MELAMINA THE QUEEN

CHAPTER 64

We laid my princess to rest this morning and even though my heart is in shambles, I have made peace with her death. I need her to cross over peacefully and I don’t want my heavy heart to stop her from joining the ancestral world the right way. When my kids were told they were going to shave their heads, Nomandla had a lot of questions. She didn’t understand the reason and Milisuthando nearly gave us a struggle. That boy is a special case.

Our family members are still here but most of the guests have left. The Mkhize family left an hour ago. The Cele family is still here. I am just sitting at the lounge drinking tea with my grandmother. I know I haven’t visited her in a long time, but her presence has brought some comfort in me. After all this has died down, I will take my kids and visit her, even if it’s for a week. I see Nompilo passing on the corridor and I call out her name. She stops and then enters the room. I stand up and head to her.

“I haven’t seen much of you around. Is everything okay?” I ask and she smiles but her eyes are all over the place. She is avoiding eye contact. I touch her arm and she flinches. I frown and pull her to the nearest bathroom. I pull up her sleeves and she backs away but not before I see the purple marks on her skin. I gasp. “Nompilo, what is going on?”

“Futhy, I am not selfish. You are going through a lot, right now. You can’t focus your attention on other things. This is nothing.” She answers quickly. Too quickly.
“Nompilo, who did this to you? Tell me now. Who hit you?” she doesn’t answer. I huff. “You are the Chief’s wife. A fuckin queen. No one has the right to lay their hands on you. Nobody would get close enough to touch you without...wait. what?” my mind puts two and two together. “No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare.”

She sighs. “I am leaving him, Futhy. None of this needs to be a big deal. I am coming back home. I know my destiny now. I am supposed to be by my brother’s side and help him lead. Everything will be okay now.”
I scoff. “You are the first princess, Nompilo. Do you understand that? No one touches you and gets away with this. Your brothers need to know about this and they need to know now.” I take her hand and pull her out. I know they are sitting in the terrace. So I just lead us there. She is trying to talk me out of things but I won’t hear none of it. Kuhle frowns when he sees me and he quickly stands up.

“Is everything okay, mkami?” he asks and I shake my head. I turn to Nompilo.
“Please talk before i say something.” I plead and she sighs, looking down. I think she is not going to say something but she surprises me when she mutters something.
“Here goes nothing.” She slowly unbuttons her cardigan and takes it off. She is wearing a Strapless dress. Her arms and back are covered in scars and bruises. My God.

“Who did this? Who fuckin did this to you?” Sbo asks, already on his feet.
“He did this, didn’t he?” Mkhululi asks, more like confirming. Nompilo looks down and nods. Mkhululi chuckles angrily. “I am going to kill him. I am going to murder him.” He paces up and down.
“Bafo, what are you talking about? Who would do this to my sister? Who would dare us like this?” Kuhle asks looking at Mkhululi.
“Who else would have the nerve to touch the Chief’s wife?” Sbo asks, running his hands on his head. “He deserves to die. We should have buried him instead of Princess Owenkosi. He should die.”

“You can’t kill him, Sbo. He is the father of my kids. Just leave him. Our ancestors will deal with him.” Nompilo says. She puts her cardigan back on.
“Those scars aren’t new, sis Nompilo. If our ancestors were going to deal with him, wouldn’t they had done it already?” Muzikhona asks. I am with him on that. “We don’t care if he is the Chief or not. He is going to pay for what he has done. Death would be too merciful.” I, too, want him to pay, but since when did Muzikhona become hard-core like his brothers? He is supposed to be the cheese boy prince from overseas.

“We need to approach this carefully, but at the end of the day, the fucked up Chief will pay for messing with the first princess. I always hated his ugly face and his big nose. Now I know why.” Muziwabo comments and everyone is holding it in until Kuhle breaks into laughter and we all just laugh. Did he have to mention the chief’s bad looks? He is not ugly, but any man who abuses his partner is a gorilla to me. Yeah, I said it. So I am with Muziwabo on this one.

“Thank you for this. I just want to get out of that marriage and I want what’s best for my kids. His death would hurt them so bad. Mmeli knows the kind of man his father is, but I don’t think he would like to see him dead. Can I trust you guys to handle this with care?” Nompilo pleads. As a mother, I understand her consent. Hell, Zweli wants to have a relationship with mother’s family even though his mother indirectly killed someone.

“He doesn’t deserve any care of kindness, but we will approach this respectfully. Right after we beat up his ass.” Sbo responds and his brothers chant a ‘YES’. Zulu men. You can never change them.
“You wanna sit, mkami? You shouldn’t be standing for this long.” Simingezwi says looking at me while imitating Kuhle and they all just laugh at him while Kuhle looks like he wants to slap him.

“Makoti, you just lost a child. You shouldn’t be standing like that and laughing like nothing happened. You should be indoors and humble at a time like this.” Aunt Wenzile remarks as she passes and I just want to smash her with a huge hammer. I know, more than anyone, that I lost a child and that’s not something i will forget in my afterlife. Reminding me about it and telling me how to behave might just depress me even more.

Kuhle comes to stand in front of me and cups my face. “I will chase them all out of our house and we will only be left with our kids who won’t judge us on anything. You are queen of this house and this whole nation. No one is supposed to tell you how to behave or how to react on things. Not even me. So fuck her, okay?” I giggle and he wipes the tears that are falling down my cheeks. When I think I have dried out my tears tank, my eyes always prove me wrong. “Simi was right about you needing to sit down though. So how about we go get something to eat together and after that, we will go see our mlungu at the hospital, okay?” i nod. “I haven’t seen you eat anything since morning. I am concerned. You are losing weight mkami. Right now, I am not sure if I am looking at my wife or Connie Ferguson.”

I chuckle and nudge his arm. “Uyaphapha.” He laughs and pulls me inside the house. I hope Nompilo is not going to hate me for abandoning her. He dishes up food in a plate and we sit down on the barstools. He starts feeding me like a toddler and I just laugh.
“Ndosi should see how I treat his princess. Maybe he will stop giving me a hard time every now and then.”

I laugh. “My dad loves you. He is just showing you tough love. If he treated you like how your father treats me, then you might lose respect for him and think he is your friend.”
He rolls his eyes. “Even if we were to go to Vegas with him and get wasted, I could never mistake him as a friend. Not that man, MaCele.” I nearly choke on my food. One, because I have never seen my dad wasted. I mean he does drink but we have never seen him drunk. Does he ever get drunk? Fuck. What a weird revelation.
“Have you ever seen yours drunk?”

He squints his eyes and nods, laughing in the process. “You know how strong umqombothi is, especially after it has spent a night at the alter. So a few years ago, we had a small goat ceremony and all the men spent the night in the ancestral hut. Next evening, we had traditional food and drank umqombothi. I think he went too hard on it because he started calling for MaDubazane after the second cup. They had a fight the previous day and he kept on saying ‘forgive me, sphalaphala Sam. Please sphalaphala.’ She is the only wife he calls ‘sphalaphala’ so we knew it was her. Luckily it was a close family affair or else he would have trended.” He is on a mission to make me laugh. My God, I can’t imagine the former king drunk. Yoh. I don’t even notice that I am done with the food until he hands me a glass of juice. “Let’s go see our princess, and take the kids. I am sure they would love to see her.”

I smile and not. They haven’t really seen Sihlophekazi. They only saw a photo that Kuhle showed them. I ask one of the helpers to get the kids and a few minutes later, they crowd the kitchen. If Lee was an absent mother, I would adopt Sthulikazi because she is always hanging around with my kids, but they are cousins, so i guess it’s inevitable. Then there is Zama. Yoh, I love Noma’s child. I really do, but God. I don’t want her anywhere near Milisuthando. She is in her devil’s daughter phase, the terrible two, and judging by how she behaves, it will only get worse from here on. Imagine leaving her with Mili for 10 minutes. I am sure they will manage to burn down the house. I tell them about our short night trip and they seem excited about it. We load them up in the cars and drive to the hospital. We get there and head straight to the NICU. We find a doctor busy checking on Sihlophekazi. She has her own private ward in this section. He smiles when he sees us.

“Your Majesties. And Your Royal Highnesses.” He bows a little.
I step closer and look at my baby. “Why are you checking her this late at night? Is there something wrong?”
He clears his throat. “We were a bit worried about her being exposed to the morning air in her condition, so we are monitoring her very closely so that if she develops an infection or disease, we will be able to see it early and treat it as soon as possible.”
“Did you find anything?” Kuhle asks.

“Nothing for now, My King. But we will be checking her every after two hours just to make sure she is in the clear. And regarding her health condition, it has improved since two days ago. If we continue to keep a close watch on her, she might be out of here in a month. Depending on her progress. You might even be able to touch her next week for longer hours without worrying about risks and so on.” That’s good news to me.

“Thank you, doctor.” I show my appreciation and he smiles before heading out. I step closer to Sihlophekazi’s incubator and touch it. The kids come closer to see her.
“She is so tiny.” That’s Manelisi.
“And so white.” That’s Zobuhle.
“She looks like a white version of Nomandla.” Mahle says. And that gets Nomandla’s attention.

“The baby looks like me? Can I see? Can I see?” She shouts and raises her arms so that someone can take her. Her father picks her up and she gets a closer look. She frowns. “She is ugly, though.” We just laugh at her. Infants are naturally ugly, but not my Sihlophekazi. I guess Nomandla doesn’t like a bit of competition.
“You are just jealous, Nono.” Milisuthando says. What the fuck does he know about jealousy? And where did the nickname Nono come from? Him and his shenanigans. We just laugh at him. That’s all you can do where Mili is concerned.

This, right here, is my heart in human forms. God might have sent so many trials and tribulations our way, but our marriage was strong enough to withstand that. Our family knows Kuhle as an emotional person, but he is the strongest man I know. Our marriage is standing still because of his courage, his bravery, his unconditional love and support. His willingness to give me the benefit of the doubt always and his big heart that tolerates my bullshit all the time. If I were him, I would have long given up on him. Just kidding. Love like this only comes once in a life time.

We have gained a lot in life, but we have lost a lot. Our biggest lost being a whole human being that we brought to this earth. It’s still early days but I know our love is strong enough to go through this. Maybe in four years, we will be celebrating our ten year anniversary. Maybe not. But what I do know is that he is the hill I am willing to die on. Him and my children. God has been good to me and I am grateful.

---THE END---