Another Woman's Daughter (17 page)

“You okay?”

But before I could reply, I saw them—the crowd of people gathered in the middle of the road, oblivious to the fact that we'd nearly plowed into them.

“My god,” I cried out, my words weirdly in unison with a bone-chilling wail that had risen into the evening air.

“Lock my door and stay in the car,” Thabo said, getting out and making his way through the throng of people.

The crowd parted and I saw a boy lying in the middle of the road. There was a dark patch over the pocket of his denim shirt and another spreading in the dirt beneath him. His wide eyes told of a lonely fear. Thabo knelt down beside the teen and the crowd resealed around him. Then the group had burst wide open again and four men were carrying the groaning kid to our car. As they
laid him across the backseat, the car was filled with a meaty cocktail of blood, sweat, and alcohol. I felt bilious. Another youth climbed in beside the boy, lifting the kid's limp legs onto his lap. I kept staring straight ahead, for fear if I looked I would be sick.

As we drove away from the scene Thabo pointed out the armored vehicle stationed at the corner. A white soldier was standing on the roof of the Casspir observing us.

“Incident didn't warrant intervention,” Thabo said cynically. “A black stabbing poses no threat to stability.”

With the horn blaring and hazard lights flashing, we sped through the maze of nameless streets. Adding to the commotion were the boy's deep groans, but as they started to dwindle, the ranting of our other alcohol-fueled passenger grew louder.

Thabo put his hand over mine. It was warm and reassuring.

Eventually our headlights captured a lopsided green signpost in their glare:
Baragwanath Hospital.
I breathed a sigh of relief.

At the emergency entrance Thabo jumped out and harnessed a wayward gurney, and he and the other passenger hoisted the boy onto it. I noticed the soles of the kid's feet were white. At the end of a long corridor Thabo maneuvered the gurney through a pair of stainless-steel doors.

“Surgical pit,” he said to me over his shoulder.

A bizarre scene greeted us, an eerie sort of organized chaos. Black patients were seated in rows on green plastic chairs, all waiting their turn as if in some post office queue. One man, a machete protruding from his skull, sat beside a woman gripping her belly. A sullen schoolboy sporting two swollen eyes was handcuffed to a black policeman. And an elderly man retched quietly into an ice-cream container. The stench of fresh blood
and vomit swirled. Screams no one seemed to notice came from behind closed curtains, as black nurses and white doctors went about their business.

The sticky floor tugged at my sneakers. Looking down I saw I was making a line of red footprints as I walked. No one acknowledged our entrance. A doctor swept past us. He had an incongruously young yet unperturbed face, clearly already immune to the gore surrounding him.

Thabo caught a nurse's attention. She glanced cursorily over her shoulder at our patient, appraised him in an instant, then was shouting across the room. “Stabbed heart!”

Like magic, the scene before us transformed. Stitching was deserted and wounds left gaping as nurses calmly abandoned what they were doing. Two doctors and an orderly appeared, and the boy on the trolley was pushed into a vacant cubicle.

The curtains were left open.

I couldn't help but watch as the team worked to save the boy. It was like a well-rehearsed performance—every player familiar with his or her role. No prompting required.

A hush fell over the room when the principal walked in—a tall, unshaven man with tired gray eyes. A nurse unpacked a parcel on a stainless-steel trolley and assisted him to gown up. Once the green gown had been fastened, his gloves were meticulously applied. It was all happening so fast, yet nothing felt hurried, every detail calmly checked off.

Thabo wandered over to me. “You okay?”

“Is he going to be all right?” What a foolish question. How would he know?

He crossed his fingers and smiled.

“BP?” The gowned doctor was firing questions at his team.

“Sixty over forty.”

“Pulse?”

“One-eighty, thready.”

“Fluid?”

“Two fourteen-gauge lines. Haemaccel running. Blood sent for cross-match.”

The doctor picked up a scalpel.

“He's the surgical registrar,” Thabo whispered. “The consultants hardly ever come in after hours. Registrars deal with everything.”

A metal blade scattered slices of light across the room as the registrar drew a thin white line down the youth's black body—a thin white line. Just one layer beneath the black was white. The white turned red, then yellow flesh sprang back.

My head began to spin.

A nurse stepped into my line of view, but the sounds of pulling and splitting and tearing worked closely with my imagination to complete the picture.

The registrar called for bone cutters.

Kligh.
Kligh
.

“He's cutting through the sternum,” Thabo said. “They're going to pump the kid's heart by hand and force around the body what little blood is left, while they try to repair the laceration in the heart wall.”

He was speaking like a medic. Was there nothing he didn't know?

“But surely they can't do open-heart surgery in a cubicle. I mean, shouldn't it be performed in a sterile theater?”

Thabo didn't respond. He was too busy watching. I followed his gaze. The nurse had moved aside and I could see a gloved hand reaching into the boy's chest. It grabbed hold of something. Tighten, release, tighten, release . . .

My knees were buckling and I felt myself falling.

When I came to, I was lying across a set of the plastic chairs with a towel propping up my head. The curtains of the cubicle were now drawn and I could make out two figures behind it in silhouette.

I looked up at Thabo. He was standing over me, frowning. He shook his head, answering my silent interrogation. At the same time an agonizing scream rang out—full of fury and despair. It came from the other youth, the companion of our man-boy. I watched as he thumped his fists against the wall, punching a hole right through the prefab partition. Then security had leveled him and he was being dragged from the room, kicking, screaming, biting, and ranting.

“He didn't make it.” Thabo sounded almost guilty, as though he'd played some part in the boy's demise.

My eyes stung and my head throbbed.

He placed both his hands over mine. “I've got to make a statement to the police, then we can go. Lie here for now.”

I lay there for what seemed like hours. Thoughts came and went; some stayed. What was the kid's name? Where was his mother? Was she happy the day he was born? What would he have looked like as an older man? And the doctor—what did it feel like to pump someone's heart? To hold a life in one's hands—the ultimate godlike act? Just a thin layer beneath the boy's black skin was white. White. White. White!

Zaziwe alighted on my chest and tilted her head from side to side. Thabo must have been nearby.

He supported me as I walked in a daze down the open hospital corridors, through pale fingers of moonlight. We passed patients in brightly checkered dressing gowns lounging in the spacious quadrangles of lawn, their drip stands and wheelchairs blending in with their silvered surrounds.

Suddenly a wave of the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard swept over us.

I stopped.

“The nurses are changing shifts,” Thabo said. “They always sing with the patients at changeover.”

We were outside the entrance to a ward. I peered in. At least a dozen beds lined each wall. All were occupied, and the overflow patients lay on mattresses on the floor. A horseshoe of nurses stood at the top of the room, their starched white uniforms hugging voluptuous figures, all bust and bottom. Every eye was trained on the matron. Fungating sores, amputated limbs, and debrided ulcers seemed to melt away as the heavenly voices caressed every crevice of this old ward.

I stood mesmerized by the music, and as the last healing notes of the African hymn settled, I realized the pain in my heart had eased.

We continued down the corridor.

“Baragwanath Hospital. If you've got a stabbed heart, this is where you wanna be.” All that was missing from Thabo's advertisement was some corny jingle.

I didn't respond; I didn't feel like being lighthearted or silly.

“Seriously, they've got the best success rate in the world.
Doctors here do more thoracotomies for stabbed hearts than in any other hospital in the world.”

A long, lean man crossed in front of us, pushing a drip stand connected to him by a lone translucent tube that burrowed into the back of his hand. He wore just pajama bottoms. Every rib on his spare torso was delineated, like ripples on a dark pond. And running down the middle of his trunk, from chin to navel, was a thick ridge of fleshy pink skin, freshly stitched.

“Sawubona,”
he said in greeting.

His eyes gave no clue as to what it felt like to have cheated death.

April

My dear David,

I have sat down to write to you so many times, and each time, I've found myself unable to. In part, it's because I have so little to tell; I'm no closer to tracing my mother than when I arrived six weeks ago. In part, my delay has also been because I have so much to say and I don't really know where to start.

The last month and a half has been unbelievable—weeks, days, and hours crammed with
new
experience—I feel as though I've lived a hundred years. Finally I've managed to fill some of the holes in my life with “living” that feels real. And I've certainly been changed. Like a clay figurine first pummeled into a shapeless ball, I am now being remodeled. I can't yet see the whole, but already I catch glimpses of a new me.

Living in this country with a black face has been indescribable. In every way I'm handicapped by my color. Sometimes being black has made me feel so worthless I've found myself apologizing for just existing. It's terrible to feel so without worth and so inherently bad.

What I can say in favor of the lawmakers here is that at least they're honest. There's no pretense. They tell the world we're second-class citizens and treat us accordingly. Growing up in England was more confusing. I was encouraged to believe I was like everyone else, so my disappointment was all the greater when I realized I wasn't. Equality for all—that's such a farce. Here in South Africa you quickly learn to curtail your expectations, because there are no false promises.

Thabo has been my salvation. One day I hope you two meet. He reminds me a lot of you—principled and practical. He's kept my hope alive. It's extraordinary how he manages to keep his self-esteem intact, his morale high, and his vision so clear in the face of such adversity. He also has a great sense of humor, which definitely prevents life from getting too serious. In fact, most of the black Africans I've met do. When I think of them I think of easy smiles, genuine goodwill, and infectious laughter. Amazing, considering the regime they live under.

These past weeks I've tasted African life at its most raw. I've sung in churches. Yes, me in a church, can you believe it! I've danced in a
shebeen
(a local illegal drinking house)
and hidden under floorboards when the police raided it. I've met people in the dead of the night who risk their lives and sanity every day, to fight this government. I've eaten
mielie pap
and gravy with my fingers (thick cornmeal porridge), I've drunk home-brewed millet beer (a heady experience), and I've picked at chicken giblets in a meal shared with twelve other hungry mouths. I even got to wring the bird's neck. Apparently an honor!

I've watched a young man, a boy really, bleed to death from stab wounds. I've seen an alleged police informer “necklaced”—burned to death by a mob who placed a car tire filled with fuel around his arms and chest and then lit it. (This horrific image will live forever in my head.) Yesterday, a clerk in Pretoria spat in my face. I'm getting used to being ignored in shops until all the white customers have been served. I could go on.

Dave, I've lived like an African, and laughed and cried like one. But strangely, wait for it, I don't feel as if I belong here. Maybe I'm destined to straddle the two worlds, fitting into neither.

Most importantly I haven't yet found my mother. We've explored every avenue and followed up on almost every lead, even resorting to pinning up random signs around Soweto, asking for any information on my mother's whereabouts. The replies I've had have all been from “tsotsis”—criminals only after the reward.

I guess I've come to accept there is a good chance she is dead. What is so frustrating is that I'm
sure, considering
this is a country where the black population is so heavily regulated, information about her must be held by at least one government agency. Yet all my visits to government offices have been futile. Without exception, civil servants here are obstructive. They've thwarted my efforts at every turn, and failed to deliver anything despite some having extracted a hefty bribe first.

Days have been spent getting to places, either in Thabo's car—a hair-raising experience in itself—or by train and bus. Then there's been the waiting in eternal queues before being redirected from one department to another, only to eventually reach a dead end.

The infuriating thing is that I know she is out there somewhere, even if she's lying in a box under a mound of earth. I suspect I won't find her. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. At least I tried.

So unless I make some miraculous discovery, I plan to return to the UK in a fortnight. My funds are running low and my permit will soon expire. I'll call when I've finalized the details. In the meantime, can you please let the university know I'll be back to resume my clinical attachment.

Dave, I know we left the future open. Just know I miss you and love you.

Miriam xxx

A white and green blob appeared beside my name where Zaziwe had decided to leave her calling card.

—

The telephone pierced my dreams. I was loath to open my eyes, preferring the blankness of sleep, the faded lines and muted realities, the escape. The ringing continued.

I opened one eye. The room was awash with bright yellow light and there was a definite midmorning feel in the air. I sat up and reached for the alarm clock on the box beside my bed: 10:30
A.M.
! How had I slept so late? The phone was
still
ringing, drilling holes through my head.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, found my balance, then stomped through to the kitchen. “Hello?” My tongue was thick and furry. “Rhadebe residence.”

The line crackled, then a woman's voice. “Is Tayboe there?”

“Who? Oh, you mean Thabo. Look, I don't think he is. I've just woken up and—”

“Never mind,” came the crisp, tailored voice. “Could I leave a message?”

Something in the voice sounded familiar. “Aren't you the lady from Parktown North?”

“Yes. And you're the British girl? The one looking for your mother. Have you had any luck?”

“Do you have something?” I couldn't pace myself. I had no restraint left for courteous preamble.

“As a matter of fact I do.”

My heart cartwheeled inside my chest.

“I was clearing out my desk last night and found the Eloffs' address. You know, the people from whom we bought the house. Got a pen handy?”

“Hang on.” I put the receiver down and darted about the room in search of a pen, eventually finding one in the cutlery tray.

“Sorry. Okay. Go ahead.”

There was nothing, just a hollow tinny silence.

“Hello. Hello?” I tapped the receiver, but there wasn't even the reassuring hum of a dial tone. The line was dead. I slammed the receiver down and stood staring at the instrument, willing it to ring. Every few seconds I lifted it to check, but still there was no dial tone. I fiddled with the jack, tipped the telephone upside down, shook it . . . Nothing!

When Thabo swung through the front door an hour later, he found me pacing about the room in a crazed state. He put down his parcels on the kitchen table. “Morning.”

“Where have you been?” I demanded.

“Is everything okay?” Concern clouded his face. “I thought I'd let you sleep in while I went to buy some milk and bread. Were you worried?”

“How come it took you over an hour just to buy milk and bread?”

Thabo looked at me bemused.

“That woman rang, the one from Parktown North,” I shouted. “Something about my mother. Then the phone went dead and . . . and I've lost the only lead we've had in seven bloody weeks!” I started to sob.

Thabo walked over to the phone and lifted the receiver. He shook his head. “Murphy's law. They must have cut us off.”

“Who?” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

“Murphy,” he said. “Only joking. It will have been the phone company. I haven't paid last month's bill. I'm sorry.”

“You haven't? Why?”

Then I realized. I sank down into a chair, overcome with guilt and embarrassment. The phone bill would have been hefty, due to all the calls I'd made. I felt so ashamed, I didn't know where to look.

“I'm so sorry,” Thabo said again. “And just at a breakthrough.”

“I'm the one who should be sorry. God, how rude of me! It was just that, it was the first time we were going to get some useful information, and now we . . .” I buried my head in my hands and tears took over. I couldn't stop them. I was crying as much for my own appalling behavior as for the terminated phone call. I was crying for Dave—I missed him so much—and for the emotional seesaw I'd been on. I was crying for Thabo and every other black person living in this forsaken country. It all poured out, weeks of pent-up emotion.

Eventually I felt a soft, warm hand on the nape of my neck. “Don't worry, I'll go over to her today and hear the news in person. Thabo Rhadebe will not rest until he is victorious.”

And later that day I learned the Eloffs had moved to Knysna in the Cape—some one thousand miles south of Soweto.