Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree. Niq Mhlongo
the courage to walk slowly back to them. All eyes were on me as I came near. I stopped at times to check my heart, which was beating strong enough to burst. As I got nearer, I could see my father’s eyes in one of the smartly dressed men whose hair was receding from his forehead. Finally, I was meeting my father’s family, I thought. Happiness is at last within reach. But my heart was still beating fast with the anxiety of acceptance or rejection.
“Hi, can we help you?” said the man who I thought had my father’s eyes. “I’m Khutso Tseu.”
His eyes looked just like mine: big, round and charming. Maybe that’s what I thought because of the excitement in my heart. They looked just like my father in the picture you gave me. The man was a bit taller than me.
“Hi, I’m Naledi. We have not met before, but the man who is sleeping peacefully in this grave is my father.”
Everyone turned to look at me. They stopped talking and came to where I was standing with Khutso.
“Well, I really don’t know. Teboho was my brother. He was the first born at home, followed by these two sisters of mine.” He pointed at the two light-skinned ladies who approached us. “This is Bonolo and Palesa. I come after them in birth, and then my younger sister, Kamo, and young brother, Thapelo, is the last born.”
“Who is your mother?” asked Bonolo.
“Phemelo Noga. She is from Senaoane and did her high school at Sekano-Ntoane.”
Bonolo shook her head. “I never heard of her.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Yes, she lives in Protea Glen. She is a nurse at Helen Joseph Hospital.”
“Maybe it would be better if we invited her over to our family house in Diepkloof soon,” said Khutso. “She may shed light on this business. You know how we men are. You may find out that our brother had a daughter that he didn’t tell us about.”
He looked at me. “We’re really sorry, Naledi. Our brother died without introducing you or mentioning your name to the family. We think it would be a great idea if you came with your mother in a few days’ time. Let us know when you two can come.”
“I will. Did you ever live in Tladi?” I asked.
“No. Our family has always lived in Zone Two, Diepkloof. My brother studied at Orlando High School. He was working as a ticket examiner for the South African Railways when he died. He was hit by a car in the morning on his way to work. He died there by the Orlando Stadium in 1993.”
“Oh, I see.” I was silent for a while, then asked: “Do you have family in Lesotho?”
“Not at all. Actually, our dad grew up near Mafikeng in North West, but we only go there if there is a funeral or a wedding. My brother had a wife who has since remarried. We think she is the one who did all these gravestone renovations without telling us. We have not been in touch with her since there was a fight over his money and house when he died. She finally –”
“We’ll talk about that later, when Naledi visits us,” said Bonolo, and she sounded unhappy that her brother was divulging their family secrets to a stranger.
My heart fell into the pit of my stomach. I realised that your version of events didn’t match up with the reality I was trying to unearth. There was an aching sense of discontent in my soul. I felt that things were falling apart and I wanted to leave. I took Khutso’s contact details, and he took mine. I promised to call him soon. My anguish became a physical pain in my head. I had to drive straight to you. How could you, my own mother, point out a random grave as my father’s? I thought you were my only companion, the only one I could trust and talk to when my so-called husband abused me with his words. How could you betray me like that? What must I tell Mokete? Was this the end of my marriage? These were the thoughts that gnawed at me as I opened your door that day.
You finally sat down with me and shared ghastly things about my real father. You were not looking at me when you told me the story. Yet I could see your eyes going red and imagined the pain that suddenly stabbed at your heart.
“Like most girls who have their babies when they are still green, I also dreamt of love and adventure. But my life was ruined and emptied by that trash bastard.”
I listened while the words sank into my consciousness. I was a child of rape, no doubt about it. This sudden realisation sent a pain to my heart, a pain of anguish. That explained your rage when I asked about my father as I was growing up. I watched you wince involuntarily. I was sure our conversation was bringing to the surface your memory of being cruelly held down by a rapist.
“I dream of him all the time. I’m haunted by that brutal force he exerted on me as he tried to force our bodies together. I have these scary nightmares of him tightening his hold even though I strain to get away. The bastard! He even told me that the way I wrinkled my nose, and the way my body resisted, made him like it more. I have lived in perpetual fear of what people know about me. I knew that this would one day come into the open, but I never thought it would be today.”
When you confided in me, I felt the glowing ember of revenge that was burning in my breast. My veins stood out as if from the effects of a violent poison. I had thought that by refusing to tell me the truth you were deliberately defrauding me. But it was clear that talking about and reliving those memories pained you greatly. That is why you had kept them suppressed for as long as possible.
“I’m going to face that piece of shit,” I remember promising you that day.
“Don’t bother, my beautiful daughter. Men are inferior creatures anyway. They are trash. That’s why God has deliberately not given them a womb. It would have been a huge responsibility for God to have given such a beautiful gift to inferior creatures like men. God came through a woman, remember that. Mary was fourteen years old when she gave birth to Jesus, our God. God is the spirit. You must keep on worshipping in spirit and truth. God regrets having made men because they are easily tempted by evil.”
“That’s the reason I want an explanation from him,” I insisted.
“Naledi, you’re my beautiful daughter. You must know that a mother bears a child with love, irrespective of how she fell pregnant. My parents kicked me out of their home once my belly started showing. I gave birth to you in pain, loneliness and agony. I remember praying to die every day. But you, my daughter, became a symbol of love in the face of agony.”
Stubborn as I am, I still insisted on meeting that bastard called my father. You agreed, with a trace of disappointment in your voice, as you gave me that Senaoane address. You should have seen how pathetic he looked when I talked to him. His face lacked the shape that hope normally sculpts in a person. I sat close to him. He had a sprinkling of grey hair on his balding head. Maybe this is a token of the accumulated wisdom of years in jail, I thought. When he drew his legs closer together, his knees pointed sharply through his old trousers. There was a sudden gleam in his eyes, as if he remembered something.
“You have my eyes,” he said.
As if regretting what he had just said, his look went cold. He turned away with a funny smile.
“How is your mother?”
I twisted my face into a snarl of pain and fear when he said that. I knew there was not much curiosity in the way he asked. It was just a formality to put us both at ease. But I told him about the extremes of misery that you suffered and still endure. I could sense his burden of guilt and self-disgust. I saw a tear fall, lost in the glass of water that he was holding in his shaky left hand. He was looking down, as if his mind was working slowly. I thought he was trying to sort out the chaotic imagery stacked in his memory and the bare shreds of truth.
“My child, the truth burns like fire,” he said to me. “Especially when you find out that what you have been looking for all along was right in front of your face. I was here all along. I came back from jail about eleven years ago. I fully understand why your mother deliberately avoided introducing us all these years. I was not a pleasant person, because of the terrible things I did in the past, especially