That when a little girl says I’m not your friend, and turns up her nose, you smile patiently and take her into your arms anyway. But when Sylvia had looked at her and said I hate you in that reedy little voice, it was one strike too many to the fragile, cracked glass of Matha Mwamba. It shattered her, and so she’d said it back. ‘I hate you, too,’ Matha had croaked at her daughter, as if she were still a child herself, as if her weeping had not made her grow old but made her regress. We’re better off without each other anyway, Matha had thought as she walked out of Nkuka’s flat empty-handed, brushing off The Weepers’ protestations.
And now they were all gone, even that smelly old bat Mrs Zulu, who had marched away from it all, given up her faith with all the petulance of the disillusioned believer, leaving her Bible behind in No. 74 like a chastisement. Left to her own devices, Matha wept quietly as she mukule’d her own hair, propping up a shard of mirror between her feet to see. She wept gently as she cooked kalembula on the mbaula, adding the bean leaves to the spitting oil, then chopped tomatoes, then diced onions. She wept calmly as she washed her dirty pots with sand under the communal tap and shook them dry. Matha Mwamba was alone but this time her solitude was a choice, her grief a consolation.
* * *
‘Tinkhe, darling?’
Aunty Cookie knocked on the door frame of the bedroom – Sylvia’s bedroom, her very own. Sylvia was sitting on the floor with her legs wide, a pile of Lego in the fork between them. She looked up and smiled at Aunty, then saw a man standing behind her. He was wearing a hat, which he removed now as he stepped into the room. His hair cupped his head on either side, leaving the top bare. Aunty reached down and helped Sylvia to her feet.
‘I want you to meet somebody,’ she said.
The man stepped towards Sylvia and shook her hand. His felt limp and bony at once, like sticks wrapped in a rag. ‘Hallo,’ he said stiffly. ‘I am your…daddy.’
‘Anh?’ Sylvia asked.
The man was looking at her with confusion as well. Aunty rubbed Sylvia’s shoulder firmly. ‘Remember what I told you, Mutinkhe? I’m your mummy now. And this is your daddy.’
Sylvia considered. Then she sat back amongst her toys. ‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Wakwata imyaka inga?’ the man asked, peering down at her.
‘Mutinkhe is five,’ Aunty said. ‘Like I told you!’
‘She’s so small!’
‘Hallo, Daddy,’ Sylvia piped up in English, trying to help. ‘Me, am Sylvia. I like to play.’
‘Let’s leave you to play, then, Tinkhe,’ Aunty said loudly. ‘You can get to know Daddy later.’ She stepped closer to the man. ‘I think she got used to that Sylvia nonsense at my sister’s,’ she said under her breath as she guided him towards the door. ‘In any case, you can see she looks just like you.’
‘But are you completely sure, Nkuka?’ Sylvia heard the man ask. ‘Were you not careful?’
‘Of course,’ said Aunty with a smile, ‘but with a man like you, with so much power, sometimes these things can break through.’
‘Why did you not ask me for…assistance? Why did you not tell me all these years?’
‘My relatives helped me out,’ Aunty said sweetly. ‘I did not want to bother you.’
‘I do not understand how I could have missed the pregnancy…So many months!’
‘You don’t remember? When you took that work trip to Luapula? And then when you were back, I told you I was having problems so we could not…’ Aunty glanced at Sylvia, who promptly lowered her head and concentrated on fitting two Lego pieces together.
‘Yes, I suppose it is a possibility,’ the man muttered, shaking his head. ‘But—’
‘Listen, big bwana,’ Aunty said coyly. ‘I am not having any problems now, so…’
She twined her fingers in his and pulled him through the open door towards the one across the corridor, her white high heels making pocking sounds, his black Bata shoes shuffling. Just before Aunty shut the door to the master bedroom, she leaned out and gave Sylvia a warning look, a finger over her lips. Sylvia smiled and turned back to her building blocks.
1984
In the fourteenth year of her life, Sylvia Mwamba fell in love three times. The first time, she was electrified with that desire that hits teenage girls as fiercely and randomly as a bolt of lightning. Sylvia, struck, had fixed