Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree. Niq Mhlongo
sure he could feel my contempt.
“I would be lying if I said I know. I’m sorry to you and your mother. You know, sometimes life takes hold of a person, carries the heaviness of the body along for years, and accomplishes one’s history. My child, I regret everything about my past.”
I didn’t like being called “my child”, especially after what he did to you. As he talked, I recalled everything you went through. I remembered how you described the blow that sent you to the ground, and how you thought of killing yourself afterwards. You told me that people who commit suicide simply have no patience with life. You said I must not finish myself if things do not go my way with Mokete, and I respect that.
“In jail, I was confined within four walls for over fifteen years,” he said. “Time doesn’t move in there. The fact that I was once a feared person had wilted and fallen away on the very first day. I have learnt my lessons.”
I didn’t know whether to hate him or give him credit for opening up to me. It was clear that he was unbearably lonely and desperately unhappy. But all that I could think of was what you told me. You said you fought with everything in you, but in the end could not escape his penis forced between your thighs.
When I looked at him again, our eyes met. He carried an aura that marked him out as one of those unspeakable breeds.
“They called me Ma-English then, but now I’m back to my real name, Mxolisi Zondi.”
I saw a shadow of despair darkening his face. His eyes became glazed and searching. His Adam’s apple bulged as he forced the water from the glass down his throat. All I could do was shake my head. He had gone to a cruel and degrading place because of his past deeds. I understood that jail had broken his remaining decency and self-respect. His memories of that place were eating at his spirit like rust. I suddenly remembered your words about women being superior beings. You told me that women are given a superior responsibility by God to give birth and love to a child. Men’s stomachs, you said, are designed to carry useless things such as alcohol and shit.
The following day I received a call from Khutso. Mokete had already moved out of our Kibler Park house. He believed you and I were not taking his family request seriously, so he had to leave me. I didn’t have the guts to tell him that Solomon Teboho Tseu was not my father. We were not even related. Anyway, my relationship with Mokete was doomed. Maybe that’s the reason I agreed to meet Khutso at Southgate Nando’s. My fingers had forgotten what it was like to close on a friendship. I needed someone to talk to. I’m glad I met Khutso. My road to happiness was at last open. You were over the moon when I told you about him, but you still didn’t want to hear anything about my father. Or should I call him Mxolisi Zondi?
“He has no right to call you his daughter,” you said, tears rolling down your cheeks. Your nostrils dilated and contracted spasmodically as you spoke. “That trash Mxolisi Zondi’s function in your being was nothing more than ejaculation during rape.”
“Looking forward is the only thing you can control, Mama,” I said. “And sometimes things have to be talked over and over until it hardly makes any difference.”
You looked at me, your eyes half-closed and shining. You were not crying. You had pushed that shit deep down. Like fertiliser, you had grown strong from it. I knew you could switch on that memory anytime and run it in front of your eyes exactly as though it were a horror movie. But you once said to me that only those who forget survive, because if you try to forget the past you will remember the future and make the best out of it. Those were your words of wisdom. They helped me come to terms with this identity that no parent would wish on a child.
As I speak to you I’m at this Avalon address, 2016/877. It’s your permanent address. I came to tell you that Khutso and I got married about five months ago. We have a son called Itu, Itumeleng. With Khutso, my mind flies freely, like a bird in the sky.
I was thinking a lot about you lately. Because it is Mother’s Day, I came here to share a joke with you. Just yesterday, Khutso made me think of you when he said that Itu has his father’s eyes. I really don’t think our son has his father’s or mother’s eyes. I think he has his grandmother’s eyes – your eyes. As I’m talking to you now, they are singing along to Eric Clapton’s “My Father’s Eyes” in the car. Fufu is also singing along in her own way in the back seat. She calls Khutso her father.
You’ve told me that the human heart is the heaviest part of the body when broken, but the lightest when happy. Like you, I have not let the tragic circumstances of my birth define my life. I am at last happy.
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
Through the kitchen window, Ousie Maria eyed Bonaparte, the neighbours’ cat, with suspicion. The cat was sleeping quietly under the sneezewood tree, his head between his paws. Still, it reassured her to check on the evil thing every now and again while she was cleaning the sink. She was alone in the Phalas’ house – her employers were at work and the children were still at school – so she kept the window closed. It was best to be on her guard against that animal.
When she looked up again, the cat was awake and walking slowly towards the swimming pool.
Ousie Maria clenched the rag in her hands more tightly. The cat stood at the edge of the pool and looked at its reflection in the water. Its ears shot up, and its eyes were wide open. It sat down on the concrete edge, licked its paws and then its tail. As if feeling hot, it jumped up and stood on its hind legs. Then it lay flat on its fat belly on the concrete, its whiskers jerking now and then. The tail started to move about as it stared into the water. Ousie Maria backed away from the window, tiptoed to the kitchen door and locked it before returning to the sink. It was as if she could still feel the beast’s claws scratching her wrists and face when it had attacked her a few years ago. That day, she had been busy cleaning when Bonaparte entered the kids’ room and sprawled in a chair, as if it was his home. Ousie Maria had tried to use a broom to get him out. She had been standing at the door as she poked the resisting Bonaparte in the ribs. The cat had jumped up and scratched her. She had to retreat. It seemed like forever before she finally managed to get him out of the house. She took the kids’ squeegee spray bottle, filled it with water and added vinegar. Then she squirted the cat from a distance. When her employers came home, they insisted on sending her to the clinic to have her wounds cleaned and disinfected.
As the cat sat bolt upright on the edge of the swimming pool, Ousie Maria was jerked back to the present. She watched the cat as it looked into the water, as if calculating its chances of swimming. It appeared tense and kept looking around. Then it started turning round and round as if possessed. It jumped high up and sideways. Once again it leaned over the water. In the kitchen, Ousie Maria was trembling. The third time the cat peered into the pool, it seemed to lose its balance and fell into the water. Instantly, it started to yowl and thrash around.
Ousie Maria gasped. What now? She was frozen to the spot.
High in the sky, a migrating bird began to sing cheerfully as if encouraging Bonaparte to climb out of the pool. Ousie Maria remained in the house, waiting for her employers or the kids to come back. A short while later, the cat’s struggles ended and all became still.
The first to come home were the children, Buhle and Mbuso, from St John’s College in Houghton. With the children by her side, Ousie Maria finally felt brave enough to go out to the pool to show them the dead cat. Bonaparte was floating with his mouth open. Fourteen-year-old Mbuso stood at the edge of the pool and stared. His sister, twelve-year-old Buhle, stood further away. She kept on closing her eyes with her fingers.
“What happened?” asked Mbuso, prodding the dead cat’s ribs with a stick.
“I have no idea,” said Ousie Maria, who stood next to Buhle. “The cat was fine and walking about along the pool. All of sudden it fell in and drowned, all by itself. It was acting strangely . . . Perhaps it was stung by a bee.”
“I must go tell Karen and Jan,” said Buhle. The kids from the neighbouring family went to the same school as Buhle and Mbuso and were probably also home by now.
Ousie Maria agreed that