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Dad

“I missed you grow up.”

Our first meeting, we didn't talk much to begin with; he just looked at me. Although he didn't look much like the man in the photos that I have, he was that man, just well nourished. I was so completely overwhelmed that slowly tears made their way out of my eyes.

“Mokgethi.”

That was the best tone in which anyone had ever said my name. He gave me a hug and “Hoo!” I exhaled, losing myself completely. I felt love, loved. I felt safe, safer than ever and more secure than I had ever felt before.

“Mokgethi.”

I held my breath as the moment went by in milliseconds. He let go and the reality that he was going to leave soon hit home.

“How are you? You are so grown up, my dear.” He looked me in the eye, wiping away my tears. “Do not cry, my dear. Do not cry. Your friend said that you needed a fatherly hug.” He looked at me again, trying to regain his composure, fighting his own tears. “Where is your grandmother?”

“She went to work.”

“Let's go for a ride, my dear.”

On our drive he asked me question after question.

“What do you want to do after matric?”

“Study further.”

“Study further? Studying what?” He glanced at me, not willing to take his eyes off the road.

“Actuarial science.”

Then he asked what actuarial science was and what an actuarial scientist does. He smiled at my explanation, obviously happy with it.

“Where do you want to study this actuarial science?”

“Oxford University.”

“Oxford University?”

“Yes.”

He took his eyes off the road, not just stealing a look but really looking at me. “And who is going to pay for this?”

“I am hoping to get a scholarship.”

“How?”

“My grades are going to do it for me.”

“But why do you want to go to Oxford?”

This is the question I expect whenever I talk to anyone about studying at Oxford University and I have my reasons why.

“Because from there I can go anywhere in the world and not be confined to a specific country.”

He looked at me again and then back at the road, holding a smile.

“Let your grades talk for you, my dear. Maybe they can make me sell this car for you.”

“Maybe? Maybe, on what level?”

“What do you mean?”

“Three A plus, four A plus, five or six?”

“I said maybe, my dear Mokgethi.” He paused. “And what is your grandmother saying about all of this?”

“She does not want to hear about it. She is saying that I am going to nursing college because she does not have any money.”

“No way. Education has no price. It is as one's life: priceless.”

I smiled at this; at least my dad understood my position. Then he asked about the family.

“Did they ever tell you about me? Did they ever say anything about me?”

“Not much and when I ask it spoils everything because they don't want to talk about you.”

“Did they ever tell you why they hate me?”

“No.”

“Do you know that they hate me?”

“No, but I once heard my aunt saying that we are the children of a snake, and I know that my uncle chased you away one day when you wanted to see us.”

“She told you that you are the child of a snake?”

“She was angry and shouting at Khutso.”

Then silence fell on us. I felt like asking “Why do they hate you so much, Dad?” but something stopped me and so we covered distance in silence instead. Finally he said:

“One day they will tell you about me, about why they hate me, but if you want to know the truth, come ask me, because I was there with your mother. They were not there. You were there too but you were too young to remember anything. But they were not, and what they think they know comes out of hurt and anger at other things.”

There was nothing I could say to this so silence fell on us once more.

“How is Khutso?”

“He is fine.”

“Give him a hug and tell him that someone who loves him said ‘I love you', but do not tell him anything more than that.”

Khutso

Khutso – he is a mixed-up kid. He has two opposing characters: one Khutso is violent and the other Khutso is sweet. There is nothing I can tell him during the day. That's when he is the violent, powerful Khutso. He does not take commands from anyone. He is too sensitive and that makes him rebellious.

The sweet Khutso is the most beautiful boy I know. His voice is a perfect baritone, very hard and rough when he is talking to a male and very soft and respecting when he is talking to a female. He doesn't change it intentionally, it just happens as he is talking and I don't think that he hears the difference. He can sing too – lead a song with his heavy baritone – but unfortunately he does not like to sing often, only when the mood takes him. At church they wanted him to be part of the choir but he just shook his head and told them that he cannot sing.

Sweet Khutso makes me very angry by being playful. I will hit him hard but he will still be very playful. I will shout and hit him again but he will keep irritating me until I am tired and so angry that I want to cry. Then he will give me a hug and sing a freestyle “My Love Is Your Love”:

'Cos your love is my love

And my love is your love

It would take an eternity to break us

And the chains of
Amistad
couldn't hold us

Mokgethi, my love is your love

My life is your life

Khutso will forever and ever be your love

Because even eternity can't break us

My love is your love

And your love is my love

Everything is all right as it will forever be

Everything is all right 'cos my love is your love

Then I will still be looking at him, unwilling to laugh, fighting the urge to hug him and he will say:

“Mokgethi, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“You are lying. Since when?”

Then he will walk out of the door.

He is my brother, why would I not love him?

Sometimes Khutso will call me to come and sit with him on the sofa. This is only when he wants to share it with me, though, because if I call him to come and sit with me he never wants to.

“Come sit with me?”

“No, I am not your boyfriend.”

But if I don't call him, he will just come.

If there is one thing that he likes more than anything it is to share my plate. He will pretend that he does not want to eat, but when I start eating he will come and eat with me. When we have finished my food he will go and get his plate and we will share his food too. But if I don't want to share my plate, I just have to call him. He will not come then and that is the trick.

I fear that Khutso is going to lose his way. Not because he is hanging out with a bad crowd, smoking dagga, like my uncle says he is. Khutso does not hang around with potheads; this is just my uncle's way of not facing the problem. No, I fear that Khutso is going to lose his way just because of the way he is. They push Mokgethi around all the time but they cannot push Khutso an inch before he pushes back very hard. He will speak his mind aloud and curse my grandmother. He curses my aunt too and I have seen him fight with my uncle. All of them have come to fear him.

They bought him some new clothes that he didn't like at all. He tried to bargain with my grandmother and they agreed that on the coming Saturday they would take the clothes back and he would choose what he wanted. But when that day came, they didn't go. My grandmother had changed her mind.

“Gran, I cannot wear those clothes. You will have to take them back to wherever they came from.”

He took the clothes from his room and put them in our grandmother's room.

“Khutso, you must wear those clothes. Where will I take them?”

“Gran, I do not want them and unless you want me to give them away, and I can do that, you must take them back.”

A few days later my aunt put herself in the middle of things. She came to the house early one morning and we were all happy that she was visiting until she started to talk about the clothes that she had bought Khutso.

“Khutso, I hear that you do not like the clothes that I bought for you.”

“They are not my style.”

“I buy you clothes and you tell me that they are not your style. You are going to wear those clothes whether they are your style or not.”

“Those, I do not want,” he said, smiling. “Will you please take them back because I cannot wear them!”

“We are trying to do everything for you and this is all we get in return?”

He tried to be humble. “No, it's just that I cannot wear those clothes.”

“You are stressing my mother each and every day as if you were her own children.”

With that, Khutso raised himself from the seat and went to his room, locking the door behind him.

“I am talking to you!” Aunt Shirley shouted after Khutso, struggling to her feet. “This is what you are doing to my mother each and every day: she cannot get old in peace!”

Aunt Shirley started knocking at Khutso's door, saying that we were the children of the snake that killed her sister, that she knew that we were little snakes and that we were here to stress her out, that she did not have money to raise the snakes that we were. Suddenly, very violently, Khutso flung the door open and looked her straight in the eye.

“Say that again. Say that again.” Tears were dropping out of his eyes but he was looking at her calmly. “I do not think that I heard you clearly. Say that to my face. Say it to my eyes.”

My grandmother tried to distract him, saying something that I missed.

“Gran, do not interfere in this matter.”

My aunt slapped Khutso with a hot kafferklap, but he didn't flinch, just
stood there looking at her.

“Hit me again if you want to see if I am a snake. Hit me again.”

I didn't know what to do or what to think.

“I am the child of a snake? Why do you bother yourself with the children of a snake? Why do you buy the children of a snake clothes? For what good reason?”

He was more than calm.

“Gran, you don't love us. We are only here because we are your grandchildren and you cannot just cast us away! Can you?”

“Khutso, my grandson, why would I not want you?”

“Stop lying to me. You don't want us here.”

They didn't have anything to say to that, they couldn't lie or pretend any more. Eternity passed, then Khutso went back into his bedroom and took out half of his clothes and nearly all of his shoes, put them on the table in the sitting room and said, in tears:

“Thank you very much, but I don't need these any more. And don't ever buy me anything again.”

Then he went back to his room.

Before she left, Aunt Shirley and my grandmother had a whispering meeting, but neither of them touched the unwanted clothes.

When my uncle came back, the clothes were still in the sitting room. He asked whose they were and what they were doing there. Then he woke Khutso up and asked him to remove the clothes from the sitting room. Maybe he thought that Khutso would have calmed down by then and have realised that he needed the clothes, which was what I thought. But Khutso took them all to the back garden and set them alight. When he came back into the house my uncle asked him where he had taken the clothes, but Khutso didn't answer, just shook his head and went back to his room.

My uncle's curiosity got the better of him and he checked outside and found the clothes going up in smoke. Though he didn't know everything that had happened between Khutso and my aunt and my grandmother, the burning of the clothes pissed him off. He went to Khutso's room.

“Khutso, why are you burning your clothes?” my uncle asked in a tone that told everyone he was not really interested in an answer.

“Told her I didn't want them any more.”

“You think you can just burn clothes because you don't want them?”

My uncle's intention was to punish Khutso. He took off his belt and hit him once but Khutso hit back with fists and then they were fighting. Unfortunately my uncle was a little drunk and by the time my grandmother got there he was lying on the floor and his blood was all over the place. Khutso and his uncle had fought and Khutso had won the fight.

It made me proud, very proud of Khutso, that he could stand up for himself and defend his ground. At the same time I felt sorry for my uncle, that it had come to this, but, truth be told, he'd had it coming. He had long ago forgotten that he was our uncle; he disrespected Khutso and me all the time, treating us like things I don't have a description for. As the saying goes, “what goes around comes around”, and this was how it came around.

My grandmother didn't know what to say – she was speechless, as was my aunt – but they had learned to respect and fear Khutso.

Dad (Part Two)

We got to a mall, went to a restaurant and ordered as he continued asking me question after question.

“Dear, where is your boyfriend?”

“I don't have one.”

I answered without hesitation, but he didn't believe me because he repeated the question.

“My dear, where is your boyfriend?

“I said that I do not have.”

He had asked many questions about me but I hadn't asked him anything.

“I have been asking you question after question, my dear ... Don't you want to ask your father anything?”

“Do you love us?”

I asked this without consideration. It was the first thing that popped into my mind; it just shot out of my mouth. I felt foolish because he was my father, why would he not love us, but it was too late to take it back.

“Dear. Mokgethi. Love has nothing to do with you, your brother and me. You are my children, I am your father, and if that is not love then it surpasses love.”

The next question was “Why are you not with us?”, but it was foolish to ask that half knowing the situation between him and my maternal family. I wanted to ask if we could come and live with him, but that, too, felt foolish. We continued eating in silence; it was as if he was waiting for me to ask another question. And I had a billion questions, but I just wanted to enjoy the moment with my dad, not bother or be bothered.

“Is that all you have to ask?”

I stole a look at him, wanting to say “Dad, can we just forget what has passed and just be that which we can be?” Maybe he saw it in my eyes.

“You do that too, just like your mother.”

“What?”

“Your mother used to look at me just like that.”

Then he drove me to the taxi rank so that I could get a taxi home. I felt sad that he was dropping me at the taxi rank but I smiled all the way anyway.

“If you need anything, dear, call this number and tell the person who answers the phone what you need. If he asks who you are, tell him that you are dear to me and he will help you.”

A hug. I suppressed my tears. I really wanted to go with him. “Dad, can I come with you?” was on the tip of my tongue; I wanted to cry like a toddler when its mother leaves. He called my name again, just like he had the first time.

“Mokgethi. My dear, don't cry ... I love you too much.”

I wanted to ask him to say those words again, but it felt kind of out of line.

When I got home, his son was there. I looked at him, taking in their similarities.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Khutso asked. “I am a natural charmer, I know, but for heaven's sake, you are my sister and I am your brother. Please, don't look at me with those eyes.”

“Today I dreamed of your father ... He said that I must give you a hug and tell you that he loves you.”

“When you dream about him again, tell him that I love him too, very much.”

“I am serious.”

“And I am very serious too.”

I wished that I could have given him a hug right then, but he wouldn't have liked it much. At least I told him that the rabbit loves him.