by Nick Wood
I am not happy to hear my experiences being spilled so easily in front of people I do not know. I turn to stare angrily as the cows move slowly across the field, calling to each other, eating grass. I have no way back, unless I walk to the top road and catch a lift from a taxi.
Nombuso must have stood up. I feel her warmth behind me on the step, she is touching my shoulder: “I thought you could join us Sibusiso, we all work for change here, for a place where no one gets shot and all are free to live and move in peace, wherever they are – you know, Freedom Charter and all.”
I wipe a fly from my face and watch how slowly the cows move in the deep heat. The smell of their waste is strong, the flies many. Inside me, the Beast stirs.
“Why have you not asked us first, Nombuso?” Thulani’s deep voice rumbles through my head.
“I only thought of it recently,” she says. “We have lost one member and I know Sibusiso feels as we do.”
How lost? Is it like one loses a pen or a penny? Am I a thing or a man?
I turn on the steps, looking up the slope at them, wiping sticky sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “And if I chose not to join?”
“Feel free to go, brother,” Thulani is standing now, as if enjoying being taller than me on the sloping stairs. He folds his arms to square his chest and shoulders.
The Beast inside growls and – I do not know why – it makes me laugh. It is a short burst of laughter and then I think; why do we square our bodies against each other, when the boere shoot us from a safe distance?
I shake my head: “No, my brother, indeed I think I will join you.”
Nombuso smiles: “Good, should I show you your room?”
I must have looked blank, because after a pause, she says: “We have a vacated room you can spend the night in – you are on weekend leave after all.” She’s watching my face carefully.
Tchhhaagghh! Thulani spits against a nearby hanging bougainvillea flower: “How do we know he is not a spy?”
“Hacker has done his homework,” Nombuso says shortly.
It takes me a moment to realise she is talking about someone else – someone who has seemingly accessed my computer files and records.
“You have hacked my college computer?”
She shrugs, a little embarrassed - but just a little bit, it seems. “We needed to be sure before we asked you, ’Biso.”
“And this is how you ask me?”
“It is not safe just to ask, you know how brother fights against brother and how the boere buy our souls.”
I feel ill in the heat. I turn to step down onto the strip of grassy verge that runs in a riot of weeds and tussocks before the cattle fence.
The fence tick-tick-ticks in my face and I place a hand on it, arm jerking with the jolt of current. There is a suppressed scream behind me, but I ignore it, locking my right hand hard on the black wire, gritting my teeth against the numbness spreading up my arm.
My life has been hacked.
It’s not the files I mind, but the voice records of my life, started as I left home for the first time, these recordings I make now on that tiny disc my father gave me, small yes, but costing many rands I have no doubt. Precious are my thoughts; precious are these words that fuel me – so precious, that I placed another password on them.
A name no one could guess... (Busisiwe.)
I release my fist and turn, flexing my tingling hand, finding it hard to feel my fingers. All three of them just stand and watch me, as if dumb statues.
“How much did Hacker hack?” I ask.
“Just enough to know where your sympathies lie; your word files and e-mails.”
Relief washes over me, not my secured voice files then. I do not feel quite so... violated. So, they sought to know too who is master of my politics. It is indeed not something open to straight questions. Still, I continue to feel dirtied, resentful.
“Take me back to hospital,” I say, “the mad folk are more honest.”
It is not Nombuso who comes down off the stairs, but Thulani. “Sorry, brother, I have indeed been rude. I wish now you would stay.”
I look at him – he too, locks my gaze.
He is some ten years or more older than me and I see something of Father’s forthrightness in his eyes.
I hold out my numbed hand. He grins and slaps it into life.
“Welcome home, son,” Father waves me in to our house, a small brick hut on the bottom of Baas Esterhuyze’s farm. The house is changed and none of my sisters, nor my brother, are there to greet me.
I am disappointed, confused, but still happy to see my father. Are they at school then? But it is night outside as he closes the front door and leads me to the back.
“I have something for you, my son,” he says, opening the back door.
A black, snarling beast bounds in and there is only time to gurgle, as its huge jaws clamp my throat.
Uggghh! uggghhh! ugghhh!
I am in a strange bed, coughing my throat out, my eyes dripping from shock.
Is this another dream layer, a dream within a dream within a...? The thin blue curtains in the square-boxed window glow with early sun’s light.
I sit up and swivel in my bed – it is a simple room, an open wardrobe which hangs empty, a bookshelf with one book lying flat – an old yellow-paged collection of stories by Can Themba, banned for many decades now.
The book anchors my memories, pulling me into the nowness of my body. Yes, I read ‘The Suit’ last night; as for me, I have no suit. This is no dream, I cough, my throat sore.
There is damp in the room, the ceiling spattered with dark green and black patches. I feel cold despite the sun leaking in through wispy curtains and pull on red T-shirt and brown corduroy trousers.
I do not feel well, but there is no father here and my mother is long gone, a fading memory of warm skin, food, smiles and the occasional sting of a slap.
I need to move, before my eyes start to drip again, before the Beast grabs my throat. Is it that I must every day re-chain this Beast prowling inside me, gnawing at my insides in its rage and frustration?
Get moving, Sib – the door is part open, the door-handle long gone. I cough and push it with my left hand, lurching into the wide-open expanse of what Nombuso has called ‘the lounge’.
The room is empty, but I feel the call of the sun through the open back door. Stepping outside I wrap my arms tighter around my body to stem the coughs, for Thulani and Nombuso are sitting on the balustrades of the sloping steps, talking to each other in low voices.
They stop and look at me as I approach the steps and I wonder what or whom they were talking about.
Nombuso stands up with a concerned frown on her face.
“Are you alright ‘Sibo, you look ill?”
“A cough, a small thing,” I say, uncomfortable with her concern. “Thank you for the room. Is it time to go back to the hospital?”
“Hayi, no...” She laughs. “Surely you do not like the place that much? You are only due back from weekend leave at nine tonight. I thought I would take you into Imbali to meet Mamma Makosi, someone who will offer you a safe space should anything happen here.”
I cough: “What do you mean?”
She shrugs her shoulders: “The police have eyes everywhere – we keep quiet about what we do, but no place is safe. Mamma Makosi though –” she smiles and the sun warms my body even more “– has been safe for many years now. It will be hard for anyone to find their way around her!”
Thulani stands up and nods at me. From behind me, I smell cooking eggs and bacon drifting on the cool breeze filtering through the house.
My stomach burbles in excitement and Thulani laughs: “Come, Brother, time to eat first.”
It is Jill who cooks and a fine meal it is, although the bacon cuts my throat and I need to drink much water to soothe it.
I thank Jill, Nombuso picks up the bike helmet and we walk outside to where her faithful bike stands waiting. I hear the birds calling, spotting the chee
rful flash of a crested barbet winging up into the blue-gum canopy above us. (Although my father has no degrees, he understands many things, teaching me much about our fellow animals.)
I cough as the helmet closes over my head, bumping against my shoulders and then we are off in a bouncing snarl of the bike’s engine. Nombuso stands up slightly to avoid the worst of the bounces, but I am too scared, groaning as my privates take a further bruising.
We sweep past the quarry and the lake now on our right and I sigh and cough with relief as we swerve onto smooth road, Nombuso settling back to gun her engine with aggression.
I don’t mind, as I need to clutch her warm body tightly, hands wrapped around her stomach, the occasional tantalizing bounce of a breast brushing the tops of my arms and hands through her clothes.
I lose track of the journey as we weave and sway across roads, but at one point we slow down and I hear her shouted curses: “Fucking boere... route.”
She swings violently to the left, the road surface jarring again, the houses increasingly smaller, more dilapidated and dotted with shacks and broken clearance ruins.
We grind to a halt next to a row of small houses hidden amongst a swelling swathe of shacks and spaza shops.
Nombuso kicks her bike stand down and I swing my numbed right leg off with some difficulty.
In contrast to that growing sea of shacks, the house we are parked outside is small, brown-bricked and solid, raised slightly on a few steps. A man steps through the door and down the steps, approaching us with easy and confident assurance. He is big and bald with variously numbered tattoos that remind me of stories about the Prison Gangs in Cape Town, although his skin is as dark as anyone’s.
He throws me an evil-looking glance that starts my cough again, but Nombuso nods and touches my shoulder and the man relaxes, just a little.
“Come in then, Mamma is expecting you.” His voice is more high-pitched than I expected.
Nombuso stops him with a raised right hand and then indicates towards me with her left: “Numbers, meet Sibusiso, Sib – this is Numbers.”
He gives me a tight smile, like a snake. At least I won’t have to ask him where he got his name from.
He stands aside to wave us in and I see a panga glinting behind the swirl of his long coat.
Inside, the house has a small entrance room, with a couch and chair, rooms leading off right, left and behind. Given the size of the exterior, that must be all.
Nombuso sits down on the couch and waves at me to join her. Numbers stands by the door like a bodyguard.
The couch is a soft balm to my aching privates and I sink into it with relief.
The door dead opposite opens and a large woman with a white blouse and knee length black skirt steps in, moving surprisingly lightly in her squared and sensible black shoes. She gives us a slight bow and her beaded and braided locks splay across her shoulders. We spring to our feet, almost wrenched up, by the magnetism of her beaming face.
“Mamma!” Nombuso looks down in respect: “I have brought a new recruit, in case he should need some safe time within your house. He is –”
“Welcome, Sibusiso Mchunu!”
I start, and I can see even Nombuso looks unsettled.
“I trust you are starting to feel better from your ailment? Still, you will need to go back to the healing house tonight.”
The ‘healing house’ – does she mean Fort Napier?
“Come, sit,” she says, “and don’t look so worried, for I know many people, including those within the hospital.”
Ahhhh, I think, Jabu?
She drops her bulk onto the chair and folds her arms in front of her. We sit again, but she is now looking above my left shoulder.
It makes my hair prickle. I glance to my left, but see nothing except Numbers cleaning his fingernails with a small knife.
I look at her again. Her broad smile has slipped into a slight one, with a slightly sad looking quirk to her lips on the left side of her face.
“You carry amadlozi with you, my son.”
I wonder which of my ancestors she has seen, but she does not wait for me to ask: “And you look ill – never mind, I have just the right thing for you.”
With a roll of her broad hips she is up again and into the room on the right; I catch a flash of hanging flasks and bottles; a room that looks as busy as a pharmacy. She closes the door and I look at Nombuso.
“Mamma’s a sangoma,” she says, “and a very good one too!”
She returns with a small bottle of blackish liquid, which is so sour and sharp on the throat it just makes me cough even more. I do not wish to know what is in there, but all she does is chuckle. “Nasty things often bring the body into better spaces,” she says, “as long as you become aware of whom else you may be carrying.”
“Who, Mamma?”
She shrugs: “I don’t know, but nor is it for me to say; it’s for you to find out, my boy.”
There’s beeping noise from near the door and Numbers makes a sign with his hand.
Mamma nods. “I’m sorry – it’s always good to see you, Nombuso, but as you know I am busy – I have more waiting to see me.”
“Sure, Mamma,” Nombuso stands to take her leave.
A small boy walks in through the door behind; “Mamma?” She holds her arms out to him, hoists him up and turns to me. “His parents are beyond our borders.”
I notice she speaks as if we own the borders and spaces within.
“You’re a smart boy, you’ll remember this address should you need it, I’m sure. I can’t give you the address I’m afraid,” she says. “Too many bad people want it.”
I step forward and nod respectfully. “Never mind, Mamma, I will remember.” She smiles.
Somehow, I know I will be back.
“If you need a bit of money my boy, just ask Numbers – he is multi-skilled and is our accountant too.”
I smile in return, but with grateful surprise; Numbers just opens the door without a word.
The old English cliché comes to mind: ‘never judge a book by its cover.’
Many ‘books’ surround me now – and I need to be able to read well indeed, if I am to survive.
Nombuso hands me a helmet and Numbers ushers an old woman into the house, frail and bent.
I put the helmet on, without a cough.
The stoep is warm again. The cattle continue to graze in the fields below. I sit on a sloping cushion along a concrete arm of the downward steps, hearing the occasional lowing. The smell of cow dung swirls in on the hot breeze sweeping up the valley. The town below, Pietermaritzburg, uMgungundlovu, is smeared in smog, gasping smoke at the base of these hills. I lie back and doze, the house behind me breathing in time to the gusts of winds wafting through the front door, ‘whooshing’ out through the back – soothing sounds, with little inside the house to disturb.
Lightning sheets flare like lamps on the inside of my eyelids and I startle awake, mouth drooling, neck stiff and sore. The town has vanished in a swathe of black clouds, pulsing with flashes of light, staccato sounds grumbling up the valley towards me.
I rush inside the large lounge with the cushion, wet wind chasing me, managing to heave the door partly closed behind me. Thulani and Jill are there already holding buckets; they hand one to me.
“Check the rooms on your side of the house;” says Thulani, “We are never sure where leaks will appear – each storm leaks though in different places.”
“It’s just us,” says Jill. “Nombuso has gone to fill her bike for your trip back to the hospital.”
The farmhouse dribbles and rattles with a sudden burst of heavy rain and hailstones on the corrugated roof. I check the laundry and a small room off the hallway to the right, reeking with stale cats’ piss. No leak though - the hallway itself is surprisingly dry, as is the kitchen beyond. My room though, last on the left when I return to the lounge, is pouring like Victoria Falls.
I place the bucket, wondering how quickly it will fill, shivering in the emp
ty room. My bed still smells faintly of night terrors and a lonely illness.
There is a rattling clunk next door and I push my door open again to look out. Jill has hooked up a heater near the couch lounge and is knocking it with a spanner, seemingly to get it working.
Stomach softening smells come from the kitchen – it must be Thulani cooking, Nombuso is not yet back. Jill gestures at me to come in and she sidles onto the couch.
Instead, I go and stand under the bougainvillea, so thick as to reduce this torrent of rain to just a few spurting trickles in places. A dribble wets the back of my neck, but I peer down the darkening hill.
Above me, I hear a clucking noise – chickens? Chickens cannot fly. I peer up into the tangled maze of branches over my head. There. A cat. No, it is no ordinary cat – it is small, but spotted, with a striped tail. A civet. I have seen pictures of them at school, but this one is trembling above my head – and I am no longer so alone. It flashes its paws and is gone.
I peer down the hill again.
A ghostly bird with a large beak like a blade flashes past me.
I shiver. It is a bird that is more than a bird, I suspect, although what it is called, I do not know.
There. An erratic light is lurching up the hill, but I hear nothing except the rattle of rain. The light itself is blurred, muted, fighting against the dark, but grows steadily stronger and brighter until I hear the background whine of a struggling engine.
The bike roars past in a spray of wet mud and I retreat back into the house. Thulani is standing next to the heater, a grilled chicken, samp and beans wait on the small table.
Jill comes in with a tray piled with plates and cheap glasses filled with peach cordial.
I walk past into the hallway and Nombuso comes stamping in.
She grins at me and places her helmet on a small chair near the back door. “Smells like I’m just in time for supper – yum, yum!”
It is indeed yum, yum! Afterwards, Thulani brings in a tray of baked biscuits and Jill brings out a bottle of whisky from her and Thulani’s room.
I manage just a short, sharp sip of the whisky and gag – sticking after that to the sweet peach drink. The biscuits are nice, however, even though they look a shade green.