by JL Powers
Does that mean everything is back to normal? Maybe. But still we don’t move.
We must fall asleep because I wake some time later, cramped and cold, my neck aching, Zi curled up right on top of me. The air is frigid. I shove Zi off and run to the bathroom just in time to throw up all over the floor.
I crawl on hands and knees back to the living room.
Zi’s already back to sleep. I cuddle up beside her, too sick to clean up after myself or to check the yard to see if our intruder is gone.
We wake in the morning to loud noises, a babbling crowd just outside our gate. I brush my hand across my mouth, which still tastes of puke, wiping off the crusty drool that dried on my cheek.
“Get up, Zi,” I say. “Something is happening outside.”
“Is it?” She yawns and stretches.
My bones ache from our awkward sleep. But at least we made it through the night. Nobody broke in. Nobody killed us. Nhlanhla is standing at the door, whining to be let out, and as soon as I open the door, she bounds out the door and runs to the gate, barking at the people shoving and pushing to be in front.
I walk towards the yelling crowd. The gate is closed and I assume the lock is still on it—whoever was in our yard last night must have climbed over the barbed wire that surrounds the yard.
And then I see it.
“Zi, get back inside,” I say quick quick.
“What? Why?” And then she sees it too because she screams.
“Get back inside,” I shout. “Hamba!”
She twirls around and runs back to the house, slamming the door behind her.
I advance more slowly. My focus narrows in on the body of the man slumped against the gate.
“Who is it?” I call.
Several people in the crowd look east, towards the tuck shop at the top of the hill. The tuck shop is burning, flames leaping high in the early morning sky. And the person slumped against my gate is Ahmed. I don’t even have to feel him to know his body is cold. His spirit left hours ago.
The people gathered around him look somber, but up the hill young men toyi-toyi in front of the shop as it burns.
I don’t even think. I jerk open the gate. The lock is broken. Ahmed’s body slumps back into the yard. I shove his body into my yard and pull the gate shut. Then I glare at the crowd before stalking up the hill.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” I scream at the young men. Who are they? They are just showing their faces to God and everybody, no fear. Don’t they understand we could identify them later to the police? That they could end up in jail? “You are terrible. Terrible, terrible men!” I yell.
They stop their dance and surround me, I suppose in an attempt to intimidate me, their lips grinning, deep growls in their throats. They toyi toyi. But they can’t make me fear them. Maybe if Zi was here, that would work. I would always be afraid for her and need to protect her.
“Go home,” I shout. “Be terrible there. I for one don’t want you anywhere near my street. Get out of here. Hambani! Hambani!”
They disperse slowly, just as the sound of sirens breaks over the hill that separates Pietermaritzburg from Imbali. A fire engine chugs up the main street, and then up the dirt road toward the smoke.
Nobody’s standing here watching. They’ve all gone home. I suppose my yelling shamed them…or something. Perhaps they simply don’t want to face the police.
And then I remember. I told MaNene that I would offer Ahmed protection. I told her that I would pray for him. That I wouldn’t let her sons harm him. Perhaps she told her sons what I had said. Did they do this? Did they kill Ahmed and leave him at my gate? If so, what message are they sending me? Are they challenging me? Are they challenging the power of Mkhulu? And who were those young men dancing in the street in front of the tuck shop, as if they had nothing to fear?
And if it’s not MaNene’s sons, who is it, and what is the warning I’m supposed to understand from this?
I walk back home, wondering what I’ve stopped. Or what I may have started.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SIFISO
I keep Zi home that day, worried about what might happen if we leave the house unprotected. Careful, we watch the smoking remains of the tuck shop, and the curious people who wander by to see what happened. I circle the yard several times slowly, looking for signs of muthi—white powder or a mud mark on the house. It is not that I think we have been cursed but only that I cannot imagine any other reason why whoever did this to Ahmed would leave his body at my house. They wish to discredit me. They wish to say to the neighbors, See? See? She is not this great thing, the sangoma who can help you. She is just a girl and she has no power. In fact, do with her as you wish.
Though it takes them some time to show up, two police officers finally arrive to remove Ahmed’s body. I ask Zi to wait inside while I speak to them. She holds the thick brown curtains to the side and watches us, scrunching her nose against the window, making funny faces at the officers.
The younger officer introduces himself as Sifiso. He is short with a compact, muscular body. He has a very wide smile and very white teeth. Nobody would call him handsome but there’s something about his face I really like, open, a lightness, sunshine. “Your little sister is cute,” he says. “She reminds me of my niece.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a puff of pride, as though I’m somehow responsible for her sparkling personality, the way she catches people’s attention, or her beauty.
“We are sorry for the intrusion,” he says, “but we must ask some few questions.”
He isn’t much older than me, maybe twenty years old? As he talks, he keeps looking at me, that wide mouth constantly smiling. He’s working hard, trying to put me at ease. Even though he’s young, wrinkles around his kind brown eyes suggest that he is a man with much laughter in him. He’s an interesting contrast to the other police officer, who also looks kind but older and tired somehow.
I shrug. “That’s fine. I’ll answer any questions.”
“What was your relationship to the deceased?” he asks.
“He owned the tuck shop at the top of the hill. I saw him every day.” I point to the thin trail of grey smoke where the tuck shop is burning and shake my head. “We spoke in passing, that is all.”
Sifiso nods at me, his eyes grave.
“You have no idea why somebody would kill him?” the older officer asks.
“People seemed angry that a Somali owned the tuck shop,” I say. “It used to be owned by a man who grew up in the neighborhood. He lived in the house next door, behind the shop. But Ahmed lived somewhere else with his wife and children. Perhaps he didn’t feel safe.”
“Why would neighbors be angry?” Sifiso asks.
He shifts so that he’s just that much closer to me. A centimeter, maybe half a centimeter, but I notice.
I move back a step. He moves in to fill the open space between us. Something connects us, I can feel it, this heat, this strong pull between us.
And I like it.
I like the way he stands too close. I know, without having to ask, that he doesn’t question all eyewitnesses this way. I want him to stand even closer. Then I think of Little Man and shake that thought from my head.
“Have the neighbors made comments that would indicate they are angry?” he prompts.
He rests an arm on the fence and now his arm is touching mine, just barely. My arm hairs spring to alertness, aware of his skin gently touching mine.
Did he do that on purpose, Gogo, or was it an accident?
I don’t move my arm. I don’t move to create distance between us. I leave it just as it is, keeping my eyes on his. If he takes his arm away, I’ll know he’s touching me on accident.
He doesn’t take it away.
Our arms rub gently against each other.
“It is the same as in other places,” I say. “They were not really angry at Ahmed.”
“You knew his name?” the older officer asks.
For some few seconds
, I’d forgotten he was even there. I veer my gaze towards him. “He may not have lived here in Imbali but he owns the tuck shop. So he was my neighbor,” I say. “I know all my neighbors’ names.”
He makes note of this while Sifiso prompts me again. “So your neighbors are not angry at Ahmed in particular. Why are they angry?”
“They are angry that they don’t have jobs, that they have no money. They are angry that this man is from somewhere else, not even South Africa, and yet he has a business and he makes a lot of money from us…” I stop. The two men are watching me carefully. I sigh. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m only repeating what they have said or what I feel,”—I take a leap of faith and say it—“what I feel the ancestors have told me when I have been consulting with clients.”
“You are a sangoma?” Sifiso asks.
I nod, heart warming to the way respect suddenly deepens in his voice. His arm moves ever so slightly, sweet sweet, his skin feeling like the softest of caresses against mine.
“Can you think of a reason why the man was killed in front of your house?” he asks.
I shake my head, but if it was deliberate, if it was retribution, those people will pay for it. The wrath of the ancestors is no joke, and nothing is hidden from them, nothing.
But this I cannot say out loud because I do not know anything for certain. And Zulus, we don’t whisper. Whispering is the supreme rudeness. But also, it is dangerous. Because you might be whispering harmful secrets about your neighbors or family members or friends. And so likewise, I will say nothing out loud that I do not know to be true.
“I don’t know why,” I say, “but somebody entered my yard last night. They crept around in the dark. My dog was inside but she was barking at them and they left. It scared me.”
“Do you live here alone?” the older officer asks.
“With my little sister,” I say. “My uncle used to come visit on the weekends…” I stop because what can I say about the family situation? It is too much painful to share with strangers.
The older officer shakes his head. “You shouldn’t live here alone. It isn’t safe.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask. “If you have a solution for me that doesn’t involve living with strangers, I will listen.”
Sifiso stares at me. “You are a brave woman, Makhosi,” he says. Our arms are still touching. Gently, his finger rubs against my arm. His hand trembles a little when he touches me and suddenly, I can barely breathe.
I hiccup. Glance from where his hand is touching me to his eyes. I can’t look away. I mean that. I can’t—or perhaps it is just that I don’t—look away.
More police arrive and then an ambulance, parking on the edge of the street where it’s crumbling into a small, unofficial channel for water runoff, the EMT crew climbing out of the cab and circling around the body. I retreat to the porch and Zi joins me. The police cordon off a large square area that extends from the street to our yard. A white man in a tan suit parks just outside our gate in a little Golf Citi. He gets out and speaks with Sifiso and his partner. Sifiso gives me a chin nod and then the two of them walk away and start speaking to the neighbors still clustered in small groups and watching the police activity warily. As my neighbors speak with them, some reluctantly, some eagerly, they ask questions and take notes. A long time later, when they’ve disappeared from sight, a police photographer arrives and starts taking meticulous photos of the scene from every possible angle.
I hope this means that Ahmed will receive justice.
A reporter arrives and starts filming until the white man speaks to him, gesticulating with his hands and pointing, and then the reporter retreats to the tuck shop and begins taking photos of that instead. Before long, he’s interviewing neighbors. I decide this would be a propitious time to retreat—I have no interest in appearing in this news story as the wild-eyed sangoma who lives in the house just where a Somali man was murdered. That sounds like a really great way to kill my business before it has a chance to even become something.
I check my cell phone. Nothing from Little Man. All these long weeks and still he maintains silence. Maybe that fight really was the end after all.
I scan the street to see if Sifiso has returned, but I see no sign of him. My whole body feels hollow with desolation, as though I’ve been abandoned, which is ridiculous, honestly. I just met him. And I have a boyfriend—a boyfriend who isn’t speaking to me right now, apparently, but still, a boyfriend. Is it, Gogo? Maybe I feel abandoned by Little Man, not Sifiso. So why is Sifiso the one I am thinking of?
“Zi, we’re going to clean the house,” I say.
“Aw, Khosi, do we have to?” she groans.
I hand her the broom. “Start in the bedroom,” I say. “I’ll start in the bathroom.”
“It stinks in there. Why did you throw up, Khosi?”
“I fell sick,” I say.
Maybe cleaning house will help me forget what’s going on.
After I finish the bathroom, I fill a bucket with fresh water and soap and a few rags, and go after the windows. I wash and dry every corner of every window, glancing out the window every few seconds to see if Sifiso returns. Why am I so concerned about where he is and when he’ll return? I have no right to these feelings. In fact, they’re a betrayal of everything I do have with Little Man.
When the windows can’t be cleaned any more, I attack the cupboards in the kitchen, mostly empty after Auntie cleaned it out. I wash the cracked tabletop. I dust the television carefully, and even get behind it, where I find evidence of a mouse. Nhlanhla pushes up behind me, her wet nose chilling the backs of my knees, squeezes around me and goes crazy sniffing the mouse hole.
“Nhlanhla,” I scold. “You’re supposed to take care of these mice for me. You’re not here for protection only, you know. You must earn your keep.”
I know, not all dogs kill mice, but Nhlanhla is that kind of dog known for catching rats and mice. She slinks to the corner, ashamed by the scolding.
We’re all startled by a knock on the door. Nhlanhla breaks into a series of shrill barks. A sudden sweet thrill rips through my stomach. Cleaning the house did the trick, apparently, and helped me forget everything happening in the front yard. But my body remembered all the time.
I throw the front door open. I know I must have the most foolish grin on my face. Sifiso stands there, holding out three ice-cold bottles of Coke, returning my welcoming face with his own broad smile. He reaches out to pat Nhlanhla on the head, scratching her under the chin. “Join me on the porch for cool drinks,” he invites. “And I’d like to meet this little sister of yours.”
We sit on the cement floor of the porch, our backs against the house wall—Zi, me, and then Sifiso. Sifiso sits just close enough that our legs brush up against each other, barely touching but enough that I’m aware of it. I glance sideways, only to find his eyes on me. I shift, disconcerted.
“So you make a living as a sangoma?” he asks.
Zi bursts out giggling. I glare at her and then say, “I’m just starting out. I try but it’s been difficult.”
“Why?” he asks.
From the way he watches me intently and waits for my answer, I can tell he genuinely wants to know.
“I grew up here, in this very house,” I say. “Everybody still thinks of me as a little girl. It’s hard for them to see me as a sangoma.”
“Why don’t you move somewhere else?” He gestures at my place with his hand. “You are all alone, you and your sister. What is keeping you here?”
Zi leans in to look up at my face. She is wondering the same thing. Please don’t mention Little Man, Zi. Because he is not the reason.
And I tell him. I tell him something I have never dared tell Little Man. “I want to leave,” I say. Zi’s mouth parts in surprise. She looks as though she is going to respond, but I rush on with my words to silence her. “I want to start over somewhere—not far, probably Durban. I want to be close to the water. But so far, the ancestors have told me no, don’t leave yet,
there is still something here for me. But I don’t know what that thing is.”
Sifiso leans back against the wall as if he’s relaxing for the first time since the conversation began. “That makes me happy,” he says. “It makes me happy that you are here, now, in this place.”
His hand inches towards mine until his pinky finger is hooking around mine, our hands hidden from Zi’s view. And now there is no doubt about it, no mistaking Sifiso’s intentions. I keep my pinky curled around his. I don’t know why. OK, that is a lie, I do know why. I know exactly why. I want to touch him more than that. I want to touch him—oh, all over, I want—
“Or I never would have met you,” he whispers. “And I’m really glad I met you.”
Later. Later, I will have to think about why my heart responds so quickly to him in this way. Am I that easily swayed from my course? Am I a basically unfaithful person? Later, I will have to think about Little Man and Sifiso and question who I am. But for now…for now gladness shines out of my eyes right back at him.
“I may leave someday,” I admit, wanting to be fully truthful. “I don’t think they are telling me to stay forever.”
“That’s OK,” he says. “Now that I’ve met you, wena, that’s OK. Even if they tell you to move. Everything else can be planned for now that we know each other.”
I have known him some few hours, that is all. Yet it feels like something just became settled between us. Something big.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THUNDERSTORM
The next day is Saturday so Zi and I don’t have to worry about the trip to school. Instead, I hang my sign out, and keep the gate open, waiting for customers. I wait all day and nobody shows up. Not a single soul. Not even Little Man, who usually drops by on Saturdays after his shift is over.
This is the third Saturday since our fight and we haven’t seen him once.
After all that gladness and joy of yesterday and Sifiso and the strange happiness in all of that, my whole day is tinged with a strong homesickness for Little Man. I wish he’d just call. Maybe it would help—clear out all these feelings for Sifiso. Make me remember what I’m supposed to be doing. Or who I’m supposed to be loving.