by Mputhumi Ntabeni

G21 Africa Staff Writer

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Mputhumi Ntabeni

QUEENSTOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - It's four in the morning. The wind is whistling on the eaves of the house and blowing dry leaves against its walls. The dog is barking incessantly outside. It's too cold for me to go and check. Besides it could only be barking at the neighbour's cats again. You've just woken me with your incessant wet cough. I'm wondering if I should take you the hospital now or wait until it's morning. It pains me because today is your fourth birthday. You were so much looking forward to sharing your cake with your school friends.

This always happens to you in June. A week after you were born you suffered from a serious viral flu infection. It's left you with wet lungs ever since. I remember when the flu progressed your chest became congested. We had to take you to the hospital the following morning. The day was drooping with cloudy disarray and occasionally weeping a sheet of soft rain. A low wind caught the mood of our expectancy as that soft, dancing, rain-washed our faces. Its mellow mistiness defined our condition. Hugging the back of your mother I could see that her warmth and rhythmic trotting reminded you of her womb. You were sleeping like an angel, the sleep of the just. For a moment, when I looked at you, I thought I saw the beauty of a folded rose in your face. I was glad that you laid still and sheltered while we were soaking wet. We rushed in moments of steeped effort, hoping to reach the hospital before nine a.m. In our ignorance, we were not aware by that throttling of rain we were exacerbating your condition. You coughed deep and painfully as if you were choking from your own sputum. You became red from the quick rush of blood to your head. That sight your mother could not bare. Slow fell her dewy tears from overcrowding fears.

But we could not tarry long. We were pressed for time. She rushed forward in order to submit your card for the hospital-folder, leaving you in my arms. She had to move on and not hang unto you. Sluicing rain dazzled from heaven above and beneath north winds slashed us through and through. I felt deep compassion for her and overwhelming sadness for the nature of things. I knew she did not hear the still song sung by the angels at a safe distance that your eyes were revealing to me. The serene guards of shadowless companions. They were brushing you through the willing air of the morning. I watched her hurry along in her tear-wet garments, staggering along the muddy road, and knew she'd never survive a loss of a child. Still I could find no heart to search for comforting words. I only hoped she found some dim comfort in my being, knowing that her pain was my excruciating pain. How I wished that somehow she would learn that there is a deeper peace that is no stranger to pain. That there're stronger ways of love which do not avoid wounding a staggering heart. No use for by pale words in those moments. Strange the days you have brought into our lives, Phanye.

After subjecting us to a series of questions about our family histories the doctors concluded that you were suffering from a case of acute bronchitis that often follows catching cold. They told us it can herald or complicate measles; influenza with a whooping cough (which was your case) or typhoid. They made us understand that bronchitis is an inflammation of the linings in the bronchial tubes. The lung airways become clogged with mucus resulting in an excessive need to clear them, which explained your paroxysmal coughing and caused that wheezing of your chest which perturbed me most. Each breath you took grated my heart into pieces.

Your mother spent her days and the better parts of the night in the hospital after they admitted you. How wonderful it was the way she quelled your fears by singing you your favourite lullaby:

Thula, thula mntana wami
Thula ,thula.
(Hush, hush my baby)
(Hush, hush)

There were other moments as you have grown when you had to go back to hospital, especially during the month of June. You always waited in certainty for our visits. Waiting in certainty is how Dante described hope. When you saw us you would reach out with that courteous smile that has become your trademark. No argument equals a happy smile. You have what in English I can equate with charisma, but is not. The Arabs call it burchi. The mystical air of an overwhelming hold one individual has over others regardless of their respective status or age. This, your quiet charm, and a complexion that is fresh to look atí made you a hit at the hospital, even among the staff.

These, Phanye, are just your surface motions, depicting perhaps the deeper current of your character. I once read a psychologist (Rodback) define character as an enduring psychophysical disposition to inhibit impulses in accordance with a regulative principle. What will be your regulative principle, Phanye? Religion, Humanity, or Greed? What news have you brought, Phanye? What uniqueness have you in your identity?

---

When, in nineteen ninety-nine, your mother learned she was pregnant with you the only thing she could think of was abortion. She was still on her final varsity year, supporting herself since she no longer has parents. We were not married. To her lights, it was unfair to bring you to the world under those conditions. It must be said she thought it'd be a tremendous inconvenience to her life plans also. Luckily I had converted to Catholicism four years before. So abortion was out of the question in my convictions. We came to an agreement then that if she'd give birth to you, I'd raise you after you were weaned. My child, I can unequivocally say that you owe your life to my faith. I've never regretted that decision. Yes there're times when you're a great inconvenience to me, but I've discovered it exactly because you mean so much to me.

You came in my life at the time when a careless contempt for the worldly things held me tight under its grip. The world had grown dim in my eyes. Few things have given me the joy I got from your birth. It taught me how blessed a thing it is to reproduce one's kind. That to life is not only to maintain oneself but to die to it in order to be born of the fire of love.

I remember the day you born as though it were yesterday. It was a very unusual day for June. It had pulsating streams of sunlight and the calm regularity of a normal spring day. I remember thinking "The air is too heavy for a June morning" as I left the house. Apparently your mother started feeling strange around about nine in the morning and decided to take a bath. It never occurred to her that she was parturient as she still had two more weeks of gestation according to her doctors. After her bath she felt even stranger but no pain. She thought it might be early labour pains so she alerted her brother. He wasted no time in calling the ambulance. Your mother thought he was panicking. As time went by she was glad he did because her water broke coming to ten.

Nobody can accuse your uncle of being able to make haste slowly, but under the circumstances he did well. When the delayed arrival of the ambulance was apparent he went for help to the nearby clinic. To their ignominy, the nurses in the clinic refused to be of any assistance to him on some shameful pretext that they do not make house calls. Left alone in the house with your three-year-old cousin Naledi your mother started panicking. She could feel you coming post-haste. There was no one to catch you. Seeing her groaning and moaning Naledi became confused. She started walking up and down, now bringing her a glass of water, now spying for help.

Eventually the paramedics arrived just as you were coming out. Outside the house the crowd had gathered, having been invited by your mother's screams. A make-do bed was made in the lounge. At twenty past ten a.m. of June the eighth, nineteen ninety-nine the world was honoured by your presence. Should you be fortunate enough as to live more than a century you'll have a rare privilege of having lived across three centuries. Wouldnít that be something? I doubt it, though, as the years of man's life is three scores, four if we are strong, then the life withers like grass in winter and is no more. But by the way you seem determined to be an archenemy of man's ruthless subordination to circumstances and grey monotony, one never knows. Whatever comes of thy own life unto thy own self be true; be true, my child. No matter how arduous the task. Plot your own course under the stars but take as an ally justice. Anchorage is never free from pain. Pursue your own path steadily without magnifying yourself. Haste is from the devil, the San people say. The ancients were of the opinion that a certain dose of melancholy is needed if one is to attain sublime nobility. Expect then a certain measure of sadness if you choose that path. Foolishness and madness are necessary and irremediable in the world. They seem to be the overreaching powers of worldly glory. Charm it with your goodness and never be cynical.

---

Today watching the water currents and streams I thought of my faith and you. Water currents are instructive and fascinating to watch. In a stream there are always different levels of flow. A swirl might create a lot of noise with an eddy, but it does not run deep. Mostly it just spins-off and dies on the shore. If its lucky it gets caught up in a deeper current and becomes part of the wider, deeper silent stream. Where there are unnecessary inhibitions, swirls will occur, for they try to overflow those. But the stream cannot run higher than its source.

I once stood next to the sea wondering what mote in my dreamy eyes have exiled me to the playfield of the wind? In the windy city (Port Elizabeth) the wind bullies everything. It ruffles the sinuous drapery of the sea, revealing its white petticoats. In the windy city the wind lends the sea tottering jaws to bite ones feet with receding tides. In the windy city the wind lends the brine a force that hurts the eyes. In the windy city the dilisk (sea grass) bites and the wind has piercing cold arrows. At night in the windy city the gibbous moon gazes brightly beneath the open sky.

Where's my life? I asked. Is it caught up with these hissing leaves that rub against the walls of my heart. I am growing tired of raising my blood with the movements of the wind. Tired of these faint thoughts of lame love: Look to the highest of the heights, where the stars still keep their ancient peace. If light can thus conceal, wherefore not life? Says the ancient voice. Today. Today only. I'll drink the intensity of the sea's growling scream. I'll observe its lashings against an indifferent shore. I allow it to stir my senses and sap my will. When I have had my fill I shall stand up and go to my secret room. I've wasted enough of my youth in the solitary silence that feeds my wound. I went to the windy city stumbling from my gloom. I left drowning from the wet, wet sea. Chained to a rock and lashed by icy waves. I'll burn the candle from tonight on. I'll record my thoughts and attempt to build without axe sounds or hammer a house stronger than Caesar's. In that, perhaps, I shall find my own song