When the Ground Is Hard

by Malla Nunn

  Your brother,

  Rian

  “Bad news?” Lottie asks, and I give her Rian’s postcard to read. Lottie doesn’t send or receive mail, and, in our ten years at Keziah, not once has the Elephant called her up to the mailbag. She grins at the photo of the topless girl on the cover and flips over to Rian’s words.

  “Your brother is worried about you,” she says. “It’s nice.”

  “Still nothing from Mother,” I point out. “Father came and Mother cried, and I’m not sure what it means.”

  “Let’s walk.” Lottie pulls me in the direction of the chapel and steers me away from my own thoughts. I let her. Since the mistake with the first letter, Lottie has taken care of me. When I might have sulked or bitten my nails, we walk to the cattle grids, the woodworking shed, and the curtain of burned trees that stand behind the school shop, black and stark against the sky. We avoid the river and the far hills, afraid to test our luck.

  Sunlight falls across the graveyard and makes the granite in the headstones shine. I lean my arms on the smooth wood fence that separates the cemetery from the main road and rest my head on my arms, something I could never imagine doing at the beginning of term. The dead scare me less now.

  “I’m glad Darnell isn’t buried here,” Lottie says. “He’d make mischief for sure.”

  “And who would blame him?” I say. “Being this close to the chapel for eternity would send anyone cuckoo.”

  “Darnell is better off lying next to his mother with a view of the mountains,” she says. And, though she’s careful to avoid mentioning his name, I know that Bosman looms large in her imagination, the evil white man who broke Darnell’s neck.

  I’ve pointed out the lack of evidence and thrown in terms from articles that I’ve read in Mother’s racy gossip magazines: eyewitness accounts, lack of probable cause, and false accusation all have the power to sway a judge in the negative . . . especially in divorce cases, where shady motel rooms and dark alleyways are common, though I’m sure the same rules of evidence apply to murders.

  “Darnell probably did die by accident,” Lottie says with a hitch in her voice. We’ve gone over the dozen ways that Darnell might have fallen, by fair means and foul, and come by slow circles to the same conclusion every time: we will never know what happened or why. We stand before the great mystery that is everything in this world and fumble for answers.

  “Why did God take Darnell and my father instead of Bosman or any of the other terrible people in the world? It’s not fair,” she says. “There are so many to choose from!”

  “You’re right,” I agree. “It’s not fair.”

  There’s nothing else to say, so we remain quiet, and the quiet is soothing. When I was with Delia and the other popular girls, we never stopped talking. We discussed fashion and boys, and gossiped about other students including Lottie. We talked to pass the time. Life’s heavy loads—trouble with our parents, confusion at our changing bodies, life and death, and the pain of being stuck in the narrow space between white and black—those subjects were left unspoken. It’s different with Lottie. When we speak, the words have meaning, and when we are silent, the lack of words has meaning also. I don’t understand how the sounds and the silences balance out between us, only that they do.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Adele! Adele!” Mrs. Thomas’s frantic voice breaks the graveyard peace. “Thank heavens I found you. Mr. Vincent’s office. Now.”

  “Why?” I spin and face Mrs. Thomas, who appears to have been running. Mrs. Thomas runs only when being chased by lions. My heart thumps. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “Phone call,” she pants. “Long-distance. For you. Go. Mr. Vincent is waiting.”

  Long-distance calls are for death and emergencies. Maybe Rian is in hospital. Mother is injured, and that’s why she hasn’t written. Father is dead.

  “Adele . . .” Lottie grabs my arm and brings me back to reality. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  She gets me to run to Mr. Vincent’s office, and I wait outside the door till the stitch in my side stops hurting. I knock, and Mr. Vincent says to come in. Lottie tries to stay outside, but I pull her in with me, too afraid to face the bad news alone.

  “For you.” Mr. Vincent hands me the phone and walks out to give me privacy, something I can’t imagine a Swazi headmaster doing in the same situation. I press the receiver to my ear and try to calm my breath.

  “Adele?” His voice comes over the line.

  “Father?” I say. “But it’s only Tuesday.”

  His voice belongs to Thursday nights and to whenever he visits Swaziland. During the school year he is silent, a ghost. He laughs at my astonishment, and I know that Mother is fine and Rian is still breathing.

  “Your mother told me about the award when I visited her last week.” He takes a breath and explains. “This Golden Sun must be special.”

  “We—my friend Lottie and I—we saved the school shop and the classrooms from burning down. There was a fire. We stopped it. There were monkeys running from the bush, and I got burned on my arm.” I am rambling, but I don’t know what to say or how to say it. This is the first time I’ve talked to him without Mother over my shoulder, urging me to be grateful.

  “You did well,” he says, and there is another pause. This phone call is awkward for him also. “I . . . I just wanted to say that I wish I could be there for the ceremony, but I can’t.”

  “I understand,” I say.

  And I do understand. Father shares himself out in pieces: some to his family in South Africa and some to us in Swaziland. No wonder his hair has turned gray.

  “You’re a wonderful girl, Adele. Not just because of this award. And your mother . . .” He takes a long breath. “Your mother is the lov—” Three sharp knocks interrupt him, and he says, “Ja. Come in.”

  His voice is muffled. His hand is cupped over the telephone to hide my voice, the sound of his secret life. A door opens, and a female voice speaks a few words, some of which I can hear over the line. “Mr. Joubert,” is said, as one speaks to a superior, then “waiting,” and he replies, “Tell him I’ll be right out.”

  I imagine him at work, seated behind a wide desk covered in contour maps and important papers. The door shuts, and he comes back on the line.

  “Sorry about that. I . . . There is too much to say, and . . . I can’t . . .” He stops to gather his thoughts. “I’m proud of you, Adele. Well done on being so brave.”

  Static crackles in the miles of telephone wire that connect us. I want to say something, but I don’t know what.

  “Well, I have to go,” he says. “Work. It never ends.”

  “Oh.” I finally get my mouth to work. “Yes. I understand. Thank you. Thank you for calling. I hope I see you soon.”

  “Till next time, Adele.” He hangs up, and he’s gone, absorbed back into a European world I will never live in but one that pays our bills and keeps me in school. I wonder if he’s nervous about living a double life, or do we give him a feeling of closeness that is missing in his other family? I think back on his interrupted sentence. Your mother is the . . . I fill in the rest. Your mother is the love of my life.

  “Are you all right?” Lottie asks, and I realize that the receiver is still in my hand. The sound of static fills Mr. Vincent’s office, and I hang up.

  My chest burns. He loves me. I love him. I feel the pain of it for the first time.

  * * *

  • • •

  Evening study hall. I write one obvious quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into my English homework book, “Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good night till it be morrow,” and a second, more substantial quote, that secretly thrills my heart with its mad love and whispered prophecy, “These violent delights have violent ends, / And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume.” Just t
hink. If Father loved Mother the same way, he’d do anything to be with her, but people behave differently in plays and books than they do in real life. When I’m done with my English homework I move to history. I make a list of countries of the British Empire in alphabetical order for geography class. It doesn’t take long. The list is shorter than it used to be.

  Lottie sits next to me and finishes a math problem without counting her fingers to get the right answer. She’s been quiet since the conversation with Father, knowing somehow that I need time to think about what he said. I chew my pencil and remember the hours I’ve spent imagining the details of Father’s house in Johannesburg: the velvet curtains on the windows, the cool marble tiles in the kitchen, and the grand piano taking center stage in the lounge room. And, most vivid of all, my certain belief that Father’s European house is a better version of ours in Manzini and that the lives being lived inside it are richer and more real than my own.

  After Father’s phone call, I’m not sure that’s true. He loves my mother, and keeping her, Rian, and me hidden from the world must be painful. I wonder if all knowledge comes with a bitter trace of sadness. Mother has her sleep-in-till-afternoon days, but how does Father manage the burdens of his cut-in-two life and his secrets? I hurt for Father, who has chosen to ignore his own heart and lives a lie with his white wife and children. I especially hurt for Mother, who is always second in line for Father’s time and attention. Mother who survives on small parcels of love but deserves a banquet of smiles and kisses to feast on. Mother who did not reply to my letter.

  28

  Parcel Delivery

  A week after Father’s call, Lottie and I sit in Health and Hygiene and pretend to be interested in this afternoon’s topic: “How to Make Soap Your Friend.” From outside the open classroom window comes the rumble of the Ocean Current as it pulls to a stop across the road from the dining hall. The engine idles. On board is a canvas bag stuffed with letters for Keziah students and seed catalogs for farmers who live on isolated farms at the end of barely used washboard roads. I shut my ears to the siren call of the brakes and the ticket seller calling “Durban, Durban, Durban” in a lilting voice. If Father can telephone, then surely Mother can write. But she won’t. She hasn’t. Not in almost two weeks.

  The bell rings, and the boys rush out of the classroom to the dining hall for morning tea. Lottie and I let the others get ahead of us. It saves on awkward silences and skittish glances, both of which happen whenever we get too close to the other students. We can’t shake the rumor that we’re infected with germs from Darnell’s dead body. Lottie and me are bad luck charms, to be avoided.

  We walk the concrete path through the haze of blue buildings and step out onto the main road. A gang of boys, both tall and small, gathers under the branches of a jacaranda tree and gazes, slack-jawed, in the direction of the Ocean Current. The girls ahead of us stop to whisper behind cupped hands, their attention drawn to the idling bus. Everyone should be stampeding toward the dining hall, where thick slabs of white bread and apricot jam are waiting to be eaten.

  Lottie and I push through the gawkers, and I see her. Mother stands in the swirling dust in a too-short daisy-print dress and white lace-up boots with stacked high heels. A dozen gold bracelets circle her wrists, and her lips are painted ruby red. Mother breaks every rule of our godly society with insulting ease. She could, with one swing of her hips, open the gates of hell and drag us all down into the fiery pit with her. She is irresistible, dangerous, fabulous.

  I shut my eyes, squeeze tight, and then reopen them. No mistake. Mother is dazzling and real, and right in front of me.

  “Mummy . . .”

  “Adele . . .” She holds out her arms, and the gold bracelets chime on her wrists.

  Mum . . . My heart beats out the word, and I run to her in front of a dozen witnesses who will call me crybaby for the rest of the term. Who cares what they say? Father called and Mother is here, and I burrow into her shoulder.

  “My baby,” she croons into my hair. “My baby girl.”

  “You came.” I soak in the sound of her voice and the scent of tea-rose lotion on her skin. “You came all this way, and the Golden Sun Awards aren’t for six weeks.”

  “Adele, I wanted to see you before then.”

  “And Rian?”

  “With Mrs. Button. He’ll be fat as a hippo by the time I get back. You know how she loves to cook.” Mother turns to face our spellbound audience, which stares and gapes at the beautiful creature who’s dropped into Keziah as if by magic. Lottie keeps her distance, self-conscious in her faded school uniform and worn shoes. Compared to Mother, we are all shabby.

  “And this must be your friend, Lottie,” Mother says.

  “Yes.” I motion Lottie closer. “This is Lottie Diamond. We share Dead Lorraine’s room, and we just finished reading Jane Eyre, the book that Father brought me from Johannesburg.”

  Mother reaches out and touches Lottie’s shoulder with an easy familiarity that makes the boys groan with envy. She claims Lottie as her own and anoints us both with an air of mystery and glamour. Delia and the others pretend they are indifferent to Mother’s bombshell appearance, but they cannot look away. They are mesmerized.

  The dust and isolation of Keziah disappear. Lottie and I belong to Mother, a worldly creature who lives in the city and wears white lace-up boots and fiery lipstick.

  “All aboard.” The ticket seller leans out of the bus and calls in a booming voice, “Next stop, Howard’s Halt. Howard’s Halt, next stop.”

  He’s putting on a show for Mother. Nobody stops at Howard’s Halt unless they were born there or have a sick relative to visit.

  “I have a few things to buy. Is Old Man Lander’s store in Howard’s Halt still open?” Mother wonders aloud. “It had a strange name, I remember.”

  “Hebron,” Lottie answers. “Old Man Lander died, but the store is still open. His daughter Ophelia runs it now.”

  The Ocean Current’s double doors swish shut, and the driver releases the hand brake. The engine throbs. Mother knocks on the metal—tap, tap—and smiles through the glass. The driver happily reopens the doors.

  “Where to, my sister?” he asks.

  “Three tickets to Howard’s Halt.” She motions Lottie and I on board, and I hesitate.

  “We don’t have permission to leave the school grounds,” I say, fretting. “And we have Scripture class this—”

  “You’re holding up the bus, Adele,” Mother says, and I realize that Lottie is halfway up the stairs, ready to run to Howard’s Halt and all points beyond. Shamed by my fear, I climb aboard. The three of us find seats in the middle row, with Mother and I together and Lottie across the aisle. The bus rolls past the blue classrooms and the woodworking shed and the boys’ dormitories. A gang of little boys and girls runs behind the Ocean Current chanting, “Runaway! Runaway! Runaway!”

  I laugh for no reason, and Mother squeezes my hand. She answered my letter in person, and the heat of her skin against mine warms every part of me.

  “Ask me anything.” Mother turns to look at me, and my heart hitches in my chest. If I’m ready to ask, she’s ready to answer, and how could I have believed that she’d ignore my letters and never write back? Lottie is right. I am ignorant. My own mother is a stranger to me, and now is a good time to change that.

  “Mama Khumalo says that you haven’t visited the village in fourteen years. How come?”

  “Many reasons, Adele.” She motions to the long fields and deep valleys all around us. “The hunger and the hard hills, and the farmers who act like they’re God because they own the land you live on and they have all the power. And things happened that . . .”

  Mother turns her face away, and my breath catches in my throat. My mother, who Father says can talk underwater, is silent, and her silence scares me. I have an uneasy feeling that whatever happened to her out in those desolate hills is too terrible
to speak of.

  “Well.” Mother forces a smile. “Let’s say that some memories are best kept in the past. To do that, I had to leave the village behind. Can you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  Mother peers through the dusty glass and back through the decades. “I left Keziah when I was your age, Adele. I found work at the land title office, and I met your father in the map room, just like he tells it. I made a good life for myself in Manzini, and after Mama Agnes died, there was no reason to come back.”

  “Until now,” I say. “Until me.”

  “Only you could ever bring me back here, Adele,” my mother says, and having her next to me is a dream and it is real at the same time.

  “Were you alone at Keziah? No friends? No nothing?” I ask, and Mother tenses up.

  “I got plenty of attention from the boys and mouthfuls of spite from the girls, but I had no one to stick up for me, Adele. That’s why I’m here. To tell you that Daddy, Rian, and me . . . we’re on your side. Always.”

  The postcard from Rian, the phone call from Father, and now Mother in the flesh are all proof that what she says is true. I am not alone. I have my family and . . .

  “I have Lottie Diamond,” I tell Mother. “And she has me.”

  Mother leans across my lap and says to Lottie, “You should come and visit us during the holidays. Stay as long as you like. We have room.”

  Lottie blushes, her famous Zulu pride dented by Mother’s charm. “If Adele wants,” she mumbles, leaving the decision up to me.

  At the beginning of the term, my answer would have been no way, definitely not. Lottie is trouble. Her hair is too short. Her clothes are ugly. Her mother’s a disgrace, and her manners are too close to native. Now, the idea of her in our house in Manzini makes me smile. The world is bright and sad and pressed close against my skin when she’s around.