Shakti Pillay reviews Morabo Morojele's 'Three Egg Dilemma'

Three Egg Dilemma

Morabo Morojele, Jacana Media

**** (4 stars)

Morabo Morojele’s How We Buried Puso was released 17 years ago and was received to critical acclaim. Now his latest Three Egg Dilemma is heading in the same direction — on the trajectory to becoming a modern African classic. Three Egg Dilemma threads the veils of the supernatural with intervals of philosophy and deep conversations doused with melancholy and spreadings of hope.

Morojele invites the reader into the circumstance of EG — an acronym of the English meaning of his name in Sesotho, Mohlala, translating to example. In many instances, EG personifies his name, exemplifying what life in a fictional dilapidated village on the outskirts of Lesotho looks like — overcome with poverty, militant torment and “inveterate hustlers”.

The novel opens at a rendezvous between EG and two companions. What starts out as an evening of blurry highs laced with the heat of possibility turns into a trip to the local tavern. The serene drive is eerily interrupted by a translucent ghoulish figure standing in the road, jerking the car to a fearful halt. The spirit slides into the back seat next to EG, its putrid smell decaying the air as it moves, its yellowed eyes piercing into the faces of the passengers. As instantly as it appears, it vanishes — its presence lingering. Though the friends never discuss this aberration, the ghost — an avid visitor — becomes a patterned meditation; an intermission for EG where he allows the wandering and settling of the spirit to pull him back into himself, grounding him to his own reality.

Throughout the narrative, Morojele juxtaposes nature and the supernatural, violence and tenderness, life and death; extremes that mirror the rhythm of society’s gravity. Amid the latitudes of surviving and being a fundamental part of the community, EG is tethered to a web of colourful characters, including Mada, who owns the central meeting spot: the bar; Sticks, the village thief, Bible verse-reader and Bob Marley enthusiast — in that order; Latrine, named after his ablutions; and Eyebrows, for his dominating facial feature.

Walking home from the tavern one night, EG stumbles across Puleng, a twenty-something woman, alone and bereft. She pleads with him for a night of shelter and food, to which he obliges. As days turn into weeks and weeks into months, Puleng and thirty-something EG begin a ritual of cohabitation; starting off on eggshells and slowly unfurling into a fondness neither one of them speaks into existence. On their rhythm of rising and leaving for the day, their mundane dialogue warps into notions of faith and theory, becoming a currency to dream; a shared realm, untouched, solely theirs.

Whether it's in relation to the sliver of horizon meeting the ocean’s edge, the membrane of sunset ombres, counting your days by the number of eggs “in your basket” or the penance of fertility that undulates, eggs is a theme that, despite its titular vanity, leaves its greater indulgence for the reader to crack open due to Morojele's delicate writing.

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