Chapter 1

Remind me, who came up with this sitting on the mattress crap? Not only is this mattress lumpy but the blanket is smothering me. It’s Summer for crying out loud. Sweat has convened like tiny streams across my neck and my back, depositing its salty wetness into the valley between my breasts. Sweat has plastered to my body, the coarse material of the black dress they made me wear, chafing my skin with every breath I take. My whole body is overheated and itchy. Couldn’t they have chosen a lighter blanket? It’s a very dry October, drier than that summer of 2008. I know that witch, she wants me to be stifled by this three-in-one blanket. I won’t give her the satisfaction. I would rather faint under this huge blanket than complain. I have to fake sniffles every time someone comes to sit next to me offering their condolences. My eyes are drier than the Gwayi River during a famine. Where were their condolences when he single-handedly killed my soul? My hunger makes me wonder if it would be too forward if I asked them for food. My stomach grumbles its response. I don’t care what they think I’m getting off this lumpy mattress. “Mihle uyangaphi?” my mother furiously whispers and I internally roll my eyes. “I need to use the toilet mama,” I don’t bother whispering. Or do they want me to do my business on that mattress? I see my monster-in-law shake her head, the corners of her mouth turned down. She whispers something to one of her church buddies but I’m not bothered. I make my way slowly through the mass of bodies clustered around the rondavel, my hand is randomly squeezed. I also get hugs, funny how I have grown accustomed to the smell of smoke that always seems to linger on the clothes of the villagers.