Another Woman's Daughter

by Fiona Sussman

  Mme had kept clicking her tongue and shaking her head as she’d wrestled with the sheets. Then big drops of water had trickled down her cheeks. I’d never seen her get so upset over a tricky job before.

  The boxes made scary shadows on the walls and I was glad when the Master put his head around the door. He started laughing when he saw me. I giggled too, though I wasn’t really sure what we were laughing about.

  “How’s my lucky bean?” he asked, sitting down beside me.

  I liked lucky beans. A tree in the garden grew the skinny black pods. If you cracked one open you’d find a row of pumpkin-colored beans tucked into a long bed like well-behaved children. Every bean had a thin black saddle around its tummy. Mme said the beans brought good luck. I’d often collect them to trade with Sipho, because there were no lucky beans in Orlando.

  “Would you like me to read you a story?” the Master asked.

  “Yes, please, Master.”

  “How about you call me Michael, eh?”

  “Yes, Master. I mean . . . Yes, Master Michael.”

  We both started to laugh again. This time I understood why. It was definitely hard trying to call the Master a new name, and I had to think very carefully about my words every time after that. “Master” just knew its way out of my mouth.

  Then the Madam came into the room. At least she didn’t ask me to call her something different. “It’s half past eight, Miriam, and I think you should be getting off to sleep.”

  “I was just going to read to her a bit, Reet,” said the Master quickly.

  I was glad he’d remembered that.

  “I think we should get into a routine right from the start,” the Madam said, patting the side of my bed. “A well-slept child is a happy child.”

  I didn’t know what a routine was, but it sounded bad, especially if it meant no stories.

  “Just a little read, eh?” the Master said, winking at me.

  I tried to wink back, but I couldn’t without shutting both my eyes.

  The Madam chuckled. “All right, then, just a quick one.” She bent down to give me a kiss on the cheek. I didn’t like the feel of her lips on my skin; they were floppy and wet and not at all like Mme’s soft, tickly kisses.

  “Good night, Miriam,” she said. “Sleep well. Tomorrow is a big, big day. Are you excited?”

  “Ooh, yes, Madam. Very.”

  I was excited, but I was also a bit scared. Master said we were going to fly over the sea on a big bird. I hoped we weren’t going to fall off.

  “Michael, remember to put out the rubbish now Celia’s gone,” the Madam said, switching off the main light to leave us trapped in a small circle of light from the bedside lamp.

  Hearing Mme’s name made me miss her. I wanted to snuggle up to her under our big blanket, just like we always did. But before I could say anything, Master Michael had opened The Wind in the Willows, and soon I was sliding toward sleep with Toad and Badger for company.

  —

  The shuttle bus shuddered and stopped, throwing me against a wall of legs and arms. The Madam caught me just in time. Then the glass doors were sliding open and all the shoes, skirts, trousers, and handbags were pushing to get out.

  We waited for the bus to empty before stepping onto the tarmac. A hot wind was gusting, orange lights were flashing, and everywhere machines buzzed, whirred, and beeped. The air smelled just like the inside of Michael’s workshop—of rubber, lawnmower fuel, grease, and ground metal.

  I sucked in a big breath. “Look, Michael!”

  Spread over us was the wing of a giant silver bird. The Madam had shown me a picture of one and I’d seen them flying overhead—tiny gray insects glinting in the sky. I could never understand how they went straight through clouds and not around them.

  But this bird wasn’t as small as an insect; it was as big as a Johannesburg building tipped on its side. Sipho would never believe me. The wings were straight and stiff, and I couldn’t imagine how they were going to be able to flap properly. Before I could ask Michael about this, he took my hand and we followed the Madam up a steep, wobbly staircase.

  At the very top, Michael stopped and turned. The wind had made his eyes water.

  “Good-bye,” he said, waving. I followed his gaze, though all I could see was a mango-orange sun melting in the sky and the long strip of road the bird was going to run along before taking flight.

  Tears started trickling down Michael’s cheeks, just like Mme’s when she’d made up the bed for me in the spare room. It seemed as if all the grown-ups were crying lately. Maybe a witch doctor had put a crying curse on all the big people.

  “Michael, I want mme anga—my mme.”

  I don’t think he heard me. Either the people pushing past us or the wind, or maybe the tokoloshe, had stolen my words.

  Michael tugged at me gently, and we stepped inside the belly of the big, big bird.

  —

  “‘Welcome to Norwich,’” Michael read aloud.

  “And not a moment too soon,” the Madam grumbled.

  The windows of the car had steamed up and I was tracing pictures on the glass with my gloved fingers. I peered through the stripes of clear glass, my eyes searching for somewhere to stop. There were no edges or angles to land on, no color to catch me. My eyes just kept on going, sliding over the never-ending white. Someone had thrown a huge sheet over the world, covering everything in a soft, quiet whiteness.

  Our car lights swung into an empty driveway. In the glare stood a little house with two droopy-eye windows, a red-nose door, and a thin gray balcony of mouth. I didn’t like the look of this house. I don’t think it liked me either.

  “Here at last!” Michael said, pulling up the handbrake. “The rental agent’s probably been and gone.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “She said if we were delayed she’d leave the key under the mat.”

  “We’re hardly late,” muttered the Madam.

  “At least she’s left some lights on,” Michael said, opening my door.

  I was wearing a bright pink woolen scarf, a pair of gloves with red and black ladybirds on the fingers, a vest, and an itchy yellow jumper, but still I was cold. My body kept shaking without any instruction from me.

  The three of us climbed the four concrete stairs to the front door. As Michael opened it, I peered down a cold blue runway of carpet into the narrow, gloomy passageway.

  “Come on, then. Let’s see what we have here,” Michael said, stepping inside.

  The Madam switched on some lamps, though they were shy to share their glow and cast stingy rounds of light on the walls.

  Someone had been drawing on the walls—a brown swirly pattern. Mme would have been very angry. There were a few pictures hanging on the walls too, but I didn’t recognize any of the people in them. There was also a dusty glass cabinet on my left, or maybe it was my right (the white mark on my left pinkie nail had disappeared, making it really hard to tell left from right), and imprisoned inside were lots of tiny figures: a lady with big blue hair playing the piano, a glass dove, a pink horse with a horn coming out of its nose . . .

  “God, it’s freezing in here,” the Madam said, slapping her gloved hands together.

  I copied her. This made her laugh, which was good, because she hadn’t laughed very much since we’d left Saxonwold.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have it warm in no time,” Michael said, dropping our bags and switching on a heater. Soon it started to creak and groan. Michael said the noise was just the oil heating up, but I didn’t believe him. It sounded as if someone was locked inside and trying to get out.

  After a while, the air in the house started to smell strong and bitter, the dust on the heater burning. There was so much dust in the house I knew for sure Mme hadn’t been there.

  I took some toilet paper from the bathroom and started to wipe down the furniture.

 
“Don’t be doing that, Miriam,” the Madam said, taking the paper from me. “Why don’t you go and explore a bit?”

  So I wandered through this strange holiday house with drawings on the walls, crazy creatures in the cabinets, and heaters that moaned and groaned. I was tired, my legs were slow and grumpy, and my head hurt. My tummy also felt funny—as if there were a hundred beetles buzzing around inside me.

  Michael scurried back and forth, carrying in suitcases and supermarket bags from the car, while the Madam directed him this way and that, just as she always did with Mme. “Put it in here. God, I’m getting a migraine. Can you get my toiletries bag from the car? Don’t forget the milk in the boot. We need to find the linen, Michael. What did the agent say about the linen?”

  Someone had left the back door open, so I slipped out into the still, white garden. The air had no smell. Nothing. The section was steep and rose up from a small, bricked patio. I scrambled up the bank, leaving behind me a trail of crunchy, white footprints. At the fence I stopped. My throat was stinging. Then . . .

  “Michael! Master Michael, fire!” I screamed, sliding back down the bank and sprinting toward the kitchen.

  I collided with Michael coming out the back door.

  “What is it, Miriam? Stop! Talk to me. Where’s the fire?”

  But I couldn’t get any words out; the tokoloshe had tied up my tongue. So I just waved my arms and pointed at my mouth.

  Michael lifted me up. “Miriam, speak to me. Slowly. Now, what is wrong?”

  “In me,” I managed. “The tokoloshe is here. Look, Master Michael.” A cloud of smoke tumbled from my mouth. I was on fire.

  The crumpled skin on Michael’s forehead smoothed and his worried mouth turned into a wide, laughing smile. He laughed and laughed and all the while the tokoloshe kept stoking the coals inside me. Only when I began to cry did Michael finally stop.

  “Dear child,” he gasped, wiping his eyes. “It’s not the tokoloshe. It’s your warm breath meeting the cold air for the very first time. They’ve never met—and you’ve never been this cold before, have you?”

  I shook my head, confused.

  He blew a breath into the evening air and a ball of silver smoke rolled out of his pink mouth. “You won’t have had a snowball fight either,” he said, kissing me on the forehead. He put me down, gathered up a fistful of snow, and crushed it over me.

  I squealed as the cold confetti fell into my hair.

  “Well?” Michael said, already running away. “Aren’t you going to get me back?”

  I sank my hands into the freezing powder.

  My first snowball hit him on the back of his head. Then lots of snowballs were flying. It was war!

  “Enough, I beg of you,” Michael finally pleaded. I was standing over him, threatening another bombardment.

  I threw my last icy ball against a tree and lay down beside him on the frozen ground.

  “Next thing we have to do,” he said, pushing up on an elbow to look at me, “is make an angel.”

  “An angel?”

  He started swooshing his arms and legs up and down in the snow as if doing star jumps on his back. He didn’t look like an angel, but I didn’t want to say so, because he was trying really hard. Then he stood up. Sunken into the snow was an imprint of a Christmas angel. It was beautiful. I made a whole family of angels before we finally went inside.

  After I’d had a mug of warm Horlicks and two digestive biscuits, sleep started to slip its soft glove over me. I wasn’t even in bed yet, but my eyes were already closing on their own.

  “Go find Rita and get some pajamas on, then it’s off to bed with you,” Michael said. “It has been quite a day, young lady.”

  I wandered through the dark house in my cold, wet clothes, until I found the Madam unpacking her suitcase in the dim light of her new bedroom.

  “Madam Rita.”

  “Yes, Miriam?” She glanced up, her tired eye smaller than the other.

  “Thank you, but now I must go home,” I said.

  She stopped. “This is home, Miriam. Your new home.”

  “No. I must go to my mme.”

  She straightened, her lip curling to one side. “Come now. Your time with us has barely begun. Just you wait and see how much fun we’re going to have.” She patted the bed, beckoning me to sit down beside her open suitcase. “This house isn’t very nice, I know, but we’ll only be here for a short time until we find one to buy.” She took my hand in hers. “What you need is a nice hot bath, then straight to bed. Michael shouldn’t have let you play outside for so long. You’re frozen, poor child.”

  I shook my head, my teeth chattering in my head. “I’m not cold, Madam Rita. Can I go home?”

  She looked straight at me, her small eye growing bigger. “Now, I don’t want to hear any more of that, Miriam.” Then she went over to the door. “Where has Michael got to, anyway? Michael!”

  She peeled off my damp clothes and wrapped me in a towel. I sat shivering on her bed while she drew me a bath. She called for Michael again, and when he didn’t appear, she sat down beside me. That was when she said those awful words.

  “Miriam, your mummy cannot look after you anymore. She has other children to care for, and your father gives her no help. Four children is too many for one mother. Michael and I, we have no children. Your mother has given you to us. We are your new parents. You’re very lucky, you know, because—”

  Her words crashed into each other inside my head like trapped grasshoppers. Your mother has given you to us, given you to us, given you . . .

  “I want Mme,” I cried, jumping up and running out of the room, past Michael, who was coming in through the door. He caught me in his long arms. I screamed, kicking and hitting out at him, but he held me tight.

  “Miriam, settle down. What is it?”

  “That’s quite enough,” Madam Rita said, grabbing my arm.

  I turned away. I didn’t want to see her—ugly Madam Rita.

  “Miriam,” Michael said, his breath tickling my ear. “Miriam?”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked worried and my anger went all floppy. “I want Mme,” I whispered into his ear, so Madam Rita couldn’t hear.

  “Miriam, you get to have two mummies and two daddies. Imagine that. Your mother loves you a lot. We love you too.” He stroked my back.

  My sobs fell into a pattern like the drawings on the wall, which Michael said were called wallpaper. Sob, sob, breathe; sob, sob, breathe. They filled my head with their loudness and, like big pieces of furniture, left no space for anything else.

  “You’re so light,” Michael said, hoisting me up. “We’ll have to feed you up so that when you see your mother again, she’ll know we’ve been looking after you. We promised her.”

  Sob, sob, breathe.

  Next door, he laid me down on the bed and took a scratchy blanket from the cupboard to cover me. I curled into a ball and turned my back on him.

  Michael stayed there for a very long time, until I finally fell asleep.

  Later that night I was woken by loud voices. At first I didn’t know where I was, but the angry words soon reminded me.

  “She’s six years old. Just a child, Rita.”

  “Don’t you think I know—”

  “But there are ways of saying things. It’s all so new for her.”

  “Well, you can’t tiptoe around the truth forever, Michael. Better she understands now, and gets over it, than perpetuating half-truths.”

  “She’s just lost her mother.”

  “She hasn’t lost her mother, for goodness’ sake! Not like I did. And I wasn’t cute or pretty like her. No one wanted me after my mother died, I can tell you. Can you imagine what it was like being sent to boarding school at the age of eight? Eight! But I coped. I had to.”

  “Reet, this is not about you.”


  “I’m just saying, the child has no reason to be miserable when there are two people who very much want her.”

  “She’s still going to miss Celia; it’s only normal. It is going to take time to adjust. Have a bit more understanding.”

  “Just because I haven’t given birth to the child doesn’t mean I don’t know how to care for her. I am not completely devoid of maternal instinct.”

  I stood in their doorway. Madam Rita’s eyes were all dark and pointy. Michael’s back was turned.

  Madam Rita saw me first, then Michael. Both moved toward me.

  Michael reached me first. He swept me into his arms. “Miriam, I’m sorry. Did we wake you? We’re both just a bit tired and cranky. That’s all.”

  “Yes, that’s all,” Madam Rita said, glaring at him and opening her arms to me.

  He stepped back.

  She moved forward and tried to pull me away from him.

  “Rita,” he said very slowly, then walked past her out of the room. He was holding me so tightly I couldn’t breathe properly.

  “She’s mine too—” I heard her start to say, her voice as wobbly as jelly.

  But Michael had already pulled the door shut behind us. It banged loudly, shaking the lamp in the hallway and making pockets of pale light bounce all over the walls.

  It was my fault. All my fault. I felt sad for Madam Rita, but all I wanted was mme anga.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  January 1961

  Miriam

  The squirrel was standing so still it didn’t look real. Michael and I waited. The animal’s small black eyes flitted about, inspecting the treasure in my hand. My arm was aching. I couldn’t hold it straight for much longer.

  After the longest time, it finally moved, edging closer. I tried not to breathe, except every now and then, when I had to let out a burst of stored-up air.

  Suddenly, without warning, the little guy darted forward, grabbed the piece of biscuit from my hand—his whiskers tickling like a feather duster—then shot back up the tree.

  “Let’s give it some more. Come on, Michael!”