As I reach out now to try to move his hands away from the mask, I feel that his skin is hot to the touch. Before I have time to call out to the nurse that Mandla’s temperature has spiked again, he starts having a seizure.
“Help! Someone help!” I shout as the machines he’s hooked up to start wailing. There’s movement at the door and I spin around to appeal to whatever medical personnel has come to my aid. But the person standing there, their face pale with shock, isn’t a nurse or a doctor. It’s Vince clutching a teddy bear.
He takes one look at us and spins around, joining me in screaming for help.
* * *
• • •
Two more days pass and still the grim expressions on the doctors’ faces don’t ease. Mandla is in a critical condition. My fear is a feral thing and obliterates every other emotion.
Vince stays with me the whole time, alternately holding my hand and Mandla’s. He asks once if it’s okay that he came. Apparently Dee told him what had happened when he called on Boxing Day. I tell him honestly that I’ve never been as grateful to see him in my life. Dee and Riaan are there most of the time too, bringing us food even though I can’t eat a bite of it. Zodwa has tried to come see him but it’s a strict family-only policy. The hospital thinks Vince and Riaan are our husbands and Dee and I don’t correct them.
On my way back from the bathroom one day, someone blocks my path in the corridor. I step around them and am about to pass when I feel a hand on my arm. I look up, thinking it’s one of Mandla’s doctors, only to find that it’s Klein Maynard Coetzee. He’s wearing his AWB uniform again, and he’s not the only one. Looking around, I see a whole group of AWB supporters with him. It looks like they’re staging some kind of demonstration.
“We don’t want that AIDS-infested kaffir in our hospital,” Klein Maynard says.
In my exhausted state, I’m reminded of something, an echo from a conversation with Dee months ago.
It’s not illegal to belong to the AWB, is it? They’re perfectly within their rights to belong to whatever organization they want.
Do vile things have to personally affect you for you to give a shit?
At the time I’d considered it a stupid question because I didn’t see how racism could affect me personally. How well my sister knew me, and how valid her point, because nothing is more personal than Mandla. How extraordinarily transformative love is, how utterly it changes you so that now I can see so clearly something I was always so blind to. When it comes to these kinds of prejudices, you don’t need to be one of the idiots actively shouting your racism from the rooftops; silence and inertia are collusion, and I will be complicit no longer.
“We don’t want him and his disease anywhere near us,” Klein Maynard says.
“Get the fuck out of my way, you racist bastard,” I say as I push past him. His eyes bulge with either surprise or fury. “Come near my son, and I’ll fucking kill you, do you hear me?” I stare him down and when he blinks, shocked to be on the receiving end of a threat, I turn and march away.
After that, I begin to fight off sleep as Mandla fights off death, superstitiously believing that as long as I stay awake, Mandla will continue to breathe. My boy wouldn’t leave me on my watch. He won’t leave me while I stand guard.
But there’s only so long a human body can stay conscious and I eventually give in to the darkness that encroaches every time I blink. I have no idea how long I sleep but when I come to with a start, I’m immediately aware of where I am and that I’ve broken my vigil. Vince is standing over Mandla, tears streaming down his face.
I bolt up, certain that my boy is dead.
Instead, he’s awake. The fever has broken. My boy has found his way back to me.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Zodwa
1 January 1996
Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa
It’s been eight days of absolute agony and Zodwa feels like she’s going to go out of her mind.
What is wrong with my son? How can he possibly be fighting for his life when all he had was a cold?
She thinks of all the medicine Mandla spat out over the past few months and all the times she should have forced him to swallow it but didn’t. Is that why he didn’t get better? Is this her fault?
They wouldn’t let her in to visit him at the hospital, but she could see the machines that were breathing for Mandla; all the staff who were constantly checking in on him; the medicine that was pouring into his veins. How could so much be necessary to save such a small body?
Ruth never came home at all in the first few days and Zodwa had to rely on Delilah for updates. She was grave and wouldn’t say much except that the prognosis wasn’t good.
“He’s a very sick little boy,” she said before disappearing into her room from where Zodwa would hear her weeping. The sound chilled her to her very core.
Zodwa paces constantly. Even in sleep, what little she gets, she’s in constant motion, her eyelids twitching and her hands grasping for something. Her son? Hope? She starts praying to Leleti’s God, asking for His mercy, begging Him not to take Mandla from her now that she’s a part of his life.
It seems that God listens because on the eighth day, Mandla is brought home from the hospital in the kind of car Zodwa thinks only presidents and famous people get driven around in. She doesn’t recognize the man driving, but he’s clearly someone Ruth is very close to, judging by the way they act with each other.
It’s the opulence of the car that makes Zodwa hesitate when all she wants to do is run at Mandla to see for herself that he’s better. Instead, she stands aside as the man opens the back door for Ruth, who gets out carrying Mandla. It’s only when Mandla holds out his hand for Zodwa that she’s spurred to action.
“Welcome home,” Zodwa says, taking a listless Mandla from Ruth’s arms. She’s so shocked by his physical transformation that she dares to plant a kiss on his cheek. “You’re looking thin, little man. It’s time for us to fatten you up.”
She leads him inside to the chocolate cake she baked for his homecoming. Zodwa was hoping for some reaction from him since it’s his favorite, but he merely sticks his fingers in his mouth to suck on them and turns away from the cake, burrowing his face into her neck.
Ruth goes to put bags down in Mandla’s room and the man joins Zodwa and Mandla in the kitchen.
He greets Zodwa in a distracted way and Zodwa greets him back. “Good day, sir.”
When Ruth comes through from the bedroom, she introduces them formally, “This is Zodwa, our maid. Zodwa, this is Vince, my . . . soon-to-be ex-husband. He lives in Cape Town.”
Ex-husband. So, he’s the one who pushed Ruth over the edge that day in the dam. Zodwa smiles at him even as the mention of Cape Town sends a shiver of alarm through her.
Is that why this man is here? To take Ruth and Mandla back to Cape Town with him?
Zodwa is just thinking that she can’t allow that to happen when Ruth says, “Can you watch Mandla for a second? I’m just saying goodbye to Vince. He’s flying back home today.”
“Of course.” Relief washes over Zodwa.
The man leans forward and kisses Mandla on the forehead. “Goodbye, Mandla. Look after your mother for me.”
For a split second, Zodwa thinks the man’s referring to her. As Ruth and the man head outside, Zodwa watches them through the open door. The sound of their voices drifts in so that Zodwa doesn’t have to make it obvious that she’s eavesdropping.
“You didn’t need to come,” Ruth is saying. “But I do appreciate it. Thank you for the latest loan. You know I’ll pay you back as soon as I can free up some cash.”
“It’s not a loan, Ruth. I’m just glad I could help. Is there no way to get him onto your medical aid in the future?”
“No, they declined him because of his status.”
Zodwa blinks in surprise. Mandla’s s
tatus? Ruth must mean his status as a foster child.
Foster children clearly can’t become dependents on their guardian’s health insurance. Mandla was at a private hospital, not an underfunded government one that Zodwa would have had to take him to if he was her child and his care fell to her. Zodwa had just assumed Ruth’s policy was paying for Mandla’s treatment. She can’t begin to imagine what his stay there must have cost and yet that man paid for it like it was nothing.
Zodwa thinks of all the fancy equipment she saw at the hospital when she looked through the glass window into Mandla’s private room. The only reason he had all of that was because these people have the money to pay for it. Money Zodwa doesn’t have.
Zodwa thinks of her little purse under her mattress and the fantasies she’s been having about running away. She flushes at how childish her dreams were.
Ruth kisses Vince on the cheek. “Thank you for coming.”
“I’m always here for you, Ruth, you know that.”
She shakes her head. “Not always,” she says before walking away. Zodwa turns from the door back around to Mandla, burying her face in his neck for a second before Ruth returns.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Zodwa
6 January 1996
Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa
Here’s the phone number for the club, Zodwa. Call if Mandla gets a fever or if you’re worried about anything at all,” Ruth says, scribbling a number down by the phone.
“I will, Madam Ruth. Don’t worry.”
“And keep the panic-button remote control near you all the time, okay?”
“Yes, madam.” Zodwa has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Ruth’s obsession with security borders on the ridiculous. Typical white people, constantly thinking the black man is coming for them.
“I’ll call at eight-thirty to check on him. Listen for the phone.”
“I will.”
Still Ruth lingers in the doorway until Dee hoots for her, shouting that they’re going to be late for their event. Mandla is curled up in Zodwa’s lap as she reads to him from the illustrated Zulu alphabet book she made him for Christmas. He doesn’t even look up at Ruth’s departure although she’s theatrically blowing him kisses.
After Ruth finally leaves, Zodwa goes back to the book, teaching Mandla how to say some of the Zulu words while telling him stories of their people that her gogo had once told her. Her son, usually so serious, laughs and laughs when she shows him the Umzansi Dance, stamping his foot repeatedly in imitation of her now that he’s feeling better.
“Again!” he calls. “Again, Dwa.”
There are so many Zulu rituals Mandla will miss out on. He never had the imbeleko ceremony to introduce him to the ancestors and to ask for his protection after he was born. He will never attend an Umhlanga, or Reed Dance ceremony, nor will he hear the tales of the amadlozi, or slaughter a goat or chicken in their honor.
The whites have their own rituals and ceremonies but Mandla will be breaking with hundreds of years of tradition if he grows up with them. Zodwa wants to give him something of his true self to cling to, something that can never be taken away from him.
Once he falls asleep next to her, one hand clutching her leg, she lifts him up and takes him to his room as Jezebel pads behind them, claws ticking on the floor. Zodwa lays Mandla down in his cot and then leaves the two of them in there together before going outside to the patio to cool down.
It would have been Leleti’s forty-ninth birthday today, but not even thinking about her mother’s passing, and the fact that she didn’t live to make this milestone, can take away from Zodwa’s happiness. What she feels is more like the memory of sadness, something worn smooth from too much use.
She also feels gratitude because it was surely Leleti who gave Zodwa this gift of a night alone with her son; it wasn’t easy for Delilah to convince Ruth to leave Mandla to attend their fund-raising function. Still, Ruth, clearly reluctant to leave him so soon after his illness, had allowed herself to be assured.
Zodwa looks down now at one of the two letters she’s taken to carrying around with her. She applied to study social work through distance learning at the University of South Africa and almost can’t believe she’s been accepted. She’ll be using the money she stashed away to pay for her registration next week when she goes to the campus to sign up. Saving money to run away with Mandla was a stupid fantasy whereas investing in her future is the better route. One her mother would approve of.
She folds the first letter away and opens the second one, this one from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It’s in response to her inquiry about Dumisa, informing her that his name has come up in one of their interviews. There isn’t any further information, just a notification that information about him will be disclosed in one of the upcoming hearings, and that she’ll be informed of the date and venue once it’s scheduled.
We’ll know the truth soon, Mama. That is my birthday gift to you.
Zodwa goes inside and sits on the couch, reaching for the remote. The opening credits of the eight o’clock movie have just begun playing, with the sound turned low, when headlights sweep across the wall. It’s too early for it to be the sisters, though knowing Ruth, she’s probably come back just to check on Mandla. Zodwa gets up and walks to the window to see who it is. There’s a bakkie that she doesn’t recognize pulled up at the gate.
Zodwa waits for the intercom to buzz to announce their presence but nothing happens, and when she turns the volume from the TV down, she can hear the car idling.
That’s when the power goes out.
The house is plunged into darkness, the picture on the television contracting to a pinpoint of blue before disappearing completely. The only light in the room now comes from the car’s headlights, and Zodwa watches as a backlit figure gets out of the passenger side, reaches through the fence to flip something up, and then manually pulls the gate aside before getting back into the vehicle.
She goes cold as the car pulls inside.
The panic button? Where is the panic button?
Zodwa looks to the table but it isn’t there. It’s not on the couch either. When she looks back outside again, she doesn’t recognize the two men who are lit up in the bakkie’s interior as one of them opens a door.
“We should have done this months ago. That’s the only way to deal with vermin, show no mercy.”
“We didn’t know how bad it was then. Now we do. Now we put a stop to it.”
The men are speaking in Afrikaans. What frightens Zodwa, besides the air of aggression that hangs over them, is how drunk they are. They’re both slurring their words and the one staggers as he gets out of the bakkie. She knows from firsthand experience at the shebeen that you can’t reason with angry, drunk men.
As they advance toward the house, Zodwa sees they’re wearing what look like army uniforms. She shrinks back, not wanting them to see her through the window. She steps to the side and leans her back against the wall, flinching as they bang on the door.
“Open up, whore. Open the fucking door.”
“We’re not letting you get away with bringing that disease into our town.”
Their shouting sets Jezebel off but she’s still closed in the room with Mandla, so the barking is muffled. Zodwa’s heart is pounding so violently that she wonders why they can’t hear it.
That disease.
She doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but she understands their intent. They aren’t going to just turn around and leave.
“You and that AIDS-infested kaffir baby need to go,” one of them calls as he bangs on the door again.
AIDS infested. What do they mean? It doesn’t matter. She understands the “kaffir baby” part. They’re here for Mandla, and Zodwa feels fear like it’s a hand at her throat.
“Come, let’s go try the back.”
Zodwa spi
ns around to look at the patio door that she came through a few minutes ago. The slam-lock security gate stands uselessly open but the sliding glass panel is closed; she can’t remember if she locked it behind her. Zodwa steps toward it to check when she sees arcs of torchlight cutting through the darkness. They’re coming. It’s too late and so she runs for Mandla’s room.
When Zodwa slips inside, Jezebel is on her feet. There’s enough moonlight coming through the window for Zodwa to see that the dog’s hackles are raised. Zodwa closes the door behind her, turning the key in the lock. Mandla is awake now. His eyes gleam in the dark. The dog’s barking has startled him and he looks like he’s on the verge of crying. She leans into the crib and picks him up, jiggling him around to soothe him. AIDS-infested kaffir baby.
She can’t think about that now.
Zodwa’s thoughts return to the patio door. The security system is useless if she didn’t lock the sliding door behind her but she can’t remember if she did. And then she remembers the remote-control panic alarms Ruth put in every room and finally understands why they were necessary.
The remote is meant to be hanging off a nail hammered into the wall next to Mandla’s changing table but she can’t see it in the darkness. After reaching out for it, her fingers come away empty and she curses. Zodwa turns to the changing table and pulls out one of the drawers. As she does so, she hears voices nearby and then the sound of a chair being knocked over.
The men are inside.
For a moment or two, Zodwa stands frozen. All she can hear is her quavering breath and the whooshing of blood racing past her ears. When she starts moving again, she feels her way through the drawer with her free hand, but it doesn’t contain anything but Mandla’s clothes.
Zodwa pulls the next one open.
“Where’s the bitch?”
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
“The whore and the baby never go out. They must be here.”
If You Want to Make God Laugh Page 29