The Theory of Flight

by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

  So this was how it was going to happen for him? For him it would not be about sunlight or moonlight, about a gentle breeze lifting the skirt of her dress just so, a flower in her hair, a peal of laughter. No, for him it would be about swimming elephants under a jacaranda tree.

  ‘Genie.’ His voice could not be more than a whisper. She looked at him then. He took a breath that was sharply cut short. So this is what is meant by ‘take my breath away’, Marcus mused. She smiled at him. ‘Genie I—’

  Then laughter entered her eyes.

  Marcus immediately lost his courage. If he told her what he felt and she laughed at him, he would never recover. He needed to find something else to say. Retreat somehow.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said, the laughter still in her eyes.

  He was confused.

  ‘I think we’re on the same page. Finally.’

  Without really knowing what he was doing – or preparing for it – he kissed her smile. She kissed him back briefly and then stopped. All laughter gone. She left him, amid those bluey-purple jacaranda flowers, confused about everything but the swimming elephants.

  KRYSTLE

  On the day after her thirteenth birthday, Krystle had woken up to a sound of something that she had never heard before in the house; the sound was so foreign that for a moment she believed that she was still dreaming. Someone was speaking with a raised, angry voice. Marcus. Why was Marcus, the good child, angry? The question was too tantalising for Krystle to leave uninvestigated. She had long made plans for this morning, the morning that would usher her into womanhood. She had spent most of the morning in bed, feeling every bit the lady, but when she heard the commotion downstairs she quickly tossed the bed linen aside and jumped out of bed. As she was putting on her slippers, the thought occurred to her that her sudden appearance in the kitchen would put an end to whatever was going on there. And so she carefully and stealthily made her way down the stairs.

  The house still smelled delicious and inviting from all the party food that had been served the day before. Krystle entered the kitchen to find the most extraordinary scene: her parents, in their matching satin nightclothes, were sitting … no, cowering … at the yellow Formica table, with Marcus (who in the last two years, to his utter relief and probable disbelief, had had a rapid growth spurt) towering over them, looking at the tops of their heads. ‘I want to hear it from the both of you,’ he said in a way that made her parents huddle together. Even though they were sitting in the centre of the kitchen, they seemed cornered by Marcus. Their eyes were downcast, refusing to see anything other than the yellow surface of the Formica table. They both looked … guilty.

  When Krystle saw her parents’ look of guilt, she knew instinctively that something was changing, and that the change would be irreparable.

  Genie was sitting in the breakfast nook, her legs folded beneath her, her arms wrapped around her body; she looked as though she was trying to occupy as little space as possible. She was not looking at anyone in particular – she seemed to have withdrawn into herself. She had obviously been crying. This terrified Krystle more than her parents’ guilt. Genie had never cried: not when she first arrived to live with the Masukus; not when Marcus decided that his first real girlfriend was to be Anesu, his second Buhle, and his third Coleen; not even when Kuki Carmichael sent her flying through the air. Genie had never cried. Until now.

  Krystle’s grandmother, Eunice, stood by the oven in her trusted terry cloth nightgown, wig slightly askew, arms resolutely crossed under her breasts, her mouth twisted into a tight and determined knot, and her eyes looking quizzically, almost critically, at the yellow-and-grey chequerboard pattern of the floor as though seeing it for the first time and finding irredeemable fault with it.

  They all looked like actors in a play, but Krystle could not tell, as yet, if she was one of the actors or part of the audience.

  ‘Say it,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Marcus, please,’ her father said, reaching out to touch him.

  ‘Say it!’ Marcus screamed, stopping her father’s hand before it reached its destination.

  ‘Genie is HIV-positive,’ her grandmother said, generously untwisting her knotted mouth.

  ‘So you keep saying. But I want to hear it from them. It has been their secret.’

  ‘I am HIV-positive, Marcus,’ Genie said, still not looking at anyone.

  ‘But how?’ Marcus asked. ‘HIV is a sexually transmitted disease and Genie has never …’

  Marcus sat down, defeated, opposite his parents, but now that his eyes were level with theirs, he chose not to look at them. He placed his hands on the table carefully instead, almost delicately, and watched them tremble.

  Just at the point when the silence was threatening to become oppressive, her father said: ‘HIV/AIDS can … can be transmitted sexually, but there are other … other ways.’ As always her father was trying to reach for facts in a time of uncertainty, but that was all he said before realising that he could not bring himself to say more.

  ‘Like between mother and child,’ her mother added, supporting her husband, but her voice lacked the certainty and authority that his voice would have conveyed.

  ‘My mother was not HIV-positive,’ Genie said with an unshakeable firmness in her voice.

  ‘No … no one, I’m sure, was suggesting that … that she was … As I said there are other … other ways. Blood … blood transfusions with contaminated blood, for example. Many … many other ways,’ her father explained, more to the yellow Formica table than to Genie.

  Silence filled the space between them again.

  Suddenly there was sound; a … buzzing. At first Krystle believed that the buzzing was in the room. Then she realised that the buzzing was coming from within. It was inside her. She heard her voice call out Genie’s name. She saw Genie turn and run back across the street. She heard the screech of tyres as Kuki Carmichael’s car came to an abrupt stop. She saw Genie flying through the air for a brief moment before landing in Jesus’ Scania pushcart. She saw Jesus smile down at Genie. She saw Genie smile up at Jesus. She saw her ten-year-old self smile too, fooled into thinking that everything was all right.

  She realised now that Genie and Jesus had deceived her.

  She looked around the room and realised that her family was deceiving her now.

  Krystle looked at her family – her parents looking at the yellow Formica table, Marcus looking at his trembling hands, her grandmother looking at the yellow-and-grey chequerboard floor, and Genie looking at the nothingness in front of her – and realised something: it was not that they were actively not looking at each other, it was that they were determined not to look at her. They were shielding her from what lay in their eyes. Accusation.

  She suddenly felt hot. Her body tingled … buzzing. She felt something liquid and warm ooze between her thighs. She knew she was leaving childhood things behind. In their place she welcomed guilt as her constant companion.

  Krystle ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs, aware that whatever was oozing out of her body was staining her lily white panties, embossed with the word ‘Sunday’ in dainty cursive letters. Sure enough, when she got to her pink bedroom and removed her panties, she found their lily whiteness stained with a brownish-red liquid. Womanhood … not at all a pretty sight. She got into bed, determined not to tell her mother or grandmother of this latest occurrence and wishing with all her heart that the brownish-red liquid oozing out of her would soak the bed linen, seep through to the mattress and leave an indelible stain that would have to be reckoned with for ever.

  She willed herself not to cry, but, of course, she cried. She willed herself not to wait for someone to come and comfort her, but, of course, she waited for someone (any member of her family, she was not feeling particularly particular) to come and comfort her. No one came. Not in time.

  Hours later, Genie entered the room with a smile on her face and sat on the corner of Krystle’s bed as though the scene in the kitchen had never happened.

 
‘Please forgive me,’ Krystle whimpered.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ Genie said with a smile that Krystle knew was deceptive.

  From that day, Krystle had learned a truth about her family – they were not to be trusted. Not one of them. For if there was really nothing to forgive, why had her family never talked about Genie’s accident and Krystle’s role in it? If there was really nothing to forgive, why had her family never brought up that incident in the kitchen, which they all knew Krystle had witnessed?

  In her more generous moods, Krystle allowed herself to entertain the thought that her family probably meant to be kind. But did they not know that it was cruel to not allow her to talk about the accident and her role in it; to go to such great lengths to make her not feel responsible for Genie’s illness, the illness that would some day surely kill her; to make her suffer under the weight of her guilt silently and alone?

  Every time Krystle said, ‘Please forgive me,’ the answer came back the same, ‘There is nothing to forgive.’ Every time.

  And Genie, perhaps unwittingly (Krystle was never quite sure), added insult to injury by returning to her old kind and caring self, by playing the role of the loving older sister. Perhaps Genie had always put on a persona, from the very moment she became part of the family, and had simply been whoever the Masukus wanted and needed her to be – the unproblematic daughter, the patient peacemaker, the humble high achiever, the grateful charity case that made the rest of the family feel good about their wealth and privilege, the brave young woman absolutely unfazed by the devastating news of being HIV-positive.

  Krystle began to suspect then that Genie was like Scheherazade herself, but instead of trafficking in tales, she trafficked in performances: a thousand and one performances. There was no real, original Genie to be found. Perhaps there had never been a real, original Genie. Only iterations.

  For the next two years Genie laughed, loved and lived as though nothing in her life had changed … until one afternoon, on the day of her eighteenth birthday, without warning, she picked up all the belongings with which she had entered the house and made her way to Jesus. Genie had entered the room as a ten-year-old girl with Penelope and Specs held under one arm and an old suitcase under the other. Those were all the possessions she had, and to her they were precious. When she left eight years later that was all she took – Penelope, Specs and an old suitcase stuffed with clothes that no longer fitted, still her most precious possessions.

  PART V

  EPIDEMIOLOGY: LOVE IN THE TIME OF HIV

  VIDA

  There was sunshine. And then there was no sunshine.

  ‘Jesus,’ a female voice said.

  Vida opened his eyes, squinted and looked up. She was so … incandescent. He had to shield his eyes. The sun behind her made her reddish-brown hair look like a flaming halo. It took him a second to realise who it was. It was Golide Gumede’s daughter, Imogen Zula Nyoni. The girl he had caught as she went flying through the air what seemed to be a lifetime ago. She inclined her head to the left, bringing the sun suddenly back, directly into his eyes. He shut his eyes tightly and swore.

  ‘You saved my life once. Thank you,’ she said, then waited.

  What was he supposed to say to that? He had nothing to say. But she was obviously expecting him to say something. He did not like people expecting things of him. ‘There’s no need to thank me. I just happened to be there. Just at the right place at the right time, I suppose,’ he said finally, his eyes still closed.

  Suddenly he felt the warmth of the sun full on him. Had she walked away? He hoped she had, hoped his indifference had let her know that he was a lost cause. But even as he was hoping she had left him alone, he knew he was not going to be that lucky. He felt her sit down beside him.

  ‘You saved my life. And now I’m here to save yours,’ her voice said.

  The scent of vanilla … and something else … woodsmoke. He held his breath. He did not like smelling people. He tried very hard never to do so. He always held his breath when someone passed by too close. There is something highly intimate about smelling another human being. It is a taking-in of sorts – a sharing, an absorbing, a consuming of another. It is just one step away from taste. Hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting: that was the hierarchy of the senses in ascending order according to Vida. He liked to delegate most of his human interaction to the first two senses. But here was Golide Gumede’s daughter, and after only a few seconds of acquaintance the scent of vanilla had already invaded his body and become a part of him. He exhaled and, having held his breath for so long, had to open his mouth. The scent of vanilla in his mouth was obscenely close to the sensation of taste. Something fluttered in the pit of his stomach and made him uneasy.

  He had no choice but to open his eyes, turn his head and look at her. His eyes still adjusting to the sun, he saw her in a haze. She was sitting on a suitcase and in her arms she unabashedly held a rag doll and a teddy bear. How old was she? Too old to be walking around with toys in her arms, in broad daylight, in the city. She smiled at him, revealing the gap between her two front teeth, which for some reason made that something flutter in the pit of his stomach again, which in turn made him angry.

  ‘You’ve come to save me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding her head and smiling.

  ‘Who says I need saving?’

  She just looked at him and continued to smile. Perhaps something was wrong with her. Maybe she was not right in the head. She had, after all, suffered a head injury.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t need saving.’

  ‘Oh, but you do,’ she said rather too quickly and matter-of-factly.

  He did not like the way she stared at him. The way she held his gaze. The way she made him be the one to look away first. How old was she? She could not be older than eighteen and yet she looked at him like she knew things – things about him that he did not know himself. He closed his eyes again, hoping she would be discouraged and walk away. Instead he felt her settle in and make herself more comfortable beside him.

  ‘Who’s the company?’ Mick’s voice said, speech slurred, as he staggered back to his rightful place next to Vida, reeking of alcohol and tobacco.

  Vida, eyes still closed, shrugged his shoulders and turned his face up towards the sun. Maybe Mick was just what he needed to chase the girl away. But just as he thought the thought, he felt her reach across his chest. Vanilla … woodsmoke … No, too strong. He held his breath.

  ‘Imogen Zula Nyoni. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Shakes hands too,’ Mick said, sounding both amused and surprised. ‘I’m Michael Macintosh. It’s a real pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  Mick laughed, as did Vida. Vida felt foolish and childish because he knew that the only reason he was laughing was to hurt her feelings. Mick was probably laughing because he was drunk, or high, or both, and anything at this point was either very sad or very funny.

  ‘Friends call me Mick.’

  ‘Not Mike?’

  ‘No … Mick the Tick … bush name … Mick for short.’

  ‘You have an accent.’

  ‘Originally from the United States of America. I came here as a mercenary – a soldier of fortune. The country hasn’t been able to shake me off since. I’m the tick for sure.’ Mick laughed heartily at his own joke.

  ‘Friends call me Genie.’

  ‘So what’s your story?’

  ‘She says she’s here to save me,’ Vida said, eyes still closed.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that you were in need of saving,’ Mick said, sounding suddenly serious.

  ‘Neither was I.’

  ‘You’re Jesus. Shouldn’t you be the one doing the saving?’ Mick went on, still sounding serious.

  Vida shrugged.

  ‘How do you intend to save him?’ Mick asked.

  ‘I’m not altogether sure yet.’

  Vida laughed mirthlessly. ‘Some saviour you are.’

  Mick started snoring beside hi
m. Vida felt the sun begin to set behind the City Hall clock tower. It took its time. The brick wall of the free public toilets against which his back rested slowly began to cool. The clock chimed six times. The city became quieter as the bustle of the rush hour subsided. This was his second-favourite time of day – his first being when the city woke up in the morning to the scent of freshly baked bread.

  Vida got up suddenly, too quickly. He felt dizzy. He saw stars. He had to brace himself against the brick wall for a minute, which gave Genie enough time to stand up too. He had almost forgotten that she was there. Almost. He took his first unsteady step away from her and had to brace himself against the wall again, fighting all the while not to entertain the thought that he had almost forgotten that she was there because he had already grown accustomed to her being there.

  ‘I’m off to Scobie’s for my sundowner.’ He pretended he was telling this to Mick, who was still snoring loudly.

  He walked off without looking at her.

  And, of course, she followed him.

  He turned around suddenly, causing her to walk right into him. Touch. ‘Go back home, Genie,’ he said, stepping away.

  She took a step towards him. She was a stubborn little so-and-so.

  He had thought it was the sunshine at first, but he saw now that he was wrong – she was radiant. It was as though she had a light within her that made her luminescent.

  He took a few steps back. ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking. I don’t know what you’ve got planned, but whatever it is, it is probably not a good idea. You need to go home. I am sure your guardians are wondering where you are.’ He regretted the words immediately. He should have said ‘parents’. The word ‘guardians’ revealed that he knew about her – knew the particular details of her life.

  He turned and walked away again. He knew she was following him. He felt her close behind. Suddenly a thought occurred to him and he turned to her. This time she avoided bumping into him – a fast learner.