A sound burst out of my mouth. It had the colour of pain. It was deeper than red. It was deeper than tears. It was the colour of joy. It was the first sound out of my mouth.
A sound sprouted from the thing that had come out of me. The Little-thing that I had washed in the river because it was painted with blood. The thing that came out of me was still attached to me. So I impatiently disconnected the thing that came from the dark cave inside me with my teeth. I struggled with the cord until it was weak enough to be snapped by a sharp stone. The thin rope coiled back through the tunnel, leaving a small piece on the Little-thing for me to knot. Then, something else slipped out of me. Something from which the rope had grown; jelly-like, shivering. It sank into the river leaving behind a thick liquid, fiery like the sun falling behind the hills.
The Little-thing resembled Mundu. It had a tongue that vibrated like the small river that had grown out of our feet. It made a strange sound. Mundu came from behind the rock. When he saw me holding the thing that looked like him in body, his eyes told me not to worry. His eyes told me we had to watch the Little-thing’s mouth; learn what it had learnt from the dark cave inside me.
The Little-thing began to cry and we watched its mouth for a sign. The sun and moon passed over our heads—the sun appearing from behind the mountain, the moon slicing through the blue sky—but still we did not know how to stop the tears. We did not know how to stop the sound from its mouth. I dropped a few droplets of water from Manafwa into its mouth, to stop the hiccups. My heart was boiling. It was heaving up and down under my left breast. The steam began to melt my heart. And the heat melted the frozen tears in my breasts. My long breasts began to cry, when my nipples stumbled over the Little-thing’s lips. The young lips pressed hard and squeezed tears into its mouth. The Little-thing’s tongue began to absorb the sweet teardrops from my swollen long breasts. And we learnt that this was food for it. Mundu looked at my mouth. It was smiling. I decided to move my long swollen breasts off my chest towards the little mouth. One long breast in one hand to the little mouth. The other long breast in another hand to the little mouth. The little mouth pulled at my cubical nipples, making sucking sounds. Pulled me towards it. I pulled the Little-thing towards me, keeping it warm in my arms, as it fed on the white fluid from my breasts.
When the Little-thing was not pulling at my nipples with its lips, it was talking to itself. Cuuu, cuuuuuu! It listened to the birds singing and watched them dancing above us in the sky, as it lay down on the grass. I stood at a distance and gathered fruits from the bush. The Little-thing listened to the white, black and grey birds, weaving songs with their beaks. The Little-thing began to sing with the birds. It began to talk with the winged creatures. Nywinywi, nywinywi . . . I watched the Little-thing curiously. It repeated the sounds that came from the birds. It looked at the hen that was warming its little-things with its wide-kind-arms.
The little-things sang one song, while looking their mother in the eye. Mayi, mayi . . . The Little-thing looked at the cock that had jumped onto the bird with wide-kind-arms, the one that had dropped into her a few seeds, and caused her to lay ten eggs.
The bird with wide-kind-arms had sat on the eggs and cracked them with her weight. And out of the eggs, came chicks singing a qwe qwe song. An ode about the cold they had found in the world. Kwaaah! Mayi imbewo, kwaaah! Mayi imbewo. And the bird with wide-kind-arms wrapped the cold little-things under her wings. And the Little-thing that came out of me, cried Mayi imbewo, Mayi imbewo. I understood. I wrapped the Little-thing in my arms, and shut out the cold.
Mundu was drawn to the Little-thing that came out of me because it resembled him in body. He was amazed at how the thing that came out of me could look like him and not me. So he carried it on his shoulders when he went to Manafwa to fish. The Little-thing sat on the bank of the river and listened to the river gurgling as it cascaded over rapids. Mundu played with the big river. Played with the river to make his Little-thing giggle when it became restless. He picked up a smooth pebble and at an acute angle hit the water’s surface and produced a slapping sound. Pa. He did it again, two times over the water’s face, when he saw the Little-thing chuckle. Papa!
Papa! Papa! The Little-thing called Mundu each time it woke up and opened its eyes to a new sunrise. Mayi, it called me, from the moment it watched the birds sing to their mother.
Mundu watched the birds flying across the sky. From east to west, returning home with fruits hanging out of their mouths to drop into their little-things’ mouths. My Little-thing opened its mouth. Opened it to get some of the food from the birds. The birds descended to his mouth and dropped their songs into it.
My Little-thing grew tall. It yearned to grow taller and reach the sky. We saw the signs from the way it raised its arms and flapped them like the birds in the sky. We watched the future of its dreams. It wanted to be a bird and fly to distant lands beyond Masaaba. But its arms were too heavy to lift it into the sky to float about like the birds, so it resorted to being like us. It decided to imitate the way Mundu and I walked on the earth. But it refused to mimic our silence. It raised its voice when it saw the birds descend to their nests. Sang the songs that the birds had dropped into its mouth. Nywinywi, nywinywi. Khanywinywi . . . and so the bird was named. Khanywinywi flew past the window of Susannah’s Chariot and then climbed high into the sun-set sky at that moment when Kamau tapped her arm.
“Wake up my princess. We have reached Busia.”
“Hmm, you just stirred me out of a weird dream.” She blinked and lifted herself lazily out of her seat.
The newly-wed couple, Susannah Seera and Jonathan Kamau joined the line at the immigration desk. When she presented her passport to the immigration officer, he smiled and asked, “You are the writer?”
Zukiswa Wanner
A South African writer and publisher, she has published four novels, two children’s books, a satirical non-fiction and a literary travel memoir, Hardly Working (2018). In 2011 she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Best Book and the Herman Charles Bosman Awards for her novel Men of the South. In 2014, she was recognised by the Africa39 initiative as an African writer under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. In 2015 she won the K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award for London Cape Town Jo’burg. She was a 2018 Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Study (JIAS) Fellow. Although mostly based in Nairobi, she may be found in “any African city near you without notice”.
This is not Au Revoir
When I think of you and me. Of us. I think of postcards throughout the year from an African city with extreme weather conditions. Maybe Johannesburg. Yes. Definitely Johannesburg. Warming up in August and getting hotter towards the end of the year.
August, end of. When we first met again after so many years. I was with someone, then. Unhappily so. As unhappy with him as I am with you now. Soon you were the third person in our relationship with My Someone then. Never a third wheel. More the third line in a triangle. Giving us solidity and stability. The one we asked when you were around—why didn’t you come to our life sooner? Always welcome by both of us. Everything happens just when it is supposed to, you would give your stock answer. Now that I have been with you, I know you don’t have much original thought. I wonder whether you Googled even that clichéd statement? Is it the line from a song or the words of a poem that I do not know?
We would both complain to you about the other. Did you learn then how best to hurt me? Or had you had it in you from our uni days?
You welcomed me into your home in December.
Shall I talk to him? you asked.
I shook my head. There was nothing more to be said. When we first met again at the end of August, something in me towards My Someone then had already died. Sometimes I think I stayed with him as long as I did because you liked him. And I, I wanted the approval of an old friend I had cherished, had lost touch with and was meeting again.
And when I shook my head, it seemed something changed between us that night. It seemed as th
ough all the days since we met again at the end of August, no, since I had known you in undergrad at Wits, had been leading to this. The raging of our bodies matched the Highveld storm outside. I think we both came the same second as the lightning bolt that struck the tree in your garden. I know so. Because when we looked at each other in wonderment, we were both lost, believing the noise had come from our bodies. It was only later, much later, when your neighbour texted to ask whether you knew that your wall was down that we realized that though our bodies may have roared inside, the noise was from your lightning-struck tree falling on a wall. There had been no plan on either of our parts. But you became My Someone then. And my Now No One accused you of stealing me from him.
Sitting together in the heat of our first Valentine’s Day, we laughed at him. But patriarchy is a mofo, you said. I nodded and added—that in this age he could believe a woman is stolen instead of just going? We laughed. And I shook my head at My Now No One thinking I had no will of my own. You kissed me as I sat in between your legs while I marvelled at your hands. Afterwards we both proclaimed, I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day. And yet when the day came around, although we made sure that we did not wear red, did not say Happy Valentine’s Day, did not buy each other gifts, we would spend the day together.
It seemed, as April approached, and Johannesburg started teasing us with cold weather, your ardour for me cooled. Or maybe mine did too. You stayed out later. You were too tired to make love, or I was too tired.
Then in July that horrible winter storm happened. It brought snow with it. Inside I felt colder than could be imagined despite the overpriced feather duvet we had bought and the thermal walls. It started with the criticism as you lay next to me in bed or were you lying on my lap on the couch? Your hand crept to just below my waist, and as your thumb and forefinger pinched me, you asked whether I was putting on weight. In my head the words of Grace Mugabe rang even before she publicly said them and I wanted to shout them out but did not. I did not say, stop it. Stop it forthwith. Instead I said, maybe a little. Then you kissed my stomach as I tried to suck it in and said, it suits you my sdudla mafehlefehle. This said while you rubbed your own belly and smiled a smile that did not quite reach your eyes.
Rich in every way coming from you, really.
Painful too, since you know my history.
The black girl who had to take a year off in uni for bulimia.
Private school girls trying to be white, I overheard as I was wheeled to the ambulance.
But. Shrug.
You said my weight suits me. And I am no longer in uni. And I was convinced you were different from That No One.
But then in a day or two you stopped being impressed with my potential sdudlaness. You instead started telling me that I seriously needed to lose a little weight. This as you ate a pork chop and pap I had prepared. No spinach babe. It irritates my teeth, you would say. Besides, I had a salad at work. Pork chop and pap, for you. Cabbage soup, for me.
You printed a diet that I should follow and stuck it on the fridge that July.
Just to remind you, you winked.
Summer bodies.
There are old cassettes of Tae-bo and yes, a still functioning VCR you told me. Billy Blanks would give me my exercise. If Tae-bo was not my thing, there was free WiFi. I could find a routine on YouTube. Or download something on my smartphone. The problem with you Naledi, you said stroking my chin affectionately belying the mean words you were about to speak. You always make excuses for staying fat.
You said the F-word.
Ignoring that you were at least twenty kilos heavier than I was.
I excused myself. Went to the bathroom. Stripped, and looked at my naked self. I did not need to suck my stomach in to see my mound of Venus. And yet I did.
So I left you as August approached.
Less than a year before that August end of, when we first met.
It was then that we established a pattern. I would leave. You would ignore me for a few weeks. Then return. Because you started communicating. Promising to change. Begging. In poetry. Antonio Jacinto’s “Letter from a Contract Worker” which you know is my eternal favourite. Last year it was Koleka Putuma writing about making love and orgasming in an office. Because you cannot write your own poetry. Okay, may be that is a little unfair. You have never claimed to be a poet. Just a lover of it.
But as I sit here now thinking about it, I think there is something that smacks of serious insincerity on your part. Using other people’s words to lure me back. You whose own words are a casual, I’m sorry. Sometimes followed by half-hearted, babe, you know I love you. Never as heartfelt as the poems you sent trying to lure me back. But I used to always melt. And always came back. For the last three years.
Remember when I came to you that December and told you that it had died with my Now No One? It has died with you too and you can join him as Now No One.
No.
I am not going to anyone else as I came to you.
I need to be with me.
To enjoy this me with a will that both of you seem to believe does not exist. So this is not au revoir. This, No One, is goodbye.
I know when you read my note you will laugh as you always do. It is, after all, not the first time I have left you.
You’ll call one of your friends and say, this Naledi.
Short laugh, your face sneering.
Her name went to her head, this Naledi. She thinks she is the star. Longer laugh.
Cough.
And your friend on the other side will likely ask what Naledi has done now.
And you will tell your friend, she says she has left.
Laugh. She left a note. Something about me being a diseased penishead.
She gets things mixed in her head my Nana sometimes, you will say.
Because a woman cannot be a diseased penishead.
Jesmyn Ward
Born in Mississippi, where she still lives, she is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, and the Strauss Living Prize. She is the winner of two National Book Awards for Fiction: in 2011 for Salvage the Bones and in 2017 for Sing, Unburied, Sing (from which the following extract comes). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds (2008) and the memoir Men We Reaped (2013), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award.
From Sing, Unburied, Sing
3:
Last night, after I hung up the phone with Michael, I called Gloria and got another shift. Gloria owns the country bar where I work up in the backwoods. It’s a hole-in-the-wall, slapped together with cinder blocks and plywood, painted green. The first time I saw it, I was riding with Michael upcountry to a river; we’d park under an overpass on the road that crossed the river and then walk until we reached a good swimming spot. What’s that? I asked, and pointed. I figured it wasn’t a house, even though it sat low under the trees. There was too many cars parked in the sandy grass. That’s the Cold Drink, Michael said, and he smelled like hard pears and his eyes were green as the outside. Like Barq’s and Coke? I said. Yep. He said his mama went to school with the owner. I called his mama years later after Michael went to jail, thanked God when it was her that picked up the phone and not Big Joseph. He would have hung up in my face rather than speak to me, the nigger his son had babies with. I told Michael’s mother I needed work, and asked if she could put in a good word with the owner. It was the fourth conversation we’d ever had. We spoke first when Michael and I started dating, second time when Jojo was born, and third when Michaela was born. But still she said yes, and then she told me I should go up there, up to the Kill, upcountry, where Michael and his parents are from, where the bar is, and I should introduce myself to Gloria, so I did. Gloria hired me for a probationary period of three months. You’re a har
d worker, she said, laughing, when she told me she was keeping me on. She wore heavy eyeliner, and when she laughed, the skin at the sides of her eyes looked like an elaborate fan. Even harder than Misty, she said, and she damn near lives here. And then waved me back out front to the bar. I grabbed my tray of drinks, and three months turned into three years. After my second day at the Cold Drink, I knew why Misty worked so hard: she was high every night. Lortab, Oxycontin, coke, Ecstasy, meth.
Before I showed up for work at the Cold Drink last night, Misty must have had a good double, because after we mopped and cleaned and shut everything down, we went to her pink MEMA cottage she’s had since Hurricane Katrina, and she pulled out an eight ball.
“So he’s coming home?” Misty asked.
Misty was opening all the windows. She knows I like to hear outside when I get high. I know she doesn’t like to get high alone, which is why she invited me over, and why she opens the windows even though the wet spring night seeps into the house like a fog.
“Yep.”
“You must be happy.”
The last window snapped up and locked into place, and I stared out of it as Misty sat at the table and began cutting and dividing. I shrugged. I’d felt so happy when I got the phone call, when I heard Michael’s voice saying words I’d imagined him saying for months, for years, so happy that my insides felt like a full ditch ridden with a thousand tadpoles. But then when I left, Jojo looked up from where he sat with Pop in the living room watching some hunting show, and for a flash, the cast of his face, the way his features folded, looked like Michael after one of our worst fights. Disappointed. Grave at my leaving. And I couldn’t shake it. His expression kept coming back to me through my shift, made me pull Bud Light instead of Budweiser, Michelob instead of Coors. And then Jojo’s face stuck with me because I could tell he secretly thought I was going to surprise him with a gift, something else besides that hasty cake, some thing that wouldn’t be gone in three days: a basketball, a book, a pair of high-top Nikes to add to his single pair of shoes.
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