Manoka
By Mohale Mashigo
Ndumiso looked shocked. His eyes moved down to my waist and his right hand moved away from between my legs. Fear. His & mine. It was his idea for us to sneak out and take a walk on the beach. Koko, my grandmother, had fallen asleep with my daughter in her arms, when the screen on the phone lit up. “Ngingaphandle. Walk on beach? Wanna be alone.” “Ndumiso, we are here on a church trip. Better not try anything,” I said as we sat down on the wet sand. He placed his hand on my left thigh; exposed through my khanga. Water touched our ankles as I tasted the inside of Ndumiso’s mouth. Cigarettes and breath mints. All those mornings in church, wondering what it would be like to feel his body pressed against mine. Butterflies and nausea. Lead tenor of the choir with an angelic voice. Erect and eager.
“Why are you crying?”
“Koko... I killed him.”
“Is that why you are crying?”
“No... Yes…I don't know.”
Koko is telling me that I have to go. “Take this baby and do as I tell you.” She is tying her doek and putting shoes on. I don't move. “Why am I the only one who is putting shoes on? You know the truth. It’s time to go now.” Am I losing my mind? I just told Koko the most unbelievable story. Instead of calling the police or dying from shock, she is calmly putting her shoes on. The gargling sound Ndumiso made comes back to me and I vomit. Salty water leaves my mouth. No blood in mine, not like Ndumiso as he tried to breathe through bloody water filled lungs. “Manoka!” Koko shakes me. “We are running out of…” Her lips are moving but all I hear is the sea and gargling. My mind is leaving me. It is in the ocean with Ndumiso's body. I pushed it into the water. Well, the tentacles did.
The sun hasn't risen on Christmas morning. Soon someone from our church group will knock on our door. Pastor said we would pray on the beach before sunrise. This whole trip was not meant to happen. I am not religious. Neither is Koko. She goes to church but without conviction. She just likes the company of the church ladies. Not that she sees them anymore. Her afternoons now belong to Nkaiseng; my daughter. I am not supposed to be in Durban. None of us are. Koko has never liked these church trips “I like praising God with people who love him. I don’t need to travel long distance for that.” Every year the church organises a trip to Durban. This is mainly for church members who don’t have family members to celebrate the holy day with. The pastor in training/choir master is in charge of this outing, which is what makes it so popular with the youth choir.
When I was younger, Christmas was a lonely time. Koko did everything she could to fill the hole. The parent shaped hole in my young heart. A hole surrounded by questions. Are they alive? Do they not miss me? Was the thought of being in my life such a bad thing? Nobody knows who my father is. My mother walked out one day after declaring that “I had enough breast milk to be strong.” She pulled her breast out of my mouth and walked out of the house. Never came back. Christmas time was when other children spent time with their mothers and fathers. No school, parents were on leave and families went through cycles of love and hate daily. I didn't have that. Eventually, I grew bigger than the hole. The hole was dwarfed by memories. Koko’s love drowned whatever longing I had for Christmas normalcy. Maybe my mother was right, I was strong enough. That kind of separation should have broken me but I managed to side step it. The rejection and longing now walked alongside me. It was no longer what defined me. “Dipuo had her reasons. Sometimes it takes many years to understand why our parents do what they do.” That’s what Koko always said when I asked her why my mother, Dipuo, left me.
“It’s time I tell you why your mother left.”
“Koko, did you hear me?” I couldn’t hear my voice but could tell that I was shouting. Once I emerged from the water, I wasn’t sure if I had dreamed what had just happened. I could no longer see Ndumiso’s body. The blood on my vest removed all doubt. Somehow, I made it back to the holiday apartments we were staying at. Tears in my eyes, salt in my mouth and fear chasing me, I banged on the door and Koko let me in. Any speech she had practised about unwanted pregnancy and being reckless flew out of the door. The words were probably eager to join Ndumiso in the ocean. My grandmother looked at my wet clothes. She wasn’t surprised. I collapsed on the floor. A hand stopped a scream from filling the room. “You have questions… I wanted to tell you tomorrow. There was no privacy on the bus. Don’t be…” Koko’s voice croaked and trailed off. She was looking at the blood on my top. Her eyes asked the question we both knew the answer to. Did someone get hurt? I nodded. Koko’s hand fell away from my mouth. Another unspoken question. “Ndumiso.” Hand on mouth again. “Sssshhhh. Tell me what happened.”
I got fired. That’s what happened. Imran told me that they couldn’t afford me anymore. What he really meant was his father’s young, new wife needed a job. I was a temp anyway. Temps don’t need long-term consideration, that’s just how it is. Being a receptionist was obviously not meant to be in my future. Imran always had a soft spot for me, which is why I was allowed to keep my job until bonus time. Koko was amused “Temps that get bonuses. It must be your big beautiful eyes.” My grandmother always complimented my eyes. They were the reason why I was so smart in school, cooked the best morogo she had ever tasted and found her house keys when she couldn’t. My eyes also got me into trouble. “You don’t even know who the father of your child is because your big eyes can’t focus. You look at all these boys and think you can have them all. Girls with small eyes can’t see as many boys as you can, Manoka! You make me tired.” That was the one and only time my grandmother said something negative about my pregnancy. It’s been like that, as far as I can remember. I do something that should break my Koko’s heart, she is upset and then it’s over. Koko and I somehow had the ability to walk alongside our hurt and disappointment. “Imran says they can’t afford me anymore,” tears were dancing on the edges of my eyes. “I have pension and I wash and iron clothes. We’ll be fine. Imran can keep that job.” She said with a smile.
I was feeding Nkaiseng when Koko came in from visiting a sick church member. “How is MaSipho?” I asked. Koko untied her doek; another church habit that she did with very little conviction. “She is old. Old people get sick. So she is fine.” We giggled as Koko looked outside to see if any of our neighbours had heard her. My full name came out of her mouth. Something important was coming. Nkaiseng pressed my nipple between her gums. She seemed to do that when I was anxious. Maybe I was imagining it. Was my daughter drinking in my emotions? Maybe it like the time I thought her eyes changed when I was getting her ready for a bath.
Bath time was something that belonged to Koko. After the c-section, getting up and picking my baby up was impossible. Koko took over bath time and never stopped. I was in charge of feeding and changing. I never mentioned the changing eyes. It was probably fatigue. “Is she biting again?” I nodded, pulling the sleeping baby of my breast. Koko took a long time to get to her point: we are spending Christmas in Durban with the church. “But you always want to spend Christmas here.”
“It’ll be a nice change. You worked while you were pregnant and now you can rest.”
“I can rest next year when I look for a job.”
“You’ve never been to Durban. What kind of young person says no to a trip to the sea?”
“We can’t afford it.”
“I’m paying. Are you going to count my money for me? Just say thank you.”
“I don’t even attend your church.”
“The white people call people like you a ‘plus one’,” Koko laughed and took the baby from my arms. “Those curtains on the line aren’t going to bring themselves in. Hurry up, ngwanyana. It looks like it’s going to rain.”
It was raining “mhhhms” and “amen, Moruti!” in church. Koko thought it would be a good idea to attend a few times and get to know the “youth”. A command dressed as half suggestion & good idea. Church was very similar to a club:stuffy, smelled like burning herbs, lots of singing and dancing, people were mostly overdressed & most were pretending to have a good time. Just like with clubs, I fell in line and obeyed the rules. The Youth Group was very popular; pride of the congregation. Most of them were in the choir and often ended every interaction with “God is good.” Christmas suddenly seemed too far away. How can so many people be so insufferable? Nkaiseng was my shield against the “please join the choir, Sister” requests. I would hold her close and diagnose her with something benign; an ailment that would disappear with a mother’s attention, patience and time. Brother Miso, that’s what the super eager members of the Youth Group called him, was the one who finally got me to stay for choir practise. “Ak’na nkinga Manoka, you can bring Nkaiseng with you.” He smiled and I suddenly had the urge to run my tongue over the gap between his front teeth. “No. She will cry and…” Koko hijacked my baby and lie before it could take off. ““I’ll take her.” Away they went leaving me alone with Brother Miso.
That’s how I began playing keyboard for the choir. It was one of my silly hobbies, probably the one that got me pregnant. Koko bought it when I was 14. She knew that I loved music but couldn’t sing. “Now you will stop breaking glasses with that awful voice,” is what she said when I started crying tears of gratitude. It wasn’t my birthday. A gift just because my heart beats; nobody would ever love me as much as Koko does. “We will find someone to teach you.” That someone was Tendai, not much older than me. Tendai’s parents were a popular music duo in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Music was not just all around him (plaques of albums sold) but also how he made money. He started giving piano lessons before he got to high school. Something his mother loved boasting about. “Tendi uwonderful watseba? The child surprises me all the time.” Aus’ Ntswaki never stopped being a glamorous musician, even though she hadn’t performed in years. Particularly fond of shoulder pads and Pink lipstick, she often had parties to celebrate her son’s every accomplishment. “So we must be a part of Ntswaki’s madness as well?” Koko would ask every time there was a gathering to celebrate Tendai’s next natural childhood milestone. “Next she will say her child breathes better than others. That poor child.”
He breathed like a normal person. I was trying not to break or scratch anything. ‘Relax. Put your hands on the keys. Middle C is this one.” Tendai lifted my hand and let it gently fall on middle c. I had never been in Aus’ Ntswaki’s music room. There were trophies and pictures from when she was a singer. She had a mic in her hand, long thin braids and the green sequin jacket she was wearing made me want to burn the torn t-shirt I was wearing. “Why is your name Tendai?” I moved my hand away. He tilted his head and took my hand back to middle bloody c again. “Because my mother gave it to me.” Air left my body slowly. “Okay. You can ask me anything you like. But I will only answer one question after you play this scale.” CDEFGAB. “My mother played a show in Zimbabwe. Her bass player disappeared, with a woman probably. A young boy named Tendai came to their rescue. He knew all their songs so he played with them for the 3 nights they were there. My mother says Tendai saved her career. An exaggeration, I’m sure.” CDEFGAB “Sometimes I just want to be normal. I feel like the other kids like me but they don’t.” CDEFGAB “You’re funny. No, I’m not a genius. Your playing has improved.” CDEFGAB “Is it true that your mother ran away?” CDEFGAB “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong anywhere?” CDEFGAB “You have weird eyes. No, not in a bad way. I like them. They sometimes look like water. Don’t laugh at me.” CDEFGAB “My father travels a lot. He is a session musician. Do you ever wonder what your father is like? I wonder what mine is like and I’ve known him since I was born.” CDEFGAB “Let’s take a break. Come with me to kitchen to have water.”
I had expected the water to be cold. Like the rest of Durban, it was foreign to me, warm and what I wanted for myself. “Konje this is your first trip to Durban. How do you like it?” Ndumiso pulled me closer. “I haven’t seen much of it but I love it.”
“I feel the same way about you.” We both laughed. The water kept inching closer to embrace our legs. The higher up it came, the closer I felt to tears. Was it the moon, humidity or Ndumiso’s hand going up my inner thigh? Falling pregnant made me never want to have sex again. It wasn’t from the shame of not knowing who, of the three men I occasionally had sex with, was the father of my child. The choice was not mine. My body rejected any kind of sexual activity. Even when I was alone, eyes closed and trying to take the edge off with my right hand, nothing would happen. Arousal wasn’t the problem. It was just climaxing and the thought of getting there that died. Eventually I became numb when it came to sex. My body only existed as a vessel for my baby. Lying on the beach with half of Ndumiso’s body over mine, his hand gently stroking me wet, I was almost on the verge of tears. Eyes closed I savoured the taste of Ndumiso’s mouth, his neck then his thumb in my mouth. He pulled himself up on top of me and moaned. At least that’s what it sounded like. I opened my eyes. His face was caught between confusion and fear. “Your eyes…” Suddenly I was afraid. Why? I don’t know.
“I don’t know why she keeps sea water in a bottle,” Tendai was washing dishes when I asked him about the bottle of water. The old Coke bottle belonged to his mother and sat on the window sill in the kitchen. “My dad had a gig in Cape Town and she asked him to bring her some.” I had never been to the sea or anyway further than the CBD. What did the sea smell like? Why were people bottling it and keeping parts of it in their kitchens? Did it have special powers? Why didn’t we have any? “May I smell it?” Tendai shrugged. His mother wasn’t home, he was always much more relaxed away from her. The cap was stubborn. When it finally gave, a little bit of the sea splashed on my hands. The contact made me dizzy. Tendai saw that and took the bottle from my hands. Anxiety rose up into my throat “Please pour some into on my hands,” I said half shouting. We walked over to the sink & he allowed me to hold the ocean above soapy water. Soon it had slipped through my fingers. “Ma would kill me if she knew I did that.” Tendai kissed me on the cheek tenderly. He did the same thing when we had sex for the first time a few months later. And every time after. Tendai was my first.
A first-time mom who was too afraid to hold her baby. Nkaiseng was so small but the pain of extracting her kept me from standing up straight. One minute she was inside me and the next she was in the world. A breathing, living person. Koko would take her from me and give her a bath. That was my resting time. Every day, while my grandmother gave my daughter a bath I would have the same dream. Koko was in her bedroom, the door was closed,ath time sounds were lulling me to sleep. Then I’d hear a laugh. Not Koko. A baby’s laugh. Instinctively, I know that it's my daughter. Why does she not laugh with me? There is lots of splashing. Koko is cooing and calling her a good girl. Curiosity finds me at Koko's bedroom door. I want to see my baby smile. When I open the door, Koko takes Nkaiseng out of the water. “She'll outgrow it soon.” Koko is holding the baby behind her back. “Outgrow what?” I'm scared and on the verge of being hysterical. “Give her to me.” When I finally hold her, something terrifies me. I would wake up before I knew why looking at my baby scared me. When I told Koko about the dream, her answer was breezy. “It'll go away soon. It's just fatigue.” She was right. The dream eventually went away. The feeling that something might be wrong with Nkaiseng, didn't.
Ndumiso tried to push me away. He was going to run from me and everything would be different. I tried to speak but my voice got caught in my throat. I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t changed. We could work through whatever scared him. I had never heard bones breaking before but I immediately knew what was happening. Panic set in and I killed him. I’d promised that I would never kill him again. “You're killing me, Manoka.” I loved the way he said my name. This boy from KZN twisted it in his mouth and made Manoka sound like music. I preferred it that way, it was a labour of love; music created for me by his mouth and language. We were sitting on the step outside the house. Koko was visiting sick people with the church ladies. Nkaiseng was crawling not too far away from my feet. A cautious baby, she never strayed too far. Ndumiso had just told me that he had feelings for me. “And how will the women in the choir take this? You're the communal boyfriend, Brother Miso.” We both weren't sure if I was joking. “I'm done with those things anyway.” That's when he cried murder. “You're too young to give up. That's not what God wants for you.” His face was serious. “Could you ask god to send me an email with a detailed plan for my life...”
“Uqalile.” I stopped. “Okay. I'll stop killing you.” I meant it. I didn't want to kill him. So, why did I?
“Why are we doing this?” Koko has brought me back to the beach. ““You have to trust me. Haven't I looked after you all your life?”“ I'm still crying. “Listen to me very carefully...” the water we're walking towards is too loud. I can't hear anything my grandmother is saying. “We have to tell the police.” Koko has run out of patience. “These people will kill you!” the sea quiets when she says this. I want to tell her that she is wrong but I'm not sure of anything. My feet tread water & I hold Nkaiseng tighter. Her little eyes are focused on me. Nothing makes sense anymore. Ndumiso's blood has washed away. Like he was never there, not a trace of my sin left. Koko puts her hand on my shoulder. “I can't go any further.” Her eyes avoid mine. “But you said all of us...”
“It's too late for me but my time will come.”
“I've left it too late.” Koko looked annoyed and sad. “There was never a right time, Manoka.” I had just killed a man. Koko wasn’t surprised. Did she always know that I would inexplicably snap and kill someone? Was it because I didn't make friends easily? “Your mother left because she wanted to be herself.” My mother? Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I looked up at my grandmother. She was crying. “There are certain times in your life when your true nature reveals itself. If I had prepared you, none of this would have happened.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
“In the end I will find my way back.”
“Here?”
“We always find each other.”
Koko is looking down at her feet. She looks happy for a moment. She's up to her ankles in water. The skin on her feet is hardening. Silver scales are forming below her ankles. “The body remembers,” she whispers. The moonlight reveals webs that have formed between her toes. Three stumps appear on the sides of each of my legs. There is no adrenalin to numb this feeling. It hurts, like glass slicing skin. “Go, it's getting late.” I hug my grandmother and walk into the sea. The stumps are growing and I'm unable to stand. It hurts. Instinctively I shout for Koko. Fear always makes me want to call out for her. “Trust yourself,” she says. She is crying. I'm not looking at her but I can tell. I crawl into the water and push it away with one hand. Nkaiseng hicoughs. Her brown skin is changing colour. She is glowing; a luminous blue. I catch my reflection in the water. So, this is who I am. My eyes are yellow. The iris is not round but rectangular. Nausea and fear grip me when I reach down and realise there are tentacles where my feet were. Eight slimy tentacles. I don't have to count them because I can feel each one moving me further into the sea. Nkaiseng's little tentacles grab onto my arm.
Ndumiso's arms were pushing me away but he couldn't move. He was scared. I could hear him screaming inside. The tentacles were twisted around his torso. I didn't mean to hurt him. It didn't even occur to me that I was holding him. How could I? We were both suspended in a moment of instinct. His was to run away. Mine was to lay still in shock. The bottom half of me, I didn't realise was there, had a different reaction. I was trying to push myself up when a tentacle wrapped itself around my limp wrist. I screamed. When I realised that the tentacles came from beneath my kanga.I looked at Ndumiso, foaming at the mouth and choking on blood, he was moving even less. The tentacles were attached to me but I didn't know how to control them. I wasn’t breathing, stomach and tentacles in knots. My body and the thing that was trying to take over were not in synch. I could feel Ndumiso’s heartbeat, through the tentacles, it was slowing. “No,” my voice faded. In that moment, all I could hear was Ndumiso’s fading breathing. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“This is who we are.” Koko started. I tried to stifle a sob. My grandmother was telling me that the women in my family were believed to be cursed. “I didn’t believe it myself until I had Dipuo. The other things that happened when I was a teenager, scared me. I was always a girl with no friends. It was easier to convince myself that I imagined or dreamed them. A secret becomes harder to keep when there are other people involved. “Did you never wonder why our family only has only women?” Koko’s words didn’t make sense to me. “Our whole family. We only give birth to women. Not many. Just one.” Koko didn’t have any siblings, neither did her mother nor mine for that matter. “There are many stories about us. I’ve only heard them from other people not from my mother. All I know is that the women in our family used to live near the sea, rivers and lakes. Do you know why, Manoka?” My grandmother was folding and unfolding the hem of her dress. Then she reached up and flattened her hair. “Because we are…” Ndumiso’s scared face came back to me. “Yes. Yes, we are. When I gave birth to Dipuo, my mother never left my side. But that’s what mothers do. They stay with their daughters and help them become mothers. She insisted on giving her a bath inside our house, no matter how hot it was.” Our eyes met and she answered a question I didn’t have to ask. “One day my mother asked me to join her as she gave Dipuo a bath. There in the water, my baby changed before my eyes.” My stomach was in knots again. “Was she like me?”
“Yes and no. We all take on different shapes. You have those long things,” Koko smiled, “Bath time was challenging with you.”
“Nkaiseng? What does she…”
“She is a little like you but hers sting.” I tried to imagine my cautious baby all soft and cuddly but with stinging tentacles below the waist. “I try to immerse her in water as little as possible,” Koko says shaking her head.
“Why did I stop being that way?”
“It must be the breast feeding. While mother and child are connected, they are…”
“Mermaids?”
“I’m not sure if you can call us that but… Listen to me. You can go away and learn our history and be safe from this world.”
“Where would I go?” Koko didn’t have to answer. The answer was always somewhere in my heart. I would have to run away… Into the water.
Up to my chest in water, Nkaiseng a short distance in front of me and Koko behind me on the beach, I tried not to cry. My grandmother was standing on the beach. She couldn’t come with us. “Not until the end,” she said. Women like me only had three chances to live where we come from. When we are born, while we’re breast feeding or being breast fed and when we die. “It won’t be too long now, my child.” Koko said she would find her way back to the water and we would all be together soon. “My mother?” I don’t even know why I asked. Dipuo was so rarely on my mind. “I was once told that mothers know when their daughters are to return. She may be waiting for you inside our world.” Our world. That is where I was headed.
Panic returns when I realise Nkaiseng has disappeared under the water. I turn around, wave bye to Koko and use the bottom half of my body to pull myself beneath the water. A searing pain cuts into my sides. My mouth fills with water as I try to scream. I am going to drown. I have never been underwater. But the water doesn’t fill my lungs. My chest feels cold inside and then I feel it pass through the sides of my t-shirt. One tentacle reaches for Nkaiseng, still a cautious baby and my right hand feels under my shirt. Between the bones of my ribs are slits. Open flesh that looks like gills. A film of skin closes over my eyes and the water stops burning my eyes. We are finally submerged under water. Nkaiseng doesn't swim as well as I do. A baby and her mother underwater, I keep one tentacle around her waist and look around us. It's still too dark. As we get lower, I spot something I recognise: Red trainers. It's Ndumiso – lifeless. A second tentacle reaches for him. It weighs me down a bit but I remember Koko's words. “Accidents happen when a cursed woman loves a man. If he dies in water, you can get him back. Not the same but he will understand you better. That's what I've heard. Maybe there's some truth in it.” I hope he does. Maybe at the bottom we will finally be free. Together.
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Mohale Mashigo is a multi-disciplinary storyteller who loves exploring the unknown. The Yearning is her debut novel.