A. M. K

I need a weekend from my weekends. I morph into a lawyer during work hours, some of the work hours, because its been two years and I still need maternity leave hours, and I morph into mum for the rest of the day. On weekends I am fully mum- most of the time, [although sometimes I long for girlfriend mode]. Other times I am a half creature, both of something at the same time. But because I am fully mum on the weekend especially on Sundays, Monday is usually a severe jolt, a somersault into a different sea and it takes me time to find my rhythm in those waves.

I think all mothers need a weekend from the weekend. It is the change. It changes everything and it feels like losing yourself to someone else’s control- the whims, tantrums, the tebi-bubbies, the tsusibrush and when they are unwell, to the darkness they imprint on half your soul. Someone else might say, that stagnation is more terrifying than change. It depends on who is moving, and what they are trying to hold on to. For me, it depends on possession and the need to control, it depends on the smell of the familiar and the comfort of aged layers of things I keep for years, which I have touched and felt over again and whose particles lie against my skin in a pattern, as those which have lain there before, over and over again.

But if you are to wake up early on a Monday morning, definitely, sleep early. Do not indulge your need for me-time with a replay of a love triangle or matchmaking show in the middle of the night. Do not undo the child’s crib and put him in an adult bed which he can slide out of at any time so that stretched out in the middle of your bed, his face angelic, you shall be leaning on the edge of a fall or with a foot pressing against your cheek.

However, if you really would like to wake up early they say, plan an enticing breakfast to lure you out of your bedcovers at 35 degrees on a 27 degree morning when the inevitable soothing shushing Monday rain patters. Since it is not recommended to eat Lays crisps or Cerelac [if you are an adult and milk tends to show up on your skin long after you last had it] for breakfast, millet porridge will do, without sugar of course, and today, even without honey.

But, definitely, do not buy that katogo from the nearby restaurant again. The smell of burnt beans from a charred saucepan is one of those smells that lingers in your mind, long after the event, serving as a constant reminder as to why you should never get burnt beans from a place whose kitchen you have never seen. It is probably like the kitchen of many restaurants, with fat cockroaches and sweat flying, leftovers re-placed onto the next customer’s plate as bread and side dishes. You should in particular never go to the kitchen of a restaurant that was last busy in its opening week.

I know for certain, that you should never eat a cheese omelet from a hotel in a small German town where overt racism is nothing to be ashamed of. The waiter will wink at the kitchen chefs, saying, This is for the black girl over there. And you will get yellow slime, which on second thought will not look like cheese alone. And you will treat it, how you treat overwhelming things for which you are not prepared, try to normalise them or forget. But it will always creep up, and you will allow your mind to conceive that it might not have been cheese.

Twice last week, I finished my breakfast before I got to work, and I got to work hungry and without breakfast. But today I fell into a deep sleep, like that time I fell asleep for about an hour, abruptly, in a dark dreamless sleep in the full glare of the sun. Though, this time, it was with many anecdotes, different people, I talking, them talking, under the shadow of a morning greyness, the grey that launched this brilliant year- the year after the pandemic- the year after the year-. I had been holding my mouth so tightly in my sleep that the fine line on my right cheek was creased deeply. Yet, even after all that sleep, I forgot my porridge.

Last night was foggy. She had jumped out of bed that morning, her hairstyle still brushed and firmly lying upon her head and it made her furious. He had rolled out of the bed next to her but today he had not asked her why she too was up early. Then he went to read for his exam and she could vaguely remember him murmuring, about two hours before about if she could take the baby to his bed. And even in her sleep she had made a mental note to keep calm about it because there was little room for feminism in marriage.

It would come out later though at the cocktail evening he would plan for her, calling her while she sat in the boardroom of her workplace, filling out her desire to be wanted, to be seen, to be important- working on a project she had just happened to be dropped into that morning. He said it as if he had planned it all along. Are you free for lunch? What about later on this evening?

It always came out, -the frustration, even though it was never supposed to. When she did think about it, he seemed to enjoy it. She had asked him once, how a man like him who found excitement in danger, risk and the forbidden had decided on marriage. Things were not exciting until the steam was a halo above her head and she had calloused her tongue from chastising him.

That morning, before he rolled out, she had whispered, loud enough for him to hear.

Why do you like doing things in reverse? You couldn’t wait for me when I wanted you to and now you have me and you are waiting for me. He didn’t respond. He never did. He was cunning in that way, just like his eyes. It was both a learned defense and a compliment to his nature. It left her brewing while he waited patiently for her to burst. But things were changing because she was studying him too.

It didn’t help that his dark black skin was smooth and gleaming at lunch time, his square intelligent face passionately butchered by her words. And, on a whim, he had taken her to a place of her choice which she would never have chosen had she not been annoyed. It was the type of place she usually reserved for her father’s- where should we go for dinner?, because no one looked at the price when he was paying. But this time, she didn’t feel sorry for him, she didn’t care about being the considerate wife.

“I’m learning how to spend money now. Why don’t you just give me the money and I go and eat it? I don’t care anymore. You go work hard. I’ll go work hard. And we can take care of our child,” she stung. It was the last thing she wanted and yet she threw at him often.

His eyes were the last thing she saw before she disappeared. That was how she wanted it. He lived for danger and excitement. He insisted she take the dry martini. Another one maybe?.. No! she replied. The people at the table behind them had stopped what they were doing. She could tell they were listening in on their conversation and by the sudden soundlessness from their conversation, they were highly entertained.

You can’t take half of me and leave the other. If you want me to be the guy I used to be, then I can’t be the guy you want me to be now-

Is that a threat? she interjected.

You know how I used to be. And I changed for you…

I changed you? she exclaimed.

I’m trying to be kind and listen to you. But now if I tell you anything, you refuse. I hate that. I hate it. Fine, you are not taking that green juice. Have a drink. And then-

And then what? I’m not that 19 year old girl anymore. I do what I want.

Fine. Then go.

She shifted her legs under the table and her legs brushed against him. It irritated her that his legs were too close.

I just – I’m going through a lot. But you won’t understand. Let’s go to the parking lot. This is not the place. These people can hear us.

No. Tell me, what are you going through. I planned for us to come here and chill and spend time together. He was using her words against her.

How was your day, she asked.

It was the refresh button. He understood this.

She followed behind him, the cocktail making everything woozy and mildly blurry. She loved that restaurant. He knew she did. The Indian man who handed him the keys stole a few glances at her. Finally he took a picture of his I.D and promised to send the password to the WIFI. He directed this last statement at her, as if she was only here because of the WIFI. She wanted to tell him, that she was not here to be murdered. But what else could he think? She sat there quietly on the dining room chair, with no eye contact, hiding behind the expensive glasses his insurance had bought her, desperately wishing she could be found.

This place is fancy, she said, when the door had been closed. She had already began to wonder if she had wound herself up too tightly earlier before.

It is, isn’t it?

The fog had waned by morning. He jumped out of bed uncharacteristically when she said she was already on her way out.

I just wanted to say Good morning, he said, holding her closely.

She checked his face. Why?

And that I love you… And, I forgot to tell you that I was leaving for work today.

It was always like that with him.

Author: A. M. K

Monday

A foggy night