by JL Powers
A massive thunderstorm clouds the early afternoon, lightning streaking across the sky, huge drops of water—as big as Zi’s hand—smacking the ground, trash and mud spattering down the sides of the street.
At about three in the afternoon, I go to text Little Man when my cell phone rings. I jump to answer it but the caller ID is blocked.
I answer anyway. Maybe it could be somebody calling to tell me something terrible has happened to Little Man. Maybe—and yes, my heart tears open with joy just a little bit when I hear his voice, Sifiso’s voice, on the other side.
“May I come by this evening?” He sounds so easy about it all.
I gasp, my breath coming in quick spurts. “Of course,” I say. Breathe. “Of course.”
“My shift is over at 5,” he says. “I’ll bring take-out for you and the other little beauty in your household. Do you like Indian?”
I nod, then realize he can’t see me. “Yes,” I say. “Spicy.”
“Truly spicy?”
“As spicy as they can make it.”
He chuckles. “I knew from the moment I saw you that there was something I liked about you. I’ll just add this to the growing list.”
Zi’s watching me when I hang up, all smiles. “Who was that?” she asks, mouth pursed in suspicion.
“Sifiso,” I say. “He’s coming over. He’s bringing food.”
“What about Little Man?” she asks.
For just a minute, I worry. What if Little Man shows up out of the blue? After all, he used to do that all the time, and why wouldn’t he? Especially now, after our fight, he might show up suddenly so we can fix things between us.
“Oh, this isn’t like that,” I lie. And then wonder who I’m lying to.
A few months ago, a group of amaShembe believers created a large circle of white stones on the empty lot next door to the Dudus house so they can worship there on Saturdays. The Shembe have strange ways, with the Vaseline their prophet blesses and their vuvuzelas instead of church music, but I know the ancestors work with them. I don’t mind them, unlike some of the neighbors who do.
Sifiso arrives just as they start their church service, the loud atonal music drifting into our yard, the men’s voices rising in a chant and the women responding. Lucky for them, the rain has stopped—but I know from experience that they would have a service, rain or no rain. They are faithful each and every week.
“You have a colorful neighborhood, Khosi,” Sifiso says as I open the gate to let him in. He’s carrying a large brown paper bag, steam rising from it. That must be the food. He pauses for a second and rustles around in his pocket, then produces a heavy lock with a bolt that could never be cut with simple wire cutters. “I brought you a new lock—hopefully, a better one. It terrifies me to think of you and Zi alone in the house if this person who killed Ahmed comes back.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“I want to be sure you’re safe,” he says. “Your neighborhood is both colorful and… it seems… a bit on the dangerous side.”
“We have a dog,” I remind him.
“Thank God.”
“Where did you grow up?” I ask. “Isn’t your neighborhood colorful?”
“I grew up right here in Imbali, on Mlahlankosi Road,” he says.
“Oh, just the other side,” I say.
“Yes. My mother still lives there but I bought a house closer to the city center. I thought it would be interesting to live there.”
“Is it?”
We’ve reached the porch and I notice how carefully he wipes his boots to make sure he doesn’t track mud into the house.
“It’s like being Catholic, everybody’s there, all kinds of people,” he says. “There are whites, Indians, coloreds. A Somali family, just like your tuck shop man. We look out for each other. We have neighborhood braais a few times a year. It makes me proud of being South African, not like what you read in the papers. Not like what happened here. We’re doing it right that side, the way it should be. A real rainbow nation.”
I’m standing at the door, pausing before I open it and invite Zi to join us in this conversation. He moves close so he’s standing right next to me. He’s much taller but he stands so that we’re touching as he looks down at me. I shiver.
“You like reading the newspapers?” I manage to ask.
“I like to keep up with things.” His hand brushes against my cheek.
A thunderstorm cracks open the sky shortly after Sifiso arrives. The rain comes in long, staggered downpours, letting up for a few seconds and then starting up again, like an engine stuttering.
We switch the TV off and cover mirrors with cloths and try not to think about the lightning. One time, when my mama was still alive, I actually saw a lightning bird and knew we had been cursed. But that was a long time ago.
We sit on the floor, on the mattress. Zi puts her head in my lap. Sifiso slips his arm behind me, his fingers gently gripping my hip.
“Are you Catholic?” I ask. Voice just a little unsteady. Trying to keep the conversation normal.
“Yebo. Born and baptized,” he says. “My job keeps me from going to mass every week but I try to go two or three times a month.”
“We used to go every week,” Zi says. “But Khosi is not as faithful as Gogo. Or Mama.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry, Zi, sometimes I struggle with this thing of God.” I look at Sifiso, apologetic. Will he think less of me if I tell the truth? But his hand is a steady pressure on my back. “I want to believe but he doesn’t seem as real as the amadlozi. And he left us all alone. Why are we here, without a mother or father or grandmother to help us? Sometimes it makes me angry.”
“I struggle too,” he reassures me. He reaches his fingers up to thread through my weave. His touch is gentle and loving. I look in his eyes and see nothing but kindness. “I go because it helps me. In this job, it is tempting to accept bribes, but I know I cannot do that if I’m going to church and proclaiming my innocence and honesty before God and everybody. So I must keep going. That is all. Perhaps in the end, you will find it helpful, but you are in this long stretch of deciding what you need. We all have those times in our lives.”
I like the way he says this. It makes me think maybe he is right. Maybe I will come through this time of anger and find God on the other side of it, the way I decided I would forgive Mama for the things she did, even though she did not live long enough to make it right.
Zi likes Sifiso, she can’t help it, even though her eyes accuse me when he leaves. But all night long, the two of them giggle and laugh while we eat. She likes the way Sifiso bursts into song whenever he feels like it. She likes the way he listens to her when she tells him about school. She likes the fact that he brings her an enormous slice of chocolate cake with about two inches of frosting on it. He brings it out with a flourish and sets it on the kitchen counter. “Phansi, Nhlanhla,” he commands and Nhlanhla stops jumping up on the counter.
“But you didn’t bring ikhekhe for Khosi,” Zi protests.
“Ah, wena, a loyal sister,” Sifiso says. “Good girl.” Then he pulls a bouquet of delicate orange and white flowers out of the bag and Zi squeals. “I thought instead of cake, I would bring flowers for the lovely sangoma who lives in Imbali, the township named flower.” His fingers touch mine as he hands me the freshly cut flowers and my hand trembles.
“Where did you find these, Sifiso?” I ask. These are rare flowers, not the kind I see in the market among the women selling such things.
“I grew them,” he says, simply.
“Oh, you like to garden?”
“Everything,” he says. “Herbs, flowers, vegetables. African plants. Indigenous plants only. That’s very important to me. My back yard is wild with them.”
“Can I come see?” I ask.
He nods. “Anytime, Ntombi, you are always welcome in my home. I would love to show you my garden. Perhaps some of my plants will be useful to you.”
The words catch in my throat. I want to ask when. I want to ask w
here. I cannot. But I wish to go now, to see it now now.
“Are you married?” Zi demands.
“No, thando,” he tells her. “I live alone. My family visits a lot. It is a small house”—he pauses—“but it is big enough for more than me.”
I try not to think about the implications of his statement. “How old are you?” I ask. I had thought he was young but he owns his own house? Of course, I also own my own house.
“Twenty-five,” he says. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I say. “Eighteen next month.”
He whistles. “Seventeen and already in possession of your own house and your own business? You are ahead, Ntombi, ahead of the game. You will see.”
“I told you,” Zi says. “You’re smart enough to go back to school and work. We will figure it out. I’ll help you. I’ll be the sangoma’s assistant.”
Sifiso watches me.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think you have a great spirit,” he says. “It is wide like the ocean. And powerful too, like water. I think you can do whatever you wish to do.”
Zi takes her cake into the living room to watch television. I take the opportunity to ask Sifiso about himself.
“Why did you become a police officer?” I ask. “You like to read, you like to garden. You seem—different.”
“I wanted to go to school,” he says. “I was planning to study medicine or perhaps ecology. It wasn’t really possible when I first graduated. My father died ten years ago and my mother needed me to help her. But I don’t believe it’s ever too late. If something stops you at one time, maybe a door will open up later. Perhaps it looks different than what you planned but if you walk through those open doors, everything becomes bright and possible again, just in a different way. Don’t you think?”
“I want to believe that,” I say. “I really do. I had to quit school after my grandmother died. And there is nothing I want more than to go to school.”
He takes my elbow in his hand. “Oh, Khosi,” he says. “That’s terrible.”
I shake my head and keep my eyes on the cracked cement floor. It’s my private shame—not only that I quit school but that when I did, I broke a promise to Gogo.
Sifiso puts his hand under my chin and raises my face until my eyes meet his. He places the palm of his hand on my cheek, then on the back of my head. His fingers tickle the skin on the nape of my neck.
I choke a little, tears stinging the edges of my eyes. “I promised Gogo I wouldn’t quit,” I say. “I promised her, when she was dying. She—she asked for just two things. She said no matter what, I had to go to school. So I said yes because I’ve always wanted—I wanted to go to university. But I couldn’t pay all the fees.” This is the second thing I’m telling Sifiso that I’ve never told Little Man. But why haven’t I told him? Do I think Little Man wouldn’t understand or sympathize? After all, look at what he gave up. For me.
His grip on my elbow tightens. “What about your relatives? Couldn’t they help? Your father?”
A burst of noise from the television gives me time to think about what I should say.
“Baba has never been much help.” It sounds blunt when I say it like that but somehow I want Sifiso to know the truth. “He hasn’t been part of our lives, not since Zi was very small. I’m not going to ask him for help now, even if he could give it, which I am not sure he could. I do have an aunt and uncle but they both have children of their own and—”
“You and Zi are too much a burden?”
I have no reason to tell him the truth but I do. “They think I used witchcraft to kill Gogo,” I say, “after I also used witchcraft to get her to create a will so that the house would come to me after she died.”
“I see,” he says. And I know, he really does see. “And did you?”
I can’t take offense because I know he isn’t really asking. So he doesn’t wait for me to answer.
“What was the other thing your gogo asked you to promise?” he asks soft soft.
I shake my head. I’m not ready to tell him that yet. How I broke that promise too. That is a much bigger conversation, one I haven’t had with—well, not with anyone.
He lets it go quickly. “I’ve only known you one day, Ntombi, but I am certain of one thing already,” he says. “This is not the end for you. If you really want to go back to school…you will find a way.”
I walk Sifiso to the gate later, much later, when it stops raining. The lights of Imbali twinkle all around us. We avoid puddles and stop at the gate to linger. Neither of us wants this night to end. I’m a little afraid what it will mean when I have to really think about what I’m doing.
“May I come again?” he asks.
I look at the ground and nod. I try not to think about Little Man.
“Then I will return,” he says. “Soon.”
“I’ll expect you,” I say. My voice is all wobbly, doing ridiculous things. It even sounds uneven. Giddy and afraid and hopeful, all at once.
A simple soft breath. “It’s a promise then.”
“Were you worried I would say no?” I ask, glancing up now to see his face. Afraid. What if I see triumph there? As though he already assumes I belong to him and I find I’ve walked into a trap. But no. The only thing I see is his wide, hopeful smile.
“A little bit,” he says. “I felt from the moment I first saw you that somehow we belong together. But that doesn’t mean you feel the same way. I don’t really know anything about you. Maybe there are things—or people—in your life, another man…?”
“Sifiso, I—”
I stop. I can’t answer the last question and I can’t say what I want to say, I can’t, not yet, if ever. But oh, I want to say it. How I feel too. How I also feel like we belong. Even if that’s ridiculous. Little Man is who I belong with. Right?
I put my hand on his chin. It feels firm, real. There. Here.
He covers my fingers with his. With his other hand, gentle around my waist, he draws me in close.
His lips are warm and sweet and he tastes a little bit like the cake he brought for Zi, which she shared with him. Sweet and somehow just right. And I kiss him back. Pressing my lips against his, a promise.
He sighs into my mouth. His teeth are soft as he gently bites my cheek and then my ear and then my neck.
“Khosi,” he whispers. Squeezes my hand, and is gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JESUS ON MY TONGUE
A thousand worries attack me that night. I lie beside Zi, dreamless, sleepless. Nhlanhla must sense my anxiety. Every so often, she whines in her corner as if to say, “I’m right here with you. I’ll stay awake as long as you do.”
I must check my cell phone a million times to see if Little Man—or Sifiso—has texted or called.
OK, let’s be honest. It is Sifiso whose name I am looking for on the screen.
I think about Little Man and the secret I’ve been keeping from him. It’s not a secret I can keep much longer, though if Little Man has walked out of my life, I must think about how to handle it.
If the truth will come to light no matter what I might want to do to stop it, I must tell Sifiso too. He needs to know. How is he going to react? He may think we belong together now but will he still feel that way when I tell him?
I can’t lie to myself, I—I want him. I want him. Is he as wonderful as he seems or am I falling for somebody like Thandi’s Honest—married with several girlfriends on the side? Thandi fell pregnant when we were just 14 and for awhile she was afraid she might be infected with the disease of the day, HIV. He used her, even beating her up when she confronted him about her situation. They may have gotten back together for a short time but then he moved on. These sugar daddies, they aren’t worth it because then you’re left with what what—a disease and a baby and who knows what else.
And then there’s this other thing: the confidence that both Zi and Sifiso expressed in my ability to somehow find a way to go back to school. The truth is, it seems beyon
d me. I just don’t see how to make it all work.
But I know you’re unhappy with me, Gogo, unhappy for breaking my promises. I’m sorry. But I can apologize until the world is falling apart and it will all be meaningless if you refuse to forgive me.
So we go to mass in the morning. For the first time in so long. I sit on the wooden bench, remembering all the times I sat here beside Gogo and Mama, wondering how to reconcile everything in my life—my love for God, my love for the ancestors, my love of science, my love of traditional ways. Now I have other questions but it is the same problem—how do I reconcile everything in my life?
The priest puts a wafer in my mouth, Jesus melts on my tongue, and I ask him silently for forgiveness and help.
I feel like I’ve failed everybody. Everybody but God. Him, you can’t fail. He is too big for that.
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHOOSING THE POWERLESS
The afternoon feels like a maze of emotions. I’m just wandering around. The house. The yard. The street in front of my house. I’m avoiding it. The hut. The amadlozi.
Finally, I ask Zi to start cooking phuthu. I take Nhlanhla and head out to my hut. I enter, bowing low to the ancestral spirits. Nhlanhla sits beside me, leaning heavily against me.
I light a fire and sit.
“Mkhulu,” I begin. “Gogo.” I address all the ancestors who live in my head, one by one. “Please speak to me. About Little Man and Sifiso. About Ahmed and his murder. About this thing of the taxi wars. About the school protests. About South Africa.”
They’ve been shouting in my head for so long—and I suppose it is correct to say that I have been ignoring the cacophony because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to hear what they had to say—that it takes awhile for the noise level to subside.
And then I begin to hear them, one by one. They say nothing to me about Little Man or Sifiso or my situation. But they do give me instructions. Actually, it’s almost like they have an argument in my head.