Those first few years living with his parents, first in his bedroom and then in the partitioned-off section of the house they had built for them, flayed what little pride she might have had. The insults she bore because everyone knew theirs was a must-marriage. The coy ways the chaste women – or the ones who just hadn’t been found out – would remind her of her sin. She’d been naughty, they would say, their sweetly offered malice cutting into her. Lucky that he married her. Nowadays the men don’t admit to being the father. As if he had nothing to do with it. As if she was the only person who bore the shame. People she barely knew would advise her how to plead with God for forgiveness. Being educated in the white man’s world can take one away from Allah, they’d say. Sometimes it’s better to let your child learn the Quran than to have too much education. How elated some of them were, and how oh-so-very- helpfully they’d remind her that God never forgets. The few kindly reminders that the unborn child would intercede with God on her behalf – those words never really stuck.
She recalled the rage and guilt when she lost the baby. How Mummy Kayna would wonder aloud why God had not granted them a child. Rashid started playing squash to cope, leaving her alone with Mummy Kayna and her spite. When he was there, his smiles never reached his eyes and he nodded in all the wrong places when his mother spoke. His voice would catch when she least expected it. Once he just stood and stood in front of the baby food at Pick n Pay.
She peeled back the years. There was the grey time between starting to build a career and the wonder of Habib’s birth. Boeya, Rashid’s daddy, insisted she return to finish her degree. She needed a reason to leave the house, he said. And on those drives to campus every morning and afternoon, she and Rashid wove a relationship. Not tenderness. Not enmity. A relationship they could live in, not thrive in perhaps, but live. It was too little and more than she ever expected. ‘We should try for another baby,’ he had said. Probably on someone’s advice. She wanted to keep driving to work with him, and so said she wanted to complete a Master’s, and when she was offered a job in her department, she took it. They became busy, building important lives. They got the right house and the right cars and the right furniture; they went on the right vacations and worked really hard for the right promotions. And when there was little more they could add to the shininess of their life, she was ready again. She never told him she was, just in case something went wrong. She courted him all over again so they could make a replacement, lawfully, in the eyes of God.
Habib was beautiful. With him, they walked and laughed like people whom God had forgiven and rewarded for their good behaviour. And then Habib got sick. For a while, she became a merchant, haggling over the price of a life more dear than her own. She begged and pleaded, bargained away every pleasure. Every right. Just so he could breathe a good breath. Have a good day. Be a miracle child.
The first friend who told her he saw Rashid and Thandi at a Wimpy gleefully reported the news while her child was dying. Why do we take so much pleasure, Qabila wondered, at the unravelling of others’ lives? Is it to avoid fixing our own? She ignored it – until the smell of the hospital could not be washed from her hair, and her mother’s whispered reassurances and the soothing sounds of her prayer beads were not enough to soften an unforgiving day. He’d muttered that he was tired of takeaways for dinner, pushing the fish and chips around on his plate.
‘Maybe Thandi will give you a cooked meal,’ she said.
‘What are you talking about?’
She’d never forget the sound his fork made as it clattered on the plate; how still he became, hands on either side of the plate, fingers spread. Mouth compressed, his eyes took in every line of her face.
‘You think I don’t know you’re seeing her?’ she said. ‘Bringing your bad luck into our house. She probably went to a witch-doctor to get rid of complications so the two of you can fuck around. That’s what they do, go to witch-doctors. Does she have Aids? Are you bringing Aids into our home? Are you whoring around with her? While our child is fucking struggling to live? How can you do this to us? To him?’ The viciousness of her own voice surprised her. Scared her. She sounded like her father. The same cutting cruelty, the same rage.
‘What the fuck,’ he said. He got up so suddenly, everything on the table protested noisily. He walked up and down, his back turned as he crossed the room from one side to another as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. He went to stand in the doorway to face her, hands in his pockets. ‘Racist,’ he said, ‘fucking racist. I’m whoring around? What the fuck! You’re a fucking racist. How can you say that? You are the fucking whore. Do you even remember how you threw yourself at me? Opening your legs, trapping me with a baby that you couldn’t even give birth to? Desperate Qabila. If anyone’s killing our child it’s you with your lies and whoring. Racist whore.’
She froze. Looked down. Forced her limbs to unlock. Slowly got up. Her heart raced at the sight of his clenched fists, his hardened face pale where the skin was tensed. She inched backwards. She was her mother after all.
‘I can’t believe you said that. You should know better. You do know better,’ he continued. ‘I should have left. When my mother told me to leave you after the miscarriage, I fucking should have left. But no, I felt sorry for you. “Duty,” my father said, “do your duty. She is your wife now. We don’t leave our marriages, Rashid. We work at it. Don’t embarrass us.” Fuck that, I should’ve left.’
He walked out and left her with the cold fish and chips. That night and every night afterwards, he slept in the guest room furthest from their bedroom.
Their marriage’s fragile civility was ripped away in the bitter months that followed. The ferocity of their fights made their prior disagreements seem gentle; they said too much when they had so little to hold them together. Except when standing vigil for those long hours as their son lay dying. There, a brittle peace reigned that had everything to do with the little boy they loved and nothing to do with consideration for each other.
After he died and they buried him and cried and mourned separately, they must have convinced themselves they were each other’s punishment. His death had taken the fight with him. When her father died, Rashid did his duty, even though she was mostly relieved. Rashid got a new job teaching on the mountain. She stayed at the university where they had both been students, where their lives had collided. Each day they left from the same house in different cars going in different directions. Over the years, they rubbed along together with little friction and no heat. Don’t forget the milk. Did you remember to wish so-and-so for her birthday? My flight comes in at ten. Pragmatic. Prudent. Passionless.
The sightings continued. As their fortunes grew, the places Thandi and Rashid were seen in gained a star or two. Qabila never confronted him again. The shame of what she said and who she became when she had fought with him, never left. He never admitted anything. As the years ticked over, she became inured to the fear he would leave her. Then realised he never would. Stopped finding signs and omens in her furtive observations. Stopped wondering why he stayed. Whether it was from cowardice or duty, she didn’t know. He was the good guy, a martyr who married the girl he knocked up and stayed with her even though she couldn’t keep his children alive. He got to have a woman who loved him without having to earn it, and had no need to respect it.
And she, she got a kind of peace. The pain was familiar. Easier than finding new ways to hurt, risking her heart for a second time. Look at what taking a risk on a person had gotten her.
Sitting here, watching the grey ocean outlined with brown scummy foam crashing and receding in a wild but predictable way, she admitted she wanted to end their prison sentence. Maybe she would’ve done it sooner if her mother had not loved Rashid so fiercely. Been so proud of him. My son-in-law, she’d call him, face filled with wonder. He’s not like your father, she’d say when Qabila tried to find the words to explain what was wrong between them. Look at the good life he’s given you. Every marriage has troubles.
Zainab hated Rashid. Zainab with her many children and small life in Mitchell’s