THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: Tears That Never Really Dry
Written by Kaluwe Haangala
His pudgy little cute face made me want to smile. My little man is going to be a handsome heart breaker, is what I would have had in mind if he hadn’t just unburdened of his woeful thoughts.
“I hate children. I hate them so much!” he said it with so much venom I could tell he was close to biting his lip to stop himself from crying. That stung me because it made me realize there were things not even my mother protective hen instincts could protect my little angel from. It hurt most because our little conservative rural town was scathing and unforgiving of the unconventional. To this rural enclave that was stuck in the precolonial times of yore, family meant father, mother and children. Here I was with no husband and a mixed race child. Talk about being dealt the worst hand!
I will readily admit my whirlwind romance that blossomed towards the end of my university days was magic. It had bloomed into a beautiful marriage that lasted all of three years. Actually, it was five years. I don’t count the last two because they were wrought with his philandering and a difficult set of miscarriages that eventually abated, bringing me some light, solace and some semblance of happiness. Lizazi is what I decided to call him, ‘the sun’ in my local dialect.
My, as far as you’re concerned as regards this story, unnamed husband was happy for maybe a few seconds before the little happy pod we were disintegrated like a hive of bees doused in vinegar and garlic. A tale of forbidden love that was initially exhilarating then, but a woeful faux pas in the present. We loved each other, a whole lot. My initial apprehension about what we could or couldn’t be was glazed over by his sunny demeanour and happy-go-lucky attitude that made me feel safe that his family would not be an issue. That seemed to change as time passed and he was given more responsibility as what was a tiny Information Technology firm minted Gold when an app they helped fund proved to be a game changer. It was then that his people thought he would do better with a lighter skinned woman, not the complexion I wore proudly but that they described as the dark side of the moon.
Here I was a couple of years on, nursing the hurt of facing a very inquisitive child that had so blatantly and painfully learnt he was different from others. Though he spoke the dialect most commonly used in the locality, anyone hearing him speak English immediately knew he was not a local breed. After his father left, and later met an untimely death, I opted to take up a position in this, the most rural of corners of the country to rebuild a life that revolved around an uncluttered work schedule and full attention to a son that, in equivalence, was worth the inquisitive nature of an entire kindergarten class. This episode though was something else.
We had pretty much covered “the birds and the bees” much earlier than we should have, but not in more detail than what I deemed a five-year-old could handle. So, his latest question had me scrambling for answers.
“Why do people die?” asked he, serious faced and matter of fact ‘give me an answer immediately’.
“Um,” I started with a stutter trying to buy time. “Why do you ask?”
“The bullies in class laughed because you are not married and my father is dead.”
“Tell me what happened, exactly how it happened…”
“Teacher gave us some work to do and I was first to finish because I am fast. So she said I should help others, and pointed at that big fat bully!”
“Hey!” I interjected, “What did we say about name calling and body shaming?”
“No name calling because it is mean.”
“What else?”
“Who he angers you, uhm…” he trailed off stifling a giggle, knowing he was not saying the expression right.
“He who angers you controls you,” I corrected while pulling him into a bear hug to hide my smile of pride.
“But why do I have to be nice when others are bullying me? And their mothers do not say anything or even shout at them!”
“Well, I am not their mother, and I want you to grow up to be a fair and decent man. Now, tell me what happened,” I plodded, bring us back to the dilemma at hand.
“As I was helping him see that he was writing letter ‘b’ as ‘d’, he said that his cousin told him that nerds like me never get laid. I reported him to teacher who then sent him to the head’s office. What does getting laid mean? Teacher said never to use language like that.”
The question threw me off balance. I knew for a fact that the said bully spent inordinate amounts of time with his grown cousins. Satellite television was their favorite pastime and, glaringly so, all the glut a child his age should be shielded from is what passed for day to day conversation. I was not going to get in the middle of that sort of thing he was bringing into the discussion, neither was I about to be the reason my son learnt that type of language. Were I as light as he was, my blush pink cheeks would have given me away. I swayed the conversation to stave off the question that would for now remain unanswered.
“Baby boy, teacher was right. And you should not copy that kind of language, okay?”
“Yes mummy, I am sorry,” he said and punctuated that by hunching his shoulders in what I always read as contriteness. I hugged him again hoping against hope that I was drowning him with a halo that would shield his innocence from the murk of the world he had to grow up in.
“Are you going to get married to someone else?”
They say that life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Or even that at times, life comes at you so fast that you barely have enough time to get up off your behind before the next crisis flattens you on your back.
“Have you heard?” Came my mother’s impatient voice on the other side of the line when I picked up her call after initially ignoring it during the pep talk with my son. I was eager to let him stew for now because of the bits of this tricky conversation I wanted to avoid.
“Heard what?” I repeated, trying not to sound irritated at the abrupt context less question.
“Your in-laws have produced a prenuptial agreement you allegedly signed, and a will after all these months. Apparently, he left nothing for you or his son because your marriage didn’t last five years!” She screamed, almost making my head explode from the bombshell this was.
Calmly, I said I had something urgent to handle and would call back. I had neither the will nor the desire to get my weakened demeanor chop off my power of will at the moment my son needed me. I needed my wits about me and all the strength I could summon to appear strong and able to handle the life of a five year old whose solution to tiny people problems was crying and name calling. Life had way bigger evils and he had to continue seeing me as a strong pillar of a super mom he saw always, not knowing my 3 AM thoughts made me cry worse than he did. The little respite I felt did not last much longer because he pounced before I could breathe easier.
The question of why people die is one I never gave much thought to. My own parents died quiet early and the woman I call my mother was actually an Aunt. I pretty much breezed through life minus giving much thought to such philosophical pursuits, largely due to the fact that I preferred to suppress the pain. But hearing my son ask why his father died wrung me back to the reality of a fact I had to face.
“Baby boy,” I began, doing my best to veer from my real thoughts about his father. “Sometimes, bad things happen to good people, but I assure you, wherever he is, there is no pain.”
I noted to myself mentally that I had just sounded like a spin doctor to a child who would soon be thrust into the deep end of the worst of humanity. Describing his father among good people was a gross misrepresentation, as the fateful call from my mother would later bear out. In fact, the last thing I said to his Father the last time I met him was that he could go rot in hell for all I cared. Yet I was not ready to throw his father and his people under the bus just yet because the little man doted on his father so.
“But why would anyone laugh at me if my Dad was a good man who is in a better place?”
“Listen, you see how I always tell you that you’re smart and better than anyone who laughs at you or bullies you? That is because not everyone is as you are, and because of that, most of them do not have the sense to realize that some things should not be said. Now it is up to you to be like them, become a mean bully, or be different and, remember what I always say about the change you want to see?”
“To be the change I want to see in the world!” He responded with pride and held his hand up for a high five, to which I acceded with much fanfare.
“Just because someone is different does not mean that you should also laugh. If anyone laughs at you though, just say it doesn’t matter if you’re different, because you have a Mommy that loves you.”
“I love you too Mommy, thhhiiiiisssss much!” He said with a smile as wide as China and stretching his little boy wing span as far as he could.
I smiled back, took a little bow and held my hands to my heart and signed the words I love you too in American Sign Language, something I taught him so we could have private conversations in public without anyone snooping in or knowing why we were laughing. The beautiful moment seemed paradise like.
Reveries, be they good or bad, can only last for so fleeting a moment. I was brought back to earth simultaneously by a phone call from my lawyer and a loud knock on the door. Lizazi ran towards the door excited screaming that it had to be Doris knocking. The girl, who was a few months older than him, lived close by. I didn’t mind their friendship because she was the only kid within the tens of kilometers radius that had parents more of my ilk than most. She stormed in and came to stand in front of me, arms akimbo. I knew I was in for it.
“Mum says I cannot have a boyfriend and neither can Lizazi have a girlfriend because we are too young!” she blurted out.
Neither question nor statement of request or permission, but the look she gave me told me I was supposed to be on her side on this, or at the very least, be on Lizazi‘s side. Before I could gather my thoughts as to how best to handle this, she hit me with words that broke a part of my heart I will never get fixed.
“At least I won’t do to him the things that Aunty Febby does to him when she thinks I am taking my afternoon nap!”
“What!?” I asked in horror hoping what I was thinking was just another reverie, albeit a bad one.
“Doris! You promised not to snitch! Aunty Febby said it was all my fault and she is just helping me!” he yelped, tears immediately streaming down his face.
One second was all I needed to piece it all together, that my worst fears had fruited. My son, my sun was facing abuse I had absolutely no inkling of! I looked from one to the other, and as they both raced into my outstretched arms, I knew that the tears forming in my eyes would never really dry…
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PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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