The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles) (26 page)

Karin wheeled forward to greet her daughter.  The child pulled back and hugged the skirt of her grandmother Violet.  Everyone turned to Violet to greet her and ask how the journey had been.  “It was my first. I cannot say how it was.  I am here and I am greeting you for your kindness.”  Violet had rehearsed this welcoming greeting, but she knew it was coming out wrong.  She felt little Lily squeeze her hand and she could breathe again.  They had made it.  She was now a ‘been to’. 

Karin wheeled her chair close to Violet and asked her in perfect Bemba to have a seat on the sofa.  She did.  Then she directed her mother to bring them some tea with sugar and to slow down with the questions. Garrett came and sat near her and asked if he could take her coat.  She shook her head “No.”  It was cooler for her than she had imagined, and she wanted the security of her wool wrap.  Lily Wonder now reached out to her mother and hugged her, smoothing her hair and holding her face in her hands, studying any changes.  She seemed satisfied that her mother was all right, and went into the kitchen to see how Cora made the tea.

The kitchen floor was wide planks of polished wood with pegs holding the planks.  Lily got down on her knees to trace the grain and feel the joining of the wood and the pegs.  Then she stood up and asked if she could bring the sugar into the parlor.  Cora looked at her and nodded yes.

Garrett listened to the conversation between Violet and Karin.  As he watched the two women, one in her sixties, the other barely thirty, he thought of the bond they shared.  He had wanted to meet Bwalya.  Violet was comfortable with them as she told of her desire to meet Karin, and now, she was meeting her most valuable people as well.

Bwalya  been a good husband and father, Karin told her, and he had often spoken of how he loved his mother.

“He was afraid he had disappointed his family by marrying outside his tribe,” Karin said.  “He didn’t want to face your disapproval, so he stayed away; involved in his work, his child, and in me. I was not in this wheelchair when we met.  We actually got to know each other in London and my life changed when I met him.  I miss him so much,” she added.

Violet looked at the grandparents.  “I do not want to keep this child from her family.  I have lost all my children and when she came to me, my life returned to me. How shall we share her?”

This question had been on everyone’s mind, especially once they knew the child would be visiting them.  Cora spoke first.  “Bwalya and Karin wanted you to have the child because your country has so much to offer her.  I hope you see when you are here that our country, too, is a good place.  You both will always be welcome here.  I have spoken with Garrett and we would like to come and visit you in your home as well.  Karin is getting medical treatment and the flight may not be possible for her, but we want all of us to be a part of your lives.”

Garrett grunted as Lily piled into his lap and handed him a book.  She wasn’t sure of all that her family was planning, but she felt the love and the connection of her mother and these old adults.  She was tired, a little hungry, and content. 

The next morning, Lily was up at six o’clock asking Garrett where were his chickens?  He took her on a tour of his yard.  In the street, women were washing the curbs and sweeping down the sidewalks.  The two of them walked to the park at the end of the street and climbed into the swings.  Garrett’s long legs swept the sand and he felt the dizzying motion as he swung his head back into the cool morning breeze.  Lily lifted her feet high to pump the swing into the air.  She sang a little song that Garrett could not understand.  Then it was time to eat and she let him know she was very hungry.  They headed back to the house. 

Two weeks later, Violet and Lily returned to Africa to start their lives together and prepare for the visit of the Kroners.

CHAPTER 39
KINDNESS

Copperfine was changing.  Groups from the north and the west were converging with their herds into the fertile, if dry, valleys of this region. Festal had seen small bands of people he did not recognize camping on the hillsides, their evening fires each night in the same location showing that they were not nomads, but settlers looking for a place to settle. He was not concerned as the weather had been generous.  For the last few years, the grasses had come in the proper season.  Calves were born to robust cows, the water was clean, and the river basins provided an ample supply, even in the dry season. Festal had taken in Mpala, who was orphaned by some disaster, man-made or natural, to the West.  There had always been groups that had fallen on hard times in the region; his own family had struggled during an earlier famine and his twin sister had been indentured to a foreign family to bring in money for food which allowed the rest of them to survive the hungry period. He had been placed with the cattle herders to earn his livelihood with only a blanket and a pair of sandals between him and the elements. He had endured.

Festal did not read the newspaper, and there was only one radio in the village, so it was months after the droughts in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa had reached even the insulated countries of Europe and America that he realized that a more severe time of hunger was pushing in upon Copperfine.  The emaciated faces of the women coming into the area, and the absence of male children suddenly became apparent. There was no way to stop this influx of people.  Like the locusts that appeared every fifteen years or so, the problem had remained hidden in the soils of Africa. Each family and village absorbed its difficulty until the fabric was too thin and too worn to hold up. Then the rents in the social fabric were obvious.  Families shunned those who were not their blood. Communities could no longer take in the hungry or the homeless. They began to see the stranger as intruders and interlopers and hospitality, so important a concept, disappeared. They turned a blind eye to those who were not born in the area.  Rumors of killings and genocide emanated around the campfires and the face of hunger was an abomination that pulled people away from their generosity or the impulse to share.  Suddenly, sharing meant getting less. Men who had left a portion of the animal for the gleaners or left behind a little grain now pulled each kernel into the sack and slept with the bags in their sleeping chamber.

There were no animals kept who could not earn their livelihood. Only the dogs remained fat, and no one asked why they wandered in packs at night and came home bloated. The villagers were more insulated, as the poorest, or those ostracized through war or disease or widowhood poured into the cities, which now had children sleeping on their walkways and in the alleys. Every restaurant had its contingency of beggars hoping for a handout when the patrons were finished with their meals. Babies were abandoned and no one picked them up to try to save them, or heard their cries.  Those who had gone through warfare and seen the specter of hunger and genocide were terrified, but no one named what the fear was that stalked their environs.

The fetish priests were frequented by even the staunchest of Christians, as they were desperate to find how they or their country had offended the gods. For Festal, it was a time of drawing in his energy and his resources. He did not want his wife to venture beyond the pastures or the road that passed behind their rondavel. These were desperate times, and she could be taken or robbed for the basket of food she was carrying to the house. Festal warned Gift against visiting the refugee camps which sprung up on the rockier bluffs. He told his children to only play with the children of the neighbors closest to them, and questioned them what they had seen and where they had gone during the hours they played. It was a relief when they were in school, as they could go and come as a group, protected by their uniforms and their numbers.

The political climate of the country was changing. There were parties that sought the vote, and others who wanted the farmers to side with them. Festal avoided making a commitment to one party or the other. He did not wear the hats or the scarves they passed out to encourage solidarity, and stayed with the worn clothing that herdsman wore. He did not get into discussions with the agitators who came in cars with megaphones and then with loudspeakers to unite the countryside, nor did he put his name to resolutions or strikes. He remained with his land and his family, and circled them more tightly in as the boundaries and the names of what he had known gave way to new configurations, ideas, and titles.

The railroad, the discovery and upswing in prices for copper, and the influx of money from countries such as China had no bearing on what he wanted for his life, and that of his family. Festal thought that if he could limit his freedom, and subdue his fear, he would come out of the changes intact. He wore his cross, had his Bible read to him each night, and guided his children to believe in integrity and standing firm for what they believed. His wives were loyal to him, as he showed that he was working for the betterment of all their lives.

Festal did not buy into the paranoia of the general population towards the thousands of refugees that were streaming in across the borders or the displaced persons within the country. When the police and border patrol tried to gather information about who was a part of the community, and who should be removed, he conveniently forgot the names and the location of those who had newly arrived. He referred the officials to the refugee camps, where they had already rounded up too many newcomers, and asked if they had checked there. He was judged to be simple in his understanding, and no one he knew was turned over to the government forces. Mpala, Hen, Gift, and others breathed easier, seeing that he would protect them.

In time, the forces who were in power were out of favor, and more patrols, more soldiers, and more warring occurred. It was a time of great stress for Gift, who had experienced the trauma of being captured and uprooted, her family and her childhood destroyed. She learned she could rely on Festal, and that Myrna valued her and would tell anyone they were sisters.

CHAPTER 40
ROSE

“Festal , I am going to have a baby.” Festal reached around Myrna and planted a kiss on her neck.  She had been ironing the clothes for the twins who were going back to school that afternoon.

“Is it one, or more?”

“I think it is just one.  I must be about 4 months along.  I wanted to tell you on your birthday, but I wanted to make sure you knew before anyone else.” Festal needed to go outside and catch some air.  He was elated. It was a good time, since most of his children were out of school, the girls had suitors they liked, and there would be a double wedding for the twins once they finished their seminary training.  But was his wife too old to have a baby? 

It had been many years since the twins came. He could still recall the nights of worry when he thought they would die and he would lose the mother as well. He had turned to God and now both of his sons had decided to be pastors.  They explained to their father that he had always been a pastor caring for his herd, they would be a pastor to the community. Samuel was taking over the pulpit at the Full Gospel Church while Reuben elected to serve the immigrant population in the area.  They would share the facility and that would leave funds for feeding programs. Festal was proud of his sons. They had a deep love for the Copperfine region, and each had found a future mate at their college. Festal had met their prospective wives and approved their choices.

From the moment he knew she was pregnant, Festal was fixated on the coming child. He brought vitamins and herbal potions from the local market, and liniments to make sure there was no stretching of the skin. Myrna was baffled by his attention, since the twins had been so healthy, and her body had accommodated them, she had no fear of this single birth. It had been some years since she had last given birth, that was true, but she had stayed physically active and she had never felt better.

For Festal, this coming birth was an epiphany.  Festal had attended church with Myrna and she had always known he was a believer. Now that she was pregnant, he donated a steer to the congregation, and he was never absent from the service or the prayer meetings.  Each of his children was to be blessed by the new head pastor; just to be sure they had the best protection.  Festal took to wearing a cross, not a small discrete one made of wood or bone, but a metallic ornate one the size of his hand that he had the smithy forge for him out of remnant metals.  He refused to drink beer or wine, although he had been steadily increasing the amounts of sorghum beer he consumed as the ache of his bones set in, especially in the cold season.

After the passing of Lily, all of the children had been dosed with a nightly reading from the Bible, which Festal would then give his own interpretation.  He had especially liked to reflect on the story of Job, and the chapters from Leviticus that spelled out the rules for right living.  It fell upon Myrna to read him these chapters.  In the evening, she was often tired and her eyes would start to blur as she looked at the small print of the Gideon Bible they had been given by one of the elders. They did not have electricity at the house, and the kerosene lantern with its flickering flame made the print difficult to see.

Myrna soon let the twins take over the reading, spelled by the older girls.  Each of the family members came to enjoy these sessions, as they never knew what interpretation their father would give to the words. He had always been fonder of the Old Testament than the New, and he had seen himself in the role of Moses, herding his family through treacherous times and places. Gift was moved by these stories and said they had helped her deal with her losses. She seldom spoke of her past, but when the Seder was discussed, and how the families repeated what had happened through the generations, the bitter herbs and the salt reminded them of their sorrow and their tears. She told Royal she saw her difficult times as knots that had occupied her emotions for so long, and she couldn’t see how to untie, but now they were being unraveled and she was seeing them as places where she had been tied to God. Royal told her he was writing down her memories as they interested him and inspired him. He thought others would like to read or hear them as well and his wife Henrietta agreed. She said she found herself and her mother in the struggles Gift had overcome.