The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles) (29 page)

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 to 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.”

“I am sure I have someone in the church who needs a place for themselves or a relative.  Even if I do not have someone, I will come and see you tonight.”

Whenny looked Reuben in the face and believed him. He was a young man, probably not more than twenty years of age and he had eyes of amber with long curled lashes. He reminded her of someone she knew from the past. She did not ask any more questions but started to head back to her house.  Before she could leave Reuben asked her if she had room in her wheelbarrow for some vegetables and bread. She did. He loaded up her barrow with a week’s worth of groceries and waved to her. Whenny continued to the warehouse where she purchased 50 kilos of sugar and headed back to the bar, glad it was a downhill journey with the laden wheelbarrow. She was in good shape for a grandmother of 70 some years, she thought.

The service was well attended that evening.  Reuben gave a short sermon titled “The Great Commandment,” followed by the communion.  He asked the singers to take over, and then he took off his robes and hopped on his bicycle to find his way to Whenny’s house. At the Last Laugh Bar, the lights were off.  Whenny unlocked the children’s room and fed them.  They were on the floor playing a game of
mancala,
using the seeds of a gourd for their pieces. Whenny pulled a blanket over her brother and his door was locked.  She took Pastor Reuben over to one of the stools around the bar and asked him if he had found a tenant. 

“Yes.  I had three people in need of respite care for their relatives. The one I picked is 25 and he is in the first stages of AIDS.  He can still take care of his bodily functions, but he is weak and unable to work.  He was a schoolteacher before he became sick. His name is Beautiful.”

“My brother has given me this place to run my business.  I will lose it if his relatives know he is gone. They do not visit him, nor does anyone, but if I can help someone else, it will allow me and my grandchildren to have a home.”

“I can bring Beautiful over tomorrow. What will you do with your brother? Perhaps you were thinking of a private funeral.  We have a cemetery that we can use when that time comes.”

“That time has come. I will not be able to be there, but if you can help me, I will take good care of Beautiful.”

“I am here to serve the living. We will plan a private burial for tomorrow and I will pray over him now so you can say your good-byes. Should you want to visit the cemetery; the marker will read “Beautiful in Life.”

Whenny led the pastor into the small bedroom where the covered body lay. Reuben knelt down beside him and said a prayer and a blessing as to how he had been kind to his sister and his nieces and nephews. Then he made the sign of the cross and hugged Whenny.  She was crying, and wiping her eyes so the children would not notice.

In the afternoon, Beautiful arrived on the back of Reuben’s bicycle, and her brother’s body was removed in the covered wheelbarrow. Beautiful was a little taller than her brother, but shrunken with
the thins
and not difficult for her to fit into the bedroom. She had cleaned everything out to make room for him, giving her brother’s things to Rueben to distribute at the church. Beautiful smiled at her and she smoothed his forehead and brought him a warm bowl of stew and nshima, a cool towel, and a mug of tea with milk.  She told him the bar would be noisy in the evening, so he should get some rest during the day, if possible.