Another Woman's Daughter (13 page)

1984

Miriam

It was Christmas Eve and snowing. Dave and I had been invited to a party hosted by one of his squash mates. Stooping under a bower of fairy lights, we made our way up the freshly shoveled path.

Dave clasped my gloved hand firmly in his as he knocked on the half-open door. He knew how much I hated these first moments.

Voices and funky Christmas music emanated from within.

“Hellooo,” he called out.

A guy with greasy brown hair appeared from a side door, balancing three full glasses in his hands. “Dave, mate! Season's greetings and all that jazz. Follow me, the action's this way.”

“Nick, this is Miriam . . .”

I smiled, but our host was already heading toward the din, sloshing Christmas punch out of the glasses with inebriated
carelessness. Dave winked at me as we eased past a couple snogging in the hallway.

Soon we were standing on the edge of a room packed with florid faces, raucous laughter, and gyrating bodies. A wave of marijuana, beer, pizza, and cheap perfume smells hit us. Nick disappeared into the maze of bodies and party people quickly resealed the hole. We'd just lost our introduction. My pulse picked up. I always felt our separateness so acutely. Dave slung his arm around me and gave me a kiss on the ear. Heads turned, then more, until, like a Mexican wave spreading through the room, all eyes were on us. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” competed with the awkward hush.

“Right, now what'll you guys have? Beer, glass of wine, some punch?” It was the Nick guy, miraculously returned.

Chatter clumsily restarted, the uncomfortable silence lifted, and we—the conspicuous mixed-race couple—began to mingle.

—

It was after midnight by the time Dave unlocked the door to our inner-city apartment and we stepped in out of the minus-four-degree night. He left the lights off, allowing the moon to steep us in its silver shadow. One of the sash windows in the lounge was partially open, the gap channeling in an icy draft and the discordant sounds of revelers on the street below.

Dave pulled it shut, sealing us into a space where the only sounds were those we made—a chair leg scraping across the floor, the squeak of Dave's sneakers, the jangle of my bracelets. The familiarity of these surrounds began to debrief us and soon
we were making love—slowly and deeply, but as always, tinged with sadness. Outside our walls the world balked at the very notion of our bond and tested it at every turn. We could only play at being free inside this cocoon.

Seven years had passed since the evening Dave had accompanied me home from the Patels'—seven years since our surreal love affair had begun. Yet
still
it felt illusory—me and Dave Bloomfield. Kind, white Dave. He had persuaded me to leave my job at the grocery store and pursue my dream of becoming a psychologist. A scholarship from Cambridge saw that goal eventually realized and, equipped with Dave's unconditional love and Zelda's unwavering friendship, I'd risen to the challenge. I was now in my final year, on clinical attachment.

“Dave, you awake?”

He grunted, on the brink of the weightless sleep that follows lovemaking.

“Sorry, must have been dozing,” he said, sitting up on the sofa, his hair all tousled. “God, it's freezing. Let's hop into bed.”

“Dave, I've been thinking. I need to go back.”

He rubbed his eyes. “What do you mean? Did you leave something at the party?”

“Africa. I've got to go back to Africa.”

He pulled on his boxer shorts, as though his nakedness was inappropriate for the words he knew would surely follow. This day had been threatening forever. For years it had been hanging in the wings, and now I was about to confirm what we'd both always known—that our relationship was transient and our happiness borrowed.

He nodded, as if any protestation would be selfish and pointless. Dear, gentle Dave. He'd understood the conditions of our partnership. He knew the limitations the world imposed on us.

“I sit in sessions listening to my patients—troubled individuals trying to find themselves. They hang on my every word, but really I have no more of an identity than they do. I don't know who I am.”

He closed his eyes.

“Don't block me,” I said, even though he'd offered no verbal resistance. “Tonight I listened to all those Christmas songs and felt
nothing.
I ate plum pudding as though eating some strange foreign delicacy. I looked out on the snowy landscape and I felt like a
visitor
. These things are not a part of me. Not my heritage. Not my custom. I'm an observer, looking on at life from behind a screen. I can't feel it. I can't believe it. It eludes me. I don't belong here!”

He turned, the moonlight silvering his silent tears.

“I'm tired of trying,” I went on. “Trying to fit in. I want to be accepted. I can't swim against this tide anymore. I just can't.”

He picked up my hands and kissed them tenderly.

But there was more. I couldn't stop. “I feel dead inside. Are there smells somewhere that will wake me up? Landscapes that will move my soul? You delight in Handel's
Messiah
, in Mozart and Brahms, yet I still haven't heard music that moves me.”

He was sitting so still it frightened me.

“I love you more than you will ever know, and the thought of us splitting up is unbearable, but I can't keep offering you only half of myself. I have to go back. I have to see what I've left behind so I can navigate the road ahead.”

After a long silence he spoke. “What about us?”

I looked at him.

“What about marriage, kids, everything?”

I sat, silent. I couldn't say the words he wanted to hear. I'd always been able to use the demands of my degree to delay this discussion. Now my studies were nearing completion.

He dropped my hands.

I stood up and started pacing the room. “I know how much you want kids, but how can I have a child when I flushed the last one down the toilet? How can I be a mother when I don't know my own?”

He bent over and held his head in his hands. It tore at my heart to see him like that. I sat down again beside him, but his body was stiff and held me off.

“Could we really bring a colored child into this world,” I whispered, “when we know what sort of reception it'll receive, what sort of existence it'll have? We live the difficulties every day and we're adults.”

The moon had slipped behind a cloud and darkness enveloped us. We sat there camouflaged by the blue-black night—our love, our sorrow, and our color momentarily hidden.

—

Silver cutlery clanged on the fine bone china.

“It was such a nice surprise to get your call the other day,” Michael said, rescuing another long pause. “We don't seem to have seen much of you two this year.”

Rita, Michael, Dave, and I were spaced out around the large mahogany dining table that could have comfortably seated twelve.

It was Dave who had helped me salvage my relationship with my parents, the one who'd insisted I maintain regular contact. He didn't like Rita, but he understood how fragile my emotional well-being could be and recognized that the good Michael brought into my life outweighed the cost Rita exacted.

“How's that thesis of yours coming along then, David?” Michael asked with overanxious zeal. “Must have been quite a strain being a student again. I bet you'll be glad to be soon earning a proper wage again.”

“More potatoes, anyone?” Rita interrupted, spearing one with her fork.

“Not for me, thanks,” I said.

“Anyway, it must be time for a toast,” she said, pushing the dish of spuds aside. “Get the champagne, Michael.”

On cue, he stood up and disappeared into the kitchen.

“There's a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the door of the fridge for Miriam,” she called after him, then turned back to the table. “
So
, tell us all about it, then.”

Dave hesitated. “Uh, Rita, the thesis has yet to be marked. Maybe a toast is a bit premature.”

“All in good time, David,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We'll toast your success soon, I'm sure. But today we have something even more important to celebrate, don't we?” She gave me a vaudeville wink.

Had I missed something?

David cast me a questioning glance. I shrugged.

“I must admit, Michael and I
were
beginning to lose hope–perpetual students that you are. We'd almost resigned ourselves to an end to the Steiner lineage.”

“Reet!” Michael tried to silence her.

“How many weeks, then? You're barely showing,” she said, eyeing my midriff. “Mind you, careful you don't go eating for two now. So many do and later regret it.”

I looked across at Dave, his mouth agape as Rita's words swept with careless ease into the room.

“I'm not pregnant,” I blurted out. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Rita's face collapsed. She looked across to Dave for help. “You phoned us yesterday, David. Said you had something important to discuss with us and—”

Comprehension dawned. Dave pushed back his chair. “Rita, Miriam is
not
pregnant. That is not what we came here to discuss.”

“Not pregnant?” Rita repeated. “You can't be getting married? I know how antiestablishment you both are.”

Ignoring the melodrama, Dave carried on. He was good at that sort of thing—defusing and placating. “Miriam is going back to South Africa to try to track down her birth mother. We just wanted to let you know and enlist your help. We need to gather as much information as we can before she leaves.”

Michael righted the listing tray of champagne glasses just in time.

“Put the tray down, for God's sake!” Rita flashed.

I sat back in my chair and watched the scene unfold before me. I felt strangely detached. Even the words “Africa” and “birth mother” sounded one-dimensional and unreal. I watched Dave with his big doe eyes and strong hands. He was so caring and loved me so much. I didn't deserve him. What I offered in return
was muted—merely an outline of the real thing. I felt like a ghost, a guest, a visitor. Always a visitor.

Michael retreated to the kitchen and started making a lot of noise at the sink.

Rita sat sulking.

Dave continued. “Miriam's past is integral to who she is. For her to move forward she needs to explore her past. It's her history, her connectedness.”

“Bravo! Very eloquently put,” Rita retorted, quickly recovering. “What noble intentions! Pity they're the product of two completely out-of-touch kids espousing purist notions from the safety of their university towers. Let me tell you about the real world.”

Michael hadn't resurfaced. He was hiding, and I was angry with him for his cowardice.

“Have you thought through how it will be for Miriam, returning to a country where apartheid rules? Where she'll be treated according to the color of her
brown
skin? Have you?” Rita leaned forward on both elbows. She was on the attack. “By all accounts it's not safe for anyone.” Her voice trembled. “Not with the recent unrest. Sally Wilkinson's sister was shot at point-blank range, for ten rand. Life there is cheap, Miriam!”

I stared into Rita's angry pink mouth, at her large tombstonelike teeth. She was desperate, pulling out whatever she had in her armory to dissuade me. But why was she so against my going? It didn't make sense. Why did she even care?

“We've given you—given you
everything
, and this—this is—this is how you repay us!” she said, her sentences splintering.
“So you want to meet your birth mother. And where do you hope to find her?”

“Stop!” Michael boomed. “Stop, right now. I'll have no more of it, you hear?” He was standing in the doorway.

No one moved. Rita closed her eyes. Then Michael slammed the kitchen door behind him.

1984

Miriam

I edged through the sliding doors and squeezed onto the tube. It was rush hour and the train was packed.

The doors closed, sealing me into the overcrowded compartment. Then we were moving—a bullet of fluorescent light shooting through the blackness.

Usually I enjoyed people watching, but today bodies were crammed too closely to gaze freely. I didn't know where to rest my eyes and kept diverting them from the hungry stare of a man two people away from me.

A bright orange advertisement on the ceiling caught my attention. It was for a recruitment agency.
Do you know where you are going
? in bold black letters.

I smiled to myself.
No, I don't.

Bayswater
.
Bayswater
.
Bayswater
flicked by like the start of an old cine movie. Metal screeched, the tube slowed, and we
came to a standstill. All motion was momentarily suspended—people frozen facing their closest door. Even the haunting moans of the tunnel drafts were for a second silenced. Then the doors slid open and the train gave birth to a monster of jostling arms, stiletto heels, and striding purpose.

A rough hand squeezed my crotch. I swung around. There was just a wall of faces. Everyone looked like a pervert.

“Swine,” I cursed, feeling tainted and grubby. But before I could gather myself, the crowd was sweeping me toward the escalator and I was moving up, to be finally flung out onto the street with the rest of the human flotsam.

Aboveground, the chaos and color were immediately calmed. It was snowing, and rooftops, chimneys, fire hydrants, and cars had all been given a magical dusting—one centimeter of white transforming London.

I stopped to buy a bag of roasted chestnuts from a nearby vendor and stood against a shop window savoring them, their heat percolating through the brown paper bag to warm my frozen hands. Then I was continuing on my way.

Eventually I spotted the sign—
The Ploughman
—swinging from a bracket above a large wooden door pockmarked by staples and Borer. I peered through the small square of bars set into the door, then heaved it open and was met with a wall of heat and noise.

I stepped inside and self-consciously scanned the heaving room, my eyes snagging on the absent glances of patrons purveying “the newcomer.”

Finally I spotted Michael at a far table, beside an open hearth. He must have been there for some time to secure such a prime
position. He waved and, like a lost child claimed at a fair, I felt the knot in my stomach loosen.

I removed my scarf and coat and made my way across the room, dodging trestle tables, rowdy men, and miniskirted waitresses balancing jugs of amber ale.

“Sorry I'm late.” I leaned forward and gave him a kiss, the tip of my nose thawing against his cheek. “I was delayed at work and then the Underground was so busy . . .” I was out of breath.

“Sit, child.” He always had such a calming manner. “What can I get you to drink?”

“I'd kill for a glass of white wine. Sweet, please. But I'll get it.”

“No, you won't,” he said, and before I could protest, he was swallowed up by the crowd.

I sank into a chair beside the fire. Archaic farming implements decorated the hearth, lending the place a rustic, earthy feel. It felt homely—an honest sort of place—except for the suspender-belted waitresses.

Soon the heat had melted the chill inside my bones, and the flickering orange flames were seducing me. The stresses of my day, my week, the past month, began to dissipate.

After a while, Michael returned, glass of wine and tankard of stout in hand.

“What an obstacle course!” he shouted above the din, sipping off some of the froth on his stout. “But not a drop spilled.”

I tapped the side of my mouth.

He chuckled and wiped away the white mustache with the back of his hand.

Over the next hour we chatted about this and that—inconsequential things happening on the surface of our lives—until I began to wonder whether there had been anything more to our arranged meeting than one of our intermittent catch-ups coinciding with us both being in London for the day. When he'd phoned I'd assumed he'd wanted to clear the air after the recent altercation. But judging by the ways things were going, either my assumption had been wrong or he'd lost his nerve.

As if reading my thoughts, Michael's face suddenly collapsed and his posture wilted. “Miriam,” he said, focusing on my forehead.

“Yes, Michael?”

He seemed to be having trouble getting the words out.

I waited as I'd been taught to do—“patient-centered listening.” Clearly he was wrestling with something. He finally began—clumsily, as if the speech had already started in his head.

“I have to tell you. I've wanted to for so long. I . . .” He was fidgeting with his watch clasp. Open, shut. Open, shut.

“What is it?” I was growing alarmed by his behavior. “Are you unwell?”

“No, no,” he said, carving a groove in the soft wooden table with his thumbnail. His eyes filled with tears.

I didn't put a hand out to comfort him. Something held me back.

He pulled out a bulky brown envelope from under the table and slid it across to me. “You'll need this if you're planning to go back.”

I stared at the package. “What is it?”

“Your adoption papers, and the address of the people Celia went to work for after we left South Africa. They may be able to help you find her.”

“Celia,” I repeated. “My mother?”

He nodded.

“Oh, thank you, Michael!” I felt instantly alive and excited. “This means such a lot to me. I can't tell you . . .” I planted a loud kiss on his head.

But Michael held on to a more earnest expression, his lips as tightly pursed as his clasped hands. He looked away, avoiding my questioning gaze.

“Is something the—”

“Open it,” he interrupted, pointing to the envelope.

I unpeeled the seal and put my hand inside, momentarily fingering the mysterious contents as if playing the game we used to play at school where we tried to identify objects in a velvet pouch by touch. I pulled them out. A sheet of paper with a pharmaceutical firm's letterhead. Rita's hallmark. She was always getting freebies from the drug reps—pens, writing pads, once even a trip to Sweden. Several names and addresses had been scribbled down. Another sheet of paper—limp and yellowed and almost split in two along a well-worn fold.
The adoption of Miriam Lufuno Mphephu
. Miriam Mphephu. That name again. My name? My hands trembled as they clasped the old document. Also a wad of pale blue air letters bound with fraying twine.
Those
letters. Impatiently I pulled at the knot, the string disintegrating in my fingers.

“Miriam, I've wanted to tell you for years,” Michael said, his voice strangled. “But Rita . . . Then you and David visiting
the other night . . . I couldn't keep it from you any longer. I just couldn't.”

I barely heard his words as I rifled hungrily through the letters. Something slipped out from between them. A photograph. I'd seen it before—the picture of a black woman, her face obscured by a dark speckled stain.

“Your mother,” Michael whispered.

I drew the photograph up close, straining to see what lay beneath the smudge of my own blood. She looked beautiful. My mother looked so beautiful.

Then, as if there had been some delay in a long-distance telephone conversation, words Michael had uttered moments earlier now reached me.

“What? Kept
what
from me?” My voice was shaking.

“Your mother loved you. She never wanted to give you up.”

I felt as if I was falling down a steep ravine and the air was being sucked from my lungs in one silent scream.

Michael looked instantly different, as if relieved of some great burden.

I tried to speak, but nothing intelligible came out.

“Celia—your mother—loved you.”

My skin rose into a thousand goose bumps.

“She only gave you away because she thought you'd have a better life out of South Africa and away from the cruelties of apartheid.” He swallowed loudly.

I downed the rest of my wine.

“We desperately wanted a child of our own. You filled that void. Rita had suffered two miscarriages and then a stillbirth. She was devastated. Broken. We both were.”

He was staring into the distance, the painful scene once again unfolding before him.

“You brought warmth back into our home, a purpose, something that had been missing for so long. You gave our relationship a second chance. Rita seemed almost happy when you were around. I thought it would change everything—a child we could call our own.” He shook his head despairingly.

I couldn't move. My joints had been set in concrete, my lungs squeezed thin.

“When your mother agreed to the adoption, Rita was so excited and made promises. Promises she couldn't keep. She promised we'd visit at least once a year. She promised we'd write often.”

“Couldn't keep?”

“Rita had a change of heart once we were here. I think she was scared she'd lose you, just as she'd lost her other babies. Sharing came at a price she wasn't prepared to pay. So she, or rather
we
, made a decision to cease contact with your mother.”

I held my hand over my mouth, stifling the strange sounds coming from it. A kaleidoscope of emotion was twisting through me—disbelief, elation, horror, anger. My mind could find no starting point, nor any end. I started gasping as my heart and lungs escaped their straitjacket.

“Are you okay?” Michael put out a hand.

I pulled away.

“We kept the letters your mother sent when we first came to England, until Rita started returning them.”

Panicked, I looked down at the pile of letters. Some were
missing? Some sent back? I'd had nothing for so long, yet now I was mourning the few I would never have.

“We wanted the best for you. Your mother. Rita
.
We all had a common goal, just different ideas on how to achieve it. We all loved you.”

“That's a lie,” I hissed. “Rita
never
loved me.”

Michael straightened. “That's not true. She just doesn't have the tools to express it. Growing up she was never shown much affection. Do you know that once, as a child, she spent an entire midterm break at boarding school, because no one came to collect her.”

“I don't care!”

Michael opened his mouth. Nothing more came out. At least he'd stopped talking. I couldn't bear it any longer. I was addicted to his words, but repelled by them too.

I saw the envelope on the table was distorted by something else. I tipped it upside down and a small wooden figure rolled out. Michael caught it before it fell off the table and passed it to me.

“And this? What's this?” I shouted, holding up the doll with large owl eyes and a beaked nose.

People at the next table turned.

“I think it's a mythological character,” Michael whispered. “Meant to watch over you and keep you safe from harm. Your mother sent it.”

In a daze I put the doll back into the envelope, then the letters and the adoption papers. I stood up. My chair toppled over, but I left it lying on its side as I made my way blindly out of the pub, bumping into people and furniture as I went.

Michael didn't follow.

I don't remember how I got home, but I remember Dave's warm neck and his comforting smell. I remember that.

24 January 1961

My dear Miriam,

I am lucky because as I speak this letter, Philemon writes it. He is knowing of all the rules to write a proper letter. He has standard eight in qualifications. You see it is very important to be at school.

You must be in England now and I am asking to myself if you see the queen yet and what she looks like from close. I hope she is wearing her crown when you meet. Everyone here is very jealous for you.

I am hoping you are happy with the photograph of me. To make it I must sit in a funny box with a curtain at my shoulder. When I put a coin in the machine, there is a bright light and the sound of a hungry lion. Then my picture pops out. It is magic for sure. Please ask the Master to send me a picture of you. You must grow taller every day.

Philemon's hand is now tired so I will end. I love you and miss you too much, but I am excited for your adventure. I wait for the Master and Madam to write soon.

Your Mme

One Celia Mphephu

13 March 1961

Dear Child,

I hope the Master holds this letter and reads for you. Soon you will be able to read it on your own. I am not yet getting your letter. Please it must be soon. Philemon waits to read to me.

Now I am living in Alexandra location, but the Master can write me at my work in Parkhurst. He is knowing the address.

How is England? Do you eat all your food? It is important to grow strong. I hope Tendani is liking her new house? Remember to cuddle her even if you are getting new toys. Philemon says it is very cold in England so I knit you a warm hat of many colors.

Yours honorably

Mme
(Celia Mphephu)

27 May 1961

Dear Mbila,

I could not find Philemon this week, so I must to pay one student where I am sleeping to write you. I am very anxious for your news. Please ask the Master or Madam to write straight away. I must to know my precious child is
safe. I see Sipho at church on Sunday and he is very much missing his friend. Have you made new friends? What is their name? I am to be very excited when you visit which I hope comes soon.

Dearest child,

I am too worried . . .

I am loving you.

1 February 1962