Rebecca sat solemnly staring into the fire, her hands spread wide over it. From a distance, she could hear her aunt’s continuous rumble.
She felt cold inside. A coldness she knew no fire could extinguish.
Margareta, her aunt, shook her shoulders slowly but firmly.
“Look at me Rebecca.” She said softly. “Are you even listening to me? I guess not.” She said with a heavy sigh, her voice broken. “I want you to listen to me anyway. No matter what happens, I am here for you. I will not abandon you because we are going back to the city together. It is us against the world. Do not worry about your education. Everything is catered for. I want us to go and sleep, have a nice rest. Then tomorrow first thing in the morning, I want us out of here. These people are crazy and you never know what kind of crazy idea they will have come up with tomorrow. Be strong my child, okay?”
Rebecca opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind and said nothing. She licked her lips nervously, lips that were trembling so violently she was having a hard time trying to control them. Margareta, who was watching her concernedly, said nothing.
Rebecca had a lot of questions she wanted to ask her aunt, but she decided she better not. Hadn’t she always wanted to go with Aunt Margareta to the city? Hadn’t she? Hadn’t it always been her dream? She stared at her aunt, mighty Margareta. The woman every girl in the village wanted to be. She looked at her hair, nicely gelled and going all the way to her back. In her naïve mind, she wondered how one could have such long hair, not knowing in her mind that it was a weave. {Weave? What’s a weave?} She looked at the gold necklace around her neck, knowing it must have cost a fortune. (Even her wildest guess wouldn’t have been anywhere near the real price.) and the manicured nails. Painted dark red and so long they would have easily skinned a young goat. Rebecca stared at them and let out a small shudder. They almost looked scary. Almost.
Margareta had an aura that no matter how hard one tried to ignore, they never could. Men worshipped the ground she walked on, women envied her, hated her even. Few would have passed up the chance to stab her, if ever it presented itself. For if you had a husband that was good enough and measured up to Margareta’s idea of a desirable man, then nothing would stop her from having him. She used men, dumped them and went in search of the next prey. To her men were like what women were to some men; a tool for pleasure. She dint look for men coz of their money –her husband was rich- she did what she did cause to her it was like one big rollercoaster. All fun and nothing to worry about. Margareta was the modern day Lucrezia Borgia. Surprisingly though, as with everything else about her, children adored her, and wanted to be her when they grew up. Whether it was the charm, sophistication or personality you could never tell.
Rebecca worshipped Margareta.
But she’d never quite placed it why men wanted Margareta so much, almost to a point of lunacy. Once some years ago she had heard of some unbelievable rumor. That Margareta had slept with her father. She wasn’t sure how true that was. Margareta had slept with Rebecca’s father, the husband to her sister loise. However, if that rumor had ever been true, loise never confirmed it to her daughter. For her mother was the exact opposite of her sister Margareta. Where Margareta was eccentric, loise was ordinary. Margareta was a lively go getter full of ambition. Loise…..well, she only lived for her husband’s needs and whines. The two sisters were parallels. But they loved each other. Loise loved her sister. Either she did or she was a very good actress, hiding her emotions from the rest of the world. For if indeed Margareta had ever slept with her sister’s husband, her sister never showed any bitterness or plan for revenge.
Because, liked she always did, she had forgiven her.
Like she had done back when they were teenagers, that night at the riverbank when she had caught Margareta making out with her first ‘real love’ making out, their dark forms illuminated by the moonlight. She had never wanted to see that boy again after that, but she forgave Margareta that night in their room as they cried in each other’s arms and made a solemn oath never to let a man come between them.
How sweet, and stupid.
Rebecca knew of this story because her mother had narrated it to her. That day as she poured her heart out to her only child– it was the first and last time she ever did that- Rebecca thought she saw the glint of tears, but she wasn’t sure.
Don’t get it twisted, and start thinking that Margareta did not lover her sister loise. But her way of loving loise was very different, and very much her, for Margareta did things in her own way. Like that time they were in lower primary and loise had forgotten her homework at home. The teacher called her to confirm if indeed loise had carried out her assignment or she was lying. Yes, she had said without blinking. That indeed she had completed her assignment. The cane thirsty teacher had however gone on a rampage about how forgetting your assignment at home was equivalent to committing a crime, and would you please lie down and receive your twenty strokes of the cane?? In a reflex move that surprised even loise herself, Margareta stepped forward and said she’ll have them on her behalf. Brushing aside loise’s protests she lay down and prepared to take twenty strokes of the best on behalf of her sister. Take she did. As the cane tore into her flesh, with Margareta trying hard not to cry, loise ran out of the room crying uncontrollably and totally unable to control herself.
How about the day she had stabbed a boy on the leg repeatedly using a pen knife because he had called her sister ugly?
Yes, Margareta did love loise but somehow, inexplicably, she always ended up hurting her.
“Rebecca,” her aunt called out for the second time, reviving her from her thoughts. “you are so deep in thought. Please my child I want you to understand that everything that happens usually happens for a reason. If we had the power to reverse happenings we did not like we would have done so. But now we have to accept fate.” She held her hands tenderly, trying to comfort her.
By the dim light of the dying firewood, Rebecca stared at her aunt’s miniskirt, and inevitably at her strong thighs. Hadn’t she always wanted to go with adorable aunt Margareta to the city?
The answer Was yes. Yes oh how yes.
But never under the present circumstances.
She shivered and pulled her cardigan closer to her. Fresh tears threatened to spill again and in a second Margareta was next to her. Cuddling her and telling her everything would be okay. In the morning, she kept telling her, they would leave for the city and everything would be okay.
· * ** ** **
They left the kitchen hut and headed for the main house. Outside the moon shone brightly without a care in the world, and definitely without a care for the two lost souls.
Suddenly, they both stopped in their tracks, the shivers intensifying though they had absolutely nothing to do with the biting cold. They stood there, frozen face to face with the nightmare they had both been dreading to see.
Margareta begun trembling, and Rebecca held her hand tight. The memories came tumbling through her mind and the bitterness of the day, as they had been told not to wail or cry for their loved ones or else they too would undergo the same fate. Yes, the images flooded, of them being held tight and being forced to watch as loise and her husband were burnt to death. Of how hopelessly they looked on, not able to do nothing as their parents and sister torched to death. Even cry they were prohibited.
It was cold blooded murder.
They had watched and done nothing. Afraid of the mob, the hysterical mob, the angry mob that had danced with so much venom in their eyes and a clear mission to kill. A mission to destroy. DESTROY. Yes they were afraid of the mob, and now they were ashamed. Ashamed that their beloved had died such a terrible death and they did not raise a finger. Not as much as a tiny voice. As the mob danced And sang destruction themed songs with a clear vendetta to kill, to kill and compensate for the recent mysterious dyings that everyone said was as a result of black magic in the village.
An old villager had a long standing land dispute with Mathew (Rebecca’s father) had said he knew who was behind the killings and pointed at loise and her husband. The villagers, desperate for a sacrificial lamb and bailing for blood had descended on the couple without second thoughts and set them ablaze.
The images flashed through Margareta’s head; of villagers she knew burning her sister and brother in-law to death. People she grew up with people she played hide and seek with. She saw women who pretended to hate her but who came to her secretly for help; financially, emotionally or even for tips on what to do to prevent their husbands from straying. (ironic, even she knew.) she saw women whose husbands she’d slept with and she didn’t miss the glee in their eyes as they stared at her, sneering and rubbing it in her face.
She looked at the bodies, still releasing smoke. Suddenly, unable to help it anymore Rebecca tore her hand from her aunt’s grip and ran a few paces from her. Kneeling, she threw up violently, clutching at her stomach and let the tears flow freely.
Margretta, not giving a fuck anymore what the villagers reaction would be, sank to her knees and let out a blood curdling scream that would have stirred the two bodies – or what was left of them- lying on the ground a few feet from where the stood….
4 Comments
by stacey
journey to the city!!
by alice bonareri
winnie, this is a great read!really wanted to comment but as you know im poor in literature. let the best person win it.
by Anonymous
In the middle of the night….
by winnie araka
nice try stace dear. Alice, it wont hurt to try….and anynymous, try commenting with your real profile swty…you could be the one getting the airtime, nice try too.
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