E le gore kobo e la e kae? (Where is the blanket?) thinks Mam Dikeledi as she clicks her tongue in annoyance. Now I am really cold and I wanted to go outside and water my flowers today.

She rummages in the drawer where she keeps it. Now who has hidden it from me? She can’t seem to find it, but as she looks for that one special blanket, she finds something else. Something she thought was gone for good.

“Modimo!” Mam Dikeledi exclaims, her face shocked, and she falls to her knees. “Modimo!”

The scarf…

The scarf. She takes it out of the drawer. Once it was coloured in stripes of brightest yellow and red. Now those colours have faded. At one end the scarf is ragged, long threads hanging from it. It has never been mended.

“Why do I still have this scarf?” Mam Dikeledi cries out. “Didn’t I throw this scarf away? I thought it was burned long ago. Ohh, ooh,” she starts to cry. Her tears fall in large drops, staining the frayed old fabric in her lap. This scarf has brought nothing but death and sorrow.

Mam Dikeledi suddenly flings the scarf away as if it were hot coals.

This is the scarf that her mother hanged herself with, all those years ago. How has it found its way back here? She was so sure it had gone, taking all its sadness with it.

She slumps down on the bed, her head in her hands. All the sadness in her life rushes through her mind. She hardly hears the knock on the door.

Ngqo-ngqo. Knock knock.

“Hao, isn’t there anyone in this house?” calls the gardener, Zweli, as he knocks again. Mam Dikeledi hears him now, but she can’t speak.

Ngqo-ngqo.

“Is there anyone home?”

She hears him open the front door and call out: “Maoledi, (Mother), Maoledi, are you in here? She must be here. Her warm cup is here,” she hears him say to himself as he steps into the kitchen.

Still Mam Dikeledi doesn’t speak; it’s as if her voice has disappeared.

“Maoledi? … This is weird.”

She hears him walking into the next room. He is looking for her. And then he has opened the bedroom door and is standing there staring at her as she sits hunched up on the edge of her bed. She starts to sob as if her heart is breaking into small, sharp pieces.

“Why, why, why?” sobs Mam Dikeledi. “Why does the past have to haunt me like this?”

“Maoledi, why o lla? (Why are you crying?) What’s wrong?” asks Zweli gently.

“Ohh, my child … it is nothing. So, you are here. I thought you were not going to come and work in the garden today. I know its Wednesday, but today is very cold,” says Mam Dikeledi.

“I love working in the cold weather. I don’t sweat and get easily tired. But don’t worry about me. It’s you I am worried about.”

Zweli’s face is filled with worry as he touches the old lady gently on the shoulder. “No, kanti. What’s wrong, Mam Dikeledi? Talk to me. What’s this?” he says as he picks up the scarf from the floor. “It looks dirty, yoh.”

“Leave it, don’t touch it!” Mam Dikeledi shouts out. “You know nothing about this scarf.”

Zweli is really worried now. He quickly puts the scarf down on the bed.

“Yoh, yoh, hade Mama. (Sorry mother.)”

But the old woman isn’t listening to him. Her eyes are half closed and her body sways gently, back and forth. And then she begins to speak in a small, singing sort of voice. To Zweli it sounds as if a child has entered the room and entered Mam Dikeledi’s body.

“I remember … she was hanging here, right there on top,” says the child’s voice. “Her legs were loose. She wasn’t breathing. Her face was grey, her eyes wide open. I didn’t know what to do. It was really bad. I screamed. I screamed and no-one came to help.”

“Ubani Maoledi (Who mother?) Ubani?” asks Zweli.

“She was so cold,” says Dikeledi. “She looked like a stone.” Her voice falters. “I didn’t know what to do. I remember thinking that at least he could do nothing more to hurt her.”

Mam Dikeledi starts to weep again, this time softly. The tears streak down her cheeks and she doesn’t try to stop them.

“Let me get you a glass of water,” says Zweli. He hurries to fetch the water from the kitchen. He holds it up to her lips and she takes the cup.

She nods gratefully. “Thank you,” she says, taking a sip.

“Who was ‘she’?” Zweli asks. “And who hurt her? What did he do to her?”

Mam Dikeledi looks at him for the first time. The pain is written on her old wrinkled face.

“I am talking about my mother,” she whispers. “The person who gave birth to me. She took her own life. She hanged herself – with this scarf. Now do you see why I am so upset? The only thing I own of hers is the thing that took her from this world. And yet, it ties me to her.”

“Your mother … But why, Maoledi?” Zweli’s face is troubled.

Dikeledi smiles at him sadly. “Ah, my child, who can say why in a case like this? My mother’s life was so sad. Life was really hard at home. My father was a monster. He used to beat my mother so badly. He would beat her so much that soon my mother had scars all over her body. I could do nothing to help her. I was only a child, you see. A little girl. I was so helpless and I felt alone. I hated my father for beating my mother. She was not his punching bag!”

***

Tell us what you think: How can growing up with horrific domestic violence like this affect a small child?