“I’m on my way.”
Like during my first sojourn from the hospital to the farm, I didn’t remember anything of the trip back beyond whispering, “Please, please, please, please.” I repeated the entreaty over and over, the litany the closest I’d come to prayer in forty years.
I ran into the waiting room at 10:30 a.m., out of breath but steeled for the fight I knew was waiting for me. Father Thomas had appointed himself as Daniel’s gatekeeper, but he wouldn’t keep me from seeing my son. Not again, not when he was moments away from death. I was almost disappointed when I didn’t see him there. At the nurses’ station, Rachel looked up and spotted me.
“I made it in time,” I said. “Please let me in to see him. I know it’s only supposed to be one visitor at a time, but I’m sure you can make this one exception.”
“Delilah.” She shook her head.
“I’m his mother. I know I said I wasn’t family, and maybe I’m not—at least not in the traditional sense, considering I gave him up when he was born—but I’m his biological mother. He needs his mother, Rachel. And I need him.”
Her eyes were filled with tears. “I tried to call you, Delilah, but you’d already left. He passed away just after we spoke. I’m so, so sorry.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No.” I turned away from her and made my way to the viewing glass like a sleepwalker.
The nun was there again and she was holding Daniel’s hand, my Daniel, who would still have been alive for me to say my farewell if I’d just called the hospital at the time I usually did. It seemed an unbearable cruelty to have me be an hour too late, as though God was still punishing me for my transgression almost forty years before. Then, I’d run from Daniel when I should have stayed, and this time, I’d rushed to his side just as soon as I’d heard the news of the shooting. Still, I’d allowed myself to be kept from him.
I never knew until that moment when the opportunity was taken away from me, how desperately I’d needed to talk to him, to tell him how much I loved him and how not a day had gone by without my thinking of him. For four decades, I’d held imaginary conversations with him in which I’d crafted apologies and explanations, entreaties and justifications.
And now, I’d never get the chance to voice any of them.
The church had kept us apart all those years ago and now it was God Himself who’d stepped between us. There was nothing more final than that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Zodwa
2–30 August 1994
Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa
Zodwa makes her way along the laneways, hurriedly greeting people without stopping to chat. The first wave of workers leaving the squatter camp for their jobs in the city was already two hours ago. She’s getting a later start to her working day than most, but then she finishes later than most too.
She’s ten minutes late because she had an early appointment at another orphanage, this one slightly farther afield than the last. None of the children there matched the timeline of when her baby disappeared, but it’s another place Zodwa can cross off her list.
“Hello, Mama Mashigo,” Zodwa says when she walks through the door of the Good Times Drinking Establishment. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
The shebeen queen, which is what the speakeasy owners are nicknamed, is sitting at her table in the corner tallying up the number of empty quart beer bottles she’ll be returning for deposit refunds. She’s perfectly put together, as she always is, wearing a matching dress and elaborate head wrap made out of blue seshoeshoe. A tall glass of Coke sits next to her. It’s Zodwa’s job to ensure that it’s topped up all day, and that it has two cubes of ice floating in it at all times. Mama Mashigo may be a purveyor of alcohol but she never touches the stuff herself.
She glares at Zodwa and pointedly checks her watch but doesn’t say anything. Zodwa knows she’ll exact her revenge later by making Zodwa stay late and carry out the worst of the closing duties: cleaning up the vomit and broken bottles, and scrubbing out the bottoms of the cast-iron pots Mama Mashigo cooks mogodu and pap in.
Zodwa doesn’t mind. It’s a small price to pay for having a job.
When she began looking for one two months ago, she knew that venturing out of the township in search of work wasn’t even a possibility because a job that far away would require money for daily transport, which Zodwa didn’t have. Working in a shop or any kind of office required decent clothing as well, which she couldn’t afford. Her only option for finding employment was in the township itself, but everyone she approached said there weren’t any jobs available and that times were tough.
Zodwa knows that wasn’t the truth. They just didn’t want her bad mojo anywhere near their businesses. News travels quickly in the township, and the local healer isn’t the only one who thinks Zodwa’s cursed.
The shebeen queen was either too practical to believe in such things or she felt sorry for Zodwa, because she’d agreed to grant her a trial period after Zodwa had come to the shebeen, with eyes still swollen from grief, to ask if she had any positions available. She was put on a month’s probation and after proving herself a hard worker, Mama Mashigo allowed her to stay on.
Zodwa spends six days a week at the Good Times Drinking Establishment, which is approximately the size of seven regular shacks laid end to end, and can seat up to a hundred people when necessary. It has a concrete floor and the tin walls on three sides are covered with pictures of African icons torn out of Drum magazine. The fourth wall comes up only halfway so that the customers can see and be seen, which is almost as important as the actual drinking.
Mama Mashigo has an illegal electricity hookup to the butcher shop that’s almost a hundred meters away. The electricity allows her to run three fridges and two freezers, and also powers the superior sound system that sets her place apart from the other shebeens. Kwaito music is already blaring from the two speakers that are hung up in the corners of the room. Zodwa taps her feet to the rhythm, which helps her get through the day as she hustles for tips, serves drinks, and navigates the world of men.
There’s nothing chivalrous about drunks in a shebeen. And though Mama Mashigo watches over her girls, she expects them to keep those men coming back no matter how much they bruise the girls’ bums with their grabbing.
“The best way to stop yourself from being hassled is to get a boyfriend,” Ntombi told her after her second day on the job. She’s one of Mama Mashigo’s best girls and makes the most money. “A pantsula boyfriend is the best kind to have because then no one wants to mess with his property.”
Zodwa laughed the suggestion off. She refuses to be anyone’s property.
But today, Mongezi and his friends stop by.
As they take their seats around a small table, ready to gamble with dice, he acts surprised to see Zodwa. “Look who it is,” he says to his two friends, “my other girlfriend.” His cohorts laugh stupidly as he wraps his arm around Zodwa’s hips and pulls her closer to him. “This one just couldn’t get enough of me. Don’t tell Thembeka.” He winks at them. “She’ll get jealous.”
The last time Mongezi used this flirtatious tone with Zodwa was on the day he raped her. It was one of those hot August days that made winter feel like a distant memory. At least the seasonal winds provided some relief, which is why Zodwa had left the shack door propped open while she did her homework. She remembers battling to concentrate because her thoughts were so filled with Thembeka.
A whole day had passed since she’d slipped the letter into her friend’s school case. Thembeka should have found it by then but she hadn’t been at school that day, so Zodwa had no way of knowing how she’d reacted to it. She was just wondering if she should go and seek Thembeka out when a shadow fell across the bed and she looked up to see Mongezi leaning in the doorway.
“Mongezi,” she said. “What are you doing here? Is Thembeka with you?”
“Hello, baby girl,” he said. “No, it’s just me. She was sick today. Can you guess what caused it?”
He was acting strangely and Zodwa was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She was glad the door stood open.
“I asked you a question,” Mongezi said, still smiling. “Can you guess what made her so sick?”
“No, what?”
“It was your letter.”
A chill went down Zodwa’s spine.
“Your disgusting letter telling her all your disgusting feelings for her. It made her sick to her stomach.” He smiled as he said it. “It made me want to puke as well.” Mongezi stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
Zodwa tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. She tried to speak, but fear had paralyzed her.
“You think you’re a man now? You think you have one of these?” He grabbed at his crotch as he advanced toward her and Zodwa could see how his member strained against his trousers. “Because only one of these can please a woman.” He stepped forward and fell upon Zodwa before she could protest or scream for help.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Yes, I know you want it but you don’t have to beg for it. I’m going to give it to you so that you can see what you’ve been missing.” He tugged down the zip of his school trousers and she could see he wasn’t wearing any underwear. “This will fix you good.”
After he’d meted out his punishment, Mongezi stood and pulled his trousers back up. “I was kidding about Thembeka. She didn’t see the letter,” he said as he closed his zip. “She was sick from something she ate. But if you try to speak to her again about your filthy lesbian feelings, I’ll tell everyone about you. And then I won’t be the only man in the township trying to fix you. Maybe you’ll enjoy them as much as you enjoyed me.”
Then he was gone, never to return, not even after Zodwa told Thembeka the truth about what he’d done. And now he’s back, goading her. “Have you missed me, baby doll?” Mongezi asks to his friends’ delight.
“No.” Zodwa pulls away. Her fear rendered her defenseless that day and she refuses to allow it to paralyze her now again. “And I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Oh really?” Mongezi challenges then, an evil glint in his eye. “Then whose girlfriend are you?”
He knows as well as Zodwa does that to be called out as a lesbian is the worst thing a black woman can be labeled. It’s better, so much better, to be considered a loose woman—even one who sleeps with her best friend’s boyfriend—than to be known as a woman who’s attracted to other women.
If Mongezi shares her secret, if he tells his friends and the rest of the township what Zodwa is, she’ll become both a pariah and a target for other men like him. Men who believe that there’s only one way to cure women like Zodwa of their unnatural appetites. She wonders what’s stopped him from telling anyone up until now and can only conclude that he enjoys lauding this power over her. That, and he’s probably also worried that people might wonder about Thembeka’s orientation and what she might have done to attract the attention of such a woman as Zodwa.
“I’m no one’s girlfriend,” she says softly.
And that’s exactly the problem.
* * *
• • •
When Ace Boyi comes into the shebeen one day, bragging about the stolen goods he just off-loaded for a tidy sum, Zodwa pretends to be impressed by his small-time gangster status. Even though he isn’t a real thug, he’s still higher up in the pecking order than Mongezi, who doesn’t have any gangster affiliations and is five years younger.
Becoming Ace’s girlfriend means she will be off-limits to Mongezi. It will also prove him to be a liar if he tells anyone her secret since if Zodwa has a boyfriend, a real man like Ace, then it proves she can’t be gay. It doesn’t matter that her skin crawls every time Ace touches her. Or that she wants to cry the first time she lets him have sex with her. Pinned under him, she feels both sickened and relieved. Sickened that she’s degrading herself like that. Relieved that she’s finally doing something that’s perceived as normal. Perhaps the more she does it, the easier it will become.
The first two weeks with Ace are the hardest. Pretending to like him. Pretending to be aroused when she’s with him. He brings her gifts, luxuries like meat and toiletries, but instead of helping take the sting out of their relationship, it just makes Zodwa feel worse. Like she’s a prostitute who’s being paid for her services. And then he offers her a sip of his beer one night and she thinks, Why not?
She takes a few sips and they help make her feel detached, like things are happening to her rather than her being an active participant in her own degradation. And if a few sips can do that, then how much more can a bottle or two do? Feeling nothing is what Zodwa craves more than anything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Ruth
10 October 1994
Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa
Five months after the baby first showed up on our doorstep, his room is ready and waiting. All it needs now is Mandla.
Mandla: That’s the baby’s official name as registered on his birth certificate. It means “strength” or “power” in Zulu, and it’s also only one letter away from spelling “Mandela,” the man who made history by becoming president on the day Mandla was born. The name was given to him as a kind of talisman by the black staff at the orphanage and I like it; it suits him.
The fostering process usually takes ages but since we’re the ones whose care he was left in and the orphanage is so overcrowded, they’re expediting it. Of course, a part of the process is trying to find his real mother in case he was either taken from her or in the event that she changes her mind and wants him back. They place adverts in the classifieds of various newspapers to that end for ninety days after an application to foster a child is made and then there’s nothing left to do but wait.
Each day that goes by without someone claiming him is just another sign that he’s meant to be mine.
As I lie awake each night, thankful that no one has responded to the ads, I can’t help but wonder about her, his mother. Where is she? What made her give him up? And, most important, what led her to our door out of all the doors in the world? How did she know that mine was the one that contained the most need?
I know Dee would scoff if I confided this belief to her. Well, the old Dee would have waved it off as sentimental nonsense and told me not to be ridiculous. The new one doesn’t do much but sit out on the patio staring off into the distance.
She’s been almost catatonic since Daniel died and nothing I do or say draws her out. It’s completely understandable under the circumstances. I can’t begin to imagine the guilt she’s feeling. At least it means she hasn’t put up any kind of fight about Mandla, but then she isn’t putting up any kind of fight about anything, not even the onslaught from the Coetzees, which has just intensified since news of Mandla spread and set the town on fire.
The first people to call us were our cousins from Ma’s side, who I haven’t spoken to in decades. I had more fun with the calls than I should have.
“Oh, Cecile. You’re still alive? How wonderful! Yes, I’m very well, thank you! Delilah is marvelous too . . . What’s that? You heard I’m adopting a kaffir child? Oh no, you absolutely must have misheard . . . Yes, I can imagine how relieved you are to hear that . . . In point of fact, I’m fostering a black child . . .
“It’s the new South Africa, Cecile. You can’t say the word kaffir anymore. With the way you speak, I would almost be forgiven for thinking you’re one of those racist boers who still has the old apartheid flag up rather than embracing the new rainbow nation one . . . Oh? You do? Hello, Cecile? Are you there? Hello?”
That’s how most of those calls went, with only the slightest variations.
In between the ones I got from people I knew were the scary ones from anonymous callers, threatening to do harm to u
s or the baby. If I was willing to sell the farm before, I’m digging my heels in now just because I’m being bullied. The idiots have somehow made me side with Dee. I suppose there’s a first for everything.
Today, the town sends in the big guns in the form of a holy man.
“Good day, mevrou. I’m Dominee Johannes Oosthuizen from the Dutch Reformed Church,” he says when I open the door. “You won’t know me, but you may remember my father, Dominee Hendrick Oosthuizen? I took over from him thirty years ago when he retired.”
“Charmed, I’m sure. I’m Ruth Richardson, but then I think you already know that. Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you.” He steps over an ominous black bundle at the door’s threshold and into the house, seemingly filling up every corner of it with his huge frame. Despite his age, which looks to be in the late sixties, Johannes Oosthuizen is a formidable man. At six foot two, and broad-shouldered in the way of rugby players and wrestlers, he looks like someone who uses intimidation to get his own way.
I offer him a seat on the couch where Jezebel usually sits, knowing that he’ll leave with half of the fur she sheds on his clothes. It’s a pity she’s closed in with Dee in her room, as I’d like to subject him to the Jez test; I suspect she’d bare her teeth at him just like she did with the Coetzee brothers. She’s a good judge of character, that dog. “Can I get you some tea and a rusk?” I ask since that’s what Ma always served guests in the voorkamer.
Of course, her tea had been steeping in a pot on the stove for hours so that the whole house perpetually stank of rooibos, and her rusks were homemade from a recipe that had been handed down for generations. I serve him Ouma-brand rusks that Dee bought from the shops and make the tea by quickly dunking a tea bag into boiling water. Still, he’s lucky to be shown any hospitality at all considering the purpose of his visit.
If You Want to Make God Laugh Page 14