Also by Kopano Matlwa
Coconut
Spilt Milk
New York • London
© 2016 by Kopano Matlwa
By agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency
Jacket image: © shutterstock
First published in the United States by Quercus in 2018
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e-ISBN 978-1-63506-034-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Matlwa, Kopano, author.
Title: Evening primrose / Kopano Matlwa.
Description: First edition. | New York : Quercus, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017045361 (print) | LCCN 2017051543 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635060348 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635060355 (library ebook) | ISBN 9781635060324 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781635060331 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: South Africa—Politics and government—1994—Fiction. | Health services accessibility—South Africa—Fiction. | Women physicians—Fiction. | Medical fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Cultural Heritage. | FICTION / Medical.
Classification: LCC PR9369.4.M387 (ebook) | LCC PR9369.4.M387 E94 2018 (print) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045361
Distributed in the United States and Canada by
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.quercus.com
For Laone
For Palesa
For Sindiswa
For Shivani
For Khetiwe
For Karabo
For Phindile
For Nomsa
For Oratilwe
For Rudo
For Lebohang
For Mandisa
For Dineo
For Akhona
For Lucy
For Thabitha
For Lerato
For Katlego
For Lulama
For Yolandi
For Funeka
For Kudzai
For Thandeka
For Ilse
For Boitumelo
For Andile
For Gugulethu
For Marea
For Nolitha
For Lesedi
For Tshepiso
For Sibongile
For Hope
For Grace
For you
For me
For our daughters
Contents
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 1
Oh my soul, why are you so downcast within me?
Psalm 43:5
People say that in heaven we’ll be happy all the time. We won’t cry, we won’t feel any pain, we won’t be afraid, we’ll never worry. Things will be perfect. I once mentioned at Bible Study Group that I found this difficult to imagine. I found the whole idea of it exhausting, like a party that never ends. I’d begun to worry that I wouldn’t cope in heaven, that I wouldn’t fit in with all the giddy people. But Father Joshua’s wife said I should imagine the last time I felt extremely happy and filled with joy. Heaven would be like that moment, just frozen forever.
I tried to think back to graduation, a happy day for me. Bits of the Declaration of Geneva of the World Medical Association came back to me.
I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity . . . The health of my patient will be my first consideration . . .
I’d been practicing those words daily in the weeks leading up to the ceremony, and as we stood there in our gowns saying them in chorus, they fell like notes of high music emanating from my lips.
I remembered waiting for them to call out my name so I could go up to the stage to receive my certificate. There were many of us in the hall, and I was sitting next to people in my class I didn’t know very well, the ones I sat next to only during registration, exams, and any other event that required alphabetical ordering. The speeches were long and I couldn’t see Ma, so my mind slipped to the fantasies I’d been having for weeks, fantasies about all the things I would do as soon as I graduated.
I pictured myself applying for a clothing account and the lady behind the counter saying “Title, please?” as she typed my details into the system. “Doctor,” I’d say. Then I’d open a movie card, and again they’d ask, “Miss or Mrs.?” and I’d say, “Neither, it’s Doctor.” Then again at the bank, and when booking a flight, and when visiting the dentist. Again and again and again. I’d say it slowly, say it loudly, drag it out, repeat it if I thought they might not have heard the first time. I remember laughing to myself as I sat there between L-ab and L-ij. I couldn’t get used to the idea. In just a few minutes I would be a doctor!
A rumor had started that car companies would be waiting at the back of the hall after our graduation ceremony, and brokers waiting to give us mortgages without deposits, as our titles were surety enough. Someone else said there would be financial advisers, too, handing out platinum credit cards with our names already printed on them. I knew all this was nonsense. But I kept turning my head, just in case.
And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, when she heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched His garment. For she said, if I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said “Who touched My clothes?” And His disciples said unto Him, “Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee and sayest Thou, ‘Who touched Me?’” And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the
