Shadows. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Asanda and her friends into the shallow part of the pool. She always wore a blank face in front of the baas. The Nleyas’ friends always brought more food than they could possibly eat. Mama would pack some of it into a black bin bag and pretend to go out the back to the dustbin. I would be waiting for her at the bottom of the garden, near the tree house, as instructed. There she would shove the bin bag into my arms.
“Go and put this in my green suitcase under the bed. And push it far, far under the bed, okay? Good boy, I’ll buy you ice cream tomorrow, okay?”
Most of the extra food was eventually mashed up for the dogs. This infuriated Mama – “Give those stupid animals better food than me?” – and why were the mongrels allowed to roam the house and jump onto the couches where she herself was not allowed to sit?
“I never get a moment’s rest, never, never, because I’m always cleaning dog hair! Ah bantu! I don’t understand how a person can love a dog more than another human being.”
One thing Mama never touched was the Mazoe – “Tastes too strong, like rotting oranges,” she said; it was the Mainstay bottle in the cupboard in the lounge that she loved to sip from, topping it up with water so nobody would notice.
“Where else will I get a chance to taste white people’s drink?”
One evening, the baas arrived home to find that Mama had sliced and fried the lettuce. Mr Nleya was amused. Mrs Nleya was not.
“Where, where have you ever seen lettuce being cooked? You are going to eat it, you can’t waste food like this. Have you any idea how much food costs?”
Mama happily ate it. “It tastes better cooked – who wants to eat uncooked vegetables, anyway? Imagine eating uncooked chomolia! She is crazy, that baas woman. She thinks I’m stupiti. She is the one who is stupiti. She is just lucky to have such a nice and rich husband. Hmmm! Nleya is such a rich man!” I frowned at Mama as she stared dreamily at the asbestos roofing of our khaya.
Her favourite pastime, though, was trying on the madam’s clothes. She would lock herself in the Nleyas’ bedroom and reappear moments later, draped in the madam’s chiffon scarves, wearing her Woolworths skirts, her Truworths blouses, glittering in her jewellery. The subtle scent of Mrs Nleya’s Pretty Woman perfume would waft after Mama. I used to collect Mrs Nleya’s empty perfume bottles. I thought Pretty Woman had the most beautiful body in the world; the bottle curved into the breasts of a woman, before nipping at the waist, then bulging slightly at the hips. I would rub those glass breasts over and over with my finger, pretend they were big and bouncy like Pamela Anderson’s in Baywatch.
Mama would khwa khwa khwa around the house in the madam’s stilettos, tilt her head and peer at Siziba and me above a pair of Rayban sunglasses. On her head, one of Madam’s wigs.
“You, Siziba, you! Come here!” And she beckoned with her finger, just like the madam did. “Did you clean yard? I say did you clean yard? Nxx! Stupiti. Pick rake and clean yard!”
We all burst into laughter.
“You look like you are going to fall in those stick shoes,” Siziba chuckled. “And eh! Engreeesh my gal, Engreeesh is a probremu! You need learn Engreeesh!”
Christmas was Mama’s favourite time of the year. Although we got hand-me-downs from the Nleyas, Mama always made sure to buy me something brand-new. We would walk into town and spend the afternoon trekking across Bulawayo, admiring the shoes on display at Bata, the clothes at Sales House, the white ladies having tea at Sisters in Haddon & Sly. Mama would imitate them, sitting with their backs straight, carefully sipping tea from tiny cups.
“Who gets full on a baby cup? Heh! Ah! I should introduce these women to a nice big Kango cup.”
We always waited in line to see Father Christmas. Before everything became black in the country and the whites were chased from the farms and disappeared from public view – to be seen only once in a while in startling numbers in their exclusive get-togethers in places like the Bulawayo Country Club – and Father Christmas became a black face wearing a ridiculous fluffy beard made from cotton wool, sitting not on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, but in a scotch cart pulled by goats. I would sit on his lap and stare shyly at the flashing camera. Mama always haggled with the camera man, who charged twice the price because it was Christmas. Afterwards, Mama bought me ice cream and we sat on the City Hall benches and watched the crowds. I dreamed of going to the drive-in. Mama said she would take me, but it was expensive, and in the end I had to choose between the drive-in and a brand-new present. Although I wanted to go, I preferred something that would last longer than a two-hour movie – a toy car, maybe.
I arrived from school one afternoon to find Mrs Nleya’s red, artificial nails clawing at the air next to Mama’s face. She was shouting at Mama, incomprehensible words at first because of the pitch.
“Madam, I do not do anything, I swear on my father on his grave, please, Madam, I did nothing. It was sir, he is the one who come to my room, Madam, I swear on my father on his grave.”
Mama had bent her knees, so that she would be shorter than Mrs Nleya, had locked the fingers of both hands and was twisting them in the air, professing innocence. Qhwa! Mrs Nleya slapped Mama. Mama cringed. Mrs Nleya began to cry. Behind Mama, Mr Nleya emerged from our khaya, hastily zipping his trousers. Mrs Nleya turned and ran into the house.
“Lily! Lily, wait . . . Lily!”
That was the day we left Mrs Nleya’s mansion in the suburbs and moved to the ugly avocado-coloured house in the township.
Mr Nleya visited frequently. He stroked Mama’s belly and said that he had already paid for the house, that she shouldn’t worry, it would be in her name soon.
“Do you think it’s a boy?”
“I’m definite it’s a boy. All this kicking! He is going to be a football player.”
Mr Nleya giggled like a child. Mama chased me out of the bedroom and made me sleep in the sitting room. I did not sleep. I placed my ear against the bedroom door and listened. Mr Nleya was hurting Mama. She was crying. I hated him. I did not understand why she allowed him to hurt her. When I asked her, she threw back her head and laughed, gave me fifty cents and told me to go and buy sweets.
One night, Mama’s shouting woke me up. There was blood on the sheets. I dashed out into the night to call Holly. Later, I learned that Mama had lost the baby. I was relieved. The pregnancy was obsessing her. She said a lot of frightening things. Like soon we would be staying in Mr Nleya’s mansion. She would have a heavy rock on her finger. She would be the new Mrs Nleya.
“You had better start calling him ‘daddy’. He’s going to be your father soon.”
“I shall never call that man ‘baba’.”
“Not ‘baba’, you little stupid. It’s ‘Daddy’: say it in English with an accent, the way that little brat child of his does. You will have to learn how to speak like the white people now. We are going to be one of them.”
I could not imagine Mama being the new Mrs Nleya. That was a polished woman. She wore fine clothes and put expensive weaves in her hair. And she had a Master’s degree in Communications, even though she was a housewife. Whenever visitors came to their house, Mr Nleya flaunted the degree certificate hanging on the wall, showing off his educated wife. Perhaps when Mama became the next Mrs Nleya, he could show off her dizzying beauty. Mama was always saying how beautiful she was, how men stuttered around her, how she could make any man think with the head in his trousers and do her bidding.
But after she lost the baby she failed to make Mr Nleya think with the head in his trousers. It was not Mr Nleya who came to see her after the miscarriage, but his wife.
“You can never have my husband, you hear? Never! You whore! You uneducated idiot! You shall never have his child, you hear!”
“Manje I will have it, I will have it! You who cannot give him a son, what can you say? Do you know where he comes to sleep, heh? Right here in these arms, let me tell you! Let me tell you, you had better start