Summary
In this chapter, Mandisa tells the story of her relationship to Mxolisi, starting with her pregnancy and following through to his early childhood. She begins the chapter by addressing Amy's mother directly. She writes about how she has become infamous as a mother, how although she has three children, she has "been called mother to so many more: Mother of the beast. Mother of the serpent..." (83). But it has not been all of her children that have brought her this shame, just the first one. Mxolisi has been a source of shame for Mandisa from the moment he was born: "He who came unbid; bringing a harvest of shame to my father's house. Bitter tears to a mother's proud heart" (83).
As Mandisa is brought back to Cape Town with her mother, she is full of shame. Her mother, furious with her, won't speak a word to her daughter, who is hunched down in the back seat. Mandisa's mother is not taking the pregnancy well. She spoke only with a "haunted voice, a voice that said to the world at large that she had suffered some unimaginable pain" (84). Once back home, she banished Mandisa to her room. Warned against leaving lest the neighbors see her, Mandisa is even forced to use a chamber pot during the day. This goes on for a week, with Mandisa locked in isolation. During this week, Mandisa and her mother learn that Nono has had her baby, and has elected to name the child without consulting the father's family. This infuriates Mandisa's mother, who thinks that the child's name, Nobulumko, meaning "Mother of Wisdom," is a slight to the family and the way that they dealt with the pregnancy. Mandisa fears facing the look on her father's face, but her fear turns out to be in vain because he chooses instead to ignore her presence altogether. She spends her days sitting against the wall on the floor of her room, "too ashamed to lie on the bed," lest she end up "looking as though I enjoyed or took the slightest advantage of the unfortunate situation I found myself in" (85).
She wants to get into contact with China, even though she has been warned to wait for the moment that her family approaches his family to seek reparations for the pregnancy. She has been told that if she tells China before this, she will scare him away and he will not step up into fatherhood. She doesn't believe that China would do that to her, so once her mother returns to work, Mandisa summons two schoolgirls into the house one day and sends them to China's with a note, telling him that she is back in town and has to see him. He arrives soon after and bursts into the home. At first, it is a happy reunion: "Hearing his footsteps nearing, my heart gave a violent lurch and a flood of warmth bathed me. He is here! He is here!" (87). But China is frozen at the sight of her and her newly pregnant belly. China is neither prepared for nor welcoming of the news: "Even as I spoke, I could see resistance in his granite face" (87). As soon as she is done telling him what she has just learned a week before, he denies it, and tells her "in no uncertain terms: 'Go and find whoever did this to you'" (87). He denies that the child is his, telling Mandisa that she knows as well as he does that it cannot be his, as they never had penetrative sex. Mandisa, offended and angry, kicks him out of her house, telling him to never speak to her again.
China's reaction has convinced her that he was never deserving of her love. During the argument, he tells her that he has plans to go to boarding school the following year, which insenses Mandisa, who does not want to give up her schooling. She becomes convinced that China is "vain," "self-centered," and "weak," a "low-down heartless cur" (88). Still, Mandisa's family insists on demanding repayment for what China has done to Mandisa. She is already six months pregnant when they go. She goes with three uncles—two of her father's brothers and one of her mother's. They ask why they have waited so long to bring the girl to China's family, and Mandisa's uncle explains the peculiar situation: "the late detection; being away from Mama; and the, the bombshell, my relative innocence" (89). The conversation continues, and the men discuss her as if she is not there, as if she is an animal on sale. The negotiations end and China's family tells Mandisa's that they will get back to them, but that they must first speak to the clan. On the way back home, Mandisa is relieved that they have spared her speculation on whether China was responsible for the pregnancy.
It is a white priest who decides the two should be married. He takes the matter into his own hands and invites the two into his office. His status in the community allows him to make the call, as "he did not have to convince China or his father or anybody else of his truth" (90). A marriage is hastily pulled together, new-wife dresses are sewn, and China is sent to get circumcised so that he might become a man. Because time is relentless, Mandisa has her child, even though negotiations have not been completed between the two families. Mandisa finds Mxolisi's arrival to be appropriate to his conception, "Without my say-so, without any invitation or encouragement from me or anyone else...Waiting on no one's readiness or convenience, flouting both legal and religious convention, he came" (91). She has spent the majority of her pregnancy angry at the baby, and a difficult birth does not make it better. It is a painful birth, that "tore me apart with the savageness of the jaws of a shark" (91). But the moment she feeds her child for the first time, she accepts him.
Mandisa decides to name her son Hlumelo, meaning sprig(of a tree)—"unexpected and unasked for, nonetheless in full existence now" (91). Mandisa does not want to marry China once her son is born, as the whole reason to marry him, so the baby would not be born out of wedlock, has become moot. Although Mandisa did not want to marry China, her father is pressured by the clan into deciding that she must, as "custom dictated that he listened to the counsel of the clan," as she "was not his possession but belonged to the whole clan in good and bad times" (93). Mandisa moves in with China's family when Hlumelo is two months old. As is customary, she is forced to leave all artifacts of her childhood at home, leaving behind a girlhood she "hardly had time to experience, never mind enjoy" (93). If it had not been for Mxolisi's birth, Mandisa would still be in school. But now that the child is here, she is "forced into being a wife, forever abandoning my dreams, hopes, aspirations. For ever" (93).
Moving into China's home is not an easy transition. Her first day is full of ritual as she is initiated into the family. In one particular ritual, the clan renames her, as "it was the custom to leave all the things of one's girlhood behind, including the name" (94). China's clan names her Nohehake, a name indicating an "exclamation of utter surprise at some incredible, unimaginable monstrosity" (94). Although she considers this name to be a "mockery," she takes the cup of tea that designates that she accepts the name they have given her. She is surprised, however, when the clan decides to rename her son as well. They reject the name Hluemlo, and decide to call the child Mxolisi: "he, who would bring peace" (96). Mandisa spends the next year doing chores for the family and earning her place in the home. As is tradition, she takes on the role of a second-class citizen in the home and is made to wait on her in-laws hand and foot while also raising her son. Her relationship with China never overcomes the shock of Mxolisi's birth and his resentment of his new life as a husband and father grow. Eventually, he abandons the family. Mandisa is forced to get a job working as a chore girl at a white person's home. Mxolisi is two years old when Mandisa decides to move out of his home and into a room of her own.
Mandisa resents her son for the bitterness he has introduced into her life, but she doesn't let this resentment get in the way of being a loving mother. By the time she and her son are renting a room at the back of someone's house, Mxolisi is growing quickly. He is a bright child who can speak exceptionally well for his age. Mandisa takes the time to parent for both her and China, and fills the hole the boy's father has left in his life. Two children from the neighborhood have taken to doting on Mxolisi, and although they are many years older than the toddler, they bring him along for most of their activities. Zazi and Mzamo take Mxolisi everywhere they can, but on one particular day, they leave him behind as they go to boycott school.
When gunshots ring out, Mxolisi, four years old, calls out a war cry. Although Mandisa acknowledges the humor in the mental image of a baby Mxolisi repeating a chant of the rebellion, she writes that there was nothing unusual about the scene: "Mxolisi, not four years old, could already tell the difference between the bang! of a gun firing and the Gooph! of a burning skull cracking, the brain exploding" (103). The boys run into the home and hide in a closet. They are soon followed by two angry policemen. The family tries to misdirect the policemen and tell them that the boys fled through the home and into the yard, and it almost works, but Mxolisi, thinking that the policemen are playing a game, tell them that the kids are hiding in the closet. Zazi and Mzamo take off at a sprint, but it is too late, and the policemen kill them there. The trauma of watching his friends die silences Mxolisi for two years, even though Mandisa does everything she can to help her son heal. After a number of unsuccessful stints with doctors, she takes the child to a shaman, who tells Mandisa that she must forgive her son for the burden he has placed on her life.
Analysis
Shame plagues Mandisa throughout her life. She is taught to fear her community's judgment early on. Told often about the dangers of pregnancy, she knows better than to have penetrative sex with China. Still, this doesn't save her from the shame that she so desperately hoped to avoid. By the time Mandisa has her child, it does not matter whether she was a virgin when her child was conceived or not. She faces condemnation from everyone in her life, including her parents and the father of her child. This terrible shame returns many times over with Mxolisi's transgression. Once again, Mandisa faces a rebuke from her community. Once again, her personal worth is questioned because of sin. There is one key difference between the two shames: although Mandisa was an active participant in the conception of her child, she has not done anything to harm Amy herself. This does not save her from a worse shame than the one she faced before. Before, she was just a child who had made a big mistake. Now, she was the mother of a murderer, "mother of Satan" (83).
Silence is another important theme in this chapter. When Mandisa is pregnant, she is forced to deal with a number of different silences—the total silences of China and Tata, and the selective silence of her mother, who would not use the word "pregnant" when addressing her daughter. This silence is oppressive to Mandisa, and it causes her shame to sit more heavily on her heart. This silence follows Mandisa through the difficult periods in her life. Silence blooms in her relationship with China, where it is a sign of a deep resentment between the two. When Mxolisi falls silent at four years old, Mandisa will do anything to save her son from the curse. Unfortunately, she cannot save him from his inner turmoil; although no one blames him, they cannot save him from what he has done. When Mxolisi finally breaks his silence, it is to ask a question to which there Mandisa had no response: where is my father? Mandisa's life is defined by failures of communication.
In this chapter, we learn more about Mxolisi's circumstances and begin to examine what situations might have shaped him into the man he became. Mxolisi was born to a mother who resented his very existence, as his arrival meant the loss of all she held dear. Although Mandisa loves Mxolisi, it takes her a long time to face the resentment she has of him. It is only after the child falls silent and she visits a shaman that she is made to address the effect her negative emotions towards her son might have on the recipient. He loses many adults in his life rapidly as his mother moves out of first her childhood home and then China's. He is often cared for by someone who isn't his mother, as Mandisa is forced to get a job in order to support herself and her son. Mxolisi is a resilient little boy. He is also accustomed to high levels of violence. When he hears gunshots, he automatically raises his fist in a war chant, despite being four years old. This tells us that he is raised in a situation where gunshots are common, and the resistance to the oppressive white class is active and strong. He is forced to watch his friends die in front of him at the hands of the state. Four-year-old Mxolisi is taught that his life means little to nothing to the government. Cruelty is normalized to him at a very young age.
When the policemen come in search of Zazi and Mzamo, the family throws one of their jackets out into the yard in an attempt to misdirect the policemen. Before they find the boys, the policemen are momentarily convinced by the jacket in the yard. A powerful allegory for the relationship of policemen to Guguletu residents emerges as one of the policemen kicks at the jacket on the ground. Although the jacket is lifelessly sitting in the dirt, the man "kicked it till it jumped into the air, which filled it up, momentarily ballooning the sleeves" (104). The jacket is personified as it falls back to the ground "slowly exhaling" (104). Once it falls onto the ground, one of the policemen "stamped on it and, with both feet, ground it to the first-strewn earth; battering it although it offered no fight, no resistance at all" (104). This can be seen as an allegory of the brutal treatment of black people in South Africa. People live lives constantly vulnerable to crime in a community where they cannot trust the police. They do not have to fight back in order to face brutalization, as we learn with the story of Zazi and Mzamo.
Finally, this chapter casts motherhood in one of its most important lightsL that of it being a curse. This is an important perspective on motherhood that helps differentiate Mandisa from Amy's mother. Girlhood pregnancy is rampant in Mandisa's community due to a lack of access to sexual education or contraceptives. To have sex, therefore, often means to curse oneself to pregnancy. To abort a child means to die. Once pregnant, Mandisa must leave her family and her childhood behind. She must abandon all hopes of continuing her education in order to raise a child, even though she is barely older than a child herself. Although we don't know what stage Amy's mother was in her life when Amy was born, we can assume that she had access to more resources in her pregnancy. Although contraceptives and abortions were not as available in the time of Amy's birth as they are today, Amy's mother probably had more of a choice about when she would become pregnant with her child. That Mandisa's pregnancy is a curse is a fact supported by all the people in her life, including China, her parents, and her brother.
