“I beg your pardon?” I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What’s the AWB?”
“It’s the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging,” she replies through gritted teeth. “An Afrikaner resistance movement.”
Klein Maynard takes his hand back and shoves it in his pocket. “That’s right. We’re members,” he says proudly, indicating their outfits, which I now realize aren’t hunting camo but uniforms.
There is an insignia on each side of his chest: a red, white, and black one that looks like a variation of the Nazi symbol, and the Vierkleur insignia, a flag that was designed for the South African Republic that stopped existing a hundred years ago.
“These idiots are part of the group who could have killed me at the airport if I’d arrived half an hour later,” Dee says, turning to me. “More than thirty of them were arrested in connection with all the bombings that have been happening across the country. You’re fraternizing with terrorists.”
“The ANC’s chief terrorist is now president of the country, so it seemed to work out quite well for them,” Klein Maynard says. “How many bombings weren’t they responsible for back in the day? All we’re doing is fighting back and defending what’s ours. You’d better believe there’s a civil war coming, the whites against the blacks, and you’d better hope people like us will protect kaffir boeties like you when they come for you in your sleep.”
He glares at her menacingly and so I step between them. “Dee, why don’t you go inside while I finish up with our guests over here?”
“Be careful,” she says. “Like Ma always said, if you lie down with dogs, you’re going to wake up with fleas.”
“Come,” Klein Maynard says to Henning, “let’s go.” He turns back to me. “The offer is valid for a day. Let me know what you decide.”
They pull off in a cloud of dust and I watch openmouthed as they go. “What the hell was that about? One minute we’re sitting like civilized people having drinks and the next you march up here and start attacking them.”
“My God,” she says. “Did you not hear a word I said?”
“It’s not illegal to belong to the AWB, is it? They’re perfectly within their rights to belong to whatever organization they want.”
“They’re militant racists, Ruth. Neo-Nazi white supremacists. Do you not see the hypocrisy of defending them when two days ago you wanted us to keep a black baby?”
It’s my turn to glare at her. “I don’t see what one has got to do with the other. And you’re the one who made me give up that black baby, remember?”
“Not because he was black, Ruth.” She shakes her head and starts walking away before she stops again. “What offer were they talking about?”
“They’ve upped their offer for the farm, and it’s an extremely generous one, which we should consider—”
“They’re the ones who want to buy it?” Dee snorts. “I already told you it’s not happening but this just makes it easier to repeat myself. No!”
“Stop being so pigheaded about this. Five million rand is nothing to be sneezed at! We could split the profits and you could buy a mansion wherever you like and still have a lot of change left over.”
“I don’t need a mansion. Not everyone is as materialistic as you are. Do vile things have to personally affect you for you to give a shit?”
“What things?”
“Racism and white supremacy, for a start.”
It’s a stupid question because how can racism affect me personally? I ignore it and pose one of my own. “Don’t you want to be able to be in a financial position to help Daniel? Move him to a better hospital or help with his recovery down the line—”
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare use my son to manipulate me. My God, how low are you willing to stoop to get your own way?”
As she storms off, I realize that I’m not going to get this farm sold. It seems like the universe really wants to keep me here and I think I know why. It’s time to make the best of a bad situation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Zodwa
19 May 1994
Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa
None of the roads leading into the squatter camp are wide enough to allow bringing the coffin directly to the shack by vehicle, and having it carried there will require at least six men and a lot of awkward maneuvering.
Instead, the bakkie stops on the sand verge on the side of the main road. Cars speed by and kick up dust, their exhaust fumes making Zodwa dizzy. The driver hops out, hat in hand, to offer his condolences.
Leleti’s basic pine coffin lies in the extra-long Venter trailer. This is how she will be taken home to KwaZulu, where she will be buried in the village graveyard alongside her husband, and this is where Zodwa and Mama Beauty will say their goodbyes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go, my child?” Mama Beauty asks. “I am happy to give you the money for the return journey.”
The payment for the transport to take Leleti back home came from the last of the money she’d gotten from her madam. Thank God Leleti religiously contributed to the Burial Society every month or else Zodwa wouldn’t have been able to purchase a coffin, simple or not. Mama Beauty knows that Zodwa can’t afford the transport for herself.
The driver addresses Mama Beauty. “She can ride there with me for no extra cost since she already paid for the remains to be taken home.”
The remains.
That’s what her mother is now. Remains, but of what? What remains when a small life ends too soon? At least there is a body that can be laid to rest and some closure to be had. Unlike with Dumisa all those years ago and now with the baby.
The baby.
Zodwa hasn’t been able to sleep wondering what became of him. She goes over and over it in her mind, trying to understand how he could have been sickly enough to die so soon after birth when the only thing she remembers about him is the sheer force of his suckling. Besides, it doesn’t align with what Leleti told Zodwa just before she had her first seizure.
If Zodwa was lost in a fog during her entire pregnancy and just after the birth, it’s lifted now, burned away by the overwhelming sense of loss. When Leleti cut the umbilical cord, instead of severing Zodwa from her child, it’s as though that moment sparked her journey back to him. She thinks with wonder of all those months when she felt nothing for the baby at all when now she feels so much.
“My child,” Mama Beauty says, bringing Zodwa back into the moment. “Do you want to go with him?”
“Thank you, Mama Beauty, but no,” Zodwa says, her mind made up.
She doesn’t deserve the comfort of her family, nor the peace that will come from seeing her mother being laid to rest. There will be too many questions and the one person she’s never been able to lie to is her grandmother. It’s better to leave her hungry for the truth than to poison her with answers.
Besides, as Zodwa herself suspected, and as the local township healer confirmed, Zodwa is undoubtedly cursed.
“My child,” the healer said the day after Leleti died. “To lose both your baby and your mother within days of each other . . . it is a fearful thing. An unnatural thing.” She waved burning sage around the shack in an attempt to rid it of bad energy. “You have been cursed by powerful black magic for sure. I don’t know what you have done to deserve such terrible things in your life, but you must go see the sangoma and get muthi to rid yourself of it. It is the only way.”
The healer may not know what she’s done but Zodwa knows. The nyanga she consulted six months ago knew too.
Zodwa thought she could outwit the ancestors and find peace by getting rid of the baby, but here she is with the baby gone, though not in the way she intended, and still peace eludes her. It’s clear now that peace will never be hers as long as she loves a girl. Zodwa had honestly believed that she and Thembeka had a special connection, something profound that she hadn’t
just imagined, which is why she’d risked so much by writing that letter in the first place.
When she told Thembeka about the rape and pregnancy last Christmas, Zodwa knew it would hurt her friend, but she never doubted that Thembeka would believe her. She expected her to immediately end her relationship with Mongezi, and perhaps even encourage Zodwa to report the assault to the authorities.
She wasn’t prepared for Thembeka’s utter denial, that she’d rather believe Zodwa capable of such a terrible lie than believe that Mongezi had not only cheated on her but did so with such violence. Still, despite the betrayal, Zodwa has never stopped yearning for Thembeka, wishing with all her heart that they could find a way one day to be together.
And this is the price she has paid for angering the ancestors: both her mother and her child taken from her.
Zodwa can’t return to KwaZulu with the curse still working its evil magic. She cannot put her grandmother and those she loves at risk. Not being there to lay her mother to rest will be a scandal she will have to learn to live with. Some evils are greater than others.
“Are you ready to say goodbye?” the man asks, and Zodwa nods though she isn’t ready.
The man steps forward and opens the latches so that the trailer splits apart to reveal the pine coffin wedged inside. He removes the lid that hasn’t yet been secured. That will only be done after the family has seen Leleti for themselves. The driver and Mama Beauty step aside to give Zodwa privacy, or as much privacy as she can be afforded as dozens of cars and trucks whiz by, pedestrians and goats dodging between them.
A dragonfly flits past Zodwa’s cheek and zigzags to Leleti’s face, stitching together the infinite space between daughter and mother, the living and the dead. The insect comes to rest on Leleti’s lips, giving the illusion that she’s making its wings move by the power of her breath. The dragonfly glints with a metallic green-and-blue sheen in the sunlight; it may be the most beautiful adornment Leleti has ever worn.
Zodwa closes her eyes to steady herself. When she opens them again, the insect is gone and so is the fleeting beauty it bestowed upon Leleti. Her mother’s gaunt features are slack and almost unrecognizable. Whatever force animated Leleti and made her who she was has been extinguished in this world.
There is a universe of sorrow trapped in Zodwa’s throat that she cannot find the words to express. But Leleti was never a person of words; she was always a woman of deeds, showing her love by putting food on the table no matter how much the work to earn it demeaned her, and searching for her missing son decades after everyone else had given up on him.
Zodwa leans forward and kisses Leleti on her forehead, tears clouding her vision as she does so. She allows herself a few parting words though she doesn’t speak them aloud.
I will make you proud of me, Mama. I will make you proud. Just wait and see.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Delilah
27 May 1994
Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa
After turning down the Coetzees’ offer on the farm, we’d woken up to find graffiti covering the garage door. SLET and KAFFIR BOETIE were spray-painted in red next to a giant AWB symbol.
“Gee,” Ruth said, standing outside in her kimono, “I wonder which one of us is the slut and which one the kaffir lover?” She flicked her cigarette butt and turned. “You’ve made us a target. Happy now?”
We hadn’t spoken a word to each other since.
Ruth had handed the baby over to the sanctuary just over two weeks before, and her drinking—which had already been worrisome—had just steadily gotten worse. On most days, she was drunk and belligerent by noon, which was a feat considering she usually only woke up at eleven. I thought Ruth would get over the baby more quickly, since I’d seen her form strong attachments time and time again and knew only too well how they all played out.
Regardless of whether the object of her affection was a person, an animal, or a material possession, Ruth would form an instant obsession that was always as brief as it was intense. She’d done it with countless boys whose love and attention she claimed she couldn’t live without, only to dump them just as soon as they declared their devotion to her, and I recalled the time she begged our parents for months for a baby goat after seeing one at a livestock fair.
Da finally gave in and rode miles to another farm to swap one of our piglets for one of their kid goats. Ruth was over the moon when Da brought it home, naming her Faloolah, and ridiculously asking Da if she could sleep in our room. Of course, she’d lost interest in it before a week was up, claiming it stank and that it was out to get her. The goat’s care fell to me after that.
Why would the baby be any different? Did he deserve to be abandoned twice so early in his short life? I thought the best strategy was pretending the baby hadn’t existed so everything could go back to normal, or at least as much semblance of normal as Ruth and I could manage, but in those past instances, the difference was that Ruth had gotten what she wanted, possessed it, before losing interest. The baby remained out of her grasp and she seethed with resentment because of it.
It was awkward living that way but it couldn’t possibly last for much longer. Now that I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to approve the sale of the property, Ruth would have to return to Cape Town empty handed.
To stop myself from obsessing over Father Thomas’s parting words, and to prevent myself from driving to the hospital to keep vigil in the parking lot, I’d taken to hiking the foothills around the farm with the dog as my companion. She needed more exercise than she was getting following Ruth from the liquor cabinet and back to her room a dozen times a day, and it was nice to have company. Plus, since she’d been branded a Jezebel just as I once had, I felt a kinship with her.
Jez and I would leave midmorning before Ruth woke up and walk for miles, cutting across cattle paths, mapped-out trails, private properties, and sand roads; climbing over stiles or ducking under fences when they stood in our way. We occasionally encountered baboons and rhebok, scrub hares and dassies.
Jezebel quivered at the sight of them all, but she was an obedient dog who always stayed at my side. Whoever had trained her had done a good job. She hadn’t given chase when we’d spotted a brown hyena the day before, allowing it to disappear with a casual grace, blending so perfectly into the landscape that I wondered if I’d imagined it.
That day, I planned to set out toward the valley with its quartzite boulders that gleamed pink in the sun and follow the river to the side of the gorge. I remembered magnificent views of cascading natural swimming pools from my childhood and was curious to see if the area had remained so unspoiled. I’d just let Jezebel out of Ruth’s room and was lacing up my boots when there was a knock at the door.
Jezebel barked in response.
“Shh. Quiet, girl,” I said as I reached for the handle.
The man on the doorstep stood in profile gazing off toward the road as he smoothed his hair back and straightened his shirt. When he turned and faced me, my heart galloped in recognition. Standing on my doorstep was Riaan van Tonder, my childhood sweetheart and the best friend I’d ever had.
Though his mop of curly hair was cut short and was now white instead of brown, the fifty-nine-year-old Riaan was instantly recognizable as the nineteen-year-old he’d been the last time I’d seen him. His hazel eyes were the exact same shade of autumn leaf I remembered, deepening from emerald to russet. Though they were bracketed by wrinkles, they were the same eyes that had beseeched me not to leave almost forty years ago.
Riaan reached out to shake my hand, clearing his throat as he did so. “Hello, Delilah.”
That’s all he said, just my name, but his voice caught as he said it, and I felt the scab I’d let grow over that particular wound crack a little in response.
I reached my hand out to match his formal greeting. “Riaan. What a surprise.”
“I heard you were back but did
n’t believe it. I thought I’d come check for myself.” His Afrikaans accent was stronger than I remembered.
“Yes, I am,” I said stupidly. “Please, come in. Can I offer you some tea or coffee?”
“Coffee would be good, thank you.”
I led him through the dining room and then back outside, pushing aside the sliding door to the patio, collecting my racing thoughts as I set about making the coffee. Jezebel hopped up onto a patio chair next to him, making him laugh.
“Your dog has been keeping me company,” he said when I came back out and set a mug down in front of him. “How did you find one who looks just like Shadow?”
Riaan had loved that dog as much as I had. She’d always been just a step or two behind us when we were children, trailing us on all of our adventures.
“She found us, actually. And she’s more Ruth’s dog than mine.”
Riaan took a sip of his coffee, closing his eyes to savor the patch of warmth he was sitting in. Winter was making itself felt and the houses were cold inside. Without double-glazed windows or central heating, a South African winter, mild as it was, could feel quite brutal. When he opened his eyes again, he looked out onto the garden. He didn’t say anything but he didn’t have to. I knew what he was thinking, that Ma would have had a fit if she could’ve seen it.
The garden was the only part of the property that hadn’t served a practical purpose back in the day, and it had been her domain, her pride and joy. The rest of the farm had been a working farm, but despite her fierce practicality, Ma insisted on having something of beauty to look at.
She refused to grow anything that was too finicky and she definitely wouldn’t grow anything that wasn’t indigenous to South Africa. Roses were judged to be the flowers of the British, and since they were the people who’d put Ma’s ancestors in concentration camps, killing close to thirty thousand Afrikaners during the Second Boer War, she refused to touch them. Chrysanthemums, peonies, impatiens, begonias, and petunias were judged similarly to be too English.
If You Want to Make God Laugh Page 12