by J. L. Powers
“Sawubona, Baba!” Zi screams into the phone. She garbles a story about why mosquitoes scream in people’s ears. I think it’s from a book her teacher read to the class. She’s quiet while Baba talks on the other end.
“Khosi!” he says when she hands the phone to me. “Your mama told me how fast you’re growing up, so I thought I must call to find out just how grown up my little girl has become.”
So Mama must have told him I’ve become an intombi now.
“She’s worried because I’m a beautiful young woman,” I joke. “She gets sick just thinking about it.”
“Hawu!” he chuckles. “Does she think you’re going to be wild, like she was? Does she think you’re going to start running around all over the place?”
“Was Mama wild when she was my age?”
“Sho, was she ever! She was like a lion, either sleeping or on the hunt.”
“What, did she have a lot of boyfriends?” I ask.
“Don’t go getting any ideas in your head, just because I told you how wild Mama was when she was young,” he says. “Anyway, I wasn’t talking about boys. I meant she was always getting into trouble because of her strong political ideas.”
I like hearing about the days when Mama and Baba were young. Mama and Baba are older than a lot of my friends’ parents. They are old enough that they participated in the liberation struggle.
Everybody was so fearless in the fight for our freedom! Children boycotted school and teenagers like my baba joined the guerilla soldiers. Men and women stopped paying rent on their government-owned houses. People like Mama marched in the streets to protest the government policies. They did all this so we blacks could be free, so that we would have the right to vote, so that we would have the same opportunities as whites.
“I wish I did exciting things like you and Mama did when you were young,” I say. When I think about what people like Baba and Mama did for us, it makes me long for a different life, like there’s something I should be doing, that I’m called to do, to make South Africa a better place. But whatever it is, I can’t figure it out.
“Don’t long for the old days,” he says. “When your mama and I were young, we thought only about freedom. We sacrificed everything to fight for it. But now, without an education, I can’t even find a decent job. I try and try, Khosi. Every day, I go knocking on doors and nothing. But you can go to school and really become something.”
“I just feel so anxious,” I admit. This is something I can’t say to Mama or Gogo. They depend on me too much. “I feel like there are so many things I should be doing to help people but I don’t know where to begin.”
“Ntombazana, I felt the same way when I was fourteen,” he says. “My grandmother used to say that each generation has its own challenges, its own work to do. You’ll figure it out. Just give it time.”
“Baba, I’m not a little girl anymore,” I say. “I’m growing up and I’m going to do great things someday.”
He laughs. “I’ll always be proud of the fact that I struggled for our liberation, Nomkhosi,” he says. “We did an important work. But let me tell you something. I wish we could have lived a normal life and gone to school.” He pauses, then says, “Please just agree to be my little girl for a little while longer.”
The truth is, I will always be his little girl, no matter what happens in my life or how “grown-up” I become.
“And,” he continues, “you make sure you stay away from all those young men your mama is so worried about.”
“But some boys are nice.” I have to speak up for Little Man.
“Which one of them is so nice? Does this ‘someone nice’ have a name?” He becomes suddenly demanding.
“Baba, don’t be so suspicious. I’m too young for all that.”
“Not young enough,” he emphasizes. “You see, you’ll make me sick with worrying, just like you’ve done to your mama.”
“And Gogo, too,” I add, laughing with him. “That’s why she goes to the sangoma’s to get muthi for her arthritis. Her bones ache because I’m sooooo beautiful.”
We’re both laughing as we hang up.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THANDI’S SUGAR DADDY
Thandi’s jewelry-store sugar daddy disappears quickly, a week or two later. And almost as quickly, she finds a new boyfriend.
She tells me all about him while we walk from history class to our lockers to pick up our things and go home.
“His name is Honest, he drives a khumbi, he says sometimes he can take the khumbi out after work and pick me up. I can sneak out and we’ll go dancing.” She says this all in a rush. “He gave me this”—she holds up her wrist to show off the slender black-and-silver-beaded bracelet on her wrist—“and this”—she tilts her ears to show off the red, gold, and green beaded earrings dangling from her earlobes—“and those are just the first of many gifts, Khosi!”
“What are your parents going to say if they see these gifts men are giving you?” I shift my books, scouring the hallways, hoping to see Little Man.
“I’ll sneak them in and out of the house.”
“How old is this Honest?” I hope he’s younger than the jewelry store owner, who looked like he was fifty years old. Or older.
“Thirty-three,” she says.
“Thandi! Thirty-three? What’s wrong with the boys our own age?”
“We can never be with men our own age,” Thandi says. “Not with this problem of lobola. Older men are the only ones who can afford to pay lobolo to our parents, so they’re the only ones getting married.”
Lobola was always expensive, even in the best of times. Back when my grandmother was young, men were supposed to give eleven cows to a young woman’s parents in order to marry her. Eleven cows! Of course, not everyone could afford that.
But you read in the papers that some parents today charge up to 50,000 rands for their daughter. What young man has 50,000 rands? A rich black lawyer, maybe. We’re never going to meet men like that in the townships.
“I don’t want to marry an old man just because he’s the only one who can afford to pay lobolo,” I say. “These days, you can get married without it.”
It’s true, some young people have given lobolo up because it’s too expensive. I’m sure their parents are angry, losing all that money for their daughter, but we live in modern times. Mama would say it’s time men stopped buying their wives, even while Gogo would protest and say that paying lobolo isn’t buying a wife, it’s linking two families together. I’ve heard them arguing about it. Gogo chides Mama for having two children with a man and never marrying him. “At least a man has never owned me,” Mama always says, ending the argument.
Thandi laughs at my comment. “You think my gogo is going to let me get married without lobolo? You’re really crazy, Khosi. In my household, we follow every Zulu tradition.”
Baba is a very traditional man, just like Thandi’s grandmother. He’ll insist on lobolo when I get married too. And I will get married. I’ll live with one man, and he’ll be faithful to me, and we’ll both avoid the three-letter plague—HIV—that’s running around killing everybody in our country. These days, getting married is more important than ever, but it better have nothing to do with a man owning me. Because if it came down to that, I agree with Mama one hundred percent.
“Okay,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean you have to run around with older men. In a few years, maybe you can find a young man you like, and he can pay lobolo through an installment plan.”
Thandi laughs at me.
“What? Why are you laughing? A lot of men are doing that these days.”
“You think I want to wait ten years to get married because it takes him that long to pay?” she asks. “No thanks! I’d be an old woman marrying an old man. I’m telling you, Khosi, the only solution is to get yourself a sugar daddy.”
Just then, we spot Little Man playing around with Victory Shabangu at the other end of the hall. When he looks up, I wave. But Victory whispers something to him, and
instead of waving back, he turns his back. He and Victory keep fooling around, slamming locker doors.
My stomach clenches. “Are you sure Little Man said he wanted me to come to his brother’s party?” I ask.
Thandi laughs. “You should give up your obsession,” she advises. “Older men know how to treat a woman. They wouldn’t ignore you like he did just now.”
My stomach cramps and a searing fear runs through my entire body.
“Little Man’s my friend,” I say, still feeling the sting. That sting quickly changes to anger. With Thandi. “Besides, how do you know your older man isn’t already married?”
“Thanks, Khosi!” she shouts, offended. “You’re just jealous.”
It’s true. I spoke in anger, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a voice inside my head, telling me that there’s something ugly in her future. “How do you know this Honest is somebody you can trust?”
She looks wounded by my question. “Khosi, what you don’t understand is that all men like sugar on the side,” she says. “It’s just what our men do. Even my baba has a girlfriend. I bet your baba has another girlfriend besides your Mama, maybe he even has other children—”
“Shut up, Thandi,” I interrupt her, to stop the flow of words streaming out of her mouth. It isn’t something I want to think about, Baba putting Mama in danger like that. “If Honest has a girlfriend on the side, you should be careful.”
“Careful?” she asks.
Why is she pretending? “Don’t close your eyes, Thandi,” I say. “You see the billboards. You see the ads on TV. You know about HIV, how it spreads.”
She shrugs. “I like the gifts Honest gives me.”
“I don’t need gifts.” For sure, I don’t need the big gift that sugar daddies leave their girlfriends, the big gift that causes them to lose weight, get sick, and die.
But then Thandi looks shy as she says, “And he makes me feel beautiful.”
“Good,” I say. “That makes me happy.” I’m not lying. Even if what I see in her future scares me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MARKED
I don’t like to talk about the dreams but they are always there, invading my sleep and waking me with the feeling that somehow I’m living a double life. The fourth or fifth time I wake screaming, Gogo sends me to the sangoma for some herbs.
“You are too much worried,” she says. “What is this thing, bothering you? Is it that witch?”
“Angaz’,” I say. I don’t want to tell her what happens to me in my dreams. If I say it out loud, it might happen in real life.
So after school one day, Zi and I walk to the sangoma’s hut with Thandi. I have fifty rand in my pocket and a request for herbs to stop the nightmares. Zi waits outside the hut, talking to the sangoma’s apprentice while I go inside.
While we talk, Inkosikazi Nene spreads newspaper on the floor. She mixes herbs together with her long fingernails, then pours the herbs into small glass jars.
She shakes her head when I tell her about all the dreams bothering me. “I do not want to give you something to stop the dreams,” she says. “The ancestors are sending them, trying to help you.”
“How do you know it’s the ancestors?” I guess I already know it’s the ancestors—the dreams are always white, and that is their trademark—but I want her to confirm it.
“It is their way,” she says. “It is how they communicate with those people they have decided are worth bothering, people who will listen, people like you, Khosi.”
“Are you troubled by dreams also?” I ask, watching the pattern she creates in the herbs as she mixes.
“Sho!” she says. “It is terrible! When you become a sangoma, the ancestors never let you rest. They fill your sleep with other people and spirits and recipes for new muthi to cure this or that illness. It is too much difficult.” She smiles at me. “You go to sleep, never knowing if that is the night they will get you up out of your warm bed and say, ‘No, you mustn’t sleep. Go here, do this.’ You wake up in the morning, not knowing where you will go that day or what you will do. Even if you had planned to spend the day with your family, you must obey.”
At least she is never in doubt what she must do: obey her spirits. I am all the time torn between Mama and Gogo, the new world and the old world, the science I learn at school and the African medicine Gogo sends me to fetch.
Before I leave, she hands me a small wrapped newspaper with herbs. “Take this,” she says. “Perhaps it will help the ancestors clearly mark the path you should take in your dreams.”
At home, I stir the herbs into a big pot of hot water and drink it all after eating, just like the sangoma prescribed. Then I join Gogo and Zi in the dining room.
I have homework I must do but I can’t concentrate. Even when I try to watch television, my eyes keep focusing on the picture of Babamkhulu that rests on the mantle just above the TV.
He looks like he wants to say something to me. His stern expression is morphing as he furrows his brow and gazes at the three of us, his lips puckered up, mouthing words I can’t hear.
I glance from the picture of Babamkhulu to Gogo and Zi. They are watching TV and don’t seem to notice Babamkhulu’s mouth moving.
My head starts to ache as his face blurs into fast movement, the worry spilling over into rapid head movements, his mouth open so wide, it looks like he’s shouting at me.
Nausea spills over me in waves as my head spins.
“I’m going to bed,” I mumble, stumbling off the sofa and going down on all fours, like an animal, rocking back and forth. The floor won’t stay still. It’s rolling like a river of water speeding downhill on the way from its source to the ocean.
I crawl across the floor, looking for places that are steady and reliable, but it heaves and buckles wherever I rest my hand. I sit back on my haunches, contemplating how I’m going to get to the bedroom.
My body feels heavy, as though it’s going to sink right through the floor and drown somewhere beneath the earth.
“Khosi, what’s wrong?” Gogo calls from what seems an ocean’s distance away. Then she’s beside me, reaching out her hand through the watery waves.
“I don’t feel well,” I mumble, grasping her hand, letting her help me stumble into bed.
Zi and Gogo stand over me, the same worried expression on their faces. “Do you want some food?” Gogo asks.
“No,” I say. “I just want to sleep.”
She covers me with a blanket.
“Do you want some water?” Zi asks.
“No. Leave me alone.”
Closing my eyes only makes the spinning worse. So I stare at the ceiling, which is no longer the ceiling but the road outside our house, the one that leads to the tuck shop and that drunk man, who is sitting on his bucket, drunk, nodding off.
As I float past, his hand snakes out, fast, grips my shirt and pulls me towards him, so close I’m looking at the tiny yellow lines streaking across the whites of his eyeballs.
“Who’s going to save you now, Ntombi?” he growls, shaking me so hard, I can feel my bones move. “Is your mama going to keep you safe? She’s nowhere in this world.”
I’m shrieking, glancing away from his eyes to the empty street all around me. The houses are vacant, lights turned off. Gates dangle open and there isn’t a single dog in sight. The tuck shop is barren, its shelves bare.
His hand slips towards the skin revealed by my bunched up shirt. His eyes shift to my waist, little shots of fire spurting from his eyes to my flesh, burning a round mark of desire on my hip.
I open my mouth to scream, “Help me, somebody,” but I can’t make a sound.
The drunk man’s mouth opens wide, laughing, revealing wide teeth, long teeth, changing into a long crocodile snout right in front of my eyes.
“Help!” I screech, hopeless that anybody can hear me from wherever they’ve gone.
But then—a miracle! Both of us find our eyes riveted to the horizon as a dark-suited figure bobs up and down, moving
closer until I recognize the face on the body.
Babamkhulu. My very own grandfather. Fire in his own eyes as he looks at the drunk man holding me captive. Slowly advancing, menacing. At last the drunk man’s claws relax and he lets me go.
I come to consciousness, gripping a pillow, the sheets soaked in sweat.
Zi is lying in the other bed, sleeping peacefully, but Gogo is sitting beside me, dipping a washcloth in water and cooling my forehead.
“Khosi, you were somewhere deep,” she says now. “I tried to wake you but could not.”
I sit up, draping my feet over the edge of the bed. Put my arms around my body and huddle there, hugging knees to chest. I lift my shirt—I’m still wearing the same shirt I was wearing when I drank the herbal remedy—and glance at the skin on my hip where the drunk man’s gaze burned me. Though the coin-sized sore he burned in my flesh is gone, there is a small circular shape, black as night, darker than my coffeecolored skin. I’ve never noticed it before. Was it already here?
I feel like he’s branded me, like cattle. Marked me as his.
The nausea is swift and sure and I barely make it to the toilet, bits of bile, chicken, and tomato pouring out of my mouth in a bitter acidic mixture.
Gogo knocks on the door. “Khosi? Uyagula? Are you sick?”
“I’m okay,” I call, and wait until I hear her shuffling down the hall to the kitchen. In the dark stillness of the house, I hear her turn the burners on to heat water for a cup of tea. She stumbles a little, and finally sits, heavily, in a chair. Its metal legs scrape across the uneven floor.
I sit there in the dark, on the floor of the bathroom, staring up at the box of Omo washing powder we store in the window. What just happened?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HOMECOMING
The drunk man starts waiting for me at the khumbi stop when Zi and I come home from school. He doesn’t say anything to me—he just smiles with his big rotten teeth and follows us home.
One day, Thandi throws little rocks at him. “Leave her alone,” she yells.