Kyne Nislev Bernstorff

Kyne Nislev Bernstorff was born in Zimbabwe and currently lives between Cape Town, South Africa, and Denmark. She says of ‘Parking the Guilt’: ‘To open the eyes of all who use the parking lots in the “nice” South African suburbs – respect and courtesy go a long way. Most of those who work there do not wish to be there, but home, in their own, far away countries, without their demons following them around.’

Parking the Guilt

The man who watches the opposite parking lane is from Congo. His hefty, bald head droops slightly and he has deep scars all over his very dark face. He is a quiet man who keeps to himself so we do not ask what or who wounded him in such a way. We are afraid to open the hornets’ nest of his past. We, too, fear to awaken our own painful memories that cannot be shaken off and left forgotten by the side of the road. In the late evenings, when I shuffle back on tired, already-sleeping feet, I wish I could throw all this sorrow into the river of rubbish that plagues a path past our makeshift homes of corrugated-iron sheets; yet I know it will never be lost, but return to us through the cracks that also let in the winds.

Back home, my new house had been built of bricks. The day it was finished, I took my wife’s hand and led her up the two red-polished concrete steps. She had smiled in a way that made me know that she was proud to have a husband who had a good salary as a bookkeeper in the nearby town and who had built strong walls for his family. A sudden pain in my chest causes me to flinch.

I look across, a dark blue Audi parks in his lane; he walks over to the driver’s door, waiting to say hallo with his soft voice and a kind wave. A middle-aged woman with blotchy-pink skin gets out, slams her door and edges away, her steps slapping the brick ground in her sudden rush, eyes shrinking as if offended that this man with such a face should come and insult her day. He looks away humiliated and catches me watching; I try to shrug a smile as if to tell him, no matter, she is worth nothing; but he knows it is just a gentle lie, for it is this nothing that we want. That is why we are here; because we have nothing else, except memories that keep trying to escape; no lid is heavy enough, no lock so strong.

Two young boys in blue school blazers with a gold crest on the front pocket pass the Congo man, squabbling over a bag of chips; they stop, gawk and point at him as their mother in high blonde hair and even higher heels pulls them away, without looking at him, without an apology.

I watch as he turns away, pulling his hat low over his face.

I too have scars; his are all over his face, for all to see. Mine are all over my heart, crisscrossed like a complex puzzle where nothing fits because pieces are lost. In this parking lot I keep trying to find spaces for the cars and cars to fit the spaces; everything sometimes seems to be coming and going, yet I remain, going nowhere; other days, it is I, with my thoughts that come and go and yet no one notices, for no one seems aware of me either. In the very back row of the shanty town, our shacks are pieced together, one onto the other so we, the outsiders, share each other’s sleeping space; it is our lot, where we park our pain quietly so as not to awake the fights that often come knocking, pounding and burning because we are yet another foreign face from somewhere else who steals their jobs and their women.

My wife also has scars, but they are deep within her, inside her womanhood, where nothing else should ever be except husband and child. My heart beats hard and drums the pain upwards and across.

She could not talk afterwards, even though I tried to tell her that it would be alright; she knew I was lying – nothing would ever be alright again. The scars had cut too deep; we had lost too much. I had lost my pride. My manhood – the very essence of my being, my care and duty as a man, a father, a husband – lost in one short space of time, leaving only a shattered soul riddled with shame and guilt. I could not help my wife. I could not protect my children. I did not save them.

I had found my daughter, with legs spread and broken; her throat slashed so deep and open that I could see from where she had been screaming. I found my wife, trying to cover her shame, sobbing from eyes that had seen everything happen to our daughter while it had been happening to her. They had kicked her breasts until they bled and cut off her top lip so she would not talk, leaving her forever marked with a snarl of shame; but they did not kill her. They knew that she would suffer more from living.

Yet, still she managed to defy them and whispered to me the last words she ever spoke, They have taken our son.

That was when I lied; I told her that it would be alright.

And then I left her. I went away to find our son.

A black lady in tight jeans and boots with heels of glass walks passed, every curl of her deep red-black hair a perfect coil that bounces to the rhythm of her large, round breasts bulging beneath the tight yellow T-shirt; her groceries are carried by a young packer from the supermarket, and though I found her the space to park, I let this other, disrespectful boy intrude into my turf, stand by her door and wait for the tip. I come forward, discreetly standing close but not in the way, keeping my face pulled in a smile, trying not to let my eyes become the begging bowls. Her polished, bright red Porsche revs up like a tank, as if she is preparing for war, and reverses out; through tinted windows we know she sees us still standing there, smiling politely though not too directly. She speeds away, as if afraid of what we are, what we remind her of.

I had seen that look before the day I stumbled around within my fogging nightmare, searching for the answers to questions no father should have to ask; who took his son and where? That same look shadowed all those faces that then had turned and walked the other way, afraid of the evil my questions might bring as I searched, pleading, if they knew where the children had been taken. Only a hobbling, blind man, who said he was too old to fear, told me of the whisperings he had overheard, A good two days’ walk from here, where the river turns to flow deep and red from the tall banks its strength pulls with, there is a Youth Militia camp. You will hear their marching, singing and the screaming.

I found the tracks of our stolen children and traced them through the thick bush that kept pulling at my clothes as if trying to hold me back, wanting to spare me from the torture that I would soon find. The vultures circling overhead were calling me.

It is again that afternoon time when the cars hoot and jostle for those spaces just outside the shopping centre’s entrance, as if nervous that time is running out, leaving the world hungry for their supper. My hands slip into my pockets, fingertips searching for the feel of coins; it is my time that is surely running out, leaving me with nothing for my meal. I tell myself that maybe they do not know our situation, not just of our past, but of this work we are so willing to do, trying our best to do it well. Maybe they think we are well paid by this exclusive shopping centre, in our smart uniforms and boots, so why tip us? Do they not know that we have to borrow money by lending our lives? So that we can meet with the white man in the grey Land Cruiser, who hides his dishonour behind dark glasses. We have to show him that we have the money before we can start working for him; we have to tell him that we are willing, that we are strong; we beg. He takes the money; we have to buy from him the over-priced boots and blue uniforms that cost far more than in any shop; but those are his rules: we must buy our job. Every morning we pay a token for our spot to his Muslim partner and then we pray for a good day where we may make that money back and earn a little extra.

Yet we foreigners who work the parking lots are all proud people who have come from somewhere and have been something, another life so far away. We come to work; we need to, not only to send the money back home to our families, but to fill the time; we need the days to go fast so that we do not have the time to think, the time to remember, the time to cry.

The man who owns us, and his partner who comes late on Fridays as it is his holy day at the mosque, will not let us cry, yet we must be foreign and hurt. They only want the desperate who will work silently without papers. On the first Monday of every month, so early that the Pick n Pay trucks have not yet come to drop off the supplies, the white man comes to look us over, check us, fire us if there is another who seems better, more desperate. He turns away the locals, even when they too have become as despondent as we. He tells them that they shout their nonsense too loud, are lazy and too angry. He does not want trouble, does not want anyone to notice or to know the truth. He only picks us foreigners from the north where dictators have made war against their own people, for we are too forsaken to complain. We cannot run further south for there is nothing but the endless, ice-green waters.

The man from Congo walks past me; I smile and pretend I do not see the scars. But I do – they scream at me, mirroring my own pain that will not sleep within, that cannot heal; my heart begins to hurt. I put a hand up as if to hold it, calm it; but I know nothing works, not even prayers.

I had prayed to the ancestors, the sun, the moon, to every bird that flew above to lead me toward the right path to my son, to touch his face, hear his laughter. I prayed so hard that I should be so fortunate as to find him alive; then I prayed that I should find his body.

My prayers were heard; both prayers answered, but only half. My son was half alive with half a body; his face was gone, smashed in and his legs chopped off. He had tried to run away, my brave and daring son. He had tried to run back home, back to his family – back to his father who had not protected him, had not saved him.

It was three and a half days’ walk to the clinic; I carried him like a baby within my arms, looking down into that shattered face, trying to find just a small piece that was still him, that would remind me it was my son. Sometimes I would think – I would almost hope –that this was not my son, that my son was still out there, running; running nearby and laughing, on his way home.

That anguished yearning for it not to be true finally settled upon my shoulders, weighing more than the world, slowly silencing mine; even the birds quietened when I trudged close, so that all I could hear was their soft cooing call, Here they come! Here they come! Father and son! Father and son!

They would not allow me to lie to myself. They forced me to accept and identify that this piece of human hanging in my arms was my son; and that I loved him still.

At the clinic they shook their heads. They told me that they could patch his stumps, maybe a small part of his face, but not his head. They said his brain had died. They told me to sit with him, hold him until his body followed. I shook my head at them. I had promised my wife I would bring him home.

This promise I did keep.

I see the man from Congo move out the way as a truck from the electricity department cuts in front and takes the space he was presenting to the metallic-silver BMW convertible on foreign number plates; he apologises to the overweight, sunburnt man who has told us he is from Germany and comes down here when his country lies deep beneath the snow.

I see the disappointment pull at his scarred face; the men inside the truck will never give a cent, only strange, wide laughs that show their missing teeth. The coloureds come to buy their Cokes and chicken pies then sit inside their cars, eating and smoking, taking their time and our spaces as if making sure that we will never earn our keep.

I see them sitting there, heads rolling and bobbing like strange fish to music only they can hear, like they are moving to silent vibrations that shake the rolled-up windows, their faces slowly disappearing in the haze of smoke. But I see their fingers pointing, jeering at the man from Congo.

Sometimes I go over to him and offer to share my cigarette, though he knows that I am feeling a pity that only crushes him more. It is a terrible illness, this indignant suffering of shame and deep degradation. I too carry this sickness.

Yet now I do not go over. I do not want to face those people in the truck; I am too weak. I have the excuse that I have no cigarette today.

I carried my son home; his stumps bound tight against infection, his head swathed to hide the face that was no longer there. The few village children, too small to have been taken the day hell came tearing up our lives, came dancing out with joyful cries to greet me upon my safe return. One by one they stopped, then backed away, and ran, their cries becoming shrieks, warning screams as if danger was coming closer, stepping in amongst them.

The people came out to see, some brandishing sticks for protection, others shouting the fear that had never left, yet when they saw me they ran towards me, calling my name, yelling, shouting, begging me to answer them, if I had seen their son or knew where he was, or if he, too, looked dead like mine. Mothers tore at me, pulled my arms, tried to turn me to face them, but I just struggled forward, my eyes only upon the house in front, half-hidden by the papaya trees I had planted with my children.

The men tried to pull their wives away and held them gripped within their arms as sisters, aunts and mothers tried to calm their wails, tried to hush with the words, Ssh, sissy, hush now. Let him be, let him be. He carries sorrow in his arms.

I saw my wife step out into the commotion, saw those steps tread harder, faster, as she ran towards me, tears like storms washing away the past anguish, revealing such joy of our return. This stopped me still as it tore at my spirit, ripping at the promises I had already broken. She saw me halt, stand motionless; then she stopped too, taking in my pain, my grief, my shame of not bringing back all that I had promised. As the crowd moved away she saw what little I was carrying; only half of what I had vowed.

She shook, her wails lifting like a toxic song before she fell, another lost soul within my arms.

She lay with him upon the mat, a blanket wrapped around them, making them as one ruined lump upon the ground. She touched the face that was not there, stroked the arms that still were, but did not move. She hummed soft songs into his neck, but never spoke a word. Her voice had gone with all her hope, and it was pulling away her spirit. I sat beside them, watching, waiting for them both to go.

Only our son was strong enough to leave. She followed slowly behind the makeshift coffin I had tried to piece together as fine as my shaking hands would saw and hammer; the box of wood that was too short, kept mocking me, This is not your son! She moved along with the village’s wailing songs, but never said a word; she held silence to her breast, as though feeding a newborn child who was sucking the life out of her.

I spent the days alone, while she lay within the cool remoteness of a corner in our home. I sat between my children’s graves, watching the two mounds of dirt lessen with the rains. The mound upon my daughter that I, her father, had not been home to shape, her grave that I had not dug, her blue enamel mug and her white plate that I had not placed on top for the journey of her spirit – and yet it was I, her own father, who had put her in that grave.

I could not bear to look upon my son’s grave, so much smaller than his younger sister.

Throughout every day, I try so hard to put on the smiles, the cheerful good-mornings, the waves good-bye, showing indifference when they ignore me and drive away. I put on the smile as I wave them into the spaces I have found; I say a subtle thank you after pushing their trolley-loads of groceries – that I will never afford

– and pack each bag neatly into the car boots as they stand by, watching; I smile as I help them reverse with a wave of my hand that has never touched a steering wheel, so how would I know where to stand to help them when they reverse? Most will drive away, without a tip, without a thank you, without a wave or even a smile of acknowledgement. They pretend not to have seen me.

I see the old lady who walks thin and bent double, held up by her plump nurse, whose blue uniform stretches tight across her large backside, wobbling up and down like a happy song we like to hear. The old lady stops to talk to the Angolan with the limp; he is fortunate today for she is kind; she always has a smile, some coins and time for a little chat. She asks us how we are, how our day is and we can see the care within her bright, blue eyes that are always laughing. We like to hear her stories from the old days, long before the mansions and this shopping centre, when the whole area was a farm. She is a good lady for though she does not have the car or style of the other ladies here, she always gives us money. She helps lift this anger that shapes and hardens as the day draws out with these people who just come and go; stare, but never see.

We had been sleeping when the militia returned to loot and raze our village once more. Another army of broken children whose shouts were high and out of sync; their bodies struggling with the drugs and alcohol taken to help them brave the orders their Commanders bellowed. The screams, the chaos – I was numb to it all as I just sat and watched the world return into the hell I had hoped I would never have to witness again. Each strike, each beating and hurting, every crack of sjamboks, pounding pipes and poles, was nothing; I did not see their cruelty, nor the hate they tried to show but did not really have; only fear and pain, the terror tearing them apart within eyes that must have looked just like my son’s. Within each one I saw him, just a child, someone’s dearest son.

Even when they poured paraffin upon our house I could not move but sat choking in the smoke that took me in some strange embrace; all I could see was him, my son. It was my wife who pulled me free and dragged me to the safe coolness of the ant mound that lay beyond the fires, the screaming, the burning of what little was left of our forsaken lives.

When I woke up, shivering as if with fever, I saw my wife looking at me. It seemed she was waiting for me. I looked at her; the something that had died within those eyes was now charred, as if the fires had taken her soul, and only a weightless, white ash was left, waiting for the breeze to take it, lift it up and blow it far away.

She took my hand and held it tight, put her face down upon it; I felt her tears, so warm and wet and yet so cold. She lifted up my other hand from the dirt and brought my hands together, clasping them as she let her forehead fall upon them. For a long while she sat this way, rocking her body while her head hung motionless upon my hands as if so deep in prayer and already lost to God. I tried to lift one hand away; I wanted to place it upon her head, like an oath of comfort, a promise of protection, an assurance of love. She raised her face, looked at me then shook her head; it was as if she could no longer believe me, that the trust was gone, burnt and dead like everything else we once had shared.

Then she slowly got up, straightened her wrap around her disappearing waist, and walked away.

I fold the money, every month, with a letter so that I may send it home; but the envelope is then placed within a flattened shoebox under my mat, along with all the others. I write to her, almost every night, though sometimes now I am too tired, sometimes too afraid that it is all too late or that time is taking everything further away from me, even the memories of her beautiful, once smiling face. I fear the day when I may even forget how to write to her, for then I will have this boxful of letters, with still little hope of knowing what to do with it, for I do not know where to send it. I do not have a home; I do not know if I have a wife.

I hear a familiar hoot, and the real smile comes and lifts me. I turn and see him waving to me from the beige Mazda pick-up that brought him down here into safety after they came one night, drunk and dancing, drumming as they took his farm, burning down the barns where his tobacco hung curing. He, too, tries to smile; Yet he is still lucky, I think, though I do not tell him this; he looks at me – he knows. We speak some Shona, chitchat about this and that, the weather that was good to us back home, the money that now would have made us worthless millionaires, we share a laugh; then his wife returns with two bags, not very full. His hands dip into his pocket, but I shake my head; he knows I will not take it. He leaves, his children waving from the back of his truck with the rusting marks of axes that chased him far from home.

Everything has scars, I think as I wave back, sad and empty-handed.

A car’s resistant hooting jostles me, strips the thoughts from me. A lady in a white Mercedes shakes her head at me, shouting something I cannot hear behind her rolled-up windows. Then she flicks her wrist as if brushing me away, swatting flies. She revs her engine and reverses out the space I remember having found her some hours ago.

I have lost the only earnings of the day, and want to curse her sour money but curse myself instead as I try to wave politely and smile as if to wish her a pleasant day. I see her suddenly stop, her window rolling down in its special, automatic way, her hand throwing out some coins to someone else.

I see the man from Congo bend down and carefully pick up the pieces that have rolled to every side. I am saddened she did this to him – he is humiliated enough – but glad he has the money. I see him stand, so tall and yet so humbled, before he turns to me and walks over, his long strides strong and even.

He reaches out his arm, the money lying within his open palm; all small copper coins, less than a rand’s worth.

‘Here,’ he says quietly, ‘it is yours.’

I shake my head. He insists. I shrug my shoulders, then say foolishly, ‘We shall share it.’

He looks at me, bewildered, and then laughs.

I shake my head, laughing at myself, then laughing harder when I see how he laughs too. He slaps my back, like a friend. I touch his shoulder, thanking him for this gesture. Our eyes look at one another like eyes that see a close companion, someone with whom one has shared almost too much. Yet I know nothing of this man, nor he of me. We only share this wretched job, these uniforms, and the pain that rests deep inside each crack within us, within each scar.

I want to share more with him.

‘My son,’ I stammer, ‘they took away my son. They wanted to make him a soldier, but he was just a child.’

His eyes cloud over; the short, shared laughter fades like the light when overcome by fog. He nods.

‘I am crying sorry with you, my friend; it is not right for a father to lose his child.’

‘My daughter too,’ I breathe in sharply, feeling the pain anew. ‘They took her innocence, then her life.’

‘Friend,’ he says so softly I have to almost lean closer to hear, ‘I am the only one from my village who was left still breathing.’

I think it is his heart I feel beating so loud, so close.

‘I do not know why,’ he says. ‘I have asked God, now so many times, but I think He too has gone; is dead. I think they took Him too.’

He gently picks up my hand, places the coins within, then shakes it. With his other hand, he pats me on my shoulder.

‘We will share another cigarette,’ he whispers before he turns and goes.

I watch him walk, passing a dark green Range Rover and lifting up his hand to wave, turning his head slightly as he smiles in silence at the car that has already passed him without noticing. The car turns around at the end of the parking lane before turning up mine; it stops short beside me. A lady with her high-sat hair looks sharply at me through her open window, lifting her arms up, questioningly.

I shake my head, show her that sorry face which is the real me before I try to smile while looking around to find her a space to park. I hear her curse, ‘Useless!’

I want to turn to look at her, but I am too afraid, ashamed. Her words hit me hard in the stomach; maybe she is right; maybe I am useless because I am nothing; I could not even save my family. I take a deep breath, hoping to swallow the stings that now burn along with my timid complicity so that I may turn to look at her; when I do, she looks away, staring at something in front of her that is not there.

I feel my hands sweating, and wipe them carefully on my sides, hoping that nobody will notice, though I know that no one will.

Especially not her, the lady who does not feel comfortable with my being so close; the window rolls up; she locks her door. I feel shamed for standing so close, for being here, for simply being alive. Guilty that I am the one left, still standing when I should have protected my family but could not help, did not prevent their pain, nor even save them.

I look towards the lady and know that she will never smile at me, or even look; she tears my wounds still deeper. I want to rush at her, tear at her, slash her white face with my nails, let her taste my anger from the blood I draw, make her feel my pain. Instead I force myself to use the control my father had taught me as a child while trapping birds, Just be still and quiet, the right time will come.

I take a breath, readying my actor-self in this theatre of the parking lot; I smile wide at her, then wave as she drives off.