Mother to Mother

by Sindiwe Magona

  I whirled around and there three-four metres behind me, on the other side of the street, legs bent out backward at knee as though bracing herself to heave a mighty weight upward, there she was.

  Excitedly, we waved at each other in between gaps made by passing cars and bustling pedestrians. At once, Stella indicated by wave of hand, shooing me to stay put, that she would cross over to my side of the street. How long had it been since I’d last seen her? A year? More? My heart doing the gum-boot dance, I waited.

  At last, there she was, right beside me. We hugged and kissed, unashamed tears streaming down our cheeks. Then we stepped back, the better to see. We held each other at arm’s length. We were both a lot taller and carried a lot more flesh on the bone than we remembered each other. Acknowledging the tremendous changes that had taken place in our bodies, we smiled knowingly.

  The way a braggart of a boy would show off, Stella hooked thumb at shoulder, digging beneath the blouse, and pulled: thwack!

  My mouth fell open. ‘You wear a bra?’

  Her brows shot upward. ‘Of course,’ she said, lips slowly spreading sideways, chasing the ears.

  Arms slung carelessly around each other’s shoulders, we strolled to CNA bookshop to get Mama’s horse-racing card. This was my last errand and Stella had already finished whatever business had brought her to Claremont. On our way back the way we had come, now going to the buses, Stella suddenly stopped, looked at me eyes widened comically and whispered, ‘Let’s go over there.’ She was pointing away from the direction of the bus terminus.

  My brows shot up, this time.

  ‘You know how nosy these toppies are,’ she answered my unvoiced question.

  Although we had always felt that adults were meddlesome, I didn’t recall our ever actually fleeing from them in the old days unless, busy at play, we were dodging being called home. Why would she be avoiding grownups now?

  ‘Whatever for?’ I asked.

  ‘Just come!’

  Not waiting for my response, Stella lead the way up Station Road and toward Saint Saviour’s Anglican Church behind the shopping area. I followed her and we walked up the road and into the church gardens.

  As soon as we’d found a seat, my friend fished out a small packet of cigarettes and a box of matches from her bra.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ she said to my involuntary gasp of astonishment.

  ‘You smoke?’ The silly question slipped past my lips. I felt such a clot. Why is it that a mouth doesn’t come furnished with a lid or zip? Lips can be so inadequate. This was one of those times I knew mine would certainly have done with a more secure guard.

  Stella blew smoke right into my face. I guess that was a fitting answer to a dumb question.

  I moved back; sliding along the bench till I was a foot or so away from her.

  She did not attempt to close the gap my moving away had created. The cigarette smoke curled up, forming a hazy screen in front of her face, making her eyes squint and cry. She looked so grown up, all of a sudden.

  ‘D’you know that Toptop has a stomach?’ she asked.

  ‘No, she doesn’t!’ I moved back, closer to her again. ‘You’re pulling my leg!’ I gave my friend a hard, searching look. Toptop was our age. How could she be expecting a baby?

  But Stella nodded several times slowly. ‘Yes, she does,’ she said, again blowing out smoke. Then she answered a question I had not even thought of asking.

  ‘My boyfriend taught me,’ and pulled hard on the cigarette.

  Stella stayed near many of the people from Blouvlei. The families that had got into concrete houses from the word go, formed a little cluster, an enclave within the township. They even called that part of Guguletu Blouvlei.

  The litany of disasters was endless. Nomabhelu, another ex-Blouvlei girl, had been married off to a man old enough to be her father, Stella said. And on and on and on. None of the news I was getting was cheering. Stella didn’t seem to have anything to tell me that was funny, happy, or carefree. Problem after problem, that’s all she talked about. And I was worse off. I had no news to give her . . . nothing that, in light of her startling revelations, seemed at all important.

  We were both quiet as we walked back to the Main Road and toward the buses. I suppose we both were a little sad at the imminent parting. I know I was somewhat subdued from all these things I had heard.

  Suddenly, Stella stopped walking and cried out, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot!’ A bout of coughing forced a pause before she continued. ‘Did I tell you that Sis’ Lulu passed away?’ A look of sadness passed over her face. Very briefly. One second, it was there, the next, gone. Had I imagined it?

  My stomach plunged to my knees. I dropped the bag of groceries I was carrying for my arms had died while the fingers of my hands changed to withered stumps, totally without feeling.

  ‘Wha-aat?’ I heard an unfamiliar voice croak.

  ‘Ja,’ Stella shrugged. ‘Last month. She and one of the twins. The one called Guguletu, nogal’. Incongruously, she smiled. That is, I saw her lips stretch sideways, barring her teeth. But as for her eyes, whatever lurked there, however briefly, horrified me. The furthest thing from a smile I’d ever seen. Since then, I have ever only seen such once or twice. Those eyes burned with an intense and urgent hate. A murderous venom.

  However, the next moment, the eyes returned themselves to their former look. Gone, the fierce loathing. And while somewhere in the deep recesses of my addled brain I feebly groped for understanding, Stella added:

  ‘You do remember, she had twins?’ Brows raised, eyes widened in question, she asked.

  All I could do is shake my head. Not that I meant that I did not remember. Indeed, I remembered only too well. The twins, nicknamed Guguletu and Blouvlei, because people swore one was born in Blouvlei and the other in Guguletu. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, they were hours old when they came to Guguletu. Still, it’s a way of remembering, I suppose, how they had to run to obey the law as soon as they were born. Guguletu and Blouvlei. And now little Guguletu and his mother were no more.

  Later, when I told Mama about Sis’ Lulu, she said, ‘God! we’ve been so dispersed, so divided and scattered in this place, we hear of such sad news months and months after the event and after the person’s been long buried.’ She stopped and looked at me . . . but her eyes said she was looking far away.

  ‘She was so young. Poor Lulu,’ she shook her head. ‘Wonder what will happen to the children now.’ Mama’s voice had aged. It had become her mother, Makhulu’s voice: thin, uncertain, distant and unfocused.

  Hearing bad news always makes me stupid. It’s as though my mind refuses to take in certain matters that it finds unbearable. It was only days later that I asked myself how Sis’ Lulu and her baby were buried. This time of year, I knew, Bhut’ Willie was away at sea. Who had seen to their funeral? Could mother and son have been buried without him? If so, what did that mean? Had he been told of the deaths? How? Would he return one day to find he no longer had a wife? Find one of his three boys also dead? Half his family was gone?

  I really meant to visit Stella. That would show Nono I didn’t need her. But, strangely, it was that meeting that put Nono and me together again. For when I saw her near the bathrooms, where hers and ours and those of the two neighbours between us converge, I couldn’t help blurting out:

  ‘Know what? I saw Stella in Claremont, yesterday.’ And that was the beginning of the end of our silly quarrel. Which was tremendous good luck, for me, as things turned out. A new boy arrived from the village of Cala. Handsome as spring weather, and as popular. But it was me China chose for a girlfriend. I, who had never before had a boy interested in her in her whole long life. Bliss was my name.

  Only trouble, boyfriends were forbidden. Mama would kill me if she found out. I wasn’t even sure that Khaya wouldn’t tell Mama if he knew. Nono was my only ally. Dear, darling Nono. And I sure needed an ally. Mama had become quite unreasonable. Ever since my moon time came. With the coming of the red monthly vi
sitors, Mama went berserk, I swear.

  ‘Never let a boy come anywhere near you. Do you hear me?’ She said, ‘You will have a stomach if you do.’

  For months, thereafter, I went around avoiding touching, even hands, with any boy. Including my own brother. It was Nono who explained what Mama meant. Mama who used words so much, one would have thought she could have done a better job explaining this whole business to me.

  But that was not her way of doing things. Not as far as my being in danger was concerned. She seemed to think each time I left the house, I could only return with a stomach. To the disgrace of the entire Chizama clan; not just our family. Besides, she was a secretary of the Mothers’ Union at our church. With such high office, she didn’t want anyone to say she had raised a rotten potato. By all means, Mama made sure her potato stayed unspoilt.

  ‘Come, lie down, here,’ she said the first time.

  Puzzled, I looked at her and at the white towel to which she pointed. Why had she spread a clean towel on the floor? I wondered.

  ‘Take off your bloomers and lie down on the towel.’ Mama never used the word panties. Bloomers was her word. Always. She had explained to me that was what they were called when they first appeared in her village. Bloomers. So, in her mind, bloomers they stayed. Forever.

  There was a struggle, brief and feeble on my part. However, when Mama wanted something done, it got done. And in the manner she wanted it done. That was the beginning of many a trial, for me. Mama’s making sure I remained ‘whole’ or ‘unspoilt’ as she said.

  ‘God put mothers on earth, to ensure the health of their daughters,’ I heard often, whenever I attempted to resist the practice. Each time she looked, she’d wash her hands thereafter. But I was the one who felt dirty. But then, who could I tell the terrible secret to? My best friend, Nono? I’d rather have died first.

  During the March ten-day school holidays, bad luck number three fell upon us all. We closed school on Friday. When we woke up, Sunday morning, Ribba was dead. She attended our school and was only two-three years older than Nono and me.

  She died during a botched back-yard abortion. The only kind available then. Even then, pretty scarce, difficult to procure, and, needless to say, illegal.

  The monthly examinations changed to once a month and every time I was late coming home. No matter where I’d been or with whom. Next, Mama took out the hems of my skirts and dresses. She didn’t want me running around asking for trouble, she said. Besides, I was no longer a child. I was grown, a woman.

  Manono, Nono’s mother, let her wear pants, short skirts, and anything else she wanted. I was sure she did not inspect Nono. Of course, I didn’t ask my friend about that. How could I do that without letting her know Mama did that to me? I would die, I was sure, if anyone ever got to know that about me.

  China did, though. From our first meeting, he knew. He guessed from my blurting out, ‘Mama will know!’ and refusing even to sit next to him, in the bush, where we were meeting. Although I loved him with all my heart.

  Fortunately, he was a very sensible and sensitive boy. Respected me. Respected and feared his father. Therefore, he had no intention of getting me or himself into that kind of trouble. We spent any time we could squeeze together, kissing and having ‘play sex’. No penetration. Mama had warned me never to sleep with a boy as a wife does with her husband. With Nono and China’s help, I eventually worked out what that meant. And, with China’s complete agreement and support, stayed away from it.

  I don’t know what got Mama to suspect something was going on between Khaya and Nono. She began to find fault with Nono and her frequent visits. But, above all, with her going into Khaya’s hokkie even without me being there. Khaya, a year older, was Mama’s darling. It killed her that he was in the same class as Nono and me.

  Mama’s increasing dislike of Nono could hardly escape notice, for Mama mumbled what amounted to obscenities about the girl, whenever Nono came by.

  ‘Look at those short things she is wearing. Tell me, just tell me, is she not asking for trouble? What does her mother think, letting her go out of the house naked? Oh, she is selling herself, that’s for sure. She is selling herself. Do we not all know that a hoe is bought when its shiny sharpness is seen?’

  Nono told her mother about Mama’s remarks. Manono came to complain to Mama, who feigned shock and surprise that Nono had taken offence at anything she might have said . . . to her or about her.

  ‘Mmelwane,’ a much surprised Mama said. ‘Can we no longer tease our children? Has it come to that?’

  But Manono was no born-yesterday chicken. A few choice words were exchanged. By the time she left, she and her good neighbour had papered over things a bit.

  But, ‘I don’t care what they think or say,’ Mama fumed as soon as Manono left. ‘And the less you or Khaya see of that she-dog, the better,’ she said. ‘I don’t like her . . . and never will.’

  Imagine Mama’s chagrin, her bitter disappointment and anger, when, two short months later, in the second week of the June holidays, a tight-lipped Manono came to tell Mama that Nono was pregnant, and Khaya was responsible. An already far from pretty situation turned uglier. Naturally, in her anger and disappointment, Manono cursed Khaya. More, she cursed his whole clan.

  Mama retaliated by forbidding me to talk to Nono.

  ‘I will kill you with my bare hands if I catch you talking to that she-dog!’ she said, putting all the blame on Nono.

  ‘Nono should have taken better care of herself,’ she said. ‘It is the girl’s responsibility, as far as I’m concerned, to see that certain boundaries are not crossed.’

  Instead of blaming Khaya, Mama said, ‘Manono should look in the mirror and ask herself what it was she had failed to do for such a thing to happen to her daughter.’

  Not that she made much sense to me, but Mama seemed to be of the opinion that Manono was even more to blame for Nono’s pregnancy than Nono herself. Khaya, she pointed out, could not be blamed. ‘What do you expect from a boy if you go and spread yourself beneath him?’

  I was lucky that way. As I’ve already said, China was careful and all we did was play sex, with him never going higher than a little above mid-thigh. As I had so often heard Mama grumble, ‘A good girl does not sleep with a boy in the manner of a wife with her husband.’ And I was a good girl.

  Naturally, I was terribly sorry for Nono in her situation. Moreover, her getting pregnant got me back into a grave I had managed to escape. Mama went back to demanding to see me. When I’d come to realize that the event was going to be routine, I’d flatly refused. Not scolding nor threat of beating would move me. Not even threat of putting me out of the house would make me budge. Eventually, Mama had given up, telling me, ‘Isala kutyelwa sibona ngolophu! — She who refuses advice will learn through burn marks!’

  But now, with Nono pregnant, Mama resumed her demands and told me up front, ‘If you don’t want me to see you, I’m calling your fathers to come and do it themselves. I will not be responsible for anything untoward happening to you.’

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to me, Mama,’ I said. Not for the first time, I was deeply grateful China didn’t demand or expect that I split myself wide open for him in our secret encounters.

  The stand-off between Mama and me lasted less than a week. I fully expected Mama to act on her threat at the weekend. But, of course, I also hoped against hope that she wouldn’t call my uncles to come and inspect me. I also knew that if she did, they would certainly give me some kind of option, a way out in their eyes. I could hear one of them clear his throat and say:

  ‘Mmh-mhh! Our daughter, ehh . . . our sister, your mother here, has called us to our home because of her love for you. She only wants to do what is good for you . . . good and right and proper. Fitting. Now, are you going to force us to do this, or will you let your mother do what she must do, what all mothers should do?’

  But I had not realized how completely Nono’s pregnancy had deranged Mama. Come Friday, didn’t she come
up with something I had totally not foreseen?

  ‘Mandisa, get your school books and uniform ready. On Sunday, I’m taking you to Gungululu.’

  I cried and pleaded with her. I promised to be good, do all the housework, do it even before she asked me to; never miss school; do all my laundry as well as my brother’s. I would do hers too, I said. And Tata’s, when he came back from sea.

  But all was to no avail. Nothing I said or did would change my mother’s mind.

  I was so desperate not to be sent away, banished to the village, where one never saw meat until a cow or another beast died, I even brought the hated white towel out myself, spread it on the floor and urged Mama to see me . . . see that I was still a whole girl, complete and untouched.

  But, nothing helped. Mama had lost all reason. She felt that the only way I could escape getting pregnant was if she went and hid me in the village, ‘where children still know how to behave’. She would not trust even her own eyes, she said.

  Two months to my fourteenth birthday, Mama took me, by train, to the hard place of her birth and growing up, the village of Gungululu, where children were named according to the spaces between the years of rain. Fourteen, almost. Banished to a far-away desert. To go and stay with her mother, Makhulu, someone I had not set eyes on in all my life. Someone who had never seen me before.

  Gungululu — September 1972

  First cocks had not yet crowed. The ridges of the grass mat on which I lay branded welts to my side. Not a mouse stirred, the rondavel was dead, dead quiet; a mirror to the eerie quiet pressing the walls inward till they threatened to collapse on me. Outside, I knew at this time of day, lay the heavy still darkness that precedes dawn, muffling all life as petulant night held its breath before it gathered itself up for inevitable flight at the assault of dawn. On my back, in the dark, I lay wide-eyed staring at the ceiling — at the dizzying rafters radiating from pillar to wall, dividing the thatch above me into twelve neat sections. I had counted them, soon after my arrival here, during those sleepless nights, three months ago. Three long months ago.