SHORT STORY

THE PRICE
Short story by Linda Chisoni

Time was hanging heavy on Gertrude’s hands. About two months had passed since her mother left for Australia where she went for her masters’ degree. And to the poor girl, there was nothing to write home about. She had come across what she had never anticipated. She had never anticipated that her own father would rape her.
She lay lowly in her bed with little knowledge of what she would come across that day. Her father’s house seemed to be no more a salubrious place for her. She could sniff more tough times ahead.
At the age of fourteen she had already been raped thrice, and to make matters worse, by her own biological father. She had only heard about fathers raping their own daughters but she had never thought she might be the victim one day.
Now she seemed to find no reason why she had to continue living. She tucked herself in her eiderdown but she could hardly drift off to sleep. It was not night time but she wanted to have a nap anyway.
After failing to sleep, she went out and walked into the garden where she plucked twigs and rosebuds. That was all she could afford to do that time. All her hopes of a brighter future had abruptly broken into smithereens the first time her father invaded her room at night.
As she walked back into the house, her father glided out and sank into a sun lounger near the garden. He was watching her with a roving eye and it seemed he had not yet reached the end of his satiety.
The writing was clear on the wall that he was yet to abuse her some more.
In the house, Gertrude found the maidservant slaving away over a hot stove and she helped with a few things that did not call for absolute attention like putting the plates in their cabinet and placing the squeegee and the mop in the store room. She also cleaned a clapped-out gas cooker for the hell of it.
When the food was ready, Gertrude told the servant that she would eat together with her, ignoring the tradition of eating together with her father. “I won’t eat with him again,” she said.
“Why Gertrude? He will be terribly annoyed. I am nothing but a servant, not worthy a fig. he will think I am coaxing you not to be so close to him,” the maidservant said, almost pleading.
“You would be doing a very excellent thing.” She beamed. “He scares the hell out of me and I no longer want to be so close to him.”
“You already are. You are living in the same house.” She placed Gertrude’s father’s food on a tray and carried it delicately into the dining room.
Gertrude’s father asked the two to join him with their food in the dining room. There they ate their grub quietly such that the only noise that could be heard came when one of them broke a bone or munched some rubbery stuff.
“Tomorrow I want to take you to the lake,” Gertrude’s father said to salve his conscience, yet the kind of fear that had settled in his daughter’s heart was as strong as an inborn trait.
“Tomorrow is Sunday and I will go to church.” Gertrude fearlessly looked into his father’s bloodshot eyes.
He smiled spuriously. In front of him was a spread out newspaper which he was neither reading nor looking at. “My dear, everyone at least worships but what matters is who they worship. I don’t regret not going to church. It has now turned into a centre of silent transgressions. Everywhere, news about quirky things happening in churches is like adverts. It is better to sin out of a holy sanctuary.” He lifted the paper in front of him and showed her a heading which read: Pastor caught red-handed with women guild chair.
“The most sacrilegious things which used to happen at beer drinking joints are now happening in the church. Now tell me one hell of a single reason why I should go the place and I will instantly be convinced.”
“The things you have said are happening in the church are the more reasons why you should go there. Disapprove of the acts right in front of everyone and you will save a soul,” said Gertrude.
“I am not convinced. Their decisions and principles are cut and dried. They can’t listen to anyone. They make judgments; unfair judgments. They are corrupt and they are trying to corrupt each and everyone. They stick rigidly to unfairness. The church was supposed to be the last place where prejudice would exist.”
Gertrude did not want to make any further arguments. She just looked at him and ate her food quietly. She had heard a strident tone in his voice and she knew that if she continued arguing, he would fly into a rage.
“Gertrude, I am cruel to be kind. Sometimes you may feel I am a threat to your life but I am acting the way every responsible father would act.”
She wanted to say that he was not being responsible by ravishing her but the words melted in her mouth. She just nodded her small head gently. It was not that kind of nod that was meant to show that she approved of what he had said, but one aimed at putting paid to the subject. She knew that she was in a very delicate situation: much of what she would continue uttering was likely to rattle his cage more than somewhat. Her head was encumbered with the agony she had gone through which appeared not to have stopped completely.
That night, Gertrude had a very bad dream. Arrayed in a white dust coat, grey flannels and black suede shoes, Dr. Mulambia stood in front of her and told her that she was expecting. She flaked out.
The servant flipped the lights on and stared into Gertrude’s drowsy eyes. “You had a dream I know and it must have been a very bad one. You were speaking audibly. You were also crying.” She moved forward and glanced at the wall clock. “It is still night. Three past one. Go back to sleep.”
At about the same time Gertrude was getting lost to the world, his father was sitting up in his bed. He was in his nightwear. It was 1:30 and he was filled with a terrible desire to abuse his daughter; his own blood daughter.
In his illusions, she was sitting in front of him, smiling coyly like a maiden on the first day of her courtship with a decent stripling. He tip-toed into her room and raped her. She tried to scream but her screams were suppressed.
The following morning, Gertrude was found dead on her bed. Beside her was a tumbler half-filled with a crimson liquid. On top of her clothes closet was a note where she revealed that she had decided to commit suicide after being raped by her own father for times without number. Her father destroyed the note studiously.
Two weeks passed and to Gertrude’s father, her daughter’s death was now a dead letter that would only be revived upon the arrival of his wife who was still abroad. Had he known!
Just the other week, he began to have terrible nightmares where his dead daughter pestered him to explain what he had done to her and why she had decided to take her own life. He would scream and breathe a sigh of relief after realizing that he had just been dreaming. It happened several times and he just took the dreams to be nothing but dreams.
This other night, his daughter visited him again in a nightmare. “Go and tell each and everyone your wicked acts. Otherwise you will find no peace of this earth. What did I do to deserve what you did to me, you wicked man?” Gertrude’s ghost told him.
He screamed and saw a real ghost standing beside his bed. He could feel his body turning floppy, his legs wobbly. Then he passed out. When he came to, the ghost was still there. He rushed to the pastor’s house and explained to him what had happened. But he never said anything about what he had been ordered to do.
Prayers were conducted in the house. All evil spirits were cast out and the house was declared safe from any interference.
Yet the following night, the ghost returned. It told the troubled man that he had one last chance to do what he had been ordered. His freedom had to come at that price. The ghost ordered him that if he failed to do what he had been ordered, he was going to die a very painful death.
He had no choice. He could not stand the second return of the ghost. That was his price.