The Bride Price: An African Romance (Chitundu Chronicles) (28 page)

I am a three legged cook pot that burns the food because the holes in me are getting too large to patch.  I am a wilting zebra plant that needs water, and no one seems to notice my leaves are dropping.  Can I not move and change my lot?

“Myrna, you are leaking.  Has your labor started?” Gift asked.

“Oh.  I was sitting here feeling that I was losing something, and I was. I will get to the doctor.”

“You are not going to make it to the doctor.  I will go and get Lottie.”

Gift took off for the neighbor’s house. It seemed some time had passed and Myrna went into the house to lie on the bed.  She could feel the contractions, but it was as though she was thinking about them, rather than experiencing them.  She fell asleep and wakened with Festal leaning over her. Gift was nowhere in sight.  Together, they delivered the baby, who was born with a flap of skin over her face.  Festal trimmed it away, and cut and tied the cord, holding the wet baby girl in his arms and raising her up for Myrna to see. He was delighted in the child and that he had been there to save her and the mother.  They spent the night in each other’s arms, none of the children being at home. That night, the rains poured down and the explosion of thunder, and water hitting the parched earth, could be heard even inside the rondavel.  Both the hunting dogs whined to come inside, but Festal ordered them out.  It was morning when Gift came back.  She had spent the night at Lottie’s, she said, once she saw Festal approaching the house.

Myrna recalled how she had felt nothing before the baby came, and the pain of her delivery was a relief from the emptiness of not being present.  Of course, she wanted this child to survive, as she nursed her and cleaned her. Festal took the flap of skin and the afterbirth and buried them in the garden, saying a prayer for another child who had been born with this same strange feature, his sister Whenny. He had not thought of her for some time, but this portent of the caul made him aware that all lives are connected, and his had been richly blessed with this birth. 

Festal did more than he ever had with an infant.  He carried the baby that he named Rose on his chest, and kept her clean so her mother could rest.  He emptied the wash basin and cleaned it with boiling water, then cooled it and bathed the child, being careful to keep her naval dry and coated with charcoal.  He would rub her forehead, which was healing. He put salve on it and covered it with a leaf and then the knit wool stocking cap to keep the flies away.  His fellow cattlemen came to check on him and he had no embarrassment to have them see him with his hands scrubbing out the soiled nappies. No one laughed at him—they were celebrating the rain and the end of this season of dying.

The child seemed a portent that things would improve.  Gift took to the child and was relieved to have another child that needed care. She still had milk from her recent stillborn, and Myrna did not press her to help with the chores, instead let her mother the child as much as Gift wanted, even nursing the lusty little girl. 

They started new projects that they had talked about, but never gotten around to doing. Myrna had Gift take some letters to the post office and asked her to bring back a photographer. She posed all of the children and herself, Gift and Festal, Hen and Royal, in a picture, then asked the photographer to make copies so she could send them to Festal’s family and to Violet and Stephen, as well as her mother Beatrice.  When the baby was a month old, they took her to the church to be baptized.  Everyone agreed that she was the most beautiful baby ever, and Festal held her as the sign of the cross was made on her forehead. Royal, Hen and Gift were the god-parents.  Myrna loved her but from a distance that was more objective and less anxious than she had been with any of the other children. She would sew her simple dresses and watch Gift put them on her, or let Hen take her for a walk in the morning. After Myrna bathed and dressed herself, she would pull a book from the shelf to read, or write in her diary.  She had a row of books she had written, and when there was a question of what had gone on in the village, she could pull up the information.

She recalled when the soldiers had come to the door, demanding that the men come and join them. She had shown them Royal, and they had left her alone. Gift had gone to hide in the cistern which was empty when she heard the troops approaching.  All this was noted in her daily messages to herself. She had no plan to do anything with these writings, but they kept her grateful for the days that she had lived, and the changes that had occurred in the village. She noted the arrivals, the passings, and get-togethers. She also interspersed the letters from Violet in the pages, and knew one day, the sisters would compare their paths.

Economics were always a part of her life, but Myrna had learned to budget for the things that mattered or brought her joy. She was a woman who looked attractive in simple dresses and plain fabrics, and she could sew dresses for herself if need be. She had made clothing for Gift as well, because the woman was small boned and busty, and it was hard to find clothing in the markets that fit her figure.

As the years passed, fewer people wore the traditional clothing, or at least the embroidered tops. They bought the dead-white-man’s clothes the traders brought to the market, and mixed the knitted tops with the traditional wrapped skirts. Sometimes Myrna would see a shirt being worn by a man that said Barbara down the sleeve and wondered if they were meant for a woman. No one paid attention to this, as gender was part of their lifestyle and activities, more so than a color or choice of a garment. 

When Myrna married, Violet had given her a brassiere.  It remained the only one she had ever owned, and it was patched and repaired over the years until little of the original material remained. Other clothing also was vintage, such as the Dutch wax prints that she had maintained for her twenty years of married life.  She wore the traditional petticoat with lace at the bottom that had been the fashion in the sixties, and continued to serve her to keep her legs covered from the insects. Myrna took pride in her figure, which had thickened some with the number of children she had birthed, but was still shapely and trim. She had never tried on or owned a pair of trousers. She walked and lifted constantly, and her muscles were firm and smooth.

Festal too, aged well. He had never developed a big belly and his legs were strong and muscled, while his chest was thin but muscular with the work of walking, herding, and carrying new calves, milk, water, and wood.  They ate the foods they grew and seldom had sweets. Their tea was the only indulgence, except for an occasional biscuit when they went to church suppers or weddings—until Hen taught Royal to bake. Now, life was sweet.

CHAPTER 42
SAMUEL AND REUBEN MARRIED

Two years later, Samuel and Reuben had their weddings. Each of them had met wives at the seminary they attended.  They were neighboring pastors in Copperfine, one at the traditional church, and one at the Blessings Healing Center, a tent church that helped refugees and displaced persons from the wars going on in the north. The brothers had always worked together on their dreams, and their father did not worry about their future, as it was clear they were getting guidance directly from the God he had always feared. He waited for a confirmation that they would bear him grandchildren, but his focus was his daughter Rose, the child he felt was his blessing for turning his life around.

Rose would be the flower girl at their joint wedding, and she could hardly contain her excitement.  She had informed her father of what she would require for the ceremony, and he had listened to her make the list and check off each item as he provided it for her.  Gift was going to sing at the wedding and had been practicing her songs each morning when she thought no one was listening.

CHAPTER 43
BABY ROSE

From the moment Festal saw his daughter Rose, he was bonded to her by a tenderness and care he had not known before. She was chubby and mellow, and both of them said how much she reminded them of their Lily.  What made this child different to her father was a mystery to Myrna.  He seemed to celebrate her arrival, and would even carry her around when she was a newborn, resting on his now thin chest. Myrna would come into the house after her classes and see him on his mat with the child sleeping on him.  All of the children adored Rose as well, especially Royal. He was twenty, in love, and a graduate of the culinary school. When he visited home, he couldn’t wait to pick Rose up, often carrying her on his back, or holding her while Myrna and his mother prepared food or did chores. Henrietta also loved her, and would make special treats for the child, including roses of sugar.

When Rose was four, she was able to read.  Festal was so proud, he would bring her a book from the store in Copperfine and give it to her.  She would tell the story and put her father to sleep with the lilting words.  Myrna and Gift would laugh to see the effect this child had on the man.  Rose even went to the near fields with her father carrying a slim stick and driving the cattle.  If she was made to stay at home, she would sit on the wall of the compound, under the plumeria tree, writing her letters in charcoal on the red clay of the wall, waiting for Festal to come home.  She named all the cows and would tell Festal stories about them, if he would not tell her a story first.  Each story he told her, she remembered and could repeat.  Rose learned the fables of her country and those of Aesop as well.  She could see the connection between the behavior of the animals and that of people, and liked to cite the moral at the end.

As she approached five, Festal began to have panic attacks concerning Rose’s health.  He had Myrna keep the curtains drawn across the entrance way.  Every dish had to be sanitized in the boiling water, and no one was welcome to come into the house during the fly season before the rains came.  Myrna and Gift guessed it was his memory of Lily that made him so cautious. When Dodge said he wanted to come and pay a visit, Festal was adamant that the man stay away.  Gift liked Dodge and did not understand this restriction, but she accepted it.  She had come to see that Festal had his reasons.

The Phiri family was growing by leaps and bounds.  By the time Rose was finishing middle school, her brothers had each produced a child.  She was Aunt Rose. She was a good student and her early interest was to run an academy for girls, as she saw many improvements that could be made in her own school.  Her father cautioned her to be respectful, but Rose did not like traditional rote methods and automatic approval of everything the headmaster said, whether it was right or wrong.  She was learning how to check out facts in her encyclopedia from the library, and let her father know each time her teacher was in error.

Festal was now almost 85 and he listened to all his child’s beefs about the teaching methods and the lack of correct information. He had been afraid that his child would be taken, and she was not. He was afraid his wives would abandon him, and they did not. He was afraid his sons would be sterile, as they were twins, but both had produced grandchildren for him. His life was blessed, and he was humble in his thankfulness and gratitude. He had feared getting old, but the young men helped him with the more difficult tasks, and the calves he had raised listened to his commands like his dogs.  In short, his life was sweet, satisfying, and longer than he had ever imagined. He chose to be happy, just as Myrna had done when she came to live with him in Copperfine.  Theirs was a house of love.

Not all Festal’s children wanted to continue their schooling, but they were all content to live in Copperfine and remain close to their parents.  Iris liked making pottery. Daisy was set on running an orphan school, as the number of children needing assistance had increased with the influx of refugees and displaced persons. Pansy enjoyed drawing and making models of the animals which she would use to dramatize her stories to the young students. She would start an animal out of clay, then get her father to help her refine it. She did not carve them from wood, but molded them in her hands.

Royal enjoyed storytelling, but he also had the desire to become a baker. He struggled to do things sequentially, to know which thing came first and how to do them in order.  Only cooking seemed to hold his interest so that he could focus on following directions through from beginning to end.  He knew from his Uncle Joseph that people would pay for baked goods, and his mother Gift was not a cook. This way, he would be able to care for her if they were ever on their own without the family to support them.  When Festal did not know if this was a worthwhile occupation, Joseph brought him some of the meat pies and the small breads that were around and so popular and Festal saw this could be a good business.  Myrna had applied for a scholarship for the boy, and he enrolled at the vocational school in Blancville.  

Royal was 16 when he started at the culinary school and there he came across a master baker named Henrietta.  They formed a friendship and she began to teach Royal how to make pies and other desserts in addition to the Welsh meat pies and bread that were now a staple in the bigger towns. Royal was fascinated by this little woman who had traveled all over southern Africa, and once dated his cousin Benjamin.  He wanted to know her story.  It intrigued him how they were already connected.  She was a girl who had supported her mother, and managed to be independent, but who longed for what he had, a family that was there for each other.

While he learned about kneading the dough, and techniques of heating the oven, he also connected with her as a person.  They were different in age and background, she was petite and limber while Royal was a young man with withered legs, and had never been anywhere, but he had big dreams of what he would be doing in the future.  He was funny and he adored women.  He loved to read, and in his reading, he had tried different ideas, but always returned to his respect and devotion to home.