Zukiswa Wanner

This year marks forty years since your death, O you late teacher, imbiber, journalist and writer extraordinaire, Can Themba. Since your death of a liver disease in 1958 (don’t know why I am telling you this because you of course know how you died. You were there, I wasn’t even born), some things in the South Africa you knew have changed, while others have not.

You remember that lawyer dude Nelson Mandela, Bra Can (no disrespect but I am sure I would be calling you Bra if you were still alive)? Well the Boers got that cat after you died. He spent 27 years on an island…no. not the British island in exile or holidaying in some archipelago but Robben Island jailed and beating up limestone. Don’t worry, he managed to stay alive, was released, and became the first democratic president after the elections. He is so popular that they even gave him a Nobel Peace Prize (alas, he had to share it with his former jail master!), he is invited to speak at all the important things, and quite a lot of stuff has been named after him – or built in his honour (there is a statue in London’s Trafalgar Square, can you believe that?)  

Triomf did not triumph and Sophiatown has been restored though not quite, I suspect, as you knew it in the 40s and 50s’ before the forced removals. It is probably much more bourgeois than you could have imagined.

The black person in South Africa now has had the vote for the last fourteen years although most of us still do not have the capital.

The country has the best constitution in the world but many people’s rights are still not being respected. Just last week a girl had their miniskirt ripped off at a taxi rank here in Joburg (it pains me because I love my Joburg in the same manner that I know you loved your Sophiatown) and was later sexually violated because ‘it was her fault’…so you see, some things have not changed that much.

What has changed is that Nat Nakasa is a goner, so is Casey Motsisi, Aggrey Klaaste, and a whole of other scribe cats that you knew – hell even Dolly is gone. But there are still some folks around. On Saturday I was with two of them – Lewis Nkosi (I never could call him Bra) is soldiering on and still writing. He has become some type of Godfather of Prose for new voices like myself, and of course, I was also with the guy who penned these words in your memory:

We think of you as an institutionDemolished by bulldozers of colonial designWe say what does not finish is ominousSo forever like exile is an ominous loadTo carry even for one as cynical as youThough we can still not talk of you as dead. Mayibuye.For all we knowyou willed your deathwith perverse precision thoughyou did not invent spiritsthat gnawed at your liverwith the determination of termitesor the lawandorder which has killedthe mystic dreamer in me We could have dubbed you fishBut you did not swim in water

We dubbed you Can as container

And mimicked your decayHoping to give birth to our lifeCan, child of my mother

All of you is not involved in this evil business

Death

Nor all of us in life

You have no idea who wrote that do you? It’s someone you know. The dude is now an old man, just turned 70 and had a kickass party this last weekend with the who’s-who of Gauteng’s literati. You may know him as Willie Kgositsile, we irreverent writing youths call him Bra Willie and the rest of the world, if they Google him, know his as South Africa’s Poet Laureate.

I am sure you want to know a bit about his birthday party. It was the type of function that I am sure you, Bra Can would have liked. Of course there were the speeches and all (one from a politician nogal), and a prayer from a kwaito singer. But more importantly, there was great conversation – quite a bit of it about you in fact – and bottles and bottles of all sorts of booze. I even considered pouring some down for you as I was talking to one of my friends about you but much as I think highly of you, I could not. It was, after all, a glass of Chivas older than a decade – I know you understand.

But I am not really writing to you to talk about the party. I am writing to talk about your writing. I am not happy that you left so few of it around – or even that you wrote so little given your skills with the pen – but, it is what it is. Remember that famed story of yours, The Suit? Well Bra Can, it seems to be known by every person who reads in the English language from Arctic to Antarctic. Anyway, two years ago some guy who works at Department of Arts and Culture decides to pen The Suit Continued from the perspective of the guy who jumped out of the window.

Your skills are hard to match Bra Can, but Siphiwo would have given you a run for your money with his piece. Never one to be left behind, last year I decided to do The Dress that fed the Suit from Matilda’s perspective. You will see it on this blog if, as I suspect, there are computers in Writers’ Heaven where you are – not as good as Siphiwo’s or yours to be honest but, I am not as skilled a wordsmith as y’all. But, I am not even writing about that though, Bra Can. I am writing to tell you that, because I was thinking so much of the 40^th anniversary of your death, I got my students to do a follow up of The Suit after reading Siphiwo’s and your stories (they did not know that I had done one). I have received some absolutely fabulous material.

There is the one where Matilda claims that Maphikela only told Philemon about her transgressions because she had refused to have an affair with him as well. Then there is the one where Philemon used to work in the mines and got his bits and pieces smashed by some rocks and for five years Matilda had not had any and well…a woman has needs.

Another good one was where she hated Phil’s cooking and the affair was her payback. See how much creativity you have inspired in students who, up until last week, did not know about you? What then to others like me who grew up reading the few works that you left behind?

So Bra Can, even though we never met (and hopefully won’t meet for a long time to come if indeed there is a Writers’ Heaven!), thank you for the literary inspiration you have given to many South African youth, myself inclusive. It would have been wonderful of course if you were here and could see the new voices that are emerging, cynical as you were I am pretty sure one or two would have impressed you.

You can’t be here, but we are. And because I like you Bra Can, I am going to toast to you at my next book launch in July this year.

In addition to toasting, I also promise to keep on writing so that my literary estate is larger (though not necessarily as good) as yours when I eventually, God forbid-o – join you.

Cheers.

Me.

Over the last few weeks I have been doing a lot of thinking and I have come to the conclusion that I am tired of being black. I am tired of being black because I dislike belonging to a race of such forgiving people and I am tired of being black because it truly is burdensome being a representative for the race.
Had a conversation with some white friends the other day. We were talking poverty in South Africa but eventually, uncomfortably, as may happen sometimes when one is a rather tactless writer, race came up.

I argued that this country’s poverty levels will never change drastically since the majority of the population that suffered under apartheid never got reparations (which I feel should be paid for by the multinationals that profited from the system as well as countries that continued to trade with apartheid South Africa based on the nation’s per capita income). To which one of my friends answered that I and others like me (I assumed black people who question the status quo) should not be reactionary, need to learn to ‘reconcile’ (their word not mine), and get on with it in building the not-so-new South Africa instead of trying to antagonise foreign investors who may decide to withdraw.
This is a particularly strange argument for me, understand, because I never hear any of the same people (liberal whites) say the same thing (‘forgive and forget’) to Jews who have been marking the Nazi atrocities since 1946. I compare the two because I like to think that the Nazi atrocities were equivalent in their raw violence as the stuff that was perpetrated on black people during apartheid and prior (and the Jews got reparations, German passports and still remind the world about that dark time in their history. I must admit to feeling a bit of Jewish envy here).
I must also question here why, ever since I can remember, it is black people who have been reconciling. In South Africa, it is black people who have extended that bloody tongue of friendship and learnt to speak the Queen’s language (and sometimes Afrikaans too) as well or better than our white compatriots and yet, fourteen years after Mandela came into power, I can count on one hand how many of my third (or sometimes fourth generation) white South African friends can speak any of our local languages in spite of being born and bred here…where there, is their reconciliation?
It is black people who tsk tsk when a white person has been a victim of crime, and feel some sense of guilt because well – I am sure the criminal was black and I am black, guilt by association see – and yet Andrew Donaldson, David Bullard, the Democratic Alliance and all liberal whites who constantly write editorials in the leading newspapers about (black) crime have failed to condemn the actions of North West white teen Johann Nel who gunned down black people in what only an idiot would claim was not racially motivated slaughter (he was saying the k-word as he sprayed bullets, witnesses say).But again may be I am being reactionary. May be as I write, my fellow South Africans of the paler hue are setting up a trust fund for the victims’ family (lol). May be I am being reactionary because I need to understand that there are more important things to write about than a few now non-existent black lives – like the fact that some white people had three hours of no electricity because of Eskom’s bungle stupidly called load shedding.

While black politicians condemned the slayings, I noticed during the news on one of the television stations that some family members of the gunner talked of his psychological problems – no apology, just excuses and of course much talk of how black people should calm down and not turn this into something it is not. It is very easy for the offender to tell the offended to forgive but methinks it is tragic when the offended, meekly does so without question and time and time again, the black person has been on the forgiving side of the equation while when the white person is the victim, we are reminded of it endlessly.
I use this example of Johan Nel because it also brought something to the forefront that I have noticed often. You see, when a white person commits a crime, he is Johan Nel, a teenager from North West Province but when a black person commits a crime he represents the whole race. It is true that none of my white friends have ever blamed me directly – but then again, I am different – but sometimes I have overhead statements like ‘these people’ a statement which, as every black person knows since birth, means ‘your people.’
Having said this much, in the interest of reconciliation` of course, my question to my fellow white countrywomen (and men) is ‘how much reconciliation have you done?’
If you stay in Sandton or in Constantia, how many times have you gone to hang out and chat in Alexander and Langa to see how your fellow South Africans live? How many of your so-called black friends’ houses have you visited for dinner or, left your child with while you go on an outing with your partner (because entrusting someone with your child is, to me, the mark of true friendship)? I look forward to getting the answers from white people out there so that I at least can also jump on this board of reconciliation (After I get my reparations of course).

Here I am at 13 Market Street in Johannesburg, home of Family Court. The sun is shining but today has been a dark day for me. Bloody magistrate. How could he? Ruling that I must pay four thousand rand a month in child support to my erstwhile child’s mother. Four thou? For chrissakes, the child is breast feeding and not yet eating solids, what the hell does she need four thousand rand a month of my hard earned cash for? I do not even give my mother that much money. Dammit, there are many grandmothers raising six children on a pension of eight hundred rand and yet here I am forking out four thousand for a child that is barely three months old and that I never planned for.
I never believed it until today that justice is a blind goddess. I do not know about the blindness of course but goddess, she certainly is, and a feminist at that. ‘His Worship’ would not even let me tell my side of the story, but eish, I am glad I have seen you my brother.
Let’s dash to Sophiatown and over a beer, two, three may be more, God I need to be wasted, I can tell you all about it.

What? Why am I drinking Maarzen Gold when I normally drink Castle Lite? No. Today I am not a bourgeois. I really need a kill-me-quick and Maarzen Gold will do the job. Wait mfana, I will be back just now. I need to make a call to my work and tell them I am not coming. That I am still in court and do not know how long the proceedings will go on.
Alright then. Ha ha. It is bad form to drink on a Monday and I do not know when I last did that but I know I can always rely on you writer types to keep me company so long as I pay in situations like these because you all love your drink. Hey man, can’t you take a joke from a drowning man? Fine fine. I will get on with it.
I met her in a coffee shop where she was a waitress five years ago a month before I left to do my MBA at Cambridge. Yes, I know. You have known me for three years and never knew I had a girlfriend. Few people did. Just her sister, her co-workers and one or two friends of mine. And no-one needs to know. There would be a bevy of Johannesburg women calling me a dog and baying for my blood if they knew the whole time I was dating them I had a steady girlfriend. Anyway so I met this girl. She was serving me. She had a body with curves in all the right places and breasts that seemed to beg one to squeeze them. No long disgusting wig on her hair or some cheap weave but a chiskop. Yes. She had a bald head and was still stunning. You know a woman is beautiful when she can go without hair and still pull at your nether regions. But what struck me most about her were her eyes. Big and brown, the type of eyes a man could drown in. And I did. I asked for her number and soon we were burning the phone lines and I had changed some of the pounds I had hoped to take with me to England so I could show her the finer things in life.
I admit she was not the brightest light bulb in the tool shed but she seemed to genuinely want to make her life better. She told me she was a part time waitress and studying accounting at one of the more reputable colleges that have sprouted around this city. I was happy to hear that. Happy to hear that she genuinely wanted to better herself, so much better than most women I knew from her neighbourhood of Orlando.

When we first made love it felt as though we were meant to be. I remember that day with a certain clarity. It was September the 13th, the night before I flew out. My body fit into hers like we had always been meant to be and I thought for the first time that this could indeed be the elusive but ever searched for love. We never slept that night. We spent the night talking in Joe’s spare bedroom, you know Joe, yes? Yeah. He was the one who was taking me to the airport and I was sleeping over at his house that night. In retrospect I keep thinking I should not have made love to her that night. If I had not may be she would not have felt that I owed her something, but I always did feel that way afterwards. I was leaving, she was staying, and would have to be content with emails, the bi-weekly phone calls, and one visit during the British summer holidays until I returned back home. But it happened, and one cannot cry over spilt milk, right? And in a way having her at that point in time of my life was good. Knowing that there was a woman waiting for me, a woman who loved me, got me working hard to finish my studies in record time and I come back home without falling on the wayside like so many of our brothers and sisters who go to the diaspora to study but end up losing focus.
Imagine my disappointment on returning after a year and a half to find that she had decided that accounting was not for her and waitressing was her dream job. Maybe she had only taken up accounting so she could learn how to calculate her tips. A total letdown. When I got that ActionAid job as Financial Manager, I kept trying to encourage her to go back to school, make something of herself, but because I had stupidly given her keys to my newly purchased townhouse, she seemed to build her future around me, had become complacent about her goals, and always had a look of disappointment on her face when Valentine’s, birthdays, and Christmas came and we exchanged presents and my present was never a rock.
Yes you are right. I should have broken up with her but how many men do you know who dump women? I am certainly too cowardly. In fact, all the girls I dated while I was with her always dumped me. In their defence, I always made sure that I did something to get them to dump me when I was tired of them – stand them up so I could go and drink with the boys, get them to see me making out with another female, blatantly lie to them about obvious stuff and it would always work but never her. I do not know whether Ntsiki was just too stupid or whether she felt she had invested too much into our relationship to let go. I mean bra, one day I went with Joe and another female I had been
eyeing to her workplace (yes. She is still at the same coffee shop that I met her at five years ago) and she bought the story I gave her on my way to the toilet that the other woman was a journalist interviewing me for some international campaign. I had hoped that would be the end of us then but it was not. Never one to want to be caught in a compromising position, after getting mad drunk with Joe and this woman, I can’t even remember her name now, I went to the other woman’s house, slept there and when I woke up in the morning my phone was ringing and Ntsiki was on the other side.
“Where the hell are you? I came home and you were not there.” She was screaming down the phone lines.
See that’s the strange thing about women. Ntsiki stayed at her mother’s house and had probably lied about where she would be but here she was taking ownership of my place and calling my place ‘home’ what the hell is that?
I sighed, feigned tiredness and said, “I will tell you all about it when I get there. This is not a good time,” then hung up.
When I got to my house her beautiful eyes were red-rimmed, she had been crying. “I was worried about you, I thought something had happened,” she stated as I walked through the door.
I had been prepared to tell her the truth before I opened the door, that I did not think we were working but at that time I was still a sucker for women’s tears and hated to see a woman cry. I told myself that I was not a total cad so I lied to make her feel better. Had I known then what I know now, that women can cry on cue and that tears are their major weapon of manipulation to men kind, I would not have been so quick to jump to bait. I told her Joe and I had slept in a jail cell, arrested for drunken driving. I think the egotist in me also liked knowing that she adored me so much she had started making mental pictures of me lying on some side of the road somewhere. I continued with the relationship.
Ja neh? I should have started using protection there and then whenever we were sexually involved but I was naïve. I had told her from the get go that I was not ready to be a parent and would get married first before that happened. I stupidly thought that she would honour my wishes, she had done so all along. She always told me she understood.
Besides, when you have been with someone as long as we had been together and she has always been vigilant about birth control, pregnancy is the last thing on your mind and bra, you know sex is so much better without protection. It was not like we had not been tested together or we were still in the window period of our relationship. But women can be truly conniving and Ntsiki showed me that she was no exception.
The last time I was with her in a physical sense was a year ago. I started a small fight with her in the morning and thereafter demanded my keys back pulling the “I don’t think this is going to work if you are going to be like that, just give me my keys back and go” line. She never knew what hit her. Up until now I do not think she knows what that fight was all about because I, the instigator, certainly do not know what it was about. She called a few days later crying and apologizing and I said I forgave her but then told her I was going to the outer provinces with work. Sure I lied. I was in Johannesburg the whole time, most of the time spent at my friend’s place in Ormonde but I was not going to tell her that. I hoped she would catch the hint. She did not.
Then nine months ago I find her sitting in reception at my workplace as I am about to leave for work – damn security guards for familiarising with her and letting her stay – she was chatting to them with one eye on the elevator. I had absolutely no way of escaping.
“I thought you were in the Eastern Cape?” she asked.
I had not called her once in the length of time that I had been apart from her and she seemed not to have taken the hint? Damn! I figured it was time for some home truths.
“I lied.” I looked at her with a ‘there. So sue me’ look.
Huh, have I ever thought of becoming a writer? No. I will leave that to you. It’s a broke job and I have no time. Besides, I thought you writers needed stories like mine for inspiration?
Waiter. Can we have two more? Keep them coming anytime you see our bottles emptying.
Yeah so where was I? Oh right. So Ntsiki turned to me with her big brown eyes and a serious look on her face and said, “Can we talk?”
“Sure. Why don’t we walk across to Primi’s, we can grab dinner while we talk?” I figured I could finally end it all, assuming she was so clueless not to have got it all this time.
“No that’s okay. I have already eaten. Can we sit in the car?” I shrugged my shoulders. It was no skin of my nose and it would certainly leave a few more coins in my pocket, what with petrol prices going up on a frequent basis, it being a week to pay day, and I being almost broke?
We went to the parking lot and sat in my car.
“So what do you want to talk about, Nontsikelelo?” I asked her saying her name in full to register my displeasure at her appearance. I had things to do, places to go.
“I am three months pregnant.” She said matter of factly, no mincing words for our Ntsiki..
“Congratulations. Who is the father?” I asked her nonchalantly but knowing well what her answer would be.
“What the fuck do you mean who is the father you bastard? Who is the one person that I have been going out with faithfully for almost five years? You are a fucking piece of work Themba, a piece of work. ‘who is the father indeed?’ how dare you?”
I was stunned. I had never heard Ntsiki swear before save for the hells and damns once in a while. And she was crying. Oh God, more emotional blackmail, this was getting a little played out. Women really needed to be given a tutorial that too much of anything can be annoying particularly if that anything was crying. She now just seemed like a whiny someone not the sad and pathetic woman that she had appeared to be when I attempted to break up with her that other time. I wisely did not fall for it.
“Calm down, stop crying and let’s talk about this rationally. So what’s the problem? Do you need money for an abortion?” I asked her. If she could wait for another week, I was sure I would be able to give her money to go to Marie Stopes and get a termination.
She looked at me in horror and said through her teeth, “I am not going to abort.”
Was this girl crazy? She knew I did not want any children, birth control was free in all the clinics and hospitals and still she had gotten pregnant and now she did not even want to get a termination which I was willing to pay for.
“Why not?” I asked her.
“Because my mother already knows about it, she is Catholic and her church does not allow termination, besides I think it’s time we started a family.” She answered daring me to contradict her.
I could not believe this waitress chick. ‘I think it’s time we start a family,’ she had said. I have never been as angry with a woman as I was then. I was not a violent man but I shocked both of us by hitting the dashboard with my fist. This girl was crazy. I did not want to be with her, did not want to have a family with her and here she was telling me that we should start a family. What planet had she been on for the last three months not to realise that I was no longer interested in her through my absence of communication and my lies?
“So does your mother’s church and her God whose name you are finally invoking allow pre-marital sex?” I asked her.
She looked at me baffled, “Don’t try to make me stupid with your dictionary words from university. I don’t know what invoke means.”
I would have laughed at this point but I did not want to ridicule her. I tried another tact.
“Listen Ntsiki, let’s be reasonable,” I said trying my level best to calm down when all I wanted to do was laugh at her whole ‘university words’ statement, “I told you right from the get go that I do not want children, moreso out of wedlock. This country has enough drama and enough issues with children coming from single parent homes for me to add to it. I should know, I work in civil society, remember?”
“Yes but we do not need to put our child through that. We can just get married.” What was wrong with this girl? She made international and national airheads Paris and Khanyi seem like Nobel Laureates in physics.
I breathed in and out deeply a few times telling myself to calm down this time around because I was getting rather pissed off again. It was hard. But I did my best before saying to her, “Ntsiki, marriage is not even an option for me right now. I have too many family obligations to take care of; a younger sister in university whose tuition I have to pay, my mortgage and my car note, I cannot afford to get married or have a baby right now and I know you certainly cannot afford to have a baby on your waitress’ tips. Babies are expensive.”
What I did not tell her but what she should have known having known me as long as she had is that I hate babies. I hate their whining and crying. I hate when they mess up and one has to change them. I hate when they sleep on your lap and drool on you.
Sure they are cute when they gurgle but then they throw up on your good suit, the mother apologises, and you find yourself cleaning your suit with a wet wipe and smelling of sour milk afterwards.
No no my brother. Of course I am not heartless and totally immune to the charms of children. I mean, I do not mind them when they are toddlers like my older sister’s son. Then they can tell you when they want to do number one or number two and you can even safely walk with them to the shops and pick up a woman by telling them how the mother of your child dumped the baby on your doorstep and left for Europe ending with, ‘hey, but you women are cruel’ which always results in the woman giving you her number to show you that she is an exception because she loves how you are so nurturing. But babies? I never wanted any.
So she said to me, “Fine. If you do not want to get married we will not and I will take care of my child myself because I have told you, I am ready to start a family,” as she opened the car door, and banged it with a resounding crash.
I winced. This was a Jaguar. Did this woman not have any appreciation for the finer things in life?
I got out to follow her, “come on Ntsiki, be reasonable.”
“No, Themba. You have decided that you do not want me and do not care what I want so I will go ahead and do what I want. Bye.” She said walking to the main road to catch taxis. I was not going to embarrass myself by running after her. For all I knew one of my colleagues could be coming out of the office right now and see me undergoing some drama. I knew these ghetto chicks. Ntsiki would probably start yelling at me across the street or some such humiliating experience. I let her go.
Hey there, boss. But what is wrong with you, man? I told you to keep the drinks flowing the moment you see them emptying. Are you trying to negotiate yourself out of a tip? No that’s alright. Just keep them flowing alright? Thank you my brother.
Eish, these guys. They act like they are doing you a favour when serving you. What’s wrong with our people and their customer service? Come on man, me a BEE? Not at all. I just expect good service if I am paying for something just as I try to give good service because I know I get paid for my work. Do not pull all that artists on the periphery of society crap on me, I have known you for too long, aren’t you the one who is famous for having left a meeting with your publishing manager when she did not arrive at your meeting place after five minutes? Whatever.
Anyway, so I did not see her or hear from her all through her pregnancy and I had hoped she had in fact come to her senses and terminated. Assuming she had been pregnant in the first place. May be she had just said that when she realised that I was breaking up with her as a way of holding on. Wishful thinking on my part. On my birthday she sent me a text message, “congratulations. You’ve become a father to a baby girl.”
Joy. Happy birthday to me. But I am not a total arse you know, so I called her and asked what maternity ward I could find her in.
“Coronation,” she said sounding gleeful. I think she was under the misconception that now the baby was here I would be willing to tie the knot and give her the housewifely job she had always dreamt of. Yeah right. In this age and era?
I called my older sister so she could give me some pointers and together we went to Ackerman’s and bought some necessities. We drove together to the hospital. I had never planned that my child would be born in a public hospital. If truth be told, I had never planned to have a child period, be that as it may, the child was here and it was born in a public hospital. Ntsiki was sitting in bed with the child’s cot beside her and the moment she saw me she started crying.
This woman really needed to stop with the tears.
“This is my sister, Wandiswa. How is the baby?” I asked when she had stopped with her crying, now immune to her tears.
“The baby is fine. Do you want to hold her?”
And ruin my Polo shirt with possible vomit? I did not think so. “No that’s alright.” I answered to her disappointment.
My sister looked at me and started laughing, “Don’t worry Ntsiki, this boy is scared of children. He never held my son until the boy could walk by himself. Here, let me hold him.”
Well okay, at least the kid got to bond with one member of his paternal family.
“I brought you some stuff for the baby. Is there anything else you need?” I asked already anxious to be gone. You should have been there, you too would have wanted to leave. So
many women wearing tacky-looking nighties with bare breasts being forced into crying babies’ hungry mouths. Certainly not a place I would wish on any man.
My sister looked at me, “Hey Themba. Stay for a while and get to know your child. She has your forehead you know.”
Ntsiki concurred, “Yes she does, doesn’t she?”
I looked at the little thing wrapped up in blankets. I had no idea what they were talking about. As far as I know, there are four types of babies that are born. Babies are either dark and thin, dark and chubby, light and thin, or light and chubby and in each category they all look alike so this was some lame excuse of trying to get me to bond with the kid. I was not biting.
“It just looks like all babies.” I answered gruffly.
“No she does not. And don’t call her ‘it’ she is a human being. Come on, hold her,” My sister insisted.
Going with her to the hospital was a bad idea. I held the little thing, “here put your hand here to support her head,” my sister instructed.
I did as ordered. Then I saw her yawning, put my finger out to her and she gripped it with her whole fist. She had a surprisingly strong grip. I was in love.
“She has a strong grip, neh?” I said a little pissed off at the little thing for opening up my heart and making me shed my reservations about her.
“Like her dad,” Ntsiki answered unnecessarily.
I mentally rolled my eyes. How lame.
Anyway the long and short of it my brother is that, her mother came just at about that time and caused unnecessary drama yelling at me in front of my sister and the whole ward full of women about how I had abandoned her child in her time of need. I was not in the mood, “with all due respect ma,” I said laconically in isiXhosa, “I told uNtsiki from the get go that I was not ready to have a child but she went ahead and decided to do this on her own but, I am not saying that I am not going to take care of my responsibility, that is why I am here and I will come with my family to pay damages at a time that suits you best.” I ended pulling my sister so that we could go.
All the women in the ward started shouting insults at me, you would think I was not the wronged party. Ntsiki had chosen to get pregnant and keep the pregnancy and yet I was
the one who was going to pay damages, should she not have been the one to pay damages to me after giving me a child I did not want?
Women are schemers my brother, do you know what she did after that? She named the child after my sister Wandiswa who stupidly seemed delighted by it all, not realising it was some sort of ploy to get me to marry her.
I still did not bite. My father’s younger brother got together a delegation and we paid the damages, meanwhile I had been giving Ntsiki a thousand rand a month in addition to all the formula and diapers but both her and her mom kept trying to get me to marry her. She even came to stay at my mother’s house for two weeks until I put my foot down and told them unless they were planning to marry her it was not going to work. She got the message then. And today was her payback. She came to Family Court to demand maintenance with one of my pay slips that she probably stole when she still had keys to my house. I could not lie about my income then. And yet in retrospect I think it is her loss. I was spending more than four thousand monthly on the child but now she will get less. Hey these chicks from the location wanting to survive on papgeld. Why could she not finish her tertiary so she would not depend on my money for her partying habits?
What pisses me off though is that the magistrate never bothered to hear my side of the story or give me a chance to address the court. He just said the amount then hit his desk with a gavel. What would I have said to him?
I would have liked to ask the magistrate what recourse I have for her entrapment. I would have liked to know whether her decision to have a child against my wished was not a violation of my constitutional rights. But that damn Constitution. Yes, you heard me right and no, I am not drunk. I blame the Constitution. I know I have bragged on international platforms about how we have the best constitution in the whole world but I think it is skewered in favour of women. I cannot believe it was men that wrote it. What were they all thinking? I blame the Constitution for giving women this absurd sense of power over us. Surely if a woman has the right to choose whether or not to have a baby but does not give you a choice whether or not you should be a father she should be forced to look after the child by herself unless and until you choose to be a parent to her child? Ntsiki did after all say she would look after the child herself when I suggested termination at a time when it could be done. So yeah man. I am now a father without having planned to be
one and am now forced by society to conform to what is expected of me without my input being asked for. But you know, I am beginning to see it now, my sister was right. The little thing has my forehead.
What? You aren’t having another one? You are leaving? Come on now, you cannot leave me in my darkest moment.
Is that what is meant about friends being few when days are dark? Come now my brother. I always thought, especially after excursions in Alex at night when a cop car appears to harass well-meaning and party-loving blacks that the saying was actually ‘when friends are dark days are few?”
You are inspired? You mean you are going to write a short story about what I just told you. Right now? Tjhoo.
Alright man, I am glad I could be your muse but make sure you change the names otherwise I will be in trouble at work for having spent the afternoon drinking. You know these civil society types love to read anything they can lay their hands on. But wait, don’t leave just yet. Let’s have one more for the guys who can never get anyone pregnant. Who? I am talking of Bafana Bafana who always seem unable to score. Then I will drive you home.
Thanks man.
Waiter, my friend is not leaving yet, can we get another round?
I love you writer types. You can never say no to one more, you would think you lot’s totem was beer. And I really needed to talk to someone. Day doesn’t seem so dark anymore, especially when I am looking at the bottom of the bottle.