Читать книгу Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree - Niq Mhlongo - Страница 3

The bizarre address you gave me some ten years ago is still stuck in my memory. I don’t expect you to remember it, because it was in a weird location. And, after all, it did not really mean anything to you. But 93/574 Avalon Cemetery still rings in my mind today. I should have known better than to ask you about my father. Although I was twenty-seven years old and married, I was still so naive. I had been naive about marriage and children as well. But that naivety – and my happiness – was shattered with the birth of Fufu. Mokete was convinced it was my fault that our daughter was born with cerebral palsy. He insisted that I must find my father and appease my ancestors with traditional sacrifices to make things right. Normally, a goat and traditional umqombothi beer for the ancestors is enough, he told me. If not, he threatened to leave me.

I was surprised to learn that Mokete consulted a traditional healer behind my back. He was advised that our Fufu would heal if I found my real father. This came as a shock to me, as it did to you. Mama, you raised me the Christian way, but there I was fooling myself that I was married to a fellow Christian. I still know some verses of the Bible by heart, including your favourite:

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

That’s Mark 11:24. I really don’t know how Mokete changed so much. Do you still remember how I met him in our church? We were both eighteen years old when I noticed him at The Grace in Pimville. You were very sceptical about our intention to marry then. When he proposed, at the age of twenty-two, you said we were still very young. I guess you were right. But, like a supportive mother, you gave your blessings anyway. You said maybe it was God’s will. I still remember your words clearly.

“Naledi, my child, you have to be patient, quiet and listen to your inner voice of reason. Don’t make decisions that you cannot take back in life.”

I recall that moment when you looked at me sadly. Your mouth twisted as if you had pain somewhere in your body. I hope it’s not too late to rediscover the world now.

As a devout Christian, I had every right to refuse when all of sudden Mokete told me to go and consult a traditional healer. I remember that it was just before Fufu turned three. We still called her Fufu, because she seemed too small and helpless to have a name like Fundiswa. I mean, she could not walk, could barely talk, and was in a wheelchair and on constant medication. That’s when Mokete told me he had been warned that we would never have healthy children. Not unless I found out who my real father was.

Do you remember the call I gave you, crying, late that night? Like me, you were confused as to what my absent father had to do with my future healthy children. You tried to reason with Mokete on the phone. You made him aware that we were Christians and believed in the word and power of God. You also reminded him that you only gave him the go-ahead to marry me because he was Christian too. But did he listen to you? No. He was adamant that this was my problem. You reminded him of our pact with God.

“There are some things about tradition that Christianity cannot solve,” he responded.

“I really don’t understand why we black people have to slaughter goats and cows to ask ancestors for money, employment and things that are beyond us by nature, like Fufu’s disability, for example,” you reasoned with him. “Some of our ancestors died poor, without education, or employment, but we still ask them favours anyway. Some were just useless beings here on earth, but we still believe things changed for them after dying.”

“But just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean you must judge those who believe in it, like my family,” he countered. “Jesus died thousands of years ago without a house or a job and yet we pray and ask him for a job and a house. Non-Christians are not judging us for worshipping him, so why do we judge them when they believe in their ancestors?”

Mama, I entered this religion because of your silent influence. You took me to church when I was still young. I got used to it, and was happy that Christianity swept away my boredom and lone­liness. I remember the psalm you used to recite to me:

A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation. God setteth the solitary in families: He bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

That was Psalm 68:5–6, King James Version. It dispelled the shame of my weaknesses, great and small.

“What do you want from his relationship?” you asked wearily, as if it were an effort to talk about him. “This husband of yours sounds abusive. You look emotionally exhausted all the time, my dear daughter. Remember that men are made from dirt; they can’t help it if they are dirty.”

“We all have our wounds, but must go on living,” I said to you.

You put your fingertips on my cheeks. But you had no idea then that life was weighing down on me like a bag of wet cement.

Three days after Fufu’s third birthday I told you how I felt. It was as if the life within me was being destroyed, piece by piece. I did not want to quarrel with my husband any longer. Mokete’s people had a meeting with you. You couldn’t stand my constant humiliation and the despair any longer. You told Mokete’s people that you were going to do it. I believed you were really trying your best to save my marriage if you were even prepared to talk about my father. That topic was banned in our home. You often flew into rages over it, and seemed unbearably raw and irritable when it came up.

That’s when you reluctantly gave me the address, 93/574 Avalon Cemetery. Even though you did it out of love for me, I could feel the loathing and contempt you had for the man in the grave. That was after a week of pestering you to help me save my marriage. Mokete’s people had been on my back like an irritating tick. They wanted to know the date of the traditional ceremony and sacrifice so that Mokete and I could solve our marital problems. The claws of loneliness and desperation were sinking deep into my skin. I must admit that somehow your gesture and willingness to help me find that stranger called my father filled the emptiness in me. I’m still thankful for that. Oh yes, it felt like I had just emerged from my long slumber of loneliness, despair and lethargy.

You know me very well. Ever since you raised me in Protea Glen, it didn’t bother me that I didn’t know my real father. I just didn’t care. Most of the kids I grew up with did not have fathers. Some still do not have fathers today. But I was happy that you were finally forced by my circumstances to introduce me to my father’s family. I knew you hated him. I stopped asking about him years ago because I was afraid to trigger your anger. The topic never lasted for more than five minutes before you would dismiss it curtly.

“He was a complete piece of shit, an asshole, that son of a bitch! A dog! Trash, like all men are.”

You hated him with an intensity that was frightening to me. But you always cut short those angry curses. “Now let’s go and buy some ice cream and pie, my beautiful Naledi,” you would say.

My heart would be contented when you said that. I guess you’re aware that I also never wanted to see or know my father. I was only forced by the conditions of my marriage to pursue it. That’s the reason I was glad when you told me for the first time that he was dead. But, dead or alive, it made no difference to me. Whatever would please Mokete’s people was welcome. I understood the hatred that showed in your face when you took Mokete and me to my father’s grave at Avalon. I mean, he had been hidden in your memory for more than twenty-seven years.

I still remember kneeling before a gravestone with the inscription “Solomon Teboho Tseu, 1961–1993”. You just stood there and looked away as if haunted by dreams. I watched you as you kept opening your mouth and snapping at emptiness. Or were you cursing the grave in silence? It was only the three of us at the graveside. You told us that my father was killed in 1993 during the Inkatha and ANC political violence by the Jeppe Hostel inmates. When I asked you about his family, you said he came from somewhere in Lesotho. You had never been there yourself, but you remembered the name of the village as Pitseng. Young and ambitious when you met him, you became pregnant with me at the age of fifteen.

I was 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 them, pretending to be looking for a grave address. My mind was trying to figure out how to approach what I assumed was my father’s family. Finally, I had 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 to your mother.”

“But why did you do it?”

I’m 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.