MY MOTHER DIED BEFORE I COULD MURDER HER

CHAPTER 12

Losing Alice.

Alice must’ve caught some bug or other while she was away the few days that Moses Kotane was at our house. It seemed as if she had flu; her bones ached and she was tired all the time. She found it an effort to work in the house and I noticed that Morris was covering for her. He was ironing my dad’s shirts and did most of the cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. My mom said that she’d call the doctor, but Alice insisted on being seen by the sangoma, so for the next few days strange smells drifted in from the back yard as one weird potion after the next was prepared to cure Alice’s ailment.

     I don’t know if it was connected to her feeling ill, but Alice started to have problems seeing. As it was, she wore thick-lens glasses, I think she’d had them for a few years and maybe as she was getting older her sight was degenerating, but not as bad as this. She could hardly read and said that it was difficult to focus on things like knives and forks and anything more than an arm’s length away. Everything was blurred. Once again my mom said that she’d take Alice to the doctor and to the optician, but Alice insisted that the sangoma said that the cure was causing a temporary problem with her eyesight.

     I had met Puleng, the sangoma, a number of times before. She was a regular visitor and would spend afternoons with Alice, down at the far end of the garden doing whatever it is that sangomas do to keep their patients in good health. A tiny woman, with wrinkles that looked like heavy creases across her forehead, she had the most amazing, piercing, dark eyes that looked right through you. You couldn’t hide anything from this old woman. She knew it all. Alice often told me, “The spirits and ancestors use her as their window to the world.”

     We didn’t talk much other than greet each other, but I was a sort of fan, especially since once in a while she would take my hand in hers and hold it high, the palm turned up. She’d look at me with those eyes and say, “Mohlankane (young man), you may be short and skinny now, but as I hold your hand up high, you’ll grow and soon be tall and strong like other young warriors.”

     Believe me I needed her telling me that I was destined to grow. We were all starting to worry that I’d remain the shortest of all my friends forever. I heard my parents discussing whether or not to have me checked out by a bone specialist and dreaded having to be stretched surgically. My dad subscribed to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the set stood in pride of place along the shelf in the study. Often I’d panic about being short and rush to the volume that covered short people, or check whether tall people had larger brains. This was a major problem in my life and the sangoma was the only person alive who could ease the pain.

     Puleng had the answers to all ailments, but now when we needed her most, she was letting Alice down. She convinced Alice that the new earrings she had sold her and instructed her to wear twenty-four hours a day, would make her eyesight improve, if not immediately, then definitely in the near future. That really foul-smelling mixture that she had to take with her twice-a-day plate of mieliepap, would perk her up and have her back to normal. Alice, who was a large lady in her late sixties and definitely overweight for her height and age, really struggled with this black bug, as the sangoma called her sickness. She wasn’t working anymore and spent most of the time in bed.

     Morris took over and other than the couple of hours help from Wanda, the neighbor’s maid, who was still as keen as ever on Morris, he did everything around the house, and amazed us with his cooking skills. I don’t think that I’ve tasted scrumptious roast chicken like Morris’s ever since.

     The few days Alice was bedridden stretched to ten, then two weeks, and it was just short of a month when Morris found her lying on the floor next to her bed, dead. She must’ve climbed out of bed in the middle of the night, to go to the bathroom and collapsed. It was early in the morning when Morris heard Booker whining outside Alice’s door. As soon as Morris opened the door, the dog slipped in and until the coroner came to collect her, Booker sat by her side. He was broken hearted, as were we all.

     Myrna couldn’t stop crying and refused to go to work. I was shattered and couldn’t bring myself to leave my bedroom. I didn’t cry, but had this unbelievable empty feeling in my chest. I couldn’t imagine that Alice had died and kept expecting her to walk into my room at any moment, singing softly, and smiling as she brought me the usual cup of tea and cake. I could smell her back as I did when she carried me all those years ago, feel her soft hands and cheeks. I wanted my Alice to still be with us. I didn’t want her to leave me.

     Myrna, who cried all day, Morris and my mother went to the funeral, but I wasn’t allowed to go because it would mean that I’d miss a day of school. To be honest, I didn’t think I could bring myself to go. I wasn’t keen on going to school and would rather have spent the day alone, but my mother insisted and so school it was. I walked to school that morning and Morris walked with me. We didn’t talk. At the school gate he handed me my school bag, gently squeezed my arm and walked off home.

     Within two days of the funeral we interviewed a new maid. Betty, also a Sotho like Alice, had worked for my parents’ friends the Lowensteins until they immigrated to Israel two weeks earlier. My mother met her when my folks played cards at their house and told us that we had a real find. “She’s an amazing cook and knows how to prepare traditional Jewish dishes. She smiled at me. “You won’t have to be the test pilot for gefilte fish anymore. Plus,” she said, emphasizing her point by standing with her hands on her hips, “this Betty is a real balebos.” Yiddish is an amazing language; with the use of one word a myriad of sins is covered. Balebos: the boss, the housekeeper, the cook, the laundress, the everything. Betty was to move in on the following Monday.

     On the Sunday morning, Morris found Booker lying at the door to Alice’s room. The magnificent bullmastiff died sometime during the night. We couldn’t work out why, but the vet told us, “That’s what happens. Sometimes they just go. I mean they just die of a broken heart.” I knew exactly what he meant.

     Within the first week of Betty starting work, I hated her. She was a bossy, self-important, interfering psychopath. She refused to allow Morris’s dog, Parker, into the kitchen, moved my bike from its usual spot in the garage without asking so that she could keep her suitcases out of her room, complained that Morris played his music too loud, and to top it all, she found a packet of Lucky Strike in my desk drawer and handed it to my mother, saying that I was too young to smoke and it was a disgrace.

     What the hell was she doing looking in my drawers? While I was at school, she went on a cleaning blitz in my room, tidying my jerseys, shirts, everything. She went through my drawers, threw away the boxes of matches, found the packet of smokes, tidied and stacked my comics, and cleaned out all the socks and a couple of pairs of underpants that I’d thrown under my bed. Alice had left them there because she’d never been able to bend down and reach them. One thing was for sure, when Alice was around, she understood the boundaries; she knew what it meant to respect privacy, maybe because she was getting old and was somewhat slack at cleaning. But I know she found incriminating evidence of my smoking in my room, yet never, never ratted me out to my parents.

     Myrna was furious when she heard that Betty was going through the drawers and all those nooks and crannies in our rooms. She locked her door until my mother promised to order Betty not to go into the drawers for any reason, period. After my mother’s agreement, Myrna unlocked the door, but I know she still always felt uneasy knowing that Betty was in her room.

     Okay, so she could cook. She was a great cook. Filet of sole, Chicken a la King, lamb shanks with white beans, and a cheesecake to die for. It was like eating out every night. It was no wonder that the Lowensteins were an overweight family, but as Myrna said, “If we really want to eat like this we should hire her just as a cook and keep her locked in the kitchen.” As far as my sister was concerned, and I agreed when I was given the chance to get a word in, “This is not some impersonal hotel. We loved the way Alice cleaned the house, and…” she paused waiting for Morris to leave the room, “she hates the dog. I’m sure I saw her trying to kick him, and I’ve heard her bossing Morris around.” She turned to my father, “We’re just not the Betty kind of family.”

     He shrugged his shoulders and looked at my mom. “I suppose she’ll have to go.” Myrna always got her way with my dad. Then he turned back to Myrna. “Give us two more days. She promised to make T-bone steaks for Thursday dinner.”