Another Woman's Daughter
Read Another Woman's Daughter Online
Authors: Fiona Sussman
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Copyright © 2015 by Fiona Sussman.
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19481-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sussman, Fiona.
[Shifting colours]
Another woman's daughter / Fiona Sussman.âBerkley trade paperback edition.
p. cm.
“Previously published in the UK as Shifting Colours by Allison & Busby / May 2014”âVerso title page.
ISBN 978-0-425-28104-8 (paperback)
1. BirthmothersâFiction. 2. AdopteesâFiction. 3. Racially mixed peopleâFiction. 4. Family secretsâFiction. 5. South AfricaâFiction. 6. EnglandâFiction. 7. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PR9639.4.S923S55 2015
823'.92âdc23
2015014273
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Previously published in the UK as
Shifting Colours
by Allison & Busby / May 2014
Berkley trade paperback edition / October 2015
Cover art: “Woman” by Joana Lopes / Shutterstock; “Bird” by Kichigin / Shutterstock; background by iStock / Thinkstock.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version_1
For my family, whose love and support bind the pages of this book.
As I embarked on the writing of
Another Woman's Daughter
, I was acutely aware of the challenge aheadâthe challenge of writing in the voice of characters whose life experiences and culture were so different from my own. I hope I have not unwittingly caused offense to anyone. In the end I have drawn on my experiences as a mother, daughter, wife, and sister, and I hope that the common denominator I share with my characters is our humanity.
While the first twenty-five years of my life provided me with personal knowledge of life in South Africa during the apartheid era, I am also indebted to the authors mentioned at the end of this novel, whose works supplemented my knowledge of the world my characters would inhabit.
If this book inspires you to explore other works set against the backdrop of Africa, you may wish to read
Under Our Skin
by Donald McRae,
We Need New Names
by NoViolet Bulawayo,
Tsotsi
by Athol Fugard,
Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan Paton, or
The Grass Is Singing
by Doris Lessing.
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 lidsâtreasure that will belong to someone else.
This is the first memory I have of
Mme
, my dearest mother, the first sweet memory. But it remains tangled with the other
events of that dreadful day; I've never been able to tease the two apart.
Many years have passed and still this picture slides into my mind uninvited, the edges polished, the lines clearly defined. I can almost smell herâa comforting cocktail of Sunlight soap and wood smokeâand touch the beads of perspiration hiding in the creases behind her knees. Sometimes her laughter bursts into my head or I hear her call meâmy name full and round in her mouth. Frustratingly, though, as with all the memories I have of
Mme
, her face always blurs under the pressure of my focus.
ONE
1959
Miriam
Mme
teetered on tiptoes under the low ceiling beams, placing the last jars of fig jam on the shelf beside the other preservesâa fantastic collection of peaches, cling stone plums, deep purple mulberries, tightly packed apricots, mango chutneys, and lemon achar. I counted one, two, three, four . . . nine fat jars of jam transformed by the fingers of morning sunlight into pots of amber.
As she balanced there on the three-legged stool, I inspected the soles of her big black feet. They were white on the underside and black on top. I examined mine. They were pale on the bottom too, but not rutted with the same gullies and canyons of hard, dry skin.
Mme
said one day, when my journey had been longer, my feet would look more like hers.
She jumped down off the stool and landed with a thud, her bottom wobbling under the taut fabric of her maid's uniform.
I jumped up and down trying to make mine jiggle too, but I couldn't see far enough over my shoulder to know if it did. Gideon, the garden boy from next door, said
Mme
had the biggest, most beautiful bottom in the whole of Johannesburg. He would peer over the garden wall whenever she passed and shake his head in admiration. I hoped my bottom would grow round and wobbly like
Mme
's.
A cool breeze swept over the open stable-type door and into the kitchen, diluting the morning heat.
Mme
shifted her gaze to the kitchen clock, its faded hands edging around the small white face. “
Hau
, Miriam! Ten o'clock. Still so much to do.”
She scooped me up and pressed me to her. I loved all her big bitsâher bosom, her bottom, her shiny black calves. She had no angles or peaks, just gentle hills and gradual valleys. “Today is a special day, child. The Madam, she will come home with a new baby. We must make everything good.”
Mme
was excited, so I was too.
Sitting me down at the kitchen table, she secured a tea towel around my neck, picked a plump mango from the fruit bowl, and, with a small paring knife, began to strip away the thick orange skin. She did this with maddening skill, leaving scarcely a trace of sweet flesh on the peels for me to gnaw at while I waited.
The fragrance of the ripe fruit blended with the smell of caramelized sugar still hanging in the air. I breathed in a hungry breath. Mangoes were even better than jam. Then I was chasing the slippery orange ball around my plate, wrestling with it and shrieking each time I lost hold. Finally,
Mme
secured it for me
with the stab of a fork, and at last I was able to sink my fingers into the flesh of my favorite fruit.
It wasn't long before all that was left of my treat was a pale, hairy pip, which
Mme
rinsed under the tap so I could add another member to my Mamelodi mango family.
“This is Baby Mamelodi,” I said, teasing the long, stringy fibers into a frizz.
Mme
frowned as she wiped clean my sticky mustache. “Babies do not have big hair when they are born. You will see the Madam's baby. Maybe it will have no hair.”
No hair? My skin prickled. I didn't like the thought of that. It sounded like a snail without its shell.
“My baby
will
have hair,” I said defiantly, putting Baby Mamelodi out on the back step to dry.
Mme
shrugged.
Later I would draw on eyes, a nose, and a wide-open mouth;
Mme
said babies could cry a lot. But the hair thing kept bothering me like an annoying fly, and later, when no one was watching, I chopped off Baby Mamelodi's hair.
As
Mme
moved through the rest of her chores, I drove a cotton reel between her busy feet, watched as a tribe of ants swarmed over a blob of jam, and arranged a circle of pebbles around the giant pine tree in the garden.
Mme
said it had once been a small
piccanin
of a Christmas tree the Madam had tossed out. Now it stretched to the sky, its roots lifting the slate paving into crooked ripples.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, a honeyed smell of furniture wax filled the huge home. Bathroom basins boasted
gleaming white bowls, wooden floors shone, and the brass reflected all the funny faces I pulled. The house was ready.
“Everything done,”
Mme
said, sinking onto the kitchen stool with a mug of hot tea. I leaned in against her. Her skin was shiny and her uniform damp and strong smelling.
She poured some tea into an egg cup for me, added a drop of milk and two cubes of sugar, then stirred. Now we could drink tea together like grown-ups.
I stirred againâ
clink, clink, clink
. Then the room was quiet, except for the refrigerator humming in the corner like a hive of bees. I was just about to take my first sip of tea when the neighbor's dogs began to bark, then the doorbell screamed, cracking open the afternoon stillness.
I shot under
Mme
's skirt.
“The Madam is here,” she whispered, her words steady and reassuring.
Taking my hand,
Mme
started toward the front door. “Remember, we must not upset the new baby.”
“Celi-a!” The Madam's voice forced its way through the open louvers into the entrance hall. “Celia!”
“Coming, Madam.”
As
Mme
turned the key, the dark panels of wood lunged toward us. I ran and hid behind the umbrella stand, a hollowed-out elephant's leg. It smelled of sour milk and damp clay. I wished I hadn't hidden there. I didn't like the leg. Somewhere in the veld was an elephant hobbling around on three legs.
Peering out from behind it, I saw the Madam standing in the doorway, her wide shape silhouetted by the afternoon sun.
Rita Steiner wasn't pretty like
Mme
. She had a curiously flat
face, with black button eyes and purplish-colored lips, and her big body was draped in loose skin like an elephant's slack hide. She had long brown hair, which she kept twisted in a knot at the nape of her neck.
Mme
said it fell right to her bottom when it was let out. I wished the Madam would let it out. Every night I pulled at my frizzy black curls till tears of pain squeezed out of my eyes, but still I couldn't get my hair to reach below my ears.
The Madam rested her hand on the shiny brass knobâa smooth white hand, which didn't belong to the rest of her lumpy body.
She moved out of the bright light into the cool darkness of the house. Behind her, hidden until now, was the MasterâMichael Steiner. I liked him. He was long and thin like a stick insect, with a nest of brown hair confusing his straight lines, and kind gray eyes that smiled when he spoke. Today his eyes were red and his shoulders curled inward, like a piece of wet paper that had dried awkwardly.
Mme
looked down. She said it was rude to look a white person in the eyes, but my eyes were very disobedient and kept creeping up.
Sunlight forced its way into the entrance hall. An African afternoon clamored to be let inâthe smell of frangipani, the cricking of crickets, a furious blue sky. My mind began to wander to acorn houses, pet lions, and painted warriors.
The wooden door banged shut. The Steiners were standing in the hallway, their arms empty. I peered out through the louver slats. The car was empty.
No one said anything. No one moved. An awful gloom
coiled itself around the room like a snake squeezing out all the air and light.
I smiled at the Master.
Mme
frowned at me.
“Bring us tea in the sunroom, then get the bags out of the car.” The Madam's voice cut a hole in the afternoon.
“Yes, Madam.”
I wondered why the Madam was walking in such a funny way. She looked as if she were balancing a ball between her legs. Once I made it all the way to the bottom of the garden with a tennis ball gripped between my knees. I didn't drop it once.
“Hello, Miriam.” Michael Steiner stepped out of the shadows and rested a warm hand on my head. I wasn't sure whether to smile or not, so I did a quick up-and-down one.
The Madam disappeared into the sunroom and the Master quickly followed.
“Come, child,”
Mme
whispered, ushering me back to the sunlight and sweetness of the kitchen, and we left the entrance hall to the dark tambuti table that lived there and the wrinkly old elephant leg balancing in the corner.
For the next few days the Madam stayed upstairs in her bedroom with the blinds lowered and the thick drapes drawn.
Mme
took her meals up on a tray, and later collected them, barely touched. Once, when I followed
Mme
, the Madam complained that just seeing me sent pains through her swollen bosom and tugged at her collapsed belly. From then on I was confined to the kitchen as
Mme
moved through her jobs on tiptoe and voices were kept to a whisper.
The days that followed were slow and tedious, unless the
Steiners were fighting. Then their angry words would burst open the long silences and I'd yearn for the boredom of before.
“No, Michael, we won't try again. That's it! You hear me? Enough!”
“Reet, I know how you feel. Iâ”
“You have no idea! I can't go through it again. Not again! Two miscarriages, and now . . . now my daughter stillborn!”
So the Madam's baby had missed two carriages and was still waiting to be born.
The Madam's voice rattled and shook as if she were about to laugh, then she started to cry. “I can't do it anymore, Michael.”
I covered my ears, but still her voice found its way into my head.
“And besides, I don't really want a child. This has been about you all along. What
you
want.”
“That's unfair, Rita. You know it is. You've longed for a child as much as I have. You're hurtingâI understand that. Just don't let it come between us. We canâ”
“Leave me alone! Get out!”
Master Michael asked
Mme
to make up a bed for him in the spare room, and after that he and the Madam slept in separate beds. It must have been lonely. I would have hated to sleep in a big bed all on my own. What if the
tokoloshe
came?
The long hours turned into long days, and then long weeks. Darkness skulked in every corner and lived under every floorboard. It hid beneath the roof tiles and pushed down on all of us, making our minds heavy and our bodies sluggish. It was a relief to escape into the sunshine.
Then one morning, as the leaves on the trees began to fall, no longer able to hold on to autumn's gold, the Madam came downstairs, had breakfast, and left for work. Life in the big house returned to the way it had once been, and no mention was ever made of the day the baby didn't come home.
