Another Woman's Daughter (10 page)

1977

Celia

“Ma! It's me! Open the door.”

I was awake, my heart running, my breath jumping. My eyes were open, but I could see nothing. Then shadows started to own their shapes and sounds of the night identify themselves—the traffic that never slept, my clock counting out the hours, a barking dog, the drill of a mosquito . . .

Peering at the luminous red numbers, I saw it was 2:17
A.M.
and thought I must have been woken by
that
dream again—the one in which Miriam was calling for me. I hadn't dreamed it in such a long time. I turned over, pulling the blanket with me.

“Ma! Wake up, Ma!”

In an instant I had thrown back the bedclothes and was standing beside my bed, swinging somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Miriam was at my door! I stumbled over and grasped the key in my cold, stiff fingers. I'd been renting this
room for just a few weeks. How had she found me? The rusty hinges screamed and I peered into the darkness.

“Christian!”

My eldest son glanced over his shoulder, then slipped quickly past me into my room.

I shut the door behind him and turned on the light, wincing at its neon brightness.

“Lock it,” he said, peeling off his jacket. He was wearing a faded yellow T-shirt with a clenched black fist driving out of it. My skin prickled. He was wearing the clothes of a revolutionary.

Ripped from my dreams, I felt disorientated, confused. I had heard Miriam calling for me, but now Christian was standing there, defiance on his chest, fear in his eyes.

“What's wrong? Why are you here?”

In the few months since I'd last seen him, his face had lost its boyishness, hardening into fixed angles and hungry hollows. The rest of his body had changed too, his skin stretching over the peaks of bone and troughs of absent flesh.

“Are you in trouble?”

His face broke into a wide grin, those dimples I'd always loved creasing his sunken cheeks and melting his seriousness. He pulled me into a bony hug. For an instant I resisted. If I brushed against his shirt would I be infected by its insolence? I sank my face into his neck and inhaled the smell of my son, now all man. As I held on to him, I could feel his heartbeat through his shirt and it told a different tale to his casual grin.

“Can we have some tea?” he asked, pulling closed a gap in my curtains.

Minutes later Christian sat stooped over his steaming mug,
greedy for its warmth. I wasn't sure if it was just the cold making his hands tremble. “Put your jacket on if you're cold. Are you sick?”

He stared into his mug, as if reading his future.

Dear Christian. He had always been my earnest one, shouldering the responsibility that came with being firstborn and catapulted to the head of the family when his father abandoned us. I had tried not to lean too heavily on him, but after my own mother became ill, I had been forced to rely on him more and more. At the age of fourteen he'd had to leapfrog over the remainder of his childhood to raise his younger siblings and keep house. He had not let me down.

However, he had always harbored greater dreams. For as long as I could remember, Christian had wanted to be a doctor. My mother would tell me how he used to follow the rural nurse around on her visits, helping clean stinking wounds, immunize crying children, and teach proper hygiene to his people. Over time the village children started calling him “Dok Dok,” and the elders often sought his advice before traveling the long road to see the proper
dokotela.

Neither my mother nor I could discourage him from this path, even though we both tried. I knew the disappointment that would one day be his, when he grew to understand the implications of his color.

But Christian was like an iron rod that would not bend, and despite the many demands I placed on him to collect water, repair the house, tend to his ailing
makhulu
, feed his brothers, sow the seeds, and harvest the
mielies
, he continued to work hard at school and study long into every night.

Finally, with
Mudedekadzi
Mafela's help, and without my knowledge, he'd sent an application to the University of Natal in Durban—the only place where as a black man he could study to be a doctor. When I found out my son had been allowed entry into this important school of learning, I was giddy with pride and fear. Christian was traveling far beyond where my own journey had ended, and I could offer him little advice.

“Ma, I have to go away for a while,” he said, his teeth chattering in his head.

“What do you mean? What about your lessons? What is it, boy?”

His face contorted. “Ma, the police are after me.”

The police. Those two words never traveled alone, terror and dread their constant companions. Christian had always tried to protect me from worry, but this night he offered little to ease my mind. “Is it your pass?” I asked, although I already knew the picture on his T-shirt held the answer to my question.

His eyes shifted nervously about the room. “The security police,” he whispered.

The words landed like a dead body in the middle of the room. I froze.

He grabbed my hand. “Ma, don't worry. I'll be all right. I've just got to—”

“You haven't done anything wrong, have you?”

He looked at me, my young son, his face strong and still. His eyes, however, were not as successful at hiding what was in his heart. I saw fear and I saw something else—pride. Pride in himself and his people, shooting like new growth from a sleeping tree. It scared me.

“Ma, I must do this for you, for me, for every black man. What about Biko? Hector Pieterson? Should their deaths mean nothing?”

“Do what, son? What have you been doing?”

He did not answer.

My begging became more desperate. “Christian, I cannot lose you, my boy. I have lost one child already. What about your studies? You are going to become a doctor.”

He pulled away. “What good is the qualification if I am considered inferior by white patients? If I am not permitted to attend the delivery of a white woman's baby because I will see her genitals?”

My earnest and obedient boy had changed since he had gone to university. New and dangerous thoughts filled his head. He took a mouthful of tea.

I slumped back in my chair and covered my mouth with my hands. I was about to lose a second child. Like Miriam, Christian had simply been lent to me.

“Ma, I don't have much time.” He stood up and put on his jacket. “If they come looking for me, you know
nothing
.”

My mind was searching for a solution. I could hide him under the bed; I could disguise him; I—

“You have not seen me for many months, do you understand?”

“But . . .” It was pointless. “Where will you go?”

Tears tracked across his large brown eyes. “The less I tell you, the better.”

His tears brought mine—furious and silent.

“I'm sorry, Ma.” He kissed my forehead. “
Ndi a ni funa
. I love you.”

I grabbed his big, cold hands and kissed them over and over again, clinging on to him for as long as I could. Then he was gently pulling away.

The key turned in the lock, the door screamed open, and he was gone, melting into the darkness.

1977

Miriam

“That'll be seven pounds and five pence. Would you like the cold items wrapped?”

The woman shook her head and handed me a ten-pound note. “Not to worry. I'm headed straight home.”

A queue was gathering behind her. Juliet, the other checkout operator, was still on morning tea and my till was the only operational one. I hated the pressure of a queue.

“Darn, I've forgotten the coriander!” It was the Indian guy next in line.

I handed the woman her change and flicked the conveyer belt switch, bringing forward the next mound of groceries.

“Mind if I grab some?” he asked. “If I go home without coriander my mum will freak out. She's making a special meal. A celebration.” He flashed a broad smile. “Coriander is the
vital—” He stopped in midsentence. “Miriam? Miriam Steiner, is that you? My god, it is!”

I looked at the customer's face properly for the first time. It was Naresh, Zelda's brother.

“Hi,” I said, wishing it wasn't him.

“Long time no see!”

I flashed a quick smile.

Naresh's eyes were wide with excitement. “I think the last time I saw you was at Zelda's eighteenth birthday. That's almost five years ago.”

I started to ring up his groceries.

“So how you been? What's going down in your neck of the woods?”

I shrugged. “Oh, you know.”

The queue behind Naresh was growing. I didn't need this. I just wanted the day to remain uneventful, generic—a steady, uninterrupted march toward five o'clock.

“Are you at uni?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I'm working here full-time.”

“Full-time?” he repeated, clearly surprised. “Hey listen, Zelda's up from Bedford for the long weekend. Come around. Mum and Dad would love to see you.”

No. Leave me be.

“Um, I'm not sure. I'm working late tonight and—”

“Zelda will have my guts for garters if she finds out I've seen you and didn't get all the goss! What time's your lunch break?” he persisted, undeterred.

I shot a glance at the clock on the back wall. “In about an hour. Around midday.”

“Let's grab a beer across the road then.”

My boss put his head out of his glass booth where he sat most of the day reading girlie magazines. He hated it when staff spent time talking to friends.

“Okay.” Anything to get rid of Naresh. “Better find that coriander,” I said, tilting my head at the lengthening line of people behind him.

When I next saw him, Naresh was sitting at a table in the blue winter sunshine, amber pint in hand. I crossed the road and wandered over. He leapt up, greeted me with a kiss on each cheek, and enveloped me in a hug. I pulled away.

“What can I get you? An ale? A cider?”

“I'm not allowed to drink during work hours,” I said. “But an orange juice would be good.”

Naresh cast around, hoping to catch a waitress's eye, but instead found himself face-to-face with a broad-shouldered, bearded guy dressed in a chunky Aran-knit jumper and baggy khaki trousers.

“Blast from the past! If it isn't Dave Bloomfield,” Naresh exclaimed, laughing the same throaty laugh I'd known so well from years of his tricks and teases. “Today is definitely a day for bumping into old friends.”

Dave Bloomfield had an open face, long wheaten-colored hair bunched loosely into an elastic band, and a dark brown beard. Around his wrists hung a jangle of copper and twisted twine. He slapped Naresh on the back, then spotted me and peaked his wild eyebrows by way of greeting.

“Naresh Patel, good to see you, mate. You on midterm break?”

“That I am. Why don't you join us? This is Miriam, an old friend of my sister's whom I also haven't seen in ages.”

The guy put out his hand. His grip was strong and determined, his warmth spilling onto me. “Hey!”

My mind went blank.

The arrival of a waitress lanced an awkward pause. She took Dave's order, then turned to me. “And you?” she said dismissively.

I retreated into my chair. “Orange, please.”

“Juice? Cordial? Irn-Bru? Big, small? What?”

“Jui—”

“Excuse me.” Dave stood up. “I'm not thirsty anymore.”

Naresh took the cue and slapped the coins for his beer on the table.

My mind started to spin. Naresh and David were already standing. Clumsily I pushed back my chair and made to leave. The waitress shrugged and walked off.

As the three of us made to cross the road to the park opposite, I struggled to understand what had just happened. Had Naresh and his friend taken a stand against the waitress's rudeness toward me? Surely I'd got it wrong. Discourtesy was so commonplace, I barely noticed it anymore. I'd come to accept being treated differently. After all, I
was
different. I was black.

Dave stepped off the curb. “Jeez, sorry about that, Miriam.” He'd remembered my name.

So, it
was
true. No one had ever stood up for me in public before. It was a heady feeling. I floated over the road.

Naresh bought us each a cool drink at the corner store, then we found a shady spot under a giant poplar and sat down on the
grass. Naresh and his friend did most of the talking, which I was grateful for, and nothing more was said of the incident at the pub—also a relief.

I was captivated by Dave Bloomfield—this guy with big hands and gray-green eyes. He was quietly self-assured, interesting and interested . . . He'd awakened something inside of me.

It felt as though the end of my lunch break arrived before it had even begun, and I reluctantly took my leave, but not before Naresh had extracted a promise from me to visit his family the following day.

—

Zelda sat cross-legged on her bed. Her hair had been cut into a short bob and her lanky body had filled out, but otherwise she was still the same ebullient Zelda I remembered. The difference was that now her spark and cheeriness, which had first drawn me to her, irritated me.

I perched on the edge of her desk in a room as familiar as my own. Snoopy and Scooby-Doo still slouched in the corner, and the same lime-green bedspread covered her bed. The pine desk was there too—pushed up against the wall—equations and doodles etched into the wood, and the blackened bunch of roses from her school dance was still suspended from the ceiling.

The physical familiarity remained, yet everything else about our friendship felt different. Once we'd been as close as sisters, but now our conversation stumbled along the edges of a rift that had opened up between us.

I knew exactly the day the decay had set in—the day I'd
discovered I was pregnant. I'd shut everyone out, including Zelda. Our relationship did manage to hobble along for a time after that, but eventually petered out.

“Cigarette?” She held up a packet of Peter Stuyvesants, her eyes glinting like a naughty schoolgirl's. I'd never seen her smoke before.

“It's okay,” she reassured me, flinging open a window. “Mum's out all afternoon. Just need to keep the air circulating.”

I took a cigarette and leaned forward, letting her light it for me. This was as close as we'd come in five years. It felt good—holding the cigarette. Something to do with my hands. I inhaled and soon the nicotine was working its calming ways, thawing my unease.

“Working full-time at a grocery store?” she said incredulously. “I just don't understand. You were the one who was going to be a psychologist.
I
was the one just wanting to fool around till I landed some gorgeous hunk, got married, and had hundreds of kids.”

“Well, at least you filled your end of the bargain,” I flashed. “Training to be a teacher—you'll be surrounded by kids all day.”

“But don't you want more?” she persisted. “I mean, you can't work as a cashier all your life, not with that brain on your shoulders.”

“I need the money. I'm not living at home.”

“Oh. I didn't know.” She looked hurt, perhaps by my tone and the fact that she was no longer privy to what went on in my life.

“Yeah, I left at the end of last year. I'm staying in a studio on Beaconsfield Road.”

She nodded. “So won't Rita and Michael pay for you to go to university?”

“I don't want their money,” I said, spitting out the words. I could hear the hardness in my voice, as if it didn't belong to me. “I'm a failed experiment. They thought I'd study at some prestigious college and do them proud.” I tossed back my head. “Maybe even give them a few grandchildren—a few little brown babies to continue the Steiner lineage.”

Zelda leaned forward and touched my arm. “Hey, where's my old friend gone? You were never so cynical.”

I pulled away.

She grabbed my hand back. “Don't shut me out, Miriam. Remember me, your crazy friend?”

I stood up. It was time to leave.

As I turned, something on Zelda's bookshelf caught my eye. Propped against a yellow vase was a photograph of a little girl with a mass of tightly wound auburn curls and deep, delicious dimples. She looked about six years old.
You ar the best teecha in the hole werld, mis patel
was scrawled in crayon at the bottom of the picture.

I picked it up.

“One of the kids from my first teaching prac,” she said, coming up behind me.

I put the photograph down and quickly wiped away a tear.

Feeling Zelda's hand on my shoulder I tensed, trying to shrug it off, but she swung me around to face her. I was so close I could see the tiny pores in her flawless complexion and smell her cigarette breath. Then the scaffolding I'd so carefully constructed around me began to collapse.

We spoke late into the day, leaving a bin full of used tissues and an empty pack of cigarettes in our wake. I told Zelda my story and she listened as I filled in the gaps that had almost toppled our friendship.

“When I was seventeen I had an abortion.”

“What?”

“The weeks leading up to it were terrible. I couldn't tell anyone, not even you or your mum. She would have been so disappointed in me.” I cleared my throat. “I was terrified someone would find out. If the school discovered, I'd have been expelled.” I felt the twisting knot of apprehension all over again. “Anyway, after it was all dealt with, it was good for a while. Just an incredible relief to have it sorted.” I picked up the picture of Zelda's little pupil again and fingered the edges of the frame. “But then they started haunting me—nightmares, about the baby.” I closed my eyes, the darkness behind my lids offering no reprieve.

“I saw her eyes everywhere—my daughter's eyes. In every kid's face I saw my own child interrogating me
. Why, Mama? Why?
”

“God, Miriam, I wish you'd told me,” Zelda said, running a hand through her hair.

“She'd be six by now,” I went on. “I know it was a girl. I just do. Now I can't get her out of my mind. My unborn daughter is everywhere. I see her in every child and wonder if that's what she would have looked like, been like, smelled like . . .”

I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding false and bitter. “Maybe that's why my own mother didn't abort me. To avoid the
what-if
curse. Not that she knows anything about me. I may as well have been the spirit of an aborted kid surfing the underworld for all she cared.”

Zelda listened, and although she said nothing, I could feel her lifting off the load I'd carried around for so long.

“Sometimes it gets so black, Zel, I just want to end it all. Join my baby. Tell her I love her. Because I do. I did.” I was rambling, my words spilling out in a dizzy jumble. “What's the point of going to university and training to help other people when my own life is so stuffed up? What a joke! What do I know anyway? I threw away my only chance at love.”

Outside, the wind was toying with the washing on the line, punching pregnant bulges in the sheets, then sucking them flat.

“Rita had an affair. And poor pathetic Michael, he knew . . . yet still he hangs on. I don't know why. It's tragic. She treats him like dirt, as if he's black or something. Shit, I hate being black. I hate it, Zelda. I hate it!”

She put a slim finger to her lips. “Shhh, I'm going to get you help. I promise.”

Bizarrely, it was the sight of her gnawed fingernail that finally triggered my tears. Perhaps it was the wonderful familiarity and constancy of it—Zelda had been chewing her nails for as long as I could remember. Some things never changed.

“I'm glad you came today,” she said. “I thought I'd lost you forever.”

Later, as I wandered down the Patels' driveway, I heard someone call my name. I looked around.

“Hi again.” It was the Aran jumper guy—Naresh's friend. The one from the pub.

He touched my elbow in greeting. My whole body tingled.

“We must stop meeting like this,” he said with a deep, playful laugh. “Been visiting the Patels?”

I nodded.

“You headed back into town?”

I nodded again.

“Hang fire a minute,” he said. “Just got to drop off a fiver Naresh lent me yesterday, then I can walk with you.”

“Okay.”

I stood in the purple dusk waiting for Dave Bloomfield to return. A breeze blew across my face and I breathed it in, savoring its cool embrace.