Another Woman's Daughter (8 page)

Instantly the game was back on, with kids running and hurling, catching and slam-dunking, and I was a part of it. I was so happy, I didn't want the afternoon to end, but it did. As evening wrapped itself around us, and mothers called their children indoors, Zelda walked with me to the end of her road.

“See ya tomorrow,” she sang, as we parted ways.

“Yes, tomorrow.”

I walked backward, waving, until I had to turn the next corner.

Michael and Rita were both home by the time I got back—
Michael in his study on a business call and Rita in the lounge sipping a sherry and reading a medical journal.

“Hi, Rita,” I said, bouncing into the room.

She glanced up. “How was school?”

“It was so much fun. I—”

“Good,” she said absently.

I hovered, bursting to talk. I wanted to let the happiness of the afternoon pour out. I wanted to tell Rita about my new friends, about my best friend. I wanted to tell her about basketball and sweet almond cake, Mrs. Patel's kitchen and—

“I'm tired tonight,” she said. “I think we'll just heat a tin of soup for supper, hey?”

I nodded, the fullness of the afternoon quickly collapsing.

“Why don't you hop in the shower before dinner.”

And with that, darkness folded itself over my day.

1967

Miriam

“Make a wish, Miriam,” Mrs. Patel said, handing me a knife.

I held it over the tall pink cake, a number thirteen marked out in red glacé cherries and silver balls.

“Hurry up, slowcoach,” Zelda teased. “How long is that wish of yours? It'll double as a Christmas cake if you take much longer!”

I laughed and sank the knife into the sponge. Almond cream bulged from the sides.

“Thank you for making my favorite cake, Mrs. Patel,” I said, handing her the first piece.

She dipped her head in acknowledgment, then passed the plate on to Mr. Patel. “Too much for me.”

We ate cake, sipped copious cups of iced tea, and shared riddles long into the afternoon. It was the best birthday ever.

Zelda and I were at different schools now—her parents
choosing an all-girls senior school in a somewhat futile bid to limit the distractions. As a result Zelda and I didn't see as much of each other as we once did, though I still visited frequently. And even if Zelda wasn't home, I often ended up chatting to Mrs. Patel for hours on end. She was a remarkable woman—a lighthouse in the fog that always seemed to surround me. All my insecurities magically evaporated whenever I was around her. Zelda was so lucky to have her as her mum.

“Miriam, I think it's time to officially make you an honorary member of our family,” Mrs. Patel said, sweeping cake crumbs into her hand. “Remember the first time you visited? So shy and quiet.”

“And look at her now,” teased Mr. Patel. “Thirteen years old and nearly as cheeky as our Zelda.”

I giggled.

“Doing something special tonight with the family?” he asked cautiously.

I looked down. “Rita and Michael might be taking me out for dinner. I'm not sure.”

He flashed a brief smile, cut himself another slice of cake, then opened out the classifieds section of the newspaper.

I'd seen Mr. Patel do this so many times before, scanning the pages and circling advertisements with a red pen.

“Mr. Patel,” I pried, “every afternoon you page through the classifieds. What are you looking for?”

“Well may you ask,” Mrs. Patel interjected, skewing her eyebrows.

“May
I
answer?” he protested. “Women!” He shook his
head, then hoisted Navin onto his lap just in time to stop the wee boy from picking another cherry off the cake.

“Since your brother Naresh is no longer living at home, I'm relying on your support, young man.” He tapped his small son's chest with his forefinger. “This house is steeped in estrogen. We have to stick together.”

The little boy struggled to get off his father's lap.

“Now, if I can answer Miriam's question,” Mr. Patel said slowly, throwing a mock scowl at his wife in anticipation of another interruption. “I trained as a mechanical engineer in India, and Rahini as a midwife. We came to this country eleven years ago, looking for a better life and greater opportunities for our children. We hoped to find jobs in our respective professions.” His face darkened. “Sadly, this was not to be.”

He moved over to his wife. “Out of necessity I became a taxi driver and my dearest Rahini . . . Well, you've done everything from being a janitor to working in a Launderette, haven't you?”

She shrugged in resignation.

“Just so long as you could be home by the time the kids got out of school.” He held out a hand to her.

“But . . .” I was perplexed. “But why can't—”

“Sanjit still applies for jobs eleven years later,” Mrs. Patel interrupted, her voice tremulous. “And with each rejection, another little piece of him dies.”

“It's so unfair, Dad.” Zelda sulked. “Just because you're—”

“What are you complaining about, young lady?” Mr. Patel said, swinging around. “Do you have a roof over your head? Go to the very best of schools? Is this home always filled with
friends
and
the ever-comforting aroma of your mother's cooking? Hm?”

Mrs. Patel smiled.

“No guest visits without receiving a good dose of your mother's hospitality and a dash of Indian philosophy too. Am I right?”

“Okay, okay, Dad! Don't get carried away,” Zelda protested. “This is Miriam's birthday. Remember? Time to get out of here,” she cried, grabbing my arm.

I excused myself and we set off on our bikes for Curls department store.

There, Zelda treated me to my first ever manicure. She couldn't have one, though, because she'd chewed all her fingernails right down to the quick, and the manicurist said there was nothing she could do about that. My hands didn't look as if they belonged to me by the time the woman with mauve hair was done. I felt like a proper English lady. And afterward, even though I was still full from afternoon tea, we shared a double-thick lime milk shake, before heading our separate ways home.

I was about halfway home when the resistance in my pedals gave way and my feet started to spin furiously. My bike chain had slipped off its cogs. Not wanting to ruin my new nails by fiddling with a greasy chain, I decided to push my bike the rest of the way.

I'd had the best time ever, yet as I struggled uphill the warmth of afternoon started to leak out of my day. For some time now I'd been feeling a vague sense of disquiet. It was nothing I could articulate or define, but rather a peculiar, haunting
awareness of something—a restlessness without clear shape or definition. And it seemed to plague me the most whenever I was alone and had time to ponder things.

As I pushed my bike up the street, a familiar circuit of dark thoughts slipped into my mind.
Thirteen years ago a woman gave birth to me. My mother. But she gave me away. Was I not good enough? Why didn't she want me?

For almost seven years I'd forced these thoughts down, depriving them of oxygen and light. It had taken all my energy to keep them buried this way—existing only as a dull gnawing grayness. But then, as my body started to grow and change, and womanhood knocked at my door, questions—relentless questions—forced their way into my head. I tried to ignore them, tried to plug the holes, but they were insistent and soon became the backdrop of my every day.

I pushed my bike up the gravel path of our house. The place was in darkness; no one was home. I'd hoped Rita and Michael would have come back from work early on my birthday.

I was unlatching the back gate when, without warning, my morose thoughts and questions morphed into something more. I sucked in a stuttering breath. An image, which had been hiding in the dark room of my mind, was finally developed. And it didn't fit with what I'd always been told.

She stands in front of the stove, her black frame erect and proud, wooden spoon poised over a battered preserving pan. She is completely still, seemingly mesmerized by the rise and fall of the sugary sea. It is a hot African morning and the air is thick with the sweet smell of fig jam.

Just when I think she'll never move again, she scoops up a spoonful of the scalding liquid and drops it onto a saucer, then, tilting and rotating the blob of gold, she checks for fine creases in the sample.

I cross my fingers, hopeful for one more saucer to lick before the golden sweetness is locked away in squat glass jars with shiny brass lids—treasure that will belong to someone else.

I can almost smell her—a comforting cocktail of Sunlight soap and wood smoke—and touch the beads of perspiration hiding in the creases behind her knees. Her laughter bursts into my head. Then I hear her call me—my name full and round in her mouth. Frustratingly, though, her face blurs under the pressure of my focus.

I was confused. Had this picture simply grown out of longing? Out of a desperate wish to be wanted? Had I painted it to fulfill a fantasy?

But there was more. The corners of this beautiful snapshot were curling in and a darkness appeared to be growing like mold over the color.

I wheeled my bike around to the back of the house. The light was on in the shed. I could hear voices.

“How can you live with yourself? You
promised
to give it to her. She was the child's mother, for God's sake!”

“Don't lecture me with your high-and-mighty morals, Michael Steiner. And don't pretend you weren't in on it too. If you go giving it to her now, it'll just be more difficult. A nightmare, in fact. It's been no picnic to this point, I can tell you. Had I only known how hard it would be, I don't think I—”

“But
why
keep it hidden all these years?”

“How is it any different from everything else we've kept from her? You tell me! You didn't want to share her either.”

“Is there nothing we can agree on, Rita?”

“How about you trying, just for once, to see it from my side. It's no wonder the kid doesn't like me, with you forever critical of what I do. I've never been good enough, have I?”

“Reet—”

“Anyway, next time don't go prying under my bed.”

“I
wasn't
prying. I told you. I was looking for somewhere to hide her present. I can't live with myself, Rita. I promised Celia—”

“You promised
Celia
, did you?
Of course
you did!”

My bike fell to the ground with a clatter.

Michael flung open the shed door, outing me in a white shaft of light.

“Miriam!”

Behind him stood Rita, her face flushed, her eyes glistening with tears.

No one said anything.

Rita cleared her throat. “Miriam, Michael is taking you to dinner tonight. Sorry, but I have a talk to prepare.”

“But, Reet, it's Miriam's birthday.” His eyes implored her. “Your presentation isn't due till next week. Don't do this.”

She pushed past him, past me, and headed for the house.

“Don't ignore your duty, Rita,” he shouted after her. “Your responsibility to our child!”

She turned, her eyes ablaze. “
Our
child? Don't you dare talk to me about responsibility, Michael Steiner. You . . . you . . .
Her
bloody mother gave her away,” she shouted, pointing a shaking finger at me.

Michael lunged at her, trying to put a hand over her mouth.

I covered my ears and ran blindly into the night.

—

Several hours later, Michael and I sat opposite each other in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant. We were the only patrons in the forlorn room with red and orange lanterns drooping from the ceiling.

I looked down at the flat banana fritter in front of me. The fizzing sparkler in the middle of my melting ball of ice cream was listing to one side, silver sparks leaping from it like fleas into the night.

I turned and saw my reflection in the window—a skinny black girl illuminated intermittently by a flashing neon light—
The Golden Wok, The Golden Wok, The . . .
And as if hypnotized, I fell into a soothing state of numbness.

1967

Celia

At 10:40
A.M.
an orange light flashed above the vacated counter. “Next!” A small voice, made bold by the microphone, boomed across the room. I hurried toward the light and the square black letters I knew by heart read
Bantu
.

Behind the glass division sat a tiny madam. She could have been no more than twenty years old, but her pale face was empty and her blue-ice eyes flat.

“Ja?”

“Thank you, Madam. I come for this.”

I slid a hand into my bra and pulled out two yellowed sheets of paper, unfolding them carefully on the counter.

The white madam became impatient. “Here. Pass it under the glass.”

I let go.

Her eyes moved quickly over Miriam's birth certificate and the letter the Madam had written with me seven years earlier.

“Mm-hm. Uh-huh. Yes. And?”

“I want to speak with my daughter. On this paper, you see, Madam, Miriam, she is my daughter.”

“Not anymore,” the madam said. “This says you gave her to a Mr. and Mrs. Steiner, who were going to live in England. She's theirs now.”

That was not right. I had to explain. “
Hau
, no, Madam. They say to me they will bring her back and she will write me letters, but nothing.”

“Look here . . . uh, Celia. According to this letter, you've signed away your rights to the child. It says you agreed to them adopting her in England. Is this your name? You put this cross here?”

I couldn't keep up with the madam's fast words as they spilled out of her thin, pink mouth.

“Is—this—your—name?” she repeated. “Celia Mphephu?”

“Yes.” I smiled. We were getting somewhere. “Yes, this is my name.”

“Then you have agreed. There is nothing more I can do.”

Nothing more I can do
. I understood those words.

“
Hau
, Madam. I am trying for so long. Six years. Please, you must help me—”

A loud buzzing noise rang out, interrupting us. I spun around, ready to run. It was either a bomb scare or a fire alarm. But no one was trying to escape the room. I turned back to the madam just in time to see her pushing my papers back through
the small gap between us, then she pulled down the sliding glass partition with a loud clunk.

“Koffie?”
I heard her say to the white master in the next booth, as she rolled her chair away from me and tottered toward a door at the back of the office. It was her coffee break.

My swollen feet throbbed and my tummy growled as I stood waiting for the pretty one to return. I had been up since four that morning and had caught three different buses to get to Pretoria, where all official matters were dealt with. My boss had agreed to give me the day off, so long as I worked Sunday instead. I was hungry, and the thought of coffee made my stomach call out, but I dared not leave the queue I'd been waiting in since before sunup.

At 11:00
A.M.
the madam lifted the glass wall and sat down.

“Ja?”
There was no recognition in her eyes.

I pushed Miriam's birth certificate back under the counter, uninvited.

“You? Still here! I thought I told you there's nothing I can do.”

“
Asseblief
,
miessies
. Please. I love my daughter so bad. She needs her mummy.”

“You should have thought about that before you gave her away,” she said, refusing to pick up the document. Her blue eyes met mine. My heart looped inside my chest. For a moment we were just two women together in this world. Then she looked away.

“Please, Madam.”

She sighed a sigh that said,
I'm not going to get rid of this girl so easily.

The master in the next booth looked up, and she rolled her pretty eyes at him. He laughed, commiserating with her over their frustrating job. “Whites
adopting
a native,” she said, lifting up the limp sheet of paper. The master's smile disappeared and his top lip rolled back over his square white teeth.

“Look,” she said, turning back to me. “Leave your details. I'll see what I can find out. I doubt this is even a legal document. What's your address?”

“Thank you. Thank you, Madam!”

Before I could give the answers she wanted, she realized it was going to be quicker to get the information herself than wait on my broken sentences.
“Dompas.”
She stretched her arm under the glass, opening and shutting her hand like a duck's mouth.

I fumbled for my passbook.

The madam scanned the pages. “You're working as an office cleaner in Joburg?”

“Yes, Madam. Office cleaner. You can write me at my boss—Master Nicholson. Nicholson Commercial Cleaners, P.O. Box 196, Johannesburg.”

The woman scribbled the address down. “And your full name and date of birth?”

“Celia Dembe Mphephu,” I said, feeling important.

The white one continued to page through my passbook, preferring to trust the official print. Suddenly she stopped. “What's this?”

I craned my neck. All I could make out was a meaningless blur of print, stamps, and pen marks.

“You've been in jail?” she said, her small voice growing loud.

The big hall went quiet. People in other queues turned to see what the commotion was about.

My mouth felt dry. “Yes, Madam. But it is mistake. Big mistake.”

The pretty one's cheeks had turned pink and her blue eyes were now almost all white, as if finally frozen over. She wasn't listening to my words.

I kept trying. “Six year ago I leave very bad job. The madam—a Portuguese madam—
hau
, she get too angry. She tell police I am a thief. But it is wrong. It is not true.”

“Go! Don't waste my time.”

I wanted to say more, but I couldn't; her words had winded me.

“See how long the queue is behind you? We have no time for
tsotsis
. Your daughter is better off without you. Now leave!”

Her words kept coming, exploding like bullets as they hit.

In a daze, I turned to walk away. My mind was tired and my desperation finally robbed of its power. Then I remembered Miriam's birth certificate. I swung around just in time to see the flimsy sheet shimmying off the counter and floating to the floor. The Bantu queue parted as I dived between bags and black legs and scrambled on all fours to retrieve the document. People looked on, my story distracting them from their own. Clutching the crumpled prize to my breast, I climbed slowly to my feet and, putting one foot in front of the other, crossed the wide-open space. The piece of paper in my hand was the only proof I had that thirteen years ago I had given birth to a baby girl. It was the only piece of Miriam I had left—all that stood between me and madness.

Above the hush of the room, I heard the master ask the one
with empty blue eyes out for a drink that evening.
“Drink vanaand?”

I looked back.

The madam, her cheeks still an angry pink, smiled coyly.
“Ja,
goed,”
she said, crumpling up the paper with my details.

I stumbled out of the building into the white afternoon light.