If You Want to Make God Laugh

by Bianca Marais

  “Ruth?”

  “No, it’s Delilah.”

  There was a long pause. “You sound just like her. I thought she was playing the fool.”

  “No. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Her husband, Vincent.”

  “She hasn’t gotten up yet but I can call her for you if you like?”

  “No!” he virtually shouted before lowering his voice. “She probably won’t want to talk to me anyway.” Before I could ask why, he continued with, “So, you’re the long-lost sister. I always thought she’d made you up.”

  “That’s me,” I said. “Not made up.”

  “It just seemed so improbable that a family would have two sisters called Ruth and Delilah. Aren’t you a nun?”

  “No, I left the convent when I was still a novice.”

  “Still, from what Ruth says, you’re very different.”

  “Like shooting stars and mason jars,” I murmured, remembering.

  “What?”

  “It’s something our father used to say. That we were as different as shooting stars and mason jars. Ruth was the shooting star, of course.”

  “Huh,” he said. It was clearly the first time he’d heard the anecdote. That Ruth hadn’t bragged about it to him vindicated her somehow. “So, how is Ruth?” he asked, changing the subject. “Really, I mean.”

  “Well . . .” I glanced at her closed bedroom door, not quite sure how to answer that. Why was he asking me, anyway?

  “Look, I’m only asking because I’m worried about her.”

  “There’s really nothing to worry about,” I said tartly. If anyone could win their own battles, Ruth could. “She’s absolutely fine.” In perfect fighting shape, in fact.

  He sighed and went quiet for a bit before blurting out, “She almost died a few weeks ago. Did she tell you that?”

  “No.” That was a surprise. “What happened?”

  “She tried to commit suicide. Well, she says she didn’t mean to actually commit suicide but I found her in the bath with a razor next to her. She’d taken pills and passed out. She almost drowned.”

  I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say.

  “Look,” he continued. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that but you need to know her frame of mind.” He sighed again. “Anyway, please just keep an eye out for her. Ruth likes to put on a good show, but I worry about what’s going on underneath sometimes.”

  I said goodbye, mulling over what he’d said. It didn’t seem plausible. The Ruth I knew loved herself way too much to ever purposefully harm herself, so I was more inclined to believe her version of events than his. Still, it gave me pause and I couldn’t quiet the niggling voice that wondered just how wounded my sister was.

  I was relieved when Sarie came into the kitchen a few minutes later, as it offered a welcome distraction from worrying about Ruth. I invited her to join me at the dining room table and while she resisted at first, she gave in after I insisted. She’d been our family’s maid as far back as I could remember, and my mother had never allowed the help to sit or eat inside. Some habits apparently died hard.

  Sarie was in her seventies and, although tinier than I remembered, having shrunken into herself in the way old people do, she still had arms that were ropy with muscle from a lifetime of manual labor. A multicolored doek covered her head but gray hair sprouted from underneath the front of it. Her eyes shone as they peered at me from behind thick glasses.

  “Miesie,” she said, “dis so lekker om jou weer te sien.” Missus, it’s so good to see you again.

  “Don’t call me miesie, Sarie. You’re older than I am. I’m the one who should be calling you that. Please call me Delilah.”

  “Ag nee, miesie.” She laughed. “I can’t do that even though things are all deurmekaar now that apartheid has ended. White people are acting crazy. Just the other day, Maria told me that her madam, Mevrou van der Merwe, told her to come for tea. Poor Maria thought the madam wanted her to come in and make the tea, so there she was in her apron and slippers, but the madam was all dressed up to serve Maria cake.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!” Sarie slapped her thigh, laughing as though it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Forty years Maria has worked for the madam and now the madam wants to wait on her and have a visit? It seems like in the new South Africa, white people want to have black friends just to prove they’re not racist, but the only black people they know are their maids and gardeners. This is all Mandela’s fault.”

  We both laughed and then she caught me up on farm news and town gossip. Ruth had been paying Sarie and her husband, Stompie, to continue to take care of the property after Ma died and Sarie was grateful for it. “Where else could we get work at our age?” She went on to tell me how Ruth had also paid for Stompie to have hip replacement surgery a few years ago, and that she’d put two of their grandchildren through school.

  I was surprised by Ruth’s altruism and, to change the subject, I filled Sarie in on the encounter I’d had with Precious the week before. Even as I did so, I was aware of skimming over the details, leaving out my ridiculous overreaction to the perceived danger. I was ashamed of how I’d allowed the general level of hysteria in the country to affect me.

  “Precious doesn’t come to visit anymore,” Sarie griped after I’d shared my news. “Not since her daughter moved from KwaZulu to be with her. Precious expected great things from her but . . .” She sighed heavily and lowered her voice. “It wasn’t to be. No one can break your heart like your own children.” She was clearly hinting at some scandal that I refused to be drawn into.

  We’d both known Precious since she was orphaned at seven months. Ruth and I were ten when Precious came to live with Sarie and Stompie, who were distant relatives who’d agreed to take her in. It wasn’t just out of benevolence; extra hands were always needed on a farm and a little girl would grow into a kitchen maid.

  The baby’s presence gave Ruth and me something new to bicker over since, of course, it never occurred to us to share her. Ruth almost always won the fights to play with Precious, which bothered me at first, until I realized the reality of a baby wasn’t nearly as appealing as the idea of it. Somehow, this never deterred Ruth, who, even though she normally had a short attention span, would spend hours dressing the baby up in outfits Ma had knitted for our dolls. Not even the baby’s vomiting and pooping could put my sister off.

  While my interest in Precious waned early on, it was rekindled when she turned three and started following me around, parroting everything I said. She soaked up the world around her, becoming bloated with knowledge like a little intellectual tick, and the more conversant Precious became, the quicker Ruth lost interest in her and the more engaged I found myself becoming.

  Precious was a quick and eager learner, remembering words I taught her like Jesus, Bible, Lord, and savior. It was this zealousness for religion that made Ma tolerate her; Precious would otherwise have been relegated to the kitchen since Ma discouraged any kind of relationship with a black person, be it a child or otherwise.

  This casual sense of racism—an innate belief that as whites, we were far superior to blacks—appeared to be the only thing Ruth had ever inherited from Ma. While Ruth liked the infant Precious (squealing that black babies were the cutest), she never engaged with any of the other black people on the farm beyond issuing instructions, and certainly never fostered any kind of friendship with them.

  It seemed contradictory, given the revelation of Ruth’s helping Sarie’s family financially, but it wasn’t. Being a charitable benefactor and being a friend were two totally different things. The first kind of relationship suited Ruth’s view of the world: that black people were dependent on whites to survive. It wasn’t selfless giving; it was a generosity that reinforced Ruth’s belief in her own supremacy. I’d seen it time and again at the various aid organizations I’d worked for a
cross Africa: white saviors who swooped in with the sole intention of saving black people from themselves.

  It was the one thing about me that Ma disapproved of. That, despite the teachings of the church and the politics of the time, I didn’t believe in white supremacy or the division of the races. It wasn’t a political statement I was making back then. It was just that Sarie was kind to me and showed me love, and so I naturally returned the consideration and affection.

  When I left for the convent, Precious, then seven, was heartbroken. My attention had singled her out and probably made her feel as special as her adoration had made me feel. Sometimes all we need is to be seen in order to blossom. Just be seen, nothing more.

  “How did she recognize you after all this time?” Sarie now marveled. “She hasn’t laid eyes on you since you were seventeen.”

  “She said I look just like Ma.” I laughed. “She thought I was a ghost.” Considering Ruth had thought I was our dead mother when she first saw me, I supposed there was an uncanny resemblance.

  I was surprised when Sarie changed the subject. “Did your friend find you, by the way?”

  “What friend?”

  “The one who came here just over a month ago looking for you. I told him you hadn’t lived here since you were a girl and that the family was all long gone. He was very disappointed.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  Sarie shook her head. “That was the week my glasses broke, before I was able to get a new pair. All I know is that he was tall and he spoke English. His hair was white here,” she said, indicating temples that had grayed.

  I’d had a fantasy throughout my life that one day I’d open the door to find Daniel standing there, wanting me to be a part of his life and to hell with all the reasons I’d had for leaving him. For a moment, just a moment, I allowed myself to believe that the fantasy had come true, that he’d come in search of me after all those years.

  But I know better than anyone how the heart can play the most terrible tricks on the mind. It’s a traitorous beast that can’t be trusted at the best of times, but even less so when it’s so utterly broken.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Zodwa

  10 May 1994

  Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa

  The celebration of Nelson Mandela’s victory is electric. It animates the squatter camp so wholly that for a few hours it’s transformed from a scrap heap of human and metal debris into a living, breathing thing. Life calls a refrain and the township, itself, responds.

  When Mandela was released from prison more than four years before, hope was born. Everyone knew, though, that hope was a fickle thing; it would allow you to warm your hands against it one minute, only to flare up and burn you to a husk the next, which is why people were cautious with it. But on this day, the day on which millions of dreams have impossibly come true, hope has ignited into joy.

  Zodwa feels it. The township is celebrating and there will be no sleep for anyone that night because who would want to sleep through such a moment? The ANC has won. A black man is president. History is being made, and to be a black person who has lived through apartheid and come out of it the victor is a blessed, blessed thing.

  The festivities are so loud that Zodwa’s cries cannot compete. As contraction after contraction rages through her, she grips the foam bed and waits for the pain to consume her. Leleti sits next to her, wiping the sweat from Zodwa’s brow and stuffing a cloth between her jaws to clamp down on every time her belly tightens. Their roles have been reversed, and it is now Leleti’s turn to watch as pain racks her daughter’s body, helpless to do anything to keep it at bay.

  Even as Zodwa pants fiercely, the baby struggling to be free of her, she recognizes her mother’s frailty. Leleti has aged ten years in the past week and Zodwa knows it’s as much her confession about the rape as it is her mother’s worsening illness. Leleti positions herself between Zodwa’s knees and instructs, “Push now. Push, my child.”

  The dog whines and paces, and Zodwa pushes until she is sure she will die from the pushing. Her mother fades in and out of focus until it’s no longer Leleti between Zodwa’s thighs, but Mongezi.

  She sees his face, hovering just above her, contorted with both fury and triumph just as it was on that fateful day so many months ago. Zodwa couldn’t move under the weight of him and struggled to breathe around his rough cheek, which was pressed down hard against her mouth and nose. She bites through the pain now just as she wishes she had bitten through his cheek then.

  “Push,” Leleti wheezes, and Zodwa does until something finally releases like a dam wall breaking, after which she slips blessedly into unconsciousness.

  When she wakes, a baby is suckling at her breast. Leleti’s dog stands close enough to Zodwa that she can feel its hot breath on her face.

  “Born free,” her mother whispers from next to her, her tone one of hushed awe. “Your son is born free.”

  Your son.

  Zodwa cries steadily though she feels nothing at all beyond the sensation of being drained of milk and tears. She thinks of Thembeka, the object of her desire, and how this child is the price she had to pay for that, the punishment that was meted out to her for loving a girl. Her son’s penis feels like a cruel joke, just another reminder that men run the world and will never allow themselves to become obsolete.

  When Zodwa feels her mother lifting the baby from her breast a short while later, she opens her eyes drowsily. Leleti looks steady on her feet, her one hand cupping the baby’s head while the other is wrapping around his thighs as she presses him against her. The last thing Zodwa sees before her mother turns away from her is the birthmark on her son’s left buttock.

  Africa, she thinks. It looks like Africa.

  She closes her eyes then and allows the dog’s whining to be a lullaby that carries her gently to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ruth

  10 May 1994

  Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa

  Dee fiddles with the bunny ears above the television, trying for better reception, but Ma’s ancient black-and-white Telefunken remains obstinate.

  “This thing is as old as Methuselah,” I say, walking up behind it and smacking it for good measure. Dee opens her mouth to object but I point at the screen, which has lost a few degrees of fuzziness. “It worked. You’re welcome.”

  She doesn’t thank me but I wasn’t expecting her to. She’s gone ahead and reinstituted her power of attorney, and I’m waiting to hear back from my lawyers to see what kind of case I have considering her absence for all those years.

  What it boils down to is that neither of us has anywhere else to go and so we’re stuck with each other for now. The bickering, at least, has been kept to a minimum but only because Dee locks herself away in her room most of the time. In all honesty, though, I prefer the sniping to the silence. I’m so bored and desperate for company that I’m even prepared to try to extend an olive branch for one night, if for no other reason than olives go well with martinis, and martinis are always a good idea. Also, talking to Dee will stop me from calling Vince, something I’m way too tempted to do.

  “What are you watching?” I ask.

  “The news.”

  “God, why?”

  “I want to see Nelson Mandela’s inauguration address.”

  “Well, if I’m going to be forced to watch it with you, I’m going to need a drink,” I say, heading to the fridge.

  “Of course you are,” she mutters.

  “You want something?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, live a little! Surely it wouldn’t kill you to celebrate the ‘new South Africa.’ One drink?” I cajole. “To toast the new president.”

  Dee considers
it and then, to my surprise, nods. “Okay. One drink.”

  I pour myself a vodka martini and Dee a glass of wine as the news jingle plays and the newscaster begins intoning about the day’s events. It’s that Cruywagen fellow, the one who looks like a ventriloquist dummy after too many face-lifts. That’s the thing about plastic surgery: you have to know when to stop. Hell, that’s the secret to just about everything in life, isn’t it?

  “Here you go.” I hand the glass to Dee, who immediately shushes me.

  Nelson Mandela’s flat, monotonous voice blasts from the TV’s tinny speakers. He sounds so calm amid the hysteria that his presidency has incited that I can’t help but be soothed by it.

  “We understand it, still, that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all.”

  The inauguration crowd roars in approval and I swear Dee wipes a tear away. She takes a quick sip of her wine and I lean forward with my hand extended. “Cheers,” I say, and we clink glasses.

  “Cheers.”

  She turns the volume of the television down and we sit in silence. Some silences can be comfortable, I suppose, but this isn’t one of them. I light a cigarette and lean back into the couch, closing my eyes. “Do you think he means what he says?” I ask, nodding at the television. “All that stuff about reconciliation?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But is all that ‘Kumbaya’ stuff even possible? I mean, if I was Mandela, I’d be really, really pissed off about all those years in prison. I’d want revenge against the people who did that to me.”

  “Lucky you’re not him then.”

  That’s when I hear an eerie, high-pitched noise coming from outside. “Did you hear that?”

  Dee cocks her head and listens for a moment.

  I feel a sliver of alarm. “I really think we should get better security. I’ve been hearing that the crime here has been getting out of hand. Just another reason why we should sell,” I can’t help adding.