SEVENTEEN : The depth of her deception

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All this while, Kasawa had narrated the story as though she were simply a witness to it. But the moment she spoke of what Elizabeth had gone through, her voice cracked. Her icy composure slipped. As her gaze settled on the light-skinned beauty whose complexion had driven men to ruin, a lump rose in her throat.

When Fredrick, with Sofia and her mother’s help, had cast Elizabeth out, the most practical thing for Kasawa and her brothers would have been to stay and keep Fredrick’s favour. They chose to go with Elizabeth instead. The woman was only ten years younger than their late mother. She had opened her door to three children that nobody else wanted. When relative after relative had produced an excuse as to why they could not take in a teenage boy and two preteens, Elizabeth had simply said yes.

The same relatives who had filled their parents’ house with visits had closed their doors without apology. Elizabeth, whom Kasawa had seen only three or four times in her life, had welcomed them without hesitation.

When Elizabeth went to prison, the responsibility of the household fell on Gabriel and Kasawa. Elizabeth won her appeal, but the year and a half she was away had already done its damage. A few months after her release, her youngest child fell gravely ill. Elizabeth swallowed her pride and went to beg Fredrick for help. He turned her away. When she would not leave, he had his guards throw her off the premises.

Yolanda and Sofia had watched it all with satisfaction.

The next day Gabriel went to beg instead. He too was turned away.

Two days later, the child died. Fredrick did not attend the funeral despite being notified repeatedly.

Elizabeth was never the same. She became a shell.

Then, some months later, Fredrick returned from a business conference to an empty house. Yolanda, Sofia, and her family were gone. In the days that followed, it became clear that he was on the edge of bankruptcy. Yolanda had emptied his accounts before she left. The relatives who had cheered him on throughout suddenly remembered they had reasons they could not help. He was alone.

It was only then, with nothing left, that he came back to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth told him she would only welcome him back into their lives if he could return their dead son.

Kasawa, her brothers, and Fredrick’s own children wanted nothing to do with him.

Broke, homeless, and crushed under the weight of his own choices, Fredrick decided to take his own life. He swallowed a poisonous substance. The Grim Reaper, apparently, was not paying attention that day. He survived.

‘That cannot be true. You must be mistaking her for someone else,’ Gershom said. He could not bring himself to look at Yolanda. If any of this was true, then everything she had ever told him about herself was a lie. He could manage her appetite for money — that he had always known. It was the part about other men that was eating at him.

Kasawa reached into her bag, produced a handful of photographs, and threw them into the air between them.

They fluttered down to the carpeted floor.

The nearest bridesmaid picked one up and gasped. One by one, the others followed. Hushed murmurs spread through the room. Someone handed a few to Gershom.

His heart dropped with each one.

Yolanda sat very still, like a drowned cat.

The man in the photographs was older than Gershom. Old enough to be her father. His stomach turned as the full depth of her deception settled over him.

‘He was old enough to be your father,’ Gershom said quietly.

‘I believe the term you are looking for is sugar daddy,’ Kasawa said, her voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. She looked at him with something between amusement and pity. ‘Let me guess — she told you she was innocent. Pure. That you were the one who awakened something in her. Don’t feel special. You are not the first man she fed that story to.’

‘I think you should leave,’ Sofia said, clamping her hand around Kasawa’s arm. ‘You have done enough. Are you happy now? What exactly did you achieve?’

Kasawa shrugged her off calmly. ‘After what you did to my family, what I did to you today is nothing. You deserve far worse. Your actions ruined the lives of seven children. And I know we were not your only victims. I could have taken a much more drastic step today. I chose not to. This was not revenge. It was a reminder that the past always finds its way back.’

‘It’s all in the past,’ Gershom said, though his voice lacked conviction. ‘It is time for you to leave.’

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Long after Kasawa had gone and Sofia had ushered everyone out, Gershom sat on the sofa staring at nothing.

If someone had told him this was how his wedding day would end, he would have laughed in their face. His Yolie was perfect. She had been innocent before him. He was the only man who held her heart.

‘We should go down. The guests have been waiting for hours,’ Yolanda said, emerging from the bathroom looking composed.

He stared at her. ‘Are we going to pretend today did not happen?’

‘I have a past. Deal with it. We are already married. For better for worse — remember?’

‘Why all the lies?’

‘You believed them because you wanted to.’ She held his gaze steadily. ‘Look at me, Gershom. Did you honestly think I would ever be short of men who want me?’

His nostrils flared. ‘You lied to me. You are nothing but a cheap whore.’

‘And one that you love. Your ego is bruised. Get over it.’

Gershom moved towards her, the veins in his neck straining, jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides. Yolanda tilted her chin at him and did not move.

A knock at the door stopped him.

A second later, Mrs. Irene walked in with Luthanda in her arms.

‘Ma.’ He stepped back from Yolanda immediately.

‘Your reception should have started two hours ago. Do you not think you have kept your guests waiting long enough?’

‘Of course, Ma. We were just getting ready.’ He steadied himself. ‘Thank you for coming. It means everything to us.’

‘Congratulations on your wedding,’ Mrs. Irene said, and handed the baby back to her mother.

‘Thank you, Mother. Your being here meant so much. It means you have accepted us into this family.’

‘Do not get it twisted. I did not come for either of you. I came for my granddaughter.’

‘Ma…’

‘And you need to stop blaming Feggy for everything that goes wrong in your life.’

‘Ma, even if Kasawa didn’t admit it directly, someone contacted her. I saw the CCTV footage — she had a family invitation card. Someone put her up to this.’

‘I know.’

‘You do? How?’

‘I gave her the card.’

The room went silent.

‘Ma!’

‘Mother, why would you do that? That is my past. Will it follow me forever? Will you hold it against me for the rest of our lives? Is that woman Feggy more important to you than your own son’s happiness? What you did was cruel.’

‘I did what I did to show my son exactly the kind of woman he chose. He destroyed his family. He burnt every bridge he had with his siblings. He did all of that for a woman whose deeds can be likened to those of a murderer.’

‘How dare you!’ Yolanda moved towards her.

Gershom’s hand shot out and locked around her wrist. His eyes warned her.

Mrs. Irene looked at him with slightly raised brows, her gaze calm. ‘Why did you stop her? You should have let her.’

‘I am sorry, Ma.’ He kept his grip on Yolanda’s wrist and gave her a look that held equal parts anger and disappointment.

‘Do you want to know why I used the word murderer? Because while a murderer takes a life once, women like you destroy lives slowly. You take the knife and you plunge it in, again and again, day after day. You kill them quietly. But you would not care about that, would you?’

‘Then perhaps you should have told your son to keep it in his pants.’

Mrs. Irene chuckled. She let the words pass her without flinching. ‘You are right. He made the vows. He is the one who should have kept them. Nobody is saying he walks away from this without blame — he should carry all of it. But what is done is done.’ She stood. ‘I hope this marriage is everything you hoped for, son.’

She pressed her lips to Luthanda’s forehead.

Then she walked out.

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‘Yolanda, are you not going to answer that?’

‘It is no one important,’ she replied to Betty’s question.

Dressed in skimpy bikinis, the two sat on the edge of the pool with martinis in hand. It was the kind of place that attracted men with too much money and women looking for the right catch.

‘So how is the husband?’

A long, slow teeth-kiss slipped from her lips. ‘Do not get me started on that man,’ she murmured, draining her glass. She picked up her phone, watched Gershom’s name flash on the screen, and put it on silent.

Betty laughed and asked what had happened this time.

Almost six months had passed since the wedding. Nothing had gone the way Yolanda had imagined. There was not a day that went by without a fight. Every argument circled back to her past, which he threw in her face as if he had not known exactly who he was marrying. And the money she had assumed would flow freely once they were married had not materialised. He had put her on a tight budget.

‘Honestly, I never understood why you married him,’ Betty said. ‘But look around you — this place is full of money. Find yourself another catch.’

‘Betty is right,’ Sofia said, appearing from behind them and dropping onto the edge to dip her feet in the water. ‘If you were not so caught up with Gershom, I could introduce you to someone far more suitable.’

Yolanda sighed. She had no one but herself to blame. She had let herself become too emotionally attached and dropped her guard.

‘Do you have someone in mind?’

Sofia smiled with her eyes.

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Some hours later, Yolanda’s head poked out of the limousine window as the car pulled up to the Carlton Temba Hotel. Her mouth fell open.

She turned to Sofia with questions in her eyes. Even though her wedding had been held at the Carlton Temba Suites, they bore no comparison to the main hotel, which looked less like a building and more like a palace.

Since the grand opening a few months prior, she had wanted to come. She had never had enough money to. Before the marriage, Gershom could stretch to three-star hotels. This was something else entirely.

The chauffeur opened their doors and handed them each an envelope — invitation cards to the banquet.

Dressed in a black strappy jumpsuit with her hair falling in voluminous waves over her shoulders, Yolanda walked through the doors. Sofia led them to the elevator. They stepped off on the top floor.

The moment she walked into the banquet hall, Yolanda understood that this was not her everyday scene. The wealth in that room made her lightheaded.

She found herself admiring Sofia, who moved through it all completely unfazed. Sofia’s amethyst mermaid dress swept the floor as she led them to a corner table. A young man joined them shortly after, his attention fixed entirely on Yolanda from the moment he sat down.

Sofia introduced him as Marion Akende. He appeared to be in his late twenties. His gaze moved over her without apology. When he reached for her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, holding her eyes with his amber ones, Yolanda felt something shift.

If someone had whispered the name Gershom into her ear at that moment, she would have looked at them blankly and asked who in the world that was.

When Marion smiled and two deep dimples appeared on either side of his face above a set of even white teeth, Yolanda quietly dissolved.

He picked up three champagne flutes from a passing waiter and handed them around.

Impressed by her wit and charm, Marion stayed with them for a while before duty pulled him back to his other guests. Even as he moved through the room he kept finding reasons to glance back at their table.

‘Who is he?’ Yolanda asked the moment he was out of earshot.

‘Marion?’ Sofia said, amused. Her eyes found his across the room. ‘He is the husband of a girl I used to know.’

Yolanda went quiet.

Sofia laughed softly at the expression on her face. ‘Are you growing a conscience now?’

‘No. If he is willing to play, he is fair game. I am just surprised you are pointing me towards someone your friend is married to.’

‘She is an insignificant nobody. She does not deserve him.’

‘And I do?’

‘You had better make sure of it.’ Sofia sipped her champagne. ‘Make yourself indispensable, and become the next Mrs. Akende.’

‘You are forgetting one detail,’ Yolanda said, waving her ringed finger between them.

‘An insignificant detail.’

Yolanda chuckled, looked across the room at Marion, and lifted her glass. ‘To a bright future then.’

Sofia smiled behind hers.

She would kill two birds with one stone — solve her friend’s financial problem and bring Marion’s wife down from the comfortable life she had always found irritating.

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Once his business conversations wound down, Marion joined the women in the adjoining lounge. Though three beauties sat around him, he had eyes only for Yolanda. He sat with his arm draped along the back of the sofa, Yolanda settled naturally in the crook of it. Every so often his hand brushed her bare shoulder.

After one too many champagnes, Yolanda and Betty excused themselves to the powder room.

‘So what do you think of my friend?’ Sofia asked, watching them go.

‘I did not know you had someone like that in your circle. Why have you been hiding her?’

‘We go back a long way.’

‘And I am only meeting her now? I thought we were friends, Sofi.’

‘You know that wife of yours is impossible. She goes after any woman who comes near you.’

Marion laughed. ‘Fiona is intense. But I can handle her.’

‘Do not make promises you cannot keep. If she lays a hand on Yolanda, I will not be responsible for what happens next. Consider yourself warned.’

Even as she said it, Sofia already knew Yolanda was more than capable of handling herself.

‘You worry too much. So what do I owe you for this introduction?’

Sofia thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Last time I saw your wife, she was driving a very nice red car.’

‘The Bentley GT Continental?’

‘Is that what it was? I want one exactly like it. In blue.’

‘Done. I will have it delivered by the end of the month.’

‘That is why you are a darling.’ She stood and smoothed her dress. ‘Betty and I will head off. Take care of my girl.’

Marion called his driver and arranged for the car to take them back.

‘Will you not even ask how Yolanda is doing before you go?’ he said.

Sofia scoffed. ‘And what would I gain from that?’

Marion chuckled. He had long since stopped trying to get the two of them to reconcile.

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© Ponda

VOCAB

Carlton Temba — fictional luxury hotel used in the story