Note: to read part I click here

I hadn’t felt this nervous about going to Soweto since we were teenagers. Having called Lesedi after her shower, Nonto had persuaded me into calling David and requesting an address. I remember hearing a strange combination of grief and elation in this stranger’s voice upon learning who I was. He gave me all the details I needed to get there as quickly as he could as if having the information relayed to me within a certain period of time would bring me there instantly. I took the details and told him I would be there soon. With no particular interest in holding a conversation with him any longer and an increasingly uncomfortable silence lingering in the air I ended the call.

I drove passed the towers where I had fallen in love as a young man. Something about them seeming larger than usual. The roads were busier and narrower too. The silence in the car didn’t help any. Neither one of us knew what we really expected to find there nor how we would react to it all. Although we were preparing to meet my own mother the fact that this was a person we had never met was discomforting to say the least.

I remember parking outside the row of poorly painted black rods with golden spear-like heads that made up the fence. The squeaking of the swinging gate as we walked into the yard with patches of browning grass that had been robbed of its green glow by the feet of passers by making their way to and from the house. We walked past the front door, led by David who wore a tired light brown jacket with dark would be leather patches on the elbows that had seen many days and many winters. His short hunched stature, large rectangular glasses and the stench of cheap cigarettes and liquor made him very difficult to miss and easy to remember. We entered the house with its incredibly low ceilings through the kitchen door which had been left open to allow the smell of boiling meat belonging to mysterious parts of an unknown animal to escape and grant the flies the smell had attracted egress while failing to deny new flies ingress. The low ceilings, uneven walls and poorly tiled floors filed my heart with an unknown feeling of disgust. Not disgusted by the appalling conditions in this house but disgusted by the excessive comfort and luxury I had lived in while my own mother slept under a ceiling that could hardly support itself. David led us through what appeared to be the living room with a couch covered in plastic blocking the front door rendering it useless. We entered the dark room where they were keeping her. “Vivian, Fikile is here. He’s come to see you.” David’s words as he ushered Nonto and I into the room. I could feel Nonto’s nervous heartbeat through the feint pulse of her left hand tightly gripping mine. “Fikile? My Fikile? Why didn’t you tell me he was coming? Who is this woman with him?” her voice was weak and her words stumbled out of the dry mouth that she kept swishing her tongue about to keep it moist. “This is my wife, Nontobeko” I said, breaking the silence I had held since arriving. “Wife? My Fikile can’t have a wife, he’s just a little boy. Who are you?” I stared at her. “Some days are better than others” David said in a defeated and vaguely optimistic voice. Nonto pushed me gently into the room, I hadn’t realised I had hardly moved beyond the door frame. Still holding onto Nonto’s left hand I moved towards the familiar stranger. “I am Fikile, and this is my wife, Nontobeko. I am not a little boy anymore.” I looked at her hoping to get something resembling a coherent response. “Fikile? My Fikile? You have your father’s eyes but that nose is definitely mine!” I smiled. “Do you have children?” she asked without pausing. I told her we did not. “What good is a wife with no children? She must give you children if she loves you” I caressed Nonto’s hand with my thumb to keep her calm. “She loves me very much” I responded with a smile. There was silence for some time as she looked at me very tenderly. “You have very kind eyes” she spoke again “Who are you?” a strange tightness filled my chest “I am Fikile, this is my wife Nontobeko” I repeated, calm as ever. “You remind me of a young man I once knew. He was such a hard headed man. Hardly ever listened to anything anyone had to say about him and what he could or could not do. I was so in love with him, but his mind always seemed to be on other things. Even when I gave birth to our son he didn’t seem to be completely present. Our son Fikile… Who are you?” “I am Fikile” I repeated one last time before standing up and leaving without a further word. “I am Fikile” I thought to myself walking passed the covered couches, sagging living room ceiling and uneven walls.

In the days that followed, David called a number of times to tell me my mother was asking for me. I refused to go, telling him I was busy with work and after dismissing him a few times I stopped taking his calls altogether. Eventually the calls stopped. Although Nonto and I barely spoke about that visit to my mother’s house I was aware of the animosity she had begun sensing from me after that day. I was angry that even a woman who hardly knew who she was speaking to found it strange that we had no children. After all, insanity tells no lies. For the sake of peace, I suppose, she never confronted me about it nor did I her, but our interactions with one another became increasingly casual and the phone calls in the middle of our work days became less and less common.

Two long weeks later I had decided to move back into the Rosebank home for a little while to help me put a few things into perspective. I found myself at odds with myself. I knew leaving Nonto at the penthouse was foolish and hurtful but in that moment I didn’t seem to care all that much. I sat in my study staring at the walls in the dark realising how much I’ve always hated the colour of this old study. The walls, a dull, pale and lonely shade of white with dark brown wood finishes on the door frames and shelves. After two weeks of silence David called late one night. When I first saw the light from my cell phone I thought it might be Nonto calling with some kind of emergency. I leaped to grab it only to see David’s name on the screen. The phone didn’t ring long, as though he knew I wouldn’t answer. I received a text message from him a few moments later. “I know this is hard for you and I can’t begin to imagine all of the things you must be feeling but I thought you deserve to know that your mother is no longer with us …” the rest of the message was just a heap of useless sentimentalities that aren’t worth getting into. The natural reaction to this sort of thing is probably to experience some form of heartache or burst into tears but all I remember is a rush of numbness followed by my body urging me to stand and my hand reaching for my keys. When I arrived there were already a few family members at the house, I craved the comfort of Nonto’s hand as they all stared at me knowing exactly who I was without an introduction. I avoided eye contact lest it invite an unwanted conversation. I didn’t even know why I was there. All their eyes pierced me with fierce accusations. “You did this” they whispered from the right “You selfish bastard” they hissed from behind “You aren’t welcome here” they added from the left. I bowed my head and stepped outside and bumped into David who had stepped out to smoke a cigarette. “You came” he said absently. I nodded, wondering if he could see me in the dark or just smell my discomfort. “She would have appreciated that. She was a good woman, I wish you had known her before her mind began to leave her” I held back my anger and sighed… “Me too” I said after a long pause.

The funeral came and went without much of a fuss. On the day I was only partially present with my mind wandering in places yet to be discovered. I had told Nonto about my mother’s passing and even though we came in separate cars, we were together and okay, at least for the day. Surrounded by people we would probably have no excuse to see again we watched from the side lines. Listening to them sing hymns to a God I’m not quite sure I believe in. A part of me wished I wasn’t who I was for that day just so I could experience this as a normal child would. “Perhaps that would be worth a prayer or two” I thought to myself and laughed, not noticing that my subtle laugh had drawn some unwanted attention and when I did notice I grinned some more just to make sure they knew their piercing stares had no effect on me.

I was not particularly shaken by her death, but I remember desperately wishing I was. I am not a drinking man. I enjoy being in control too much to tamper with my ability to make decisions, but that night I found myself in a bar surrounded by strangers who knew nothing of who I was, where I came from, how I was raised or what I had experienced. I felt, on the surface at least, at ease. “Can I buy you a drink?” I heard a feminine voice speak in a somewhat seductive tone. I knew exactly what she was up to but I made no effort to send her on her way. “I don’t drink” I responded. “I can tell, you’ve been staring into that half full glass of soda for the last 45 minutes”

“Half full, you say? It looks more half empty to me. I ought to know, I’ve been staring at it for the last 45 and a half minutes, you know.” She laughed. She was flirting. Her body language spoke in poetic paragraphs and her pupils dilated with desire. Her confidence was astounding I stared at her and realised I was flirting too. My attention had shifted from the half empty/half full glass to the half clothed/ half naked thighs of this woman I had just met without so much as an introduction. “What are you doing here? Your type never comes here without good reason”. “My type?” I responded, keen to hear what “type” of man I appeared to be.  She locked her eyes on mine “You’re wearing a perfectly polished pair of shoes, a watch worth a pretty penny, you’re extremely well groomed and the keys to your German sports car are on the counter. With these you seem like most men here, out to have a good time with a woman you haven’t met but know how to impress, but you’ve done nothing but peer into that glass since you got here. Throwing no glances at any of the women who would throw themselves at you twelve times over. That tells me you don’t come to places like this all that often. You want to be alone but not too much, you want to have a drink but you’re too buttoned down to take the leap. You’re a man standing on a cliff waiting for permission to jump. You’re so afraid of what might happen when you hit the ground that you overlook the freeing feeling of falling. Let go. Lose control. Have a real drink with me. You’re allowed to”. I smiled, still holding eye contact, occasionally studying the contours of her face. “That’s a nice little trick you’ve got there, but I think you missed something while watching me so closely.” I gestured towards my left hand on the counter “I’m married” She moved closer. Her perfume entwining us both “I didn’t miss that, it just wasn’t worth mentioning”. She placed her hand carefully on my face and slowly moved closer. I grabbed her hand and handed it back to her, stopping this before it lost its innocence. “I’m not doing this”. I stood up and left.

I got into the car and started driving. I didn’t know where I was going, I just drove, becoming less and less conscious of what I was doing. Falling deeper and deeper into thought. I hardly saw the quick flash of headlamps in my rear view mirror or heard the panicked hoot of the car hurdling towards me. Everything stopped. There was silence. Contact. The car rolled violently eventually deciding that wheels up was the right orientation and sliding forward this way for a few meters. The smell of hot metal and airbag gas were my first reminders that I was still alive. The next was the pinching pain in my arm that had been grazed by a dislodged piece of metal. I squirmed my way out of the rear window, quickly getting back on my feet and looking around. I looked back at the car “Not dead yet, hey, ma?” I laughed. I laughed until the scrape in my arm stung again. “This is the pain I should be feeling!” I shouted before laughing some more. I laughed at the other driver struggling to get out of his car. I laughed at him asking for my help, I laughed at my indifference and started walking into the night. I took off my shoes and left them behind. I undid my belt and cast it aside. My blood stained and torn shirt followed. I continued this way until I only my boxers remained. I walked until my bare feet cramped. I walked with blood from my nose drying on my face. I kept walking aimlessly until I found myself at my mother’s grave. I sat next to it and wrapped my arms around the tomb stone. “My name is Fikile…” I said to her. “My name is Fikile…” tears on my face joining the caked blood. “My name is Fikile and this is my wife Nontobeko” I repeated and mumbled there for hours on the floor. “My name is Fikile and this is my wife Nontobeko”.

The night ended slowly. I never moved. I stayed there, collecting morning dew and dust just as the grass did. “I am Fikile on the grass”. I stayed there as the dew dried and the morning sun baked the earth “I am Fikile in the sun”. “Do you remember me now?” I lost consciousness.

I woke up to the sound of a familiar voice saying my name in a panic. I stared at the owner of the voice “This is my wife Nontobeko!” I said. She nodded while wiping tears from her eyes. “My name is Fikile…” I said one last time. “And I am your wife, Nontobeko” she said calmly “… the mother of your unborn child” she added while wrapping me in her coat. She got down and sat on the floor next to me. “This is my wife Nontobeko” I whispered.