Mpilo's Diary

By Ingrethia Emmah Kumalo

Mpilo was nine when his father left to toil in the bowels of the earth in Johannesburg, and every Christmas he and his sister Pinky would await his return at the bus stop. They would watch as other migrant fathers arrive to the embrace of their wives and children. Their father was never amongst them.

Fast-forward nine years, Milo and his siblings toil alongside their mother Thulisile, under the scorching sun at Baas Willemse's farm in Mnambithi. Milo and his sisters, Confidence and Pinky, then get a chance to move to Johannesburg. But there is a catch - Anthea, Baas Willemse's daughter, cannot bear kids of her own and desperately needs a surrogate...

It is in Johannesburg where Milo meets Nontsikelelo, an 18-year-old whose wealthy father is terribly ill and has a few days to live. A kidney transplant can save his life, but he cannot find a match. Until his wife notices something oddly familiar about her daughter's new friend, Mpilo. The teenager is a 'mirror image' of her ailing husband...

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ingrethia Emmah Kumalo
• Release date: Mar 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9780639767963

Book preview

Prologue

It is said that a candle does not lose light by lighting

another, but for me that's not always the case. In this house it’s every man – or woman – for themselves. If you don't eat fast or work fast, you might even die of starvation.

I’m just kidding; you won't die but you will only get crumbs, and that’s not enough for a decent meal. Remember you must start working immediately after breakfast; the baas won’t be so happy with Mama if any of us is not working as fast and hard as he wants.

Our mother has been given a two-roomed house in exchange for her labour. My siblings and I don’t attend school since uniforms are very expensive for my mother. Besides, I doubt the baas would agree.

I am uMpilo Gumede. I am eighteen years old and live in the village of Matatiele, in the Eastern Cape Province, with my nine siblings and my beautiful mother, Thulisile. The figure nine excludes my older sister Confidence’s brood; two kids born out of wedlock. My mother is a domestic worker. She works for Baas Andre Willemse in the main house, while I and my siblings toil in the farm from as early as 07:00 am to 16:00 every single day.

Our father, Cabanga Gumede, left for Jo’burg a handful years ago and never returned. I remember it like yesterday’s episode. Daddy promised us a bunch of things, so despite my older sister Confidence’s protests, my sister Pinky and I would borrow a wheelbarrow every day on Christmas eve, and head to the bus stop to wait for the return of our father. While we waited, we would speculate on what he would bring home.

"The wheelbarrow is going to be full; we will take turns pushing it," Pinky would say in anticipation.

We would wait until sundown, until the cattle herders return from the grazing fields with their livestock. Our eyes would be glued to the top of the hill, but out of every bus that rattled to a stop, every father would dismount to the happy, loving embrace of their wives and kids – every father except ours. We would go back home dejected and disappointed. The only consolation would be seeing my twin brothers, Zwelakhe and Zwelethu, whom Mother always said were a spitting image of our father.

Regardless, we grew up and joined Mother working at the farm. We grew up working alongside oxen, hoeing and sowing in spring, and sorting through tons of produce at harvest season. Baas Willemse’s crop variations meant there was no respite for us even in the biting cold of winter. We toiled as hard as we did in the summer. After work, and if Baas Willemse was happy, we would receive a meal. The meal was however never enough for us, but at least we didn’t go to bed on empty stomachs.

At twenty-four, Confidence had worked at the farm all her life, from the day she turned fifteen. Pinky was twenty-one, and a pick and shovel was all she had ever known. I began toiling under the sun at sixteen.

Chapter 1

10  January 1990

It’s a chilly but beautiful Monday morning. Mama woke us up as early as the first rays of sunrise hit the horizon, and shortly thereafter, she prepared soft porridge, my favourite breakfast meal.

We are still bent over our breakfast when there is a knock at the door. The door slides open before anyone of us responds to the uninvited guest. We know who it is before the figure walks past the threshold. It is Delilah, Baas Willemse’s wife. She is the only person who has the tendency of walking into our house as if she owns every nook and cranny of it. Okay, she does, but that still does not give her permission to do as she pleases. At least she has the decency to knock.

Immediately after breakfast, please come and see me, she says to my mother – no greeting, no ‘how do you do’. Even the ‘please’ sounded like a slip of the tongue.

Mother does not even finish her breakfast. She leaps to her feet as if the chair is on fire and hurriedly puts on her apron. She moves so fast you would swear Mevrou Willemse has told her there is an emergency at the main house.

"Yes Mevrou, we can go now,’’ she says, the urgency in her voice more pronounced than Mevrou Willemse’s.

Mevrou Willemse gives us one fleeting glance, one after the other, before exiting the house, my mother hot on her heels. Shortly after Mother’s exit, my other siblings also file out of the house to begin hoeing Baas Willemse’s fields.

I am tidying up the kitchen when the door creaks open. Mother walks in. Correction: she shuffles in, her shoulders slouched. She slowly walks to the chair, pulls it out and sits down, her head bowed to her chest.

Ma? I say, sitting on the chair across her. Ma, is there something wrong?

She slowly looks up, and tears are glistening in her eyes. She tries to dab them away, sniffling.

I’m... I am not crying, she says, her voice cracked. I just... I have something in my eyes.

I know she is lying, but pursuing the matter would be being disrespectful. So I take my straw hat, put on my boots and head out to the farm to join my siblings as they toil under the scorching sun.

Later that evening, on our return from the farm, we go to the nearby river to take a bath. Each time I slip into the cold, icy water, I think of Baas Willemse and his wife with envy – they have a geyser, a bath and a shower. Our two-roomed house used to be a guest house for whenever the Willemses had guests, and at one point it had a geyser and a shower. But Baas Willemse removed the geyser and disconnected the shower taps shortly after we moved in. He said allowing us to use these would increase his water and electricity bill. The river, it seems, is the best place for us.

Why don’t we just boil water and use plastic basins or zinc tubs, you ask? Mother’s orders.

Nothing connects you to the land of your forefathers than bathing as they did back in the day, she would say. River water is constantly flowing, which means it is as pure as rainwater. It does not just cleanse, it also purifies and is therapeutic.

After bathing, we sit around a campfire and wait for Mevrou Willemse to bring us our wages. We get paid weekly, and our wages consist of R270 as well as rations of yellow rice and a variety of vegetables. Yes, the veggies we plant and harvest ourselves.

"Dankie Mevrou," I say and bow a little as I receive the envelope containing my wages.

Mevrou Willemse looks at me and frowns. She always seems surprised each time I express gratitude for the pittance I had earned with my blood and sweat. Perhaps she is taken aback by how anyone would be genuinely grateful and content with so little. 

She grunts inaudibly, turns to my siblings and dishes out their envelopes as well. She is never perturbed that they don’t give her the same response as I do.

Eventually she gets to my mother, and for a moment pauses and just stares at her. For a moment, a glint of palpable grief passes on my mother’s face, and a lone tear falls from her left eye. She wipes it, looks up at Mevrou Willemse, and then nods grimly. It is only then that the envelope is proffered at her, and she accepts it with eager hands. It looks thicker her usual envelope.

Mevrou Willemse walks away, disappearing into the gloom that led to the main house. If Mevrou Willemse had her way, she wouldn’t even pay us the wages as she feels the meagre rations she bestows on us weekly and the shelter she provides us in her farm is payment enough. Baas Willemse, however, always reminds her that withholding the wages would turn them into slave owners, something that is frowned upon even by the apartheid