Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree. Niq Mhlongo
busy pulling up the weeds around the grave when you looked me in the face and said, “You’ve got your father’s eyes, my angel.” Your words sank beautifully into my consciousness. It invoked the superstition that was always tucked away in my memory about fathers. I used to think that all fathers have big bright eyes to warn and frighten their daughters when they become naughty with the boys. My friend Morwa’s father used to warn and frighten us with his big eyes when he caught us talking to boys along our streets. Even Mokete has these bright, charming and mischievous eyes.
“Thank you, Mama, for connecting us.”
“From now on, I shall do what’s right without hatred or bitterness,” you promised. I remember seeing you smile, with tears streaming down your face, when I asked you questions as we drove home.
“Where did my father live here in Soweto?”
“In Phiri, not very far from Koma Road,” you replied.
“Can we arrange to see his family soon so that we can plan the ceremonial sacrifice?” Mokete asked.
“That won’t be necessary, my son.”
“It’s important to me that I get to know and understand my wife better,” he insisted.
“My son, don’t worry when you don’t understand your wife or women in general. That’s because men were asleep when a woman was made by God.”
You said the words with a certain weight on your heart, which I think you still wanted to remove.
“His family sold the house here and moved back to Pitseng without telling me. That’s why I’m still angry with them. Naledi and I still have to go to his home in Pitseng.”
“I understand, and I’m glad you did this,” said Mokete.
He was moved by your gesture on that day. When we dropped you off at your house, he smiled and kissed me in front of you. That’s something he had stopped doing a long time ago. You invited us inside to show us photos from your schooldays and apologised for never speaking about my father when I was growing up. “See this photo?” you asked, pointing at the young man. “See, you have your father’s eyes.” Mokete gave me a long hug and looked into my eyes.
At home, he kept playing me Womack & Womack’s “Eyes”. I guess he was impressed that I had my father’s eyes. Weeks had gone by without a friendly look from him or his family. No kind words had passed between us for so long.
When I returned from my father’s grave I could feel that my body was light. I walked with a spring in my step. I kept looking in the mirror to examine my eyes, my father’s eyes. You said I have my father’s eyes, remember. You don’t know what that meant to me. It was not your fault you didn’t know exactly where his family was, I thought.
“My child, the past is gone, forget it. The present is here,” you said to me.
At least I knew that my father lay peacefully in Avalon Cemetery, stand number 93/574. Every second day after you introduced me to his permanent address, I used to go there and talk to him. I tidied his grave and removed the weeds. Even the people who worked at Avalon knew me. I used to buy fresh roses from the women at the gate and lay them on his gravestone. Sometimes I would go with Mokete, and on a few occasions with our Fufu.
We were still waiting for you to be ready for our trip to Pitseng. Mokete understood. I had kept that picture of you and my father at the Sekano-Ntoane High School. You were still learners then. My favourite was a picture of you and my father at the Senaoane Swimming Pool, wearing shorts. I would take it out and Mokete and I would look at it.
At times, I would cry on my father’s grave for him to at least spare Fufu. Whatever grudge you two had, she should not be the victim. She knew nothing about it. The guys who wander around Avalon with spades on weekends looking for piece jobs also came to know me. They knew I would come without fail. I used to give them eighty rand every Sunday to help me take out the weeds around the grave, wipe the tombstone and pile more soil and stones on to maintain a mound.
Do you remember that stormy February in Soweto? I had a strange dream about my father’s grave sinking. When I went there after the rain, I found out that indeed it was sinking. There was water all over and part of the stone had cracked. I got my guys at Avalon to redo it. I even went to that hardware store by the Protea Gardens Mall to buy a bakkie full of soil and cement to fix the grave. I spent around two thousand rands to have the job done properly. I didn’t tell you because I knew you would never approve of such a thing. But when I showed you the pictures of the grave, you turned your head away gently. I saw a tear coming from your left eye. Moments later, you went to your bedroom and lay face down on the bed.
When I came to check on you, you looked up with tears on your face and said, “Naledi, my beautiful daughter, the past bears the future, as the mother bears her child. Don’t go on living in the past, my daughter. This life,” you hesitated, as if giving your imagination time to pursue dark horrors, “has treated me with neither kindness nor gentleness.”
“What do you mean, Mama? There’s a break in even the deepest gloom at times,” I said to you.
I knew I should not have told you what I did to my father’s grave. When I left, you seemed to be coiled in on yourself, as though you were jealously guarding a secret. That afternoon I went to the grave again with Mokete. The wind blew fiercely as evening approached. The bluegum trees roared and crackled as if being consumed by fire. Then the wind changed. Mokete remained strong while I shivered and rubbed my hands together. As we left the grave and drove off, I’m sure I saw a blurry figure as I looked back at my father’s grave. The figure disappeared among the tall gravestones not far from my father’s.
When we got home, our daughter was in high spirits. Mokete told me that it was probably because my father had seen what I had done for him, by fixing his sinking grave.
From that point, Mokete started pressuring you and me to go to Pitseng to look for my father’s family. But you said we should start our search for information at Sekano-Ntoane High School. Unfortunately, no records existed of Solomon Teboho Tseu. The principal told us they were probably destroyed by the students during the protest for textbooks. She was a new principal. A few of the teachers knew who you were, but didn’t remember any Solomon Teboho Tseu. We tried to locate his friends, but you remembered only one of them, who had since passed away. Mokete was becoming impatient and said we should go to Lesotho soon. But I reasoned with him, saying that Lesotho was a big place in which to locate a person who had died in South Africa.
I didn’t tell you this, but I went to my father’s grave again. This was after I had a series of nightmares. Mokete’s healer gave me medicine that she said I must chew, swallow the juice, and then spit on my father’s grave. On that day, I swear I saw a vulture take off from his headstone. There was lots of birdshit on the headstone, and I spent about an hour cleaning it. Mokete told me that it was a bad omen to see a vulture, particularly at Avalon Cemetery. I could have sworn I heard my father’s voice rising from the soil and speaking to me as I knelt in front of the headstone.
I knew you would not approve of my consulting a traditional healer. It’s not a question of losing my faith in the man above. But, during these times of indecision, when all answers are proven false, people like Mokete turn to the dead to give us a clue. By that stage I had to agree with him that it is a great mistake to assume that the dead are indeed silent, lifeless and powerless. I see it in the township all the time. The dead are always being asked to step in during unveilings and traditional weddings. We always ask our ancestors for good luck. Mokete had convinced me that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing.
Then one day a miracle happened. As you always said, everyone’s destiny is fixed in advance. It was in October, I remember. In the morning, I went alone to my father’s grave. There were people gathered around it, performing traditional rituals. My heart was beating fast. I parked my Hyundai a hundred metres from the grave. There were five people – two men and three women. At first, I pretended I was just passing. The people around my father’s grave just looked at me and continued doing what they were doing. I walked towards a large headstone a few metres away from