by JL Powers
“Little Man,” I say.
He puts his arm around me and cuddles me against his shoulder. “Shhh,” he says. “Don’t say anything. The only thing I want to do is help you and Zi. That is all.”
It would be so wonderful to feel like I’m not alone. To know that Little Man and I—
And soon we’re kissing again and the kissing keeps going and…and… We’ve never had time like this. Gogo is always around or Zi.
I should stop this.
I melt into his arms.
I should stop this… but…
His lips march up my arm to my neck, little ants nibbling. He nips my collarbone, uses his tongue to lick the skin down down down. His fingers caressing the small of my back, inching their way up my shirt and gently trailing across my waist. An explosion of birds flapping in my stomach and heart and…
Khosi. A warning from Gogo.
Not just now, Gogo.
You promised…
Yebo, Gogo, yebo. I’ve broken one promise and I’m about to break another. But this is not one you need to witness. You stay here. In the living room. Don’t follow me.
“Little Man,” I whisper.
He freezes. Lips puckered, about to kiss my nipple. Fingers gripping the extra flesh around my hips.
“Ngiyakuthanda, Khosi,” he whispers, as though ashamed.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
Don’t follow me, Gogo. Don’t you dare follow me. And that goes for the rest of you too. Mkhulu. All you amadlozi. I don’t need your judgments or your eyes on me. Stay here. All of you.
“Woza,” I say. And lead him down the hallway to the bedroom.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PROBLEM OF JEALOUSY
And so begins our new life.
While Zi is at school, I open the gate and leave a sign that says I am available for customers. I wave hello at all the neighbors, even the ones who just look my way without responding because they believed all of Auntie’s lies. But a sangoma has to be friendly to all the people…even though I really just want to sink into my own private world with Zi. It is hard to always put on a public face.
They say a prophet is never honored in her own country. How can my neighbors ever accept me as anything but little Khosi, the girl they saw grow up? How can they ever let me be this thing among them—a sangoma, a voice for the ancestors? And how will they ever get over all the suspicion and lies that my aunt spread?
Once the gate is open and the sign is out, I wait.
Well, I sort of wait. I can’t keep still for long, so I make some tea with lots of hot milk and sugar. I drink it slowly. Then I examine Gogo’s garden. It is looking pretty scraggly, so I water it carefully and then look for weeds to pull.
“What do you think, Nhlanhla?” I ask. “Should we start a new garden?”
Nhlanhla crouches at the foot of a tall, bedraggled mealie plant and barks.
“Yebo, I agree,” I say. “Let’s start over. Tomorrow, we’ll hike up into the hills and find some plants that we can transplant. Winter herbs…”
It’s cold outside so I light a fire in the hut and Nhlanhla lies down beside me. We look at the fire, at the smoke curling upwards, and I start to drift into a sweet, sleepy haze.
“Makhosi?”
I jerk awake. A young man has entered the hut, smiling, flashing white teeth at me. Nhlanhla’s tail thumps loudly on the floor.
I’ve decided to keep Nhlanhla beside me whenever I’m seeing customers. She stays in the hut by my side and growls if somebody gets too close. I don’t want to be unwelcoming but twice in the first week, two of the men who visited me thought that because I’m a young woman, they could get more than what they requested. But they underestimated the protection of my ancestors.
The first man left with a hole in the seat of his pants and a fresh dog bite on his rear end.
The second man was shocked when a snake started slithering towards him, fangs wide, glistening with poison.
I haven’t been bothered since then but it’s early days yet. I keep Nhlanhla beside me all the time. I’m not taking any chances. I like to think Gogo’s spirit passed into her and sometimes, I swear, I see Gogo looking at me through her amber-brown eyes. Or I hear Gogo’s voice in her whine.
Not that I need Nhlanhla to hear your voice, Gogo. God forbid that you should ever shut up.
It’s reassuring, in this case, that Nhlanhla simply wags her tail and does not move. She keeps her eyes trained on the young man but otherwise, she is at peace.
“Welcome,” I say. “Please sit.”
“Thank you, Makhosi.” He sits to the side of me and nervously picks at the collar of his shirt. He looks uncomfortable. He keeps running a finger around the inside of his collar.
“What do you need?” I ask.
“I am looking for a job,” he says. “But I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
He bows his head, ashamed. “I am afraid somebody has cursed me, to prevent my success.”
I light impepho and begin to hum as the scent swirls around us. The young man’s ancestors can hardly sit still, like eager and overactive children. They have been dying to speak to him for some time now and this is their first chance. I begin to ask the young man questions about his life so they can tell me what is wrong.
“Are you working already? Do you have a job?”
“I had a very good job, Makhosi, and some few months ago, I was laid off. I have been searching ever since with no luck.”
“Do you have a wife?” I ask.
“Yes.” He has a look of desperation on his face. “I have a beautiful wife. I paid a very high sum for her lobola. We have been married for two years yet and we do not have a child. She is worried. Why can’t she fall pregnant?”
His ancestors murmur together. His great-great-grandmother looks agitated and begins to gesture as she whispers to the others. I catch a word here and there and slowly begin to see the whole picture.
“You have a twin brother,” I say.
“Yes, Makhosi,” he says.
“Is he married?”
He shakes his head.
“Your brother is very jealous,” I say. “It seems he has always wanted what you have.”
Drops of sweat gather at his temples and roll down his face and then neck. “I know this, Makhosi, but is he the one behind this?”
“The amadlozi seem to think so,” I say. “It seems he wants your wife and is seeking to destroy your success so that you lose her.”
He rubs his arms and shivers. He looks more sick and afraid than angry. “I have seen him watching her,” he says. “But I never thought—my own brother.” His groans are low but powerful, coming from a deep place of agony.
I reach out and gently touch his shoulder. “It will be all-right, mfowethu. I will send some herbs for your wife to take that will help her to conceive or help prepare her body for pregnancy.”
“Siyabonga, Makhosi, siyabonga.”
“And for you, I will give you some muthi to cleanse your body and mind. And then I want you to know that your brother’s curses cannot work, only if you believe them. You must talk to your brother. He is your family. The amadlozi do not like this thing of contention between the two of you. If you talk to him, you can work it out, and the power of those curses will dissipate. Like mist in the air.”
He sighs, a hollow well of what was once fear and now is simply relief.
When he leaves with a packet of herbs and some of the water I have blessed and instructions to return to me when he has found a job and his wife conceives, I take a moment to pray for him. I pray to the amadlozi and also to the Lord of the Skies. It is not easy, what he must do. It would be easier just to take the medicine and think everything will be solved, but no. Dissension of this kind, it will only be solved if he confronts his brother.
I never had that chance with Mama. She died before I could tell her how angry I am with her—for stealing money from our neighbor, for refusing to take me
dicine for her HIV so that she ended up dying. I have tried to make peace with it, and to forgive her, but I wonder sometimes if I have succeeded. She is restless, she wanders back and forth among the amadlozi, never speaking to me; I also never speak to her and I too feel as though I can never rest. I must go here, go there, seeking something. But what?
Plenty sits still but hunger is a wanderer. And I am hungry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFRAID THINGS WILL CHANGE, AFRAID THEY’LL STAY THE SAME
Zi stands before me, a certain begging in her eyes. It’s not that what she wants—money for some little what what what that is all the big rage at school—is such a big deal. But I’m barely holding on as it is, trying to pay for everything we need.
“Don’t be like the hyenas,” I tell her, “the ones who go after the lion’s leavings.”
Her eyes tell me that I am a lioness, she is my cub, and therefore she doesn’t need to be a hyena, she simply needs to wait until I get hungry enough to provide. But she says nothing.
“Now get ready for school,” I say, “or you will be late. Little Man’s taxi is coming now now to take you. In fact, I already received a text saying he is on his way to meet you.”
She hurries into her uniform, a white shirt and green skirt, the same uniform I wore every day before I had to quit. I miss it, all of it. It’s a quiet ache in the back of my throat—always there but barely felt now.
Zi shrugs a coat over her uniform, and then her backpack with her school things. We head outside, locking the door and the gate, even though Little Man’s khumbi will come right to the corner to pick her up, within sight of the house.
But locking up is something I do religiously. Yes, yes, I placed a charm around my place to ward off thieves. Of course, my ancestors will do what they can to keep the place safe. But I still lock up. That’s good sense. If nothing else, training to become a healer has taught me the limits of my powers. I can put a protective hedge around my house but I cannot guarantee that evil will not find a way in. I will never be one of these sangomas that passes out pamphlets in city squares, promising miracles. If people come to me, I will do what I can, the best I can do—the best my ancestors give me in any given circumstance. Sometimes what I have to give them will work. Sometimes what I have to give them will fail. That is all. No guarantees. No false promises.
But the real truth is that sometimes people ask for one thing when it is something else they actually need. And they aren’t always happy to learn this.
The morning is cold enough to see our own breath. Smoke rises from fires in yards as we walk past fences along the dirt road towards the taxi rank. A blue haze hovers low in the horizon, the landscape dotted with houses lining the zigzag streets and going up into the hills in the distance. A flock of squat brown Hadeda jubilate across the road, greeting the morning with joyous squawks.
Little Man’s waiting for us at the corner, sitting on the stone that people use as a bench, hunching into his black hoody against the cold wind. “Hey, Khosi,” he greets me.
“Hey, Little Man.” My voice is still rough with leftover dreams from the long night.
He takes my hand and kisses the palm with his lips, soft soft, and I shiver, just like the first time he kissed me. His calloused hand gently caresses mine, holding it as though he’s holding me. I admit, his presence makes me feel safe. Calm. And I wonder if I could, or should, finally tell him yes. Yes to what he wants. To what he keeps asking me. Yes, come live with us. Yes, let’s be together, always.
But I keep telling him no. Despite everything. Even though I’ve already broken my promises to Gogo, that feels like it would take it one step too far.
“Hello, little Zi.” Little Man and Zi slap palms in a high five.
She’s so tiny, he’s able to lift her across his shoulders and carry her like a bag of mealies. She giggles and kicks her legs and finally cries, “Let me down, Little Man!” so he swings her back down and places her gently on the ground.
“Someday, I’m going to carry you all the way to town that way,” he threatens.
She sticks her tongue out at him and he laughs.
“Maybe I’ll just carry your older sister to town instead.” His eyes appraise me, those eyes that say so much more than the words. “Do you think I could carry you over my shoulder, Khosi?” he asks.
I blush and look at the ground. I won’t answer, he already knows, but he loves to tease me like this.
“Khosi’s bigger than you,” Zi informs Little Man, as if he didn’t know that already.
“I know.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “She’s perfect.”
“Stop it, Little Man,” I say weakly, looking all around to see if anybody is watching and listening.
“Oh, now, we’re embarrassing her,” Little Man tells Zi. “We better stop before we both get in trouble.”
They look at me with such pitiful expressions, I have to start laughing. Little Man elbows Zi and they grin at each other and then at me. I shake my head at them. “You are too much crazy.”
“We are too much wonderful,” Zi says. She leans into Little Man and he puts an arm around her. It reminds me for some few seconds of how much she’s lost—and I’m that glad Little Man has been in our lives these past three years. And that he is here still.
“Khosi, hey! I sent you some customers yesterday,” Little Man says.
“What did they need? What were they looking for?”
“They didn’t say.”
“Did you tell them to go to hospital?” I try to think like this: medicine first, then Zulu medicine. But I don’t always succeed. Being a sangoma is my livelihood, after all, and my dream of becoming a nurse is only getting further and further away, especially now that I had to quit school. So sometimes the Zulu ways seem more important to me…they are certainly more important now now, with my need to make money.
“They were coming from Edendale already,” he says. “She’d just been released. She had medicine but she wasn’t happy with the diagnosis. She said something about a relative that was angry with her and she thinks that relative may be practicing witchcraft against her… She has tried many things to get better and nothing works.”
I nod, grateful that he’s sending people my way.
“Bo’s here,” Zi announces, pointing to the white and tan khumbi that jerks to a stop at the corner. Bo, Little Man’s boss, waves the two of them over, a wordless hurry up.
Swiftly, Little Man reaches out, grips my waist to pull me close. He kisses me so sweetly, my whole body tingles. “Goodbye, S’thandwa,” he says tenderly and holds a hand out to Zi. “Ready, Zinhle?” he asks.
She takes his hand and they board the empty mini-bus, which will soon fill with passengers.
Little Man works for Bo seven days a week, long hours—it seems like twelve hours a day. Bo drives the taxi and Little Man collects money from the passengers.
It feels like we hardly see him anymore. Well, Zi sees him, to and from school.
He works so many hours because he’s saving up. He decided he wants to buy his own taxi and be his own boss. When I ask him about the bursary, and going back to school, he just shakes his head.
Still, even if I wish it was different, I couldn’t do it without his help. He arranged his long hours so he could start when Zi needs to go to school and he accompanies her. They drop her off at the front door of the school. He’s still working when school is over so his taxi swings by the school and picks her up at the corner, and he makes sure she comes safely home too. They’re always there to pick her up on time, none of this “five minutes, five minutes” business, which can mean an hour or even longer. I can’t even say how grateful I am for his thoughtfulness and care, since I can’t take her myself. Plus, he refuses to let me pay the fare. So there’s that too. Every rand I save counts.
He was angry when he learned that I had quit school without borrowing school fees from him first—but he doesn’t understand. I can’t be that in debt to anybody for anything. Even Litt
le Man.
Sometimes I think I’d be happier if I sold the house and we moved to Durban, if I started up my healing practice there instead of here. Zi could go to a good school in Durban. Since water is the main healing tool or power the ancestors gave me, it would be nice to be near the warm, salty seas of the Indian Ocean.
But the thing about the ancestors is that they tell you where to go and whenever I think Durban, they say, No no no no. Or, sometimes, Not yet.
Plus, and this is a big thing, I must think about Little Man too. He’s an Imbali man through and through. I don’t see him leaving this place ever. After all, he wants to establish his own taxi business! Of course, I haven’t given him a chance to say he might be willing to move. I haven’t talked to him about what I want to do. I don’t even know why. Sometimes I’m afraid things will change. Sometimes I’m afraid things will stay the same forever and ever.
Maybe if I’d moved away as soon as Gogo died, like I wanted, I wouldn’t be in so much trouble now. Because something’s happened that I can’t take back… But then I have to wonder—is this thing that happened also the reason they keep telling me no no no? Is it too late to leave?
Tell me, Gogo. Did I make just that one wrong decision and ruin my future plans forever?
I hope not. But it’s possible. I might just be stuck here in Imbali… forever.
CHAPTER NINE
MEDICINE OF A SORT
After sending Zi to school, I stop at the tuck shop and part with a few precious rands for a cool drink.
The tuck shop on my street used to be owned by a man who lived just next door to the shop. But he sold it to a Somali family some few months back. Occasionally, the wife is here, wearing her long skirts and bright red or pink head coverings, her children hovering in the background, sucking thumbs or candy and staring at me. But most of the time, the husband runs the shop. I don’t know where they live but it’s not in Imbali—I’m sure they live far from here, probably because they worry all the time that they will be attacked. Now we slide rands through a small hole in an iron grid meant to protect the man inside from weapons. That’s because he’s already been robbed at gunpoint twice, and he’s only been in Imbali for six months!