Tinsel time tears
Widow Boniswa Langa doesn’t want your champagne and sparkles – give her a detective kit for Christmas.
This is the first Christmas in the Langa house since husband and father Siseko’s (Hlomla Dandala) disappearance, murder and funeral on Thursday 23 August. Just a few short months into mourning, his widow Boniswa (Lusanda Mbane) is feeling the holiday blues. “She actually just wishes that Christmas would pass without the fuss,” says Lusanda. “She wishes there was no Christmas. It’s a deep contrast to where she was last year this time when she had the whole family around the table. This year she just feels like everything has gone wrong. She lost Siseko and she feels that she’s lost her son – that’s how she views Chumani (Ayanda Daweti) coming out as gay really. And then her daughter Xolile (Sivenathi Mabuya) got married to Mthunzi (Bongile Mantsai), so she feels as if she has semi-lost her daughter too. She has suffered loss after loss in 2018 and if she could have her way, she would just sit alone and mope.” But even with Chumani away and just Xolile and Mthunzi at the dinner table on Monday 24 December, Boniswa will be too busy snooping to sulk.
SUSPICIOUS CHRISTMAS
“Xolile seems to think that she can make Boniswa feel better by saying, ‘Oh well, at least there has been a wedding! And, of course, for Boniswa that just makes it worse,” Lusanda says laughing. “Mthunzi comes with her, this so- called son-in-law that she has now gained. She is going to keep her guard around him. She knows that he is not as transparent, that he is not what he is making himself out to be.” As she looks at Mthunzi across the dinner table, Lusanda reveals that Boniswa will be thinking, “‘Who are you?’ That is what she is obsessing about. But she hasn’t quite been able to put her finger on just what is really wrong about him. Everything that comes out of Mthunzi’s mouth and every move that he is making will be heavily scrutinised by Boniswa. Every look she gives him is one of suspicion.” That sounds about right for dinner with the new in-law.
THE SIN-IN-LAW
“There are Christmas trees and there are Christmas presents,” says Lusanda. “But Christmas trees for Boniswa are a hiding place that she uses to stalk people to find out what they’re up to. She is picking up that everything is not as it should be between two people who have just come back from a honeymoon. And then even outside of that, she knows that there’s something going on with Mthunzi. He has meetings right through Christmas. She finds that suspicious. Where would someone go who has a wife of just two weeks? She is not convinced.” And
while there are numerous looks of love exchanged between the couple, Lusanda warns that “everything is designed to be seen a certain way. Usually they are exchanged for Boniswa’s sake when Mthunzi is trying to make his mother-in-law feel as though everything is hunky dory”.
PICTURES OF YOU
If Boniswa could give her family one gift, Lusanda reveals that it would be “memories of their father. She would probably give them mementoes, personal things from Siseko – a reminder that they were once a good, firm family with good values, because now everything seems to have slipped through their hands”. Siseko will be lovingly remembered in the Langa household over the holidays though. “A photo of Siseko does come up just before Christmas. And you will hear Xolile’s memories about what used to happen when it was Christmas time, like how her dad used to lift her up to place the last decoration on the top of the tree. Siseko does feature a lot. And for Boniswa, those are painful reminders that life goes on. She is the only who seems to have kept still in the moment. So it’s quite painful.”
HAPPY NEW YEAR
With the new year coming on Tuesday 1 January, Lusanda considers her wishes for Boniswa in 2019. “Hah! I suppose it is too early to find love? I don’t know. Boniswa is obsessed with the lives of her children because she has nothing else to occupy her time and mind. It’s difficult for her to understand that her children are adults in their own right. I don’t even know if she knows what she wants at this stage because she is still overwhelmed by grief – but I think in 2019 that what would be good for her is a distraction, maybe in the form of love.”