Holding Up the Sky (49 page)

The next few hours passed with a certain rhythm–contractions, breathing, floating, checking, chatting, an occasional photo for the magazine. Mona had joined us for a while and as she and I chatted, she told me that today would be the day. Given the many false alarms of the previous weeks, this was just what I wanted to hear.

After my last false alarm, Sue had taken me to the nursery to see the newborns. I think she was trying to keep my eye on the ball. My baby was still an abstract at that stage, the outline of a foot that passed across my belly as I sat on the couch, staring down in wonder. Despite regulations, she had given me a baby to hold for just a moment, to remind me that this would soon pass and before I knew it, I would be holding my own baby. I remembered that moment and smiled, but declined to share my thoughts with Mona, just in case.

In between contractions, Mona and I discussed a bit more of our history together: where Teboho and I had met, the festivities of the wedding, my family's reaction. Teboho had taken a position behind me, leaning over the tub so as to cradle my back in his arms. But soon the chatting stopped and Mona, knowing that the interview was over, left the room and allowed Sue and I to do our work uninterrupted, Teboho looking eagerly on as the miracle unfolded.

By six o'clock, I feared my body would crack open like an egg into a mixing bowl. Sue later told me that the moment you question your very life it is a sign that you are there–I was completely there. I remember thinking that at that moment, somewhere, someone was having tea. I pictured them sitting quietly, watching the passing traffic as time slipped by unnoticed, utterly oblivious to my pain. Time for me was passing one painful centimetre at a time.

At 6.30, our son was born. Sue held him upside down as we all waited for his frst breath. I could hardly make him out through my tears. He was no longer an abstract but a tiny dark-haired baby suspended over my belly. Sue gave him to me and I peered down at him in disbelief, trying to recognise him as my own. Sue was busy helping Teboho cut the cord while I continued to look until I found it–he had my feet, long and slender. Content, I passed him over to be checked and swaddled.

As with all African children, our son would be named after the circumstances of his birth–Puleng if born in the rain; Mojalefa, the last born, the one who inherits; Thabo for happiness, and so on. We named our son Dichaba which, in Sesotho, means ‘nations'– united nations.

AFTER
DICHABA'S BIRTH, WE STAYED IN THE BIRTHING SUITE FOR A FEW MORE HOURS DEALING WITH THE MESSY AFTER EFFECTS OF BIRTH AND LATER LEARNING HOW TO BREAST FEED FOR THE FIRST TIME. WHEN ALL WAS WELL, I WAS TAKEN DOWN TO A HOSPITAL ROOM TO GET SOME SLEEP. IT WAS ABOUT 10.30 PM WHEN TEBOHO LEFT TO DO THE SAME.

In comparison to the drama of the birth, the next two days in hospital were very quiet. I had no visitors except for Teboho who popped in to see me briefly after work. He told me he had no leave left as he had used it up on numerous hospital visits and false alarms. I found myself incredibly lonely and starting to get a bit blue, so by the third morning, I asked to go home. They were keen for me to stay an extra day but I thought it would do more harm than good. The loneliness I was feeling at the hospital was an echo of the loneliness I had been feeling since my return, despite my optimistic disposition. In contrast to living in my beloved 'Maritzburg, I was now isolated in the far reaches of the West Rand, something I did not wish to deal with at that point. Late that afternoon, once Teboho had arrived, we checked out and went home–home to our half finished house, home to no running water, but still home.

In African culture, the mother of a newborn enters a period of confinement where she is looked after by female relatives, encouraged to rest and simply concentrate on producing milk and feeding the baby for the first weeks or even months. If it is her first child, she will often go home to her mother who will teach her how to look after the new baby. I've heard of instances where a mother can be gone for as much as two years without the father having seen the child. Teboho used to joke that during this time, the woman was to ‘take a rest' from her husband, so it was not only a way to have support from her mother but also a form of birth control. I was also told that during this rest period, the husband was free to sleep with other women so as to have his needs met. While Teboho and I used to joke about there being no ‘rest period' allowed in our marriage, the shadows of Tasmania played on my mind.

Going home to Mum was not an option but Mama was keen for me to stay put on the couch and rest, insisting she would look after me with young Katie's help. At that stage, I was struggling to put Katie back in my good books after an awkward welcome home from her: Dichaba was still in the car with Teboho when Katie turned to me in surprise and said, ‘Ragadi, I thought you had the baby already'. No one had told me, either, that your belly stays distended well after the birth, forcing you to stay in maternity clothes just when you are dying to finally get back into your jeans. With time I forgave her, but I have never let her forget.

Mama also insisted on no visitors to the house in the first week and later when they did come, they were forced by her, a woman who rarely insisted on anything, to jump over a broom in the doorway. When I asked Teboho what was going on he explained that this was to prevent evil spirits entering the house and affecting the baby. It had not occurred to me that evil spirits might piggy-back on friends and family as they came to visit, but the irony of them jumping over a broom–a symbol of witchcraft in my culture–brought a smile to my face as distinguished men like Moss leapt in through the French doors.

I loved the idea of a supported confinement period as I knew many young mothers in Australia, left alone with a newborn, felt exhausted and unsure how to respond to their baby's insistent cries. However, in reality, I found it difficult to sit on the couch and watch Mama doing housework and preparing meals. Once again, I did not wish to be one of those women who had ‘no hands'.

I sat on the couch watching Mama and feeling guilty. I had spent many years working against that stereotype, always wanting to be the first to get my hands dirty, and was having a very hard time sitting still. I was literally chased out of the kitchen on a number of occasions when Mama discovered me making food for myself once her back was turned. ‘You must ask me and I will get something for you', she roused. Exhausted as I was, it was guilt that drove me off the couch again and again, until after a week, Mama finally gave up. But she insisted it was too soon for the baby or me to leave the house, as birth would make us both vulnerable to witchcraft. Out of respect for her, I didn't argue the point for another week or two, by which time I was going completely stir crazy.

Dichaba wasn't much of a sleeper–if he woke only three or four times a night, I considered myself lucky. Most nights, he was up eight or nine times. Each time as I put him down, I would mutter a heartfelt prayer: ‘Please God, just an hour, I just need an hour'. I seemed to be making every mistake in the book, letting him fall asleep on the breast so that he was neither burped nor being taught how to settle by himself. He had no routine–I was so delighted when he finally went to sleep, I didn't care what time it was. As a result, he slept more during the day than he did at night. I remember one occasion when he had been asleep for five hours, with me repeatedly checking to make sure he was still alive. Eventually, I picked him up and virtually held him upside down to wake him–I was afraid he might be in a coma. First time mothers should come with a warning label.

While my baby was catching up on sleep during the day, or at least trying to, I rarely felt able to go and take a nap myself. If I could do it over again, I would be more gracious about accepting help and would certainly sleep as much as possible instead of trying to be a supermum. As it was, I was almost hysterical with exhaustion every day. I tried to keep Dichaba awake at night after his bath, delaying his feed until after eight o'clock in the hope of him sleeping at a time when I could join him. This usually resulted in two hours of screaming each evening which did nothing to improve my state of mind.

When my confinement ended, I took the baby out to Westgate shopping centre so I could feel a little normal again. I remember a number of white women coming up to me and cooing over the beautiful little baby in the pram. I found myself thinking they would not be so enthusiastic in their praises of his fine dark looks if they knew he was mixed race. In my mind's eye I could see them turning distastefully away as if insulted by a foul smell. Though the thought of this amused me, it also reminded me of how outside the norm I was, how my choices had isolated me and potentially my son.

After a blissful hour of shopping, Dichaba started to cry for a feed. I had never noticed until that moment that I had only ever seen black women breastfeeding in public. It was not something white women did in this conservative society with its deep Calvinist roots. Yet in 1996 there were no mothers rooms, nowhere that I could go and feed him. In utter desperation, I entered a shoe shop where I had been browsing earlier and explained my dilemma. They kindly offered me a chair in a quiet corner of the shop to sit and feed the baby. Afterwards, I limped home discouraged to lick my wounds, my first outing hardly the glamorous return to society I had hoped for.

Since Dichaba's birth, I had also been observing my daughter's behaviour. Karen's visit had certainly worked wonders. Mello's obstinate behaviour slowly dissipated and she returned to being the child I had known before. I also noticed, though, that it was not a peaceful transformation but more of a defeat. I suspect the birth of a biological child undermined Mello's confidence about her place in the world. And yet she only had rare moments of taking it out on Dichaba physically, as first-born children are often seen to do after the birth of the second child.

There is one photo, still displayed in my mother's kitchen, that was taken when Dichaba was six or seven months old. I am sitting cross-legged on the floor of our house with Dichaba in my lap. Mello, after much encouragement from Teboho and me, entered the photo at the last minute and is standing behind me wringing her T-shirt in her hands, her shoulders turned as if she is about to walk out again. She was only five years old at the time. That is the photo I find most heartbreaking in our whole collection but if I'm honest, it's the one that most captures how Mello felt much of the time. There are also photos of her clowning around, drama queen that she was, trying to grab attention from all around her. But it was this photo that captured what was really going on. Although I saw it, perhaps less clearly then than now, I had little energy to do more than take care of her physical needs. Had I acted more decisively, more compassionately then, I might have saved her much torment and doubt in years to come.

The first few months passed in a haze. Besides all the usual baby adjustments, we were still without running water; carrying buckets over our yet to be sealed wooden floors was a daily worry. When Dichaba was a few months old, Teboho suggested I take the kids and spend a week in 'Maritzburg so that he could sand and stain the floors, something he was reluctant to do with a baby in the house. Margie had just given birth to her third child, also a boy, and was very keen to have us come and stay. ‘Come down and we can sit in the garden and feed babies together', she implored. So it was decided. I packed the kids into the car and made the five-hour drive down to my old home.

We spent a blissful week with Jacques and Margie. They were as gracious in their hospitality as they had always been and our friendship seemed once more close and warm. There was always the dark zone of Steve but we silently agreed never to go there. Jacques and Margie's place was a graceful old house with wooden floors, high pressed ceilings and verandas all round, just down the road from ETHOS. They also had a large back yard that Margie and the gardener tended with much care. Stephanie, their eldest daughter for whom I had always had a soft spot, was now at school and all grown up. It was the first time I had met Rebecca, their second daughter, who was fair-haired, unlike the rest of the family, and adorably naughty and strong-willed. If I had been her mother I may not have found her strength of character charming, but certainly as a friend, it was a delight to watch her engage with the world. Dominic, Margie's new son, was dark like Stephanie and seemed to me to be an angel. He slept well, fed well and rarely cried. As my little family found its way into our host's routine, I discovered that Dichaba himself was far more settled too. The extra sleep quickly allowed me to recover the ability to hold a decent conversation and I was inordinately grateful to Margie for that.

One day, as we sat rocking babies on our laps in the garden while Mello and Rebecca played on the swings, we suddenly heard a heart-wrenching wailing coming from the street. Margie quickly handed over Dom, leaving me with one baby in each arm, and rushed out the front to see what was happening. After a long time the wailing subsided but it was almost an hour before Margie returned. She had found the neighbour's maid sitting in the street, hysterical. The woman appeared unable to talk, so Margie sat down in the gutter with her and simply held her hand. Once she had calmed down, she explained to Margie in a mixture of English and Zulu that she had just received news that her husband and son had been killed several nights before in an attack on her homestead near Henley's Dam, just above Edendale Valley where I had lived a few years before. It had taken days for her sister to get to a phone and tell her the horrible news. This call had come through at the woman's employer's house, much to the employer's irritation. After a short while, the employer had asked the woman to take her noise outside, as the crying was starting to annoy her. Margie had never had a good relationship with the woman next door, who constantly frowned on all the black people coming and going at Jacques and Margie's house, but this level of insensitivity took her breath away. As Margie relayed the story to me, I was stunned that the killings were still happening two years after the elections. Margie, for her part, had given the woman some money and offered to drive her to the bus stop in town once she had collected her things.

South Africa had taught me that death is a companion to life, that they go hand in hand. I was not hardened to the impact it had on those left behind, but the possibility of death was ever-present and therefore no stranger. Some in South Africa had taken that knowledge and assumed that it made life cheap, but others of us knew it made life both precious and fragile. After spending time back in Australia, I realised that the Australian lifestyle did not carry with it a knowledge of the presence of death. In her book,
Lost in Translation
, Eva Hoffman describes it well. She and her family migrated to Canada when she was a teenager after surviving the holocaust in Europe. She struggled to learn English until she realised that Canadians spoke only in ‘high notes'; they lacked a ‘base note'–something her childhood had taught her was a constant in life. The base note is the presence of suffering and death that counterbalances the joys of life, allowing for lows and highs, shadow and light. It was not until she understood that there was no base note–no lows–in the language in Canada that she could learn to speak it.

For me, South Africa had a base note and I had learnt to speak that language, so that when I returned to Australia the dialogue sounded somehow insubstantial. Perhaps countries, like individuals, experience a loss of naivety, a movement from childhood to adulthood, only as they recognise the existence of a base note. What is interesting about Australia is that we moved from being a harsh penal colony where transportation from England was equivalent to a death sentence, to become ‘the lucky country'–and somehow we forgot the suffering, our often idyllic lifestyles drowning out those earlier memories. So when Margie and I heard the base note in that woman's wailing, we held our babies more tightly, the garden suddenly seemed greener and we went about finding ways to help.

While I was at Margie's house, a number of my old friends dropped by: Fiona, Tony and Felicity and Justin, who was now back in town. We also went out to an event on campus where I was able to catch up with many others. All in all, the week in 'Maritzburg was like a healing balm, leaving me feeling more like myself and back in my skin after all the recent stresses and strains. I realised that it was actually akin to coming home, a home which far too soon I would have to leave.