The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles) (31 page)

Father never took me with him to the outlying bush, but he listened to me when I named his animals, and how many more there would be by the time I was grown.  I would tell him that when I married, I would bring him 15 cows as my bride price, which made him laugh, since no one had ever given more than 10 cows for a wife in the history of his family. He told me he had a twin sister, and she was given away when she was small because the family had so little.  I never asked him what he had given for my mother, but I knew he had schemed to get her for his wife.

My uncle Dodge once bragged how he had helped capture her, the smartest and prettiest girl in the whole village.  Once when Father went to the cattle auction, he brought me back a small cup made of metal that had a flower painted on its side. He told me it was a lily. Mother never corrected him.   I drank my water from it each night. Now, for this telling of the story, which I haven’t written before, I need to make sure that everything is put in its place.  It won’t due to have my other sisters or brothers coming too soon, or leaving abruptly, as I did.  Each of them had a very different tale than I can tell, for you see, I was wanted up until the time I came.  Then I was a disappointment.

My father had pursued my mother, taken her from her school and family, and planted me inside her.  He had meant to plant a tree, and instead, he received a flower. A useless flower.  That was me.  I learned to bloom and I was loved.  Maybe you can love a child too much and they get taken back by the gods, or you can love them too little, and they die.  However it goes, I was dead within two days of having the sickness.  I never saw a doctor. We didn’t have medical people out at the cattle station, and by the time we reached the clinic, I was gone.

I was fortunate that I made it to five—just when my parents thought they had me secure. My mother was also pregnant when I up and left.  I can remember nothing of it, except the feeling of lightness and the unexpected wailing, with me looking down and thinking how little I looked.  When I was alive, I really thought I was a pretty big girl.

When I was departing and saw myself on the mat, I was a lot smaller and thinner than I thought.  I wondered who would take care of the doll lying beside myself on the mat.

But I am going off the path.  Mother went ahead and had another girl, and that’s when I realized what a disappointment I had been to my father.  He had really concealed it pretty well from me. With the second girl being born, father thought he was cursed.  He looked at the new baby like it had been a trick of some sort.  When mother had two more girls, the drinking started. 

Father’s herd was growing.  The cows were fat and sleek.  Mother was healthy and adored her little flower garden of girls.  There was Pansy, Iris, and Daisy.  Rose came much later, after the twin boys had been born, also another boy they named Royal Festal.  Rose was the last child, and for some reason, father doted on her.

My father was getting on in age then; his wife was beloved in the cattle station. He then took another wife during this time, but she didn’t seem to have the knack for keeping life in a child.  She gave birth to four, but only one survived and Royal was not a healthy child. His legs crumpled inward and he walked in a curve, unable to move straight ahead.  My mother helped the second wife with all the chores. When she was nursing the babies, she made sure her milk would not give out.  My mother even helped nurse the child that did survive, even though she had babies of her own to feed.  Mother also helped this woman to think more of herself because she was very young and often provoked the husband with her carelessness.

I have to say, my mother generated love in our home.  Some people can add yeast to a bowl of flour and create a mountain of bread.  My mother had the ability to add love to a dry place. Her little flower garden flourished.  I should tell you she named the boys Kindness and Self Control after the gifts of the spirit.  She also gave them western names, Reuben and Samuel. Each of them grew up with a desire to understand their world.  They respected their father, protected their sisters, and adored their mother.  Later, they married women from the school they attended, except for Royal, who left his family to attend culinary school where he learned to bake and ended up marrying his teacher Hen.

My mother was going to see London and visit her old tutor, Wellington Taylor.  My father would not allow this, so she must wait for the future to come. I could tell her that I have seen how their lives turn out.  It is surprising how life can be, but I will say no more about that, as it is not my tale to tell.  It is worth the trip, however.  I would tell my mother, Myrna ,that, if she could hear me.  Sometimes I think she does, but often, she is closing the door to the spiritual world to get on with her busy life as a mother.

Let me get back to my life as a child at the cattle station.  You cannot believe how sweet it is to be a child in Africa, growing up with animals, open space, and long days of play and adventure.  I did not know it was so sweet when I was there, but now, as I observe  life in other places, I know what I had was the best. Even my leaving was not difficult.  It would have been so much harder had I had babies to leave, or even a husband or a best friend that would lament my going.  As it was, I departed just as a new child was ready to be born.  My father was sad, but he was also hopeful he would have his son.  He was pained by my leaving.  My mother suffered, but she also had hopes in the new child coming.

Altogether, it couldn’t have been better managed.  I think it was the flies that made me sick. Flies were maybe God’s big mistake.  They pester the animals to the point of madness, and humans cannot escape from their hovering.  At last, you don’t even notice them on your food or your eyes. But then sickness comes.  Somehow, they are part of this.

I was small when my mother sewed me a doll.  I wore it in my
chitenge
and cared for it as any mother would her baby.  She was a doll with no eyes or mouth, but she had arms and a soft body and a tuft of cow’s tail hair on her head that I could comb and plait. Best of all, Mother sewed her a tiny blanket and a dress that looked like the pictures in my book.  I named the doll Fancy, for that is what she seemed to me. When it was springtime, I gathered seed pods from the palm and made holes in the dirt to play
mancala
. 

Sometimes in the evening, my father would bring out his board and play
mancala
with me, carefully counting out the seeds so he would come out the winner.  I liked the feel of the smooth round seeds in my hand, and the pile of them in the cup at the end of the game.  We also had a game made of a checkerboard with a herd of tiny cattle that you had to protect and win back when the other player captured them.  And so our evenings passed in front of the fire in the dirt courtyard of our home.

Now, I am watching my mother teach other women to read, just as she taught me when I was four.  She is patient with them, helping them trace the letters in the sand several times before they try it with the pen.  Many of them have not done fine work before, so it is difficult for them to hold a pen at first. When they make their first letters on paper, they are so proud.  I always wanted to write a book one day, to share what I have seen in my short life.  I guess that is what I am doing now, as I get you to record my thoughts.  I will call on you again to record how it was that my mother and Aunt Violet met the grandchild who was mixed. Guess what? She was given my same name, Lily Wonder. So my story goes on.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself, as time here is different than earth time.” 

During the daylight hours, Beautiful recorded the story of this departed child, wondering if his talk with Whenny had influenced the dreams he had of Lily, or whether his imaginings were part of his illness. The descriptions were so real, the names came to him as though he had read them in the newspaper. When he did not hear from his Lily Wonder for several days, he took out the sketchbook and began to fill in the details of her face and form. One day when Reuben was visiting, he pulled out the sketchbook and showed it to the pastor.

“That is my sister Rose. When did you see her?”

“This is out of my imagination. I have a dream girl who visits me almost every night and compels me to write her story.  When I am gone, I will leave it for you to read. She is as real as anyone I have ever met.  You will think me mad, and maybe I am. I have caught everything else since I became positive with HIV. But her story comforts me as I think about my passing and what has been my life, and my experience as a human being.”

“I would like to read that. Does she come to you every night?”

“Not every night.  When I draw her picture or try to imagine her life as a child departing so young,  she responds, letting me know what her reality was. She is a beautiful spirit who can go to different places and experience all time in a single moment. I don’t want her to leave me, but she says she will when we all stop grieving her passing. She thinks that will happen soon.”

“I have never had that experience of seeing the future or the past so vividly, but I do know we have angels who look after us. Maybe she is one of these. You seem to be more creative and more alive than anytime that I have known you, Beautiful.”

“Yes. I can tell that because I want to draw and to paint and to portray what my inner self knows. I have also lost the sense of regret and despair that plagued me when I was first diagnosed. Then I wanted to end my life, the sooner the better. This dream child makes me want to read the next chapter. It may be the last, but I am going to enjoy it. Some of this may also have to do with Whenny. She tells me every day I am a gift to her.”

“She says the same thing to me about you. She deserves to have a kind spirit in this place. She is the hope of these children she is raising.  I pray for her and for you, and what will come from this exchange.  Keep all your writings, as your vision may help others.  I am going now.”

“Goodbye.  I now look forward to the night, and my dreams of Lily.”

“Lily?  That was my eldest sister’s name. She passed away twenty years ago.”

“Really! What a coincidence. I will give her your greetings, if she passes my way in my dreams.”

Whenny nodded goodbye to Reuben and continued to empty sugar into the vat of spirits she was brewing for the week’s brew.

Lily Wonder appeared again to Beautiful that night, after the lantern was out, and the fire was almost out.  He could see nothing, but the presence was as real as Whenny sleeping in the next room, with her slight snore.

I’m back.  I was telling about my life at the cattle station and the sweet times I enjoyed.  When I woke in the morning, it was to the sound the rooster crowing and of my mother dishing out the corn porridge we call
nshima
onto the enamel plates.   Mother would rise before dawn to start the fire and get the water boiling.  At her wedding, her mother had given her an enormous iron pot with three legs.  This pot was always on the main fire, with water heating in it.  From this pot, she would dip water for making the morning tea.  My father liked to have bread and red bush tea with a lump of sugar and some cream in it.  For the rest of us, my mother, myself, and the orphan child we called Mpala, there was
nshima
.   We ate it from one dish, set out on our kitchen mat in the rainy season, or outside when the weather was good, which was most of the year.  The dogs would watch us eating from the dish, licking their chops, but knowing to stay out of range until everyone was finished.  When my mother cleaned the cooking pot, she would gather the small chunks of cooked porridge for me to give to her chickens.  They would come flapping down from their coops where she kept them at night.  If she had leftover bones, these would go to the dogs.  The men would head out with their cattle to the pastures where they grazed during the day.  Then we took our baths, using the rest of the heated water.

We had a very secure ablution block with water above us in a bucket to rinse, and the tub with its loofah below to the water we rinsed with.  When we finished bathing, we would carry the bath water to the plants in the yard. We had beans growing, followed by tomatoes, and then groundnuts would push up. We had an orange tree and a cashew tree with its broad round leaves coming from smooth branches weighted down with bricks so  it would produce shade and we could reach the fruit when it was ripe.  Mangos also grew in a grove of trees behind the washing area. Each plant had a set amount of water that we would pour around it from the calabash.  The cashew tree received five calabashes of bath water, while the orange tree base was always damp from cooking water, wash water, and bath water.  It was about the only orange tree I can recall in the cattle station.

Along the gutter and beside the inside wall were lilies taller than I was at five.  They were red and orange and yellow in color and each had a drink after we bathed.

Out front at the end of a well beaten path beyond the small courtyard and wall were the calf pens, and the corral for the cattle.  The valley sloped away below the pens.  Along our house was a smooth gutter that caught the rainwater and carried it to a storage tank.  The tank was made of clay and was black from the fires they used to make it water tight. It was taller than my father and looked like a huge ball at the side of our house near the gardens. The gutters were warm and sloped along the ground at the base of our round house. We liked to sit in them with our backs against the wall, and feel the heat of the sun. When we were able to print, we could use the outside of our house as a blackboard to make the map of the world, and our letters. 

With the three baby girls, there were plenty of clothes to wash. She would soak them first then scrub them with a washboard and green bar soap.  The baby clothes were washed first, then the linens, and finally, my father’s work shirt and trousers. We had a scrub board my father had brought my mother that made the soap rub into the cloth and the dirt come out.  When they were clean, we rinsed them, twisted them like a piece of dough, then hung them on the bushes and wall of the courtyard.  My job was to keep the chickens from jumping on them and soiling them. This was an easy job for me, as I learned to use a slingshot to shoo the chickens away with pebbles thumping on their feathers.