Under my black scarf, the hair on the back of my neck prickles. I look up into the distant eyes of a girl whose face is familiar. She’s in the doorway of my oumas’ room. Her soft smile on thick mauve lips and wide almond eyes invite me closer. I glance around our lounge filled with people wearing black abayas and hijabs. Their eyes are glued to their Surah Yaseen bookies. Tongues wrapping around the Arabic softly under their breaths. No one has noticed her. Is she here with someone? Maybe she’s lost. I feel my eyebrows furrow as I try to place her face. An invisible tether pulls at me. She looks down at her red leather shoes making her long dark brown hair fall forward, hiding recognition from me. It’s entirely possible she wandered here by accident.
Pushing off my seat, I flounce towards her. Eyes glued to her position, needing to catch a glimpse of her identity. A hand on my arm hinders my progress. I stumble as my legs jerk to a stop. An old face framed by a black scarf watches me with sad eyes.
In a shaky voice, she says, “You were her favourite. She used to say she can ask you anything.”
The women who hear her, nod in agreement. I force a smile. It’s what they expect. I always do what’s expected. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.
Her hands drop, releasing me from her prison. I search over the bowed black covered heads that look like undulating boulders to see if the little girl is still there. Has she moved further back? A pull at my navel urges me forward to investigate.
Another strange wrinkled hand grips my arm. This time one of the aunties stands up, blocking my path. Brown eyes rimmed with cataracts beseeches me to listen. “Your ouma was a part of us, she always came to the classes at the masjid. Remember how you would drop her off?”
I nod remembering how I worked my schedule around hers.
A slight movement from the ouma’s room catches my eye. Leaning past the aunty in front of me, I watch the girl take a step backwards. A sense of urgency beats in my chest. What if she’s lost? What if she disappears? I need to know she’s safe. My feet are compelled to move.
My frenzied steps pass the line of people sitting on endless wooden benches in the lounge. But I’m halted by yet another hand on me. This one familiar. Ouma’s cousin. They used to go on bus tours to the coast every month. Ouma would send me the banking details and I would EFT the proof to Aunty Mavis so she could send it to the church group.
Her nasally voice reflects. “Haai, we thought the operation would get rid of this cancer also. But God knows best hey, lovie.”
I pat Aunty Mavis on her arm, dislodging it from my personal space, and hurry towards the door where I last saw the girl slink further inside the room.
Free of grabby hands, I spot her sitting in the middle of the room from the doorway. Her black dress stretches across her back as her hands move doing something I can’t see from here. She’s too far inside. And I’m still outside, resisting rushing in.
A shiver passes down my spine as I’m about to close the distance and finally reach the inside of the room. Out of nowhere, an arm circles my waist. Pulling me back. The smell of Vicks surrounds me. It can only be Aunty Gouwa. Ouma’s sister pulls me in tight, leaning her head on my shoulder. Drawing comfort from me.
She says, “Do you know she looked after us from when she was eleven? She’d wake all nine of us up for school, help us get dressed and make us peanut butter bread for lunch. When it was payday, we’d get polony that she braised with onions and tomato on our bread. She always packed me an extra half slice cause she knew it was my favourite.” She sniffs. “She became our mother when ours died. Now I really am an orphan.” Her eyes fill with water and they drop down her cheeks in little unending rivulets.
Closing my eyes to curb the need to claw her hands off me, I take a breath for patience. I squeeze her shoulders tight, like I’m supposed to. My fabric catches her tears, leaving a wet stain as I pull away. Luckily my black abaya absorbs and camouflages her grief stuck on me.
I dart a quick look behind me to make sure no one else is going to hinder my entrance into the room. Stepping over the threshold, the little girl is on the same spot as before. Her head is bent in concentration and her hands are moving. She’s busy. Very busy.
The air in the room is a sticky tight residue, undulating like waves. I want to move closer but trepidation holds me back. I shake my head to clear this silly thought. This child is the entire reason I came into ouma’s room. My gut urges me forward.
Two steps gets me close enough to reach towards her and get her attention. That sticky trepidatious air holds my hand hostage. A forceful push allows my fingers to gently settle on and squeeze her shoulder. Her head slowly pivots in my direction. A tinkle of a laugh, like glass bottles in the boot knocking into each other during a car ride, spills into the room unsurprised.
Finally her profile comes into view. A gasp escapes and I cover my mouth to hide it. Instinctively, my feet wants to move back, but that sticky tight residue won’t allow it. My wide eyes track small pieces of mirrors stuck into her skin where she’s pressing them in, like office tacks.
A soft lilting voice reaches me through the ringing in my ears.
“Don’t I look pretty?”
The small shards sit haphazardly on her face, her hands, her arms, her legs. All over her exposed skin. She stands and takes hold of the skirt of her black dress and does a little twirl. The sunlight through the big windows in the room dance on the mirrors tacked into her skin, obscuring her face. The blood oozing out of the damaged dermis drops its own rhythm onto the floor.
She says, “Now when they look at me, they’ll see themselves reflected in me and I’ll be perfect. I am perfect.” She nods. “Just like Ouma wanted me to be.” She sings, “I’m perfect.” Alternating between twirling and swaying side to side. She raises proud eyes to mine. “Did you know I’m ouma’s favourite.”
Her arms spread out to the side and she approaches me as if to fold me into a hug. If I could, I’d stop her, but I’m frozen, muscles held hostage by the scene unfolding in front of me. She moves closer, closer until there’s no separating her young body from my older one. She continues to glide through my layer of skin. Into me. I feel her there, moulding to the emptiness that has hugged my insides since I got the call that Ouma died on the operating table. She belongs there. With her shards of reflective mirrors and bleeding skin.
She’s the first version of me held hostage by threats of shame, tacked with unrealistic expectations sparkling under my skin.