one.
Another thing he used to do, like going straight to the fridge for a glass of water, he used to call, Aila? Aila? if she wasnât in the first room he entered. He doesnât do that. If sheâs busy in another room heâs sometimes home for half an hour or so before she knows heâs there. In her innocence she takes this as one of the benefits weâve won for ourselves, for the cause, for freedom: this house has privacy, itâs not like the old one in the ghetto where we were together all the time. Itâs a space he deserves. Itâs something we have to be grateful to him for. Heâs been to prison for principles like this. When they came and
took him away she kept looking around where she stood, as if a cleaver had come down as Iâd seen it split a sheep carcass when she sent me to the butcher, lopping away a part of her she couldnât feel, yet. I went and took her hand but mine wasnât what was lost. I think theyâd always been together in everything, she couldnât believe he was going off calmly (as he did) to an experience neither could ever have imagined would happen to them when they were young. (She was only eighteen when they married, just about the same age as my sister is now.) All the times away at meetings hadnât prepared her for this; from those he had always come home and called, Aila. And then he came out of prison with an experience she hadnât gone through with him, the way I suppose theyâd had usâthe childrenâtogether, and made the move to Johannesburg, and taught Baby and me to be polite but not to be afraid of the whites living in the same street because to be afraid was to accept that we didnât have the right to live there. It isnât exactly that my mother seems to want to find a way to make up, to him, for the unimaginable experience he has had on his own. (Visiting someone in prison you only have them shown to you for a few minutes, Baby and I went with her sometimes and he had been taken out of his cell, we never saw it, he talked through glass.) Itâs more that having been in prison for the cause of freedom has made him someone elect, not to be followed in his private thoughts by ordinary people. Like herself. Like us. She once told Baby and me she remembered, when she was very small, her grandfather looking so different, wearing a white turban when he returned from Mecca, that she ran away and hid.
What Iâd like to know is does prison give my father the freedom to do what heâs doing. Is it all right so long as she doesnât know. That is what he was getting me to agree to when he made me look at him across the table that night after the
cinema. But it works both ways. I can play hooky whenever I like; he canât ask where Iâm going, where Iâve been. Because I know where heâs going, where heâs been. He canât order me, during the holidays, to finish reading the set-works for next term. He sees me with Sportsday, under his nose, instead of King Lear that he can quote reams of. An ungrateful child is sharper than a serpentâs tooth. I donât want to be in the know with him. I donât want to ask him for anything ⦠in case he canât refuse. Iâll bet I could bring up the question of a motorbike again now, and maybe Iâd get it.
Itâs easy to refuse to ask for things. But he knows I canât speakâto my mother; I canât refuse to be in the know, with him.
Iâm not a child. If people come out of prison, if theyâve been lopped off, lost; thereâs love. Isnât there? Itâs a way to make up for anything, so people say, from the time youâre a kid. Adults. In church, in school; in sex magazines. How to love, all kinds, all love. She comes out of the bathroom and smiles goodnight at me, Iâm too old to be kissed unless itâs a birthday or some other occasion, and she goes into their bedroom with her hair
Another thing he used to do, like going straight to the fridge for a glass of water, he used to call, Aila? Aila? if she wasnât in the first room he entered. He doesnât do that. If sheâs busy in another room heâs sometimes home for half an hour or so before she knows heâs there. In her innocence she takes this as one of the benefits weâve won for ourselves, for the cause, for freedom: this house has privacy, itâs not like the old one in the ghetto where we were together all the time. Itâs a space he deserves. Itâs something we have to be grateful to him for. Heâs been to prison for principles like this. When they came and
took him away she kept looking around where she stood, as if a cleaver had come down as Iâd seen it split a sheep carcass when she sent me to the butcher, lopping away a part of her she couldnât feel, yet. I went and took her hand but mine wasnât what was lost. I think theyâd always been together in everything, she couldnât believe he was going off calmly (as he did) to an experience neither could ever have imagined would happen to them when they were young. (She was only eighteen when they married, just about the same age as my sister is now.) All the times away at meetings hadnât prepared her for this; from those he had always come home and called, Aila. And then he came out of prison with an experience she hadnât gone through with him, the way I suppose theyâd had usâthe childrenâtogether, and made the move to Johannesburg, and taught Baby and me to be polite but not to be afraid of the whites living in the same street because to be afraid was to accept that we didnât have the right to live there. It isnât exactly that my mother seems to want to find a way to make up, to him, for the unimaginable experience he has had on his own. (Visiting someone in prison you only have them shown to you for a few minutes, Baby and I went with her sometimes and he had been taken out of his cell, we never saw it, he talked through glass.) Itâs more that having been in prison for the cause of freedom has made him someone elect, not to be followed in his private thoughts by ordinary people. Like herself. Like us. She once told Baby and me she remembered, when she was very small, her grandfather looking so different, wearing a white turban when he returned from Mecca, that she ran away and hid.
What Iâd like to know is does prison give my father the freedom to do what heâs doing. Is it all right so long as she doesnât know. That is what he was getting me to agree to when he made me look at him across the table that night after the
cinema. But it works both ways. I can play hooky whenever I like; he canât ask where Iâm going, where Iâve been. Because I know where heâs going, where heâs been. He canât order me, during the holidays, to finish reading the set-works for next term. He sees me with Sportsday, under his nose, instead of King Lear that he can quote reams of. An ungrateful child is sharper than a serpentâs tooth. I donât want to be in the know with him. I donât want to ask him for anything ⦠in case he canât refuse. Iâll bet I could bring up the question of a motorbike again now, and maybe Iâd get it.
Itâs easy to refuse to ask for things. But he knows I canât speakâto my mother; I canât refuse to be in the know, with him.
Iâm not a child. If people come out of prison, if theyâve been lopped off, lost; thereâs love. Isnât there? Itâs a way to make up for anything, so people say, from the time youâre a kid. Adults. In church, in school; in sex magazines. How to love, all kinds, all love. She comes out of the bathroom and smiles goodnight at me, Iâm too old to be kissed unless itâs a birthday or some other occasion, and she goes into their bedroom with her hair
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