WIDE ASLEEP

FROM CRADLE

Madeline finally managed to push herself off the bed and got up, tidied her bed and brushed her hair. They had living-in help but her mother quite rightly, insisted that the girls should still have chores and take care of their own rooms. “The help” was treated as one of the family (well, almost). Madeleine’s parents were comfortable middle class, not wealthy by any stretch of imagination; well, not when compared to “reality TV stars”, landed gentry or even business or oil magnates. Middle class was stamped all over their existence: clothing, company they kept even the cars they drove; everything was designed to melt in: comfortable but not showing off. Even the help they employed was not presented ostentatiously and were dressed as the rest of the family, one could not immediately be able to say them apart from family members.

***

Sometimes, the young women employed by their family as living-in nannies and housekeepers were impoverished distant family members who came to the city in search of jobs or a husband. Most of them stayed until getting married or moving on their own volition, finding other jobs. It was a nice win-win. Madeline’s parents liked to view themselves as benefactors and although, the women were payed on top of their lodging and keep, it came to less what childcare and cleaning combined would have cost them otherwise. Also, the women came from rural backgrounds and with no further education so, getting any other opportunity to move up in the world would have been next to impossible for them, otherwise.

The last lady that resided with them had stayed for five years and was getting ready to leave them. ‘Auntie’ as they simply called her out of respect was a childless woman in her fifties whose husband, after the years of toil that he drained out of her body, had simply moved her out of their house and moved in his new, younger lover instead. The divorce laws were not favourable to women in their part of the world and, Aunty was battling a long legal (and mainly futile) battle to recover what she considered to be her fair share of their joint household plus a maintenance. With full support of Madeleine’s family and their considerable connections, Auntie still stood slim chances, sadly.

Rural communities functioned as a society within the society. On the outside, the laws and living standards of the country looked enviable. The ‘invisible’ reins however, were still ruling and constraining the young from the rural settings, women especially.

Traditionally, the women were expected to bring dowry and move in with their husbands’ families until such day would come that the newly weds were ready to build the foundations for a new house in their husbands’ village, on his family land and start a separate household but still within the same, self sufficient commune. The houses were self-build, fluidly (no plans nor planning permit): the whole family would join in to help with building work, the bride included although it was built to husband’s aspirations and Oatriarch’s fancy. ‘The Bride’ would also be expected to take over the household, commonly a multi generational family unit. The chores included pretty much anything the matriarch could think of burdening her newest daughter in-law with in other to ‘put her in her place ASAP: cooking, laundry for all of the extended family members, sometimes as many as nine of them or more, washing feet of all male family members as a sign of respect and submissiveness, even hard labour as mixing the cement or digging up the foundations if needed, work on land, taking care of the live stock, …. Once she produced children, her workload would have been shared amongst all daughters in-law that still lived in the house. The villages were self sufficient so there would be chickens, sheep, goats, fruit and vegetables gardens, grain, crop fields etc All in all, a lot of work for a very little reward especially when taken into account that very few villages had indoor plumbing. Women were neither cherished nor respected, in general.

No wonder each and every woman or girl that got a placement in Madeleine’s family household considered herself very lucky. Back home, they were often a subject of envy by other eligible women for winning “the city lottery”. Life away from underdeveloped rural communities that nested hidden deep within the public face of the country, had its allure to them; definitely.

Now, that ‘Auntie’ had sorted her life somewhat and was getting ready ready to leave them. At this point, Kassia, Madeleine’s mother decided that at almost nine, Tamera did not need a nanny any more. Moreover, Madeleine being almost seventeen and Zania almost twenty, the girls were expected to start participating in house chores more, as well as help more with babysitting their youngest sister so, there was not going to be any more living-in help at home, from now on. Madeleine had just shrugged off the news as she was pretty much doing all of it already, anyway; especially when it came to Tamera. Madeleine enjoyed spending time with her little sister; making paper dolls and paper clothes so that Tamera and her friends can play with them. They all had Barbies off course, but having that unique hand made dolls, exactly as they wanted it, made Madeleine a very popular and very sought after babysitter.

Zania, on the other hand did not want anything to do with neither the chores nor babysitting and had denounced washing up and emptying the kitchen bin as ‘disgusting, degrading and beneath her’. Their parents were at the end of their wits with Zania’s tantrums, something that puzzled Madeleine to no end: as far as she was concerned, her older sister was the embodiment of a naughty child from as long as she could remember: empowered and entitled. Many a time she suffered terribly at Zania’s hands and yet, for some inexplicable reason, their parents never protected their middle daughter nor have punished Zania for not just bullying, but downright endangering Madeleine.

Their mother often retold the “anegdote” in which barely four year old Zania, snack into newborn baby’s room (AKA Madeleine’s room) and used their mother’s distraction by a lengthy phone call to take the baby out of the bassinet, undress her and pull her out on the snow covered balcony where she was left until the mother got suspicious about suddenly cuddly and affectionate but otherwise stand-offish toddler’s behaviour. Judging by the weather described, based on her date of birth, this would have made Madeleine between two and six months old at the time. Luckily, she was recovered in time, before she froze to death or suffered from irreversible hypothermia. Yet, this was somehow not a warning sign to their parents! Not to mention all the abuse Madeleine could remember and some she could not, but bore noticeable dents on her scull, present to this day, some on her forehead. It almost beggars belief that anyone, let alone a toddler could be so cruel and yet, even more so that the parents were unwilling to protect their younger daughter from the abuse by her older sister. Madeleine often wondered whether it was simply due to the fact that she, herself committed a gross offence of daring to be born a girl, a second daughter at that. Like, the first child OK; it was acceptable that she was a girl, but the second one just HAD to be a son, surely.

They still had a lady who came once a week for a thorough house clean however, day to day housekeeping was left to the family. Kassia always bought fresh produce from the market and cooked herself, from scratch; she prided herself on her cooking which was Driza’s favourite. He was very particular about his request for the quality of the meals served and the way family ate: all dinners were had together as a family and as many other meals as possible, especially at weekends. Dinners were almost a silver service every time: sitting down around the properly laid table. The meal would start with bone broth, vegetable or chicken soup - stock simmered for hours, made from scratch every time. No ready meals, no take always, no artificial additives. The second course would consist of protein (meat, fish or chicken), side of carbohydrates, cooked vegetables side and salad. Mostly no desert as Kassia was religiously watching her figure and avoiding the temptation at all costs. Table manners were of utmost importance to Driza: freshly washed hands, proper use of utensils, not leaving the table until meal was finished, no talking with full mouth, polite conversations only, no debates or arguments, elbows tucked in, white tablecloth, white napkins on knees, white plates, clear glass for drinks exclusively. Probably, being a doctor, hygiene was a top priority to Driza. Also, he did not trust other people’s personal hygiene therefore he did not like for other people to touch his food. ‘People simply do not wash their hands enough or properly’, he kept reiterating to his household.

If there was no help available, or if they went to visit their families the vacancy would be filled by an ‘outsider’, temporarily. Kassia did not trust them and there were numerous incidents. More than one used to steal and not ever childrens’ piggy banks were spared. The other one would sneak in her boyfriend for ‘make out session’ whenever Driza and Kassia were not around. They considered this to be not just immoral but downright dangerous, exposing their young girls to an unknown and unvetted male in unsafe, unsupervised environment and possibly opening them to abuse. She was fired on the spot when discovered. Madeline was too young to remember all of them.

One of the temp agency staff however, she recalled vividly as that one infamously gave them all head lice - Amal. Yuk!

***

Another lady Madeleine remembered (fondly this time) was Angela. Angela had no kids of her own and grew to love Madeleine, getting very attached to the little girl and, it was reciprocated. Sometimes, Madeleine would sneak into Angela’s bed for comfort, if she woken up in the middle of the night and couldn’t settle back on her own, scared by a scary dream, memory or a dark shadow. Or sometimes, simply by her older sister pinching little Madeleine’s nose to see how long it would take for her to wake up. It is very fair to assess that as a small child, Madeleine was under a lot of stress. The stress triggered Trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder): a self inflicted bald patch on top of her head. TRICHOTILLOMANIA !!! Again, her parents were not concerned that a five year old, polite and obedient, seemingly perfectly happy girl would sport such a stigma and heeded no attention to it. After all, Zania bit her nails down to bloody stumps and deformed her teeth in the process, at the age of just nine; kids do that apparently. Willfull ignorance! When the time came for Angela to leave Madeline’s house to find work abroad, the young woman left lots of presents for then five year old Madeleine and begged not to be forgotten by her. Kassia was jealous of both their closeness and the fact that the same warmth was not expressed by Angela towards Zania. Not only that, Angela openly expressed her fear in front of both of their parents that Zania was eventually going to kill Madeleine with the level of bullying and torment she focused on her younger sibling, pleading in tears with the parents and beseaging them with requests to protect their own, younger daughter. Angela’s warnings fell on deaf ears; dismissed by Kassia who claimed that Angela was biased towards Madeleine because Madeleine was apparently too little to take notice of Angela’s birthmark and she would kiss her but Zania was already too big to notice it so, she wouldn’t and would push Angela away with open disgust. Angela’s congenital, blood red “port-wine stain” was imprinted across half of her face and was a source of grief to a young woman from a primitive, rural up bringing. She was treated as “unmarriageable” back home, tragically. To a five year old Madeleine, at the time it was a thing of pure curiosity and she often admired it, tracing the edges of it on Angela’s face, with her little fingers, caressing young woman who so tenderly cradled the young child in her arms. Angela’s birthmark reminded Madeleine of an antique parchment map, from illustration in fairy tale books and the cartoons that she enjoyed so much: even at such young age, she was already an avid reader and fluent in two alphabets. The simple act of childish, romantic and innocent acceptance stole a very hurt woman’s heart forever. She became a Guardian Angel, but it was not to last, sadly. Madeleine has often wondered what would have happened had Angela was allowed to stay and act as her protector.

***

One of the parting gifts that Madeleine got from Angela on that day was a pair of bright red tights with a wonderful, delicate knitted, lacy pattern all over. Madeline wore them with pride and cherished them for the whole month before the sad end that befallen upon them: unfortunately, they were unceremoniously thrown on a compost heap that same summer. The incident remained forever etched in Madeleine’s memory for all the wrong reasons.

Whilst accompanying her grandmother to her grandparents’ estate in the country for summer holiday visit, Madeleine slipped through the hole in squat outdoor toilet and fell into the septic waste bellow, up to her knees. She lost her one of her red wooden clogs but the worse, in her mind was yet to come. Madeleine’s grandmother with utter disgust, whilst trying to suppress gagging reflex, peeled the girl’s favourite red tights right off Madeleine’s little legs and discarded them with the rest of the muck, disregarding girl’s sobs. There was no saving the fancy, lacy red tights, unfortunately.

***

Madeleine thought of those tights, for some reason, pulling items out her laundry basket to sort out the washing when a familiar racket started, this time from the kitchen. Zania was up to something again. It became a regular occurrence: since Driza was not at home, Zania felt emboldened to engage into confrontation with their mother and quickly, as usual it turned into a screaming match with doors being aggressively slammed, by Zania. She was one very angry, emotionally immature and volatile adolescent. Although, turning 21 soon, she was showing emotional and social maturity of an immature 12 year old, and an angry one at that. Seemingly a ‘rebel without a cause’, her brow was always furrowed and eyebrows forever scrunched together in Angry Birds fashion, resembling Red from the cartoon. The family referred to her as Genghis Khan, when she was not around. Even her resting stance was militant: legs akimbo and forearms firmly crossed on her chest, putting out “do not approach” vibe. There was a distinct lack of femininity in her poise and walk: more resembling a sailor on shore, clattering and waving her arms in stride.