Читать книгу African-Language Literatures - Innocentia Jabulisile Mhlambi - Страница 12

The narrative opens with the main female character, a single parent, Nomvula, discovering that her son, Sibusiso, has been ‘abducted’ by his biological father, Makhaya, a journalist on a local newspaper in the Eastern Cape. After Makhaya fails to return the child to Nomvula’s Daveyton home late that Friday afternoon, she decides to drive to the Eastern Cape, where Makhaya lives, in order to get the child from its father. She reassures her mother that she will be back on Saturday afternoon. At this moment in her life, Nomvula is involved with Sipho, a lawyer. Over the weekend, talks of her ilobolo negotiations are to be conducted. On Monday she is scheduled to leave the country on a business trip.

On arrival in the Eastern Cape she tries to persuade the father to give back the child but she fails, as do her attempts at ‘stealing’ back the child. Makhaya’s reasons for taking the child are, firstly, to get back at Nomvula because she kept him in the dark regarding the pregnancy and, secondly, that he feels he has been denied the chance of exercising his responsibilities as a father for the past seven years. Lastly he has hopes that he can convince Nomvula to marry him since he has learnt that Nomvula is about to be married to another man. On arrival at Makhaya’s place Nomvula discovers that he is in a relationship that has problems similar to those in their former relationship which were the basis for her decision not to disclose her pregnancy to him. Tensions between herself and Makhaya’s lover arise, but Makhaya’s lover cannot openly display her hostilities fearing that such actions and attitudes might cost her this relationship because even though there are problems she is content with the way things are. Thus her support for Nomvula’s efforts to get Makhaya to give up the child stems from the realisation that Nomvula’s prolonged stay may cause her to lose her patience and eventually expose herself.

Back home in Gauteng province Nomvula’s fiancé, Sipho, learns of the reasons leading to her sudden journey to the Eastern Cape. He follows her and on arrival in the area he lays a charge against Makhaya at the police station. By the time he arrives, however, the relationship between Makhaya and Nomvula has developed, and old flames have been rekindled. However, Nomvula has made a promise to Makhaya’s lover, and cannot allow herself to be caught up in Makhaya’s ways again. Together Nomvula and Makhaya’s lover devise a plot for her to get back her child and escape from the province, but it is delayed by Sipho’s arrival. Seeing that the presence of Sipho might spoil her plan, Nomvula decides to sneak out unseen and escape with her son. However, things go wrong on the morning of their departure. Sibusiso goes missing and it is up to Makhaya to search for and find the child. By this time Nomvula’s family has come to the Eastern Cape because she has stayed away for more days than she had initially planned. They coincidentally meet at the hotel from which Sibusiso has gone missing. When Makhaya eventually returns with Sibusiso, the family is impressed and urges Nomvula to reconsider her decision not to marry him. She is speechless as she allows herself to be prevailed upon by her family to marry Makhaya even though she previously objected to the idea. The narrative ends with the banquet celebrating the re-union and the intended marriage between Nomvula and Makhaya.