Mother to Mother

Mandisa and her mother return to Cape Town, where her mother keeps her "a prisoner in [her] home" for fear of anyone finding out about the pregnancy (117). This doesn't sit well with Mandisa, who wants to tell China about the pregnancy before he hears about it in the form of her family demanding reparations. While her mother is at work, she manages to sneak a note to him. The meeting, however, doesn't go well: China at first denies that the child is his, and then says that he intends to go away to boarding school. Mandisa, who had previously idolized China, is devastated, and throws him out.

When Mandisa is six months pregnant, her family takes her to negotiate with China's relatives. Matters remain unsettled, however, until Mandisa is eight months pregnant, at which point a priest convinces China and his father that he and Mandisa must marry. Before they can, however, Mandisa gives birth and names her son Hlumelo—"Sprig"—as a sign of her hope that "good things might come" from him (128). Meanwhile, Mandisa has decided she doesn't want to marry China, since she no longer loves him and wants to remain in school. Her father initially supports this decision, but changes his mind about a month after Hlumelo's birth because the clan at large wants Mandisa to marry. Two months after Hlumelo's birth, Mandisa and China marry.

On her first night with China's family, Mandisa undergoes a traditional renaming ceremony in which her relatives dub her Nohehake—an "exclamation of utter surprise at some incredibly, unimaginable monstrosity, some hitherto unheard of dreadfulness" (135). Mandisa scornfully accepts the new name, but bristles when her in-laws say they intend to rename Hlumelo as well. Nevertheless, they go ahead with their plans and Hlumelo becomes Mxolisi, "He, who would bring peace" (136).

Mandisa's married life is deeply unhappy. In addition to caring for Mxolisi, she does much of the housework herself. Her relationship with China remains hostile; China resents that he has had to leave school and get a job for Mandisa's sake, and at one point angrily suggests that Mandisa should have gotten a back-alley abortion. Mandisa, for her part, can't help but reflect on the irony of their loveless marriage: "The fires that had so tortured China and me when were not supposed to quench them in each other…now that we were man and wife…with everything else going wrong between us those treacherous and torturing fires were gone" (138). As the anniversary of her marriage approaches, Mandisa hopes that things will improve, largely because she expects to begin taking adult education classes. Her father-in-law, however, continually finds reasons to prevent her from enrolling, and Mandisa realizes they have no intention of ever letting her go back to school.

One day shortly after Mxolisi turns two, China doesn't come home from work. At first, the family thinks he might have had an accident or been arrested, but it quickly becomes clear that he has simply left. Mandisa has no choice but to take a job as a maid to support herself and her child, though this does free her to move away from her husband's family.

Now on their own, Mandisa and Mxolisi grow even closer. Mandisa often takes him to work with her, but when she has to leave him, she entrusts him to their neighbors. When Mxolisi is four, however, the neighbors' teenage boys—Zazi and Mzamo—become involved in the student protest movement, and the police come looking for them at their house. Zazi and Mzamo hide and nearly escape notice, but at the last minute, Mxolisi gives them away: "'Nab'ewodrophini Here they are! Here they are, in the wardrobe!" screamed Mxolisi, pointing to the wardrobe. A clever little smile all over his chubby face" (148). The police shoot and kill the boys as they make a run for it, and the event is so traumatic that Mxolisi stops talking (148).

Mandisa tries to help her son in various ways, even consulting with several doctors. Eventually, she takes him to see a sangoma—a traditional healer—who tells Mandisa she must let go of any lingering resentment she feels toward her son: "this child has seen great evil in his short little life. He needs all the love and understanding he can get" (154). Not long afterwards, Nono visits Mandisa and announces that she and Khaya are marrying, as well as expecting another child. Nono wonders when Mandisa will find a new husband, and accuses her oftrying to "reclaim" her virginity—"what [she] was cheated out of" (155). Mandisa admits to herself that Nono is right, and that her anger around the circumstances of her pregnancy has colored her relationship with Mxolisi.

At Nono and Khaya's wedding, Mandisa meets and enters into a relationship with a man named Lungile. The two have a child together—Lunga—but do not marry, on Mandisa's wishes. Mxolisi is upset by Lunga's birth and begins to wet the bed. Lungile and Mandisa try an old folk cure and make Mxolisi eat a roasted mouse, prompting Mxolisi's first words in two years: "Where is my own father?" (158). Mandisa is pleased that Mxolisi has begun to talk again, but knows that he hasn't entirely recovered from Zazi and Mzamo's deaths; he never speaks about them, but is careful never to tell on anyone—either his siblings or, more recently, his fellow Young Lions.

Several years later, Lungile leaves to become a freedom fighter. At around the same time, Mandisa learns that Mxolisi—formerly a good student—-has dropped out of school. Mandisa manages to persuade him to return to his classes, but once in high school, Mxolisi quickly becomes a leader in the students' political movements—"boycotts and strikes and stay-aways and what have you"—and spends less and less time at school or at home (161).

Mandisa, meanwhile, has married again and had her third child, Siziwe. Her husband, Dwadwa, is a "solid, steadfast, predictable" man, but even he is unable to reach Mxolisi (161). Mandisa notes, however, that Mxolisi enjoyed a good reputation in the neighborhood before the attack on the university students, and even recently saved a girl from being raped: "To everyone, he was a hero. People I didn't know from a bar of soap stopped me" (162).