The Architecture of Loss

by Z. P. Dala

  Halaima emerged from within the dark place and walked swiftly into the house. She returned, carrying in her hands a small pack which she pushed into the doctor’s waiting hand. Afroze helped her frail mother down the veranda steps, and slowly they made their way over clods and clumps of Brighton earth; and when they came to stand near the ugly building, Afroze held out her hand. Onto her flat palm her mother placed a box of matches.

  The blaze was enormous. All three women, standing in the safety of the house, were shocked that they had not burned themselves up in their craziness. The fire crackled and whooshed, it wheezed and threatened to spread. But the night was still. Windless. And the flames confined themselves to devouring the horrid little building. Everything burned. Nothing remained. When the people from the town looked up to the little hill on which the doctor’s house stood, they saw the glow lighting up the night sky.

  The men from the town rushed to the blaze, muttering to each other about what the crazy doctor had done now. They arrived too late. The khaya was razed to the ground. The fire had been fueled and fed by the papers containing those stories that would never go down in history books.

  The men shook their heads when they saw the three women standing in the doorway of the house, standing unafraid and proud. They knew that the fire would not touch them.

  In the days and months that followed, Afroze grew larger as Sylvie grew smaller. Sylvie smiled often; she spoke little. She enjoyed little silly games with Bibi, and spent long afternoons sitting quietly next to Afroze. Mother and daughter spoke sometimes, exchanging brief words and phrases that meant more to them than the longest of conversations. Sylvie had her chance to feel the strong kicks that protruded from Afroze’s stretched belly. She giggled like a child when she felt them, her eyes full of wonder at the life that would soon come into the world.

  Sylvie left the world quietly on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, bathed in sunlight. Afroze was sitting next to her, reading to her from a book of poetry. The gravel in Afroze’s voice, brought on by a swollen belly that pushed her diaphragm upward, was hypnotic, and from a soft sleeping place, Sylvie slipped away.

  Halaima and Afroze clung to each other, sisters in grief as they said goodbye to the woman that had conjoined them. They dressed her in a chiffon sari, the color of butter, one she had been saving. Maybe Sylvie had been saving that sari for her daughter. But it suited her so beautifully, in her final eternal sleep. Afroze applied bright red lipstick to a mouth that was surely smiling.

  There was nothing large and official about the final salute to Doctor Sylverani Pillay, activist and comrade. No one came to make speeches. No flags were flown at half-mast. No one wrote of it in books and articles. She had come, she had served, and she had quietly left.

  And when Sylvia Moomina entered the world two months later, it was a bright and beautiful day.

  “Here, hold her, Halaima,” Afroze said to her tearful sister, handing over her treasure to willing arms.

  Halaima looked in rapture. She saw the doctor’s strong chin, she saw the doctor’s cheekbones.

  “Rosie, she is beautiful. I am going to miss you.”

  Afroze could see, in Halaima’s moist eyes, fear lurking. It was the fear of one who knew she had lost her place. There was no need for her now.

  “Oh, Halaima, don’t be silly. Where are you going? This house belongs to you now.” Afroze said lightly, and Halaima stifled a loud sob that escaped her trembling lips. Her eyes, screwed up with tears that she had been quelling for so long, asked questions.

  “This cottage was never home to me. You’ve loved it more than I ever could, Halaima. Where I saw walls and bricks, you saw beauty. I could never love this place like you do. It is yours. Live here, and be a family.”

  EPILOGUE

  Afroze Bhana drove her car through the streets of Cape Town. She pushed the gear into a roaring second, and the car flew up a steep hill. The loud revving of the engine woke the sleeping baby in the seat next to her. Afroze made soothing sounds as the infant began to fuss.

  She stopped before the facade of a familiar home. Outside, on the small lawn, sat Ismail and Moomi. They sat close together, almost in a cuddle. Ismail was reading the newspaper to Moomi, who nodded earnestly at all he was saying. They looked up at the woman approaching them, carrying a baby wrapped in a soft, white shawl.

  The Cape southeaster began to awaken. It was going to be yet another windy Cape Town day. Afroze stopped and looked at her parents, marveling at the myriad colors of the house fronts, jewels in her necklace of heritage. In the light of a morning sun, the houses blazed. She cooed to the child, admiring the plain, unadorned architecture of simple homes.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In early 2014, long before my debut novel was even considered for publication, I was charged with transgressing the laws of my profession as a therapist. My charge, brought upon me by a professional medical body, was one of unprofessional conduct, of acting outside of my scope of practice by practicing my profession without a supervisor present during my session with a patient. Charges were brought against me because of one patient who I had seen, the one time I had contravened the laws of my regulatory body, and I was guilty on all counts. I fully admit my guilt, and always did during the hearings and trials I faced over a two-year period, and still face currently.

  The patient’s name was Jane, but of course this is not her real name.

  I was called to see Jane by a concerned relative, who had exhausted all other avenues and had heard of me through a grapevine that I did not even know my name had been bandied about in. It seemed I had earned a reputation as a last resort, the one to go to when all else failed.

  In a tremulous voice that spoke almost apologetically, hushed, and secretive, Jane’s relative begged me to go to see her cousin, telling me that Jane was in a nursing home, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was violent, had stopped eating and moving and lay in her bed for weeks, deeply silent and deeply depressed. Every therapist who had been called in to see Jane had been either chased away by her in a violent rage or had simply not turned back after one initial visit. At that point, I was given no further information on the history of Jane. The relative remained tight lipped, telling me to read the file. I sensed that she thought I would refuse immediately if she disclosed any further information; she had been down that road before. She hedged her bets on telling me nothing much, hoping I would go, meet Jane, and then read that dreaded file. And that was it.

  I was fully aware that I was only allowed to see patients in a specific setting with my supervisor present. These were the laws. But I willingly and of my own volition ignored those laws and went to the nursing home without informing my supervisor, my practice manager, or my colleagues. There is something of the maverick in this act, but also something in the never-been-told quality in Jane’s story. It unfolded in my mind over the very faint, simple telephone conversation and it resonated with me. Maybe I am, like most writers, a sucker for a secret. And I realize that may make me a selfish healer, a collector of peoples’ pain, but I had never seen myself that way. I only believed strongly that there was something to be learned and shared with the world with every story.

  I did go to Jane. I did read her file, after a tussle with the management at the nursing home for access to it. Producing my certificate to prove I was a qualified therapist wielded a tiny window of opportunity, and I began to discover Jane in the words written by others about her.

  The story of this old woman then made me decide to chance it, to break the law, transgress the rules of my council, and eventually place my entire professional reputation in jeopardy. I risked losing my license. But I was not even able to stop myself. There was no medical reason why I should not see Jane. I was fully qualified to do so. But being immersed in writing my debut novel I had forgotten to renew my practicing license by a simple act of nonpayment of an annual fee. It was nothing but a signature and a payment that separated me from being a practicing therapist with over fifteen years of experi
ence and one who had to see patients only under the supervision of someone, anyone who could have easily qualified a year ago. I did not possess the one three-line piece of official lettering. Far after the payment was due I found a crumpled-up reminder notice to pay my fees or risk losing my license—that page that I had let lie at the bottom of my overflowing desk. It was completely my fault. In the eyes of the law, I was guilty of all charges, and it changed my life forever.

  I arrived at the nursing home, a dark, brown house hidden behind high walls, set on a suburban street full of homes that boasted beautiful trellises of climbing orange and yellow Cape Honeysuckle, swing sets in front yards and busy buses that drove with a whining whirr of wheels that only poor people’s buses can make. Loud rap music droned in the air. Teenagers stood on the street corner, smoking and whistling at schoolgirls. And right in the middle of all this life sat this home, filled with cast-away mothers, waiting for a visit, or to die. Whichever came first.

  I was regarded with suspicious eyes, as I entered this home, the caregivers and matron wondering what secrets I had come to expose. And they behaved with the demeanor of women who had many secrets to keep in that place, behind those high, brown walls.

  They took me to Jane. In a dormitory-style bedroom lined wall to wall with metal cots, the stench of stale urine hung in the air. On the furthermost cot, underneath a massive pile of ragged, old quilts, a tiny head poked out. In the dim light I could almost think there was a baby lying there, curled into a fetal position. The windows were set high on the walls, the dark, brown metal frames creating a dramatic break between ceiling and wall, and even in the heat of that January summer day, the dark, plain drapes were drawn erratically, letting slivers of sunlight in but blocking most out.

  Slowly as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized that most of the other cots were filled with sleeping women too, some snoring loudly, some just moaning in their sleep. It was ten o’ clock in the morning. They should have been awake, outside in the sunshine, gardening or chatting. But they all lay in the darkened room, sleeping.

  I will not engage in the details of my treatment of Jane. Needless to say, she met me with great force and resistance to any attempts to pull her out of her sickbed and into some semblance of movement. There were no “aha” moments, no large breakthroughs, no sudden shifts that changed anything about the landscape of this old woman. Throughout the time that I was allowed to see her—and this time was short lived, as someone reported me to my professional body and I was stopped from all practice—the extent of my therapy only saw some slight changes in her behavior.

  I suppose I could console myself that in my last few sessions with Jane, before I was pulled off her case and hauled off into trial, she managed to sit out of bed and stare forward, able now to take a spoon of soup to her own mouth occasionally. The last day I saw her, she told me she wanted to read a book. But before I could get her one, I was barred from any further visits. Her desire for a book inside the musty world into which she had been thrown was a breakthrough in my eyes. The breakthrough was not dramatic, and sometimes I find myself explaining to my family, who I placed under extreme strain due to the many trials and hearings I had to endure, that what I did was somehow worth it.

  Jane had been an anti-apartheid activist. She had been in the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), the Umkhonto we Sizwe, or the Spear of Africa, and had been one of the many women who had learned hard combat skills in Lesotho and Angola. The ANC was a banned organization in apartheid-era South Africa. And yet many activists, like Jane, had answered the call of the great comrades Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Ahmed Kathrada, who were sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, and who had begun a precisely designed call to action. Many people the world over know about the ANC—and they obviously know the name of its most famous father, the late Dr. Mandela—but not many people, even in South Africa, know of the depth and supremely planned logistical threads of the Congress. I suppose now that the country has been freed from the shackles of apartheid, most people care not for the details of how it was done. Yet in the country’s current state of disarray, the people who fought for the freedom of the nation and equality for all South African citizens of every color are now the politicians in power. The African National Congress remains the ruling party, but the dissent and anger toward the ruling party and more especially the elected head of the country is rampant throughout the country. Corruption, misappropriation of government funds meant for the poor, lies and silencing of journalists and writers who try to expose this, is the order of the day. Rhetoric between political parties amount to empty words. It is the poor people, mainly black South Africans, who still suffer the lack. They suffered it at the hands of a racist law called apartheid, and they suffer it now with growing capitalism and exploitation of resources. Many politicians of the ruling party, the ANC, feed the people fustian speeches and flowery promises of grandeur, expecting the most vulnerable (like women and children) to satisfy their hungry bellies on these words. The leader of the country is an unapologetic businessman. The age when politics spoke for democracy is declining, bringing in a new order of faux-democracy. The new order is money, and this money never trickles down to the people who need it.

  Although no legal convictions have resulted from this dishonesty, the people of the country are slowly engaging in a new struggle. This new struggle is a fight against the venality of power and money.

  It is a slow fight. The poor and disenfranchised have remained as poor and as neglected as they were under the apartheid regime. The ideals of Dr. Mandela, and the words of the Freedom Charter and New Constitution, are ignored in favor of unethical business dealings and unlawful conduct. The wealth of the country is not spread equally, and the poor grow poorer as government funds are stolen.

  After her time in Lesotho and Angola, Jane had tried to return to South Africa when the struggle was at its height in the mid-seventies, but had been detained several times without trial. After being released from prison, she then had spent many days in exile in Angola and Swaziland, running from safe house to safe house. She had been shot several times. She had been tortured. She had been fed mind-altering psychiatric drugs and then been withheld them when she fell into their dependency. She had learned the atrocious skill of bush surgery, and had often had to collect the shattered bones and limbs of her cadres.

  Jane lost many things. She lost her marriage to the struggle, she lost her ability to have children, she lost her potential to live and work due to her injuries, most of them unseen and without visible evidence. Mainly, she lost her sanity, and after all had been said and done, her mind fractured completely into a schizophrenic mess. This mess, described in her ugly folder in only clinical detail, looked away from how she had got there; it focused only on medical descriptions of her current behavior. There was no doubt that Jane was schizophrenic, but after such a life, a mind is a fragile thing. And yes, it broke and failed her when the time finally came for her to return to a life of normality.

  When the country had finally become a free and fair democracy and Mandela had been released and then elected our first democratic president, Jane’s was one of the many names that were never remembered. Like many freedom fighters before her, she had given her life to a struggle and had ended up with nothing. Her activism meant nothing; she was pushed into a nursing home by young people who barely knew what she had endured.

  Had I not gone to see Jane, alone, without a supervisor who did not want to take on a “headache case,” then no one in this world would know this woman called Jane had fought hard, lost much, and walked this Earth as a warrior.

  Activists like Jane are still alive, littered all over this land. In depressing, cheap nursing homes and low-income apartments that they do not deserve to die in. Poverty stricken, forced to go to humiliatingly incompetent government hospitals for treatment for injuries they sustained when they battled for our freedom, and forced to survive on barely nothing to fill their bellies. One avid sta
lwart of the struggle told me, as I delved deeper and deeper into the hovels that housed our heroes after my meeting with Jane, that a packet of cheap watered-down soup was his only meal every day.

  South Africa is a dichotomous land, a land of two faces. There is a fast-growing upper class of the nouveau riche activists-turned-politicians, and then there are those such as Jane who don’t wear their activism like gold crowns. They eat watery soup and guard the secrets of our way forward behind their rheumy eyes. Lest we ask . . . Lest we forget . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you:

  My family

  Thank you

  Maria Cardona

  Maia Larson

  Ujala Sewpersad

  Thohida Mohamed Kader

  Junaid Ahmed (R.I.P—November 2016)

  Thank you

  ray, e.d., i.b.

  THE ARCHITECTURE OF LOSS

  Pegasus Books Ltd.

  148 W 37th Street, 13th Floor

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by z.p. dala

  By Agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency