Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende

 
My aunt found me at the back of the house on my knees by the compost heap. I was vomiting my insides out. The retching was so violent it brought me to my knees and that is how she found me looking like a dog on all fours, eyes red, tears on my cheeks and vomit on my mouth. I started crying as soon as I saw her, partly relieved that finally the secret was out and also because of the look of horror on her face.

“Thembi.”

The plea and disbelief in her voice made my heart sink. I had disappointed her beyond measure. She knew it from the way I cried. I had had sex and I was pregnant. For two months, I had been vomiting every morning on the compost heap. I was careful not to soil my school uniform and I would swirl my mouth with water before heading out to school. I think she had suspected something was wrong because I stopped eating well and I was always tired and falling asleep as soon as I sat down. She had asked me once if I was alright and I had told her I just had a tummy ache from eating too many makhemeswane. Too much of the sweet and sour fruit could cause horrible stomach aches as it fermented in there.

“Thembi what have you done?”

I felt so ashamed. I wished my aunt would let me stand up so I didn’t feel like a worm. Having her stand over me like that made me feel like a cheap two cent whore. I just knelt there crying and heaving until my entire breakfast of porridge had been ejected. I wished she screamed at me or beat me, anything but not this stony silence vibrating with the question: what have you done?

I had done what my mother before me had done. I had fallen pregnant outside marriage and when her body was not ripe enough to bring out a child. She had bled while giving birth to me. That is how I ended up raised by my aunt. The story is that my mother had refused to marry my father who had accepted responsibility for the pregnancy. She had stubbornly said she did not love him and that he had forced himself on her. “Uyisidlwengu!” She screamed every time she saw him.

“ He is a rapist!”

He was forty-two years old.

 Every time she was taken to his home she ran away. This went on until she was in her seventh month and her family gave up and let her stay and have her baby. She was 13 years old. My mother’s sister Ntombi was married to a man, Silas Mapondo from Nkayi and when she heard that her youngest sister had died and left a new born, she came and offered to take me as her own. My grandparents were relieved because they were too old and poor to take good care of a baby. Also, my aunt had been married two years and did not have a child of her own yet. This was not good. She named me Thembinkosi because she trusted that God would one day give her a child and there I was.

 

“Thembi, Sukuma! Get up and let’s go into the house.”

 I got up slowly, feeling a little dizzy and walked gingerly towards my aunt’s outstretched arms. I collapsed against her and cried.

“Mama I am sorry.”

“Shhh! Let’s go in and talk.”

My uncle was in Nkayi and he sat opposite my aunt and I as I told them who was responsible for the pregnancy. The Mapondo elders were summoned to an emergency Indaba, and it was decided at that meeting that I would be accompanied to the Mabhena’s and left there since their son had damaged me. They would then send a kinsman to the Mapondos to tell them if they would marry and pay lobola plus damages, or if they would pay damages and return me to my family.

I was taken to the Mabhenas by my uncle’s sister nakaVelile. We set off at dusk so that the darkness coveedr my shame. People would ask too many questions or guess what was going on if they saw an elderly woman with a young girl carrying a bag and looking like she had swallowed a small watermelon. NakaVelile carried my bag of clothes: two dresses, two skirts, two tee shirts and some panties. My aunt told me that I could not take more than this because by custom it was now the Mabhena’s job to take care of me so I could not carry what I had from in my father’s house to another man’s house. My aunt gave me an ntsaru and I wrapped the piece of cloth around my waist. I tied a qhiye on my head.

As we walked to Mabhena’s house at the growth point, nakaVelile talked on and on like a demented crow: wha-wha-wha-wha.

I listened with one ear. I was worried sick about what was to become of my life. What if Simon refused the pregnancy? What if he lied and told his people and mine that I was not a virgin when he slept with me, meaning that the pregnancy may be someone else’s? What if I died having the baby, like my mother? What about school?

“Aunti, what about my schooling?”

Panic threatened to squeeze my heart to stillness.

NakaVelile stopped in her tracks and looked at me as though I had sprouted a pair of horns on my forehead.

“You are talking about school, when you should be praying that this boy accepts you and the pregnancy so you can become respectable? Instead of worrying about the dishonor that your shameless whoring has brought upon our family you are dreaming stupid dreams about school?”

Shame dragged my head down and made my feet heavy.

“You should be thinking about how you are going to be a good wife, actually praying that this boy gives you that chance, and how you will be a good mother. That’s it.”

We arrived at the Mabhenas. One of the children, Lizwe opened the gate. He knew me and he greeted us courteously. He asked us to come in. But tradition says that we wait at the gate while an elder comes to give us permission to enter. If there are no adults then you wait at the gate until they return from wherever they have gone to. I had been to this house several times without ceremony, but my pregnancy changed the rules. It felt like I was no longer Thembi. I was someone else. I was either an impostor bringing the trouble nestled in my womb or I was a Makoti, an in-law. Soon we would find out which.

Mabhena himself came to the gate. As soon as he set eyes on me his face became an inscrutable mask. Like those scary wooden masks traditional dancers wear at ceremonial dances. My heart sank and the smile on my lips shrivelled up and scurried away.

“The Mapondos have sent me to bring you – the Mabhena’s-   the fruits of your labour”.

NakaVelile’s face was an ominous thundercloud.

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