Thula-Thula (English Edition). Annelie Botes

      My name is easy to say, but my surname feels uneasy on my tongue. Malgas. It doesn’t click like Noqobo, the clan name of my tata. But it is the name Samuel gave me and I must honour it like I honour his memory.

      Samuel and Anthony died on the same day, the day the truck went over the cliff. Anthony was ten years old. If Mabel had not gone to fetch kindling, she would have gone over the cliff with them. Just thinking about it makes my blood run cold. Today she is almost thirty-two years old, and I thank Nkosi for His mercy. It is He who decides which child goes and which one stays.

      That is the reason I prayed for Miss Sarah every evening under the stars when I could still see in the dark. Anthony’s dying made her go blind – that was the reason she did nothing to stop Abel when she saw things were becoming ugly with Gertruidah. Anthony’s dying twisted and broke her, of that I am certain.

      Another thing of which I am certain: There never was an angel to fly around with Abel. Nkosi gives everyone an angel to help them push Satan away but the only angel Abel got was his black mama, Thandeka. The same mama whose body pushed him into a bad thing. And then there was Mabel, growing up in his house and his yard, with a heart she kept filled with stones to hurt him. More blood of his blood, pushing him away. It must have been hard. He was only looking for love, from someone, somewhere, the way we all do.

      There were many nights beside the fire when I told her: ‘You must talk to Abel about these things, so they can grow quiet and lie still inside your head.’

      ‘Let it alone, Mama. A kitchen maid doesn’t argue with the master.’

      ‘It is bitterness that makes you talk that way, Mabel. He has always …’

      ‘If I am bitter it’s because of what he’s doing to Gertruidah. One of these days when I’m in town for Mama’s old-age pension, I’m going to walk into the police station and say they must come see what …’

      ‘Keep your nose out of white people’s business, Mabel. White people know how to watch each other’s backs. Stay away from the police.’

      My marrow is cold as ice and my old woman’s heart broken into a thousand pieces when I think that Abel will never come back to Umbrella Tree Farm.

      I will call Mabel to heat a little cup of milk for me and to turn my chair around so the heat can find my back. Then, once the milk has warmed my insides, she must help me to my bed. But until then I will stay by the fire and sing Gertruidah’s song. Abel would have wanted me to sing for her. Her bony body may be as strong as any man’s and no pheasant too far away that she couldn’t put a bullet in its head and leave the meat for the pot. But she has no angel to fly around with her, either, and no matter how bad everything became, with his good side Abel loved her.

      Thula baba, vala amehlo … Hush, my baby, close your eyes, time to fly to paradise, till the sunlight brings you home, you must dream your dreams alone …