by Haden, Ros;
On the runway outside, a huge jet was taking off. The ground shuddered under my feet. I had to grab the pillar. It seemed any minute I might fall over. But maybe that was because my head felt so dizzy and confused.
I watched Jabu push the trolley-load through the outside door. That’s when he put on the cap.
And that’s when I realised the truth. It all made sense now. I knew all about that cap. It was the same cap that the chauffeurs wore as they sat waiting outside Top-Knot – while their wealthy bosses’ wives got weaves and tints and Indian head massages!
Let me tell you, I was angry. What a liar Jabu was! What a con artist! What a scumbag! Imagine! I was going to tell him exactly what I thought of him!
I stood near the parking bay while he loaded the designer luggage into the Jaguar boot. He saw me at last. A look of horror showed on his face. Like his worst nightmare had just come true.
“Zonke! Oh, no! Oh, Zonke, I am so sorry. I’m so ashamed. Can you ever forgive me?”
How could I forgive him? He had just destroyed all my hopes and dreams and plans.
“Zonke, please. Try to understand. I saw you at the exhibition and you were so lovely. I just fell in love. I had to do what I could to win your heart.”
“Even lie? Even pretend?”
“Yes, even lie. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. I don’t want to lose you.” He looked down at me under his cap. His beautiful eyes were clouded with sadness.
Well, I felt sad too! This was not a fairy tale of Cinderella and her Prince Charming. No! This was a story about a Cleaner-chick and a Chauffeur-dude. But hey! Maybe we could make our own fairy tale? Maybe we could still have a happily-ever-after ending? Jabu was really handsome, even if he wasn’t rich.
I wanted him to put his arms around. I wanted him to hold me like he had on the balcony of the Clifton house. Even if it wasn’t his house.
But Mr and Mrs Majola were waiting on the pavement. “Jili! Chop chop, man!” yelled Mr Majola. “I don’t pay you to chat up some dolly-bird you find on the street.”
Poor Jabu, having such a rude, unpleasant employer! At least Madame Le Champs always treated me with respect.
“I think I can forgive you,” I said.
“I’ll phone you, Zonke,” Jabu promised. He drove off quickly to where the rich boss waited with his beautiful young wife with her amazing clothes and her stunning designer bag.
For a second I felt jealous of Mrs Majola. Very jealous.
There’s a lovely big tree outside the Bishopscourt house where Lindi works. Jabu and I stood beside it, there on the pavement, with our arms around each other. He wasn’t wearing the expensive aftershave. Maybe that belonged to Mr Majola too. But I didn’t care. This was still the best place to be, safe in his embrace.
“I’m so glad you forgive me, Zonke. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you. We’ve only just met but already I know I can’t live without you! No ways! You’re the one!”
Wow! It was the most romantic thing any guy had ever said to me! I was thinking: Sorry, Auntie Sizi, but maybe you were wrong. Maybe love is worth more than money.”
The security guard called through the fence, “My brother, where is your fancy ride this morning? Angel-face shouldn’t waste her time with guys who must catch taxis. She deserves better.”
I laughed. I told the security guard to shush and to give us some privacy. But then Jabu said he wanted to go inside. He wanted to meet my sister and see her lovely house.
So I had to confess. “This isn’t my sister’s house. She just works here looking after the children.”
“You’re joking, right? You’re just teasing me, Zonke?”
“No, it’s the truth.”
Jabu looked puzzled. “But why does she do a job like that when she’s from a wealthy family? When she has a brain surgeon father? When you guys have a home in Constantia? It doesn’t make sense.”
So I had to confess some more. “Sorry, no brain surgeon father. No house in Constantia. And I’m not a drama student. I’m zee cleaner at zee French hair salon. Oui?” I was giggling, trying to copy my French boss-lady’s accent. But Jabu didn’t see the joke.
“You lied! How could you lie to me like that? How could you trick me?”
He sounded really angry. He stepped away and looked at me with cold, hard eyes. What was happening to my fairy tale? I tried to take his hand, but he snatched it away. “I’m outta here. Goodbye!”
“But why, Jabu?” My heart was breaking. “I forgave you. Now you have to forgive me.”
Jabu shook his head. He said, “My grandfather was a very wise man. And he told me: ‘You are a handsome boy, Jabu. You can get any girl you want. So you make sure you get a rich girl. The richer, the better. Then you will not have a hard life like I have had.’ So goodbye, Zonke. You aren’t the one.”
I watched Jabu walk away. What a scumbag! What a low down, rotten gold-digger!
But I don’t care. On Tuesday, Mrs Magaba is bringing her son Sipho to the salon. Just to meet me. And let me tell you, those Magabas are wealthy. Mega-wealthy. They own property here and in Gauteng. They own a game farm up in KwaZulu-Natal. Imagine!
So don’t you worry: Zis Cinderella will still catch zee rich and handsome Prince Charming. Oui! Oui! Oui!
Discussion questions
•This is a funny story but it has some serious messages that we can learn from it. What are some things we can learn from this story about what is important about money and love?
•What are some of the problems that arise when you lie or hide things about yourself?
About the author
Jenny Robson lives in Maun, Botswana, where she works as a music teacher. She has had several youth novels published, including Mellow Yellow (about a Cape Town street boy) and Praise Song (about an HIV-positive choir mistress who is brutally murdered).
Jenny has won both national and international acclaim.
She has been awarded the Sanlam Youth Literature Prize five times and was given the UNESCO Prize for Youth Literature in the Service of Tolerance for the novel Because Pula Means Rain. This is a novel about an albino teenager living in rural Botswana.
Jenny’s writing has always been inspired by her pupils. She says, “Working with young people is a joy. They keep me focused on what is important and honest, and most of all, exciting!” Her two sons, now adults themselves, inspire her too. She works hard to make them proud of her.
Advice for young writers
Don’t let anyone discourage you! If you feel the urge to write deep inside you, then give it all you have. It may take hard work and struggle, but it is worth it. There is so much fun and joy to be had along the way!
3
BEADS UNDER MY SHIRT
Sonwabiso Ngcowa
Nokuzola
Not so long ago I was seen as one of the prettiest girl in school. But that changed almost overnight. One morning I woke up with my face riddled with pimples that won’t go away.
My friends won’t let me use their creams any more. They won’t even hug me like they used to. Yesterday Zukiswa turned around to talk to her friend and her face brushed my cheek by accident. She pushed me away from her and I hurt my ankle trying to avoid tumbling down the stairs. I asked almost in tears, “What was that was for?”
“Just don’t touch me again!” she shouted.
When the bell rings, signalling the end of the school day, I run straight to my hiding place. The after-school talk about boys, and every other interesting thing, still goes on. It is just that I am left out now. In my hiding place I take out a tube of ointment from my pocket and rub it on my face. I was told at the clinic that it would work. I put it on every day in the same place. It’s like a ritual. But it isn’t working. My face is still covered in pimples.
My friends have turned from best friends to haters. When they walk in fron
t of me in the corridor they giggle and turn to point at me. I hate having them walk behind me, they trip me and squirt water, even juice, on my neck. When I wanted to know why, Busisiwe told me, “It is to get that stuff off your face.”
~•~
Lubabalo
I look for Nokuzola in the secluded spot behind the classroom where we always meet. But today other girls have occupied our spot – is she in this crowd? As I walk closer I realise that she will not be here. She is never in a crowd of girls any more. As I turn around thoughts run through my mind. Do I still want her as my girlfriend? Is she still the one I want to be with? Even I am suffering for the way her face looks now. My cricket team mates tease me and make hurtful comments to me about her. I look around the whole school but she is nowhere to be seen. She did not say anything about going home early to me.
I write a note.
“Nokuzola where were you at second break? I looked for you everywhere. You do know that I still want to be with you, hey? Lots of of love, Luba – your man.”
Once it has been folded up nicely I look to see that nobody is looking and slip it inside her locker. But I am not so sure if I want to be her ‘man’ any more.
Nokuzola
I hear the bell ring. Do I really have to go back for my English class? Sitting behind Mr Maqubela’s old Ford bakkie in the teacher’s parking lot feels safer. But if I wait a bit for the corridors to quieten down I won’t make it in time. I certainly do not want all my classmates looking at me as I walk into class late. My last experience was awful. But if I hurry in front of everyone to get to class first I might get hurt. Who knows what these bully girls will do to me this time?
So I make my way to the reception desk. My acting skills better not let me down. “I am not feeling well. Please could you phone my dad to come and pick me up?” I tell our secretary, Miss Sixubane, as I lean forward across the counter, holding my stomach.
“What is wrong with you, my darling? We can give you Panado. Are you sure you don’t want to lie down in the sick bay for a while?” She takes her glasses off and looks straight into my eyes.
“No, please, I need to go home,” I say becoming a little agitated. She can see this and she asks me for my dad’s number. I think of my mother and how she used to tell me school was fun. It used to be. But now the eight hours of my day at school are a time in hell with all the bullies around me. I spend this time tearing myself up inside. Do I have the strength to go back into class?
My dad arrives at the school. He has a big smile for me and the secretary. It is strange how he smiles even when I know he can sense things are not well. “Nokuzola, my child, you have not been yourself lately. Are your friends being nasty to you?” my dad asks as we drive off.
“Dad, my friends have been worse than nasty to me. I will do anything to get these pimples off my face,” I say to him. I am very emotional. I look out of the car window. We pass through beautiful neglected scenery. Nature has a way of healing itself. I wish I was the same.
He looks at me as he switches the car off at home. “I think we will need to go and see a sangoma.” There is silence after he has said this. I am not exactly sure about the idea. I have always thought of sangomas as dirty people who do not wash. People have said the weirdest things about them and what they use to heal people.
Mr Mamali
I need to prepare Nokuzola mentally for the journey to the sangoma. It is just that a father can do only so much. Now I need someone else to help her. She needs to be comfortable at school again. I wish I could be at school with her to protect her. I sense that she has very few, or no people to talk to, yet there are many good people around her, even at school.
When she gets home from school she runs to her room and stays there for a long time. “Nokuzola, are you okay in there?” I call standing with my ear to her door.
“Dad, I will be out in a sec,” she says. I can hear her voice breaking.
“Please do come out soon. I have prepared a nice sandwich for you.”
“Dad, I’m not hungry.” I can hear she is crying.
More than two hours pass. I contemplate going into her room but that would just be rude of me. She is a girl of 16. Sitting on the couch I try to read the Cape Times but I can’t concentrate. After a long time she comes out her room. Her eyes are red and I am overwhelmed by emotions. I want to help.
“Dad, we can go see the sangoma,” she says.
Nokuzola
On arriving in Khayelitsha, we find a queue outside the sangoma’s place. We take our shoes off and walk into this shack with poor lighting. There are different animal skins hanging on the walls. My dad tells me they were obtained legally. An elderly man sits on the floor. I think my father is rude because he doesn’t tell this man why we are here. A candle melts as it burns eagerly. White strokes of impepho smoke fill the room.
The old man starts his consultation with us. Mysteriously he knows why we are here. My father keeps saying, “Camagu, ooGatyeni – We agree”. The sangoma tells us I will be healed, and a slight smile lights up my face. The room suddenly becomes a home of hope. I reserve my excitement, remembering that he is not God. I think of the SRC candidacy elections coming up at school. I really want to run for a position on the SRC. But as I am now, nobody will vote for me.
But then the sangoma shocks me to near death when he says, “You have the calling.” He tells me what the dream means that I keep having, and that wakes me at night.
In the dream an old lady with a funny-looking hat and beads on her wrists is standing near a fire, singing for me in the bush. I have never been to the place in real life.
The old man tells me that it means that I will become a sangoma too.
I walk out with a traditional mixture to drink twice a day in my hand. I must accept the calling. Yuck! I think. Will I ever do that? I don’t see myself doing that, why me? What will people think of me? What will Lubabalo think of me?
Nokuzola
“Lubabalo, I need to talk to you,” I say to him nervously as we sit down on a grassy patch in the school grounds.
“Shoot, baby, I am all ears,” he says looking me straight in the eyes.
“I g … g … got the note you left in my locker,” I stutter.
“Come on, Nohlahla s’thandwa sam – Nohlahla, my love, I am sure that is not what you wanted to talk to me about,” he says gently stroking my hand.
“Okay, I went with my dad to see a sangoma.”
“Hold it, girlfriend, are you a witch now?” Lubabalo shouts and jumps up and moves away from me.
“No,” I plead, “please sit back down.” But I can see he is furious. His whole attitude to me has changed with one sentence.
“Nokuzola, why did you have to tell me that? You mean I have wasted my time on you for this long?” he says, violently grabbing his backpack and walking away.
“Buya Lubabalo, baby, please come back,” I call after him as he waves, signalling he does not want to hear any more from me. I don’t say anything. I don’t want him to shout at me so everyone can hear. I didn’t believe that things could get worse. But they have. Why did I tell him? But I can’t take the words back.
~•~
Lubabalo
I am not spending one more day with Nokuzola, and I am not listening to one more thing she has to say. How could she? No wonder her face has become ugly with pimples. My friends were right about her all along. I must move on. Find a new girlfriend. What a waste of time. I do not care how she must be feeling about me now. I have my life to live and she almost spoiled it for me. How can she believe in that rubbish? She deserves what has happened to her.
In the evening my cellphone lights up. There is an incoming call and it is Nokuzola. Okay, we will let that ring go. On her fourth attempt to reach me I ask my sister to pick up and pretend to be my new girlfriend. The phone is on loudspeaker.
“Luba’s p
hone, hello.”
“Hi, is Lubabalo around?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I am his girlfriend, Nokuzola.”
“What, since when? You’ve got a nerve to be calling him. He is my man.”
“Since when, dear?”
“It is none of your business. And don’t ‘dear’ me. I do not want you calling him again, do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, sisi. Now I would like to speak to him.”
“What don’t you understand? You have no right to speak to him again. Or do you want me and my girlfriends to come and find you?”
“Ndivile, sisi – I hear you, sisi. You don’t have to come find me.”
“Good, now put the phone down and don’t you ever call him again.”
Nokuzola
I sit on my bed crying. I think of life without Lubabalo. He has been holding my hand in the absence of my friends. I think of the price I am paying for having pimples, for being ugly, suddenly. Some girls have them when they go through puberty. No one judges them. Why me?
I pick up a small mirror and look at my face. If it is not beauty I see, at least I should be patiently accepted as a human being. I try to smile, but I do not know how to any more.
My father wants to have umcimbi wokuthwasa, to accept the calling to be a sangoma in the September school holidays. Is it something I will be able to pull through? I do not know.
On Friday afternoon sangomas arrive in a taxi. There is already singing as they get off the taxi outside our gate. The song is about ithongo lam, my dream about the ancestors. There are drums, dancing and singing. I watch in awe at the people dressed in beautiful, colourful outfits.
Lubabalo stands across the road and watches. I tell myself that he is only here to report back to the others at school. Who cares? I tell myself. I have a great number of people by my side today.
To my surprise our school caretaker, Buti Ncedile is here. I am put at ease by his presence. He does not usually drink on weekends with the other men in shebeens, but today he is drinking. It is beautiful to see him dance with his shoes off.