Love in Black and White: The Triumph of Love Over Prejudice and Taboo by Mark Mathabane, Gail Mathabane Page B
Authors: Mark Mathabane, Gail Mathabane
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asked.
I love you very much,” she said. but I also love my family. My heart tells me I should move in with you. It also tells me that I have to confront my family soon, for the sake of our relationship.”
For three weeks we were happy and secure in our small apartment.
Several times Gail attempted to write a letter to her parents informing them of our relationship but she always ended by tearing them up.
Though I believed in our relationship, this was her battle: If she believed we were meant for each other, she would muster the courage to do it, and face the consequences.
Finally Gail decided to tell her parents in person. At Thanksgiving she flew home to Minneapolis. When she returned to Staten Island, I could tell something was wrong. Her mood had changed.
She resumed searching for her own apartment and announced she would move out January first.
Gail’s parents flew to New York City for Christmas, but I timed my annual visit to Hilton Head Island, where I visited Stan Smith and his wife, Margie, so that I would be out of town when her parents arrived.
I was not ready to meet them. Their opposition to our relationship was clear. And Gail had chosen to heed their advice. I saw no future for the two of us as long as she did what was expected of her, rather than what she truly felt and believed.
Gail shared the third floor of a brownstone building in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student named Michal, a petite woman from Chicago who owned a smug and corpulent cat called Charles. Though Gail was in an adjacent borough, she seemed hundreds of miles away, wrapped up in her job, in freelance articles, in new female friends. I could feel us drifting apart.
That dreaded feeling was confirmed when I met Gail’s mother, Debbie Ernsberger. She had flown to New York in March for a solo visit. Not long after we were introduced, Gail, her mother, and I were riding the subway. In the jostling crowd, Gail’s mother leaned toward me and asked, “So, what is your immigration status?”
The directness of her inquiry put me on guard. Why did she want to know? Had her husband, Gail’s father, requested that she ask this?
Suddenly I felt the sole purpose for Debbie’s visit was to investigate the nature of our relationship. The question made me suspect that Gail’s mother, and particularly her father, regarded me with great suspicion. They seemed afraid some African was out to marry their daughter so he could get himself a green card.
“My application for a work permit is still being processed by the I.N.S” I said.
“Do you think you’ll get it?” Gail’s mother asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a long shot. They have stringent requirements now. I’m hopeful though. It’s my only alternative.”
Gail’s mother looked at me and said, “I wish you luck.”
0Thanks.”
For days after Gail’s mother returned to Minneapolis I was downcast.
My relationship with Gail appeared to have no future. Rather than pretend that her parents would approve, especially after that train conversation with her mother, I started preparing for the worst.
I stopped calling Gail.
it’s better that it end now, I thought to myself. Why continue a relationship in the face such opposition? it wouldn’t be fair to ask Gail to choose betweenyou and herfamilr In the midst of my brooding over the possibility and consequences of Gail and I breaking up, I learned that two of my brothersin-law, the husbands of my sisters Florah and Maria, had been murdered by a policeman one afternoon as they sat outside our shack in Alexandra. A motive for the dastardly killings was never found. I became distraught. I thought of my little niece Angeline and nephew Given, still in diapers. How would my widowed sisters cope alone?
Who would protect and support their little ones? I blamed myself.
Perhaps, I thought, my activism against apartheid had led to their untimely deaths. Just a week ago I had published in
I love you very much,” she said. but I also love my family. My heart tells me I should move in with you. It also tells me that I have to confront my family soon, for the sake of our relationship.”
For three weeks we were happy and secure in our small apartment.
Several times Gail attempted to write a letter to her parents informing them of our relationship but she always ended by tearing them up.
Though I believed in our relationship, this was her battle: If she believed we were meant for each other, she would muster the courage to do it, and face the consequences.
Finally Gail decided to tell her parents in person. At Thanksgiving she flew home to Minneapolis. When she returned to Staten Island, I could tell something was wrong. Her mood had changed.
She resumed searching for her own apartment and announced she would move out January first.
Gail’s parents flew to New York City for Christmas, but I timed my annual visit to Hilton Head Island, where I visited Stan Smith and his wife, Margie, so that I would be out of town when her parents arrived.
I was not ready to meet them. Their opposition to our relationship was clear. And Gail had chosen to heed their advice. I saw no future for the two of us as long as she did what was expected of her, rather than what she truly felt and believed.
Gail shared the third floor of a brownstone building in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student named Michal, a petite woman from Chicago who owned a smug and corpulent cat called Charles. Though Gail was in an adjacent borough, she seemed hundreds of miles away, wrapped up in her job, in freelance articles, in new female friends. I could feel us drifting apart.
That dreaded feeling was confirmed when I met Gail’s mother, Debbie Ernsberger. She had flown to New York in March for a solo visit. Not long after we were introduced, Gail, her mother, and I were riding the subway. In the jostling crowd, Gail’s mother leaned toward me and asked, “So, what is your immigration status?”
The directness of her inquiry put me on guard. Why did she want to know? Had her husband, Gail’s father, requested that she ask this?
Suddenly I felt the sole purpose for Debbie’s visit was to investigate the nature of our relationship. The question made me suspect that Gail’s mother, and particularly her father, regarded me with great suspicion. They seemed afraid some African was out to marry their daughter so he could get himself a green card.
“My application for a work permit is still being processed by the I.N.S” I said.
“Do you think you’ll get it?” Gail’s mother asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a long shot. They have stringent requirements now. I’m hopeful though. It’s my only alternative.”
Gail’s mother looked at me and said, “I wish you luck.”
0Thanks.”
For days after Gail’s mother returned to Minneapolis I was downcast.
My relationship with Gail appeared to have no future. Rather than pretend that her parents would approve, especially after that train conversation with her mother, I started preparing for the worst.
I stopped calling Gail.
it’s better that it end now, I thought to myself. Why continue a relationship in the face such opposition? it wouldn’t be fair to ask Gail to choose betweenyou and herfamilr In the midst of my brooding over the possibility and consequences of Gail and I breaking up, I learned that two of my brothersin-law, the husbands of my sisters Florah and Maria, had been murdered by a policeman one afternoon as they sat outside our shack in Alexandra. A motive for the dastardly killings was never found. I became distraught. I thought of my little niece Angeline and nephew Given, still in diapers. How would my widowed sisters cope alone?
Who would protect and support their little ones? I blamed myself.
Perhaps, I thought, my activism against apartheid had led to their untimely deaths. Just a week ago I had published in
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