This Thing Called the Future

by J. L. Powers

  He ducks to avoid the shower of small stones. But still, he follows.

  “Big coward,” Thandi mutters. “What are you going to do?”

  “You don’t think I should make him my sugar daddy?” I ask her.

  “Are you crazy, Khosi?” Thandi shouts. Then she sees I’m teasing. “You’ve gone mad, girl! I don’t think you should make jokes about that man. He’s dodgy. You shouldn’t ever walk anywhere alone.”

  “Who’s going to walk with me everywhere I need to go?” I ask. “Gogo’s too old and Mama’s not here most of the time. I just have to learn to protect myself.”

  But how? I sound brave even while my insides are one big bowl of mushy phuthu. The problem is that I don’t see a solution. So I have to act brave. Of course, I pray to God, hoping that he can hear my prayer out of the millions flooding his ears. Sometimes, I pray to Jesus. At least Jesus was a man and they did terrible things to him before he died. Maybe he understands my fear. Maybe he’ll help me, like Babamkhulu.

  Thandi glances over her shoulder. The drunk man keeps his distance, but he ambles along, some few houses behind us, running a stick along the metal gates. Ching ching ching ching. A chicken darts across the road.

  “You need to come get some protective muthi from my gogo,” Thandi advises. “She has muthi that can make you invisible to your enemies.”

  “I’ll come get it,” I say. “Tomorrow after school.”

  But that night, Gogo tells me that Mama is finally coming home, after so many weeks—two months—away.

  “She will be here tomorrow night,” Gogo says. “She said they have given her a three-week holiday.”

  I’m surprised. It isn’t the right month for winter holidays so how did Mama get three weeks off?

  “Who is teaching her class while she is gone?” I ask.

  “She didn’t say. But we must plan a special meal, Khosi.” Gogo sounds so excited, like a little girl.

  “All Mama’s favorites,” I agree. “I’ll go shopping tomorrow on my way home from school.”

  The next day, I hurry to pick Zi up as soon as my last class is over. We run through the city streets to catch a khumbi back to Imbali.

  Zi always says hi to all the women traders sitting on the sidewalk in front of Freedom Square, the ones selling bracelets and necklaces and toys to the people rushing past. Today, we’re the ones rushing.

  “Don’t make me drag you home,” I threaten Zi when she falls behind.

  “Why are we running, Khosi?” she complains. “I’m tired.”

  “Mama’s coming home today,” I remind her. “Don’t you want to hurry? Wouldn’t it be terrible if Mama arrived home and we weren’t there yet?”

  Zi’s entire face brightens and she shouts at the women, “Mama’s coming home! Mama’s coming home!”

  They wave at her, their special little friend, calling after us, “Hambani amantombazana! Sheshani! Hurry hurry hurry!” They shake with laughter when she runs past on her fat little legs.

  As our khumbi zips out of the city and down the road toward Imbali, the driver turns the music up. I put my fingers in my ears and nudge Zi to do the same. It’s too loud to talk so I lose myself in warm thoughts about Little Man. His dreadlocks, so long they reach his shoulders. His gorgeous smile.

  Actually, I’m a little embarrassed about how often I’ve been thinking about him lately. At lunch, I’m so shy, even Thandi has asked me if something is wrong. Little Man doesn’t say much to me…but it feels like he’s aware of every move I make. So many times when I look up from my food, our eyes meet.

  For the millionth time, I wonder: does he like me?

  Zi interrupts my thoughts, poking me in the side. “Look, Khosi, a new advertisement!” she shouts, pointing at a billboard with a cartoon drawing of a man and woman together, embracing on a blue sofa. Large block letters announce: “A man can get AIDS by having sex with an infected woman.”

  “Shhh.” I glance at the other passengers to see if anybody heard. Zi’s too young to know you don’t talk about these things, not in public.

  The khumbi turns left, passing the faded red “Coca-Cola! Welcome to Imbali!” billboard that announces the entrance to the township. I tap the side to let the driver know we want to get off and he pulls to a stop right in front of the tuck shop. The drunk man is there again, slumped over on his bucket, wearing the same clothes he always wears. Does he ever go home and change? Does he even have a home to go to? Today, we are able to stop for some few small items for Mama’s feast, and then slip by him without his noticing.

  On our way to and from the market for vegetables, Zi scares dogs in yards, her usual after-school routine. But today, even over the hectic barking, we hear shouting as we near the house. We both start running, book bags slapping our backs.

  As soon as we arrive, we see what the shouting is all about. Inkosikazi Dudu has finally broken the silence of the last weeks. She is standing in the middle of her yard, shaking her broom at Gogo, her flower print apron flapping with each arm movement.

  “Your daughter will pay me back,” she yells. “Or she’ll see what we do to cheats in Imbali.”

  What is she saying about Mama?

  Gogo is huddling in front of the house, waiting for us outside like she always does when the weather is warm. But hearing these words from our neighbor, she retreats into the open door. Even from this distance, I can see her whole body trembling.

  The neighbor sweeps vigorously, as though she’s sweeping Gogo right out of her yard. She turns around and sees me.

  “Hah!” she cries, her voice ugly with triumph. “Khosi, you tell your mother she has nowhere to hide.”

  “What do you mean, Nkosikazi?” I ask.

  “I see what she’s up to, I have eyes in the back of my head, spies everywhere.” She shakes her finger at me.

  “Elizabeth has done nothing but try to help you when your husband died,” Gogo says from inside the safety of the house. She’s just like me, brave from a distance! I’d be hiding in the house, too. “If you’re so angry, talk to her. I’m sure she can explain everything.”

  “Na, and can she tell my children why they have nothing to show from their father’s death?” She grimaces and spits on the ground. “Can she tell me where all the insurance money went? Can she tell me why it disappeared after she helped me?”

  “The mouth is a tail to swat away the flies,” Gogo says, ushering us through the door. “And it is your mouth that will get us in trouble, Sisi.”

  But even as we go inside and shut the door, we can still hear the neighbor lady calling after us, her voice like nails shooting through the walls: “I’m not just talking uselessly, Busisiwe Mahlasela! Tell your daughter she can’t hide the truth from God.”

  Gogo sinks into a chair by the door, the scarf that covers her hair shoved to the side. She readjusts it and presses a wobbly hand to her mouth.

  We peek outside. Inkosikazi Dudu sees our heads poking through the doorway. She stops sweeping and stares at us until we close the door, leaving just a crack open to let air flow inside.

  “Gogo, what’s making her so angry?” I ask. It’s true that evil is blind but anger is a path in the forest, guiding evil through the dark, right to your doorstep.

  Gogo’s headscarf flutters in the breeze. “Zi, go watch TV while I talk to your sister,” she says. After Zi leaves, the words bleed from her mouth. “Her children think your mother took some of her husband’s insurance money after he died!”

  “What?” I’m shocked. “What will happen if the neighbor keeps talking like this and everybody believes her?” The thought makes me feel lonely deep inside, at the pit of my stomach. We could be shunned by everybody, if they believe this thing.

  “How can she think your mother would cheat somebody who’s been a friend and neighbor for so many years?” Gogo crosses her arms under her breasts, looking vulnerable.

  “What about the paperwork?” I ask. “It should prove that Mama didn’t cheat her.”

  Gog
o clucks her tongue, shakes her head. “She can’t read. What good is showing her the paperwork?”

  “Maybe she’ll forget about it,” I say, but we both know you don’t forget something like this.

  Gogo slumps down in the seat and grabs one of my school folders. She begins to fan herself with it. “It’s so hot today, the fish are jumping out of the water.”

  “Gogo, why don’t you wait for Mama outside?” I ask. “It’s not so hot out there.”

  “I don’t know…” Gogo trails off, looking anxious.

  I peek through the back door at the neighbor’s house. “Inkosikazi Dudu has gone inside. She won’t be giving you the evil eye anymore.”

  So Gogo grunts and, slowly, starts to stand up. She struggles so much, I put out my hand to help her, but she waves it away. She likes to be independent.

  I understand that, I do. I like to be independent, too.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TROUBLE BETWEEN US

  Auntie Phumzi and Mama drive into the yard. I leave the mealie-meal boiling on the stove and run outside just in time to glimpse Zi’s skirt flapping up and showing her pink underwear as she runs to greet Mama. It looks like I need to buy her longer skirts, to protect her from dirty old men.

  Then Mama gets out of the car. She has lost so much weight, her face is wrinkled, the skin sagging off her jowls—like she suddenly became really old, overnight. Her ankle wobbles as it hits the ground, as if her legs are still adjusting to the lost flesh.

  Zi stops. She backs away.

  Gogo is so surprised, she exclaims, “Pho! Who are you? Who took my daughter? Where is Elizabeth?”

  “I told her she’s trying to be like the white women who think it is beautiful to be a skeleton,” Auntie Phumzi says, laughing to make light of our fear.

  “It is just that I have been so sick, Mama,” Mama explains. “I was even sick when I came home last visit, but I did not want to worry you.”

  “There is sick but this?” Gogo sweeps her hand towards Mama.

  “I didn’t think I could handle the long trip back from Greytown,” she says. She holds her arms out for Zi. “Aren’t you going to say hi to me, Zinhle?”

  That’s when Zi finally goes to her. But as Mama wraps her arms around Zi’s little body, Zi starts weeping and howling. Mama looks over at us, her eyes and body saying “Help” even though she doesn’t say the word. Then she sees me. “Nomkhosi,” she says, her voice gentle. “How are you?”

  “Mama, come inside and take a seat.” I am confused and ashamed to see Mama like this, so thin like the men and women who die of AIDS.

  Mama wobbles, her movement constricted by Zi’s arms wrapped tight around her.

  “Elizabeth!” We all turn at the sound of someone calling Mama’s name. Inkosikazi Dudu is hobbling towards the fence that separates our houses, moaning like a woman in pain.

  “What’s wrong?” Mama asks before we can stop her.

  As soon as she has our attention, Inkosikazi Dudu starts shouting. “You thought you could cheat an old woman, Elizabeth,” she cries.

  “What—what are you talking about?” Mama asks.

  Inkosikazi Dudu grips the fence, her face close to the metal wires. “The leg has no nose, Elizabeth!” she cackles. “You see, your sins always find you out. Already, you are suffering because of what you have done!”

  “Hush now, Themba Dudu.” Gogo’s voice is harsh and angry.

  Zi whimpers.

  “But what are you talking about?” Mama’s face loses color. Her cheeks, the color of ashes. “What have I done?”

  Gogo steps in front of Mama, as if she wants to hide her from the accusations, but Inkosikazi Dudu paws at her arms, trying to face Mama directly.

  “You have done enough damage with your anger,” Gogo says. “There is no trouble between us but you will make trouble with all your accusations.”

  “There is trouble between us,” Inkosikazi Dudu’s words are high and pinched and strangled. “Yebo, impela, trouble indeed. Don’t deny it!”

  She claws past Gogo and suddenly the two old women are shoving each other as Mama retreats, her feet slipping on the gravel. Auntie Phumzi helps her up and the two of them hurry into the house.

  Gogo is old but she has tremendous strength and will in those arms of hers. She doesn’t let go of Inkosikazi Dudu even as I force my body in between them.

  “Gogo, go inside,” I yell.

  Inkosikazi Dudu grabs a chunk of my hair and yanks. “It’s because of your mother that I’m hungry.” She spits, right in my face, shouting at the closed door, “Where is my money, Elizabeth? You can’t hide it forever! God will find you out!”

  We’re so close, face to face, Inkosikazi Dudu fuming in my arms. We look each other in the eye and the anger in hers spills over like mealie-meal boiling over the side of a pot.

  I close my eyes and will my whole body to become a secret, shutting off the tunnel that leaks emotion from my heart to my eyes.

  “Please go home, Nkosikazi,” I say, opening my eyes.

  “Go home to what?” She sighs, as if she’s giving up. “To an empty cupboard?”

  “If you’re hungry, we have food we can give you.”

  And finally she sags in my arms, a feeble weight. My arms close around her body, so natural, almost a hug. She’s so afraid, I realize as I touch her. She’s so afraid and so hurt.

  But then she stiffens, like I spoke my thoughts out loud. “I’ll return, Khosi,” she threatens, “and I’ll be better prepared next time. You tell your mother.”

  I watch her shamble back to her own yard before I go inside.

  Gogo is fretting over Mama, who sinks into the sofa like an old weak woman—as if she’s the grandmother. “Don’t pay any attention to her, Elizabeth,” Gogo says. “She’s just a crazy old woman.”

  “The very idea, that I would steal money from her,” Mama says.

  “Welcome home, Elizabeth,” Auntie Phumzi jokes. “I’m sure now you’re sorry you stayed away so long. Look at all the excitement you were missing!”

  Zi starts giggling and can’t stop until Mama says, “That’s enough, Zi,” her voice sharp, not the same old gentle Mama we’ve always known. She reaches up to pat her head. “Sho! Where’s my headscarf? It’s missing!”

  “I’m sure it’s just out in the yard,” I say, quick quick, trying to prevent alarm even as Gogo sucks in her breath with sudden fear. “I’ll look for it.”

  But the front yard is empty. So is the street. I even search Inkosikazi Dudu’s yard by peering in through her gate. Nothing. No scarf.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mama says, looking exhausted. She closes her eyes.

  I look over at Gogo for comfort but all I see is my fear mirrored back.

  I sit on a chair near the sofa and rock back and forth, pressing my hands against my lips so I don’t blurt out, “It does matter, Mama! You could be in danger!”

  Inkosikazi Dudu is so angry, she might be willing to do something evil. If she took Mama’s headscarf…if she took some of my hair when she pulled it…she could use either of those things to harm us.

  Mama closes her eyes. “Yo! I’m so tired. I’ve been working too hard.”

  In just a few seconds, she’s already asleep. I cover her with a blanket and tiptoe into the kitchen, where Auntie Phumzi has taken over the cooking from Gogo. “Do you think Inkosikazi Dudu took her scarf?” I whisper.

  “Let’s hope it just blew away in the wind,” Gogo mutters.

  But the night is still, like a photograph, nothing moving, not even a single insect disturbing the air.

  I watch my family going through the evening rituals, Auntie Phumzi clattering dishes in the kitchen, Gogo and Zi watching TV while they wait for food. Usually Auntie is in her own home, cooking for her own husband and children, and it’s me in the kitchen. And usually, when Mama comes home from her job on the weekends, she’s lively, full of dance and song, waltzing Zi around the house and chiding me for something I forgot to do while she
was away. But here she is, already asleep.

  Some homecoming!

  It makes me feel…homesick. Homesick and here I am, at home, surrounded by the people I love.

  I step outside to escape the feeling.

  Inkosikazi Dudu has gone inside. But if she were standing in front of me, would I say the words that are flooding my mind? I’ll be watching you. And if you dare do anything evil to my family, if you dare try to curse us, I’ll come after you. I don’t know how but I have friends and they’ll help me.

  Looking at the quiet neighborhood, the warning seems really crazy.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MUTHI FOR MAMA

  A nightmare interrupts my sleep again that night. In it, Mama has made a bargain with the devil.

  “It’s just a small thing, Khosi,” she pleads with me. “It is just so that you and Gogo and Zi will be safe when I am gone.”

  “A bargain with the devil is never a small thing, Mama, you know that.” I look at her, helpless, but she looks away.

  “It is necessary,” she says.

  And when we are asleep, the devil comes. He is big as a whale, opening his mouth wide and swallowing us whole, house and all. Gogo, Zi, and I wake up, deep inside his belly, wondering how long we have before we will die. It’s hot and humid down there and the air is thin, eaten up by fire. Already, Gogo’s face is ash-gray as she struggles to breathe, and Zi is beginning to fade as her body is wrung of all its water.

  I wake up sweating, sitting bolt upright in bed. What are you trying to tell me? I ask Babamkhulu, looking at his picture hanging over Gogo’s bed.

  I look at my mother, sleeping beside me. She has lost so much weight, her face is wrinkled, not smooth like it always was.

  “Mama, what is going on?” I whisper. “Why are the ancestors bothering me with all these dreams about you?”

  Of course, she does not hear me. She is sleeping too soundly.

  In the morning, Gogo sends me off to the sangoma’s to find out what’s wrong with Mama, and to see if she has some herbs that will give Mama an appetite.

  “Mama won’t like it,” I say.