like! No matter how hard I’ve strained my imagination, I can’t remember what games I played or where I lived or with whom. The only memories I have of my early life begin in grade one when I started formal schooling.
My memory lapse about some parts of my childhood can’t be blamed on not trying to remember because I’ve tried most methods of treatment, from an ancient Chinese method to nearly having my brain ‘shocked’. I was willing to try having wires placed in my brain until it was properly explained that the procedure would help me to forget some stuff – to remove it, not to remember it.
To make peace with the gaps in my memory, I’ve settled on a suitable explanation. If my Creator and my ancestors didn’t think it was necessary for me to remember some of the things in detail, I wouldn’t remember them. And, if they did not want me to remember, then they had a good reason that they won’t bother to share with me. Whenever people ask, as they always do, where was I born and where I grew up I always have to say that between my birth and the age of six or so I lived on a farm. Then from eight, nine or ten years I was either in Pretoria or in some rural village.
The place where Father lived near Pretoria was a brilliant choice for bringing up a child like me. It was also best for a large family who were enthusiastic churchgoers. It was not a township but it cannot be called a rural village – it was somewhere in between. I heard that because of the regulations in those days of segregation, Father didn’t qualify for a four-roomed government house in Mabopane or Soshanguve townships. For one to qualify for a house in those townships, one was supposed to have worked in Pretoria for fifteen years. Since Father worked in Newcastle and later in Germiston, he didn’t have a permit to look for a house in the two nearby townships.
Knowing Paternal Grandmother, I doubt whether Father would have been allowed to leave the family commune even if he had qualified for a house. Mother was barely twenty years old when she got married to the man who had to leave her with his family in order to work as a long-distance truck driver. The fact that Mother arrived with a baby further complicated the honeymoon. I later discovered that there were strict instructions from Father that his wife was not allowed to pick up a handbag and go out to work like other women did. Father prided himself on being a good provider for his family, which initially included his extended family, and notably his mother. And to give credit where it is due, Father was a good provider because the family wasn’t poor. We were among the very few who owned more than one car, bought watermelons and bags of oranges and at least half a lamb and plenty of boerewors just for a weekend.
While Father didn’t miss an opportunity to announce his financial muscle, his mother told anyone who cared to listen that God gave her only two sons while five girls followed. They were the golden boys who were to maintain her financially, as well as her daughters and her daughters’ children.
‘I only have two boys, no miscarriage, no stillborn. These two are what God gave me. Their father died when they were still young and I brought them up alone. My boys listen to me. They will always do what I tell them to do.’
That was Paternal Grandmother’s mantra. At the time I thought it was hers only, but later in life I discovered that many older black women sang the same mantra. Those old women controlled their sons to the extent that they decided who they would marry, how they got married and how many times they could get ‘it’ up with their wives.
Even though we didn’t live in the dark ages, the family had a set of rules and customs that is very difficult to understand these days. One of the customs was that when a new bride arrived, according to the family tradition, she had to cook in Paternal Grandmother’s kitchen until she decided to set her free to go and cook in her own kitchen in her own home (ukukotiza). Her sons could not just move into their own homes with their brides. Paternal Grandmother was the one who made the decision as to when the bride was ready to move to her own house.
The strange thing about this custom is that I still don’t know whether it belonged to Zulus, Swatis or Sothos or to just any oppressive black family. A new bride could not get her hands on her husband’s salary or wages. In our case, Mother’s husband saved all his pay envelopes for the months he was away to hand over to his mother, Paternal Grandmother, when he returned home. Mother wasn’t allowed to accept money from her husband. She had to kneel before her mother-in-law every time she needed to buy anything, from pantyhose to toothpaste or even clothes for her baby (me at that time). From infancy, I became used to surviving with only essential clothing – nothing fancy and nothing much.
I still don’t understand what made everyone, including me, terrified of Paternal Grandmother. She got everything she wanted – no matter what. I was told that during the time that new brides still cooked in her kitchen, she used to sit on a chair and watch them trying to iron her sons’ clothes. Should she feel that a shirt wasn’t being ironed properly, she didn’t waste time. She tugged at it with her walking stick and threw it to the floor.
‘That’s not how you iron my son’s shirt,’ said Paternal Grandmother in her deep voice. ‘I’ll do it myself because you don’t know how to.’
* * *
Since I don’t remember what happened in my formative years, I’ll have to start the story of my life from grade one. I was between five and six years old and at that time I can safely say that Paternal Grandmother’s practice of leaning very hard on her two sons benefited her family financially. For the standards of that time, and the place where we lived, the family was well off because the sons provided for everyone financially. Because I was still very young, I can’t remember how often the two sons returned home. As long-distance truck drivers they were not often around – especially Father because his employers were outside Pretoria.
But on those weekends when they arrived home it was clear to all in the yard. On those occasions, I’d wake up to find Mother packing equal portions of meat into medium-sized white dishes and covering them with white or blue netting. We are talking here about a nicely cut lamb and boerewors for three households. Given that there were no children at Older Brother’s home, and as the so-called older daughter of the other provider, I was entrusted with the distribution of food to the other houses. I hated the task. I was tiny and sickly most of the time, although no one seemed to notice. To make sure I didn’t mess up, I’d deliver the meat dishes one at a time. The first was for Paternal Grandmother’s kitchen. The second was for our family – that is, when Mother was finally free to cook in her own kitchen.
The biggest problem was delivering the third dish to Second Aunt. My knees would be knocking against each other nervously and my little hand trembled when I knocked at her door. She wouldn’t respond by saying ‘come in’ even though she was already up. And she knew that I’d be coming with the provisions from her brother.
Second Aunt, bless her soul, never made any attempt to pretend she liked me – not even once. By then I knew the ploy of returning to Mother’s house claiming no one had answered the door wouldn’t work, because she’d simply send me back. So, I’d knock, and knock, and continue to knock, with that white dish firmly balanced on my head. I didn’t dare put it down because then she would accuse me of having dirtied the meat: ‘What do you think I am – a dog that must eat meat covered in dust?’ she once barked at me. The number of knocks and the time I spent waiting depended on her mood.
‘Good morning,’ I’d say when I eventually walked into her house, taking the dish off my head. Second Aunt never once responded to my greeting. All she did was grab the dish, take out the meat and then throw the dish back at me. I always had to guess in which direction the dish would be thrown because if I wasn’t careful it would hit my face.
Then there was another strange tradition. If the two sons arrived on a Friday night they would spend half the night with their mother and sisters while their wives were waiting in their houses. They didn’t take into account that the wives were still young, that their husbands spent much of their time working away from home and therefore they needed to bond. No, the brothers belonged to their mother and sisters until deep into the night.
Father’s family was odd indeed. I still have to laugh when I remember how they sabotaged his ambition. He owned a successful coal business and had a mind to open a coal yard selling sacks and buckets, which