Had she been capable of speech on reaching her small bungalow in Unit G, Seke, when asked by her ever-solemn child how her day had been, Amai Bettina would have responded with gusto, ‘Bettina mwana’ngu! What I saw today?’ A shake of the head, palms clapped together, ‘You would not like it. Never in your life!’ And, this prelude over, she would begin her story from the most logical place – the beginning.
‘Do you remember Bettina, the year your father’s relatives came here to pay reparations for all the wrongs your father inflicted upon me?’
Bettina did remember because what had followed was a confusing period in which her mother had suffered an unmanageable surplus of funds. Amai Bettina, never having had so much money before, had not known what to do with it. She did not have a bank account – she did not know anyone who did – but her real problem was that if the money were to serve its purpose, it should be spent on herself and her relatives, but not on her children, who were considered as one with their father. The trouble was that Amai Bettina had long fallen out with her relatives and was not prepared to entertain any ideas, which they might have had, about sharing her fortune – though whether it was good fortune, was increasingly questionable. So, despite Bettina’s need for new uniforms and textbooks, Amai Bettina was eventually forced into giving generous bequests to those relatives whose offences she re-evaluated as pardonable.
‘Amongst many of the misdemeanours of your father – the only person ever, to see the end of my patience, is the issue of Datsun 120Y.’ Inexplicably, Amai Bettina always referred to the rusty yellow heap of metal on wheels as if she was talking about a person – naDatsun 120Y uyu, she would say, instead of neDatsun 120Y iyo – a thing. Everyone simply adjusted, as they did to all Amai Bettina’s peculiarities, she was simply that kind of person.
‘Anyway, your father left the house saying he was going to the store to buy jam. Did I tell you this story before, Bettina? No I don’t think so.’ She had. Many times, but Bettina knowing better would hold her silence. ‘Anyway, he came back, naDatsun 120Y uyu. That by itself was not a crime. Ayewha! No, there’s no crime when a hard-working person uses his money to improve his life. But your father wouldn’t have known hard work if it crept into his trousers and said a nice hullo. No! So he stood there, proudly showing me Datsun, and telling me that he’d found a good use for the money I’d been saving – my money, from my groundnut harvest. Mine. From which, amongst other things, I was going to buy blankets for my mothers.’
On that day, after chewing off her husband’s ear with cutting precision and a mild attack of the dramatics – rolling around on the ground and wailing to the neighbourhood at large about the misappropriation of her funds – Amai Bettina rallied and roundly declared, ‘Datsun uyu ka, is going to be the death of me.’ It was said with such conviction, it was almost a promise.
And, had she been capable of speech on her return from her outing, she would have said, ‘Bettina, mwanangu, I never spoke a truer word that day! Now, you saw me get up this morning, like I do every day, ka? Eh47 he-e. So I said to myself, ‘Amai Bettina, today is the day that you will go to this new church and see for yourself, gold and diamonds falling from the sky to cover the congregation. You can hear only so much from other people before you have to see with your own eyes. Didn’t you tell me Bettina that you heard about women’s skirts falling off their bodies because the pastor had performed a weight-loss miracle? What about those bald heads that grew hair right there and then? I was finally going to see such things for myself. Han’ti, they say, to see is to believe?
So, even though I’ve cursed your father all these years that he’s been gone, buying Datsun made me learn how to drive – I was not about to let him show off in a car bought by my sweat. For this only I am grateful, because if I’d asked your ’mainini Selma to come with me, she would have reported me to Pastor Mapatya, and you wouldn’t have liked the talk that resulted. But, see now, you would never believe it, for all these years, Datsun has not given me a problem, even though, to look at him, you would think that he’s going nowhere. I never thought he would last so long, but he has. In fact, if Datsun could have paid roora and given me children I would’ve gladly taken him as my husband. Nevertheless, I said it, didn’t I? Datsun uyu ka, is going to be the death of me, and if you can believe it, today is the day that Datsun died for me in the middle of the road. Mwana’ngu!’ Again, the shaking head the thrown out palms – this time, a surrender.
So, there Amai Bettina was – too far from home to walk back, too far from her destination to walk forward. In any case, Amai Bettina was not interested in going back, only forwards. Because Datsun had served her so well over the years, her first instinct was to investigate the trouble without any feelings of rancour; she was almost certain that it could not be anything too debilitating. Surely Datsun would rally, it was just one of those setbacks that afflicted him from time to time. And, as luck would have it, she’d been within sight of a service station.
‘Haaa moms…’ the young man in the greasy overalls was shaking his head, as he withdrew from under the hood, ‘…this is a real break-down. How’ve you been driving this car all this time? Let me just tell you that it’s seen its last kilometre today. I can’t even begin to tell you about the rust in your engine.’ Again, he shook his head. Amai Bettina felt a rising irritation. What did he know about Datsun? He didn’t deserve the dollar she had discreetly slipped from her handbag, ready to give him when he’d fixed the problem. She slipped it back into her bag as the young man wiped his hands with the rag from the back of his overalls’ pocket. So this is how it was to be: even Datsun disapproved of her desire to attend a church so outside her faith that he’d chosen to die rather than take her there. He was just as censorious as her younger sister Selma, who said it once and said it again, ‘Sisi, remember 1 John 4 vs 1 and heed it well. “Beware of false prophets”.’
Even though she didn’t want to believe it, Amai Bettina was not one to say that it was night when she could see for herself that the sun was shining. In truth, Datsun had long outlived her expectations. Even though momentarily she’d been angry with him, as she’d been angry with her husband at the time of his death, she was inclined to forgive him this one complete let-down, especially considering it was the first of such magnitude and likely to be the last.
Amai Bettina was thankful for the convenience of living in the townships, the streets were never deserted, even at 8.30 on a Sunday morning. So there’d been enough hands to help her park Datsun off the road. She could see that being on the dusty shoulder would cause an obstruction for other vehicles, which would need to veer off the patchy tarmac to avoid the crater-sized potholes, but she felt she could live with such a burden on her conscience. So she hoisted her heavy black vinyl handbag over her shoulder and set off in the direction of her sister’s house, with the intention of begging a ride into town. She knew that they would still be at home, as they had all attended church the day before.
‘If you can imagine, Bettina!’ And she would have leant forward in her seat, the one where she always sat, no matter who was visiting as if a homing device had been implanted in her firm, rounded bottom, one that unerringly guided her to a sofa that now bore the imprint of her buttocks and would no longer acquiesce to the presence of any other behind but hers. ‘That, one moment I’m walking down the street, thanking my Lord that I still have good use of two healthy legs, when I’m lifted from the ground, my ears are assaulted by a sound so loud that it left only a ringing in my head. And then, Bettina, a hand, a real human hand, flies out of the air and slaps me in the face as I land in someone’s vegetable garden.’ Her own hands would have been flapping in fervent demonstration of the whole event. Bettina, used to her mother’s theatrics, would have waited patiently to hear the whole story before sharing what she’d recently heard on local TV during the afternoon news.
Post published in: Arts