by JL Powers
You have to stand up for what’s right, Gogo says. You must speak out against the violence. It will destroy Imbali.
Babomkhulu isn’t so sure. He doesn’t address me but rather responds to Gogo. It will be dangerous. The taxi drivers will come for her. The people who killed Ahmed will come for her.
You speak as though I don’t know this already, Gogo says. She still must do this thing. Khosi, I raised you to choose what is right.
Our daughter always does what is right, my great-great-grandfather Zulu says. She just must think about it first.
Shhhhh, says my great-great-great grandmother, the one who sent me to the witch to get a goat. You speak as if she isn’t human. She can be tempted, like anyone. She can make mistakes.
Cha! Gogo cries. Not my Khosi, you don’t know her like I do.
Like you, I’ve been watching her all my life, she tells Gogo.
OK, OK, amadlozi, you don’t need to fight over this, I say.
You mustn’t exaggerate, my ancient grandmother says. An argument is not the same as fighting. Your Gogo has a very high opinion of you, as do we all, but we mustn’t lie to ourselves. That is the way of true suffering.
But what is the right in this anyway? I ask. People are tired of suffering. They want good jobs. That is why they killed Ahmed. That is why they started the taxi wars. I am not saying they are doing right, I am just saying they have a reason.
This thing is the same everywhere all over the world! Gogo exclaims. People think they deserve what other people have, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they are right, they do deserve it, but that doesn’t mean they can take take take and think it will all equal out in the end.
The taxi war involves some people trying to maintain control over territory so they have all the profits. Not so different to what white people did to us under apartheid. And they, too, used violence to keep power.
The anger I feel from people towards the Somalis and Chinese is this sense that we, too, should have businesses, money, land. Why should these people from outside of the country come in and profit when we, who have lived here forever, still don’t have enough to live?
And then there are the student protests. I am not at university, so I am not involved, but I understand. We all want to be able to achieve our dreams. I can’t even matriculate to go on to university because I can’t afford the school fees. What would I do if I were faced with the possibility of going to university but no bursary, nothing to help me pay my way? I suppose right now, I’d be grateful even for that chance. I don’t have that chance because it’s out of my reach. I had to drop out before I even reached that choice.
After all we’ve suffered, aren’t we entitled to a little more?
I don’t even voice the question but the amadlozi hear me anyway. And I hear Mkhulu whisper a solid, strong, emphatic No.
And I know he’s right. Suffering does not entitle you to anything, just as wealth doesn’t protect you from disaster. The sun rises on both evil and good people alike. Rain falls on both the just and the unjust. It is the way of the world. The way of the Lord of the Sky.
Can you guarantee my safety, Mkhulu? I ask.
There is no hillside without a grave, Babomkhulu says.
Death is everywhere then. You cannot avoid it. Thank you, Mkhulu, for your reassuring guarantees.
Don’t be sarcastic, mtanami, Gogo says.
What about Zi? I ask. Can you please protect her?
We cannot guarantee her safety either, Gogo says. But you already knew that doing the right thing is sometimes too much dangerous.
It’s not a choice between life and doing the right thing, my great-great-grandfather says. If you don’t do the right thing, what is life?
I look to my other relative, the querulous one, the one who sent me to the witch. She shrugs her shoulders. Look, she says. Nobody ever said being a sangoma would be easy, did they? Nobody ever said it would be a bed of pillows, did they? Nobody said your life would be all utshwala, mealies, and inyama, did they? The riches pouring in as the people come to you for help? No, no, my girl. A sangoma’s life is hard. We do not call the soft or weak to this thing. If you are soft and weak, you must just go now, we do not want you here, you cannot work for us.
I’m not soft and weak, I snap. I think I’ve proved that by now, nee?
Their voices quelled, I sit, an occasional thump of Nhlanhla’s tail the only sound breaking the silence.
We spend so much of our lives avoiding death. But what if that’s the wrong way to approach life? What if it’s better to live on the razor-edge, right at the margins between life and death, one foot in each world? Then we won’t be so afraid to do the right thing, no matter what it costs us.
I think about Madiba, South Africa’s most popular, most famous person ever. When he was defending himself during the Rivonia Trials, he said his goal was to fight against domination, all kinds of domination. It was an idea, he claimed, he wanted to live for—but he was prepared to die for it if need be.
He was speaking against apartheid, it is true. But even if apartheid is gone, the truth of what he said is still important today. I will fight against domination of others. That includes taxi drivers against other taxi drivers. And South Africans against the immigrants that live in our lands. Even the government if necessary. It is a question of power, really. Who has power and who is powerless? I will be on the side of the powerless.
I know Zi must be finished now cooking the phuthu and I should go inside but everything is heavy inside me.
Outside, the moon illuminates Imbali. Television lights flicker in homes near and far. A light breeze wafts the scent of grilled meat and vegetables. Through the window, I watch Zi sucking her thumb in front of the TV. She had stopped doing that but after Gogo’s death, it started up again, and I haven’t yet had the heart to stop her. She’s forgotten the phuthu, burning on the stove, the smell assaulting me as soon as I walk inside. I take it off the stovetop and salvage the top layer of maize. I stirfry some spinach and tomatoes into a gravy to eat with the phuthu and put it in the refrigerator for tomorrow.
“Come watch TV,” Zi calls. “Will you fix some peanuts?”
“Wokayi.”
So I heat up peanuts on the stovetop, stirring them until they are roasted inside their shells.
We sit on the floor mattress and watch a soapie about a taxi war while we eat. I’ve always enjoyed the show but I’m not so sure I want to keep watching it now. It reminds me too much of what is going on just outside these doors.
Instead, I keep my eyes on Zi while she eats. She takes tiny, delicate bites, her eyes on the television. Oh, Zi. Precious Zi. I know you said you can’t protect her, Gogo, but please. It is hard enough to do this thing without worrying about her at the same time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DO NOT EAT THE HAIR LIKE LICE
After I drop Zi off at school, I walk back to Imbali. The long walk gives me time to think. Or, rather, worry. My head just goes over and over everything.
Makhosi is first on my list of people to visit. Thankfully Thandi and Hopeful are not there so I don’t have to pay attention to their needs.
“Welcome, child,” she greets me. She is busy tending a large pot, bubbling in the center of the hut over a fire. The air is grey and smoky. “What’s on your mind?”
“Makhosi, have you spoken out about the taxi violence?” I ask.
She stops in the middle of stirring the pot and turns around to look at me. “Eh?” she says. “It is no business of mine.” Her eyes narrow to small points. “But I understand it is a business of yours. I understand you have other business too, and it is not going well.”
“You mean the tuck shop owner who was killed on Friday,” I say.
“Yebo. Khosi, I have much to say. You have angered people. How do you expect to make a living as a sangoma if your community turns against you?”
She pauses in her speech to lift a spoonful of murky liquid from the pot. She sniffs it and tastes it. She
nods, satisfied, and gestures at me to help her lift the pot of liquid off the fire. We set it to the side and she covers it with a beaded cloth. Then she settles on her mat and wraps herself in a long, colorful cloth.
“The white people have a saying,” she says. “I heard it long ago, when I was working for a madam in Durban, when my children were young. Do not bite the hand that feeds you. And the people, they are the ones who feed you. We have a similar saying in Zulu. Do not eat the hair like lice. The thing that sustains you, you must watch over it and care for it.”
I watch her, this gogo who has meant so much to me, this gogo I owe my life and livelihood to. And I realize that I do not completely agree with her. Being a sangoma is about more than pleasing people so that I can eat.
“Thank you, Makhosi,” I say. “But I cannot just watch this thing of the taxi war and say nothing. The violence will tear us apart. Could we not—”
“Is that all, young one?” she interrupts.
I have made her angry, by not agreeing with her. And I know it is tradition, for me to always respect her. But respect and truth are not always compatible.
“Yebo, Makhosi,” I say. We bow to the ancestral spirits inside each other, and then I make my way out to the street.
I am not entirely sure what I am meant to do next but I make my way to my street. My neighbor MaZondi is toiling up the hill with a sack of groceries. I run to meet her and take the load.
“Ah, thank you, child,” she says. MaZondi is the gossip of the street. And she doesn’t take long to ask about what is on her mind, what the police have discovered about the dead man. Who killed him and why did they leave him at my doorstep. “It is bad luck,” she declares. “The people won’t visit a sangoma if dead men keep appearing at your gate like that.” She chuckles.
“I know, Mama,” I say. “I made somebody angry. But I will not stop telling people the truth. The Somali didn’t deserve to die.”
“And do we deserve to starve in our own homes?” she asks. “You tell me, should we Zulu be cold so that foreigners can warm themselves with our firewood, stolen right from our own doorstep?”
A part of me wants to shut up, but another part of me plows forward. “Oh, Mama, those questions have nothing to do with this man’s death. He did not steal from us.”
We’ve reached her house now. I place her groceries down by the door.
“These men and women from other places, they must just go back and eat their own problems,” MaZondi says. “If that means they are hungry, that is not our problem. They should not come and make us hungry so they can eat.”
“Oh, Ma—” I start to say.
“Cha!” she cuts me off. “I thank you for carrying my load. You have said your words, now go.”
The slamming of her door is like a little exclamation point.
Gogo and Mkhulu, if you meant for me to alienate the world, you have succeeded indeed.
It is my petulant ancestor who responds. The ancestor who arranged for the witch to give me a goat. Eh eh eh, my girl, she exclaims. You are like the angry dog who bites itself when it lashes out. There is no need to feel pity for yourself.
Fine, I tell her. But when they all turn against me, who will be for me?
By this time, I’ve arrived home. Sifiso, dressed in his police uniform, is leaning against my gate, a box tucked under his arm. “I’m on my lunchbreak,” he says. “I hoped to find you home. I’m so glad I waited some few minutes.”
A jolt of happiness floods my whole body.
As soon as we are inside, he sets the box down, swings me up in his arms and kisses me. I am not exactly light and his muscles bulge as he lowers me. “Careful, or you will burst the seams in your uniform,” I joke.
He leans against the wall, watching me, a little smile on his face. His fingers in mine.
“You look happy,” I say. “Content.”
His finger traces my jawline, he plays with my earlobe. Leans forward and kisses me again. A shiver down my whole body. It almost eliminates the fear and anger sparked by Makhosi and MaZondi. Almost.
“Come, let’s eat.” We sit on the floor and he opens the box. Fried chicken from KFC. We open the little containers of potatoes and cole slaw and dig in.
“What are you doing today?” I ask.
“Oh, going here, going there, a little of this, a little of that. I visited Ahmed’s widow and children.”
“Oh? What are they going to do?”
“One thing you can say about the Somalis,” he says, “they take care of each other. She is going to live with her sister in Zambia. They have already organized money for her and the children to get there. They leave tomorrow.”
“What does she say about Ahmed’s death?”
“She doesn’t know anything. But she says the young men were getting bold. They attacked her husband some few weeks ago with knives. They had threatened to come to their house at night and set it on fire with the family inside it. They were already making preparations to leave South Africa when Ahmed was killed.”
“Oh, no! That’s terrible!” I imagine the fear and anger that must have sparked their decisions—to have come from so far away, seeking a safe place from the ravages of war, only to find more violence.
Sifiso nods. “It is. But I must think of you, too, Khosi. You are part of this. Do you think it is safe for you to stay here?”
“Where would I go?” I ask. “I’ve always lived here.”
Would my neighbors turn against me? I can’t believe it but then, somebody must have seen the people who murdered Ahmed and they are saying nothing. I think of Gladys Nene, of her sons—of seeing them near the tuck shop the day the taxi war violence killed two passengers. I shiver, remembering the way they stared at me. Yes, I believe they would do something.
Mkhulu, they are challenging me, I say. They are challenging you. I told them I would pray for Ahmed’s protection and see what has happened. What they have done to respond to that.
You worry too much, my girl. That voice again. She has a harsh voice but one that you instantly believe.
How can I not worry—a murdered man left at my gate? It was a message.
And they will receive a reply to their message, she says. Trust me, my girl. Do you think we will leave you to fight this alone? You are not alone.
No? I ask.
No, she says firmly. You may not always like us but we will never leave you.
“There is nowhere for you to go?” Sifiso asks. “Truly?”
I turn my attention back to the here-and-now world. To him. To this beautiful man standing in front of me, his fingers trailing down my arm and playing with the end of my shirt where wrist meets hand. “I already told you. Only my auntie and she has accused me of witchcraft.”
He sighs. “I don’t want you here, in danger, love. I will move back to my mother’s house and you and Zi can stay at my house, in town.”
My mind moves fast. If we were in town, we would not have to travel far to go to Zi’s school. We would see Sifiso, every day perhaps—. No. I like the plan, I like it too much. What about my business? And what about the amadlozi telling me that I must speak out about the violence? If I leave, what am I saying about myself? I have wanted to leave for so long and the amadlozi have told me no no no. What would they think of this offer? Should I leave? Should I stay?
“Thank you, Sifiso, I really appreciate what you have offered. I’ll think about it.”
He leans forward and kisses me, a slow kiss that drives all the voices out of my head.
“Don’t think about it too long,” he urges. “Don’t think about it so long that you become another victim, like Ahmed.”
When he leaves, it’s time to fetch Zi from school. But before I head that direction, I walk up the hill towards Little Man’s house. I keep to the side where he’s unlikely to see me approach. Anyway, I’m sure he’s out working the taxi route. But I don’t want his mama to see me either.
I stand in the shadow of his neighbor’s house. Little Man�
��s house, like all the houses here, is the same small little matchbox house, RDP, government housing, as my own—except his is yellow instead of pink. It’s the sort of house I expect to live in for a long time, though at one time I dreamed of becoming a nurse and living somewhere better.
I watch his front door. I’ve been in and out of there so many times. His parents are used to me. What has happened? What have we lost? I no longer feel like I can just go up and knock just to say hello, just to see how he’s doing, even to find out if he’s still alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DELIGHT IN HIS VOICE
After a while, you begin to wonder: what is the message they are sending. And I don’t mean the amadlozi. It was Makhosi who told me I must have angered the community. Perhaps that is true. Or perhaps they are just scared. But nobody is coming to use my services, and I wonder if I will recover from this thing of Ahmed’s murder.
Walking through downtown Pietermaritzburg, on my way home from dropping Zi off, I linger in the crowded streets, thinking. Perhaps I could come here and set up shop. Spread out a blanket and my shells and beads for throwing, wait for people to come. But that is a challenge to other sangomas already practicing here, and I don’t think I want to play that game.
So many people are walking, moving this way and that. I pass the taxi rank, and I can’t help peering inside to see if Bo’s taxi is there, but I see nothing.
Just past the taxi rank, somebody bumps into me. I twirl around as he says, “Sorry, sorry,” and then, “Makhosi!”
It takes me a minute to recognize the young man who visited me shortly after Gogo’s funeral. At the time, he was wondering why he couldn’t find a job or why his wife hadn’t fallen pregnant.
He looks radiant, light shining from his eyes.
“Hello, bhuti, how are you?” I ask, though I don’t need to ask.
He pumps my hand up and down. “I am well, I am well,” he says. “I have meant to come see you for some time now.”
“Is it?”
“Yebo impela. I finally found a job and we just found out that my wife is pregnant, two months now. You were right, I spoke to my brother. We cleared things up and we are brothers again. We have even started lobola talks with a woman’s family, he will soon be married, and I think that has made a difference. After that, everything fell into place. I must say thank you, thank you.”