YOU ARE THE DAUGHTER

                                                         Rayda Jacobs

          Aqeena entered the room silently. It had been a sewing room until three hours ago. A room she had spent many happy hours in listening to the comforting buzz of the old Pfaff with the treadle as her mother hummed along to a Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin tune. As a child, she would play with her dolls and crayons and colouring books near the window in the splash of sun, nibbling on biscuits or bon bons. When she was older, her mother would sit with her on the little couch with the clutter of patterns and materials, and they would talk about husbands and children, and marriages that worked. Now it was a room of the dead. Cleared of furniture, fabrics, photographs and history, except for the metal katel placed in the middle of the room, and a small side table holding the burial cloth.

            Her aunts were in the room already, listening to the toekamandie’s instructions.  They had been with Aqeena for the roggel – her mother’s last breath – and was now part of the final wash.

            “We don’t talk about what we see in here,” the toekamandie said, “not even with family.  What we see, stays in this room.”

            Aqeena stood at the head of the katel and looked down at her mother’s grey hair, the ends creeping out under the sheet.  Did hair straighten in death, she wondered?  Her mother’s had always had a wave.  Now, it lay flat and metallic against stainless steel.

            “Listen, my girl, it’s in that cupboard over there.  In the box.”

            “What, mom?”