When Papa used to live with us, he would often say, “Why do you talk so much? You’re overconfident for a young lady. Be humble, be quiet, rest a little.”
When I was on call, telling patients why xenophobia was wrong, Sister Agnes would say, “Mara, Doctor, wena le dilo tše tša gago, tlogela man! O tlo ipakela mathata.”
But I didn’t listen. I never listened to anyone, not even the bishop. Always too full of excitement. I held on too tightly. If I’d only just relaxed and let them penetrate, maybe they wouldn’t have hit me, maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long.
❖
Father Joshua came to visit again today. He put oil on my forehead and sprinkled holy water in my bedroom. I told him what had happened, everything, from beginning to end, sparing him nothing. I wanted him to hear every gory detail, to see if his faith could stomach it. He prayed for me, prayed for the men who raped me, asked that You forgive them, “for they do not know what they do.”
I didn’t say “amen” at the end of that prayer. I don’t want You to forgive them. They knew exactly what they were doing. If I die and land up in heaven, I don’t want to have to see them there, I don’t want to have to mingle with them. That’s not the kind of heaven I want to be in.
❖
Maybe if they’d been drunk, I’d feel a little better about it all. But they weren’t. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol on their tongues. I know because those tongues were in my mouth, their saliva down my throat. They were sober, their minds clear as day. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they did it with such passion. They hated me so much. It was in their eyes, in their breath. I felt it on their skin. They were angry with me. They said I was a disappointment, that instead of helping my own people, I was running around with kwere-kweres, the very kwere-kweres that were ruining our country, stealing our jobs, using up our grants. Their children were starving because of these people and I was making that worse. Spoiled, foolish children like me needed to be taught a lesson, so others would see that the community didn’t hesitate to discipline traitors. They said I was lucky they didn’t necklace me, like they did to the likes of me during apartheid.
I wish they had. I wish they had just killed me.
❖
I remember walking into the Emergency Department afterward, and whispering, “Sister.”
None of them responded. Not one of them lifted their heads to notice that my shirt was torn, my mouth split, my eyes blackened, and my pants soiled and bloodied. I tried again. “Sister.”
But without looking up, Sister Palesa simply pointed at my box and said it was full of patients and that I needed to work faster.
I couldn’t remember the words to the hymns, the ones that used to lift my spirits as Nyasha and I drove to work, that got me through the long night calls and helped me when God felt far and distant. The hymns Nyasha said were lame, that made her embarrassed to be associated with me. The ones Ma called white people’s music.
I tried to sing them as I walked to the toilets to wash my face, as I used wet toilet paper to wipe the dirt off my pants, as I took the pile of patient files out of my box, as blood trickled down the side of my leg. I tried to force the words out of my mouth, but all that escaped was a silent cry.
“Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder . . . Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder . . . Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder . . . Oh Lord my God . . .”
I wanted to sing God’s praises, shout them, despite the circumstances, but my tongue refused.
“Oh Lord my God . . . Oh Lord my God . . . Oh Lord my God . . .”
When I recounted all of this to Dr. Phakama, she said I must have been in the first stage of bereavement. After rape one suffers a loss of the former self, she said, and it’s normal and important to mourn. She explained that there are five stages of bereavement: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and that my desire to sing praise to my God after I’d just been raped was a textbook example of extreme denial.
Denial. Denial. Denial.
A strange word. The refusal to admit the truth. Whose truth?
❖
It didn’t matter how clever, how careful, how disciplined I was. I was disciplined! So I had a drink on occasion, so I got really drunk at the Christmas party, but that’s all. I’ve never smoked a joint in my life, never done any drugs, never had sex with François when I could have, when I wanted to. I got into medical school. I studied all the time. I worked hard. I prayed. Heaven knows I prayed. I exercised, used hand sanitizer, even kept antiseptic wet wipes in my bag. I was careful, I did everything right. But my floor collapsed and I fell, then the sky fell in, then the whole universe fell in, crushing me, the sky, the floor . . . and I still don’t even know why.
❖
I think of the nurse in The English Patient. Perhaps if I’d cared for my patients the way she cared for hers? But she also slipped into his bed. So is it possible to love them and leave them there? Is it possible to love them without them leaving stains on one’s heart? Does a heart have room for all of their pain (and one’s own), for their broken bones (and one’s shattered soul), for their discomfort (and one’s own shame)?
❖
I’m haunted by the faces of the patients I neglected, rushed through, walked past, ignored. Those faces remind me every day that I only got what
