The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles) (11 page)

With that, the two women parted and Myrna cleaned out the cups. Festal would soon be home and she had a meal to fix. She put away the patterns and watched Winnie pass through the yard, watching the chameleon on its perch above the melons.

Myrna made a meal of cabbage relish, tomatoes and peppers over rice.  She added a pinch of cinnamon to the mugs of tea and had a small bowl of roasted groundnuts.  When Festal was done, she brought up the topic of the lizard.

“Festal, Winnie, the fetish priest’s wife came over today. She wants us to give her the chameleon for her husband’s practice. I asked her what cure it provided and she couldn’t say. I told her we could be approached if there was a definite cure that the lizard could provide, otherwise, the chameleon continues to have life.”

“You would do better to stay away from her. She is a power in this community and I have always avoided her as I thought she wanted something from me.”

“She is sending her daughters here to learn to sew.”

“I don’t want them in the house. Teach them somewhere else.”

Myrna did not have the problem of telling the girls not to come, because neither of them was inclined to want to sew. They did not come and Myrna saw very little of their mother in the year to come.

Myrna did cultivate friendships among the other women.

Mrs. Mulengo watched the new wife walking down to the riverside where the women did their laundry.  Most of them had been scrubbing away for the past two hours and had their clothes rolled up in the basket ready to take home and dry.  They had been talking about the case of the missing child at the cattle station and what should be done to safeguard against further disappearances. Everyone had an opinion. The child was albino and some thought this was the reason for its going missing. One of the fetish sellers had probably seized the child, as they were considered powerful medicine. Mrs. Mulengo hissed a signal and everyone stopped talking. They were silent as Myrna approached and then spoke of more pleasant things. 

Myrna had met the women on her first day at the cattle station and visited some of them in their homes. She was a welcome addition to the village as she had new stories to tell, and had married a man long a mystery.  Festal had worked for years besides their husbands, his parents were from a village not far away, but he had never courted or showed any attention to them or their daughters.  At forty-four, most had written him off as one of those men who did not prefer children or marriage.  Apparently, they had been wrong.  This wife was beautiful and pregnant.  They would study her to see what it was about her that had attracted a man they thought unattainable.

Myrna put down her sack of clothes and pulled out the washbasin and board she brought from the house.  She had a bar of lava soap and trousers that needed serious scrubbing, as well as a couple of pairs of socks that had not come clean.  As she rolled up her sleeves and began to scrub the clothing, the women checked out her dress and the sandals she wore on her feet.  One of them made a little sashay with her hips and sang a little ditty about laundry and how the scrubbing was like a man needing rubbing.  Myrna couldn’t understand the words, but the gist of the refrain was clear.  She laughed out loud and rubbed the bubbles on her arm with a stiff finger, which made the other women roll in appreciation. 

They began to dance a bit as they enhanced the story, assuring her that she was part of their group.  Myrna could have done the wash at her rondavel, as hers was one of the few households that had storage for water, and a huge pot to boil enough for a laundry. But she wanted to join in and let the neighbors know she welcomed their company. Some of them pulled out a few
mopani
worms and a little sack of dried groundnuts to share.  The morning passed pleasantly and the work was done before she knew it.  As she walked back to her house, one of the women signaled her daughter to assist her with the wet laundry in her tub. When they reached the house and the girl set it down, Myrna gave her a ribbon from one of the wedding gifts. The girl smiled her thanks and bounded away with her prize.

Myrna made her way into the community with a certainty and purpose that surprised her husband. Festal had always held back from the communal gatherings. Although respected by the men he worked with, he was not popular.  No one knew what set him off, or what pleased him.  He worked hard, but he didn’t play.  After his marriage, this began to change.  He attended more of the gatherings where food and news were exchanged, and work was done. Myrna did not make apologies or excuses for him when he did not come or join in.  She had fun herself and liked being with the community.

When she started working with the women, Festal saw how the skills and confidence of the women increased.  He welcomed her questions when she asked him for advice.  She never asked when it wasn’t necessary, and never to manipulate him into joining the work or doing it in her place.

.

CHAPTER 16
PLAYFUL

Festal enjoyed being grilled about the wedding he had just attended of Stephen and Esther. He didn’t go into great description, but said the bride reminded him of a box chicken, all fluffed up and poufy white, unable to move on its own. Myrna asked him questions which only he could answer.  Sometimes he teased her and told her things that could not possibly be so. He did it lovingly, but she would hit at his chest and say, “You are lying!”

Festal had never played, and now, in their little round house with the stupefying beauty of the pastures and the valley outside the door, and this wife inside who played with him, let him win, provoked him just a little, let him be the lion and the mouse, told him about the mouse and the elephant, and other stories of her village, and wanted to hear the tales he knew,  and devised one game after another, he learned to laugh and to enjoy being with another person for no other reason than the fun of companionship. He learned to play and to be frivolous, in small doses.  By the time the baby was apparent, Festal was in love with the woman and the girl.  He couldn’t wait to see the son they would have. In his evening hours he fashioned a small bull out of eucalyptus wood as a toy for the baby. Then he made a rattle of the cowboy whistle pod which he had polished smooth and made sure no sand remained in it. 

Festal’s herds were thriving. His companions were friendlier, and his orphaned calves grew into sleek heifers that would soon freshen with healthy calves.  From the first crowing of the cock in the morning, to the last laughter at night, their home was his haven.  But the fear of losing what he had built woke him at night, making him sweat with anxiety.  For Myrna, this was a time of gestation, of going over what had been important in her life and what the arrival of their baby would mean and how it might change their lives.  She did not worry about the delivery or the health of their baby. She had seen her mother pregnant. And saw how making a space for another child was all a natural part of life. She thought about what she would teach the baby and how she would dress it and care for it.  It never occurred to her that a child would be a new thing for Festal. 

CHAPTER 17
THE HONEYMOONERS

Stephen and Esther had spent their honeymoon at Uncle Dodge’s apartment.  His cupboard was full of tins of bacon, cheese, and semolina pudding that they added to the food they bought at the small kiosk below the apartment.  The first few days, the couple pulled out treats from the cupboard like Christmas presents, and Esther would fix them a few eggs, a little bowl of fruit cocktail, or a can of sardines they could add to the fried yams, which were available at the bar below them at street level.

After a week, Stephen began to tire of the foods that had seemed so exotic. He was doing nothing, and wanted to get back to his job of setting a lesson plan for the students at the middle school where he had been hired as a math teacher. He had been desperate to marry Esther—afraid someone else would claim her. But he had never spent so much time alone with a woman. He learned several things about married life that were unexpected. Esther liked to stay up late in the evening and work on her stitchery or listen to the radio. She tended to sleep in mornings, and she liked all the windows closed and the room very dark. She piled covers of wool on the bed and tucked in the sheets tightly at the ends. Her nightdress was a chenille robe. Stephen liked a cool room with a loose sleeping cloth over him. He was used to sleeping naked.

The apartment was bright with lights from the streets below. There were no curtains or shades.  It was noisy as soon as the workday started. Lorries, donkey carts and vendors working below made a steady racket which carried upward. While Stephen liked to sleep with few covers and went to bed early, he was wakened each night by Esther preparing her toilette, turning down the lamp, getting into bed and adjusting the covers. Sometimes she would want to talk to him long after he had fallen soundly asleep. He was not used to having the heat of another person next to him as he had slept in a dormitory room at school and in a separate small rondavel at home. Once she lay down to sleep, she had a niggling little cough and continued to clear her throat. She also smelled like chemicals and it made his nose run. It was something she used on her hair to relax the curls.

Stephen liked sports and was eager to stretch his muscles by doing physical work in the morning and enjoying the excitement of a soccer match with his friends in the afternoon. When he finished his morning jog or stretching, he was hungry, but Esther was still sleeping. While they lived above the Fat Chance Bar, it was easy to go below for a chat with Rubee, the Lebanese owner, and get a cup of tea or Nescafe, and a doughnut ball or hard boiled eggs. But he was not sure what there would be to eat in the morning when he had to teach classes at 7:00 a.m., and rise an hour earlier to bathe and prepare.

He tried to set a time to talk this over, but Esther would look pouty and hurt if he suggested that she needed to adjust her schedule. He enjoyed sex with her, but lately, it seemed to be at times when he had planned on going out with friends, or had a match he especially wanted to listen to at the sports bar.

Esther liked making new dishes for her husband at Uncle Dodge’s apartment, but she had never cooked and had no idea how to put the available ingredients together. Stephen thought of buying a cookbook,  so he asked Esther what they would have for their meals once they were living on the school compound.  Esther looked at him in some puzzlement.

    “We will have our cook prepare food for us, whatever you like.”

“That’s fine. But we have no cook. We will be living on the compound where the school is located, and we will not have the store so close. There will be a weekly market, of course, and we can pick up basics at the tuck shop and fresh vegetables from vendors.  What do you like to cook?”

“I have never cooked anything before.  My mother just told our cook what to make, and then I helped prepare the food.”

“What do you mean, prepare the food?” Stephen asked.

“I would set the plates on the table and dish out food for everyone so it was divided equally.  Otherwise my brothers would just have one thing. My father ate first, then my brothers, and we girls had what was left. We were three sisters, who you have met. We also had to save some for the cook and the watchman, but they usually just had the yams and the
nshima.
”

“Do you know how to make
nshima
?”

“No, but I know how to pound it.  At least, I have seen how it is done. My sisters did that for our house.  I would do their hair and they would pound the corn.”

“We are going to have to think how we can get you some help. I won’t earn enough as a teacher for us to buy prepared food at the store. We will need to grow some, or figure out a way to buy staples and divide them, maybe with the faculty.” Stephen could see that Esther was about to cry, so he soothed her, stroking her arm and holding her, while thinking  he was going to have to figure out how a budget, and feeding the two of them, would work.  They had plenty of time to come up with a plan, but she probably didn’t do laundry or housework either.  It had never occurred to him to ask about these things while courting her.  He had mainly looked at how adorable she looked in her fresh tops and tight skirts. What would a servant cost, anyway? He would talk to Dodge and see if he had any suggestions. They had another week to stay in his second story apartment before Dodge returned, and before moving to the school compound.

    Stephen pushed back Esther’s hair and nuzzled her neck, thinking how sweet she smelled and how feminine she was with her necklace and the patterned silk scarf tied around her hair.  They would work it out. He loved it when he heard her singing while she pressed her clothes with the charcoal iron.  She had not even had a chance to open all the gifts they received from the wedding guests. They would work things out.

At the wedding of Joseph and Violet, Dodge saw Esther and Stephen sitting next to each other, each talking to the person next to them. He had seen Esther briefly since lending them his apartment for their honeymoon. What an eye opener that had been. He had come back a little early from his ventures in Copperfine.  His apartment was open, so he knocked as he walked in.  Esther was still sleeping. Stephen was out and the kitchen was still strewn with dishes from the night before.  It looked like bread and canned fruit had been the dinner of choice. Dodge glanced at the sleeping girl with her hair wrapped up in a scarf and then he left the apartment. 

Stephen would need a helper for his new wife; he might be able to help him.  She didn’t appear to be the domestic type, and keeping a household when you didn’t have a large salary took some planning. Beatrice would be upset if she were to see this mess. He wasn’t exactly pleased, himself.