Kharnita Mohamed
Kwela Books
For Mommy
Chapter 1
Her mother was dead.
He was not here.
Her mother was dead.
He was not here.
Everyone was here. But not him. Her mother’s body lay between her and her sister, Zainab. Her mother was not here.
Qabila did not bother catching her tears. She didn’t look at Zainab, her nieces or her aunts. They might as well have been on the moon, not seated across from her in the postcard-sized lounge. There was only one place to look. In a few hours, she would never again be able to trace the lines on her mother’s face with her eyes. Be close enough to touch. There was no more time. All the years, the maybe-next-times she’d borrowed from the future – now they’d all go unspent.
The house was too full. Camphor. Rose water. Incense. Wortel-en-ertjie-bredie. Sugar beans and rice. The smells of death. Women in black scarves and black thaubs. Men with fezzes and some with thaubs: white, creams, greys, black, striped, a splash of colour here and there. Some had come straight from work, or from wherever they were when they heard the news that Ayesha Peterson née Samodien was no more. Except for Rashid. He had not come. They were trying to find him.
The melodious sounds of Imam Waleed reciting Surah Yaseen filled the air. He had loved Mommy. So many people here who’d loved Mommy. Rashid had loved Mommy. Mommy had loved him.
This afternoon was the first time Qabila had ever washed her mother’s body. She’d let herself be moved where the toekamandie directed. Zainab knew. Despite her grief, she knew exactly what to do. Her movements had been slow, but steady and sure. They’d passed each other softly, carefully. A light touch here, a gentle leaning into each other when they passed, resting for a minute. Everything had been ready for Qabila when she got to Zainab’s house in Westridge. A black thaub and black scarf to cover her when she got out of the car. The lounge emptied of furniture, benches set up to accommodate as many people as possible. The white cloth and the arrangements at the mosque. Everything in place. Death didn’t wait for those who were absent.
Like her errant husband. He should’ve been here to put her mother in the ground. Carried her, helped make arrangements. Instead it was all left to Zainab’s husband, Osman, and Boeta, her mother’s brother.
Rashid. Rashid. Where was he? Everyone wanted to know where he was. ‘Phone must be dead again,’ she said, almost grateful for the grief that held curiosity and sly, cutting looks at bay.
Another hour and she too would’ve been out of reach. On a flight to Dakar – and nothing, not even clicking the heels of her best red designer shoes would have gotten her back in time. She’d ignored the first two calls from Zainab. The calls from each of her nieces. What is it now? she’d thought. Finally, she’d taken the call because Zainab’s annoyance when she got home would be unbearable. Restrained. Long-suffering. Worn by years of disappointment.
But Zainab’s voice on the phone had been soft, the usual recrimination dissipated. And tired, so very tired. ‘Salaam Qabila,’ she said. ‘Mommy had a stroke.’
Before Qabila could catch her breath to ask, how is she, which hospital, Zainab had said: ‘She maniengald. May Allah grant her Jannat ul-Firdaus, inshallah ameen.’ Her voice breaking then.
Qabila had sat in the full, lonely airport and cried, though she hadn’t completely understood. She’d tried to call Rashid on her way to Zainab’s. Over and over. While waiting for her mother’s body to arrive at Zainab’s house, she’d sent message after message telling him to call. Osman tried. Her nieces tried. Rashid’s phone must be dead again. His battery was really bad. He really should get a new phone.
Or maybe he was with her. She lowered her head, took a deep breath. Not today. Her mother was dead.
Another person taking her hand to wish her shifa. Why couldn’t all these people just leave? Someone sat down next to her. It was Mummy Kayna, her mother-in-law. Qabila moved closer to her cousin, Fouzia, to put a breath of space between them, but Mummy Kayna just moved to fill the gap.
‘Why did you not tell me? I heard on the radio,’ she hissed in Qabila’s ear. Unlike everyone else, who looked at Qabila with varying degrees of pity, Mummy Kayna’s eyes remained hard. Looking around carefully, she pulled her mouth into a smile and patted Qabila’s hand. ‘Losing a mother is difficult,’ she said in a stage whisper, nodding to one of Qabila’s aunts. Qabila closed her eyes.
‘Ja, dit is swaar,’ the aunt agreed.
Qabila sighed and asked, ‘Where is Rashid, Mummy Kayna? We can’t get hold of him.’
‘He isn’t here? Is he travelling? That boy, always on the road.’ Mummy Kayna’s face softened, every harsh line flowing away. The thought of Rashid as good as a facelift to his mother.
‘I don’t know, Mummy Kayna. He isn’t answering his phone.’
‘There must be a good reason,’ his mother replied. ‘This lounge is so small.’ This time she whispered for Qabila’s ears only: ‘Why did you not have the janaazah at your place? There’s a lot of people outside. Shame, they are poor, nè.’ There was no pity or compassion in her voice – just smug cruelty. Qabila didn’t have to look at her to see the tight smile and narrowed eyes, meant to convey some kind of sympathy. Mummy Kayna’s fakeness fooled very few people; but then she didn’t really want to fool them. How could you let everyone know you were better than them if they believed you were sincere?
Qabila put her head on Fouzia’s shoulder. Even her busybody cousin gave her the grace of grief today, but Mummy Kayna …
Qabila cut the thought off. Not today. Today was to make sure she never forgot Mommy’s face. She looked like her mother, everyone said so. The same no-nonsense brown hair and brown eyes, the nose just a bit too broad. Qabila was darker though, like her father. Zainab had her mother’s milky coffee complexion and her father’s sleek hair. Even though she would see traces of Mommy each time she looked in the mirror, Qabila was still afraid she would forget. Sometimes she forgot Habib’s voice, or if that mole was on the right or left ear. Watching the videos was not the same. Would her mother find Habib and Abdullah in akhirah? How many more funerals would there be? She was too young to lose her mother, to lose her sons. Her father didn’t really count; she’d already lost him in too many ways, before his death claimed all possibilities. Why did death always arrive at the wrong time?
The unendurable day passed. She endured. Her mother’s body left the house she had lived in. Her aunts and uncle and cousins left, and the friends their family had accumulated. Her colleagues, who’d never seen her in hijab before, or so firmly located in her history, left.
Then it was just her and Zainab’s family in the emptied-out lounge. The three girls were sprawled across the cream carpet. Zainab sat snugly against Osman, their backs against the wall. Qabila watched the slow, steady rhythm of his hand stroking her arm. For a while, they talked quietly of who had come and how the day had gone. Mundane details, many of which Qabila had missed. Different versions of the same funeral. Zainab was unusually silent. In her lap she pleated the shiny black fabric of her scarf and let the folds relax. Pleat. Relax. Pleat. Relax.
Her voice was raspy with grief when she finally spoke. ‘Why don’t you know where he is, Qabila? What is happening with the two of you?’
On a different day, Qabila might have said something flippant, something defensive. Made her marriage seem like a union to be envied, a prize few mortals could understand. But on this day, when her mother was buried, her husband had not been there.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. Although she did. But how do you tell your sister on the day your mother died that your husband doesn’t love you, hasn’t loved you for a long time, might not have ever loved you? She sighed, got up from the floor. ‘I don’t know.’