Mother to Mother

by Sindiwe Magona

  I shrugged my shoulders and, with the numbness of the anaesthetized, went back to what I’d been doing, sweeping the floor. For, if she didn’t want me going out and about, Mama insisted on my stirring myself within the confines of the house.

  ‘You need the exercise,’ she said. ‘It’s good for someone in your condition.’ Till the baby was born, Mama never once used the word ‘pregnant’. I understood that, even at that late hour, we both still wished the ‘condition’ away.

  Late, one sleepless night, I scribbled a note to China. How I would get it to him was unclear but I decided it was better to be on the ready. This way, whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would be prepared. The chance never came. Not that whole long week of Mama’s self-imposed confinement.

  Finally, however, Mama had to go back to work.

  ‘Remember, now,’ she said, ‘do not get in touch with this boy.’ She had told me many times over that it would be unwise and dangerous to meet China before the case had been brought before his family. He might think up all sorts of excuses, try to wriggle out of assuming responsibility. He had to be taken by surprise, according to Mama.

  As soon as I was sure that she was gone, I went to the dining-room window, looking out to the street. Standing between the heavy inner curtain and the thin and transparent lace curtains on the outside, I could see the passers-by without being seen by them.

  I waited. But Mama had left so late, the school children had already passed. Thus it was not till the afternoon that my golden opportunity came.

  Jean and Joan, eight-year old twin daughters of a neighbour, came up the street. No one else with them.

  I tapped on the window pane. Beckoned. A finger on my lips.

  As one, their eyes widened in surprise. Because they did not know I was around? Or because they had not expected to see me?

  I opened the door before they came to it.

  Their eyes widened even more on seeing me, the whole of me, the now obviously pregnant me.

  ‘Please, take this to China,’ I said and gave the note to Joan, who seemed to take the situation more in her stride than her sister.

  ‘When did you come back?’ she asked, arm extended.

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘Oh!’ Came from both.

  ‘Don’t give that to anyone but him,’ I said, pointing at the letter.

  ‘That’s right!’ Again, it was Joan who answered. Jean had lost her tongue. I didn’t blame her. What had they heard? I wondered.

  ‘Oh, wait,’ I called out as they turned for the door. I went back to the bedroom. On my return, Jean was standing just inside the door while Joan had chosen to wait out on the stoep, midway between the door and the gate. So it was to Jean that I gave the twenty cents.

  ‘Get yourselves vetkoek or sweets.’

  ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ they said, in perfect harmony although more than a metre must have divided them.

  They had just disappeared from sight and I was still standing where they’d left me, wondering whether they had found him when someone burst into the house through the back door. Was it my brother, Khaya?

  ‘Mandisa!’

  That grating voice. Unmistakable.

  ‘Mandisa!’ China shouted from the kitchen. Shouted, even before I saw him . . . or, he saw me.

  ‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Come right in.’ I had mentioned in the letter that I was by myself.

  Long, hurried strides blundered towards the dining-room, where I was.

  Hearing his footsteps nearing, my heart gave a violent lurch and a flood of warmth bathed me. He is here! Here! Then, as suddenly, a cold cloying shyness came over me. Suddenly, I remembered how different I looked — I would look to him.

  China bolted into the room. I had risen from my seat, ready for a greeting . . . a hug . . . a kiss?

  No greeting came. First, I had waited for his, expected him to greet me. When that didn’t come, my own greeting froze in my throat.

  At the sight: China’s face, a mask carved from the hardest wood, the greeting that had sprung to heart at hearing his footstep, died in my throat.

  My heart sank. This was a difficulty I had not anticipated. Belatedly, Mama’s words came to my mind. Had she been right, all along? Did I have something to fear from China? Was my trust in him misplaced? Could he turn against me? But how? Why?

  I spoke first. Told him everything. Which, in the stony silence of this new China, was brief indeed. Even as I spoke, I could see resistance in his granite face. I could see he didn’t want to hear a thing about his being a father-to-be. With the advantage of more than a week, I had forgotten how bewildering, how frightening, the idea had been to me at first. I was still grappling with it as it were, myself. Reeling. At odd moments, I found I actually slipped into fantasy; persuaded myself it was all a terrible mistake. And that I would wake up and find that it had all been a nightmare.

  ‘No!’ China snarled after I finally stopped talking, explaining the situation we were in.

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice low, barely above a whisper. The well-remembered, beloved eyes, mere slits at best of times, were narrowed till they looked as though they were closed. Yet, incredibly, from those almost imperceptible slits darted thin but deadly tongues of fire.

  ‘Mandisa,’ China hissed, voice now raised and forceful. Jaws clenched tight, he told me in no uncertain terms: ‘Go and find whoever did this to you.’

  A cold hand clutched my little heart . . . and . . . squeezed.

  ‘China,’ with a voice suddenly gone hoarse, I called his name.

  ‘China,’ again, I said, ‘let me explain. Please . . . please, let me explain.’

  ‘Explain to your heart, Mandisa! Explain to your heart, not me!’ roared China, turning away from me so that he now faced the door.

  Aghast, I looked at his rigid back. What was he saying? How could he say that? What did he mean? Why had he turned away from me? Was he leaving? How could he? But China wasn’t quite done.

  ‘You know as well as I do that I had nothing to do with whatever it is you are carrying in your belly!’ he threw over his shoulder.

  My legs buckled beneath me. An involuntary gasp escaped as I lunged forward, grabbing the back of a chair for support. But the awkwardness and suddenness of my movement sent the chair skittering across the floor while I staggered drunkenly and almost fell flat on my distended belly.

  The commotion startled China. He turned fully around and stood once more facing me; although not narrowing the gap he had created between us by one jot.

  His words had winded me with a force more than that of a physical blow. When I’d found my feet again, I stood where he had left me, struck speechless by them and the vehemence with which they’d been said. For a full minute neither of us spoke.

  ‘China,’ irritation now wrestled with fear. I had to make him see . . . understand. ‘It’s . . . it’s not like that, at all. I can explain everything. Give me . . .’ But he did not let me finish what I was going to say to him. My words seemed to have unbottled him.

  ‘I am going to boarding school the following year,’ he said, his voice flat, with neither gladness nor sorrow in it. With no trace of sadness or regret.

  I opened my eyes wide. Not in surprise. But I would not let him see my tears. I opened my eyes wide, spreading the tears plumping them, burning the widened space between my lids.

  ‘Mandisa,’ China said. I could see that he had difficulty reading my reaction. When he saw that I remained silent, still, he continued.

  ‘The teachers have helped me get a scholarship. They think I am bright, I deserve to get a higher education. And Father has been wonderfully cooperative . . . I have his complete support.’

  I could not believe his insensitivity. Did China really think I had wanted to leave school, have a baby, become his wife . . . or anybody’s wife, for that matter? Did he think I had not had plans for continuing with my education?

  I stood there, my feet weighed a ton. I stood there, and a heavy stone came
and lodged itself inside my heart. While he was busy explaining his plans and his difficulties, I saw another side to the boy I had so adored and not that long ago. China was vain. Self-centred. And weak. He was a low-down heartless cur.

  All the pent-up disappointment and bewilderment and fear of the past ten days welled up, all rolled together into a massive wave of anger. A terrible roar threatened to burst my ear drums.

  ‘Why, you!’ I had not meant to, but I heard my voice scream.

  China’s small slanted eyes popped out. They grew so wide, it was the funniest thing ever. I would have laughed, had I not been so incensed.

  I strode forward, toward him, arms outstretched.

  He took one long jump backward, grabbed the door handle, opened the door and stepped out.

  Huffing and puffing, I stood in the middle of the dining-room, looking at him. Suddenly, I made for the door he had left open.

  China leapt for the gate, reaching it with maddening ease. He stood just inside the gate. Stood there as though he were at a loss what to do next, how to proceed. For a few seconds, we regarded each other . . . no love in those eyes, looking at me. Right then, I could have killed him had it been possible . . . and not illegal, something one would go to jail for. That was not an option I entertained. I was in enough trouble without going looking for more.

  ‘Don’t you ever,’ I hissed, then stopped, then continued.

  ‘Don’t you ever dare set foot in this house again!’ Without one word more, I turned around and sauntered away. Difficult as it was, in my condition, I did my best to carry it off. Without a single backward glance, I walked off. Leaving the door open as he had left it. If the knowledge of my pregnancy had been bitter, China’s betrayal was the thick turgid nectar of the plump aloe leaf.

  The dreaded day arrived. Already six months gone, I was taken to China’s home.

  It was not exactly a march. I walked ahead by a metre or two. The three men, my uncles, followed in a loose cluster; the two, Father’s brothers: Middle Father and Little Father, smoking their pipes while Malume, Uncle-Who-is-Mother’s-Brother, walked with both hands plunged deep into his trouser pockets.

  Down the short road, to China’s home. We were awaited.

  Three young men, in their thirties, at a guess. And an older gentleman, grey-haired and wearing a suit. Faded. But still, a suit. In Guguletu. On a Saturday. That, and some indefinable quality, something about him, but what? I couldn’t quite lay my finger on, set the grey-haired gentleman apart. He looked learned. His whole demeanour made him stand out from the rest. During the preliminary small talk, the how are you’s and where have you come from’s, he kept his silence. Looking from one to the other of those who spoke, a finger massaging the side of his nose, now and then.

  ‘Why do you bring her here, when she looks as though she is due any day now?’ One of the younger men chosen to negotiate the case for China’s side, asked, once the reason for our being there was stated. It had to be stated, although we had sent word, which is why the four men were there . . . why they awaited us.

  This was something my group had anticipated. One of my uncles explained the peculiarities of my situation: the late detection; being away from Mama; and then, the bomb shell, my relative innocence.

  ‘You say she is wha-aat?’

  ‘She has not been entered,’ explained Malume. ‘She is still whole.’

  ‘Who can attest to that?’ growled the older of the four, the gentleman. This was the first time I’d heard his voice, a deep-set bass. Low but thunderous.

  ‘The women have seen her. They say she is whole,’ Middle Father spoke up in his no-nonsense voice.

  ‘But, how far gone is she?’ the older gentleman asked, his voice lowered. The finger, once more busy at the side of his nose, his eyes on stalks.

  Back and forth. Back and forth, the argument went. In the end, the be-suited man told my fathers:

  ‘We will send word, soon. The clan’s going to meet over this, first. You shall see us, when we are ready to answer you.’ On the way back, the discussion of the small group centred on the fact that we had not been dealt the most terrible blow. China’s people had not out and out said they were not responsible. The words (hated by the family of the ‘damaged’ young woman): ‘We will see from the child’, had not been uttered. Words that cast doubt on the behaviour of the girl, that said the young man concerned might not be the only one implicated. No, China’s people had spared me that, at least. Although they’d been far from enthusiastic in assuming responsibility: they had not said they would not only pay damages but would take me for a wife — go up the whole arm and not stop at the hand — benyuke nengalo. So that was a little disappointing to my uncles. My disappointment was not catching even a glimpse of China. Some residual doubt lingered in me that, were he to get a second chance, see me again, surely, he would change his tune . . . especially, now that he had had time to think the whole thing over . . . adjust to the unexpected. So, even as we trod our weary way back home, how I regretted those hasty words: Don’t you ever dare set foot in this house again.

  I was eight months pregnant, big as a balloon, the next time I saw China. At the Priest’s office. Father Mark Savage had taken the matter into his hands. He was a white man and a priest. Therefore he did not have to convince China or his father or anybody else of his truth. It was a naked truth. Clothed only in the two things he was: White. A man of God. In straightforward and blunt language, he said, ‘My son, you will marry this girl. You were baptised. You are a Christian. A Christian can only do what is right.’ What was right, under the circumstances, was that the father of the child I was carrying marry me.

  All that remained, thereafter, were the formalities. The lobola, foremost. Hastily, new-wife dresses had to be sewn. And all the other paraphernalia I would need in my new life.

  China, too, needed to change his status. No boy can take a wife. He had to go and get himself circumcised. So, off to the bush he went. For a whole month, at least. We would get married as soon as possible after he returned.

  Nature follows a divine order. Predictable. Each day, the sun’s rays pierce dark night and bleed a new day into being. There is no stopping that, no hindering it, no slowing it down. While the two clans argued, fought, blamed and demeaned each other, my time came. As it was meant to be, set the day the seed that would be this stubborn child pierced my womb. Without my say-so, without any invitation or encouragement from me or anyone else, for that matter. While the negotiations regarding his parents’ union were still afoot, all over the place, he came. Waiting on no one’s readiness or convenience, flouting both legal and religious convention, he came.

  On the fourth day of January in 1973, my son was born. Eight pounds four ounces, he weighed. Throughout the pregnancy, I had had mixed feelings about him: anger, sometimes; joy sometimes. On the whole, though, I think anger was uppermost. His actual arrival didn’t improve things. The terrible pain that tore me apart with the savageness of the jaws of a shark, killing all feeling below my hips, thighs dead numb while my centre was blazing, a hot raging fire tearing through it, told me I hated this child . . . hated him or her with a venom too fierce ever to die.

  The minute I put his puckered, fumbling lips against my breast, guided my oozing aureole into that hungrily sucking mouth, felt the strong tug of his jaw, I forgave him.

  Forgive? Perhaps, that’s not the right word. What had he ever done to me that I should think I had to forgive him? Accept. Welcome. No, even those do not say what it was I felt at that incredible moment of oneness. All I know, all I felt, was this all-infusing, light-headedness that came over me. My heart melted, all pain forgot, all disappointment and bitterness, all grudges, everything negative, ablated. Joy, pure and simple . . . I think that comes closest to describing what I felt.

  And I named him Hlumelo, for even though I would be lying if I said his birth had been a cause for celebration, something that brought me pride, still I saw and thought and felt, that from him good things might
come. Especially, the children, my grandchildren. Hlumelo, Sprig. Unexpected and unasked for, nonetheless in full existence now. He had to be acknowledged.

  And at first it did seem as though good things would come, for it wasn’t long before Tata had a change of of heart. ‘Ngawuthi ndigone lento yakho,’ he said one day. ‘Let me hug this thing of yours.’ And that was the beginning of the end. Henceforth the baby was his first stop on his return from work.

  More than a whole month after my baby’s birth, a grim-faced Tata said, ‘You hear, then, Mandisa, my daughter.’ His eyes were glued to his feet.

  I remained silent. Stunned. I couldn’t believe my ears. Tata had been the more supportive of the two. Once he had got over his shock. Or outrage.

  ‘Unfortunately, daughter,’ he stopped, looked at me as though he thought I would say something. But I kept my peace. Then, talking around my silence, he went on, picking up from where he’d left off — ‘ . . . we are ruled by laws. We live our lives through advice, consultation and allowing or bowing down to the voice of the majority. Never can I trust my eye above the eyes of the many, who are my family, my clan.’

  He looked up then. Looked at me, his eyes bright with unshed tears. There was appeal in those eyes. Only days before, we had gone over the whole affair. This marriage to China. The negotiations had been tardy, to put it mildly. I had told Tata and Mama then where I stood. And Tata had supported me. To Mama’s chagrin. Mama just didn’t understand.

  Late February. Hlumelo (or Michael as Mama insisted on calling my baby) was almost two months old. By this time, I no longer wanted to marry China. As I said to Mama then, the whole reason for marrying China no longer stood . . . was no longer valid.

  ‘I’ve had the baby now,’ I pointed out. ‘So what’s the point of marrying China?’

  ‘He is the father of your child, is he not?’ Mama retorted.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, why are we arguing? Why, now, when his people are beginning to see reason?’

  ‘Mama,’ I said, ‘we were supposed to get married so that the child would not be born out of wedlock. So that I would not be an unwed mother, bring disgrace upon the family.’