by Malla Nunn
“I’m sorry.” I lean toward Goodness and Lil Bit, who gnaws at her thumbnail. “It’s my fault we’re here.”
“Rubbish,” Goodness says. “The guards saw us playing pool through the window, and your grandfather let the cops take us. We’re here because of them, not because of you.”
“But . . .”
Goodness holds her hand up. Shut it, sister. Not one more word.
“You went to visit your granny, Amandla. That’s the beginning and the end of the story.” She digs her phone from her jacket pocket. “The real story is right here. The guard. The cops. The priest asking the guard to let us go and the guard telling him that Mr. Bollard wanted us arrested. I sent a copy to myself and to Lewis. For insurance.”
Annalisa and Sam gather around to form a circle that hides the phone from the police, who should have confiscated it during the arrest. Guess it didn’t occur to them that a black girl from Sugar Town had the latest iPhone stashed in her pocket. Goodness taps the screen. A video of our arrest plays, the guard standing aside for the police. The police crowding Annalisa and me in the garden and the big moment when I say, “I’m here to visit my grandmother!”
“Sweet,” Sam says.
“Hayibo!” Lil Bit says. “Let the girl visit her granny, my God . . .”
Even Annalisa laughs. It’s a black comedy.
“Quiet,” the white constable who arrested us says from his desk. “Or I’ll put you in the cells.”
“Sorry, constable.” Annalisa is sweet and calm. “We realize that visiting family with the wrong color relative is a serious offense. Forgive us?”
He sends her a death stare.
She smiles. It’s radiant.
In a flash, I see the young Annalisa: playful, confident, and unimpressed by authority. She stares back at the constable, the two of them locked in a silent battle for power. Annalisa’s smile fades, and her face takes on an expression of complete assurance. The policeman looks away.
I bet that was the exact expression she had on her face when she argued with Neville in his office. A look that says, When all this is done, I’ll be the one left standing.
Annalisa unbroken.
“Uh-oh.” Sam points to the station entrance. “Trouble incoming.”
We turn as one toward the front doors. A red-faced Uncle Julien talks to the female constable at the reception desk. He’s making a lot of noise, and then the officer holds up her hands at him in a stop motion.
“Sir!” she says loudly. “I will not allow you to see your son until you calm down.”
He goes silent. She lets him pass, and he makes a beeline for my mother.
“How dare you drag my son into one of your insane schemes?” he says in a furious whisper. “It’s not enough that our mother will be dead in weeks because of you and your township-trash daughter. You had to involve Sam.”
Annalisa stands. “Nice to see you again, Julien. What’s it been . . . fifteen years?” she says, and slaps him hard across the face. Bam. He jerks back in shock with his hand to his cheek. The cops tense and wait for the violence to escalate. When no more comes, they go back to what they were doing. Maybe they see this kind of stuff all the time?
“My daughter’s name is Amandla, and nobody, nobody, gets to call her trash. Same old Julien. You just repeat whatever Dad says.”
A muscle twitches in Uncle Julien’s jaw, and something inside him snaps. I see him go from stunned silence to burning anger in a split second. He grabs Annalisa by the shoulders and shakes her hard.
“And you still do whatever you like. No matter what it costs the people around you.” His fingers dig into her flesh. “When are you going to think about anyone but yourself?”
“And when will you learn to think for yourself?!” Annalisa punches him in the chest, and he lets go of her. He grabs her wrists and pins her arms to her side. She yells and kicks him in the shin. Both are panting now. The female constable jumps to her feet, ready to throw them both into the cells. Lil Bit and Goodness stand and place themselves between the policewoman and us. In Sugar Town, family fights are a private matter.
“Enough!” I wrap my arms around Annalisa’s waist and pull her backward. She resists.
“Coward.” She spits the word at Julien.
“Spoiled bitch,” he spits right back.
This is old stuff from their childhood, I think. Annalisa, the favorite child, and Julien, the overlooked prince. Sam wedges himself between the pair and lays a hand on his father’s arm, calm.
“Dad, Dad. Listen to me,” he says. “Nobody dragged me into anything. Amandla asked me to open the side gate so she could see Mayme, and I said yes.”
“That girl is banned from the property for a good reason.” Uncle Julien’s cheek glows red from the slap and wrestling with Annalisa. “She has no idea how to behave around a sick old woman . . . unplugging her machines, taking her up to the garden without a nurse or medicine.”
“Dad, that was me,” Sam says. “Mayme asked me to take her to the garden, and I did. She said she needed to get out of her room and into the sun.”
“Why would you do such a thing?” Uncle Julien asks. “It’s dangerous.”
“Because Mayme is sick, not dead,” I say. “She’d rather have a few short weeks alive and aware than six years tied to a machine and in a fog. Her words. Not mine.”
“My mother is a private person.” Uncle Julien is superior and all knowing. “She doesn’t share her emotions with strangers.”
Nice. I’ve been promoted from a piece of township trash to a lying piece of township trash. Mayme’s emotional radar is broken. Uncle Julien is not a sensitive soul. He is jealous and insecure. We can tussle over my place in the family tree for weeks, but nothing will change the fact that Annalisa was expected to take over the family business—not him. Even with my mother out of the competition for fifteen years, he has failed to prove his worth to his own father.
“You were warned to stay away from the house and you didn’t listen,” Uncle Julien continues, eager to put Annalisa and me back in our place. “It’s time the two of you learned there are legal consequences to your actions.”
“You’re going to press charges?” My mouth says the words, but my brain cannot believe that anyone, even Uncle Julien, would sink that low. Like, why?
“Yes,” Uncle says. “You have to take responsibility for—”
“Oh, please. Shut it, brah.” I cut him off. Hurt or not, he is an ass. “Even you don’t believe the crap you’re saying.”
I step forward, ready to explode. Annalisa holds me back. It’s like we’re a tag team.
“I’ll handle this,” she says with a dreamy smile, and please, God, do not let this be the start of a bizarre vision that demands we sing or dance or stay absolutely silent. Lil Bit and Goodness close the gap to stand on either side of me. Together we make a solid block of township girl power ready to throw down if that’s what it comes to.
Annalisa says, “I live in a tin shack on the edge of the sugarcane fields. No money. No swimming pool. No nothing. You have everything. Everything, but I still wouldn’t be you for all the gold in South Africa. Hanging around waiting for our father to die.”
Uncle Julien tries to say something, but the truth of Annalisa’s words silences him. He stares at the ground, breathing hard.
I learn something. Truth is a powerful weapon.
Then, as if called to life by a black magic spell, Neville appears. He walks past the front desk and into the office space and stops to shake hands with the police captain. Then he comes toward us. Annalisa takes a shaky breath to see him so close and in the flesh after so many years. Goose bumps prickle my arms. I’m scared for her. To be honest, though, Neville frightens the hell out of me, too.
“What are you doing here, Father?” Uncle Julien asks. “We agreed that I’d handle this.”
Neville ignores Julien and walks up to Mother. He says nothing. His face is impossible to read.
“Oh, Father . . .” Annalisa studies the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the thatch of white hair that was once black. “You’ve grown old.”
He stands absolutely still, his heartbeat pulsing softly under the skin of his neck. Is he guilty, sad, disappointed? Or does he feel nothing at all?
“You had everything,” he says. “And you threw it all away.”
“That’s not what happened.” Annalisa is tender, almost kind. “It was you who threw me away. Your only daughter. Poor Daddy. So sad.”
Neville’s face stays blank, but the telltale heartbeat at the side of his neck kicks hard and fast. He is not bulletproof or dead to his emotions. He just knows how to hide them really well.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. Your memory is so full of holes, it’s a wonder you remember your own name.”
Annalisa sways on her feet, hit hard by Neville’s words. I loop my arm around her waist, expecting her to melt down in the face of his meanness. Instead, she tilts her head to the side and studies him like a curious bird inspecting a bug.
“Did Mother tell you that I had trouble remembering?” she asks. “She wouldn’t have. After she found me in the country, I told her to keep our meetings a secret. She doesn’t trust you, and neither do I. How do you know about my memory?”
Excellent question. What’s the answer, old man?
Neville stares at Annalisa for a beat before he turns and walks away. He stops to talk to the captain again and then moves past the front desk and out into the sunshine.
The police captain comes over to us.
“Mr. Bollard has dropped the charges,” he says. “You’re all free to go.”
17
Being held by the police changes the way you see the world. The streets of Sugar Town, still as dirty and mean as when we left them, now glow in the bright light of freedom. Amen. Mrs. M holds Mayme’s seedling box to her chest like it’s a winning lottery ticket and invites us in for tea. Annalisa, who believes that neighbors are useful only in an emergency, surprisingly says yes. We sit on Mrs. M’s shallow porch and drink red bush tea as Blind Auntie’s knitting needles click through another scarf for the orphans, this one in a mix of bright orange and green.
“How many scarfs do you knit a year, Auntie?” I ask to cover Annalisa’s strained silence. She might be rethinking her decision to break the rules that keep us apart from the others, but I’m not leaving. Our being here feels good.
“I knit three scarfs a week . . . If I have the wool, I also knit sweaters and hats.” She pushes the plate of sugar biscuits across the table to Annalisa. “Eat, Miss Harden. A small woman needs meat on her bones to get through the winter.”
Mrs. M nods in agreement, and Annalisa throws me a look that says, And how does she know that I’m a small woman?
I shrug. “Auntie knows things . . . like how our kitchen tap is dripping and that Mr. Khoza with the twins can fix it. She can hear a pin drop in Zimbabwe, isn’t that right, Mrs. Mashanini?”
“True.” Mrs. M chuckles. “She’s blind, but she sees much.”
Annalisa nibbles a sugar biscuit. “ ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see,’ ” she says, and my jaw drops open to hear her quoting proverbs. “I was eighteen before I realized what the world really looked like. Before that, I only saw the pretty things that money could buy.”
Mrs. M sips tea and thinks on what Annalisa has said. I wonder if she ever had the luxury of viewing the world as pretty? She’s worked for over a decade in the emergency department of a busy hospital, so I seriously doubt it.
“And now that you live here in Sugar Town, Miss Harden, you can see all the ugly things that happen when there’s no money,” Mrs. M says. “Me? I’ll take the pretty things and the money!”
Annalisa laughs, and the moment passes in quiet understanding. Blind Auntie pours a second round of tea, and Mrs. M passes the sugar biscuits around. We live side by side in Sugar Town. We breathe the same dusty air and walk the same dusty streets, but till now, we hardly knew each other. From now on, though, we are connected. We have each other.
Later, Annalisa and I walk the streets, holding hands. We’re free to turn right, left, or go straight ahead, whatever we want. After our brief time in police custody, it feels good to walk in any direction we choose. If Neville had pressed charges, we’d be in a much darker space right now, with court dates and lawyers and the threat, for me and my friends, of doing time in a youth center hanging over us. Which reminds me . . .
“Why did Neville have us arrested and then set free?”
“He did it to show us that he has the power to lock the door or keep it open,” Annalisa says. “Classic Neville.”
Sounds right, but there’s more to his walkout. He’s hiding something. I don’t know what, exactly. The less we talk about Neville, the better, so I keep quiet. We pass Pastor Mbuli weeding the patch of balding lawn in front of the Christ Our Lord Is Risen! Gospel Hall in preparation for the Friday-morning prayer meeting. He waves, and I nod.
“Will I see you on Sunday, ladies?” Pastor Mbuli throws a flowering thistle onto a pile of winter weeds and brushes dirt from his hands. “Man and woman shall not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
“Sure thing, Father,” I say. This Sunday, I will warm the back pew of the gospel hall to pray for Mayme’s good health and because that is the excuse that I used to turn down Jacob Caluza’s initial invitation. He might have forgotten all about me and moved on to chasing some new girl, but the feeling inside my stomach says he will check up on my whereabouts.
Annalisa leads us in the direction of the Ox Tongue and Fresh Offal Sold Here butcher stand on the corner of Cedric Way. She’s moved up our weekly Sunday meal of four roast chicken legs to this evening, to celebrate our release from police custody. We reach the open-air meat market, the air thick with the smell of blood and innards, and join a long line of customers waiting for cheap cuts. William, the butcher, throws us a strange look while he chops a sheep’s head in half. I worry for his fingers. One slip of the cleaver and his butchering days are over.
We reach the front of the line. Annalisa examines the meat on offer and makes unhappy noises about the quality, the way she might in a store with four walls and a spotless tiled floor.
“Four chicken legs,” she orders in a brusque voice. “Only the best, William.”
“Of course, Miss Harden,” he says with a warm laugh that shakes his belly. William wraps the legs in brown paper and clears his throat. “Jacob tells me that the two of you are getting married and that he needs money to pay a bride price to your mother. Is this true, Amandla?”
I am stunned by Jacob’s lie and embarrassed by the hopeful expression on William’s face. He wants it to be true. He thinks that love and marriage will save Jacob. He believes that, young as I am, I will cure his brother.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “That’s all in his head. He asked me to a Sunday drinking session and I said no. There is no bride price.”
Under Zulu custom, the bridegroom pays the bride’s family an agreed sum for the honor of marrying their daughter. The price is paid in cows, cash, furniture, or new shoes for the bride’s family, whatever they agree on. There’s not one true word in the engagement story. Jacob must have lied to get money out of his brother. A common story. Ask around. Everyone knows somebody who’s been fooled into handing over cash to an addict who’s looking to get high.
“I’m a fool.” William shakes his head, disappointed. “Jacob lied about everything, and I never saw the two of you together. But still. I hoped he was finally on the right path. A man needs a wife and children to make his life complete. Forgive me, Amandla. I should have known . . . a nice girl like you . . .”
“Did you give him the bride p
rice?”
“I gave him a five-hundred-rand deposit and promised to pay the rest after I’d talked to you and Miss Harden.” His shoulders slump. “He sounded lovestruck, and I was desperate to believe him.”
William’s sadness is deep and real, but I can’t leave him with false hope. He has to know that he is right. Jacob and I will never happen.
“Sorry. I’m not the right woman for Jacob.” I pay him in worn notes and take the chicken legs. Annalisa glares at me. I know that look. Questions are coming. I pull her away from the stand before she starts the interrogation.
Never fight in public is one of her rules. I let go of her arm and walk away from the listening ears of the people waiting in line. She catches up and leans close to me.
“Are you running around with that useless man, Amandla? Tell me the truth.”
Suddenly, the two of us fighting on the street is no problem.
“How long have you known me?” I say back. We look normal as we walk down Cedric Way, but we are actually yelling in whispers out of the sides of our mouths. “You really think I’d hook up with a drug addict?”
“Well, did you encourage him?” she asks, and it’s hard to keep my voice low and under control.
“If by encouraging, you mean bumping into him on the corner and walking down the street while he and his friends followed Lil Bit and me, then yes, I’m guilty. The only way to stop encouraging these guys is to stop breathing. Stop walking to school. Stop talking to my friends.” I shake my head, disappointed by her question. “I’m not responsible for Jacob or any other man in Sugar Town.”
Annalisa strokes my arm, and we both cool down. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re right. It’s just . . . what makes Jacob think that he’s good enough for you?”
We’ve lived in Sugar Town my entire life, but mother is still blind to reality.