by J. L. Powers
My own hair is just little tufts of curls sprouting all over my head like new plants shooting up through soil. We have the extensions, but nobody has time to plait my hair.
“Beauty, will you plait my hair today?” I ask. Maybe Little Man will notice if I come to school tomorrow with a new weave. Hair is important to him—it’s taken him four years to grow his dreads.
“Of course,” she says. Then she adds, as if she knows so much more than I do, “Men really like it when you have plaits in your hair. You watch, Khosi, this boy you like will tell you just what he thinks when you come to school tomorrow.”
“I hope so.”
After we eat, we crowd into the sitting room watching Generations, our favorite soapie. I sit on a chair and Beauty begins to work on my hair, tugging and pulling at each tuft to add the extensions. My scalp is already beginning to itch and she hasn’t even finished yet.
Halfway through Generations, the electric storm begins. First the TV crackles and the picture dies. Then the entire room lights up in black and white contrast, so that when I look at the faces of my family sitting opposite me, they are pale, pasty white, like they no longer belong to the living.
Zi squeals and runs to hide in the bedroom. The two younger girls, Beauty’s little sisters, join her. Gogo’s hands tremble as she totters to the back room, where the three girls are huddled together under the covers, on the bed Zi shares with Gogo. I used to do the same thing when I was Zi’s age.
“What is this, a freak lightning storm?” Mama asks.
“I don’t think it’s safe for you to leave just yet,” she tells Auntie.
“No, I’ll wait until this passes,” Auntie answers.
Mama steps over to the door and opens it. “Khosi.” She gestures for me to join her. “Come watch this thing, God having a temper tantrum.”
Because it’s Mama, I swallow my fear. We stand together, watching as lightning strikes the ground like the tongue of an angry woman.
“Even though it’s dangerous, there’s something beautiful about it,” I say. Even the fact that a witch can control lightning, using it to kill somebody, doesn’t change how beautiful it is, the way it lights up the whole world in a sea of black and white light.
“It’s like the ocean,” Mama agrees. “Powerful.”
I shiver. Mama puts her arm around my shoulder.
Auntie’s voice echoes from the back bedroom, where she’s busy chiding the little girls. “How can you be frightened by such a little thing as this? A lightning storm? And Mama, you should be ashamed, encouraging it!”
“She sounds just like you, Mama,” I say.
“Neither one of us wants our daughters to be crippled by superstition.”
“Do you really think Gogo is so superstitious?” I ask, knowing what her answer will be, wondering what she would think if she knew that, every night, I leave food and drink out for the ancestors.
This is what I think: Both Gogo and Mama are right, and they’re also both wrong. Science is important. So are the old ways. We can explain some things through science but not everything. But because Gogo and Mama are so stubborn, it makes it really difficult to navigate a path between them, to be my own person, to assert myself. I don’t want to offend either one of them. No, I want them both to be pleased with the person I become. That’s the difficulty of my life.
But Mama surprises me. “Sometimes, even I believe things that aren’t true.” She laughs a little. “So perhaps I shouldn’t judge your grandmother so harshly. Everybody has their own little superstition, heh, Khosi?”
It’s not exactly a concession, but it’s more than she’s ever offered before.
We turn back to the open door, watching the play of light and dark dancing along the horizon.
It’s so rare that we can be together like this, Mama and me. I stand there as long as she does, watching the sky light up with blue and white streaks of light before we close the door, then turn back to Beauty, who’s waiting to finish plaiting my hair.
In my dreams that night, a bolt of lightning creeps into the house, sneaking in through the crack in the door. It knows my name, spoken by the witch. It skulks down the hallway, feeling from side to side, searching… searching…searching for me.
I wake up, bathed in sweat and unable to fall back to sleep. So I get up early to fix Mama a good breakfast before she leaves for Greytown.
While Mama bathes, I cook eggs and toast bread, placing them under a plate to keep warm. I even fry a small piece of fish I saved just for her sending-away breakfast.
But when I open the back door to empty the rubbish bin, there’s a sudden fluttering of black wings, gigantic wings, wings as tall as I am. A man-sized bird. The wings flutter and flash, silver like lightning, quickly disappearing around the corner.
I run around the house, flinging rubbish to the side in my haste, but the bird is long gone, leaving only a streak of something like smoke lingering in the air.
It’s nothing. That’s what I tell myself as I pick up rubbish and place it back in the bin. It’s nothing. At least, that’s what Mama would say. She would laugh. “Sho, it is just a bird, Khosi. You’re scared of a little thing like that? A bird?”
And I would have to admit, “It wasn’t just any old bird. It was the impundulu.” I’d feel stupid telling Mama that. She’d insist it couldn’t be true. I can hear her already, in my head. “Khosi, really! There’s no such thing as a lightning bird. It’s just something old people talk about. A folk tale, nothing more.”
And what would she say if I persisted and said, “But what if that’s what I saw, Mama? What if a witch put a curse on one of us and that bird is the sign?”
“Na! and who would want to harm us, Khosi? What have we ever done to create enemies?” That’s what she would say, adding, “Even if people try to do something against you, the only power they have over you is your fear.”
I’ve heard her say something like that many times.
So I keep telling myself, It’s nothing, just like Mama would say. It’s just my imagination. It’s nothing except…it’s not just the lightning bird. It’s my dreams. And it’s the witch—her threat, and the fact that she must have gotten some of my skin under her fingernails so she could send the impundulu to come for me, to kidnap or to kill me.
Still, I don’t tell Mama when she joins me for breakfast. Or Gogo when she wakes up. I keep the lightning bird a secret.
Why? Because I hope I’m right. I hope it’s nothing.
When Mama leaves, even though it’s still dark, only 4 o’clock in the morning, our neighbor lady is waiting outside. Why isn’t she inside, drinking tea and having breakfast? Or sleeping? What is she doing outside, staring at our house as if she wishes evil on us?
Though Mama greets her pleasantly, “Good morning, Mama,” Inkosikazi Dudu says nothing in response. She just shakes her fist at Mama’s back when she steps outside the gate.
“Why did she do that?” I ask.
“She got angry when I told her there was very little money in her husband’s insurance settlement,” Mama says. She sighs. “Perhaps she is blaming me instead of her husband.”
When I go back inside, I peek over at Inkosikazi Dudu’s house. She is standing just inside, the door cracked open, watching as Mama walks down the road to the khumbi stop.
PART TWO
THE CROCODILE
CHAPTER NINE
GROWN-UP GIRL
After Mama leaves, she stays in Greytown for too many weeks. She says she’s just too busy to come home, but she used to come home every weekend, no matter how much work she had.
Zi misses Mama so much. Because she won’t let anybody but Mama touch her hair, it starts to look ratty. I beg her, “Please, Zi, please let me comb your hair.”
“No,” she yells and runs under the bed to hide.
“Maybe we should shave her head,” I suggest.
“Elizabeth will return soon, I’m sure,” Gogo replies.
“Maybe Mama can talk to Inkosikaz
i Dudu when she returns,” I say. Ever since Mama left, Inkosikazi Dudu has spent a lot of time in her yard, brooding over her broom and staring at our house. She won’t speak to us about it, though. In fact, she isn’t speaking to us at all, even when we greet her.
Gogo’s face crinkles up in worry as soon as I mention the next-door neighbor. She’s so short and small, it makes me want to protect her. “I don’t know what is her problem.”
Anger like Inkosikazi Dudu’s is always something to fear. When people get too angry, who knows what they’re willing to do, even to go so far as to make a bargain with the devil.
“I am sure Inkosikazi Dudu will forget about it just now,” I say. But I don’t think I reassure either of us. So I try joking: “It’s just that the tokoloshe has been whispering lies in her ear all night long.”
Zi’s head pops out from under the bed. “What’s the tokoloshe?” she asks.
Gogo and I look at each other. “You mean I haven’t told you any tales of the tokoloshe?” Gogo says. “I will have to fix that at bedtime some night.”
“The tokoloshe is a tiny tiny man,” I tell her. “So tiny, he fits in the palm of your hand. He’s hairy all over and he looks like he’s half-baboon, half-man. He can turn himself into any shape he wants, though, and he’s very mischievous. He likes to play mean jokes on humans.”
“Have you seen the tokoloshe?” Zi asks.
“Once, when I was very young, I saw the tokoloshe,” Gogo says. “The missionaries in my village went to England and when they returned, they brought a ball for the children to play games. I was playing with a friend and she kicked the ball into the grass. I walked out into the tall grass, looking for that ball, and I couldn’t find it anywhere! I walked as far as the grass went until I reached a pond. At last, I found it in the water. I started to pick it up and that’s when I saw…the ball had eyes.”
“Wow,” Zi breathes.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I screamed and ran away. I knew it was the tokoloshe because we had just been talking about him. And I never did find the ball in the tall grass. Mr. Johnson, the missionary, was very angry with me that I had lost it. I did some work for him to pay for it.”
“What about you, Khosi?” Zi asks.
“I’ve never seen the tokoloshe,” I say, “but my friends Thandi and Sibu were talking about the tokoloshe at school one day when, out of nowhere, came flying a note tied to an arrow. They read the note, and you want to know what it said?”
Zi nods. Then she shakes her head no. Then she nods again. Her eyes are wide.
I drop my voice to a whisper. “It said, ‘Stop talking about me.’”
Zi squeals and scrambles under the bed again.
“Oh, Zi,” I say. “Don’t be frightened. You can come out.”
“The tokoloshe isn’t going to hurt you,” Gogo wheedles.
“It might play mean tricks on me,” Zi says, her voice muffled.
“The tokoloshe only plays mean tricks on older people,” I say. “Teenagers and adults.”
“Unamanga,” she says.
“It is not polite to tell somebody they are lying, Zinhle Zulu,” I tell her in exasperation, getting down on my knees, trying to coax her to come out. But Zi won’t move. I go into the kitchen to cook supper and, finally, when she’s hungry, she creeps out and asks for something to eat.
One night, something happens that makes all of us forget about missing Mama. As I’m getting ready for bed, I notice blood on my underpants. “Gogo! Gogo!” I shout, both scared and excited all at once, the way you feel on the first day of school, the way I feel when Little Man grins at me and I wonder, Does he like me, too?
All the other girls at school—well, Thandi—started bleeding years ago. I’m so old, fourteen already, and I’ve been waiting and waiting, wondering if it would ever happen. I was even starting to get worried, so much that Gogo had started to talk about going to the sangoma to see if something was blocking the blood.
Still, Gogo doesn’t share my excitement. She shakes her head and instant tears roll down her wrinkled black cheeks. “I’m not ready for you to grow up,” she says.
Gogo cries so easily. Sometimes, it frustrates me.
“Nothing’s going to change,” I reassure her, even though we both know my words are meaningless. I’m an intombi now—a young woman, old enough to get married and have children. Everything will be different after this. Everything!
In fact, Zi’s the one who says it. “Are you going to get a boyfriend now?” she asks.
Gogo must see the excitement in my eyes. “The tree is bent while it is young,” she says. “Once a tree has grown, you can’t change it.”
“Gogo, I’m not a child anymore,” I say. “My tree is already straight and tall.”
Gogo laughs, but she looks sad. “Don’t be so anxious to grow up, Khosi. There is still so much for you to learn.”
“I guess I won’t be running out and getting a boyfriend tomorrow then,” I tell Zi and we both giggle.
“No, you better not,” Gogo agrees, “or your mama will hide you away in some convent.”
The next morning, all my excitement ebbs away when I get dressed in my school uniform. A green and white checkered skirt, a white button up shirt, a green vest, and long green knee-high socks. How could anybody feel grown up when they have to put these things on every day?
I don’t look like an intombi. I look just like Zi. A little girl. How depressing. Even though he said he liked my new weave, is that what Little Man sees when he looks at me?
Gogo stands in the doorway of the bedroom, watching as we get dressed. “You’re both growing up so fast,” she sighs. “But when I look at you, I still see the moment you were born.”
“What was I like as a baby, Gogo?” Zi asks.
“Sho! you came out squalling and red-faced, Zinhle. Right from the moment you were born, you demanded everything. I knew then you’d make your way in the world.”
“And Khosi?” she asks.
“Eh-heh, Khosi, her birth was very strange.” Gogo sits on the bed and adjusts her headscarf, her voice changing to her storyteller voice, the one she uses when she’s telling us a folktale or describing what life was like in the old days, during apartheid. “Khosi didn’t cry at all, not a single noise, not like any baby I’ve ever seen born before. It took you several days to find your voice. Even then, I told Elizabeth you had left your voice with the ancestors so you could be a voice from that world in this one.”
I open my mouth to respond but no sound comes out. Why hasn’t she ever told me this part of the story before? Something about the way she says it stirs a well of excitement deep inside me. I don’t know what to do so I just let the giddiness spill out into a joke. “Next thing you know, Gogo, you’ll say I should become a sangoma.”
“Maybe you should,” she answers seriously. “I am sure Babamkhulu must watch out for you in a special way.”
Like Mama would ever let me study to be a sangoma! Anyway, I only wish I had the wisdom of the old ones locked up inside me. Even at school, my marks aren’t as high as they should be—except in science. That’s the one subject I really love.
I’m that glad I can tell Thandi I’m an intombi now, but I should have predicted her response. “Now you can get your own sugar daddy!” she says.
“Ew! I don’t want an old man thinking he can touch me just because he buys me things.”
“It’s not like that,” she says. “Kissing’s nice. You’ll see just how nice it can be.”
“Not with an old man, it’s not,” I say. “Besides, you know what kissing leads to.”
“Trouble,” she giggles, agreeing.
Then she brings up a new subject. “Little Man’s brother passed matric last year and graduated. He just found a job. They’re slaughtering a goat to thank the ancestors for his good luck and everybody is invited to their house for a big party next month. Are you coming?”
“Mama won’t let me,” I say.
“
You have to come,” she insists. “Little Man said he really wants you to be there.”
“Izzit?” Maybe I’m not like other girls but I think in this day and age, it’s safer to like someone my own age. And maybe he didn’t really say that, but I’m that hungry to believe her, a chicken pecking in the dirt for invisible seeds. So finally I say, “Okay, okay, I’ll come. But what will I tell my mother?”
“Just tell her you’re coming to my house to study,” Thandi says.
Something twists deep in my stomach. “I’ve never lied to her before.”
Thandi shrugs it off. “You’ll have so much fun, you won’t care. I’m telling you, we’ll be the V.I.P.s of the party. There will be so many good-looking guys there.”
I’m only interested in one good-looking guy, I think.
“It’s nice to be young and pretty,” Thandi continues. “You’ll see. You’ll meet so many men, you’ll decide you don’t need Little Man anymore.”
“Hayibo, men? What will I do with a man, Thandi? Maybe I should just stay home. I’m not ready for this.” Now I’m teasing her. I’ve already made up my mind to go. The last thing I want is for Little Man to meet someone else because I stayed home.
“Relax, Ntombazana,” she says. “If you like little boys, Little Man will be there.”
Ntombazana. Little girl. Baba calls me that, too. With Baba, it’s a pet name. With Thandi, it’s an insult. But maybe she’s right. I certainly don’t feel ready to entertain older men. I just like a boy my own age, that’s all. If that makes me a little girl, I can live with that.
CHAPTER TEN
BABA’S GIRL
My father calls some few days later. Even though Baba lives in Durban, just an hour away, we only see him some few times a year. It’s too expensive to travel back and forth all the time. So instead, we try to talk on the phone often.