One day the two woke to the buzz of a new church revival tent that was pitched near their shacks. Loudspeakers and microphones were being tested and prepared for a week of revival. Zola was excited because she thought maybe one of the church leaders would discover her daughter’s voice and try to promote her talent. ‘Start the choruses and give it all you have. Don’t hold back, belt it out like your life depended on it,’ she coached Mvelo before the services. She would only join them after eight because she had to take her ARVs first. Mvelo did as she was told, and each time she sang she could feel an electric excitement in the tent.

Leaders started asking questions about the young girl with the gift. The replies were always in whispers. ‘She is the child of Zola. Yes, the one who is sick with the three letters,’ the fast-talking maDlamini would go on to whoever wanted to listen to the miseries of their lives in the shacks.

Besides insisting that Mvelo attend church every Sunday, Zola also urged her back into joining the girls who went for virginity testing. ‘Mvelo, I know that you are not doing anything bad with boys, but I want you to go, for my peace of mind,’ she pleaded with her when she refused. Many mothers encouraged their daughters in this way to ensure that they had not been sexually abused and were keeping quiet about it.

Mvelo relented and went on the testing trips, but it was for survival reasons. She was able to return with a lot of food, hidden in plastic bags, which she collected and saved for Zola. Despite not having enough to eat herself, she was growing and beginning to look like a woman. She had curves in the right places and was tall, but not quite as tall as her mother. A wild flower, growing without proper nurturing, watered by rains and warmed by the rays of the sun, she grew.

Zola’s persistent cough grew worse, especially at night. Sometimes deep in the darkness Mvelo would hear her crying quietly. Those times were accompanied by other heartbreaking sounds as well: a lonely, howling dog seeing restless spirits move about, or crickets calling out, and frogs responding with strange croaking from the swamps. The worst was the mosquitoes, whining for their blood and circling them like vultures. The only night sounds that gave Mvelo hope for the light were the roosters crowing, signalling the approach of morning. Then the wrestling with the night was over. They had lived to see a new day.

They first discovered Mvelo’s singing gift when they joined a church after Zola’s results came back positive. They had slept very badly the night before because Zola was having trouble breathing, and they both drifted in and out of sleep. Mvelo had to feel out in the dark for her mother to give her water to drink. They did not have enough candles any more. Through the cracks of the shack walls, using moonlight, Mvelo found Zola’s bag of pills and got Panados to ease the pain for her.

When the roosters crowed, announcing the dawn of the new day, Mvelo was grateful for the morning light. They got up and went to church where she sang as if the heavens were opening. When she sang, she felt no fear. She drifted into a world where there was no sickness. She sang to free herself from the dank shack they called home, from hunger, from disease and Zola’s pain.

Her skin tingled, her eyes closed, and she sang God down into the church. By the time she came to she was singing alone, the congregation were gazing at her and Zola’s face was shining.

‘You were no longer with us when you sang like that. I felt a cold shiver down my spine. I swear God was with us. How does it feel to sing like that?’ Zola asked her daughter. The only way Mvelo could explain it was that it felt like she had gone into a trance.

‘I saw a rainbow of colourful lights flashing in front of my eyes, and when I came to I felt free and happy.’
On their way back home from church, Zola went into a spaza shop and used her last money to buy Oreos. They were her favourite biscuits. Sipho, the man who had been in her life for thirteen years, used to buy them often in their happy times. Zola and Mvelo continued on to their shack, where they sat outside and dunked the Oreos into their tea. In silence, they ate the brown mush with white cream inside, savouring the sweetness, and Mvelo could tell that her mother’s mind was far away, remembering the days of abundance at Sipho’s house.

Zola chuckled softly as she recalled one of her funny stories. ‘Do you remember Khanyisile, my friend who worked at Skwiza’s shebeen? It was around the time when the former white schools started allowing black children to attend.’ She pinched her nose to mock their Model C accents.

‘I think she was named Khanyisile because she was so light skinned. Anyway, she was asked to be a bridesmaid by Skwiza’s neighbour, Dudu – the one who married the policeman who ended up using her as a punching bag – and off we went to a salon to have her hair done, to straighten it out from the steel wool of kinky curls.’

‘Khanyisile sat down on one of those black leather chairs on wheels, with her head tilted back into the basin to wash her hair before the long process to get the desired effect.’

‘The woman on the chair next to her was having long braids woven into her own hair. She was dressed to the Ts
in killer red boots, tight black pants, and an all-eyes-on-my- cleavage cream top. The woman working on her had short plain hair, and her skin was the dark shade that would call
the attention of the police who would make her produce her identity document to prove she was not an illegal immigrant. She quietly worked that woman’s head like a true professional, separating the long silky pieces and bonding them to the woman’s hair with a weapon of a needle. One mistake could lead to permanent brain damage.’

‘Khanyisile had Vaseline smeared around her forehead to protect it from the burning chemicals. The foul-smelling white stuff was applied to her hair in sections and then she waited for it to untangle her kinks. The indicator of the chemical working was a burning, itchy sensation. After some minutes she waved at her hairdresser to let her know that the burning had started.’

‘Two teenagers walked into the salon, chatting loudly in their new accents. They said they were going to a classmate’s eighteenth birthday party and they wanted to look “fab” and “fly” for the occasion. They asked the hairdresser to please do some touch-ups to their peroxided yellowish mops that were meant to be blonde hair.’

Zola’s attempt at the accent got Mvelo laughing as well. Her hot tea spilt onto her lap, she jumped up, and they roared with laughter some more.

They both wiped away their tears from laughing so
hard and Zola continued her story. ‘So they said their black roots were growing out and they would not like to look like raccoons at the party. The woman who was getting a weave next to Khanyisile could not contain her disgust for what
she called the nose brigade. “These fake Oreos from Model
C schools. They walk in here speaking through their noses.” There was an awkward silence as we watched her vent in front of the teenagers. Meanwhile, half her head now had long silky hair, imported from Korea, and the other half was her own short chemically-treated hair.’

‘Tiny beads of sweat were forming on her face from her venting. As I looked closer, I saw that this more-African-than-thou woman had a face that was much lighter than her hands and ears. It was obvious she was using a skin lightener.’

‘The Oreo girls couldn’t be bothered by the woman. They sassily chewed their gum and waited their turn.’

‘By now sniggers were coming from all directions of the salon. As we left, we burst out laughing. I looked at the newly- made-over Khanyisile and said, “I need an Oreo.”’

Mvelo loved seeing her mother laugh. She didn’t do it often any more because she was always thinking and worrying.

***

Tell us what you think: What makes you feel as happy as singing makes Mvelo feel?