Love Interrupted - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Reneilwe Malatji was born in South Africa in 1968. She grew up in Turfloop township, in the northern part of South Africa, during the era of apartheid. Her father was an academic and her mother was a school teacher. Malatji trained as a teacher and worked as a subject specialist and advisor to provincial education departments. She recently completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism and an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University. She works as a lecturer at the University of Limpopo in South Africa and has an adult son. Love interrupted is her first book.

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Love Interrupted

Life was different in Modjadji village. In Nobody village, where I came from, the role of a wife and makoti, a daughter-in-law, was basically traditional. In this village, being a makoti was as good as being a domestic worker. There was even a song that they sang when they welcomed you as makoti: "mmatswale tlogela dipitsa, mong wa tsona o fihlile." Mother-in-law, stop doing household chores, the person responsible for them has arrived.

As makoti, I was instructed by my mother-in-law to address everyone in the family and all relatives in the plural. The same way Julius Caesar addressed himself as we, us, our and so on. If someone asked me where my mother-in-law was, I had to say, "They went to the shop." The same went for everyone related to my husband, Leshata, including children. When I shared this with a colleague at work, she said, "My dear, it is not only the family and relatives but also their dogs, cats, goats and cows."

Nobody really cared about the fact that I was pregnant. I had to do the cleaning, cooking and washing for all of them. It was back-breaking work. I was willing to go with the flow and be a good makoti. Well, khethile! Khethile! If you have made a choice, you have to stick to it. If this was the price I had to pay for being with the husband I loved so much, so be it. I was fortunate to have a husband. Most women were struggling to find a man to marry them. Their children were being raised fatherless. I should be counting my blessings, I thought. Little did I know that addressing my mother-in-law in the plural and doing household chores were to be the least of my troubles. I was always tired from having to go to work and then come back home to chores. My swollen feet and stomach cramps did not help.

It is often said that most women marry men that resemble their fathers in character and physical attributes. The only thing my dad and husband had in common was their height. My father was a dignified, humble gentleman. He was the kind of man who always made sure that his family had everything they needed.

"I don't want my children to suffer the way I did," he would say with a sombre face. I never heard him raise his voice at my mom, or saw him lay a hand on her. If they ever fought, it must have been behind the closed door of their bedroom.

When I met my husband, I expected him to be of my father's calibre. I was doing my final year at the University of Limpopo, and Leshata was working as a teacher. We met in a queue at Standard Bank, and he charmed the wits out of me.

Three months later I was pregnant. Although I had misgivings about the unplanned pregnancy, he was happy about it. When I told him the news, he wasted no time in making the necessary arrangements. It all started with a letter from his family to mine, informing us of the lobola delegation that would be visiting us on the second Saturday of October. Normally it would have been enough just to inform them that I was pregnant and to pay what was called a damage fee. But he insisted on paying both the fee and the lobola.

My parents were a bit skeptical about the whole thing. My father reminded me that marriage was a big step and urged me to wait and get to know Leshata better.

"It all happened too quickly. It's just too soon. You have only known him for three months, my girl," said my father.

"It won't help her to wait, the calabash is broken already. She must hurry up and marry, otherwise she will be a lefetwa. Who is going to marry her with another man's child? She will grow within the marriage. We will support her," said my mother.

By the end of the year he had already organized me a teaching post at the primary school in his home village. It was a feeder school for the secondary school where he taught.

I went straight from university to bogadi, my mother-in-law's home. We shared a four-roomed house with Leshata's mother, who had never married, and his three younger brothers. His four older sisters were all married and living with their husbands. It was a very uncomfortable situation, as we had only two bedrooms, one for his mother and the other for us, the newlyweds. Leshata's brothers slept in the kitchen on foam mattresses. One of the boys was still at school while the other two stayed at home.

I convinced my husband to build us our own house. With the twins coming, we needed more space. Leshata bought the idea and told me that building a house in the village was not as complicated as it was in urban areas. There was enough space in his mother's yard. He told me that we wouldn't even need an architectural plan. He used a stick to draw lines on the ground and showed the builder how big the rooms should be. The only important thing was that it should be a structure that looked exactly like his principal Moloto's house.

In the ninth month of my pregnancy, I requested that my husband take me to my parents' home, as it was becoming more and more difficult for me to cope with the household chores. I had already started my maternity leave.

“My dear, when you come back with the twins, the house will be finished,” said Leshata.

“I will be happy,” I said. He had already supervised the laying of the foundation and we had bought all the materials necessary.

It was tradition that when you had your first born, you went to stay with your parents so that your mother could help you with the baby. My mother-in-law agreed.

“Yes, it’s Anna’s mother who must teach her how to handle her first baby. She can go, it’s tradition,” she said, planting deposits of snuff into her nostrils, with her head bent backwards. I sat opposite her on a rickety old chair in front of the kitchen table. I stared at her as she wiped the black fluid running from her nose with a grey handkerchief. She spoke as if without her permission I could never go.

Already my mother-in-law and I had had several embarrassing episodes. On Saturdays Leshata would stop me from waking up early, saying I needed some rest. We would lie in bed until nine or even ten in the morning. I would hear my mother-in-law waking up the boys in the kitchen at seven, shouting so that I would know she was addressing me.

“Wake up, wake up, what type of people sleep until this time? You enjoy the sunrays caressing your buttocks, heh? This is not a hotel … even at a hotel people are up, going for breakfast.” Thereafter I would smell cooked porridge, moroho being cooked. Then there would be a knock on our bedroom door.

“Leshata! I have something for you, my son,” she said.

My husband would jump up, put on his gown and open the door. “What is wrong, mother? We are still resting!”

“Nxa! I thought you might be hungry, my son. I brought you some porridge and moroho. Here! Take! That school that she is putting you through does not have a break. Take, my son. I don’t want you to die of hunger.”

My husband came back in with a calabash filled with porridge, dished up in neat, artistic layers, and a yellow enamel plate almost overflowing with moroho.

“Leshata, did you hear that? Your mom is insulting me,” I said, tears running down my swollen cheeks. I looked at myself in the mirror of the dressing table. I could hardly recognize my ballooned face. The pregnancy had transformed me. My light complexion was gone. I was charcoal dark and my neck and breasts were scaly. I had to sleep with my upper body raised by continental pillows. I knew that the weight I was carrying was...