Wedding Bells
By Andrew
SevenSeven
*first appeared in the Villager newspaper
The
following is a work of fiction, any similarity to an actual event is purely
coincidental.
Katrina
Shikongo sat on her chair thinking about the day that loomed ahead of her. Her
much younger sister, Brenda, turned lazily in her sleep
on the small bed in the corner, which ended her loud snoring momentarily. Katrina
pulled a comb from the drawer and began to straighten her hair. She wore a
pretty, red dress, with material that accentuated the curve of her breasts, and
the Brazilian weave on her head was impeccable. She looked stunning, however
she did not feel it. This was going to be the worst day of her life.
Shekupe, her toddler sister barged into
the room laughing her head off and plopped loudly onto the bed. This awoke
Brenda who began to wail at the sudden pull to consciousness. Shekupe began to
laugh at her, which only made Brenda laugh even harder. Usually, such chaos
would have made Katrina pull out her hair in frustration, but today, there were
more frustrating things occupying her mind. The noise of a car slowly approaching
their house made her heart begin to pace. Where they here already? She was not ready
to meet them yet. She appeared ready on the outside, but she had not prepared her
mind. The car drove on past the house and her anxiety levelled. A knock came at
the door and a tall man entered. It was her father.
“Are you ready?” Asked Mr. Shikongo, her
father.
Perhaps this should have served as a good
moment to tell her father she no longer wanted to do this, but she only smiled
and nodded and the moment was swallowed up into the endless chasm of moments
she could have told him, ever since she first began to have second thoughts
about this entire situation.
“Great,” said Mr. Shikongo cheerfully. He
looked down at his silver hublot watch. “They’ll be here in about 15 minutes; you
can go put out the food with your mother.”
When the covered meals were laid out on the
table in the living room, Katrina heard a car pull up next to the house and her
heart resumed its rapid beating. She straightened her already perfectly ironed
dress and gulped. A knock at the door came and Mrs. Shikongo rushed to open the
door to the guests.
A handsome, young man walked in. David
Shahepa. He had clean, kempt hair and perfectly trimmed hairline. His eyes
carried a high sense of intelligence and he had the face of one that had
studied abroad for several years. He smiled warmly at Mrs. Shikongo before
planting a smooth kiss on her cheek and handing her a wrapped gift. Such
admirable etiquette, it made Katrina question herself for questioning her
feelings about David. He shook her hand and sat down with a smile.
Behind him was his mother whose nose was
wrinkled like she had smelled something foul. She tried to hide it, but Katrina
could tell she was not at all impressed with their humble abode. Her toilet was
probably a hundred times more extravagant than their entire home.
Mr. Shikongo entered the living room
looking slightly surprised even though Katrina knew he was the most excited
person in the little house. He shook David’s parents’ hands before sitting down
to commence the meeting.
Mr. Shikongo seemed to salivate with every
bit of progress made in the meeting, but as talks went ahead, his oldest
daughter, Katrina, only seemed to reaffirm in her mind how much she did not
love David, nor did she want to be with him. But love had nothing to do this.
Not at all. She had a duty to her family. Her parents were poor and the income
her father made could barely afford to keep 5 people alive, let alone pay their
school fees, one of which was Katrina’s N$80 000 annually for her university
charges. She was a good student, but her grades had plummeted after her mother
got sick some years ago, meaning she could not get a bursary. No, she had to
play her part, and her father had made sure she knew very well that marrying
this guy was the right thing to do. It was her duty! It had been her duty to
break up with Michael, the man she loved, as soon as David became interested,
because Michael’s family did not possess the financial prowess of the Shahepas.
She blinked and gave David the fakest smile she had ever given anyone as he
said, “It is settled then, we shall be married by the end of the month.”
Katrina Shikongo’s smile pulled wool over
the eyes of everyone in the room, bar the person who knew her the most, and
that was certainly not her fiancé, David. Her mother, Mariah Shikongo, cleared
her throat distinctively, stood up and said, “Katrina, dear, can you help me
take the plates to the kitchen?”
Katrina stacked half the plates on the
table atop each other and followed her mother to the small kitchen and closed
the door behind her. Mrs. Shikongo began to quietly scrub the dirty dishes in
the sink with an old sponge but Katrina knew her mother enough to realise she
definitely had something to say. After several silent seconds passed, possibly
attempting to choose her words carefully, Mrs. Shikongo spoke.
“Do you know why your father and I have
been married for so long?” she asked.
Katrina had never really thought about
that. She did not answer immediately. Her parents where the old fashioned type;
her father didn’t go around buying her mother flowers and chocolate and the
sort. In fact, they never called each other by any pet names, not even ‘honey’
or ‘baby’, but their love for each other had never once been in question. It
oozed from them. It was evident in the simplest gestures, such as Mrs. Shikongo
staying up late waiting for Mr. Shikongo after they had had an argument and he
stormed off to have beers with his pals, or Mr. Shikongo giving the tongue of
the family’s cow-head dinner to his wife despite being a deeply cultural man
who knew it was supposed to be reserved for the male head of the home.
“Because you love each other,” Katrina
finally answered, fighting back tears.
“I know your father is very excited about
this,” Mrs. Shikongo began, turning from the sink, “but this is your life. Your
father wants you to have a great life, without the financial struggle that he
and I have had, but he doesn’t appreciate the fact that settling with the wrong
person can be just as miserable. If you don’t want to go through with it, just
say so. Your father will be disappointed at first, but in time he will
understand.”
A flare of hope beamed inside Katrina. The
face of Michael, her ex-boyfriend, the one she truly loved, shot across her
mind’s eye. Perhaps she could call him and ask him to take her back? She
smiled. And this time her eyes sparkled with a gleam that had been noticeably
absent when her lips formed that same curve for David only a few minutes ago.
“I want to be with Michael,” Katrina finally
admitted. “I don’t like David.”
“It’s settled then,” Mrs. Shikongo said,
“You’re not marrying him.” There was a look of both joy and sadness on her
face. She took her daughter’s hands in her own continued. “I kept the album
with pictures of you and Michael that you threw away. Go into our room and
check the bottom drawer for it while I go and explain things to your father and
the Shahepas.”
Katrina followed her mother out of the
kitchen but took a turn to the left into the thin corridor of the house. In her
parent’s room, she knelt by the wardrobe and pulled one of the drawers. As she
pulled the drawer an envelope fell out, but she ignored it and swiftly rummaged
through the pile. She found her pink photo album and held it close to her
chest, but just as she got up to join everyone in the sitting room she noticed
a brown envelope on the floor, and being the curious, cheeky daughter of Asino
and Mariah Shikongo, she was compelled to take a peek. She attempted to skim
through the letter but was caught on one sentence. It read: ‘This letter serves
as a reminder that following a series of outstanding payments, your house in
Kuryangava ERF number 3998 shall be repossessed on February 14.’
Katrina read that sentence again and
again, and it struck her like a fresh blow every time she did. Why did they not
tell her about this? Her parents had sacrificed so much for her and her
sisters, and what were they going to get for all their troubles? Homelessness
on Valentine’s Day. Even on the verge of losing their home, her mother was
willing to put Katrina’s happiness ahead of everything. Tears began to form in
her eyes, but she forced herself not to cry. She made a choice, and together
with all her hopes and dreams, shoved the pink photo album back into the furthest
end of the drawer. When she got to the sitting room she found all three
Shahepas standing, Mrs. Shahepa looking particularly affronted.
“What is this about you not wanting to be
with me anymore?” David asked, angrily.
“No, no, my love,” Katrina calmed him.
“Mother misinterpreted a joke I made to her, it was supposed to be funny and
sarcastic. I guess I’m not as funny as I thought.”
Mrs. Shikongo looked bewildered.
“We’re definitely getting married. Now,
take me for a ride around the city while we leave our parents discussing the
details,” Katrina said to David’s delight. She smiled at him, and this time her
eyes did glisten, only it was the flash of a residue of tears she could never
afford to shed.
