If You Want to Make God Laugh

by Bianca Marais

  She thinks about the secret hiding spot under her mattress and the beaded purse she keeps there. She compulsively counts the notes inside it every day and knows exactly how much there is. It isn’t enough to set her and Mandla up in KwaZulu, and there’s no point in returning to the squatter camp. It’s the first place they’ll look for her.

  As far as Zodwa can see, there’s nothing else to be done except to apologize to Ruth and ask for her mercy. If she can just hold on to her job for another year, she’ll have enough money saved to leave with Mandla and comfortably disappear into her homeland where Ruth hopefully can’t find them.

  Still, Zodwa wonders if she didn’t make a mistake in not using the opportunity presented last night to run away with Mandla; she tells herself another one will come again and that she’ll be better prepared next time.

  When Zodwa goes to work early in the morning, she half anticipates her key will refuse to yield in the lock, but she has no trouble getting inside. The house is quiet and she thinks everyone is still sleeping until she notices that the patio door is open. Ruth is never up this early, so Zodwa goes outside expecting to find Delilah and hoping to get a sense of Ruth’s mood from her. She’s surprised to find Ruth sitting there in her fancy robe, a cup of coffee cooling in front of her.

  The two women look at each other, sizing each other up, and Zodwa is just about to launch into her apology when Ruth holds her hand up. “Let’s not talk of it, okay?”

  Relief washes over Zodwa. “Okay.” She’s on her way back inside when she thinks of something and turns back. “Mandla needs a proper haircut. Done by a barber who knows black hair. And you must stop washing his hair every day and treat it with oil instead. I’ll show you what to buy.”

  Ruth’s quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Okay.”

  When Zodwa starts filling the sink to wash the dishes, she spots all of Ruth’s empty alcohol bottles in the garbage bin. She checks the liquor cabinet and smiles when she finds that it’s completely bare.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Delilah

  12 October 1995

  Van Tonder Farm, Magaliesburg, South Africa

  Riaan and I were at a bush pub on our way back from the site. It was his suggestion that we stop for a late lunch, but he seemed distracted during the meal and I wondered if he was in a hurry to get back to the farm.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  He looked up at me for a moment, a long appraising stare, and then he said, “Actually, no.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  He sighed. “This. This is all wrong.”

  My heart felt like a stone sinking into a pond.

  “What I mean is . . . what are we doing, Delilah?”

  I smiled and tried to make light of it. “What are we doing? We’re having lunch, of course.”

  He put his knife and fork down, the cutlery clattering against the plate. “I’m too old for this. We’re both too old to keep up with this cat-and-mouse game that we’ve been playing for the past year. Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you withdraw from me and I don’t know why. You know how I feel about you. You know how I’ve always felt about you. I don’t see any reason at all why we can’t be together. What’s stopping us?

  “Do you not have feelings for me? Is that it? I know things were complicated when you left all those years ago but things are different now. We can have a life together. What’s left of our lives anyway. But obviously not if you don’t feel the same way I do.”

  “I do care about you, Riaan, more than you know.” And as I said it, I realized how true the words were.

  The past sixteen months since Daniel’s death had been the hardest of my life. Over the years, I’d lived through cholera and war, famine and genocide, and yet none of it had affected me like my son’s death. And in the darkest depths of my despair, as I grappled with my loss and cowardice—even as Ruth made it all so much harder for me by bringing Mandla into our home—the one person who’d tried to make it better was Riaan.

  He’d called and visited time and again despite my refusal to see or talk to him. He’d provided distraction with the digs, and even as I kept my distance, he’d intuited what I needed most and had tried his best to provide it for me even though I’d completely severed ties with him for almost forty years.

  “I’m sensing there’s a ‘but,’ Delilah,” Riaan said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “I’d rather know now where I stand with you than have to live through another year of guessing and feeling like everything I do is wrong.”

  I squeezed his hand back and then pulled away, reaching for a tissue in my handbag. And it was while I was feeling around for one that my fingers brushed against Daniel’s letter. I’d been carrying it with me since seeing Sister Marguerite. While I hadn’t had the courage to open it, somehow having it with me made me feel brave. “There’s something I need to tell you. About what happened when I left.”

  “I don’t need to know about the priest,” Riaan said, his jaw jutting out. “We don’t need to get into all that. The past is the past. I don’t know why you came back or why you’ve been so sad, but I want to change that. I want to make you happy and I think I can if you just give me the chance.”

  “The past isn’t the past for me.”

  “Okay, but is it big enough that you’ll let it stand between us now?”

  “I’m trying to work through it. And I need you to know everything so that you can then make a decision having all the information. Will you grant me that? Will you listen?”

  He nodded and so I began to speak, telling him everything and sparing no details.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Ruth

  13 October 1995

  Lancet Laboratories, Sandton, South Africa

  No, Mama. No.” Mandla’s eyes are wide with terror and I want to cry seeing him in such distress.

  “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Mama’s here. Just one prick and then it’s over. Please sit still, my boy, please.”

  As we sit on the bed, Mandla wriggles out of my grip and the blond technician frowns at me. “You need to keep him still, Mrs. Richardson.”

  “I’m trying but he’s scared, which is completely understandable.”

  “I can’t take the specimen if he can’t keep still.”

  Mandla squirms violently as the technician comes at him with the needle again. “No, Mama. No.”

  “Okay,” the technician says. “You’re going to have to step outside and I’ll call someone in to help.”

  “But—”

  “We need this blood and we’re going to hurt him if he doesn’t keep still. Besides which, his HIV-positive status poses a threat to us and a needle-stick injury is the last thing any of us needs.” She calls to a colleague who comes bustling in to see what the fuss is about. They make me stand up and move back so that the colleague can sit next to Mandla. I try to skirt them to hold Mandla’s hand.

  “Ma’am, this will be much easier without you here. If you could just step aside for a minute.”

  I leave, feeling like I’m failing as a mother on all fronts as Zodwa’s words from two days ago come back to me.

  I’m someone who believes he deserves better than a drunkard for a mother. And I’m someone who will report you to social services if you ever, ever get into a state like that again when you’re supposed to be looking after him. Do you understand me?

  I flush with shame just thinking about it, but luckily there’s enough going on to keep me from dwelling on the memory. The room has a glass wall and I watch as a third technician joins them. All three of them struggle to hold my boy down and he shrieks for me the whole time.

  “Mama! Mama! No! Mama!”

  I’m trembling as much from fear and helplessness as I am from withdrawal. I’m on day three without a drink and God help me, it’s tough.

&nb
sp; I never guessed how hard it would be to have to fight back every instinct I have to protect Mandla even as I know that what they’re doing is essential to monitoring the disease’s impact. At seventeen months, my boy is a mere seven months away from the age most children with the virus die. I know he’s not going to miraculously be cured of HIV, but I don’t need him to be. I just need him to keep fighting for just a little while longer.

  I’ve been in regular contact with Dr. Torres, the top HIV/AIDS expert at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, over the past few months. They’ve been running pharmaceutical trials for a few years and seem to be having success with a cocktail of drugs called HAART, highly active antiretroviral therapy. It’s just a matter of time until they have a breakthrough, and I only need my boy to keep fighting long enough until the drugs are approved and I can get him on them.

  When Mandla’s cries finally die down to pathetic little sobs, it’s so quiet that I can hear the clock in the reception area ticking behind me.

  “Ma, jou kleintjie soek jou,” the third technician says to me as she comes out of the room looking disheveled. Mom, your little one is looking for you.

  I expect him to fly into my arms when I enter the room. Instead, he lies there staring at me with accusing eyes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  Delilah

  25 December 1995

  Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa

  Though we’d given Zodwa three weeks’ leave over the festive season, she said she’d rather stick around and rest up after her exams than go anywhere. She’d passed her matric with brilliant results and we’d hosted a special celebration dinner in her honor, after which I’d pulled her aside.

  “I’m so proud of you, Zodwa, and would like to give you a graduation gift to congratulate you. Why don’t I get you a return bus ticket so you can spend the festive season with your family?”

  “Thank you, Delilah. That’s very generous of you, but since my mother died, I don’t have any family left. It was just her and my brother, and now it’s just me.”

  I knew how sprawling Zulu families could be. The likelihood of Zodwa having no remaining family at all was slim but I never commented on it. Instead, I gave her the cash value of the ticket along with books that she’d expressed an interest in as her graduation gift.

  When I suggested to Ruth the week before that we include Zodwa in our Christmas-lunch plans, she’d waved it off.

  “I’m sure a young girl like her would much rather spend her vacation time with her friends than with a bunch of wrinklies and a child.”

  While Ruth had a point, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d missed something. “Has something happened between the two of you that I don’t know about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve just seemed a bit . . . wary of each other lately. You didn’t have a fight or anything?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly. I just think the girl needs a life outside the three of us.”

  “Fair enough.” And so I’d left it.

  Ruth and Mandla had put up a Christmas tree on December 1. It was ridiculously extravagant and looked like it was going to topple over at any moment.

  “It may be the only Christmas he ever has,” Ruth had said when I’d raised my eyebrows at the excess. “I want to make it a special one.”

  It was the first time I’d heard her acknowledge that Mandla’s illness was a death sentence.

  On Christmas Day and my fifty-eighth birthday, Riaan disappeared into the bathroom to dress as Father Christmas so he could hand out all the gifts that were under the tree. When he emerged a few minutes later, Mandla wanted nothing at all to do with him. The white-bearded man in a red suit who kept yelling “Ho, ho, ho” scared him.

  Still, Ruth insisted on keeping up the charade of merriment. “Look who it is! It’s Father Christmas. And look at all the presents he brought you!” She oohed and aahed over each gift that bore Mandla’s name, waving the shiny parcels at him in an attempt to engage him.

  Despite that, Mandla only opened five of his presents before losing interest. He was still coughing badly and I was beginning to worry about him as much as Ruth did. He was listless and wore a glazed expression I’d never seen before. “Do you think he’s feeling okay?” I asked Ruth.

  “He’ll be fine. The antibiotics just need time to kick in. Let’s open our gifts,” she said with forced cheer.

  I’d bought Riaan practical gifts that he could use at digs as well as books about paleontology and evolution. I’d also dug around in his garage until I found the saber-toothed cat’s tooth he’d found in the cave on his property all those years ago when we were children. I had it mounted in a glass box and attached a plaque that was engraved with: Riaan van Tonder, taking part in earth-shattering discoveries since 1944.

  There had been a lot of excitement recently. The Wits University paleontologists believed they’d found the most complete ape-man skull ever excavated, a 1.5-million-to-2-million-year-old skull of a female cousin of early man. It was still very hush-hush, but Riaan had been a volunteer at the Drimolen site when it was found next to the lower jaw of a male. I was proud of him and wanted him to know that I saw the potential in him that had never been allowed to be realized. He was rendered speechless by the gift and so I knew he liked it.

  For Ruth, I’d made a framed collage of all the articles that had been written about her over the years, interspersing them with photos of her from magazines as well as newspaper headlines that spoke of her shocking exploits. In the center of it, I’d had the Helen Keller quote on courage written large, in calligraphy: Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

  She hooted with joy when she opened it.

  Ruth, true to her nature, gave me a selection of silk and lace lingerie and sleepwear that made me blush; it also made Riaan flush until his face matched the color of his Father Christmas suit.

  One of Riaan’s gifts to me was a leather-bound Bible with my name embossed in gold. “In case you want to start reading the scriptures again,” he told me, piercing me with his sincerity.

  After a huge lunch, Riaan brought out a cake.

  “Thank you for not being in charge of it,” I said to Ruth, seeing the plain chocolate cake with Happy Birthday, Delilah written on it in gold icing. “No fondant, thank God.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet,” she replied, proceeding to cover the cake with fifty-eight miniature candles that she lit with painstaking slowness for emphasis.

  When she was finally done, I pulled Mandla up on my lap, asking for his help in putting out the blazing fire. He blew once or twice, ineffectually, and grabbed at the cake halfheartedly.

  “Does he feel hot to you?” I asked, trying not to inject any alarm into my voice. It was difficult to tell because his temperature ran to hot and he’d felt that way for ages.

  “Little man’s just tired,” Ruth said. “It’s been a long day.” She planted a lingering kiss on his forehead and then held her arms out to him. “Besides, it would be difficult not to get hot in the reflected light of all those candles,” she quipped, and I laughed gamely, though the reversal in our roles was disarming.

  Who was the calm woman before me and what had she done with my sister?

  I was about to blow out my own candles when Mandla suddenly leaned forward and vomited down Ruth’s pants before he began having a violent seizure.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Ruth

  27–29 December 1995

  Rustenburg, Gauteng, South Africa

  Two days after Christmas, I’m curled up in a chair next to Mandla’s bed at a hospital in Rustenburg.

  Mandla is hooked up to various drips and monitors, and he’s been subjected to a huge battery of tests. The prognosis doesn’t look good; he had a febrile seizure brought on by complications of pneumonia
, and his CD4 count has dropped since his last test. The doctors are concerned about his viral load though they aren’t talking AIDS just yet. Still, they’re speaking in that somber way that worries me.

  I wanted so much for my boy to have the perfect Christmas that I refused to admit how sick he was. Stupid, selfish, Ruth.

  I’ve barely slept and still wear the clothes I wore on Christmas Day. Dee brought toiletries and a change of clothes, but I’m too scared to leave Mandla’s side except to rush to the bathroom for a minute at a time. His temperature keeps spiking and they’re concerned he’ll have another seizure if they don’t get it under control.

  I hear a rustling from the bed and look to see Mandla struggling with his oxygen mask again. My boy is a fighter but I wish he wouldn’t use so much of his strength to fight against the equipment and people that are trying to make him well. The machines, at least, are faithful in their service and do not discriminate. I wish I could say the same for the people.

  When we first arrived at the hospital, it took four nurses to try to hold Mandla down so that they could draw blood and put a drip in him. As soon as I declared his status to them, two of the nurses backed away, refusing to tend to him.

  “Just put gloves on, for God’s sake,” I shouted, trying to get them to help him.

  “Pinprick accidents happen all the time,” the one nurse said, “especially with flailing children. I’m not taking the risk.”

  The other nurse didn’t say anything, she just looked at me mutinously, and I recognized her instantly. She was the woman I’d seen in the Spur bathroom that day. The one with the black eye who I saw with that racist, Klein Maynard Coetzee. I looked down at her name badge.

  Mimi Coetzee. His wife.

  “Get out of my way,” I said. “I’ll help them.”

  I tried to calm Mandla then as I held him down, gently shushing him and whispering his name over and over, telling him how much I loved him.