Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  There is no honeymoon for us. We have work to do. As soon as we get back to her townhouse that very afternoon I phone the American Embassy in Maseru about the children’s visas and they tell me that they have transferred our case to Johannesburg. This saves us a lot of travelling; Maseru is five hours away from Johannesburg. At the American Consulate they grant the children visas immediately; they don’t even look at Adele’s letter. They tell me that it was silly of the Embassy in Maseru to be swayed by Adele’s faxes in the first place. The judge’s orders were sufficient for them to grant the visas. Now they are telling me, after all the trouble I had, and the expense of flying to America on four occasions. They apologise for the inconvenience and give me all the letters that Adele wrote to the Embassy in Maseru in case I want to take action about the matter. But, of course, I am not going to waste my time on this matter any more. All I want is to take my kids back to their school in Athens, Ohio.

  The kids and I fly back to the United States on the United Emirates airline. It doesn’t bother us that we have to spend the whole day in Dubai. There is a lot to do and to see at that airport. There is a lot to eat too, all of it free if you are a passenger. But my thoughts are in Johannesburg where I have left my new wife. It will be another year before she joins me because her three kids are at a private school in Piet Retief where they live with their grandparents. It will take that long to make arrangements for them to transfer to a school in the United States, get visas for them, and buy a much bigger house for the family that has instantly more than doubled. Gugu also has a job which she can’t just leave abruptly. All this doesn’t really bother me because for the past few years I have been commuting to Johannesburg every two months or so to see her and my mother. I will continue to do so.

  Zenzi and Zuki are late for school, but their teachers understand; they have been marooned in Johannesburg for three months.

  I am only back in Athens for two weeks when a telephone call from my sister-in-law Johanna, summons me back to Lesotho. My mother is dead.

  I ask Adele to stay with the children but she does not respond to my emails. That is how the court has advised us to communicate now, via emails so that there should be a record of our bickering. And indeed there are hundreds of emails covering the whole period of this ordeal. I don’t expect her to respond because she has vowed that she will make my role as custodial parent very difficult. ‘I’ll make you wish you hadn’t got custody,’ she said. When I don’t hear from her I know that she wants my trip to Lesotho to bury my mother to fail since I can’t leave the children alone. The people who used to help me babysit are Spree McDonald and his wife Tsibishi, but they won’t do it any more because, they tell me, Adele has threatened Tsibishi if she continued helping me with the kids. So she won’t do it now because she says she fears for her life. But I have not run out of options. There is my brother in Columbus, and Sonwabo takes time off work and comes to Athens to look after my kids.

  I am already in Johannesburg when I hear that Adele stormed into my house and demanded the kids from my brother. I’d suspected that would happen and I had told Sonwabo if it did he must just release the kids to her without any argument. I pick up Gugu and we proceed to Lesotho in her car.

  At the funeral I meet Sonwabo’s kids, Limpho, Mpumi, Thembi and Solomzi. When I tell them that I have left my kids with the father they have not seen in more than twenty years Solomzi says, ‘You’re a brave man. Are you not afraid that he will abandon your kids just as he abandoned us?’

  What can I say to that? He is making his point and it is a valid one.

  In Mafeteng my mother is lying in her coffin in Zwelakhe’s living room, and people are sitting or standing around singing hymns softly. A few weeks ago I gave Zwelakhe some money because he was planning to organise a big party for her. Now she lies in a coffin and that money will go towards her funeral. I was sad that my mother was gone. But at the same time I was relieved. I couldn’t bear seeing her the way she had been lately. She had lost her memory and couldn’t remember me or anyone else. As she lies there I remember that before she lost it completely she would report to me that there was someone who kept on taking her perfume. I made a point of flying all the way from the USA every few months to see her. I actually saw her more often than my brother, the one who is a magistrate in Kokstad, even though I lived thousands of miles away. And she would have tears in her eyes as she told me about her perfume. I would have tears in my eyes too because I knew how much she valued that perfume. I bought it for her in Paris. Every time I went to Paris, which was twice or thrice a year, I bought my mother expensive perfume. I don’t know who kept on relieving her of it. All sorts of people came to hang out in her bedroom even when she had lost her memory. One day as she was complaining about her missing perfume Nontuthuzelo, Zwelakhe’s wife, heard her.

  ‘Hawu, ’M’e Rose, what are you doing with perfume when you are so old?’ she asked.

  She was joking with her mother-in-law, of course. But that hurt me very much. I didn’t say anything about it though. Unlike her husband, Nontuthuzelo is very nice to me. Her husband is gradually becoming nice to me too. I suspect his wife has a lot to do with it. It is my mother’s daughters-in-law who have tried to bring our dysfunctional family together. For instance, Johanna, the wife that my brother Sonwabo abandoned, is a peacemaker and a voice of reason at family gatherings. She is the one to whom my mother used to confide her hurts.

  As she lies in her coffin, her pastor from the Universal Church preaching the Gospel at her wake, the thought that she is resting at last fills me with sudden euphoria. She is not there, she’s gone, she’ll never suffer again. She was never herself again after her husband died in 1993. What pained her most were the tensions that existed among her children. It was worse that some of the battles were fought over her. There was a time, for instance, when my brother Monwabisi whisked her away to Kokstad against the wishes of Zwelakhe because Monwabisi felt that she was unhappy living with Zwelakhe. She lived with Monwabisi for a couple of months in that Eastern Cape town, but it turned out that my mother was extremely unhappy there. She felt like a stranger in Kokstad. She had lived in Lesotho for many years and all her friends were there. But most of all she missed her cat which had been left behind in Mafeteng. Monwabisi had to take her back to Zwelakhe’s house. This exacerbated the hostilities. I myself stayed out of the spat, although I did go to see my mother in Kokstad and bought her a few things to make her comfortable in her new environment.

  Now, tomorrow she is going to a different environment altogether, under the ground, and she won’t feel a damn thing. Although by the time she died she had lost her memory completely, she was never diagnosed with either Alzheimer’s or dementia. Her Soviet-trained doctor, a young man I was at Peka High School with, merely dismissed her condition as old age. ‘There is nothing we can do about it,’ he said. I didn’t know there was a disease called old age. But why did my mother catch it at the young age of eighty-three when some of her friends who are much older don’t suffer from it?

  The next morning the funeral service is held in a marquee just outside Zwelakhe’s yard. People from all corners of Mafeteng have gathered. There are some who have come from other parts of Lesotho and South Africa. My mother’s relatives have come from Cape Town and the Eastern Cape. Her sister Nozipho has come from Tzaneen in Limpopo where she has lived for many years after marrying a man from there. The ANC is represented by Christopher Dumisani Nyangintsimbi, who is South Africa’s ambassador in Lesotho. We grew up together in those mountains of Qoboshane, what today I call the Bee Place. His father was my teacher, and my father’s teacher before me. Dumisani had joined the struggle and took up arms in the ANC guerrilla camps. When we got our liberation he was an officer in the new South African National Defence Force. He has always called my mother umalumekazi, which means aunt, so he is here not only as the representative of his government but as a member of our extended family. The PAC is represented by two young men from the Free State province. I neve
r get their names. There are Lesotho politicians as well, mostly leaders of the opposition parties such as Kelibone Maope, an advocate and former cabinet minister with whom I was at Peka High. At the graveside I stand next to General Metsing Lekhanya who looks a shadow of the arrogant military commander who overthrew Chief Leabua Jonathan and was himself overthrown by fellow officers who then ushered democracy back to Lesotho, making it possible for Ntsu Mokhehle to return and become the prime minister after winning the elections with his BCP. Lekhanya is now the president of the BNP – the very party he overthrew with his coup d’état – and therefore the leader of the opposition in parliament. He whispers his condolences and tells me how proud I should be to come from the loins of such a distinguished family. All I can think of is what an odious character he is.

  Throughout the ceremony I wear a white Xhosa ceremonial blanket, which makes me feel rather silly. These are some of the traditional innovations that have been introduced by Cousin Nondyebo into our lives. We never used to practise any of these customs when my father was alive. We didn’t even know about them. But, what the heck, it’s only for a few hours. I might as well humour the neo-traditionalists in the family and wear the ridiculous blanket. It all has to do with the movement that is sweeping the country of black people trying to find their roots after having ‘lost’ their culture due to colonialism and apartheid. The problem with this movement is that it does not recognise the dynamism of culture but aims to resuscitate some of the most retrogressive and reactionary, and sometimes horrendous, elements of what used to be ‘tribal’ culture but have long fallen into disuse. There are many examples of this in, for instance, KwaZulu-Natal where a practice that demeans women known as ‘virginity testing’ is endorsed not only by the conservative King there, but by such conservative and yet influential ANC leaders as Jacob Zuma.

  You know by now that I have this tendency to digress. Tough luck if you don’t like it after coming with me this far. I was telling you about my mother’s funeral. We laid her to rest. I read an isiXhosa poem in praise of her Cwerha Gxarha clan, descendants of the Khoikhoi people. I told the gathering of our association with Lesotho that dates back to 1880 when King Moorosi of the Baphuthi people gave refuge to my revered ancestor Mhlontlo. That is why today we have a lot of Mdas in the mountains of Mantsonyana who are breeders of sheep and goats. Pat Pitso, a neighbour and the village comedian, cracks a few jokes about my mother and her expertise in giving patients an injection in their bums. There is laughter at this funeral, and I love it.

  I am quite cheery when I drive back to Johannesburg. Before I return to America I have to sort out the issue of our Weltevredenpark property. Judge Goldsberry ordered that it be sold and that we divide the proceeds equally. Adele, as I have told you before, is renting it out and pocketing the money. I give my attorneys the decree of divorce and instruct them to facilitate the sale. I will get my half of the house but I have lost everything else that was in it, including some of my irreplaceable memorabilia, such as my literary awards and childhood photographs. I have lost the invaluable book that Father Frans Claerhout gave me after drawing a golden bird on the flyleaf and signing his name. I have also lost the LP records that represent the only thing that I inherited from my father, the original paintings by renowned artists Claerhout, Meshu and James Dorothy, and my stacks of Asterix comics. Up to this day, Adele will not say what she did with all these very personal effects.

  I also take the opportunity to go to Piet Retief with Gugu because I want her to join me in America with her kids. There I meet her ex-husband William Shongwe at a restaurant and we talk about the kids. He says it is good that we should know each other; we cannot harbour hostilities towards each other because now the children are the glue that binds us together. I think he is a gentleman and quite civilised about it. I wish Adele could be just as civilised.

  Another opportunity we take is to visit Mpho at her house in Springs. Gugu and I always enjoy our visits to Springs. Mpho is now a dignified matriarch with silver-grey hair. She still looks exactly like her twin sister, Mphonyane. Both of them find their happiness in their children and grandchildren, and in the Lord. They are devout Jehovah’s Witnesses who go into the ‘field’ every week, preaching door to door to the unbelievers. But thankfully Mpho never preaches to us when we visit her.

  It takes one whole year before Gugu and her children join me in Athens, Ohio. We have bought a comfortable house on the far eastside in suburban Athens where we live as a blended family of seven. There are three surnames under this roof; each one of us keeps the surname with which he or she was born.

  Occasionally Gugu and I listen to Champion Jack Dupree and our eyes fill with tears of nostalgia. He is the bluesman of my youth. He is the bluesman of Gugu’s youth too. Her father, Bra Phil, used to fill their house in Orlando West with the sounds of Champion Jack Dupree and the likes of Big Bill Broonzy. I have noticed that we avoid playing Mr Dupree most times. I guess we don’t want to be crying all the time.

  One of our greatest pleasures is the visits to Kilvert – the hamlet of the WIN people that I discovered with the help of a colleague by the name of Jill Cunningham. I have written a novel titled Cion set in Kilvert and in Virginia. But the main reason we go to Kilvert is to spend time with Irene Flowers and Barbara Parsons, the two formidable women who single-handedly run the Kilvert Community Center where they sew quilts to raise money to feed the poor and organise social functions for senior citizens and other residents of the area. We have adopted these women as our mothers because we find them very inspiring. We pitch in whenever we can with any assistance we are able to give. But most importantly for us, going to Kilvert is very much like our visits to my mother in Mafeteng. It is also very much like going back to my ancestral village where we sit in my uncle’s restaurant, eRestu, and hold meetings with the Bee People, and listen to village gossip, and watch interesting characters come and go.

  I am too happy to be a wanderer; I’d rather sit on my back porch and watch the birds and the deer and the rabbits and the turtles invade my lawn. So, I have cut my travels around the world to a minimum. But once in a while my publishers prevail on me to take a trip to a literary festival or some such event. Remember, they’ve got to sell books and therefore they have no sympathy for my disconnectedness. That is why I find myself sitting on the podium at the Constitution Center with Edward Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Michael Nutter, the Mayor of Philadelphia, and George Herbert Walker Bush, the former president of the United States and board member of the Constitution Center. They are here to honour Bono with the Liberty Medal and I am here to perform a poem that they commissioned. When my publishers told me about this commission I told them that this was not my kind of gig; I am not a praise singer. Especially where politicians are involved. But my publisher wants to sell books. ‘Please, this is a great opportunity to give publicity to your new novel,’ they tell me. These guys sent me on a nationwide tour of more than twenty-five cities. I cannot let them down now. So I agree and I write the poem. That is why I am sitting on this podium next to Bush the Father.

  I told him when I was introduced to him as the featured poet that I can see why Nelson Mandela likes him; he is a nice guy for a Republican. It is true that Nelson Mandela does like him. I have heard him say nice things about him, whereas he has never had anything good to say about his son, Bush the Younger – especially after he invaded Iraq under false pretences. Bush the Father merely chuckles and grabs my hand very tightly.

  After performing my poem titled ‘Let them come with rain’, I sit on this podium listening to the speeches and to Morris Goldberg playing the pennywhistle. Although he is a New Yorker he is associated with South African music a lot. I have heard his saxophone backing my ex-girlfriend, the Cape Town jazz singer and scatter, Sylvia Mdunyelwa.

  Where did I go wrong? I cringe when I realise that I have become an establishment person. I am sitting with politicians in the glare of television cameras. Where did I go wrong?

  THROUG
H MY BEDROOM WINDOW I can see vapours of heat rising from the ground. One could easily drown from the humidity out there. I have to finish writing these memoirs of an outsider before the summer is over. I have moved my computer and my whole workstation upstairs to my bedroom so that I am not distracted by the kids. Gugu has gone to South Africa for her mother’s funeral. Josephine left us a few weeks after suffering a stroke.

  It is a killer summer, but I write relentlessly for hours on end. I must be done with these blinking memoirs because they have been holding up my other projects for the last three months. I have a novel set in old Mapungubwe to write. It is titled The Sculptors of Mapungubwe and it makes me restless like a hen that wants to lay an egg. I have a novel titled Rickshaw to write. It is set in contemporary Durban. I also have to follow Toloki into the American hinterland in my second American novel. And then write the story of Noria and how she meets her death in Lesotho in a joint sequel to Ways of Dying and She Plays with the Darkness. This one will be called Ululants. I must reclaim that title which initially belonged to The Heart of Redness. When all these are done I must follow, through the focalisation of a fictional family, the journey of my revered ancestor, Mhlontlo – he who slew the magistrate Hamilton Hope – from Qumbu to Quthing. These darn memoirs must get out of the way.

  I must focus on nothing but them. I turn down everything that comes my way. I have just turned down an assignment to write an article for the Wall Street Journal and another one for the Guardian in London. In both cases these were going to be very short articles which I could have written in a day. But I can’t afford to break my concentration.