Holding Up the Sky (41 page)

I rolled over to see if Mello was awake. As she often did when the three of us shared a bed, she was fast asleep with her arms and legs splayed out as far as possible, as if she was doing cartwheels in her sleep, leaving very little room for an adult to sleep comfortably either side. Teboho heard me stir and opened one eye.

‘Merry Christmas', he whispered, though Mello was a heavy sleeper and unlikely to wake.

‘Merry Christmas to you too', I replied with a smile. ‘It's our first Christmas as a family.'

‘Ah, we were always a family, even with just the two of us,
Moratua
.'

‘True, but it always feels more special when there are children about.'

‘Will you miss your “white” Christmas?' he asked.

‘I was just thinking about that. If I'm not expecting it I won't miss it. But I warn you, I'm going large next year when we're back in Sydney, so watch out, you Grinch.' I had explained the story of the Christmas Grinch to him a couple of years earlier and he laughed at the comparison. I knew it was mainly his own painful memories of being evicted on Christmas eve that made him play down Christmas. I felt that this year would be a good cure for his usual reluctance.

‘Mama and Ma Ellen will be happy, having everyone together', I suggested, drawing him into my line of thinking.

‘Do you know, I think there are forty-three grandchildren now? I was trying to count last night.'

‘You weren't counting during family devotions were you?' I asked, feigning surprise.

‘It is a holy practice to consider the number of times God has blessed our family with children', he replied with a smirk.

‘Admit it. Two hours of family devotions and prayers tested your stamina', I teased.

‘You can talk. I noticed you used Mello to get out of it', he countered.

‘I was just doing my duty as a mother.'

‘Hmmm', he said as he tickled the arch of my foot with a toe. ‘How about your duty as a wife?'

‘My duty as a wife will have to wait until we are not sharing a bed with our child and a house with fifty of our closest relatives', I whispered.

‘Coward. Parents all over Africa find a way', he laughed.

‘Call me what you will. You're out of luck this morning, Romeo.'

And with that, I pulled the sheet back and swung my feet onto the cool concrete floor. I picked up the plastic bowl that I had used to wash my face the night before and went in search of fresh water.

CHRISTMAS
DAY WITH TWO MATRIARCHS, TWELVE SIBLINGS AND THEIR PARTNERS, FORTY-THREE GRANDCHILDREN AND A FEW NEIGHBOURHOOD FRIENDS UNFOLDED GENTLY AFTER WE HAD WASHED AND DRESSED. MELLO WAS LOOKING EDIBLE IN HER ORANGE GHANAIAN OUTFIT, THE SMALL MATCHING HEADCLOTH FRAMING HER CHUBBY FACE. I FELT MY HEART TWIST WITH DELIGHT AS SHE STOOD IN FRONT OF ME, SPINNING AROUND TO SHOW OFF THE FULL EFFECT.

‘You look like an African princess,
Mosetsana aka
', my little daughter, volunteered Teboho as he rummaged around in our bags looking for something to wear.

‘And me?' I asked, doing a similar spin to show off my blue African attire. Mello giggled and added a few more spins herself before toppling over against the bed.

‘You,
Moratua
, are my
Queen
', he replied with a flourish of his hand.

‘Well said', I acknowledged, with a nod of my royal head.

Mello was reluctant to wait for her father to dress as she wanted another audience to show her new outfit to. So we left Teboho to it and went to the kitchen to look for her favourite uncle, Willie. Once found, Willie dutifully appreciated his niece's fine looks and asked if he could take her with him to the shops as Ma Ellen had asked for more mealie meal. I relinquished Mello into his care and went to see if I could help with the cooking.

The kitchen was full of women hard at work, peeling, chopping and grating great mounds of vegetables, and chatting away. China and Silwane soon put me to work peeling large pumpkins that would be made into mash. As it was one of my favourites, I was more than happy with the task. My sisters-in-law all wanted an update on our lives in 'Maritzburg so I described the goings on of the year. They were clearly very proud of their brother and his graduation from university; he was soon to be the only family member to live overseas as well. I was also keen to hear their news of births, deaths and marriages across our large family, so the few hours before lunch passed quickly and pleasantly.

The rest of the day was spent eating, talking and cooking once more. In the afternoon, the adults retired to the shady side of the house while the kids played in the yard. Mello was enjoying being surrounded by so many cousins again. Periodically, I would go and seek her out just to make sure all was well. Invariably she was under the watchful eye of an older female cousin who was as doting as I.

Just on sunset, Mama, Teboho and I were alone for the first time that day. Mama put a proposition to us as we sat there enjoying the evening coolness and the sounds of activity in the valley around us. Before we left for Australia, she wanted us to visit a member of the family I was yet to meet. He was the brother of her second husband, Bophundlovu, who lived with his family some hours to the west.

The discussion was a hesitant one as Bophundlovu's brother's wife was the one accused of poisoning him–and, inadvertently, Mello's older sister–all those years ago. In fact, the family farm that Mama wanted us to visit was given as the reason for Bophundlovu's death. I had been told that Bophundlovu's sister-in-law was a witch and she had poisoned him so that her husband and their sons would inherit the land. With Bophundlovu gone, Doki and Willie's inheritance would have no champion and be lost to them as well. Mama wanted Teboho, Willie and me to go and visit the family, leaving the next day.

I was surprised by her insistence, given the circumstances. I had heard the story about the deaths of Bophundlovu and Mello's older sister many times, but it seemed so surreal that I almost had no emotional response to it. It was like listening to a gruesome bedtime story. I couldn't, or didn't want to, think about Tshidi losing her child who must have been about Mello's age, nor about Mama's loss of a husband. But Mama, for reasons I perhaps will never understand, wanted to keep connected; they were still family.

I was beginning to see that, in the absence of government social security, it was extended family and community that kept people safe and taken care of when need or tragedy occurred. In order to keep the family safety net strong, it had to be tended, regardless. I always enjoyed visiting the extended family, going to parts of the country that white people rarely visited. There was a gracious rhythm about these deep rural areas that challenged the complexity of our lives in the big cities, a rhythm that I respected and enjoyed. And while we would no doubt be warmly greeted by the family if we visited, I was nonetheless very nervous about meeting this woman who was such a large figure in our family's story.

I had grown up with a westerner's storybook impression of witches, but this was real life. When I first moved into the township I was told that a number of witches in Africa worked their mischief within their own families, increasing their personal wealth and power through removing or intimidating those who stood in the way of family assets. I was told that these people also passed their trade on to their children, male and female, so that a family could suffer under the hands of a line of witches over generations. While I knew many women were accused of being witches when illness or misfortune befell a community, and these innocent women were cruelly treated and sometimes killed, I also knew that there were those, male and female, who did not deny who they were and what they did.

The witch in our family was said to be very powerful, able to take many forms–even using zombies to do her work, so the story went. While my rational, western mind was struggling with this, I had learnt to suspend my disbelief and simply listen. I did, however, draw the line at believing she could shrink her body and ride around on a pumpkin in the dead of night.

Both Willie and Doki, who were Bophundlovu's only biological sons, felt bitter about their father's death and often talked about the injustice of what had been done. They told me they believed that, after their father's retirement to Itsoseng, the witch had sent someone to poison him by placing something in his food. This first attempt allegedly resulted in the death of Mello's sister who was just a toddler at the time, living next door to Bophundlovu and Mama and, like all Tshidi's children, often sharing their meals. A month later, Bophundlovu died an identical death, also poisoned. Willie and Doki apparently went to the police about the poisoning but nothing was done.

Teboho, Mello and I, together with Mama and Willie, had travelled for many hours to reach a small rural village in a remote area of South Africa, towards the border with Botswana. The road cut through fat countryside, with small bushes and thorn trees flicking past as we sped along. The heat shimmered off the road in front of us, causing the world to dance and sway. Mama was chatting with her sons about family news in Sesotho, a language I was beginning to understand, although now the heat seemed to be leeching it out of my head. I abandoned the conversation and gave my attention to the landscape, knowing my daughter was fast asleep in the back seat. I loved these trips into the country–it was like taking a deep breath, filling the lungs with life and perspective. The monotony of the scenery and the sounds of Sesotho bubbling around the car had put me into a kind of trance, though after many hot hours, with sweat sticking my shirt to my back, I now longed to arrive.

Just as the sun dropped over the horizon, instantly robbing the air of its heat, we turned off the tar road and set out into the bush along an ambling dirt track that had been worn into the earth until it looked like a trail of gnarled tree roots, making the going slow in our little sedan. As the light faded, so did my sense of direction. In the darkness, without any signposts or street lights, I was amazed that Mama was able to guide us through numerous seemingly identical villages before finally arriving at the village and ultimately the house of her late husband's family.

There was a cluster of houses on the edge of the village and we had pulled up outside one of the larger ones. A hundred metres in front of us was a fence bordering a large field that stretched off in either direction into the darkness. The houses were lit with only candles or paraffin lamps which emitted their gentle light through the small windows. Once we had switched off the car's headlights, the quiet night pressed down on us like a blanket.

As we emerged from the car, dusty and travel weary, the door to the house opened, casting light onto our dirty Toyota Corolla. Several adults appeared, greetings echoed out into the night and introductions were made. These were Teboho's cousins and it was many years since they had seen each other. The family welcomed us warmly and we were quickly ushered inside to be given food and drink after our long journey, as was the tradition of hospitality in Africa.

Prayers and conversation went on late into the night, each person keen to hear news of distant family and life in other parts of the country, which seemed as much a mystery as the bottom of the ocean. After a few hours, the long journey caught up with me and I was suddenly exhausted. I was unsure where we would sleep and whether it was polite to ask for a bed, Mello having long since fallen asleep in my lap. The language floated over me as I struggled to stay awake, wishing to be polite but only catching a few words of each sentence as it passed by. So I smiled and nodded, shifting Mello's head slightly to relieve the ache in my shoulder. A few questions were directed at me in Sesotho, slowly, as if I were myself a child. I reassured my hosts that I was well fed and did not wish for any more tea. Soon I noticed a shift in the tone of the conversation and before long, the men stood. One of them was my husband. I gladly followed him into the dark corridor, only the candle light hinting at the rooms and sleeping bodies they contained. The bedroom we were to occupy hosted a double bed, a simple wooden wardrobe and an old dressing table. I noticed it was twice the size of our bedroom at home.

In the deep rural areas, where land was less of an issue and all that was required to construct a home was enough willing adults to build the mud brick walls and money for a tin roof, the houses were much larger than those I was used to in the black townships of South Africa's cities. This branch of the family appeared to have both men and means. The main house, though smaller than this one, was next door, where the parents of this extended family lived.

We were spending the night in the house of the eldest son, with other siblings' homes scattered nearby. It seemed that the whole family pulled together to work the fields to the south of the homestead. Mama had told me on the journey that the farm was a large one by black South African standards. It was certainly the first such farm I had seen since my arrival in South Africa many years before–the only farms I knew were owned by white South Africans, with black workers living like slaves in rows of tiny houses by the equipment sheds. I was both excited and cautious about our visit. While I was delighted to see a black family prospering, there was a shadow over the source of their prosperity.

Once in our bedroom, I let Mello fall from my arms and onto the bed, sure at this hour that she would not wake. I could feel the film of dust that covered my body and wanted at least to wash my face before I slept, so I asked Teboho for water as he entered the room behind me. As with all the rural households I had visited, there was no running water, only what could be fetched from large plastic containers at the kitchen door. He disappeared into the darkness to arrange it for me. The house was now quiet and I could hear the sounds of people sleeping across the hall. Mello rolled over, splaying her arms and legs and taking up most of the space. I stood in the middle of the room and tried to remember where I had packed my toothbrush and soap.

I was still standing lost in thought when Teboho re-entered the room, making me jump. A smile creased his face as I clutched my chest in mock terror and then nodded my thanks for the water he was carrying. We both washed silently and efficiently before falling at last into bed, our child fast asleep between us.

The household was up early and though the hours of sleep I had snatched were not enough to remove the weariness in my limbs, I rolled over and put my bare feet on the cool concrete floor. Young female voices filled one end of the house, as did the sounds of breakfast. I threw on some clothes that would be considered sufficiently modest for the rural surrounds. Women's roles in rural Africa were quite clear and rarely challenged. As a guest in the family's home, I did not wish to stand out any more than was necessary and so as usual would go along with the family's rhythms during our stay.

I left the room with my little family still sleeping and went through to the kitchen, looking for a familiar face. With a small sense of relief, I found Mama sitting at the kitchen table chatting to three female cousins gathered there: the wife of the house, her eldest daughter and the wife of the brother who lived next door. The room, like all the others, was large, with exposed wooden beams and plastered walls painted a pastel green. Despite its size, the kitchen had very little in it. There was an old wood stove, a metal table and four white plastic chairs, a single metal wall unit and two large blue plastic containers holding the household's supply of water. There was a pantry attached to the kitchen that housed canned food and plastic dishes full of fresh vegetables. Though it was still early, the promise of a blistering day was already pressing down on the tin roof above.

Mama greeted me warmly and asked if I had slept well. The other female relatives then greeted me in turn and asked me about my trip. Greetings completed, I was offered a chair and some food. Porridge is the staple breakfast in South Africa, regardless of one's colour or race. In Australia, it is not, and I was still finding it an acquired taste. Instead I asked for bread, another favourite, usually reserved for lunch. White bread is common in most homes, preferred not for the favour but because it is slightly more expensive than brown. While many families in South Africa are poor, I was told that buying brown is a sign of having hit rock bottom. As the branch of the family we were visiting was relatively wealthy by local standards, it was white bread and peanut butter that was placed before me, two massive slices that must have taken a third of the loaf to create. I was offered tea with the bread, but took only water with my breakfast, cool and slightly brackish, from the containers by the kitchen door.