Bloodlines (61 page)

“Dad says that you and Grandpa Lenny were friends,” said Greg, “but he seemed much older than you do.”

“We were friends a long time ago—when your father was a little child,” said Khabazela with a twinkle in his eye. “Your grandfather and I were about the same age, but I think the work I do has kept me very immature.”

“I know what immature means, you know,” said Greg patiently, “and you’re not immature. What work do you do?”

“What do you think?” he asked.

“There are lots of immature kinds of work,” he answered. “You could be a clown, or in the circus. But I don’t think so.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “He does some kind of work with children, Greg. Working with children keeps grownups young. Right, Khabazela?”

“I do work with children, Sally—I’m a teacher. And that has kept me young.” He turned to Greg. “And being children, you know that the best teachers are sometimes clowns; the best school sometimes feels like a circus. And that has kept me immature. So you’re both right.”

“So you knew Dad when he was little,” said Greg. “Grandpa’s the only one we know who knew Dad back then. In the past.”

“You make it sound as if it was the olden days,” said Sally. “They did have cars and television and videos, you know.”

“Not quite,” he answered. “They did have cars—but no television, and certainly no video. And when I knew him it was way before computers.”

“Wow, that’s weird,” Greg said. “So, what was our Dad like?”

Khabazela looked at Greg. “Your father looked just like you,” he said with a serious expression. “He was smart, and curious. And he was into everything. When he was a baby your grandmother would put him down, and he would disappear—around a corner, into a closet, under the branches of a tree. And then when he was older, he was sure to find the most dangerous place you could imagine. He was like a kitten—he would climb up farther than was safe, and then he would cry because he couldn’t get down. Several times I had to risk my neck to save him.”

The children were delighted—but Sally was onto another topic.

“So,” she said thoughtfully, “you know our grandmother, too.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I do know her, and we are very close friends. You will love her from the first moment you meet her. And I’m sure that when she sees the two of you she will fall in love with you, too.”

Greg looked at Khabazela with wide green eyes. “Were the two of you ever in love with each other?” he asked.

“That’s a very personal question, Gregory,” said Dariya quietly, and Greg flushed with embarrassment.

“Friends can ask personal questions,” said Khabazela, stretching out a reassuring hand and resting it on Greg’s forearm. “And I don’t mind answering this one.”

I held my breath, not knowing what was coming, but he didn’t miss a beat.

“I think she loved me, and loves me still,” he said gravely. “Perhaps you’ll ask her when you see her. But I can tell you this—I was in love with her. Everyone who knows her falls in love with her.”

I attempted to pay the check, but Khabazela waved away my credit card.

“This is mine,” he said gently, his hand covering my own. “I look forward to the day when you are part of the landscape, but for today you’re my guests.”

He pushed back his chair, patted his mouth with a napkin, and placed it carefully on the table as he rose. “But now, I think it’s time for a short tour before I take you to my house to meet my family. Shall we go?”

He led the way, a hand on the shoulder of each of my children, looking down at them and smiling as they spoke to him. I watched them go ahead of us, irritated that I felt such a sense of loss. His gentleness, his wry humor and sense of fun, and his wisdom, made me wonder what it would have been like to have him as a part of my life as I was growing up. I began to feel a sense of regret that I lost him when I was a little boy; wondered what it might have been like to have him as a confidante and an example. But there was no going back—there was no back to go to.

The distance from the northern suburbs of Johannesburg to Soweto is only a few miles, but it might as well be half a world away. Many of the homes are little changed from the time of apartheid. Small brick or concrete buildings on tiny lots, the gray, greenish or reddened color of the brick often identifying the period when construction took place. In many lots, shacks of waste wood, board and plywood have been thrown together to house additional family members, and makeshift fences separate each property from the next. Young men played soccer on barren fields; at crowded market stalls, women sold vegetables, and, at one market, the children were horrified to see a woman pushing a supermarket cart filled with skinned sheep’s heads.

“Those are called smilies,” said Khabazela, amused by their reaction. “Some people think sheep’s head is a delicacy.”

“Do you?” queried Greg, hoping for a negative response.

“I have eaten it many times,” he said, “but it is not my favorite dish.”

“Mine neither,” said Sally, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

The streets were wide, barren and untended, with few sidewalks, and fewer trees. But the human population was dense. Along every avenue, on every corner, throngs of people sat on the ground or on folding chairs, talking and arguing; they stood around their makeshift shops, buying and selling, or walked along the side of the road carrying boards or boxes or bags of fruit and vegetables. Women gathered outside their homes, tending babies and infants; children played everywhere—along the streets, beside the stalls, on every empty plot of land.

Not all homes were alike. Many had been added to, rebuilt, improved, and were well tended, with carefully grown gardens. There were areas of gentrification, where middle-class subdivisions had been built, and a growing number of larger homes as successful black South Africans decided that they preferred the neighborhood feeling of the communities they’d been raised in, rather than the isolation and electrified fences of the northern suburbs.

Khabazela lived in Orlando West, an area of Soweto on the side of a hill about three quarters of a mile from the house Nelson Mandela once occupied. We passed by the house, a small, brick structure, now a museum, across the street from where merchants had set up tables of Mandela memorabilia, African carvings and paintings.

The house was a modest, two-bedroom brick home with a living room and dining room in front, separated by a well-used porch. There was a low brick wall in front, a vegetable patch on one side of the walk, and a small grassy area on the other. Three children played on the grass, and as we pulled up, several more ran outside and waited on the porch. I parked the car on the roadside and Khabazela ushered us in through the gate.

“Welcome,” he said, “I am honored to have you in my home.” He beckoned to the children, who came over quietly and stood around us. “Children,” he said to his family, “these two are Sally and Greg. They are Michaela’s grandchildren. These four are my grandchildren,” he said, pointing, “and the children of my brothers and sisters. And these two,” he said, a hand on two of the youngest curly heads, “are my great-grandchildren, and also Michaela’s.”

“Michaela’s great-grandchildren?” asked Dariya.

“I know it will seem complicated,” he said, “but only for a moment. You remember that Michaela and I had a son, Simon, who was killed. Simon left behind him a young woman, Hlengiwe, who was carrying his child. That child is Penya, now grown. You will soon meet him—he works with Michaela at the farm. Penya is married; these are his children, the grandchildren of your brother, Steven, and therefore your grand-niece and nephew.”

I knelt down to greet these two lovely children who looked up at me with clear eyes and open smiling faces. Trying to take it all in and to find some connection, I felt both richness at the family I had just discovered, and a profound sense of loss at the brother killed years before I even knew of his existence. Dariya saw my confusion, and she shepherded the other children away. There were smiles all around, and a little girl with huge brown eyes, round cheeks and a bright green headband shyly approached Sally and took her hand.

“Good,” said Khabazela. “Now, off you go, all of you, while I take Steven and Dariya inside.”

Sally was ready to go in an instant, but Greg looked back at us for confirmation. Dariya gave him a smile of encouragement.

“Don’t worry,” said Khabazela. “They won’t go far. There’s a soccer game around the corner, and next door is my niece’s house. My wife Miriam will give them all lunch while we talk, and then she’ll join us. She can’t wait to meet you. Come, please. Come inside.”

Inside was a comfortably furnished living room with a soft, flowered couch, and two pale green armchairs set around a varnished, dark wood coffee table. On the walls there were several African paintings, framed teaching awards, some family photographs, and a series of more formal photos. As we looked at the pictures, Khabazela pointed us to a group photo of people being addressed by Nelson Mandela. It was dated 1993.

“Nelson was giving an award for the work we did in KwaZulu-Natal. The area we were in was part of what used to be called Zululand,” he said,” he said. “Do you see me in the photo?”

Dariya and I looked at the photograph. Khabazela was younger, his beard still dark, the lines around his eyes absent.

“Yes,” she said, pointing. “There you are.”

“And do you recognize the woman on my left hand?” he asked.

I looked at the woman, and an involuntary exclamation, like a stutter, escaped my lips. “My mother,” I said.

She was older than the picture I carried in my memory—in 1993 she would have been almost sixty. Her graying hair had been simply cut just below the ears, and her clothing was plain and elegant—a pair of dark slacks and a light blouse. In the picture she was standing tall, her shoulders back, a strong, self-possessed woman, slender and still attractive. I had no memory of how tall she had been when I was seven, but in the photo she was half a head shorter than Khabazela. This was the first picture I had seen of her since discovering that she was still alive, and I recognized her features. If speaking to her hadn’t been proof that she was alive, this certainly was. At least, it was proof positive that she had been alive in 1993. But still, I didn’t know quite how to react.

“I realize that seeing her must be something of a shock,” said Khabazela, “but I thought it better to shock you in little pieces, rather than all at once.” He smiled at me.

“That picture,” he continued, “was taken near your mother’s home. Madiba—Nelson Mandela—was traveling through the country then, and he wanted to thank us for the work we had done to help bring apartheid to an end.” He paused. “She made much possible,” he said gravely, “that would otherwise never have happened. She saved many good lives; hid both women and men, black and white, from agents of the Special Branch; smuggled many freedom fighters out of the country and into safety. And she did it at great risk to herself, and at her own expense.”

I nodded politely, but said nothing. My surprise must have been obvious; my thoughts transparent. He smiled at me, a wise and loving expression on his face, and his reddened eyes, both trapped within and protected by the lines that surrounded them, peered out at me.

“I have seen many things, Steven,” he said, “and I can imagine many more—but I have no idea what this is like for you. I would not try to whitewash what has passed between you and your mother, but you must know that I am not her messenger. You will find out on your own what kind of woman she is—far too intelligent to think that her meeting with you can be made easy, or simple. It will be like crossing a raging river—the only way to get to the other side will be to go through it. That photograph lives on the wall—pointing it out to you is my doing, not hers.”

I felt the heat of embarrassment rising in my face as he spoke. I was about to apologize when a large woman with a bright, flowered scarf tied about her head came in through the front door. She looked like the little girl with the round cheeks who had shyly taken Sally’s hand—but there was nothing shy about this woman.

“This is Miriam, my wife,” he said, as we turned from the photograph on the wall to greet her. “How are the children doing?”

“They’re fine,” she said. “I gave them sandwiches and drinks, and they’re playing like long-lost cousins. They’re putting on a musical talent show, and I’m going back to keep an eye on them—it gives me an excuse to watch them perform.” She grinned widely, and came around the coffee table to embrace us.

“I welcome Michaela’s children to this house,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you here, after all this time.” She placed a warm hand on my cheek and looked into my face. “You have your mother’s smile,” she said. “It’s not a smile that many people see, but those of us who know her well are privileged to see it occasionally.” She turned to Dariya. “Steven is the same way?” she asked.

Dariya snaked her arm around my waist. “Oh, yes,” she said, grinning. “Steven rarely smiles for anyone but the children. But those of us who know him well are privileged to see it occasionally.”

“Very funny,” I said.

Miriam laughed delightedly. “I cannot wait for you to see your mother,” she said. “I think you will find that you are very much alike.”