Being Kari. Qarnita Loxton
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was still Ouma’s, I realised as we entered. Just that where her bed used to be in the room she loved was now a katel. Instead of lying warm and cosy under heavy blankets, she was just a small shape under a white sheet on a metal stretcher. And where the room had smelled of Pond’s, now there was only the funeral smell of camphor mixed into the sandalwood. I had once seen an empty katel go into the room at a funeral long ago. Ouma and I had been the ones sitting on the benches that time, as the metal stretcher with its sunken metal bed was hoisted past by strong arms. I can hear Ouma’s voice even now: That’s what they put the body on, Karima. It’s made like that especially for when the dead person’s family – only the men for men and women for women, mind you – washes the body. All the water drains out underneath. But you can’t actually see the washing; it’s all done in a special way under the sheet so it’s not funny for anyone. They wrap the body in sheets and that’s it, that’s what you go to the grave in. No coffin like in the movies. And no ladies at the grave crying. It had freaked me out, that story, mostly the part about having to wash a dead person.
“Let’s sit here, Karima,” Shireen said, squeezing us onto a bench between women sitting a metre or so from Ouma’s covered feet. As we sat, the women washers started moving. Unfolding sheets, opening bags of dried rose petals, unrolling cotton wool. I knew they were getting things ready for the washing, and they moved quickly, purposefully, but with no hurrying. I got up when the main washer lady called me to cradle Ouma’s head and the others continued with their dance. I held Ouma’s head that I couldn’t see, so light under the sheet. The women kept doing what they did, letting water run somewhere over her body.
I was calm. I wasn’t freaked out at all, like I thought I would be when Ouma had first told me how it worked. It seemed the most beautiful last thing to be able to do for her. It felt right that Ouma would be given her last bath by people who knew her and loved her, right there in her own room. Wrapped in sheets and red rose petals, her body surrounded by the sounds of friends and family praying for the peace of her soul. It seemed right.
She couldn’t be buried until it was light so I must have sat there for hours, waiting for sunrise. But I didn’t look at anyone besides Shireen and Ouma and the washers. As I let the prayers fall around me, wash over me, calm me, I felt like I was in a trance. I didn’t think. I listened only when Shireen told me what to do. When the ladies started to get up to greet Ouma, to kiss her face and say goodbye, I knew it was nearly time for Ouma’s face to be closed for the last time. Shireen said when it was my turn. I looked at Ouma, lying there without her smile, looking like herself but nothing like herself. Her cheek cool where I pressed my lips, not too hard, like Shireen said.
I sat back down and Shireen went off to help someone else further down on the bench. The two of them huddled over Ouma for the longest time, the other woman’s burka falling so that it covered both her and Ouma’s face from us all.
As they turned to make their way back to the bench, I dragged my eyes away from Ouma towards them, towards eyes that looked exactly like mine.
Mama.
6
I had expected to see her, but I still wasn’t prepared.
“Look after your mama, Karima,” Shireen said, guiding Mama to sit right next to me, putting my mother’s hand right into mine. Shireen moved to sit tight on the other side of Mama.
“Salaam, Karima,” Mama said, her eyes full as we kissed on each cheek just as we had always done my whole life. Like Normal. As if we were Normal. There was nothing more between us because then the men came. They came to get Ouma. We stood up and watched as Ouma’s face was covered with soft cotton wool and cloth for the last time, and I felt the prayers vibrate heavy in my heart, my mother’s hand holding mine, strong and firm, as the men carried the katel out of the room.
After that I did only what Shireen said. Except the Look after your mama part. I didn’t know how to do that, so when Mama let go of my hand I left her to Shireen. Shireen seemed to know exactly what to do, helping Mama make her way slowly, limp-step-limp, to the table where more old ladies sat. I kept busy, doing the other things Shireen told me to do, passing out tea and biscuits and sandwiches and plates of food to uncles I didn’t know. I took hugs and kisses from aunties I didn’t know. Strangers gave me their comfort. May Allah put peace and contentment in your heart. I heard one woman whisper to another: That’s Karima! Dr Essop’s sister. Yes, man, I am sure it’s her, you can see in her face, that’s Mrs A’s daughter, that. Look at the eyes. Old Ouma Edie loved her so but then when she was twenty-one she ran away. Just two weeks before she was supposed to marry Gigi’s Fiekie! Lucky for Gigi, hey, or maybe unlucky – who knows. But talk is that something really bad happened before the wedding because no one ever saw her around here after that. Mrs A was all right but the old lady wasn’t the same, you know. Ja, she was mad about that girl. Terrible now Karima only came back when the ouma is dead. She was a special old lady, that. Did you know her name was actually Alia? But everyone always knew about the ouma in Eden Road and that’s how she became Ouma Edie. The one in the green scarf at least stopped whispering long enough to take the cup of tea I handed her.
I hid in the bathroom for a long time after that. Checked my messages from the other side.
08:00 AM Dirk: Are you all right? Please let me know if I can come?
11:00 AM Di: How are you?
11:05 AM Shelley: So sorry to hear about your granny and about Dirk, that sucks. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you. xxx
12:00 PM Lily: Want me to come? Let me know.
12:05 PM Dirk: Are you all right? I’m guessing your hands are full and you don’t need me there? I will wait for you at home. xxx
I replied to the LSDoK group.
12:15 PM Kari: Hey guys, sorry so quiet. Am in a twilight zone, ask Di about it. Can’t talk but hoping to go back to Di’s later tonight. Xx
I sent it, wondering how weird it was to be able to say so little using so many words.
12:17 PM Di: Come any time, will keep supper for you.
I avoided Dhanyal. It had been easy to do since the men and women were mostly separate, as was customary at funerals. I’d seen him greeting all the other men, and I knew he’d seen me, but we hadn’t said a word to each other since last night’s phone call. I was standing next to Shireen when he marched up to us. From nowhere to right in my face.
“Find a place and sit down. Tell her if you need something done. All this time on your feet is bad for the baby.” He barked this at his wife, not looking at me – even though it was clear that her was me, trying to hide right there in plain sight. I needn’t have bothered. His words did make me take a proper look at Shireen as he stomped off. She wasn’t just older and rounder than when I’d last seen her ten years ago. She was older and rounder and pregnant. Very pregnant.
“Nearly eight months with a boy,” Shireen said apologetically when she saw me staring at her. “Dhanyal is just worried. He is very excited to have a boy, so he is nervous now, nothing must go wrong. You know how it is, a man always wants a son, and I tell you: I’m so glad this time it’s a blue baby blanket. I got lucky.” She rubbed her stomach, looking at me with tired eyes. “I’m thirty-eight this year so it’s my last chance. Already in the hospital twice, not like with the girls when there were no worries. This one, he is different, giving me troubles already.” Her voice trailed off as her eyes sought out Dhanyal in the crowd of men on the other side of the room. To think all that was hidden under her burka and I hadn’t noticed until Dhanyal made me look.
Later, when the house was nearly empty and I was ready to leave, to slip out into the dark without greeting anyone but Shireen, Dhanyal caught me, stepping in my way just as I reached the front door.
“Not so fast, Karima,” he said. “I want to make sure you understand something. You’ve seen Shireen and Mama.” He glared red swollen eyes at me. “They won’t cope with everything here. They need help. I can’t be here in the day, and it’s all women’s stuff in any case. It’s your turn now.