[2017] What We Lose Read online

  Before their marriage, Elma moved into the apartment in Philadelphia, but curiously all my mother’s furniture and knickknacks stayed. In personality and taste, she is a woman far simpler than my mother. I’m sure this was a deliberate choice on my father’s part. Most people can handle only one truly difficult woman once in their life. I realize the same is probably true for anyone I date.

  At first, the idea of the wedding irks me; I have all kinds of one-sided debates with M where I pose him frustrated existential questions and he answers me with gibberish.

  One day, Aminah comes over to visit.

  “Isn’t this what you want too? Someone to take care of your dad?”

  She is right, dousing the flames in my mind. I relax after that.

  I notice that she has a wobble to her walk. The small of her belly is kissed with roundness. She smiles when I ask her. “It’s true,” she tells me. We hug and inform M he will have a cousin soon, and he giggles blissfully. He has no idea what we’re talking about.

  After this, I take my father’s marriage mostly in stride. I am grateful that one of us has a happy ending.

  I receive an e-mail from Lyndall:

  We heard about the breakup here, we are all very sorry, eh? It’s a good thing Papa isn’t alive because he hated divorce so much. I swear, not trying to make you feel worse. Even though we never met in person, Peter sounded great. A real nice guy, but, hate to say it cuz, you could do better. And you will. Come over to SA and I’ll find you a real nice chap with the right kind of equipment :) :-o ;) No joking I ain’t married but I know it’s the key to a happy one. If it wasn’t working it means it wasn’t working know what I’m sayin!! ;) ;) ;))))

  I wasn’t going to tell you this but Uncle Bertie and his wife were talking about you at Stasia’s christening. They said Peter probably cheated on you because your ass got so fat after the baby blah blah blah, that’s why the marriage is over. Can you believe that? I told them, the last time Bertie saw his own dick it was still apartheid. He almost knocked me but it was worth it. I’m so sorry to tell you cuz but you had to know. Can you imagine? He said Peter was only with you for your money, that’s the only reason a white boy would be with a black girl. Shoo, I got so angry, but don’t worry cause I stood up for you.

  Anyway, give little M a kiss and a high five. Stay STRONG.

  Love you LOTS

  Xoxo,

  ~L

  Every five, six weeks, I open up an envelope from my father and it contains a hundred-dollar bill or two, sometimes a check for five hundred. When M has the flu and has to go to the hospital, a thousand. But there is never enough money, never enough sleep.

  M is an incredibly mischievous child. When he is acting up, when we are in the midst of the action, I would say that he is annoying. He is a pain in the ass. Before, I couldn’t bear the thought of him being taken away, but now, in my worst moments, I would gladly hand him over to a kidnapper, a kind, gentle kidnapper who would appear at my door and promise to take excellent care of my son. In my bad moments, I would give him over in a second.

  I am able to find a one-and-a-half bedroom in Brooklyn after the breakup. I let Peter keep our old place out of guilt. He leaves the house while I pack my things; he is unable, still, to face me after my betrayal. I miss him; walking through the house, picking my things from his only makes me miss him more. I lose all of my baby weight from not eating. I long to see him, but I accept my excommunication as worthy punishment.

  I send him a message one night. It takes me one hour to compose: Been thinking about you. Do you ever miss me? He never replies.

  M’s room is a little windowless corridor—a section of my room, really—walled off by French doors. I have to walk through his room to get to the bathroom or kitchen, and at night I often tussle with myself over how badly I need to use the bathroom or eat an extra snack. Is it worth waking up the little monster and sacrificing another three hours of sleep? Usually, it is not, and I go to bed with my bladder bursting or stomach grumbling.

  But then he looks at a book or the television with an intense curiosity I’m not sure anyone’s managed at his age, and I realize there is something in him that is limitless. He regards me in a way no one has ever done before: with complete and utter adoration and wonderment.

  Even though oftentimes I am lonely, it also feels right, just him and me together in our little apartment.

  When Peter is gone, his absence feels familiar. Yes, there is that dark, terrifying loneliness that scares me, but I am acquainted with fear. If I stay inside it long enough, root my heels in deeper, it doesn’t feel scary anymore. It feels like home.

  When I am feeling overwhelmed, certain thoughts comfort me. Sometimes I am alone and the wind howls. I am lonely and feel that every day is just too much, that I am going to break. It is my prayer, to myself and the heaven that is in my mind, that looks like my childhood home on a winter’s day—a place warm and glowing with love and safety.

  Some things have to go away, I tell myself. That is just the way it is.

  I say this over and over in my head, until the feeling recedes. I repeat it like a prayer, when I look into M’s eyes or when I stand at my mother’s grave. Both sites are equally enormous; they terrify me equally but in opposite ways.

  We are like bricks in a wall, and a new one cannot fit unless another is taken away.

  It comforts me to peace, and M to sleep, this harmony, the idea that for every suffering there is equal and opposite joy. In practice, it is so simple, yet so mystical and infinite.

  I am beginning to forget my mother. This is the sad truth. I wish, sometimes, for even a bad dream of her that I used to have. It would be preferable to this absence.

  I will always be motherless. One day I will be fatherless. And one day after that, if all goes according to nature’s plan, M will be motherless.

  I pray that I will never be childless.

  She comes to me in snatches—I remember pieces of her laugh, the look she gave when she was upset. Sometimes I sniff the bottle of perfume of hers that I saved, but it doesn’t come close to the robustness of her smell. It is her, flattened.

  This is what it’s really like to lose. It is complete and irreversible.

  How pernicious these little things called memories are. They barbed me once, but now that I no longer have many of them, I am devastated.

  I nuzzle M the way she used to nuzzle me. I tell him that I love him in Afrikaans, like she used to tell me. Why you talking funny, Mama? he asks, and looks even more confused when my tears fall onto his little head.

  There could be love again; I can see the places where it might fit in my life. I may be ready to try.

  I’ve amazed myself with how well I’ve learned to live around her absence. This void is my constant companion, no matter what I do. Nothing will fill it, and it will never go away.

  CREDITS

  Here: The Cancer Journals: Special Edition by Audre Lord.

  Here and here: “Some Observations on Race and Security in South Africa” by Mats Utas, https://matsutas.wordpress.com.

  Here: Megan Carter/Corbis Premium Historical/Getty Images

  Here: Megan Carter/Sygma Premium/Getty Images

  Here: © 1959 Universal Pictures

  Here: © 2011 Brian Smale; bottom: Bettman/Getty Images

  Here: © Guillaume Jacquenot

  Here: Lessons On the Analytic of the Sublime by Jean-François Lyotard.

  Here: Excerpt(s) from No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh. Copyright © 2002 by Unified Buddhist Church. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  Here: Gideon Mendel/Corbis Premium Historical/Getty Images

  Here: Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives by Gloria I. Joseph and Jill Lewis.

  Here
: Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich.

  Here: Excerpt(s) from Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela. Copyright © 1994, 1995 by Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I could not have written this book without the support of my friends and family, who helped me find my way through the darkness. My Dad, who taught me about hard work and kindness, and Mark, who makes me laugh and always shows up when he is needed. Mom, I miss you.

  André, for teaching me so much about love and art every day.

  My Aminahs: Stephanie Pottinger, Rachel Broudy, and Jasmine Alexander.

  Karole and Morgan Larsson, for taking me in as a wayward soul in New York, for showing me endless love and support. Kim Quiero, for being a fabulous adopted auntie.

  Sue-Chin and Edward Keane, for your love and conversation.

  Marcellus Alexander, Glenn Ellis Jr. and Sr., and Janet Lynch.

  Lorna, Harris, Josie Welkom, and Yentl Vertuin.

  Ron Wilson.

  The Broudy family and Matt Jasnosz.

  My South African family, for showing me good times and helping me forget the bad: Avril, Belinda, Keith, Bernie, Maxie, Kim, Stacey, Nicole, Chad, Terri, Charlene, Cindy, Marlin, Shanni, and all the little ones.

  Sarah Labrie, Andrew Shield, Madeleine Lipshie-Williams, Will Bowling, Fouzia Najar, and Brie Coellner.

  Thank you to the incredible staff at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, and Penn Wissahickon Hospice, for treating my family with respect and compassion. To my mother’s friends at the School District of Philadelphia, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and the South African expat community in Philadelphia: you’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know.

  Thank you to the institutions that supported me in the writing of this book: Columbia University, Art Farm in Nebraska and Ed Dadey, the MacDowell Colony, the NEA (#FDT), Dar-Al Ma’Mûn, Bread Loaf, the FAWC, and VONA.

  To Brown University for showing me new worlds. Especially Meredith Steinbach and Kelli Auerbach, who gave me writing, and for allowing me to believe I could pull off this crazy dream.

  To my teachers: John Edgar Wideman, Paul Beatty, Margo Jefferson, Danzy Senna, Kiese Laymon, Hilton Als, Ben Marcus, and Binnie Kirshenbaum. Paul, I owe you so much. My peers Angela Flournoy, Alexandra Kleeman, and Naomi Jackson for modeling success, humility, and class.

  Emily Firetog, for giving me a chance at a time when no one else would, and for your laughter and friendship.

  Thank you to Transition magazine, for first recognizing my work in your hallowed pages, and for publishing the story that inspired this book.

  Jin Auh and Jessica Friedman at the Wylie Agency, for sticking with me. Allison Lorentzen for your incredible vision, and for believing in this weird little book. Diego Núñez, Olivia Taussig, and Theresa Gaffney for your patience and support. Thank you to Nina Subin for your photographic wizardry.

  For Robbie Payne, who is reading Malcolm X in heaven. For my teachers at Swarthmore-Rutledge School and Strath Haven: thanks for recognizing my potential and giving me the confidence that’s lasted until this day.

  To this big, beautiful, fucked-up country, especially my black and brown brothers and sisters: We gon’ be alright.

  ZINZI CLEMMONS was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. She is a graduate of Brown and Columbia universities, and her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review Daily, Transition, and elsewhere. She is a cofounder and former publisher of Apogee Journal and a contributing editor to Literary Hub. She has been in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and Dar al-Ma’mûn in Marrakech, Morocco. Clemmons lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

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  * In this text I use the grossly simplified race and national labels in the same way as they are used locally.

  * I am neither diminishing incidents of crime in Durban nor arguing that people have no reasons to protect themselves. South Africa has a very high level of crime and I have also come across gruesome stories of violent crime. However in this text I am more interested in how insecurity cements racial categories. South Africa has roughly 16,000 homicides a year equaling about 30 per 100,000 inhabitants, roughly the same as Bahamas but well above Russia 10, US 5 and Sweden 1. Honduras with 90 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is worst struck according to World Bank statistics.