Under Water

by JL Powers

  The Somali-run tuck shop isn’t the only change in Imbali. A Chinese herb and healing center opened just a short, ten-minute walk from my front door. Makhosi says not to worry. “Even if people try this Chinese stuff,” she says, “they’ll always come back to sangomas. Nothing can replace hearing from your own loved ones who have passed on to the other side. You think those Chinese healers can hear our dead? No, they may have magic herbs but you must be Zulu to do what we do.”

  Even if they don’t hear our ancestors’ voices, people are seduced by the Chinese: they respect healers who have come from a long ways away. It seems like people believe that the farther away it comes from, the better it must be.

  At least, when it comes to medicine.

  They don’t feel that way about Somalis or Chinese who own tuck shops and grocery stores. I don’t blame this man for putting up bullet proof sliding where he takes the money, or keeping himself locked in all the time. It wasn’t so long ago that people dragged Somalis through the streets in Durban, killing them for no other reason than that they run the tuck shops so, according to the people, they must be taking away jobs from South Africans.

  I greet the man in Zulu, “Sawubona, Ahmed, nina ninjani?” Then in Arabic, “As-salaam ‘alaykum.” I want him to know that he has nothing to fear from me. I’m perfectly OK with his presence here in the township. No matter how different—or similar—he is.

  Ahmed nods and smiles at me, sliding a Coke through the opening. “Are you doing well today, sister?” he asks. He has a deep voice, the kind I imagine Little Man having someday, when he’s a little older. I’ve known Little Man since before his voice changed and every year it gets deeper.

  “Yebo, bhuti, the day is just beginning,” I say. “Wish me luck for my business.”

  “What is your business, sister?”

  I try to think about how to translate what I do for people who are not Zulu. “I pray for people. I pray to the Great Lord of the Sky and also to our ancestors, all of our ancestors, to help me discern what is causing their illness and what they need to make them well again. Then I give them herbs or holy water to heal their sickness and I bless them so that their health is good.”

  The way his hair looks, soft and springy, is different than Zulu hair. But the darkness of his skin—not yellow-black, like most of us—reminds me of Little Man’s blue-black tones. “I was myself a doctor in my own country before I came here,” he says. “And we too have our healing traditions in Islam.”

  “What are they?” I ask.

  “We have many. In some parts of the world, an imam will write the words of the Qu’ran on paper and a sick person will swallow the holy words to make themselves well again. Or they may wear a protective amulet to prevent or heal sickness.”

  I look at him again, closer this time. “And as a doctor,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “what do you think of these traditions?”

  He spreads his arms wide as if embracing the world. “They cannot do harm,” he says. “And they may do good. I trust that Allah is good and means the best for all of us. We say in Islam that there is no illness for which Allah hasn’t created a cure. And so I pray for my patients and I also give them good medicine, the best I know how, to make them well again.”

  It is not so different from how I practice Zulu medicine then.

  He looks sad. “Or at least, I used to do all of that. Now I dispense Coca-Cola products, bread, and biscuits.”

  “It is important work,” I say, meaning to comfort him. “Many of us depend on you. It is hard to get to the Spar or Checkers and it is too much expensive to shop there. You help us get our daily bread. That is medicine of a sort.” Of course, now that the new shopping center opened next to Imbali, it is easier to get to a grocery store—but accessible does not mean affordable. And some elderly people have trouble getting even that far. Shame, we should have a service for that. Some man on a bicycle could fetch and deliver food for them.

  He shrugs. Here is a man who feels thwarted. He fled his country and saved his life but his soul is drying up, withering away. What a terrible thing it must be to leave your home and everything you love just because you must save your physical life.

  I wonder if he felt called by Allah to be a doctor? If, like me, he realized the gift he had been given wasn’t of his own choosing but something he must do? Then how hindered he must feel now. Does he still feel the pulsing need in his hands to heal? The voice in his head that tells him, Do this, do that, save them?

  Yes, I see from the pain in his eyes, he still feels it, and it has no release. No release in this bread and fruit, the gum and cigarettes, that he must push from one side to the other in exchange for money. Some calling indeed. I wish I could relieve him of this need. Let him know that others are taking up the burden. Like me. But I know that will not solve this thing for him. When you feel called, and then you are thwarted—it is a terrible thing.

  “Sister,” he says, pushing a small chocolate into my hands, “may you have a good day for business inshallah.”

  I pocket the chocolate as a treat for Zi later. “And you too, bhuti.”

  Nhlanhla greets me with hysteric barks as I approach the house, as if I’ve been gone for days. I rub her behind her ears and speak in a soothing voice until she calms down. She licks my hand with wild abandon as I slip inside.

  What would I do without her?

  I open the gate wide and set out the sign, advertising my services. A woman old enough to be my mother is toiling up the hill to my house, waving a hand at me, so I wait until she arrives.

  “Sawubona, Mama,” I greet her. She grasps my arm and I help her inside, closing the gate and escorting her towards the traditional round hut in the back behind the main house.

  She leans on me, her weight heavy. I help her sit, settling Nhlanhla beside me. She gulps the glass of water I give her, calming herself. Although this is what I do every day, and it is second nature, it is sometimes hard for people to approach sangomas and ask for help. They never know what they might hear, good or bad. Plus, I am young. Sometimes they don’t want a young woman who could be their daughter or granddaughter knowing the truth.

  “What is your surname, Mama?” I ask her.

  “Nene,” she says.

  “And your first name?”

  “Gladys.”

  “And what are you seeking, Mama?”

  “Protection,” she says. “I have heard you know how to protect yourself… so for this thing, I am seeking help from you.”

  “Protection from who or what?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to name it.

  It’s not important. Her Nene ancestors—or my own grandfather Mkhulu—will tell me what I need to know. That’s the thing the people don’t know: how much more I know than what they tell me.

  “Do you believe you’ve been cursed? Does someone wish to harm you?”

  “No,” she says. “But my boys may call a curse down upon us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No good can come with the things they are doing,” she says. “Angaz’, I thought I raised them to be good boys. But now they’re sniffing around that Somali’s tuck shop. They say foreigners don’t belong here, not in Imbali. They say they’re going to do something.”

  She grabs my hand. “I’m afraid, ndodakazi, afraid. What are they doing? What if they hurt that man? Will I suffer because of what they do?”

  The desperation in her grip strikes fear in my heart. But I pretend to be calm. “I will ask the ancestors to protect you,” I say, “and to keep your boys from doing anything they should not do.”

  I smudge the room with impepho, humming gently. Calling to Mkhulu. Calling to this woman’s ancestors. Then I settle myself on the floor beside her and close my eyes. Immediately, bright images thud through my mind like loud music, doof doof doof, one after the other.

  Two lions chasing after a gazelle.

  The gazelle’s body, broken and mangled, lying in the dirt.
/>   A pool of blood mixing with earth.

  A woman screaming.

  A prison, tall and grey, on a city street, the sounds of sobbing men seeping through the closed windows.

  I open my eyes quickly, to free myself of the images. But the woman is still there before me, neck bent, and I must say something. I can tell her the truth, or I can soothe her, or I can tell her the truth while trying to soothe her. What do I do? What do I do, Mkhulu?

  The woman keeps her head bent but her eyes sweep upwards as she peeks at me, a soft swift cunning, and in that little movement, I know. I know everything. She isn’t coming to stop something. No. She’s coming because she doesn’t want to be punished or suffer consequences for what they have done and what they plan to do. She’s seeking absolution in advance.

  “What are your boys going to do?” I ask. My voice is low but stern, not a voice I would or should use with an elder but suddenly, I am her elder, I am thousands of years older than her, as I speak in the voice of all the people that have gone before us. “You are afraid but you already know they are up to no good. They are already stealing and hurting strangers among us. What more will they do?”

  She stands suddenly, sobbing, and I reach out to her, like I would anybody who is sorrowing, but something stops me hard. As though my grandfather Mkhulu has blocked my hand.

  “Please, I need protection,” she yells.

  Something cold and horrible grips my stomach. “Cha! You will never receive the protection of your ancestors.”

  “Why not?” she cries.

  “It is said, ‘Do not call a dog with a whip in your hand.’ You know we must take pity on the stranger and be kind. You cannot ask for protection as long as you do nothing to stop your boys, as long as you provide them with a home and a safe place to hide while they go and shame you, while they go and shame all Zulus. Or if you take money from them. Mama, you cannot ask for protection from the ancestors if you are accepting blood money from your sons.”

  She jerks away, as though my words burn.

  The beads on my headpiece rattle and clang as I shake my head at her. “You tell your sons that I’m putting a protective charm over that man. You tell your sons to leave him alone or they will regret it.”

  Her lips curl into a sudden sneer. “What would you know about it anyway?” she asks. “You, you with everything? Go on now and tell an old lady she should starve.”

  The words sear my lips. “When did it become a battle between starvation and doing the right thing?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she yells. “I have nothing, only my sons.”

  “Go do what is in your heart to do,” I say. “And if you do the right thing, the ancestors will protect you, with or without my help.”

  She hurries out of the room, weeping.

  Eish, that’s one way to make sure I don’t get paid.

  Next time, ask for payment before you tell her the truth, Mkhulu chides me. He has a deep chuckle that echoes around the room.

  It’s not funny, I tell him. If I don’t earn money, Zi and I don’t eat.

  I’m already thinking about the empty cupboards in the house. But a half loaf is better than no bread. At least there’s a full sack of mealies so I can make phuthu with some spinach growing in the garden.

  Gogo planted that spinach before she died and it’s flourished, thank you, Gogo, along with some few small herbs, thank you, amadlozi. I’ll have to learn, with their help, how to garden next year. In addition to food, I must also plant a garden full of herbs to use for medicines.

  Nhlanhla follows me out to the front yard. We stand at the gate and watch the woman’s retreating back as she runs home fast fast. She’s calling out to somebody as she passes, probably telling them not to visit the rude young sangoma in Unit J.

  I look at the tuck shop across the way. Ahmed struggles to take down a sign announcing oranges for five rand. Two young men saunter past, staring. What has happened to us? Gogo told me in the old days, those young men would be ashamed if they didn’t offer assistance. Now they just stare.

  Sighing, I command Nhlanhla to stay and walk briskly to Ahmed’s side to help him with the sign.

  His mouth parts in a startled smile. He has a gap between his teeth. “Ngiyabonga,” he thanks me in his accented Zulu.

  “Pleasure,” I say. Then, in a hurry, “I feel I should warn you, bhuti.”

  He takes a step back. “Warn me? Is it?”

  “Some people in Imbali wish harm to you.”

  “What?” His voice is too loud and his eyebrows draw together, both angry and confused.

  My stomach can’t handle all the tension—between the old woman and now Ahmed. Bile rises in my throat and I swallow it back. It stings as it goes back down the esophagus.

  “I do not think you are safe here,” I say. “You must take care. Protect yourself.”

  He starts backing up, heading inside, afraid, as though I’m threatening him rather than warning him.

  I hold my hands out to show I mean no ill. “I hear things,” I say. “Please be careful. Please!”

  He’s already inside the tuck shop, slamming shut the opening where people pay and receive their goods. “Go,” he says when he sees me standing there. “Go now. Please. Just go. Go away.”

  As I lean over to vomit in the dirt, I wonder if I should have kept my mouth shut. And I forgot to tell him that I would pray for him.

  I wipe my mouth and stand beside Nhlanhla. We watch as he closes shop, gets in his bakkie, and drives away, leaving a cloud of dust behind him. He doesn’t look at me again.

  I wonder if he’ll be back, and if he comes back, whether he’ll bring protection: other people or a gun. I imagine he prays to Allah, as Muslims do. I hope Allah will help him, protect him, just as the amadlozi and God help me. I hope he comes back because without the tuck shops, the people of Imbali hurt.

  But I have a moment of foreboding as Nhlanhla and I make our way back to the hut, waiting for our next customer. A dark cloud on the horizon.

  Something evil is on its way to Imbali. Like the rain that falls, it will touch all of us.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WAR

  Little Man’s taxi is late. I wait at the taxi rank as I do each day to fetch Zi. There’s always some variation in the arrival time, of course, but today they are too much late.

  All of the taxis are late.

  I move closer to a group of gogos waiting for their grandchildren, just as Gogo used to do.

  Oh, Gogo, I miss you.

  The group of elderly women is rustling around, grumbling, keeping the worry out of their voices by acting irritated. One of them meets my eyes, then looks away, afraid when she sees that I also am worried.

  I forget, sometimes, that I’m not just a neighborhood granddaughter anymore. Now I’m a link to the other world. I’m supposed to know things. If I’m calm, everything must be all-right. If I’m worried, then I must know something. Even if the truth is that I worry because I’m human, just like they do—not because the ancestors have warned me that something bad is about to happen.

  It makes me want to scream sometimes that my gift doesn’t work like that. It is not as though I know everything.

  As far as the amadlozi goes, it’s a one-way line of communication. I can ask ask ask ask ask and they can choose to be silent. But if they want something? They will not shut up, not for a second, not until I do what they say.

  That is something that the ancestors do not tell you when they call you to be a sangoma. This thing that you are, it is not an enviable position. As a sangoma, you are the guardian of secrets in your community. It puts you in danger, actually. Sometimes, you know these secrets because the people themselves come and tell you. Sometimes, you know these secrets because the ancestors tell you something, something you wish you did not know. You may know half-secrets or you may know full-secrets but either way, you walk around with this heavy burden that you cannot be rid of. But other times, people think you know something, and you do
not. And they look at you or they look away, either way because they are afraid of you. They avoid you. They try to harm you. They hide. They do whatever they can to keep you from seeing them.

  If I had known all this, I might have told Mkhulu no when he called me to this life, though I do not see how you tell a dead person no.

  That is also my problem with Gogo. With a breathing person standing in front of you, blood running through their veins, you can explain that what they asked you to promise is now impossible, or was not a reasonable or even responsible thing for them to ask. With a person who is gone, you can only tell their spirit, and their spirit does not care how impossible it is. Spirits are not something you can reason with. They want only what they want and nothing else will satisfy.

  One of the gogos stops in front of me. She takes my hands in her own. “Are they all-right, Makhosi?” she asks.

  “Who?” My eyes cross with confusion and worry as I look beyond her to the taxi rank, hoping to see Little Man’s taxi careening towards us the way it does, always a little off center and just that much too fast.

  “Our children,” she says. “Our babies.”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” I say, hurried. Because they are OK. But I’m not sure if Little Man is, or if Zi is. But these women? This time, I think they have nothing to fear. But if the evil I’m sensing is real and true, we all have something to fear in the coming months. “Just now, they are OK.”

  Her whole body relaxes and she turns away, joy in her face and on her lips, and then the other women are shouting their joy, and I turn away because I can’t bear it all.

  The white and tan taxi that Little Man works for tears recklessly down the potholed road and jerks to a stop right in front of me. And I just stare. Because it’s pockmarked with bullet holes.

  Little Man hustles off and shoves Zi in my direction. “Try not to worry,” he yells in my direction, “I will call later! It’s a bit hectic just now!” And then his taxi streaks off down the road again.