Another Woman's Daughter (16 page)

Petrol paid for, Thabo reappeared. “There'll be time enough to pay for things,” he said, blocking my contribution.

Once back in the car, he pulled out a stained, bird-pecked map from under his seat and spread it across our laps. Zaziwe hopped about, chasing Thabo's finger as he traced our planned route to the Johannesburg suburb of Parkhurst.

“Out of the way, Zaziwe!” he cried. “I can't see a darned thing.”

The bird hopped onto the steering wheel and then back onto the map.

“She's been really obnoxious lately. I think she's jealous of you.” He grinned. “It's the first time she's had to compete with another woman.”

I felt my face growing hot.

Then we were driving again, this time bound for the north of the city, to my mother's last-confirmed address. Even though my call to Directory Assistance had come up a blank, Thabo had resolved to pay the house a visit in the hope it might shed some light on my mother's whereabouts.

The city landscape started to change. There was more greenery—big trees, stretches of lawn, dense creepers, and shiny-leafed shrubs. I caught glimpses of magnificent homes on a scale I'd never seen before—stunning architectural creations hidden behind solid brick walls, intercoms and security cameras discreetly positioned on perfectly plastered pillars.

Less discreet were the signs.
Immediate Armed Response.
Vicious dog—Beware.
Enter at your own risk
. The signage and inconceivably high walls transformed these stately residences into fortresses. There were even sentries. I spotted a black man in official-looking gear standing guard outside one of the homes, a baton hanging idly from his waist.

“We must leave no stone unturned,” Thabo said out of the blue. “You'll be surprised what you can find under a rock.”

I decided I liked Thabo—his quirky, homegrown take on idioms, his passion and care, his easy laughter. It was just his driving that left a lot to be desired. Speaking of which, without any warning or use of indicators, he swung out of the traffic into a driveway, nearly leveling two black women chatting on the pavement. Then, still in gear, he released the clutch and we lurched forward, before coming to an abrupt halt.

“Nearly drove right past it,” he said casually.

I released my grip on the armrest.

The two women on the pavement were shaking their heads and gesturing angrily. Thabo climbed out and strolled over to them.

“
Uxolo!
Sorry for the fright, mamas,” he said, affectionately placing an arm around the chubbier one. She was the more irate of the two, the other expressing her anger in more muted mutterings.

Thabo tilted his head to one side and peered at the aggrieved women from under his thick black lashes. His enormous eyes were both apologetic and mesmerizing. Not surprisingly, the situation was quickly defused and when I ventured from the car, I stepped into a scene loud with laughter.

Twenty minutes on, the trio were
still
talking. I'd only been able to gather fragments of their lively discussion, gleaned from the few English words peppering their dialogue.

“It's the journalist in you,” I said to Thabo later, when I discovered how much information he'd gathered. “You've got a knack for foraging, haven't you?”

After about a half hour, we were finally climbing back into the little red car. Images of Toad of Toad Hall's erratic driving flashed before me and I braced for the next leg of our intrepid journey, as Thabo wrote something down on a scrap of paper.

“So we're not going to call in at the house after all?”

“No point. The Rodrigues family, for whom your mother worked, has long since moved.”

The reality of his words hit hard. So what had all the merriment been about? Only with time would I come to understand laughter was as necessary as breathing for black Africans.

“But,” Thabo added slowly, the word fat with promise, “the
chubby one, she has worked as a maid next door for almost thirty years. She . . .” He scratched his cheek.

“She what?” I was impatient, especially since I'd already tolerated a half hour of indecipherable chatter.

“She knew your mother.”

“She
knew
my mother
?” My throat tightened and tears immediately blurred my vision. I swung around. The woman had gone. I wanted to say something, but nothing came out. I hadn't afforded her the import she was due. I hadn't studied her face or asked her a single question. I'd been a passenger for the entire conversation.

“They were good friends; however, she hasn't seen your mother in a very long time—many years, in fact.”

He went on to tell me how my mother had fled the Rodrigues' employ, only to be arrested and thrown in prison on an accusation of theft. The two friends lost contact until, out of the blue, a letter had arrived from my mother. She was apparently working for a good family in Parktown North. The chubby one had visited her there once, before again losing touch.

“She's given me the address,” Thabo said, pointing to the scrap of paper on the dashboard.

I grabbed it and scrutinized his scribble.

“So you see, it is not over till the fat lady sings,” Thabo said, grinding the gears into reverse before we shot out into the busy road.

We drove for the next fifteen minutes in silence. I was oblivious to my surroundings and even Thabo's driving, and by the time we parked beside an imposing white wall in an avenue lined
with plane trees, I had picked my thumbnails down to the raw, bulgy bit.

“Wait here,” Thabo said, getting out.

I wound down my window.

He pushed the buzzer of an intercom positioned in the white wall.

“Sawubona,”
said a voice that crackled through the tiny holes.

“Sawubona,”
he said, speaking into the silver box. “Hullo.”

Thabo leaned into the pillar, conversing earnestly with the device.

The voice at the other end went quiet.

Thabo straightened. My heart sank. What now?

I followed his gaze down the long driveway. A black woman in yellow overalls with a matching head scarf and frilled white apron was walking up the drive toward him.

Soon their intercom exchange had resumed in person, and once again there was much smiling, exclaiming, and pointing. The gentle pace and congenial preamble that seemed an integral part of any African interaction was beginning to frustrate me.

Unable to contain myself, I opened my door and made to get out.

I stopped. The woman was disappearing back down the driveway.

Thabo turned and held up a hand. I cursed and pulled the door shut.

Minutes passed. An eternity. My head was throbbing and Zaziwe, whom I was supposed to be babysitting, was being a pain, hopping excitedly about the car and leaving me dizzy.

Finally there was some movement again at the bottom of the driveway. I craned my neck to see two figures this time—the yellow overalls maid and someone else . . . a white woman—walking up the drive. Two small children followed in their wake.

Anxiety twisted through me. In England most of my patients had been white, but that felt like a lifetime ago. I'd only been in this country a short time and already I'd submitted to its edicts and pressures, to its beliefs.

I slunk down in the car, my determination now diminished and uncertain. I was just another black girl hoping this white madam would give me enough time to explain myself.

She looked about my age, with a shiny, rounded forehead, perfect complexion, and golden hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. She was beautiful. A chunky gold chain drooped around her neck and slid effortlessly over her cream blouse. She stopped short of the gate, fingering a small black disk in her hand. Thabo would later explain it was a remote panic button.

Thabo's back excluded me from the ensuing conversation. Eventually he turned and beckoned to me. Suddenly running away seemed like the easier option. Did I really want to know the truth? And what if this was where the trail ended?

“Good morning,” I said, approaching the gate. “I'm sorry to have disturbed you.” I sounded out of breath, my words jerky and uneven.

There was a long pause, the woman obviously disconcerted by my Norfolk accent. I guess it wasn't what she'd expected to come out of a black person's mouth. She slipped the panic button into her cardigan pocket. A “white” accent had effectively
bleached my complexion and lent me some credibility. “Not at all. Franscina tells me you're looking for a girl called Celia.”

That word “girl” again. I'd heard it several times in my short stay. How could it refer to a mature woman in her sixties? How could “boy”—paperboy, garden boy, houseboy—refer to
any
black male, regardless of whether he was a
piccanin
or a grandfather?

One of the children started to pick her nose.

“We've certainly never had a girl by that name working here,” the woman went on. “And we've been in the house now . . . Gosh, it's going on five years. We bought the place from a couple by the name of Eloff. Whether or not their maid was called Celia, though, I really couldn't say. They moved to the Cape.”

“Do you know
where
in the Cape, madam
?
” Thabo asked.

“We forwarded their mail for almost a year. I think it was Knysna, or maybe George.” She pulled her child's finger from its nose. “My memory fails me. I'll see if I can find the address. Give me a minute.”

With that she turned and made her way quickly back to the house, her children scampering behind. The gate remained shut. My complexion had obviously not faded entirely.

Franscina was delighted with the new company and hung back to chat with Thabo while I stood aside, again a third wheel. After a time, the white woman returned.

“Franscina, go back down to the house, will you. I've left the children there and there's soup on the stove. I don't want it to boil over.”

Disappointed not to be party to the rest of the saga, Franscina bid us farewell and headed dutifully back to work.

“Look, I can't find that address anywhere.”

I felt myself plunging down the next dip on this roller-coaster ride.

“Leave me the details of where I can reach you if it comes to light,” the woman said, a controlled smile moving across her face. Perhaps she felt she'd been too familiar and was now trying to claw back the appropriate boundaries.

“Thank you for your time, madam,” Thabo said, jotting down his telephone number on the back of an advertorial he'd picked up off the pavement. “Here is my phone number in Soweto. You can leave a message there, for Thabo Rhadebe. That's me. Anything you think might be useful, anything at all, please call us.”

“Remember,” the woman added in a cautionary tone, “even if your mother
did
work for the Eloffs, she may not have followed them to the Cape.”

I managed a courteous smile and moved quickly back to the car, tears not far off. I was embarrassed by my emotions. Lately they'd been all over the place.

Thabo caught hold of my arm.

“This is the very beginning of the journey, Miriam. You can't lose heart so soon.” He wiped a tear off my cheek. “There will be other hurdles. This just the first of many.”

—

The next day was Sunday—another perfectly clear and cloudless African day. Yet waking to the golden light did little to lift my
spirits. I was trapped in a morose mood. How quickly I'd forgotten the grayness and gloom of the country I'd left behind.

In an effort to rescue me from myself, Thabo decided to take me on a drive to Zoo Lake—a man-made lake scooped out of the heart of the northern suburbs. It was a beautiful spot and strangely familiar—the colorful rowboats on the sun-drenched waters, the willows bowing over grassy banks, the swoops of undulating lawn; I felt like I'd been here before. We bought samosas and milk shakes from a small kiosk at the water's edge, then lounged on the grass while Zaziwe busied herself pecking off the crumbs trapped in the creases of Thabo's shirt.

Later, we hired one of the rowboats and ventured out onto the lake, for an hour splashing and fooling like children. I wanted the afternoon to last forever.

When our hour was up, we moored the boat and I bought a mango the size of a small soccer ball from an African woman peddling fruit. It cost me just twenty cents. In England a pitiful pockmarked one could cost anything up to two pounds!

Thabo peeled it with his penknife, and as I savored the sweet orange flesh, gates were opened in my mind, releasing flashes of another life and almost-remembered memories.
A black cloud of fruit flies hover over a cardboard box packed tightly with mangoes. I see myself choosing the biggest mango from the box. My mother . . . yes, my mother . . . puts it to her nose and nods. While she peels it for me, I suck on the sweet skins. Then I am chasing the slippery orange fruit around my plate, squealing with happiness and frustration. I also see a family of mango-pip dolls lined up on a concrete step. There's a big garden. The Ma . . . the Mam . . . the Mamelodi family! Yes, the Mamelodi mango family.
One doll has no hair. I remember cutting it off with blunt kitchen scissors. The others have crazy, stringy hairstyles . . .

As the afternoon light softened and the day started to draw to a lazy close, Thabo and I reluctantly took our leave.

For a Sunday evening, the traffic was thick and slow, and soon our chatter had slowed too, until we'd settled into a comfortable silence. Just as we were approaching the silky haze of Soweto, the car began to judder and gasp for air in the evening smog.

“I'll need to get it serviced before we head off on any sort of long journey,” Thabo said, breaking into my thoughts.

“This time you must let me contribute something,” I insisted as we stuttered around a corner. Then I heard myself scream as I was catapulted toward the windscreen. Thabo threw an arm across me, arresting my momentum just in time and slapping me back into my seat.