Unerasable Her

Six years.

That’s how old I was.

I recall the terror and panic in my mother’s eyes, but at the time, I couldn’t fathom that I could be the reason for her grief, her fear.

She drew me to her chest as the two men in khaki approached.

“No!” she begged, she pleaded, doing her best to speak a language that was neither hers nor sat comfortably in her mouth.

“Not my child! Please, sir”—being the only words she knew or that she could express, and the rest of her supplications made in her mother tongue—“Ngiyaku, cela… Hatshi!”

As she picked me up, she turned to my older sister, Nxitekhile—or Nxite as I called her (or Sarah, her baptismal name)—who stood frozen, petrified, behind the hut we called home, watching the khaki men approach.

“Run! Gijima!” Mama screamed to her, yelling instructions to call Mr. Murphy, to tell him to come quick—it was urgent—amapolisa alapha.

Wide-eyed and scared, but understanding the gravity of her mission, my sister took off as fast as her bare feet could carry her across the field of tall grass, which separated our humble hut from the grand farmhouse.

Mama held me so tight, I almost couldn’t breathe, but how I wish I had cherished and savoured that moment because before I could grasp what was happening, I felt hands grabbing me, tugging me away from her embrace. I don’t recall the look on the faces of these men, but I believe touch transmits emotion, and their hands conveyed nothing but a cruel and detached intent.

Instinctively, I locked my legs around Mama’s waist, and my arms gripped her neck as it slowly dawned on me that the “polisa” were here to take me away.

I was unaware of any wrongdoing I had done or why I was being punished. It crossed my mind that perhaps it was the biscuit I had taken from the farmhouse kitchen counter when I thought no one was looking. But surely that couldn’t be it, I saw Nxite do the same dozens of times, and she never got penalised for it (even when Mr. Murphy’s mother, Maimeo Murphy, caught her).

I erupted into fearful screams and cries, pleading with the men to leave us alone, promising that I wouldn’t take a biscuit from the farmhouse again, and begging my mother not to let go.

Amid all the chaos and discord, with me being pulled and untangled from my mother by one man and the other holding my mother back forcefully, I began to feel a sense of finality. They were going to take me away from Mama and Nxite forever.

Mama held on for as long as she could, with the strength and determination that is gifted to mothers by nature—an instinct, raw, rigid since the dawn of time, but unfortunately not infinite or unbreakable. All it took to break our physical bond was a button stick, a blow to her head.

I saw her collapse to her knees, the sand beneath her giving way to the drops of blood that ensued. This image remained ingrained in my mind for many years, and each night, in the depths of my sleep, the scene would revisit me. In these vivid nightmares, I would see her fall, and I would try reaching out for her, but each time a powerful force would pull me away, just as the polisa did that day.

By the time my sister returned with Mr. Murphy, it was too late. I was locked in the back of the musty police car, its leather seats burning my knees as I stared out the rear window, weeping, frustrated. I watched Mr. Murphy kneeling over Mama, trying to stop the bleeding.

Though blurry, with tear-clouded eyes, I saw him look up at me, shake his head in what seemed like shame, and mouth the words “I’m sorry.”

The last image I had of my home was hazy, with the wheels picking up dust and obscuring the view of our hut, which gradually grew smaller in the distance.