Mother to Mother

by Sindiwe Magona

  With the barest suspicion of a gesture, a slow, ever so slow, narrowing of the eyes, she indicated there was to be no further communication between us.

  Again, I looked at the note in my hand. And saw something I had not seen before. The note was in the same, the very same handwriting as the one the mfundisi had given me. But then, he had written that one right there before my eyes.

  Involuntarily, my eyes again flew to the mysterious girl. The note says ‘I’, I was thinking. Was ‘I’ the girl? Common sense said yes, that was the case. But, even so, I knew in whose hand the letter had been written. Just then, my thoughts abruptly stopped as my heart fair flew out of my mouth. The girl was getting off the taxi.

  Panicked, I scrambled to my feet. This was the last stop in Guguletu, the taxi was headed for Nyanga after this. Wasn’t I supposed to get off here? Last stop?

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted, for she was the only one getting off at that stop and the taxi had begun to move.

  ‘Wait, I’m getting off!.’

  ‘Wake Up!’ yelled the taxi driver,‘ My taxi is no place to sleep!’ he said, bringing the taxi to a screeching halt and provoking grumbles and complaints from passengers thrown from their seats by the abrupt, unceremonious braking.

  ‘I . . . I’m so . . . so..sorr..r..ry,’ I stammered, realizing my error. The note said to get off the stop after the girl’s. What was I thinking, getting off the same stop as her? It was the first note that had mentioned last stop . . . and that last stop was in Khayelitsha.

  The taxi was still arrested from motion. All eyes were now on me. Again I mumbled my apologies. Confused and flustered, I couldn’t bring myself to look at the driver or the passengers. Instead, I looked at my feet.

  Gears grinding in protest, the taxi took off. I lurched to the side and nearly landed on a short, bearded man sitting on one of the outside seats.

  ‘Sorry,’ I gasped, as he gave me a nasty, unamused look of fed-upness. Well, couldn’t he see I was not holding on to anything? Did he think I just chose to fling myself on top of his lap? I returned the look with what I hoped was one nastier still and slowly sauntered toward the door. Right then, an unpleasant thought came to my mind. I realized I had the unwelcome task of asking the driver to put me off at the next stop. My tongue weighed a ton.

  ‘Next stop!’ an irritated voice yelled from the back. Thankfully, I edged my way to the front.

  Then, while waiting for the taxi to arrive at my stop, I threw my eyes to the source of the command, wondering who else was getting off at my stop. But no one was standing yet. That told me we were some ways yet from the next stop.

  When the taxi finally arrived at my stop, I was the first one out of that taxi. Two other passengers got out after me. Both men, both elderly. The voice that had shouted ‘Next stop’ had been a woman’s. Young. A girl’s voice. What had happened to the owner of that voice? I asked myself. For some reason, this bothered me.

  ‘Mandisa,’ astounded, I told myself the very next minute, ‘you’re becoming suspicious. If you’re not careful you’ll begin suspecting your shadow is following you and attach a sinister reason to that.’ Obviously, I now saw clearly, what had happened was that one of the old men getting off had asked for help. Either not trusting his own voice to carry as far as the driver’s ears or for whatever other reason, he had asked someone else to alert the driver of his intentions of getting off the taxi. A young woman, perhaps sitting next to one or both of these gentlemen, helped in that little way. What was so wrong with that? Seeing how ludicrous my earlier suspicion had been, I shook my head in exasperation. What had I got myself into? Why this mystery? Where was this mfundisi taking me? I said mfundisi because I was convinced he was the author of both letters. No two people could form their letters with such close similarity, I was convinced. Where was he sending me? And why the mystery to the destiny?

  My immediate problem, I now realized, was that I had no idea where I was going. Hadn’t he asked me to go to the last taxi stop in Khayelitsha? What was I doing here, far away from that stop? Why had I allowed myself to be led off the bus? There was quite a difference between the first stop in Nyanga and the last in Khayelitsha. And who was the girl who had passed the note I still held in my hand? Which way did I go now?

  As though in answer to the questions clamouring in my mind right then, a car stopped and the window came down. I stepped back from the road.

  ‘Ndim, Mama kaMxolisi, It’s me, Mother of Mxolisi!’

  Relief washed through me. It was the mfundisi. Mfundisi Mananga himself. In my state of mind, however, it took me an instant before this fact fully registered. Of course, it did not help any that the mfundisi was in a car different from the one he’d had earlier when he’d come to my house. What a lot had happened in the short time since then.

  ‘It is me,’ he said, again, for I had made no response to his greeting, or said a word acknowledging him.

  ‘Good afternoon, again,’ I said, convinced he was going to chide me for disobeying his orders. ‘A strange thing happened,’ I hastened to explain. But, holding his hand up, Mfundisi made me stop.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you a lift, but I’m going in the opposite direction to you.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said. I couldn’t, for the life of me, think of one intelligent thing to add, how to go on.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Mfundisi, adding to my confusion. A woman driving a red car will stop and ask you for directions. The answer you must give her is,’ he paused, looked at me and, saying the words very slowly, continued, ‘this is what you must say to her: I do not live hereabouts.’ Again he looked at me. ‘Will you remember that?’

  ‘Yes, Mfundisi,’ I replied. ‘I do not live hereabouts,’ I repeated. He nodded his satisfaction.

  Fast, confusion turned to alarm in my heart. What was this game this man was making me play? Where was my son? What did I do after telling this woman who would be driving a red car I was not from hereabouts? Why had I not asked Mfundisi, out and out, whether all this going up and down in taxis was taking me to Mxolisi? Had he even seen him? Did he know where he was? Why had Mxolisi not returned home last night?

  But by now, I was alone at the stop. Mfundisi Mananga had driven off as soon as he’d heard me say my piece, repeat the words he had given me.

  ‘Mama,’ a voice awoke me from my reverie. ‘Can you tell me how to get to the airport from here?’

  ‘The airport,’ I asked, ‘the airport?’ Then I saw that the woman asking me the question was driving a red car. My heart lurched so painfully that my hand flew to my chest, holding it back.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘ No,’ frantically trying to recall the exact words Mfundisi had given me.

  ‘Oh?’ There was a question to her exclamation. In her twenties, she was very beautiful. And then, I remembered.

  ‘I am not from hereabouts,’ I threw in hastily. My palms were clammy from the effort of trying to remember Mfundisi’s text. My mind, now that I’d remembered the all-important words, took in this young woman. Teacher or nurse, I was sure. Educated, whatever she was. She looked educated. That skin. Soft sheen. Didn’t know hardship. Cheeks glowing with good health . . . and eating well. Soft hands, no doubt. Thus went my thoughts.

  The back door of the car quietly opened.

  ‘Get in, Mama,’ a voice said from the inside of the car. Deep and gruff. Definitely not a woman’s voice. In any event, the woman who had asked me for directions was looking at me, her lips still as can be.

  I edged towards the car.

  ‘Get in, Mama,’ the woman added, smiling, no doubt amused by my hesitation.

  I got in. Crouched low on the back seat, was a man in bright white training shoes and a black tracksuit. His face was almost completely hidden inside a black balaclava. As the car roared away, he straightened up, making room for me on the seat.

  I cannot tell you what twists and turns that car made. I began to wonder whether this woman, who had not said a word a
fter taking off at great speed, knew where she was taking me or who I was.

  At last, the car came to a stop.

  ‘This is the house,’ said the man next to me.

  ‘What house?’ I asked.

  ‘Where we were told to take you, of course.’ Finally, the woman sitting alone at the front had spoken.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, scrambling out.

  As soon as I closed the door, the car zoomed off and away.

  I looked at the house. Orange curtains at the front windows. Drawn. Was there anyone in there? I took a deep breath and walked toward the gate, opened it, and walked up the red, highly polished stoep. I reached the door and raised my hand to knock.

  ‘Come in!’ said a hurried voice and the door swung silently in.

  Surprised at the ready reception, I made my feet take me inside that house where, I could clearly see, I was expected. The house where I feared my son would be. Why? Why was he in hiding? Why here, in this house? What house was this and who were these people who had brought me here? All of them, from Mfundisi to the two who had just dropped me off?

  Two men were standing near the table in the centre of the room. The woman, who had opened the door, was still holding it open.

  ‘You came just as we were leaving,’ she said. ‘Please, take a seat.’ She showed me to a dark-green sofa near the window and against the wall. ‘Take a seat and wait.’

  At that the men nodded their greeting and, without another word, all three walked out, leaving me alone.

  That I had been awaited at this place was obvious to me. No one had asked me who I was or what I wanted. I perched myself on the sofa, sitting at the edge as though I expected to be yanked out of there at any minute.

  Yes, I’d been expected. But now I was alone in the house. What next, I wondered. Would Mfundisi make another surprise appearance? Indeed, I half expected him to. My ear, I soon saw, was listening for the purr of a car stopping outside and, a minute later, his hearty greeting. Well, this time, I’d be ready when he came. There were a few questions I would definitely like to address to him.

  Full half an hour I sat there. All alone. There did not seem to be one more soul in that house. That still it was. Not even the sound of a mouse scurrying across the floor. I waited, the only noise in the place my own nervous breathing and the drumming of my heart. I waited, my curiosity growing, to say nothing of my anxiety.

  I jumped when I heard the door open. An inside door. Although no one had told me so, I had come to the conclusion I was alone in the house. But I’d been mistaken.

  Suddenly the room spun. I took a deep breath, fought to steady my reeling senses.

  Mxolisi. Wearing clothes I did not recognize. Clean, though he looked as though he could do with a week’s sleep.

  ‘Are you alone? Did you come alone?’ he asked, casting anxious glances this way and that. I noted that we had not even exchanged greetings yet.

  ‘Yes, I am alone.’ We looked at each other, standing on opposite sides of the room.

  The next minute, he was in my arms. Or, I in his. Hard to tell at times, especially when they grow this tall. The children we put on our backs, only yesterday. Now, they’re men and women. All grown.

  I don’t know who started crying. But, before the next words were said between us — our cheeks, so close together, wet with tears of an unacknowledged sorrow — I knew we were in deep, deep trouble. I did not remember the last time I had seen my son crying.

  ‘What is it?’ I pushed him an arm’s length away. I looked at him. ‘Why didn’t you come home, last night? And what is this? Why are the police looking for you and why are so many people taking all this trouble to hide you?’

  Tears now pouring down his cheeks, unashamed, unpretending tears, he looked at me. There was immeasurable fear in those eyes.

  ‘Mxolisi, what are you hiding from? Who are you running away from?’

  ‘They say I did it, Mama!’

  Even then, the full horror did not register in my brain.

  ‘They say you did it? Who are they?’

  ‘Everybody. Even the police.’

  A dim bell, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, began to ring. The question I had avoided asking without knowing that I was doing so, came charging through my lips.

  ‘They say you did what? What are you being accused of? Utyholwa ngantoni?’

  Slowly, haltingly, out came the story of the assault on your daughter. The terrible deed of the previous day. And my son told me:

  ‘Mama, believe me, I was just one of a hundred people who threw stones at her car.’

  ‘But’, I said, looking at him full in the face, Skonana’s words loud in my ear, ‘a knife killed her.’ I heard myself say those words. Words she had said, oh, so long, long ago. Thunk! Fist striking slightly cupped hand. Thunk! I heard it still.

  For a long, long minute, Mxolisi did not reply.

  ‘So?’

  Finally, with a heavy sigh, he said:

  ‘Even that, Mama, even that . . .’, then he stopped. There followed a longish pause I didn’t have the strength to bridge, to interrupt, before he continued, ‘. . . many people stabbed her.’

  Again, I looked at him, my heart pounding out a thousand prayers in different directions all at once.

  ‘Were you one of them? One of the many people who stabbed the girl?’ How I prayed, even as I asked the question, how I prayed that the answer would be an unequivocal NO. No, he had thrown stones at her car. And that was the only thing he’d done. Not the knife. He had not plunged a knife into her body. Not even one of many, many knives.

  But my son did not answer my pointed question. Even after I repeated it, not once, not twice, but many, many times. No answer denying that he used a knife on the dead girl came from my son’s lips. I waited a long time to get that answer, but it would not come. After some time, with a heavy heart, I knew I was not going to hear what I so urgently, so desperately, so fervently, prayed I might hear.

  Finally, I said what had to be said. ‘Did you do it? Are you the one who killed this white girl? Is it your knife that killed her?’

  At that point, I didn’t, for the life of me, know what I wanted him to say.

  But my son would not answer. He merely looked at me with those eyes glazed with a fear so deep, so big, not even his lies could hide it from me . . . could hide it from himself.

  ‘I didn’t do it, Mama. I swear, I didn’t do it!’ He was sobbing. Great, heart-wrenching sobs tearing at his guts.

  Wordlessly, I gathered him in my arms and slumped onto the sofa. And let him cry himself on and on till the sobs became dry gasps as of one fighting for air. Then, the weeping subsided. By this time, his head resting on my lap, the skirt of my dress was sopping wet.

  After a long while, I realized that he’d calmed a little. For whatever reason, we were now back on our feet, facing each other, eyes searching the others’.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. Quietly. No remonstration in my voice. No accusation. I asked, simply because I did not understand how something like this could have happened. How he, Mxolisi, could be part of that something . . . in whatever manner, great or small.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I said I did not do it, Mama!’ his voice high, an edge of anger had crept into it.

  Anger? At me? What had I done?

  ‘Then, why is everybody pointing a finger at you?’

  No answer.

  Again I asked the same question: ‘Why you? Why is it you, everybody’s picking? Why are they all saying you are the person who did this terrible thing?’

  Finally, after I’d repeated the same question (or variations thereof) many times over, Mxolisi burst out: ‘I was not the only one there!’

  ‘D’you realize she is never going to come back? Dead, means forever? Do you? Do you? Do you?’ Now, I was the one sobbing, hysterical.

  ‘Mama, I was not the only one there!’ he shouted. That only infuriated me even more. I was so scared. For him. For me. For all of us — his brother, hi
s sister, Dwadwa. I was so terrified of what the morrow would bring. Now, of course, the earlier visit of the police to our home made sense, horrible sense. They were looking for . . . for a . . . The earlier terror returned, only amplified by the new, the realization that my son would be arrested. The police were, even now, looking for a . . . for him. He would be charged with murder. My mind refused to think beyond that. It balked at even taking a glimpse at what might lie beyond the trial.

  ‘Oh, you fool,’ I screamed, totally undone. ‘Don’t you see what you have done? Don’t you see that if your knife has her blood, it doesn’t matter if you stabbed her in her thumb! Don’t you see that? Mxolisi, don’t you see that?’

  For a split second, a jamboree of feelings infused my whole being, totally took over. All feeling, no thought, no thought whatsoever. What a state to find myself in. Drifting in a sea of undirected feeling, fear uppermost.

  Then, we were in each other’s arms. Who was consoling whom? I would be lying if I said I knew. My son patted my back as though I were a baby he was hushing to sleep. Dry sobs racked . . . which one of us?

  A hundred years later, we disentangled ourselves. But still, I held his hand. Spent, I looked into his eyes.

  He didn’t blink.

  I looked into my son’s eyes. And saw pain and terror.

  11

  But now, my Sister-Mother, do I help him hide? Deliver him to the police? Get him a lawyer? Will that mean I do not feel your sorrow for your slain daughter? Am I your enemy? Are you mine? What wrong have I done you . . . or you me?

  She had so much to live for . . .

  Oh, that she had harboured but an ounce of fear! She had a tomorrow. Much to look forward to. Much yet to do, even though she had already accomplished much in her young days.

  But, were there no such places where she came from? Places where she could have done good, helped the powerless, and righted what was wrong?

  And my son? What had he to live for?

  As for these heroes who lash out at my son today, voices raised in indignation, are they not the same who, only yesterday, were full of praise for him? Was he not part of the Young Lions they glorified? Did he not do as they shouted for all to hear?