This Thing Called the Future

by J. L. Powers

  She shakes her head and stares at the dirt. Baba touches her shoulder and she looks up at him then, face full of need and want and vulnerability. Just seeing that makes my stomach hurt.

  At last, Baba comes back inside. “Sorry for the distraction,” he says.

  “Who was that, Albert?” Mama asks. Her face looks like a little girl’s for just a minute.

  “Just a neighbor with a small problem,” Baba says. “I said I would help her later, when my family has left.”

  Mama looks like she has more questions, but Gogo Zulu nods at me. “Khosi,” she says, indicating I should bring out the food.

  In the kitchen, I dish food out onto plates. Then I bring it out on trays, kneeling before each person as I offer them a plate. Baba is served first because he is a man, Gogo second because she is the oldest woman, and then Mama. Last, I bring food for Zi and myself. We sit on the floor because there are not enough chairs for all of us.

  We bow our heads and Baba says grace. Then we start to eat. Zi is excited about all the good food we can’t normally afford.

  Mama pushes her food around on the plate. She eats hardly anything. And when Gogo Zulu asks her why she is not eating, she says, “Ngisuthi.” I’m full.

  Perhaps that would have been enough of an explanation, but when her plate clatters to the floor, food scattering to all four corners of the room, I hold my breath. She has revealed her weakness more than even her thin body can: she couldn’t even hold onto the plate!

  Baba puts his own plate down. His movement is slow, deliberate. “Girls, go into the kitchen,” he says. “I must talk with your mother.”

  Gogo Zulu stands up and motions for us to follow her into the kitchen. So we do. And then we sit there, listening to complete silence in the other room. Why aren’t they talking?

  “Why aren’t they—” I start to ask but Gogo Zulu interrupts with a harsh, “Hush now.”

  “What’s wrong, Khosi?” Zi’s hand finds mine. “Is Mama okay?”

  And then I grow mad. If only they would talk! “Let’s sing, hey?” I say, breaking into a rendition of “Senzenina, What Have We Done?” When Zi and Gogo join in, I finally hear Mama and Baba talking in the other room, in hushed voices.

  What have we done?

  Our sin is that we are black

  We finish singing and in the sudden silence, Baba starts to shout, “Are you accusing me?”

  Zi looks at me, scared, so I start singing “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika,” God bless Africa, to keep her occupied. But I try to overhear what they’re saying in the other room.

  Mama, with a begging voice: “No, I’m not accusing you. But I am telling you that there is no other way it could have happened.”

  Baba: “And what are you going to do about it?”

  Mama: “Angaz’. I really don’t know. What do you think I should do about it?”

  “Have you told our daughters?”

  “No. What should I tell them, Albert? Should I tell them that you, also, are sick with this thing?”

  Silence from Baba. And suddenly I realize something: this is his fault. He’s the one who made her ill, he’s the one who gave her HIV, which means he must be going with other women, maybe even young girls. Young girls like me. Maybe he’s somebody’s sugar daddy. Who knows, maybe that young woman in the yard is one of his girlfriends?

  “I’m taking medicine,” Mama says. “Albert, you should go find out and perhaps you can slow this thing down before it eats you up.” She starts to cry, which is exactly what I feel like doing.

  “What are they talking about, Khosi?” Zi asks.

  “Hush, Zi,” Gogo says, at the same time that I say, “Mama’s really sick.”

  Zi starts wailing. It sounds like somebody is dying.

  “Shhh, it’s alright, Zi,” I murmur, grabbing her and pulling her into my arms. Her wailing subsides into muffled sobs.

  “Khosi, help me,” Gogo Zulu says. She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of Coca-Cola. She opens the cupboard and reveals a birthday cake.

  We light six candles. I take the cake and she takes the Coca-Cola and Zi and I follow her as she enters the sitting room, where Mama and Baba are sitting in grim silence now.

  A quick glance at them—angry, sad, alone.

  I reach out my hand to take Mama’s. Zi takes her other hand. Baba joins us and we sing Happy Birthday to Zi.

  Zi is so excited to see her presents—a doll, some pretty things to use in her hair, candy. She starts clapping her hands and it seems we forget all about Baba and Mama’s fight.

  But I can’t forget. Even as we sing, I look around at this circle, at the five of us holding hands, Mama’s hand now in Baba’s, the way it should be all the time. Then the image of Mama and Baba, holding hands and singing, begins to dissolve. It wavers in the air in front of me, breaking up into a million pieces, until suddenly their image has disappeared inside the layer of salt filming over my eyes and making me blind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  PEOPLE KILL TO SURVIVE

  When we come back from Durban, Mama goes straight to bed and doesn’t get up for several days.

  Finally, something is so wrong, we all have to acknowledge it. Even Zi knows now. But when she whispers, “What’s wrong with Mama?,” I shake my head.

  Inkosikazi Dudu’s anger seems to have subsided. She is no longer always in her front yard, staring at our house and shouting accusations when she sees one of us.

  But you lose one problem only to gain another. The drunk man is everywhere. Zi and I start finding creative ways to avoid him when we arrive home from school. That means taking a different khumbi, circling back, sneaking into our gate through the back or the front, depending on where we see him. Most days, Little Man rides with us, and then we can go the normal way. The drunk man leaves me alone if he’s with us.

  I don’t want to burden Mama and Gogo so I make Zi promise she’ll keep everything secret. It’s not fair to Zi but what else can I do?

  One day, riding back with Little Man, we pass a group of people gathered around something in the middle of the street. The three of us walk over to look and there’s a chameleon right in the middle of the road, colored brown, the exact color of the dust that surrounds it. A man is poking at it with a stick, and a few other men are gathering large rocks and stones in a pile.

  “What’s going on?” I ask a woman standing next to me, her baby tied around her back with a bright blue and red blanket.

  “They’re going to kill it,” she says.

  This is one thing Zi doesn’t need to see. “Come on, let’s go,” I say.

  “Why are they going to kill it?” Zi asks as we walk away, kicking up dust with her feet.

  I look down at her, realizing for the first time in weeks how neglected she looks. Her black eyes are huge in her face, which suddenly seems hollow, like she isn’t eating enough. And her hair, which Mama had fixed last month, is starting to get ratty again. I reach out and put my arm around her shoulders, curling my fingers around to smooth it, but she shrugs me off.

  “They’re going to kill it because Zulus hate chameleons,” I say.

  “Why?” Zi looks surprised.

  We pass a sangoma’s apprentice, wrapped in a bright red cloth, her face smeared with white paste. She keeps her head down, avoiding our gaze, since during her training, she’s supposed to keep herself pure, separate from other people.

  “Hasn’t Gogo ever told you that old folk tale about how God commanded Chameleon to tell the people they would live forever? And because the Chameleon was so slow, God got mad and sent the Lizard to tell the people they would die. And that’s why people die—because the Chameleon didn’t run fast enough to tell the people God’s first message.”

  “My gogo has told me that story, too.” Little Man meets my eyes over Zi’s head and we smile at each other.

  “I still don’t understand why they would kill it,” Zi says.

  We’ve reached home. Little Man says goodbye even as Zi run
s through the yard and bangs through the door. “Mama! Mama!” I hear her calling.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell Little Man, and run after her.

  Zi is already sitting beside Mama’s bed, holding Mama’s hand and chattering like a little monkey in a tree. “And they were going to kill the chameleon, Mama, with sticks and stones,” she babbles. “Isn’t that terrible?”

  Mama is sitting upright in bed, drinking water from a small plastic cup. “People have been killing the chameleon for thousands of years,” she says, shrugging. “It’s just part of the harshness of life in South Africa.”

  I look at Mama in surprise. She sees me glancing her way. “I’m simply telling the truth, Khosi,” she says.

  “But the chameleon is just an innocent animal,” I say. “It’s not the same thing as killing a poisonous snake, which might harm you.”

  “They’re frightened of its magic, that it can change color,” she says.

  “Shouldn’t we do something to stop them?” Zi asks.

  “What should we do?” Mama asks. “How can we stop people from doing what they will do?”

  I’m shocked by her attitude. “But killing is wrong.”

  “The lion kills the eland because it is hungry,” Mama says. “The human kills the lion because it is frightened it will be the lion’s next meal. How is it wrong?”

  “But there’s no point to killing the chameleon,” I say. “Nobody eats it. And it doesn’t harm anyone.”

  “I am just saying that people kill to survive.”

  “People do a lot of things to survive,” I say. “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “I would do what I had to, for you and Zi,” Mama says. “I would do whatever it took to make sure you survived.”

  “You wouldn’t kill,” I say.

  “To defend you, yes, I would.” I am surprised at the firmness in her voice.

  “But you wouldn’t steal.” I’m whispering, thinking about our neighbor’s accusations.

  Mama sets the plastic cup by the side of the bed and Zi knocks it over. I grab a towel and begin mopping up the water while I wait for Mama’s response.

  “To put bread on the table, yes, I would,” Mama says. “I would not—could not—let you starve.”

  I hand the sopping wet towel to Gogo, trying to hold back tears.

  Gogo, too, looks upset. She holds the towel and water drips on the floor. “But how is it you would rather steal than trust in God to provide?” she asks.

  “We blacks have been trusting in God since the missionaries arrived,” Mama says. “And we have starved and been beaten and enslaved—all in the name of God. I do not believe God wishes us to preserve our morality only to make us starve to death. How is that right?”

  Gogo motions to usher me and Zi out of the bedroom. “You should rest, Elizabeth,” she says. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  As we huddle outside the bedroom door, she whispers, “Your mama is not herself…”

  But I think about what she said. I understand what she is saying. God is important. He is the most important. He is the head. He’s like Baba. He loves me, but he is too far away to really help in anything day-to-day. And though I pray to him, I do not really expect his help.

  But I do not agree with her that it is okay to steal or to kill. It is like this sickness has invaded her mind and is eating up the mama I know and love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CONFRONTATION

  Some few days later, Inkosikazi Dudu is outside when Zi and I leave for school, sweeping her yard, staring at our house, muttering under her breath. A sangoma stands in the yard with her, watching us.

  Mama has told me that, no matter what Inkosikazi Dudu says, I’m supposed to be respectful, so I call out “Sanibona” to greet them and nudge Zi until she, also, says, “Sanibona!”

  The last few times I’ve done this, Inkosikazi Dudu has ignored me. But this time, she and the strange sangoma step over to the fence separating our houses.

  Zi hides behind me. I put my arm out in front of her, like I can protect her.

  “Ninjani? ” I whisper, my voice getting softer as they come close.

  “We are well,” Inkosikazi Dudu spits at me. She grips the fence with one hand.

  The sangoma moves to stand beside her, her red beaded plaits clanking together. One of her eyes is clouded over with cataracts. She gazes at me with her one good eye.

  My chest tightens. It’s the witch, the one who threatened me. Now I wish I could be Zi, with somebody older protecting me from this woman.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. There’s a noise in my ears, way back—ocean waves far, far in the distance.

  “Is that any way to greet an old woman?” she asks. “I’ve come to see you, Nomkhosi Zulu. I’ve come to see how you and your family are doing.” And she laughs.

  I can’t meet her eyes. What will I see if I look? Will I see my own death? Will I remember something better left forgotten? Will my eyes lock on some evil, until I’m unable to turn my head away, until it eats me alive, like a fire consuming a house from the inside out?

  I focus on the beaded earrings dangling from her earlobes, noticing the oval-shaped shadow hovering just above her headscarf, like she has bad spirits about her. She grins at me through the fence, her gold front tooth glinting in the sunlight.

  “Haven’t you seen me in your dreams?” she asks.

  “Hapana, absolutely not,” I say, feeling some small desperation to convince her. Does this mean she’s sending me the dreams, and not the ancestors?

  “Hhayi,” the sangoma exclaims. “I never thought the child would lie.”

  “It’s my experience that this family always lies,” Inkosikazi Dudu says, her face flushing. “Liars and thieves, all of them.” Her eyes narrow.

  The sangoma whirls back around to face me. “I’ve seen you in your dreams, Nomkhosi.” Her words escape through a tight grin. “We’ve met there before. Someday soon, we’ll meet there again and you will never leave the dream. You’ll be locked in there with me, forever.”

  My heart beats sudden hot. The whispering in my ears is becoming a furious roar, shouts of confusion and fear.

  Zi tugs at my hand, urgent. “Khosi, come on, let’s go to school.”

  I shake Zi’s hand off and carefully control my voice. “You aren’t in my dreams. And you never will be.” My voice cracks on the last word.

  And now our eyes finally meet through the wire fence. “Oh!” I cry out, hand flying to my mouth as I see the evil leaping up and out of her eyes and coming towards me. Coming for me.

  My tongue, like a lizard’s, flicking in and out, wetting my lips. Hand. Sweat. Heat.

  She knows I know. She steps away from the fence, smiling, satisfied.

  “What? What? What?” Inkosikazi Dudu swivels her head from the witch to me and back again, her words a sharp staccato. “What are you talking about? I invited you over to help me with my problem and now you are talking about dreams?”

  My mouth, so firmly shut before, is wide open. “Run, Zi,” I say. “Now.” When she doesn’t move, I shout, “Now now.”

  Zi’s whole body shakes behind me but still she doesn’t move. Even though I want her to go where she’s safe, I’m glad I don’t have to face this evil woman alone.

  The witch is enjoying herself now, malicious because I’ve revealed my fear.

  A voice emerges out of the cacophony of whispers. Babamkhulu’s voice. She’s playing games with you. You must be smarter and stronger than she is.

  “No matter what I have seen in my dreams,” I say, determined to sever our connection in both the dream world and the real world, “I have powerful ancestors and they are on my side. I hear them speaking just now, all around us. Don’t you?” And finally my voice is firm.

  Inkosikazi Dudu is getting impatient. “What is this stupid conversation you are having? I want to know what your family did with my money.” She leans forward, her eyes bulging out as she glares at me
. “You tell your mother I know she stole from me. And I’ll do whatever I need to do to get it back.”

  “My mother was just trying to help you,” I protest, glancing at the witch posing as a sangoma. Inkosikazi Dudu has no idea the evil power she has unleashed on my family. Or perhaps she does know and that makes it all the worse.

  Zi tugs on my hand. I bend down so she can whisper in my ear. “That lady is scary,” she says.

  It’s time to go, that voice urges me.

  “It’s time to go,” I tell Zi. Keeping my eyes on the two women, I back up, holding Zi’s hand. We back up all the way to the door until I can open it. Then we back up inside.

  “Hawu!” Gogo exclaims, coming out of the kitchen. “You girls should be on the khumbi already. You’re going to be late.”

  I’m still too nervous to explain so Zi tells Gogo what happened. “Inkosikazi Dudu keeps telling lies about Mama,” she says.

  “That next-door neighbor,” Gogo frets. “I remember a time when she was my closest friend.”

  “It’s not just that, Gogo,” I say. “She had a witch with her. You know, that witch that lives in that big house at the top of the hill?”

  “Witch?” Zi squeaks.

  I take her hand in mine and squeeze, reassuring her, or maybe reassuring myself.

  “Sho!” Gogo hurries forward while I pull aside the curtain to peek at the two women still standing by the fence, looking at our house.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  Gogo looks older than normal, her shoulders drooping and her face sagging in fear. “I do not know,” she says. “We’ll go to our sangoma.”

  “When?” My voice squeaks, I’m so nervous.

  “Saturday, first thing,” she says. “We will go then.”

  Zi and I wait until Inkosikazi Dudu and the witch have gone back inside. Shaken, we sneak out the back door and down the side path that runs beside our house.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE SPIRITS ARE FIGHTING EACH OTHER

  That night, I have a nightmare that feels as real as anything that happens to me during the day. I watch as the next-door neighbor sneaks into our yard, carrying a large plastic bottle filled with mud. She creeps along the side of the house.