Murder in the Cassava Patch
Bai T. Moore
 Gortokai's real father was a slave who had originally been a contract laborer on Fernando Po. The laborer returns to Liberia disillusioned with his work, and finds himself bartered as a slave between various owners. Until the very end of the book, it remains unclear quite how or why this slave's child (Gortokai) came to be fostered by a family from Bendabli. Gortokai is accordingly raised by old man Joma and his wife Sombo Karn, alongside their daughters Tene and Kema. According to Gortokai, he is unaware that he is not his parents' "real" son until Tene herself tells him during a game of "Mama and Papa": "...suddenly Tene came up to me and asked me to hold her tight in the waist. I shivered and recoiled. Gortokai, can't you see that we are not brother and sister? It's a secret Mama told me." Gortokai describes himself as his foster family's main source of support: farming rice, making oil from palm nuts, setting traps for crayfish, hunting meat, and so on. He also takes short-term bush-cutting contracts to earn money for the family's tobacco, salt and annual hut tax. When he decides to marry, Gortokai sets his hopes on Tene, and asks her older sister Kema to intercede on his behalf. She agrees, but this also introduces the tricky question of the dowry - which in Liberia's case, the prospective groom is required to pay the bride's parents. In addition to the question of potential incest, the acceptable size of the dowry is the subject of further speculation for the village gossips. On being assured (by Kema) that Tene really loves him, Gortokai agrees to pay "the full forty dollars that is required for all virgins". To earn the money, Gortokai takes a job clearing a rubber farm faraway in Suehn. Having spent most of his first pay check on presents which he sends to the two girls, he hears nothing from them by way of thanks. Despondent, he injures his toe with his machete, and uses his convalescence as an opportunity to invite Tene to visit him. Tene and her sister belatedly arrive in Suehn, blaming others for not delivering messages to them, and bringing Gortokai gifts of country bread and fried chicken. Gortokai's employer, whose wife calls Gortokai their "stranger son" (a Liberian term referring to the informal "adoption" of a non-blood relative) throws a party for the two girls at which they drink fifteen dollars' worth of rum. The following morning, Tene both invites, and coyly rejects, Gortokai's advances. Nevertheless, Gortokai presents her with a pair of gold earrings, and she repays him with a "rare" compliment: "Kai, I love you. You are so thoughtful." Before the two girls leave Suehn, Gortokai gives Kema $23 towards the dowry - a dowry which has now risen to forty dollars, plus three dollars for various ritual niceties, plus two sets of clothes for Tene's parents. Joining Suehn's palm wine circle, Gortokai is dismayed to hear their gossip about Kema. He is told that she is a well-known drunkard with creative ways at inventing strong cocktails. He suspects, but is afraid to ask, that there must also be some unsavoury information about Tene also. His fellow palm wine drinkers convince him that he must buy some powerful love medicine in order to ensure that Tene stays faithful to him. Gortokai accordingly visits a country doctor by the name of Bleng. Bleng uses magic to tell Gortokai that Tene's affections are divided, and explains that the remedy will be strong love medicine. Naturally, this will cost a lot of money, but Bleng has further peculiar requirements: "For instance, I need right away, a braid of Tene's hair, a piece of her garment, three of her toe nails, a piece of otter skin, particularly from the breast section, some gun powder and other odds and ends. But some of these I believe I can get locally. The immediate needs are the hair, nails and garment." Although he has some misgivings (having heard rumors that Bleng too is a drunkard, whose powers are on the wane), Gortokai is keen to produce both the money and the necessary snippets of Tene's hair, nails, and clothes. At the same time, he receives a message that his stepfather is seriously ill, and decides to return to Bendabli. Arriving early at the village, he decides to conceal himself in order to spy on Tene and perhaps steal a lock of her hair. However, he also overhears a conversation between Tene and her family in which it is clear that Tene believes that "a girl should be given a chance to look around before she decides on one man". She also describes her recent visit to Bomi Hills, where it is clear that she has had several amorous adventures, and is no longer "the same beautiful little girl" she used to be. That night, Gortokai steals into Tene and Kema's shared room, with a view to taking some of Tene's hair, nails, and clothes. With great difficulty, he achieves this (pretending to be a rat as he cuts her toenails in the dark) but not before the girls have raised the alarm at the intruder in their room. Miraculously, he manages to escape without being identified. Forgetting about his dying stepfather, he returns swiftly to Suehn, where he gives the ingredients to Bleng, along with ten silver dollars for the powerful love medicine. Bleng tells him to put this powder in Tene's food - and so he returns to Bendabli to carry this out. He is received without enthusiasm, and is told that the girls were recently attacked by a "heart man" who crept into their room one night. He carries out Bleng's medicinal instructions, but Tene nevertheless elopes with a lover to Bomi Hills, two months pregnant. Although he feels like setting the village on fire, he decides instead to travel first to Monrovia, then to Tapeta, and on to Sanniquellie. On his travels, he learns more about the complicated relationships that people have in modern-day Liberia. After several months, he returns to Monrovia, and is surprised to hear that Tene herself is now in the capital, where she is selling gari or farina on the street. It's a year since Gortokai has seen her, and she looks different - both darker and poorer. She has a young baby now, but has left her husband and has returned to her parents' house in Bendabli. For the first time, they sleep together, and Tene no longer resists his advances. They return to Bendabli to find their family house in a state of disrepair and Joma and his wife too old and sick to do much about it. Gortokai sets to putting things right. He is promised Tene as his wife, and lives with her and accepts her child as his own. He repairs the house and plants a large vegetable garden. However, after four months in Bendabli, Gortokai again receives bad news over a glass of cane juice. This time he hears that Kema is planning to move Tene and her parents to Firestone. The old couple deny this. Tene is receiving expensive gifts from a man in Firestone whom Kema wants her to marry, but she denies receiving these gifts, claiming she made the money by selling gari. The tragedy comes to a head when Kema returns from Firestone, demanding strong liquor and smelling of expensive perfume. Gortokai eavesdrops on her conversation with Tene, in which it is clear that they have little respect for "this deformed-nose Kai of ours", whose father was once sold as a slave into Lofa County. Kema invites Tene to come and join her with the moneyed workers of the Firestone plantation. The following morning, Gortokai takes a knife and cuts up a parcel of expensive clothes which he has intercepted, and scatters the pieces around town. He also asks Tene to prepare for him some domboy (mashed cassava), telling her ominously: "I like to plan everything I do ahead of time." When Tene goes to the cassava patch to prepare the domboy, she finds Gortokai waiting for her.