related and very closely too. They were distant cousins but none of them had set foot in this area since birth and even if they had heard about the district in their geography classes, through conversation, newspapers or radio, it was in their remotest radar of imagination.
He went home that day and found it very challenging to explain to his wife what he had found out. But he could not hold it from her any longer and at dead of night when all the children were asleep, he informed her accordingly. She too was tantalized by the discovery and was embarrassed.
Through analysis of the situation, they concluded that this was the reason that the curse befell on them because they interfered with genes. The damage was too far done to be undone therefore they just had to face the consequences.
He met her far extended family members too with time and he welcomed them to their house to meet her and their children. Nobody on his side or her side was happy with the union, but there was nothing they could do to turn the clock back. All they could do was to caution the youth about such possibilities wherever they could go and encouraged visitations or contacts of some sort to create familiarity.
Another Culture
In days of yore, some cultures had such strict regulations and traditions that what went on in communities and societies at large regarding intimacy and marriage matters were closely monitored and had to be adhered to. This did not mean that there were no errors made by some individuals. No. Man being man, he still erred.
And when mistakes were made, the price or cost of rectifying them was very much out of reach of the individuals concerned. Two examples of the faults are topics in this story.
Firstly, no young women or teenagers were expected to conceive through having affairs with relatives. Adult women were expected to know better and therefore not venture in such areas. In other words incest was one big taboo to be avoided at any cost.
Those who broke the rule did so due to rape or serious bodily weakness but they paid the heavy price for it.
If girls got pregnant through such circumstances, their parents and the elders in the communities got thoroughly concerned and involved themselves deeply on the outcomes because girls were not expected to give birth out of wedlock and to make matters worse, through incest. The elders had to get to the root as to who were responsible for the pregnancies.
The girls were questioned and grilled till they said who did it and under what circumstances. On delivery, the babies were checked on and compared to the declared fathers to confirm the accusations. When the elders were satisfied that they had their male culprits, they did other things as follows.
The men were approached and dealt with in the same manner till they admitted to being a party to the supposedly evil deeds. All this went on immediately and quickly because the babies were not to be given names or allowed to grow even to a month of age in the communities.
With everything certified, the elders talked in low tones among themselves under tree shades, verandahs or in their isolated huts and sent secret messages via themselves to undisclosed venues as they made strategies and arrangements for the exit of the women and their babies.
Shortly, a few elders were chosen to accompany the women and their babies to undisclosed places to where they were not allowed any visits by their relatives and from where they were not to come back home no matter what could happen back home or to them. In other words, they were banished forever.
There was nothing like apology because no water could cleanse the sins. They were a big shame to the communities and nobody wanted to see them around or associate with them. They were unclean and that was it. Nobody wanted to neither carry their babies nor touch the beautiful little fingers and toes of the innocent babies.
Rumors had it that the babies were killed and the women were married off to some people far away with instructions that the men would not allow them to go back home or that both the women and their babies were killed and their bodies left in the forests for the hyenas and other vultures to devour.
Secondly, if young men and women met outside their communities and fell in love and decided to get married, the extended families and clans had to get completely involved. The men had to take their girlfriends home and the women had to take their boyfriends home.
The men and women had to give dates of the visits so that their parents and designated clan members could avail themselves and sit down with the visitors and do their assigned jobs. The jobs involved questioning the visitors about their family trees to determine if there was any trace of blood relationship between the two family trees however distant.
Discovery of any blood relationship ended the courtship and the marriage plans. It did not matter how far the couples had gone. There were no qualms about it and both men and women accepted it wholeheartedly because no one wanted to have a family with genes problems. It was believed to be a curse of the worst kind.
Respect was paramount in love, sexual and marriage matters and that is why genes were not to be interfered with or taken for granted in order to develop strong families without odd diseases. Also, quarrels and conflicts were not entertained in such matters hence the avoidance of having to have friction between blood relations if respect was dumped.
Assumed Vice
Jolene was an only daughter to Masha and Saphira. Masha and Saphira had other three children who were boys. Masha was a public servant while Saphira was a housewife. Her parents dearly loved her and she more or less called the shorts in her parents’ home and got all that she wanted.
She attended the prestigious girls’ middle and high schools in the region that were also boarding schools far away from her town and upcountry homes. Her parents’ visits were numerous and they brought all the goodies that she desired no matter what.
And when she joined college in a neighboring region, her trips to and from college was by air, one-hour trips each side. And her father also used people plying that route to deliver goodies to her at college. College was now co-education based therefore the atmosphere was different from only girls’ schools she had attended previously.
Her dressing was not particularly outstanding because she dressed oddly, not like other children from rich families whose dresses spoke volumes and set them aside. Not that her clothing was cheap like most girls’, but it was just there.
Her appearance in general, did not bother her therefore even make up did not appear to feature in her daily life though she had good perfumes and rich oils for her body and hair whenever she fancied. She did not wear lipstick apart from lip salve. She did not decorate her eyebrows or lashes. Her nails simply had colorless nail polish or faint pink color nail polish.
Her hair too was neither curly kitted nor made bone straight. It was simply blow dried to make it manageable. She rarely wore stilettos, but wore stockings sometimes, especially during the cold weather.
Schooling was not her big strength either. She preferred having fun, good food, drinks, trips, leisure, male company and the like. She did not look sophisticated outside, but when one entered her room or house, one found lots of classy items.
Her performance was about average with a lot of struggle to make it so, not because she was stupid, it was because she wasted a lot of time on other things and left very little time for school work therefore she had to sweat it out at the end of every term to get any reasonable grade to push her to the next level.
Fun with college male students took a lot of her time to the extent that she missed going home most of the college holidays and remained in campus to prolong her fun. The problem also was that she could not have one male friend at a time. There were several at the same time or one after the other in a span of as short a time as a week.
But that span of time could be so intense that one could think that she was going to get married the next day.
Knowing her weakness school-wise, she also went for common courses like English for a college degree, not that she wanted to be an En
glish teacher, interpreter or translator, but just because all she wanted was to say that she too had a college education.
After college, she joined a secretarial college and trained for one year to become an administrative assistant. She qualified and joined a private firm as an administrative assistant to her boss/manager. She worked there for three years.
She loved cars and one of the first things she bought was a car. After that, it was like she lived in it because she could not be seen without a car again. If something was wrong with her car, she took one of her father's cars.
When her boss was leaving the region for overseas assignment, she also left the company to join one of the private financial institutions in another town.
With the help of her boss, she did not go for a secretarial job but a management officer job. It was not easy sailing for her because she had no mathematical or accounting background. She therefore ended up as an organizer for staff advancements.
Her character had not changed at all despite age creeping in. She was still jumpy and full of desire to have fun. And she found fun in the new work station because there were many clients to interact with and fellow colleagues as well.
She could easily disappear down coast or overseas with so and so over the weekend. It did not matter even if it was someone’s hubby. The magnet to get involved was very strong, but not strong enough to stick forever or for long. The longest the escapades lasted was about six months.
Lust gloated on her eyes, face and language permanently especially in the presence of the opposite sex. The men noticed and some could not resist and took advantage of the situation and struck while the iron was hot.
Eventually, she got pregnant whether by choice or mistake is not known and gave birth to a baby girl whose father was well known as the little girl resembled him totally and he admitted to being the father as he was her current flame then. He asked for her hand in marriage, but she refused because he had a wife and children.
She brought forth the little girl with a little help from the man initially but when he wanted to take the child away from her, she refused to see him anymore or get financial help for the child.
When it came to money, she had no problem in bringing up the child alone because her parents were comfortable financially with several businesses that were doing very well. She was even helping them in the running of some of the businesses by running errands for them every now and then.
Her father got sick and weakened for long and eventually passed on. The running of his estate was left to her mother and her because her brothers were rather careless with finances due to excessive drinking. Before passing on, her father gave each child of his, her or his own share of assets by way of real estate.
Her mother got the lion’s share plus money in the banks and that is what she also partly helped her to manage. Her brothers were not privy to this and this did not go down well with them. To them, she was loved more than them and that is why she was in the inner circle of whatever else their father left behind.
Her elder brother was married from outside the region and when his frustrations reached the apex, he took his family and left the region never to return. Her two younger brothers left behind, became even more hostile.
The youngest would go to the bar and drink to his heart’s content and on his return at dead of night he could be heard singing songs like, “Dad left so much money behind but Jolene is the one enjoying it all regardless of our existence.”
She eventually found a colleague of hers who she decided to share her middle and old age with and got married to him, but on condition that they beget no child because he was not interested in having children. Obviously she did not like the idea because she wanted to have at least one more child but he would not bow to it.
He was careful to the extent of observing all days of the month for fertility and monthly periods to make sure that no mistake was ever made that could allow her to conceive a baby. The reasons for his not wanting children, stemmed from his background and that is a story for another book. The two raised the little girl that Jolene had through all levels of school until she became independent.
Gerry and Orion
Gerry was an advanced level high school leaver (baccalaureate) who sought for a job in a private commercial bank in the city as a teller because she failed to attain the cutoff point grade that would have given her the chance to attend a four year college. Her desire had been to go to college and graduate in education and become a high school teacher.
At the bank, she was put on a six months in-house training that she successfully passed after which she was confirmed on the job before being allowed to carry out the teller job on her own alongside her colleagues at the teller line. She was a humble and obedient girl with shy demeanor.
She performed her duties diligently as a teller for close to ten years before the impossible happened to her. While working at the bank all this time, she lived with her middles class brother and sister in-law who also had jobs in the same city. She also lived in the same house with her nieces and nephews.
Her brother or sister in-law dropped her at her place of work every morning on every workday. In the evenings it was either the same routine or she boarded public transport back home depending on the brother and sister in-law’s commitments at the end of the day.
She was not in a hurry to get married and she continued to work. She took care of her mother and other close relatives living upcountry. She would also visit them once every year when she took her long annual vacation of about three weeks and short visits during long weekends.
Meanwhile, there came a new client in the bank called Orion who was supposed to be a businessman in export business. He was a married man with one child. Vera, one of Gerry's colleagues happened to know him well because he was her neighbor. In fact, his house was right opposite Vera’s. He was one of the new comers in the estate where Vera lived.
He had lived there for about one year therefore Vera got to know him fairly well plus his movements. He was rather a complicated man with all sorts of communication gadgets and equipment in his house.
His supposedly business was done from his house. Occasionally, a lorry brought mature fruits like mangoes from the coastal area and he washed them with assistance of a few temporarily hired personnel and packed them for export via the airport to Europe.
But the fruits were not his main business. The fruits were a cover up for his real business. Inside the cartons of fruits were carefully packed and hidden dangerous drugs for overseas clients and market.
The police were aware of his secret deals and were on his heels every time, but he was always an inch ahead of them. There was an informer somewhere who always let him know when the police were just about to knock at his gate and he would disappear using the opposite route or divergent routes.
It would be like just two to five minutes difference in time between his escape and their arrival. After doing this business for months, he decided to open a new account when he received payments from overseas.
The opening of the new account took him to the bank where Gerry worked. The bank had strict rules of not dealing with individuals and businesses involved in money laundering, arms, drugs and human trafficking.
Moneys emanating from external sources had to be verified and certified before crediting to respective client accounts just to make sure that they were not payments in respect of such deals or on transit before or after such deals.
Knowing what deals Orion was involved in, Vera saw him in the bank a few times after he had opened an account and wondered as to what he was doing there. After he had left one time, she went to check with the staff member he was dealing with and she was informed about the account. Vera could not have spotted him sooner because her office was far removed from the teller line.
The funds he opened the account with had come from another local bank that received the initial telex transfer from abroad and that bank issued him with their certified check that he opened the
account with. Vera then went to inform her boss, the manager, because all staff members were supposed to be on the lookout to black list clients and their funds.
The manager did some investigations for one week and confirmed Vera's fears. He then closed the account soonest and called him in to collect his balance, telling him that the bank did not trust the sources of his funds after doing some checking in the local banking industry.
Unfortunately, within the few months that he had held an account, he had developed some rapport with Gerry at the teller line where he made deposits and cashed checks. Although, he now had no account there, he made a point of calling her or just passing by to say hello. And as this went on for a few months, he gained her full confidence.
With time, he gave her a lunch date and she accepted and he went to collect her from near the bank, but at a slightly hidden position in a vehicle where even the bank security men could not notice him. She closed her till and carried her keys in her handbag because to her, lunch was a mere one hour from one o'clock to two o'clock and she would be back. He did not go inside the bank because apparently he had told her where he would park and the type of vehicle he would be in.
