Читать книгу Shadows - Novuyo Rosa Tshuma - Страница 11

Marijuana: Blissful Woes

Sometimes, after I have smoked a joint or two and I am in that surreal realm where everything seems real and nothing really is, my earliest memories of Mama blend into my earliest memories of Nomsa. An earliest memory is an elusive thing; I have known Mama all my life, I have known Nomsa most of my life. The beauty of memory lies in its self-delusion. I do not have clear memories of Mama’s face, in the way in which I have clear memories of Nomsa’s face. I remember Mama’s face as it is in the photographs. There is a particular photograph that keeps recurring in my dream-like state. In it, Mama is gazing coyly at the camera. Her hair is a wild bush of curls glistening with glycerine. She is wearing a shimmering dress of kaleidoscopic flowers, her hip thrown out for effect, a pink stiletto resting precariously on a rock. The background looks like the Matopos. In this surreal state, I ask, “How did you manage to climb all the rocks of the Matopos with those stilettos?”

The photograph dissolves, and suddenly Mama is alive, all those years ago, when I was too young to remember her face. She laughs. Her nostrils flare, suggesting a playful arrogance, and suddenly she is Nomsa, prancing about as if in front of a camera. I do not see myself smile, but I feel the smile gurgling from the pit of my stomach, bubbling to the surface of my lips. Now, Nomsa has a big wide perm on her head that reminds me of Rebecca Malope and Brenda Fassie back in the day, swaying to fast beats while flinging nappy curls at the camera. Nomsa is swaying and flinging her perm this-a-way and that-a-way. I reach out to touch her. When I do, she is suddenly on the rocks of the Matopos again, and she is slipping, slipping . . .

“Nomsa!” I scream but I do not scream, because nothing comes out of my mouth.

And, just before she plummets into the black abyss, she turns into Mama again, and she is smiling.

At this point, I am jolted into a state of wakefulness, and my eyes are wet.