by Gaile Parkin
Letting out a string of angry siSwati, the man searched through his pockets for more money as the men drinking beers at the other two tables began to laugh at him. Finding nothing, he closed up his bag of meat by tying a knot in it and went away looking very upset.
Shaking his head, the butcher ambled over to Benedict and Titi and asked them where they were from.
‘We’re shangaans from Tanzania,’ said Titi nervously, and the butcher threw back his head and laughed, his fat belly jiggling up and down.
‘Why did he need a whole cow?’ asked Benedict.
‘Cleansing ceremony,’ said the butcher, dragging on his cigarette as he pulled out a chair and sat with them, keeping an eye on his shop. ‘Eish, these nowadays we cannot afford. It’s one burial after another.’
‘Sorry,’ they chorused quietly.
Dropping the last of his cigarette, the butcher ground it into the soil with a shoe. He began counting on his fingers. ‘First it’s the casket, then it’s the vigil. You’ve heard all the singing on Sunday mornings, nè?’
Benedict nodded. All-night vigils for the late usually happened on Saturdays, and on the way to church on Sunday mornings they often heard the mourners singing.
The butcher continued counting on his fingers. ‘Then it’s the funeral. Then after a month it’s the cleansing ceremony. That’s when we remove our bits of mourning cloth, cleanse ourselves of our mourning and ask the ancestors to protect the rest of our family. Now, how can we afford to slaughter a cow for that ceremony after all those other expenses, after all those other family gatherings where everybody needs to be fed?’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe once a year we can afford, but eish, these nowadays, it’s too much.’ Eyeing his shop carefully, he stood up. ‘They come here asking for what looks like a cow. I sell them as much as they can buy, but I know – and they know – they’re going to be judged. What will the ancestors think of them?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Excuse me, nè?’
‘Times are hard,’ said Titi after he had gone back into his shop to serve a customer.
‘Mm.’ Benedict drew the last of his Coke up from the can through his straw. Baba had told him that in the whole entire world there were only seven factories that made Coca Cola syrup, and one of them was here in Swaziland. It was in Matsapha, the industrial area close to Manzini, but you couldn’t go to visit it because it was confidential just like Mama’s business. Nobody was allowed to know its secret.
‘Benedict!’ Titi’s voice was angry, and he realised that he had been making a noise with his straw, sucking at the empty can for any last remaining bubbles. He knew that wasn’t polite.
‘Samahani! Sorry!’ Then he gave a little burp and said samahani again, and when Titi burped too they collapsed into giggles.
Mama was excited on the way back up the hill. She had squashed only one cone and knocked over only another two, and Henry had declared her ready for the test. Henry laughed a lot and Titi’s eyes were bright with expectation. Benedict was quiet, though, and he wasn’t sure why. Something was hiding somewhere in his head. He would find a quiet place later on and see if he could coax it out.
But it was some time before he was able to do that. As Henry swung into the garage to pull up behind the red Microbus, Moses and Daniel stood up from the lowest step, their cheeks striped with tears, and ran to the car. They threw their arms around Mama as she stepped out.
‘Sorry!’ called Auntie Rachel, coming towards them from the other house carrying the youngest of the Mazibukos, the one who had been a baby that somebody had found in a dustbin. ‘They had a falling out with Fortune. Can’t for the life of me tell you what it was about, but they insisted on waiting here for you to come home.’
Mama embraced the two snivelling boys. ‘Eh, I’m sorry, Rachel.’
‘Ag, no problem, hey?’ She turned to go back to the other house. ‘The girls are still with us, I’ll send them home later when you’ve dealt with those two.’
‘Thank you, Auntie Rachel!’
They went up to the house, Benedict holding Daniel’s hand and Mama struggling with Moses who held on to her with both of his. They left Titi behind in the garage to plan her evening with Henry. Benedict heated some milk in a saucepan for the boys and spooned some honey into two mugs. The jar of honey had to stand inside some water in a dish so that the ants couldn’t get to it. Benedict felt sure that the ants would one day find a way to build some kind of bridge across the water to get to the honey; they spent long enough walking around the edge of the dish thinking about it.
Benedict and Mama would have tea later, but what mattered now was calming the younger ones. Warm milk and honey usually did the trick.
When he carried the two mugs into the lounge, the boys were sitting on either side of Mama on the couch. She had given each of them a tissue and they had wiped their eyes and blown their noses.
‘Dominoes,’ Mama said to him. ‘Somebody cheated at dominoes.’
‘Fortune!’ declared Moses hotly.
‘Uh-uh!’ Mama’s voice was firm. ‘It doesn’t matter who! It was just a game.’
‘Yes,’ said Benedict, putting their mugs down on the coffee table. ‘A game should be about laughing and having fun. A game isn’t something important, like real life. You mustn’t make the mistake of taking it seriously. Tears don’t belong in a game.’
Mama smiled at him warmly. ‘You are sounding just like my Pius,’ she said.
Benedict’s chest swelled with pride. ‘But Baba would be able to give an example of countries making the mistake of going to war over a game, or families never speaking to each other again because of something that started as a game.’
Titi came in at the front door and passed quickly through the lounge without looking at them. They heard a door slam.
‘Titi?’ called Mama. But no answer came.
‘I’ll go,’ said Benedict.
He knocked on the door of the girls’ bedroom. Titi didn’t answer, but he heard her blowing her nose inside. He opened the door a little way and called her name softly.
‘Karibu. Come in,’ she said, her voice wet with tears.
‘Eh, Titi!’ Benedict sat down next to her on her bed.
‘The meat is for Henry and his wife,’ she said, sniffing loudly. ‘He’s having the braai at home with her.’
Benedict took her hand that wasn’t holding the tissue. ‘Sorry, Titi.’
Her tears came more strongly, and she said nothing, sniffing loudly into her tissue. Henry having a wife had been making her unsure and not very happy right from the very beginning.
Benedict stood up. ‘I’m sending Mama, see?’
He changed places with Mama, leaving Titi in Mama’s care while he did his best to cheer his brothers. He wondered if he should offer the boys and Titi some drops of Auntie Rachel’s rescue medicine, but on the whole he thought it was better not to. Mama didn’t really like to have any medicine in the house, even though this was just made from flowers and it wasn’t pills that a child could mistake for sweets.
When his brothers had finished their milk and honey, he took them out into the garden with their football and played at being interested in kicking it around with them. It was a boring thing to do, but it gave him time to think.
In Swaziland a man was allowed any number of wives, and he often had girlfriends too. So far King Mswati had seven wives and a fiancée, but people said he was still young. He was born the same year that Swaziland was born, 1968, and if you minused that from this year, 2001, it told you that the king and Swaziland were both thirty-three now.
Henry already had one wife, and he acted like he wanted Titi to become his wife number two. But he never said. He had certainly acted like the meat was for him and Titi, but had he actually said? Benedict wasn’t sure. Was it polite for Henry to ask Titi to choose meat for him and his wife? Was it right? Benedict wished that Baba was here. Baba would know.
Benedict knew what Mama would be telling Titi now, as he kicked the ball as badly as Sifiso would a
nd it went into the flower bed, almost toppling over the edge of the garden into the wilderness of banana and pawpaw trees. She would be saying that of course Titi was upset, it was only natural to find the culture of many wives difficult when you had grown up in a culture of one wife only. She would be agreeing with Titi that Henry hadn’t been clear about tonight’s braai for two. And she would be assuring Titi, as Benedict had heard her do before, that of course she would be able to find somebody else, and of course Henry wasn’t going to be her only chance at having a husband and children, so she really didn’t need to accept something that didn’t feel right.
Eventually Moses and Daniel grew tired of Benedict’s half-hearted effort, tired enough to agree that it was time to go and say sorry to Fortune, who was much better at kicking.
His sisters were coming up the steps as his brothers were going down, and, anxious for them not to interrupt Mama’s talk with Titi, Benedict sat them down in front of the TV and said he would bring them some tea. He put enough milk in the saucepan for all of them to have tea, and while he waited for it to boil, he looked in the fridge to see if there was anything special they could have for their supper. There was no chance of a braai. That kind of meat was much too expensive for such a big family – and besides, a braai would probably upset Titi when his intention was to cheer her up. With Baba away, everybody could do with cheering.
Cake.
Cake was the answer. As soon as the tea was made, he would sift some flour to get all the weevils out. Mama could bake some cupcakes, and they could all help with making icing in their favourite colours.
It was a busy evening with lots of fun and giggling, and plenty of mess. Henry, the argument with Fortune, and regrets over Mrs Zikalala’s ugly white cake were all forgotten.
It wasn’t until Benedict was lying in bed in the quiet darkness, waiting for sleep to take him, that he remembered that there was something hiding somewhere in his head. He thought back over the events of the day to see if anything would make it come out.
It began to step forward slowly, blurry at first, misshapen. It didn’t look right. He concentrated hard, until at last it looked like something he could recognise, something that made sense.
Yes.
It was definitely an idea.
Climbing out of bed, he went to find Mama.
NINE
ON HER HANDS AND KNEES IN THE DOWNSTAIRS bathroom, Mavis scrubbed at the shower floor with one of the children’s old toothbrushes and a mixture of Sunlight and Jik. The Sunlight was for the small tiles, which were like pieces of the plates and cups that she washed with Sunlight in the sink, and the Jik was for the bits of black that had started to grow on the white lines between the tiles. Madam had said it was only bleach that would get rid of that. It had never been there before, it had only come since Doctor had started sometimes using the shower instead of the bath.
Doctor wasn’t happy these days. With her own ears Mavis had heard him arguing with Madam behind the closed door of their bedroom. This has to stop, he had told Madam, if it doesn’t stop then she’ll have to go.
He had been talking about Gogo Levine, Mavis had known that without even needing to guess. Gogo Levine knew dairy farming, she used to do it with Madam’s father. But Doctor and the dairy manager knew dairy farming, too, they didn’t need anybody telling them do it this way not that way. Doctor would stop down at the dairy on his way home up the hill, and if the dairy manager told him anything about Gogo Levine he would come very quickly into the house and go straight to the bathroom, where he would slam the door loudly and shower in cold water. Only after that would he say hello to everybody in the house.
One evening he had said to Madam, how long is she going to stay? She can’t stay here forever. And Madam had said they had to remember that Gogo Levine and Madam’s father had bought this farm for them, they couldn’t just tell her to go. Mavis hadn’t heard that with her own ears, it was Lungi who heard it. But helping the three smallest girls to bath upstairs, Mavis had heard the downstairs bathroom door slamming very hard, and she had heard the shower water running for a very long time.
What could Madam say? Gogo Levine was her mother and her mother wasn’t happy, she needed to be with her daughter. But Doctor was Madam’s husband, and Doctor wasn’t happy with either of them. Mavis found herself worrying that maybe Madam and Doctor would leave their marriage, just as Gogo Levine had done. What would happen to the children then? They had already lost too much!
Vusi would maybe be okay, Petros was the same age as Vusi and Petros was definitely okay. Innocence would maybe not be okay. She wasn’t as clever as Vusi, and she did silly things without thinking what might happen. She would rather sing and dance and laugh with the girls from the other house than think about making something of her life, meanwhile Madam and Doctor were paying for her to be schooled. Mavis wasn’t even sure that Innocence would make a good cleaner, she was such an untidy girl. As for Fortune, it was impossible for Mavis to tell if he would be okay or not. That boy had never had a serious thought inside his head, not even for as long as it took to dust a windowsill. Olga was very easily upset, she would definitely not be okay if anything happened to her new family – but the three small girls were maybe small enough to be okay if they needed to go to another new family now. Maybe.
Eish!
A few evenings ago, while the family was eating at the table in the kitchen and Mavis and Lungi were waiting to wash the dishes and have their own supper, Mavis had slipped quietly into Madam and Doctor’s bedroom and sprinkled two drops from one of Madam’s special small brown bottles on their pillow-cases.
It was the one called Ylang Ylang, and Mavis knew about it from doing the ironing in the kitchen while Madam was telling a friend about it in the lounge when the whole of the rest of the house was quiet. It was exactly what Madam’s friend needed because there was tension and distance with her boyfriend, and the Ylang Ylang was going to help them to relax and be romantic together.
Since Mavis had sprinkled the oil on Madam and Doctor’s pillow-cases, Doctor hadn’t used the shower, not even once. But, eish, the black marks on the shower floor just wouldn’t stay away. As she scrubbed at them, her thoughts went to Titi.
It wasn’t enough that Titi had seen the world and was part of her madam’s family, now she had a boyfriend too. A Swazi, meanwhile she was a kwerekwere. He was rich, he had a business and a car, but that wasn’t enough for Titi. No. She wanted him not to have any other wife or girlfriend. Who did she think she was? Mavis would be happy to get any husband at all, she wouldn’t mind sharing, even if it meant sharing with any number of others. But it was never going to happen. It didn’t matter, really. Not as long as Gogo Levine didn’t make Madam and Doctor leave their marriage. Mavis loved her job here, she loved that there were children to take care of.
She was rinsing the bleach solution off her hands under the basin tap when somebody began to wail, and by the time she got to the big downstairs room still drying her hands on a towel, Madam and Gogo Levine were right behind her and three more children were wailing. Their mouths wide open, their voices louder than the cartoons they had been watching on the TV, Olga and the three little ones squirmed on the sofa, glaring angrily at the ground where the enamel bowl of popcorn that Lungi had made for them lay on its side, the white puffs of corn scattered everywhere.
Madam and Mavis did their best to bring comfort and calm, while Gogo Levine scooped up the bowl and went to ask Lungi to make them some more. Mavis bent and put the smallest one on her back, securing her there with the towel by draping it over the child’s back then tying it around her own front. Leaving Madam on the sofa, she took the hand of the second smallest and, jiggling the one on her back comfortingly, she led the other towards the far end of the room, talking to her all the time. Children who were crying needed separating, otherwise they would keep setting each other off.
From the window at the far end of the room, Mavis could see the cows making their way past the side of the garden, on
their way down to the dairy for milking.
Eish.
Titi had brought slices of cake for Lungi and Mavis. Lungi had said it was delicious, she wanted to learn baking from Titi’s madam. Titi’s madam didn’t just add eggs to a mixture from a box like Madam had taught Lungi. Mavis had saved her slice, putting it away on a shelf in the wardrobe until she could give it to Petros. Today was absolutely the last day it would still be nice, and once again she wouldn’t be able to give it to him. She would have to eat it herself now.
The last of the cows were passing, and Petros walked with them, his dog dancing along at his side. As she listened to his coughing, Mavis’s heart ached and she bent to hug the child whose hand she’d been holding. The pills Madam had bought for Petros from the doctor were no good, but she didn’t want to say anything to Madam. Madam already had enough to worry about with Doctor and Gogo Levine, and Mavis didn’t want to make Madam angry or upset. Madam had already shouted at Lungi for letting the pot of beetroot boil over, and then she had said sorry to Lungi and started to cry.
If anything happened to the family, Mavis wouldn’t have this job, and then she wouldn’t have a small child on her back and another in her arms.
TEN
AFTER SPORTS ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, BENEDICT and Giveness went with Sifiso and his parents in the Buffalo Soldiers van for Sifiso’s birthday. Auntie Rachel said that having his birthday at the end of July meant that Sifiso was a lion, like the king, so Benedict had drawn a picture of a lion for him. There was no need of a cake from Mama because Sifiso’s birthday was at the restaurant where his big sister had a job as a waitress, and they were all going to have waffles with syrup and ice cream, which was Sifiso’s absolute best. Sports every Wednesday afternoon was Sifiso’s and Benedict’s absolute worst, and they were jealous that Giveness was excused it on account of his skin not doing well in the sun. The waffles were going to taste especially good after the sports.