Black Marionette

Nosipho Mbatha 

I always wanted people to take me seriously. I wanted to matter to people, I wanted to feel like my existence had value. I suppose it's strange that these are the thoughts I entertain on my commute to and from work every day. I hate my job. I constantly have people shouting out to me, "Zandi, do this. Zandi, do that! Some of them don't even know my name, I've been working there for eight years. I'm a nobody there. I've learnt that the most inconspicuous people are also usually the ones who quietly perform vital functions. The reason we become invisible is that we perform our duties so well that people forget it's not automatic and that things don't get themselves done.

Zandile. Because they already had five daughters when I was born. My name means "a daughter has been added" Zandile izintombi. My father was happy with all his daughters, my mother was disappointed that she had never had a son. The sister before me is named Ntombifuthi which means "a girl again". She loved us of course but it was hard to miss the sad tinge in her voice when she talked about other women's sons. I think it has something to do with the fact that my father had a child with another woman before Ntombi was born. My mother was a proud woman and I know that my sister and I were painful reminders of the time she tried to fight the other woman and lost. The other woman, Sis' Thoko, had three other children with my father, all boys. She was now, what I could best describe as an illegitimate second wife to my father. When I moved out, he cried. He told me not to tell my mother. They have a peculiar relationship. They've been married for 34 years and it seems like they're still hesitant to share themselves with each other.
How can you be with somebody for so long and still try to keep them at arm's length? I tried talking to my mother about it once but she told me I couldn't understand because I was single and lonely. My mother has been the loneliest person I've ever known, it's as though she's frightened to death of letting herself be seen as anything but solemn and stern.

Living alone has its perks, I can do what I want when I want. Nobody controls me. I had just stepped into the house and taken off my shoes when my phone rang. It was my sister Zethu. "Hi Zandi, has mom called you? She called me, she's having some kind of episode. She's losing it, she told me she's leaving dad. Talk to her, she listens to you. Well, bye. I have to go, tell me if she calls". That was my sister Zethu, the eldest of my sisters. She was so used to being in charge I don't think it ever crossed her mind that other people might have something to say. She would ask you a question and not give you a chance to answer it. She dominated conversations not because she was a great speaker but because she was so intimidating. She'd keep talking and nobody could ever tell her to stop, nobody was brave enough. She was a very subtle bully. I wanted people to listen to me like that, I wanted to command attention, make people listen to me. I want people to keep listening even if they want to turn away. I want to make them hear me.

Roughly two or three minutes after Zethu called my phone rings again and I know it's my mother. So I pick up even though I know I don't want to talk to her. "Hi Zandi, I'm really just calling to tell you that I've made a very important decision and I think it's important that I tell you girls about it". I waited for her to continue because I knew she wasn't pausing to collect her thoughts, she liked to create a suspenseful atmosphere. "I'm divorcing your father. It's really just the best thing for me. I've made this decision and I just thought you should know, the reasons are not so important. I'm glad we had a chance to talk about this". That was my mother discussing something with me despite the fact that I didn't get to say a single word. It's very easy to see where Zethu learned some of her more socially aggressive behaviours. My mother isn't a person who ever discussed anything with anyone, she would speak and your role in the pseudo-discussion was to listen, not interrupt her and not to contradict anything she said. She liked the control and she knew how to keep it.

When it was time for me to go to university my mother decided that I would become a lawyer. A young, black female lawyer. Those were in demand right now, she said. She had filled out the forms and packed my bags. She'd given me tips on how to do well in school. She never said she would miss me, or that she was excited for me. When I left I told her I loved and she told me to bring home As. What does a person even say to that? She's my mother and I love her but sometimes I feel like she's a mom-shaped concrete mould. Zethu turned out just like her. She treats her children
like strangers, guests who've overstayed their welcome but who she's too polite to tell them to go so she tolerates them. I decided quite a while ago that I didn't want children, it's just not something I see myself doing.

I remember when I got home after graduation. My mother had a huge party and she invited all her friends so she could show me off. She picked my dress, fixed my hair she even did my makeup. She wanted me to look perfect for her gloating moment. She wasn't proud of me, she was proud of herself. I didn't realize that until she introduced
me as "Zandile, the attorney", I was never just Zandile her daughter. She told them all how she did it by herself, got me through law school and had me produce excellent results. I greeted everybody politely just like she wanted me to. I shook hands and kissed cheeks, I made polite enough conversation with strangers. I later overheard one of the women in the kitchen telling another that I was very cold and aloof. I wasn't, I was just trying to do and say the right thing all the time. I felt like a Marionette and at that exact moment, my mother stood over me and pulled the strings and jerked my limbs every which way. I thought that would change when I left home but it didn't. I was the same mousy girl, the same little black marionette.

I just wanted to sink into the couch and melt away. Nobody would know I had gone. Instead, my mother would be upset that I had stopped answering her calls. I realised, quite early in my life, that I wasn't allowed to be my own person. I was whoever the people in my immediate vicinity wanted me to be. My mother, my boss, my sister. I
was born a blank canvas, and then everybody but myself got to paint the canvas. I didn't know who I was. Zandi was a stranger to me, she wasn't anyone I could relate to in any way. I don't know who I am but I know I'm not me.

I unplugged my landline and switched off my cell phone. I needed time and quiet. I needed to listen to the echo inside my own head and then maybe I'd be able to figure myself out. I had to get to know myself, I was finally going to live for me, I mattered.

All this deep thinking made me tired. I decided to go to bed without even having
dinner. I slept like a log, peacefully. When I woke up in the morning I realised I had made a mistake. I was laying in bed and I knew I would get up and go to work, I would go to my mother's just like I always do every Wednesday. I would do it because that's what she wanted me to do. What do I want? I don't know. Who am I? I don't know. What frightened me is the feeling that I would never know. But I guess there would always be someone to figure that out for me.

 Ghana Writes is pleased again to publish another intriguing short story by our guest writer of the week, Miss Nosipho Mbatha. This story, Black Marionette,  just like her ‘Mob Justice’, took our minds round and round and finally brought us that ‘oh I see. wow!’ feeling. In this story, Nosipho touched on another composite subject which is quite alarming especially in the lives of young Africans. Your parents decide what program you study at school without considering your passion and even go further to choose what would later become your nightmare: your job. In which case, like Zandi in the story, your life and happiness will be controlled by pull or push of the string in your parents’ hands like a marionette. A black marionette.

Nosipho Mbatha, Ghana Writes thank you for your informative and creatively penned stories. We have enjoyed your time with us this past week. We hope to read more from you in the not-too-distant future.

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Mob Justice

The leaking roof allowed drops of rain to fall on the bed. He felt them because he couldn’t sleep and they irritated him. He needed a new roof. A new house, a new bed, new clothes, new shoes, new pots and pans. He needed a new life. Even dreams didn’ t provide any refuge, just as drab and grim as his reality. He thought dreams were foolish things. Why dream when dreams provided no solace, no comfort, no escape? Soon the alarm would wake him up. He didn't need it, not really. He didn’t need an alarm clock because he never really went to sleep. Even sleep evaded him. Johnny Skhosana was undeniably a very unlucky man.

Lady luck was not on his side lately. It seemed she had taken to conspiring with other malevolent forces to orchestrate his recent string of bad luck. First, a raid. Then those bloody thieves had seen a gap and wasted no time in taking it. Three month’s profits gone like dirty dishwater down the drain. Damn those bloody thieves! He would get them back. When and how he did not know but get them back he would. Presently, he had much bigger problems to face than how to retaliate to a gang of petty criminals. If he didn't come up with a plan soon he would surely lose everything. No money, no job, no business. What a fool he had been to trust those hooligans. The raid had been the genesis of his problems. No, now that he took a moment to think about with a sober mind his string of bad luck had started with the loss of his chickens. Somehow they had escaped their enclosure and run off in all directions. He had tried to catch them and return them to their enclosure but they had scattered themselves too far and wide in a frantic manner that chickens tend to. He was an old man and after three minutes of running around, he was wheezing and out of breath on the verge of a heart attack. All of his chickens gone, now he only had an empty coop that seemed to mock him and served as a constant reminder of his loss.

The loss of his money, well that wasn't his fault at all. Between the criminals and the bank, he had stood no chance. They were both thieves really, one in a suit and the other in a balaclava. As far as he was concerned, banks were greedy corporations who only wanted to get their hands on your hard earned money and then make it impossible for you to get to it. Keeping it at his house was the only option he had. He didn't trust the banks, no not at all. It baffled him really, how one man could have such an impressive string of bad luck. It was probably the doing of that evil witch of an ex-wife of his, Josephine. She really was a vile woman. She had probably snuck in and released the chickens too, the beast. He would never understand what had possessed him when he’d decided to marry her. She cast a spell on him, that was the only logical explanation. How else could he, a handsome, young businessman who all the beautiful women were after end up marrying a potato like Josephine? He was glad they had no children. He saw no need for them. Damn them all. The police, the thieves, Josephine, even the stupid chickens. He hoped they all ended up in a hot stew as penance for their escape.

The raid. He had a very explicit agreement with Constable Duma which involved a hefty sum of his money in Duma’s pockets. That pig of a man had taken his money but still failed to warn him about the raid. There had been all kinds of unsavoury characters conducting illegal activities in his tavern when the police came. There had been no time for anyone to escape. They had come in from all sides like an army of ants attacking a breadcrumb. What a shock it had been, no warning from Duma. The man was a snake. They shut him down for three weeks and confiscated all his stock. Liquor license se voet! Since when does a man need a license to serve cold refreshments to other men? It was all part of a plot to ruin him. They were all jealous of his success, that’s why they stole his chickens and sabotaged his business.

Township life was hard. With saboteurs at every turn waiting like vultures to feed on the carcass of your success. The odds had always been against him but this latest mountain seemed insurmountable. Did he give up and pack up his things and return to his beloved Manzamhlophe. No, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Not these dirty township mice or the village idiots. Don’t be mistaken, he loved Manzamhlophe but he knew that the villagers would greet him with a smile and snicker behind his back as soon as he passed. Going back now would be admitting defeat. They were all birds of prey, really. So he picked the lesser of two evils and decided to stay. At least the township vultures waited until you were good and dead to feast on your corpse, the eagles in the village picked the very live flesh off your bones.

While he was caught deep in thought MaMzobe walked in with what was now her trademark drunken stagger. Nobody had seen her sober since 1993. It was the death of her dear boy Msizi that had broken her spirit. Shot dead in the street, his corpse lay as if on display like a disturbing piece of avant-garde art. She had started drinking to forget and she had stayed forgetting and in a constant state of inebriation since then. ‘Get me a cold one please Johnny, it's been a tough day’, Johnny looked up at her as if to scold but then said ‘Tough day Ntombzodwa? It's only 09:00’ ‘Oh, did I say it's been a tough day? I meant please give me a brew that will provide me with the strength to get through what I know is going to be a tough day’ ‘How on earth is that possible? All you do is sit here and drink my beers on credit. What will you be doing differently today?’ ‘Oh hhayi! I didn’t realize customers have to undergo an investigation in this place just to be served a cold beer!’ ‘If you don’t want an investigation you can go to Madoda’s and inquire free beer!’ She shuffled out mumbling what were probably insults, but what anyone else might have thought were curses, under her breathe. Everyone thought she was a witch for no other reason other than that she was old and haggard. But she wasn’t a witch, just a drunken old woman with a heart that had been broken since 1993.
After MaMzobe’s exit, Johnny stood up to close the door of his tavern not wanting any other patrons coming in when he couldn’t serve them because there wasn’t anything to serve them. He looked around at his tavern which could have been a small living area in another man’s house. He had very effectively maximized the tiny space giving the illusion of a larger room. But when it was filled with people it was a different place like the tavern was the sun and the writhing throng of bodies were planets orbiting it. Nobody wanted the night to end. Alcohol flowed like rivers that washed away all the world’s problems. After four stiff drinks, it didn’t matter that Zakhele’s wife was sleeping with his neighbour who had fathered all three of his kids. When she was dancing under the dim lights, Jabulile could actually feel what her name stated, happy. After five beers, Mr Ngcobo didn’t mind the fact that everyone knew his daughter funded his drinking habit with the money she made on the streets as a working girl. Nothing mattered. Problems and worries ceased to exist and euphoria lasted as long as you could afford the next drink.

Even Johnny watching the people, young people dancing under the lights, they looked like moths drawn to a light that would eventually burn their wings, and the old people sitting like the alcohol had melted their bones, he felt like this was it. There was no life beyond this.
He suddenly heard a big commotion outside and immediately rushed to see. There was a huge mob shouting and screaming. Holding pangas and knobkerries some wielding bricks and glass bottles. He pushed through the crowd to see the criminal who was at the receiving end of this vigilante justice. Surprised to find out MaMzobe never made it to Madoda’s tavern he found her at the centre of the mob. Jabulile was accusing her of casting a spell on her son Thabo. After cutting through her yard late last night on his way home from a night of heavy drinking he had collapsed as soon as he reached their yard. She had found him laying on the floor outside, conscious but unable to move any part of his body. She had just come back from the hospital where it had been confirmed that he was permanently paralysed from the neck down.

The doctors had told her it was a result of his fall but she wasn’t having it. She was convinced it was the result of the old woman’s witchcraft. ‘How could you MaMzobe? Your own neighbours! He was my only son, you’ve outdone yourself this time you old witch!’ Jabulile sobbed, ‘but you won't go unpunished.'

Johnny knew how drunk the boy had been when he left the tavern, he should have intervened. Then he thought, maybe they were right. Maybe she was the reason for the dark cloud that seemed to hang over the community. He should have intervened but instead, he picked up a rock and joined the mob. ‘Oh kodwa Msizi wami!’, she cried. They attacked from all sides, people she knew and trusted. Mr Ngcobo who had known her for 47 years, Zakhele who had been best friends with her son and Johnny Skhosana whose tavern she had visited every day since 1993.

She lay on the street, a unrecognisable pulp. The whole street was silent, the kind of ominous silence before a loud drum solo. But there were no drums, no beat. Her broken heart was silent. She had been dead since 1993.

Johnny walked back into his house, rushing for the phone to go and order new stock. He would start again and rebuild his business. But before he got to the house, something caught his eye. It was the broken latch on his chicken coop, he had been meaning to fix it for months but he got busy. He knew now more than ever that he should have intervened.

The Ghana Writes guest writer of the week is Miss Nosipho Mbatha.  She is a South African writer and student of languages at the University of Johannesburg. Ms Mbatha derived her infant nurture from Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa and takes particular pride in her native language Zulu.

Ghana Writes chose to publish Nosipho's Mob Justice because the story is an excellent amalgamation of three complex subjects: rural to urban migration, African superstition and dangers of alcoholism. And the creative way she weaved the story around the aforementioned topics won our admiration. Enjoy!

To be the next Ghana Writes guest writer, kindly submit your best literary work to info@ghanawrites.com. We accept only short stories and poems from across the world. We publish only the best.

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