We Kiss Them With Rain

by Futhi Ntshingila

  A knock on the door stopped the train of thoughts railing in her brain. “Who is it?” she asked. She had learned never to open the door to just anyone. It was a weak, rickety door that would give in with one kick, but as long as it was closed, she felt OK. There was no answer, so she stayed put, but the knocking continued.

  Cleanman was observing from his shack, and he made his way down.

  Mvelo heard him speaking to someone in harsh tones, and then he said: “Young one, you better open up for this one.” He had a vague idea of who Nonceba was; Zola had made it known that Nonceba had stolen Sipho from her.

  Mvelo slowly opened the door, and there she was.

  This picture of health in front of her made Mvelo angry. She closed the door and told her to fuck off back to America, screaming that nobody needed her stupid packages here. “You can keep your Dr. Peppers and Mars bars,” she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Young one, please, that is not a way to speak to old people. Your mother taught you better than that.”

  “Cleanman, stay out of this. You can also fuck off to your shack, and stop acting like my father.” She was sobbing now, feeling raw all over again.

  There was silence outside the door. She peeped through a crack and saw both of them walking away toward Cleanman’s shack. Watching them walk away like that made her feel helpless. She had her mother’s pride; she wanted them to beg her to open the door. She sat on the floor and cried, while they sat in front of Cleanman’s door, waiting for her to open.

  “Where is her mother?” Nonceba asked Cleanman, who hesitated and gave sketchy details of what had happened, saying that it wasn’t his place to tell her.

  “It is best that you wait for her to calm down and she will tell you everything.” Cleanman had no illusions about his role in Mvelo’s life. She was a girl who needed looking after, but she was also capable of handling herself. It was one of the things Mvelo liked about him.

  After a while the conversation dried up between Nonceba and Cleanman, and she stood up and said, “This is ridiculous. I am going to speak to her, even if I have to kick the door down.” She warned Mvelo to move out of the way because she was entering her shack, come hell or high water. Then she pushed the door with all her weight behind her until it opened.

  Mvelo could not look her in the eye because she was so angry. Nonceba was someone real to blame for all her misfortunes. She began to shake. All the anger of being alone finally rose to the surface. Then she felt relief, she was no longer alone. But the child in her still wanted to pout and sulk.

  Nonceba stood there, taking in all the desperation she met in the shack. She knelt and collected Mvelo into her arms and held her until she couldn’t cry any longer. She whispered soothingly, like a prayer, in a language Mvelo could not understand.

  Life had been hard on Mvelo, she had learned to be deeply distrustful of people, and she was afraid to trust Nonceba now. It was only because she was asleep that Nonceba was able to transport her to her flat without a fight. She fell asleep on Nonceba’s lap, and Cleanman carried her to the car, relieved there was finally someone capable to look after her.

  She woke up in the flat with Nonceba standing sadly by the bed. Nonceba said that maDlamini had told her everything about her pregnancy and the loss of the baby.

  “Well, who is the father? Is that why you quit school?” Nonceba wanted to know.

  Mvelo didn’t answer. They were eating fish and chips, her favorite meal. Nonceba had remembered, Mvelo noted as she tucked in, forgetting all about her pride.

  Nonceba took a different tack. “You can tell me anything you want, you know that, right?”

  Mvelo simply looked down at her food and continued eating.

  “You must have been through hell. I heard about your mother and Sipho. I’m so grateful I found you. You can stay here with me now.”

  “I don’t want to stay here, I need to get back to my shack.” Mvelo stopped eating and became very agitated.

  “But Mvelo, you’re too young to be living alone,” Nonceba tried to reason with her.

  “Well you can’t make me stay here. You can’t put me through what I had to deal with when my mother got sick. You have to find someone else to look after you. I can’t do it again, I can’t.” She was beside herself.

  “But what are you talking about? I’m not sick, and I’m not asking you to look after me. I want to look after you. You need someone to look after you for a change.” Nonceba held her hand until she calmed down.

  “You are not sick?” Mvelo asked hesitantly.

  Nonceba smiled. “No, I’m not sick.”

  “But Sipho made my mother sick, and another woman in his office,” she said, crying fresh tears.

  “Oh, no no no, gal, I’m not sick. We can go to the doctor for tests and you’ll see that I’m not sick. But now it’s late. We’d better get some sleep and we’ll make that decision tomorrow.”

  Mvelo looked at her long and hard. A healthy-looking woman stared back at her. Mvelo had looked up to her once, and she wanted to trust her again, but she couldn’t, not yet. She would only believe her after seeing the results.

  All she knew for certain was that she was never going to look after another sick person again.

  They went to a New Start clinic where Nonceba took the test in front of a vigilant Mvelo, and was given a clean bill of health. Mvelo seemed more relieved than Nonceba was, but Nonceba had had no fears, she had always been uncompromising about using a condom.

  Mvelo decided there and then to tell Nonceba about being raped, and that Sabekile hadn’t died, that she’d left the baby with a family who could take care of her. Nonceba listened quietly, and by the end of the story, she looked dazed, her face as hard as a statue. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I was self-absorbed and selfish after I broke things off with Sipho. I neglected you and the promises I made to you. I am so sorry.” Her voice was constricted with pain.

  The concrete walls that Mvelo had surrounded herself with crumbled, the floodgates opened, and she sobbed for what felt like hours.

  She was awoken by Nonceba the next morning. “Come,” she said, and she drove north of Durban until they reached Westbrook Beach, where she rented a speedboat.

  The man looked at them strangely, bemused that two black women were renting a boat.

  “Are you going to rent us the boat or not, we don’t have all day.” Nonceba’s edge was back.

  He gave them what they wanted and made them sign an indemnity form, clearing him of any liability should anything happen to them. They changed into the wetsuits that came with the boat, and Nonceba instructed Mvelo to hold on tight and off they went into the sea. Once they were out far enough, where the waves were gentle, Nonceba switched off the noisy boat and let it bob about. Everything around them was absolutely quiet. Even the silence between them was welcome.

  After some time, Nonceba said, “This is what it should be like. Nature intended for us to be peaceful and safe.”

  “Right,” she said after a few more minutes had passed, “you and I need to get rid of all this ugliness we’re holding onto inside of us, and this is the perfect place to do it. No one will hear us or disturb us. I am so angry and so sad for what happened to you that I don’t have words. And I know that if I don’t do anything about it, it will surely kill me. And if I’m feeling this way, I’m sure you must have developed a rock for a heart too, and you’re too young for that. So I think we should just scream.”

  Mvelo was taken aback at first, but she remembered the old Nonceba and her crazy ways that had helped her so much when she was young and feeling insecure, so she decided to trust her. She was tentative at first, but seeing Nonceba letting go like that helped to rid her of her inhibitions, and she screamed until she had no voice left. They molested the peace on the open ocean.

  Then she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed uncontrollably, until she sank to the bottom of the boat and wept until she had no tears left, and a strange peace descended on her.<
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  They landed back on shore later in the afternoon in one piece. The obnoxious man was happy to get his boat back and see the backs of them “cheeky cheeks,” as he called them. Nonceba was feeling too good to argue with him.

  On the drive back to Durban, Nonceba asked Mvelo, “What of the baby, do you know anything about her since you left her?”

  “Yes,” Mvelo said, “I visited the family pretending to be begging. The woman in the house let me in and fed me.” Mvelo didn’t like where this conversation was going. She thought of the police. She could be arrested and sent to a juvenile institution.

  “We should report the matter to the police,” Nonceba said, “and I could offer to adopt you and the baby. After all you’re like family to me. In fact, you’re the only family I have now,” she said sadly.

  “What if I get arrested? Please, let’s not do it like that. I’m ashamed of what I did and Sabekile is fine where she is. That woman told me that they were fighting to keep her with them,” Mvelo pleaded.

  “Wait a minute, do you know the name of the woman who took in your child?” Nonceba asked.

  “Yes,” Mvelo said, puzzled by the question, and trying to remember the name. “I think it was Peta, or Patricia, something like that.”

  “Not Petra?” Nonceba was getting excited.

  “Yes, I think that’s it, Petra,” Mvelo said.

  Nonceba smiled. She had a phone call to make.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was Johan who answered the phone.

  “Hello, Mr. Steyn, this is Nonceba. There have been some developments in your case and I think we should meet as soon as possible. It’s not something I can discuss on the phone. Can we make it at the same place where I met your wife, sometime tomorrow morning?”

  Johan felt his stomach turn.

  “What it is? You look worried,” Petra said when he got off the phone.

  “I don’t know. Nonceba wants to meet us. She says there are new developments in the case.” Since the arrival of this baby, it seemed their lives had been turned upside down, and it was draining him, reminding him of past mistakes that he would rather forget.

  “I can meet her alone again if you are not ready,” Petra offered.

  “You know, Petra, I can’t run away forever. At some point, I have got to face her. If we wait until after the case, it will be another deception, which may make her even angrier. I will come with you, and if I feel strong enough, I will tell her who I am.”

  The following morning they all got into the car—Johan, Petra, and baby Princess.

  On the other side of town in Morningside, where they had moved from the beachfront flat to a cottage with enough space for the two of them, Nonceba had to work hard to convince Mvelo to meet these people and see if they were the ones who had her baby. “I could be wrong, but if I’m not we can fight for Sabekile,” she said.

  The only thing that made Mvelo happy was that Nonceba agreed to hold off reporting it to the police. So they got ready and walked to Tribeca from the cottage.

  “It’s her, the woman, it’s her,” Mvelo said as they approached, holding Nonceba’s hand tightly. “Please let’s go back, she’ll recognize me,” she said, pulling Nonceba away.

  “But Mvelo, don’t you see. This is good. You’ll get your baby back and we can be a family. Don’t you want that?”

  Mvelo did. She wanted it so badly, but she couldn’t face the woman and tell her that she was taking the baby back. She had been so kind to her, and now she was about to break her heart. It was too late to turn back, though, they had already seen them coming.

  Petra looked confused. “I know you. You came to my house the other day,” she said, as Nonceba and Mvelo sat down.

  Mvelo’s stomach went cold and turned somersaults.

  Nonceba explained about Sipho and her connection to Mvelo. When she got to the part about Mvelo abandoning her baby, Petra couldn’t hold back her tears. “I knew it,” she said. “I could see you were the mother. What now? How are we going to deal with this?” She was holding Princess Tholakele tightly.

  Johan sat quietly, numb as a stone. He avoided looking at Petra because her tears were cutting into him. Mvelo couldn’t look at anyone at the table. She was too ashamed about her part in the mess.

  An uncomfortable silence fell all around as it became clear that Nonceba and Mvelo wanted to take the baby from them.

  Finally Johan couldn’t stand it any more. He felt he was being punished for his sins, but Petra didn’t deserve this. “I used to know a lady by the name of Zimkitha Hlathi,” he blurted out. “She was thrown in jail for kissing me in public, but by then it was too late because she was already carrying my child.” He talked quickly before he lost his nerve.

  There was stunned silence all round.

  Johan reached into his jacket pocket and took out a picture of a woman who was the image of Nonceba, just a little darker with slightly tighter curls. Nonceba couldn’t remember her mother in person, but she had seen pictures of her. The one Johan held was of her mother all right. Nonceba looked at the picture, looked at her father, and burst into tears.

  Petra stood up with Princess and asked Mvelo to join her to give Johan and Nonceba some privacy. Mvelo was too dumbfounded to say anything, and followed Petra to another table. They sat there, too scared to say anything to each other.

  Petra was cradling Princess and fussing over her and, as she watched, Mvelo made up her mind. She had given Sabekile up. She had prayed for her baby to find a good home, and she had. If this woman would allow her to be a part of her baby’s life, to see her whenever she wanted, she would let her adopt Sabekile.

  As much as she was happy to have Nonceba back, Nonceba had left her before. What would stop her from doing it again? And what would she do then? How would she look after Sabekile? She did not want her daughter to face a day of hunger.

  “She belongs with you,” Mvelo said to Petra. “If you allow me to visit her, she can stay with you.”

  Petra wept, and Mvelo took the baby from her arms and held her. She drank in the warm, soft feeling and her milky smell. She felt immense love for her child.

  Waiters at the restaurant looked puzzled at the obvious drama unfolding before them. Johan was rooted in his seat, too scared to move.

  “I had given up. I looked and looked, and then eventually I gave up,” said Nonceba between gulps of emotions. She stretched her hands across the table and reached for Johan’s. It was more than he had hoped for.

  “She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,” he said. “I loved her but I was a coward.”

  Nonceba looked down at the picture. “Tell me about her,” she said. “I want to hear it from you. My grandmother told me what she knew, but she didn’t know much about her life in Hillbrow.”

  It was around 6 p.m. when they finally left Tribeca, all of them thoroughly exhausted. They had still not discussed any of the details regarding the adoption, so they planned another meeting in Manor Gardens at Petra and Johan’s house.

  Johan was relieved that Nonceba had not rejected him. Zimkitha’s burning eyes were replaced with the loving eyes of Nonceba. She concluded that she had been brought back to Durban to complete her search.

  Johan and Petra couldn’t believe their many blessings. First they had found a baby looking for their care, then a daughter they had searched for high and low, and a teenager who had chosen their home for her baby to belong to.

  When Mvelo told Nonceba of her decision to let Petra and Johan keep the baby, Nonceba reminded her that they still had to face the court.

  Mvelo fell asleep with her head buzzing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The tension in the court was palpable after the rumor went around that an underage mother had admitted to abandoning her baby at the Steyns’ house. Cleanman was there, and many others from the shacks had come to support the kind doctor and his wife who had nursed many of them back to health. Some had threatened to protest should the state decide to take the baby awa
y. “Sizobhosha la enkantolo. We will shit right here in court,” they shouted their threats outside the doors. Inside the court, the magistrate had to use her gavel a few times to call for order to calm the excited murmurings.

  Petra, Johan, and Princess Sabekile were at the front with Nonceba and Cleanman—all the people that Mvelo considered her family. The shack-dwellers stood behind them throughout the case. Mvelo was grateful for the network of love and support that seemed to extend before her eyes.

  After much to-ing and fro-ing, it became clear that the state’s lawyers did not have much ground to stand on; Mvelo had no means to take care of the child. She insisted that she fully comprehended what she was saying when she stated that the Steyns were the preferred adoptive parents for her daughter. The fact that she had risked getting caught by monitoring their house counted in her favor as evidence that she wasn’t a heartless animal who had abandoned her baby.

  When Nonceba was questioned about her self-appointed guardianship of Mvelo, she stated that she had been Sipho’s common-law wife and was therefore effectively her stepmother. Mvelo sat and watched the proceedings from a screen in camera. Her nervousness turned into excitement as Nonceba appeared to be gaining more ground. It took a few appearances before the judgment was finally made, and the Steyns were declared Sabekile’s adoptive parents.

  Mvelo agreed to go back to school the following year and repeat Grade 8. Nonceba insisted that she should return to the same school, and confront the rumors of her abandoning her child. It was the only way, she said, that Mvelo would be able to regain her confidence and not feel ashamed of what had happened.