Holding Up the Sky (50 page)

Back in Jo'burg, the floors were now done, giving the house a real facelift. I was less panicky about carrying water across the room. While our trip had not converted Dichaba into a baby who slept through, it had taken the edge off my exhaustion, allowing me to cope a bit better. So I settled back into life in Jo'burg with our full house and our many visitors, all the while missing the peace and connection I had felt in the green gardens of 'Maritzburg.

Since returning to South Africa, but particularly since Dichaba's birth, my relationship with Teboho had felt quite functional: building, shopping, child care, moving. He was busy with work during the week, sometimes staying on in the township when there was a need. On weekends, he seemed to be called off on one issue after another. When he was at home, he was upbeat and happy, loving our extended family setup and his role as the generous patriarch. However, I was finding when we were alone that the sullenness I had seen in Australia would sometimes return. The intimacy between us seemed to have dissipated–though whether this was due to the suspension of sexual intimacy after the birth or something else as well, I did not know. What I had noticed in most of the township families around us was that the married women seemed to find their companionship with other married women, while the men kept company with each other.

While I understood this peer dynamic from when I lived in Caluza among those who were yet to marry, I had assumed our marriage contract was similar to the one I had grown up with: the first level of intimacy is with your partner, followed by your children and then your friends and community. Our marriage had operated this way in 'Maritzburg and in Australia, but there seemed to be something about Teboho's return to the township where he had grown up that allowed him to switch the way he lived, perhaps even without his own knowledge.

In Sesotho, the word for wife is
Mosadi
, meaning literally, ‘the one who stays'. It struck me that this was a good description for how I was feeling. I was staying still while he orbited around the home, around me, sometimes closer, sometimes further away, but always out of reach. He seemed to be finding his intimacy with his old childhood friends Beans, Solly, Daddy, Dennis and the others, perhaps needing less from our relationship as a result. I have no doubt that he felt very grounded by having me, his mother and the kids to come home to, but he seemed to need home a little less because he knew it was waiting there for him. I saw many other township men operating in a similar way.

My own observation of marriages in Australia had been so different. Watching my parents, I understood that their allegiance was to each other first, particularly on my father's part, as he clearly adored my mother, and that we as children came next. I believe this is what saw them through fifty-five years of marriage. Without ever articulating it, my own expectations were shaped by this. I had not considered what Teboho observed as a child–his mother a widow from his earliest memories and then in a reluctant marriage of convenience where she kept to her children and where his own presence was only just tolerated by his stepfather. What I hadn't anticipated was that when we were back on his home turf he would begin, perhaps unconsciously, to shift.

But it was not only Teboho who was holding back. I knew I was as well. His arriving so late for the birth had hurt me badly. For me, it was the ultimate example of him putting the needs of others above my own and I could not set aside the disappointment I felt. This was compounded by the loneliness of the first few days after the birth when I needed him and he wasn't there. I had every intention of addressing this with him afterwards, but lacked the energy in those first few sleep-deprived weeks. With the words unspoken, the emotion festered away like a hidden sore.

I was also beginning to feel quite cut off, living in Randfontein. It was over an hour's drive from where other friends such as Barry and Rags were now living. The only person I felt a real connection with was Khumo. Ironically, she told me she was in a similar situation to my own. She had grown up in Soweto and was part of a large and connected family that was engaged at many levels in the life of Jo'burg. When she married and moved out to Mohlakeng, she also felt the kind of isolation I was suffering from. Many Mohlakeng locals rarely left the area, limiting their experiences and aspirations. Khumo felt cut off from family and friends with whom she had much deeper connections than with her neighbours and even church members in Mohlakeng. Moss, in his own way, was like Teboho– he responded to each and every community need, as ministers do. Khumo was constantly called on to share her house, her possessions and her finances with any and all who came to ask for help. While Khumo is a generous person, she knew her own limits better than I and was able to draw a line in the sand. However, I also saw that Moss and Khumo had an intimacy and a partnership that Teboho and I no longer possessed. I suspect this sustained Khumo to a certain degree, as did the growing closeness of our relationship.

The other person I had to lean on was Mama. Though I couldn't unburden to her in the same way I could to Khumo, she was a constant kindness in my life and our love for each other crossed over our language barriers. She had a way of being present without imposing herself on how I wanted to run my home or raise my children and I found her extraordinary in this regard. With this gentle acceptance of who I was, the daily sharing of household chores and child raising knitted our lives together and built a relationship that was both profound and long lasting.

Perhaps these two relationships created my own circle of intimacy from which I excluded Teboho, I'm not sure. Certainly, I felt cut off and a little resentful about the relocation of our lives so far from where I had a possibility of creating one of my own. I blamed our lack of intimacy, both emotional and sexual, on my exhaustion after many months of sleepless nights and the many other demands of motherhood. But the reality was that I was beginning to pull away, a little disillusioned with the dream.

When Dichaba was six months old, Mum and Dad came to stay with us for a month. We made this arrangement when we left Australia, thinking that by then Dichaba would be more active and interesting than if they had come out for the birth. While this seemed like a practical and logical arrangement, a few weeks before the birth, when I realised I needed my mother, she had tried everything but could not get a fight over because of the Christmas holidays.

So it was that they arrived in July to a very warm and loving welcome. We had no plans to travel around beyond a short trip to Blyde River Canyon, near Kruger National Park in the country's east, a province they were yet to visit. Both kids loved having three grandparents doting on them each day and I took the chance to catch up on some sleep, often grabbing an afternoon nap. This trip was also an opportunity for Mum and Dad to get to know Mama, as it was the first time that they had met. They found her as gracious and endearing as I did and despite limited communication in Mama's faltering English, a bond was created between the three of them that has been as long lasting as my own. Mum and Dad were delighted to get to know their first grandson, with Mum spending many hours on the floor playing with Dichaba when Mello was at preschool. Mello was still the apple of Dad's eye, and I also saw that he found her easier to relate to than a small baby. While he delighted in watching Dichaba play, he rarely got on the floor himself.

Halfway through their visit, we took our trip to Blyde River Canyon. We left on a Friday, driving Mum and Dad's hired car through to Lydenburg, where Teboho was planning to meet up with us on his way back from a field trip a few hours to the south. We arrived in Lydenburg at lunchtime, having agreed to meet Teboho at two o'clock at the tourist information centre in the main street. We took the kids for lunch at a nearby restaurant while we waited. By three o'clock, Teboho had not arrived and though I had tried to contact him, his phone was switched off. We filled in time by browsing through the art and craft shops on the main street. Mum told me much later that she couldn't believe how relaxed I was about him being late. Although I was indeed outwardly calm, I was still angry that he was making not only me wait, but also my parents, regardless of the reason. Just before five o'clock, Teboho breezed into town with stories of how he had been held up in a community meeting but I was only half listening to his explanation, more concerned with getting to the resort where we were staying over the weekend. We were still an hour and a half from where we needed to be and it would be getting dark soon.

After getting a little lost in the dark, we finally found our way to the resort and checked in, with a few strange looks from the clerks behind the desk, mentally querying the composition of our family group. The resort consisted of close to forty chalets spread out over a large parkland area. There were common facilities such as playgrounds, swimming pools, trampolines and barbecue areas that could be shared by all residents. We had booked a large three-bedroom chalet for four nights, though Teboho would be going back to Jo'burg early Monday morning.

On our first morning, we didn't rush to get going, allowing ourselves as much of a sleep-in as two small children would permit. Mello had taken Chaba through to Mum and Dad's bedroom as soon as she heard them wake. Not long after, I gave up trying to get back to sleep amidst all the chatting and giggling and joined them, leaving Teboho still in bed. After about half an hour of playing with the kids, I suggested breakfast and went through to the kitchen to start unpacking the box of groceries we had brought with us. As I headed down the corridor towards the kitchen, to my everlasting horror, I walked straight into a large male baboon. On seeing me, he stood up on his hind legs, as much in shock as in aggression, then simultaneously we both flung our arms into the air, screamed, turned and ran. I'm not sure who was more surprised by the encounter, me or the baboon, but we kept the kitchen door firmly locked from that moment onwards.

When we left the chalet just over an hour later, we saw what was most likely the same baboon go up to the stable kitchen door of the chalet opposite and fing himself at the top half in an attempt to gain entry and find food. This at least answered the question of how he had found his way through what I had thought was a bolted door–the bolt secured only the bottom half.

We spent the next few days exploring the area, seeing such wonders as Burke's Luck and visiting the small pioneer town of Pilgrim's Rest. We also went to a cheetah research and breeding centre near Kruger National Park. After driving around for a few hours, we made for the Vulture's Restaurant on the map we had received when we passed through the gates, all of us starving by now. I cannot describe the disappointment we felt as we rounded the corner, only to find it was literally a restaurant for vultures, the ground littered with rotting meat and carcasses. By this time, we were almost in tears for lack of food, so we headed straight back to the gate where we ate a late lunch of chocolate bars and chips.

The month with Mum and Dad few by and it was soon time for them to leave. We had spent an idyllic time together and I felt that some of the stresses from the end of our stay in Australia had dissipated. Both Mum and Dad had bonded with Dichaba and I felt no criticism of the way I was parenting either child. We parted on a positive note, expressing the hope that we might be able to visit Australia the following year.

I had been at home for eight months now and it was clear that we could no longer afford for me not to work. We had finally saved enough to replace the water tower, but the kids' bathroom–the only operational one–was still untiled. We had no built-in cupboards, only a pine chest of drawers in each room; no garden, with only a dirt trail where the car drove in to break up the thatch grass; and absolutely no savings. Somewhat reluctantly I contacted an agency to enquire about looking for work.

With all its pains, I had adored being a stay-at-home mother. I hung on every new thing that my son learnt to do. Despite not sleeping, he was a gentle-natured, happy child who was always affectionate and quick to smile and I knew from the beginning that he was the love of my life. It was also clear that Mama felt the same way. Knowing she would be taking care of him was the only thing that allowed me to wrench myself away and go back to work. Still, I yearned for his heart-shaped face and almond brown eyes, the smile that seemed to reach from hairline to chin, his soft brown curls, the curve of his forehead and his kissable olive skin.

I went for just one interview and was immediately offered the job. It was with a small consultancy called Palmer Development Group, run by two brothers, Richard and Ian. Richard, who would be my boss, was the younger of the two and displayed all the playful risk-taking characteristics of a last born, with Ian the responsible and wise older brother. They employed only half a dozen consultants in each office– one in Jo'burg and the other in Cape Town–each person brilliant and an expert in his or her own field. They focused exclusively on public sector work, particularly on large scale water and sanitation projects, domestic energy, education and local government–all the elements of a national development program.

I was delighted to be offered a position there and they suggested an immediate start. In South Africa in 1996, returning to work part-time wasn't even a consideration; it was a full-time job and I gladly accepted it. There was just one thing I had to do before I could start, and that was to get Dichaba to sleep through the night.

I had heard about controlled crying but it was not part of an African approach to child raising, so we had not tried it up until this point. However, with only a few days to sort things out, I was willing to give it a go. After Dichaba's night time bath and feed–he was still breast fed at this point–we put him down for the night in his cot in our bedroom and left him. He howled for thirty minutes until I relented and put him in the bed next to me, but other than that, I did not pick him up again and did not feed him. He screamed for another forty-five minutes until finally falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. By this time my nerves were completely frayed and I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest–but he was asleep. Both Teboho and I made the most of it and went straight to sleep, ready to wake soon and repeat the process. When I did wake, it was not to the sounds of my baby crying, but only as the light crept in through the windows with the dawn. It was the first full night's sleep I'd had since I was seven months pregnant. I lay there and watched my child's chest rise and fall–he was still deeply asleep–the same movement echoing in Teboho's chest behind him, almost breath for breath. To my utter amazement, Dichaba has slept through the night ever since. As it turned out, it was only one night of torture in exchange for the reward of restorative, mind altering, blissful sleep.