When I went back to work after my maternity leave, Sister Agnes told me Nyasha had relocated to Canada. After qualifying she’d joined an agency and was doing locums there. The money was good and there was a chance she’d get a full-time position after doing some clinical time.
“Canada?”
“You know mos how hard it is for these foreigners here in South Africa, Doctor. I think all this xenophobia nonsense gets too much for them. Didn’t she tell you?”
I couldn’t hide my hurt, and Sister Agnes could see. A whole other country without even saying goodbye? Sister Agnes said I shouldn’t be so hard on her, said we all knew how difficult it was for foreign doctors to get posts, that maybe she grew tired of South Africans accusing them of stealing their jobs.
“You know mos how things are, Doctor.”
“Canada?”
“I’m sure she was just in a rush, Doctor. I’m sure she’ll call you. Yoh, moving is hectic. And moving overseas! I remember when I moved to Saudi, in all that excitement, I didn’t call my son for two weeks. My only son! Two weeks and I didn’t phone him.”
“But, Canada?”
“She will call, Doctor.”
Nyasha is unbelievable. After everything, she leaves without saying goodbye? Not just to Nigeria or Kenya or even back home to Zim. But to an us-less place, where she will slip into the brain-drain statistics and live an anonymous life. Canada? All I know about Canada is that it gets so cold that when children wait outside for their school bus, their eyelashes freeze closed.
Why didn’t she take a break if she was tired? Go on holiday to Canada and come back? Or if she was scared, why didn’t she stay home for a couple of days, even weeks? Take unpaid leave. We all know this xenophobia thing will blow over. It won’t last. Yes, from time to time there’s an incident here and there, but it’s definitely on the decline. Things are getting better.
Canada?
What will you find in a place where people don’t hurt, don’t suffer, don’t fear, don’t cry, don’t die and rot? What will you discuss with people whose nails are clean and whose doors lie open as they sleep at night? How will you connect with so much sterility?
When I told Ma how Nyasha had left, how tired I was of people leaving me, everybody leaving me, nobody loving me enough to stay, Ma exclaimed, “Canada? Aborehwaa! Let her have her Canada! They deserve each other!”
Then the Nyasha stories kept coming. Everybody at work wanted to tell me about her. If it wasn’t that she was in Canada, it was that she’d moved to the UK to be with her mother. Even the porters knew something about Nyasha’s departure. It seemed she’d made time to say goodbye to everybody but me.
“That Dr. Nyasha, she was almost finished specializing, then this opportunity came and she decided to jump at it. You know these foreigners, Doctor. They don’t mind starting from scratch if it’ll get them ahead. They can start from scratch over and over again, they don’t mind. As long as it’ll get them ahead. Like Dr. Ogu, ne? Did you know he was a professor in his country? Why do you think he can do a bone marrow aspiration so fast? They are not like our children, these foreigners. Yoh, our children, Doctor, they are just waiting for the next contract. It’s business idea after business idea, they are out having drinks Monday to Sunday, and they tell you it’s called networking. They drive big cars, you don’t even know where the money comes from. If in the next ten years they tell us the president of the ANC is a Nigerian, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised, Doctor. We are sitting on our hands, us South Africans! Ah! Wena, you just wait and see.”
❖
Even long after Nyasha walked out of my life, got on a plane and disappeared like we’d never existed, I still dreamed of her, thought I spotted her in malls, parking lots, traffic jams. I wonder what she’d say if she saw me now, as a mother. Sometimes I still seek her approval as I dress, plan, dream.
But she never loved me, Nyasha. Not like I loved her. I was always too South African, too Christian, too Westernized, too brainwashed, too weak, too afraid for the big thing she was.
❖
Sometimes I think it might have been better for Mpho to have stayed in the womb. In there she could tumble and spin, lick her fingers and rub her eyes and not worry about failure, disease, disappointment, heartbreak, loneliness, and unanswered prayers. In there she was safe and perfectly protected.
But she had to come out. Even that safe place would have turned against her after nine months, turned into hard, hostile rock. She had to come out, as we all did. To face what we all have to face.
❖
Sometimes at work, someone who has heard will work up the courage to ask how I’m coping with what’s happened. Some really try to be sympathetic, but others are only trying to comfort their own fears. They ask me questions like why the security guards didn’t come to my aid that night, or whether I think the “attack” was related to the petition I started. It’s not me they’re worried about, it’s themselves. They want to be reassured that there was something unique about me—my story, my poor choices—that landed me in this situation. They want me to soothe them. “No, it was my fault,” they want to hear, so they can feel safe from the same fate.
I’ve grown a little bit; I’m empathetic to their fears, so I tell them the lies they want to hear so they’ll leave me alone. Leave me to go home and be with my Mpho.
She’s beautiful, Mpho. Sometimes I find myself losing whole hours of a day because of all the time I spend just staring at her. Staring at her for no reason at all, other than
