Читать книгу Shadows - Novuyo Rosa Tshuma - Страница 8

Mama

It’s not the case that Mama has always been a prostitute. I don’t think so. She used to work in the suburbs as a domestic. She worked for the Nleyas, whom she called ikhuwa lam’ – even though they were black – the way all the domestics referred to their black baases who lived in big mansions in the suburbs. Because even the blacks there thought they were white, she’d say. They took the white man’s English and manufactured it through their noses: “Mfi mfo mfi mfo mfi mfo.”

All day long, like they were blowing globules of snot stuck in their nostrils.

“All they have to do is take pegs and pinch their noses, and they’ll be fine.”

Mama loved to play the radio loud whenever the baas was not home. She would twist the volume knob, scrunch up her face and sway her hips. She especially liked to listen to Radio2, broadcast in Ndebele and Shona, and sometimes she listened to Kalanga and Venda. Whenever Shwi’s songs played, Mama would leap into the air and wriggle her bum, screeching, “Oh! This song reminds me of my home eNkayi. Hehehehe! We used to run away in the evenings and trek across the bush to the local ‘growth point’ that never did develop into a proper town. There was always a dhindindi happening every night, bantu. And we would dance! And dance! The truck drivers passing on their way to Wankie Coal Mine would buy us beer. It tasted so bitter. But it was beer from the town, Castle Lager, boy, and not amasese-la, curdled in the rurals. Heh! Heh!” And she would clap her hands, Mama, grinding her hips to Shwi. “I was in love with one of the truck drivers – he would pass there twice a week in his nice big truck – big, you hear? So one day, I ran away with him and came to see the bright city lights. Kanti, eh! The bastard was married.”

Mama liked to tell this story over and over again. I often wondered if this truck driver was my father, but I eventually stopped asking. Whenever I asked, Mama would tell me that I had been carried across the lands by a great big bird and had fallen into her lap, even when I was old enough to know where babies come from. Eventually, she just shrugged at the question.

“You don’t have a father. Why are you being such a nuisance?”

In time, when all I could remember with any clarity were the township years and the men who came and went, I began to think that perhaps Mama didn’t know who my father was. I hated her for this. My roots lay in shallow soils which lacked substance.

In the suburbs, I would arrive home from school to find Mama in the living room “gedding-down” with Siziba, the garden boy, as music blared forth from the radio. Siziba had a head the size of a bus, with tufts of greying hair around the temples. His arms were short and thick, his back stooped, probably from bending over so much when he was being addressed by the baas. He never looked the baas in the eye. He would bend over, clasp his hands and stare at the ground, scratch his head whenever they were giving him a tongue thrashing.

Mrs Nleya especially liked to talk. Her mouth was always running. Something was always not right in the house. Her rice was not where she had left it. Somebody had been drinking her Mazoe. The yard had not been swept properly. Mama and Si­ziba knew better than to argue with her.

“Yes, Ma,” they would chorus. “Sorry, Ma. Right away.”

Mrs Nleya towered over Mama as she wiped down her dark wood shelves with Mukwa Oil, whose smell lingered for hours afterwards. Mama hated the smell. She scrubbed the wooden tiles vigorously, to Mrs Nleya’s great satisfaction, her breasts bouncing from side to side like half-full sacks of candy, dancing to the rhythm of her hand as it swung from side to side. Dancing until the tiles were a sparkling shine that reflected an ebony version of your grinning face.

In some instances, Mrs Nleya was right about the food that went missing. Mama loved to sample the food in the kitchen. On Sunday afternoons, the Nleyas loved to invite friends over and drag the braai-stand out onto the lawn, next to the pool. There, accompanied by the tinkle of glasses and laughter, the aroma of barbecued sausage and spiced beef would waft all the way down the garden to our khaya. Asanda, the Nleyas’ daughter, usually had her playmates over, and Mama would stand solemnly by the edge of the pool in her blue maid’s uniform, complete with a doek, her hands clasped behind her back, herding Asanda and her friends into the shallow part of the pool. She always wore a blank face in front of the baas. The Nleyas’ friends always brought more food than they could possibly eat. Mama would pack some of it into a black bin bag and pretend to go out the back to the dustbin. I would be waiting for her at the bottom of the garden, near the tree house, as instructed. There she would shove the bin bag into my arms.

“Go and put this in my green suitcase under the bed. And push it far, far under the bed, okay? Good boy, I’ll buy you ice cream tomorrow, okay?”

Most of the extra food was eventually mashed up for the dogs. This infuriated Mama – “Give those stupid animals better food than me?” – and why were the mongrels allowed to roam the house and jump onto the couches where she herself was not allowed to sit?

“I never get a moment’s rest, never, never, because I’m always cleaning dog hair! Ah bantu! I don’t understand how a person can love a dog more than another human being.”

One thing Mama never touched was the Mazoe – “Tastes too strong, like rotting oranges,” she said; it was the Mainstay bottle in the cupboard in the lounge that she loved to sip from, topping it up with water so nobody would notice.

“Where else will I get a chance to taste white people’s drink?”

One evening, the baas arrived home to find that Mama had sliced and fried the lettuce. Mr Nleya was amused. Mrs Nleya was not.

“Where, where have you ever seen lettuce being cooked? You are going to eat it, you can’t waste food like this. Have you any idea how much food costs?”

Mama happily ate it. “It tastes better cooked – who wants to eat uncooked vegetables, anyway? Imagine eating uncooked chomolia! She is crazy, that baas woman. She thinks I’m stupiti. She is the one who is stupiti. She is just lucky to have such a nice and rich husband. Hmmm! Nleya is such a rich man!” I frowned at Mama as she stared dreamily at the asbestos roofing of our khaya.

Her favourite pastime, though, was trying on the madam’s clothes. She would lock herself in the Nleyas’ bedroom and reappear moments later, draped in the madam’s chiffon scarves, wearing her Woolworths skirts, her Truworths blouses, glittering in her jewellery. The subtle scent of Mrs Nleya’s Pretty Woman perfume would waft after Mama. I used to collect Mrs Nleya’s empty perfume bottles. I thought Pretty Woman had the most beautiful body in the world; the bottle curved into the breasts of a woman, before nipping at the waist, then bulging slightly at the hips. I would rub those glass breasts over and over with my finger, pretend they were big and bouncy like Pamela Anderson’s in Baywatch.

Mama would khwa khwa khwa around the house in the madam’s stilettos, tilt her head and peer at Siziba and me above a pair of Rayban sunglasses. On her head, one of Madam’s wigs.

“You, Siziba, you! Come here!” And she beckoned with her finger, just like the madam did. “Did you clean yard? I say did you clean yard? Nxx! Stupiti. Pick rake and clean yard!”

We all burst into laughter.

“You look like you are going to fall in those stick shoes,” Siziba chuckled. “And eh! Engreeesh my gal, Engreeesh is a probremu! You need learn Engreeesh!”

Christmas was Mama’s favourite time of the year. Although we got hand-me-downs from the Nleyas, Mama always made sure to buy me something brand-new. We would walk into town and spend the afternoon trekking across Bulawayo, admiring the shoes on display at Bata, the clothes at Sales House, the white ladies having tea at Sisters in Haddon & Sly. Mama would imitate them, sitting with their backs straight, carefully sipping tea from tiny cups.

“Who gets full on a baby cup? Heh! Ah! I should introduce these women to a nice big Kango cup.”

We always waited in line to see Father Christmas. Before everything became black in the country and the whites were chased from the farms and disappeared from public view – to be seen only once in a while in startling numbers in their exclusive get-togethers in places like the Bulawayo Country Club – and Father Christmas became a black face wearing a ridiculous fluffy beard made from cotton wool, sitting not on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, but in a scotch cart pulled by goats. I would sit on his lap and stare shyly at the flashing camera. Mama always haggled with the camera man, who charged twice the price because it was Christmas. Afterwards, Mama bought me ice cream and we sat on the City Hall benches and watched the crowds. I dreamed of going to the drive-in. Mama said she would take me, but it was expensive, and in the end I had to choose between the drive-in and a brand-new present. Although I wanted to go, I preferred something that would last longer than a two-hour movie – a toy car, maybe.

I arrived from school one afternoon to find Mrs Nleya’s red, artificial nails clawing at the air next to Mama’s face. She was shouting at Mama, incomprehensible words at first because of the pitch.

“Madam, I do not do anything, I swear on my father on his grave, please, Madam, I did nothing. It was sir, he is the one who come to my room, Madam, I swear on my father on his grave.”

Mama had bent her knees, so that she would be shorter than Mrs Nleya, had locked the fingers of both hands and was twisting them in the air, professing innocence. Qhwa! Mrs Nleya slapped Mama. Mama cringed. Mrs Nleya began to cry. Behind Mama, Mr Nleya emerged from our khaya, hastily zipping his trousers. Mrs Nleya turned and ran into the house.

“Lily! Lily, wait . . . Lily!”

That was the day we left Mrs Nleya’s mansion in the suburbs and moved to the ugly avocado-coloured house in the township.

Mr Nleya visited frequently. He stroked Mama’s belly and said that he had already paid for the house, that she shouldn’t worry, it would be in her name soon.

“Do you think it’s a boy?”

“I’m definite it’s a boy. All this kicking! He is going to be a foot­ball player.”

Mr Nleya giggled like a child. Mama chased me out of the bedroom and made me sleep in the sitting room. I did not sleep. I placed my ear against the bedroom door and listened. Mr Nleya was hurting Mama. She was crying. I hated him. I did not understand why she allowed him to hurt her. When I asked her, she threw back her head and laughed, gave me fifty cents and told me to go and buy sweets.

One night, Mama’s shouting woke me up. There was blood on the sheets. I dashed out into the night to call Holly. Later, I learned that Mama had lost the baby. I was relieved. The pregnancy was obsessing her. She said a lot of frightening things. Like soon we would be staying in Mr Nleya’s mansion. She would have a heavy rock on her finger. She would be the new Mrs Nleya.

“You had better start calling him ‘daddy’. He’s going to be your father soon.”

“I shall never call that man ‘baba’.”

“Not ‘baba’, you little stupid. It’s ‘Daddy’: say it in English with an accent, the way that little brat child of his does. You will have to learn how to speak like the white people now. We are going to be one of them.”

I could not imagine Mama being the new Mrs Nleya. That was a polished woman. She wore fine clothes and put expensive weaves in her hair. And she had a Master’s degree in Communications, even though she was a housewife. Whenever visitors came to their house, Mr Nleya flaunted the degree certificate hanging on the wall, showing off his educated wife. Perhaps when Mama became the next Mrs Nleya, he could show off her dizzying beauty. Mama was always saying how beautiful she was, how men stuttered around her, how she could make any man think with the head in his trousers and do her bidding.

But after she lost the baby she failed to make Mr Nleya think with the head in his trousers. It was not Mr Nleya who came to see her after the miscarriage, but his wife.

“You can never have my husband, you hear? Never! You whore! You uneducated idiot! You shall never have his child, you hear!”

“Manje I will have it, I will have it! You who cannot give him a son, what can you say? Do you know where he comes to sleep, heh? Right here in these arms, let me tell you! Let me tell you, you had better start packing your bags. When I come to my house I don’t want to find you there!”

“Heh! Heh! You don’t want to mess with this daughter of Ngonondo. My grandmother is a sangoma, do you hear me? That womb of yours is now tied. You shall never as long as you live have another child again, do you hear? Over my dead body will you have my husband’s child! Nxx. Stupid. Uneducated fool.”

Afterwards, Mr Nleya came to ask Mama to leave his house. But Mama refused to go. He had already put the house in her name and given her the title deeds.

“This is my house! I worked hard for this house. I spread my legs for you. I wanted to have your child. So don’t come tell me your nonsense. Get out!”

“I’m coming with the police . . .”

“Bring them! What will they do? What will they do? I know the law! My friend Holly knows the law! There is nothing you will do. This is my house. Get out!”

That is how the ugly avocado-coloured house became Mama’s. After Mr Nleya left, she called Holly. They bought a crate of Castle Lager and congratulated themselves on their victory.

“You own a house, my friend! You, you! Doria Nkala from rural Nkayi, half-educated dimwit, you own a house!”

Later, after Holly had left, Mama sat on a chair, hugged herself and cried.

“What’s wrong, Mama? Aren’t you happy that we have a house now? I’m glad that man Mr Nleya is gone. I never liked him, Mama, he was not a nice man . . .”

Mama grabbed me by my arm, pulled down my trousers and gave me a good spanking. I sat in a corner, nursed my tears and watched her. I did not understand why she was so sad. She would not stop crying.