by JL Powers
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE END OF EVERYTHING
“Are we going home now, Khosi?” Zi asks in a small voice as we walk away from the witch’s house. “Now now, not just now…”
“Angazi,” I reply because I don’t know. Mkhulu is silent. Gogo is silent. They are both angry with me because I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me through the witch.
I reach back in my mind seeking another ancestor, one of those who speaks less frequently but is still there. But they too feel distant, ever receding somewhere into the darkness. As if they are taunting me. She said you only see the light so let’s see if you find us lurking here in the murky half-light of beyond.
“Why not?” Zi asks. “I just want to go home.” She sounds on the verge of tears.
I sigh. “Ngiyazi,” I say. “Let’s go home.” If the amadlozi tell me nothing, what else can they expect me to do? I shoulder our bags and the water I had brought, expecting a long journey, and we head back towards our house, a short fifteen-minute walk away.
Though still dark, it is nearing dawn now. People are already beginning to stir. Light spills out of windows as the men and women inside ready themselves for work and children prepare for school. In the spots without formal houses, where squatters have built some few houses, someone has lit a fire, and people gather round, warming their hands or boiling water for cooking. Roosters crow, pecking the ground, pecking the chickens that mill about them. A brown Hadeda with white and pink markings and a purple-black beak lets loose its honking morning cry as it takes off into the air. It lands in the road in front of us, strutting across the road, glancing at us as if to say, “Good morning, we are the best thing in all of Imbali.”
Zi takes my hand. I notice how small her hand is, and how thin. It feels as though she is shrinking. As though she is disappearing.
I glance at her sideways. Zi, my little Zi. Always so full of spirit but what now? Is she disappearing because of things I am failing to give her? Adequate food, nutrition, spiritual and intellectual and emotional sustenance? Or is it her fate to shrivel up and go away and it would happen anyway, no matter what I did or did not do?
Cha, it can’t be her fate.
Clutching her tiny fingers, I make a small promise to myself that things will be different moving forward. I don’t know how but tomorrow is a new day. I can change things. I can seek something else. I can do something else though God knows what, given the fact that if I thwart myself from the path of the sangoma, the amadlozi will torment me. I will become ill in body and spirit. But surely there has to be a way to feed us better than this.
We are nearing home now. And as we round the corner to the top of the hill where the burnt out shell of the tuck shop rests like a skeleton in shadow, the half-light of dawn illuminating its burnt out interior, we look down the hill at our house and see something that makes us both stop and draw back.
Three figures crouch at the door of our house. One is peeking in the window, the other is bent at the door handle with a hatchet, the third holds a gun in his hand, pointed at our front door.
I clap one hand around Nhlanhla’s mouth, afraid she will bark and reveal us.
Zi whimpers and I clap the other hand around her mouth. But it’s too late. The three figures look up and one of them spots us. Shouts. All three of them run towards us as fast as their legs can carry them.
“Run, Zi!” I shout.
Her hand’s still in mine. We turn and run down the hill, towards the shops, towards the main road and city. She’s slowing me down already but it doesn’t matter, I could never leave her behind.
But what about Nhlanhla?
“Nhlanhla,” I shout, turning back.
She has stopped. She stands like a sentinel, stock still in the middle of the road, growling.
The man carrying a gun aims it straight at her throat.
“No,” I shout. “Nhlanhla, woza!”
She whines gently in her throat, letting me know she hears me. Yet her whole body is still as she waits for the man in front of her to make his move.
“Nhlanhla,” I shout.
He cocks the gun. It makes a short, sharp clicking sound.
And she leaps towards him, lips pulled back, snarling.
He shoots.
Nhlanhla’s body twists mid-air, thuds as she drops to the ground.
The sound is sudden and quick and then the world is oddly silent except for the slow gurgle of blood gushing from her throat.
“Nhlanhla,” Zi cries, and moves as though she is going to run back.
Nhlanhla whimpers.
“No!” I shout, wrestling Zi’s body until she faces forward. “We have to keep on going.”
We have to, even though I already know it’s useless. Whoever they are, they will hunt us down until they find us.
The man wielding the ax lurches towards us while the other kneels down and aims his gun. Will he really shoot us in the back?
“Run,” I hiss, pushing Zi towards the empty field. “Run to Little Man’s house. His mom will help you.” I hope that is true, I must believe that is true. I have nowhere else to send her.
I wait just long enough to see her heading up the hill and then I start running the other way. If it is me they want, surely they will leave her alone.
The sound of a gunshot startles me so badly, I leap in the air. It feels like something lifts me higher than I could possibly have jumped. The bullet hits the ground, dust and stones spraying out and stinging my legs.
“Stop, I will kill you,” one of the men yells.
I think I would keep going, even if they shot me, except I look back to make sure that Zi is gone, safe, disappeared up the hill towards Little Man’s house. Instead, a fourth man is running back towards us, carrying her, holding her around the waist with one hand, his other hand covering her mouth. She’s kicking and flailing but he ignores her and marches towards the men hunting us.
I halt.
There is nothing that anybody could say or do that would convince me to leave Zi in danger, just to save myself.
“Zi, kulungile?” I shout.
“Ow!” It’s the man gripping her who screams, suddenly, his hand dropping from her mouth. He punches her on the side of her head. She stops struggling and starts crying, loud sobbing noises you could hear a kilometer away. He claps his hand back over her mouth.
Slowly, I make my way back towards them.
“Please let her go,” I say.
“She bit me,” the man snarls. He yanks the braids on her head, hard.
Her cry of pain is muffled by his hand.
“Just let her come and be beside me,” I beg. “We won’t resist. We will come with you. We will do whatever you want.”
He lets her go and she runs to my side, burying her head in my side.
Mkhulu, if ever there was a time for you to protect me…to show up… a snake? A dragon? A dog? Anything?
But Mkhulu is silent.
Is he that angry with me for failing at the witch’s house, that he would let me—and Zi—fall into harm’s way?
Gogo?
Gogo, too, is silent.
Why won’t you answer me, old ones? Please please please talk to me.
I’m the wayward child, the one nobody wants to show up at the birthday party. The one who burned all her bridges and has nobody to turn to when she needs help.
But I didn’t burn any bridges. I just…didn’t understand. So why won’t you help me?
My eyes drift from Nhlanhla’s body to the men, to the silent houses all around us.
Mkhulu said that doing the right thing does not mean you are protected from harm. I straighten my back. In all the thousands of years that humans have lived on this earth, people have suffered, many of them worse than I will. Some deserved what they got…but most did not.
I remember too the readings in church about Jesus’ suffering leading up to his death on the cross, how even though he was God’s son, he was bruised and broken and batter
ed. And, I think now, if we claim he knew the full range of human experience, then he must have experienced literally everything—I mean everything, even the violation that women endure. He must know what it is like to lose everything. He must know what it is like to have nothing, to leave everything you know and love for some other place. The way Ahmed and his wife did. Is this my path too?
And then I think about the witch, how she told me I must sympathize with evil to understand it. What does that mean?
“What do you want from us?” I ask the men now surrounding us. I don’t recognize them. I don’t know who they are so I don’t know why they are here. If I did, perhaps I could address them, answer some questions, convince them to let us go.
“Just come with us,” the man with the ax says.
We walk down the street towards Nhlanhla. Her sides are still heaving softly, blood bubbling through her mouth. Zi sobs quietly beside me.
“May we have a second with her?” I ask.
The man with the ax hesitates.
“No,” the man with the gun barks at us. “Just keep walking.”
I stare at him. I stare until he grows uncomfortable. Then I say, quietly, so that he knows I mean it: “I will go with you but I need a minute to help my dog go to the ancestors.”
He glances nervously at the other men until one of them finally growls, “Let her do it, Mdu. But hurry.”
Zi and I kneel beside Nhlanhla. I lean in close, my lips near her ear. “Thank you, Nhlanhla,” I whisper. “Thank you for giving up your life for us.”
She lifts her tail in one last, final thump, and her chest slowly stills.
Take her, Mkhulu. Take her, Gogo. You sent her to us to watch over us. Thank you. Now take her to be with you and treat her well.
She’s no longer breathing. Her body is still warm. I keep my hand on her side. I breathe in and out. Her spirit is leaving, slow-slow. Leaving. Leaving. And finally gone.
Mdu digs the gun sharply into my ribs. “Your dog’s dead,” he says. “Let’s go. Asambeni!”
I take Zi’s hand and help her to her feet. “Gogo will take care of her, Zi,” I whisper.
Zi sniffles. “You promise?”
I squeeze her hand and we walk, the men around us on all sides, past our house, past MaDudu’s house, towards a khumbi parked at the intersection of our road and the next. As we pass MaDudu’s house, I hope for a minute that she will come outside and see us, so that she can call the police.
But no. No, Gogo, keep her safe and asleep, inside, because surely these men would shoot her to keep her silent if she came outside.
So we are quiet and nobody comes out, not from any house. No flutter of curtains at windows. No uncle stumbling inside after a long night drinking. No mama stirring early to cook breakfast, lights spilling out of an open kitchen door. In all of Imbali, in every neighborhood, people are getting ready for the day. But on our street, the houses are still dark.
And so, nobody sees them take us. Nobody sees when Mdu herds us into the khumbi.
As the door slams shut, it sounds like a punctuation mark, full stop, declaring the end. The end of everything I have ever known.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I’LL GET HER OUT OF THIS, MAMA
Zi huddles against me as the men pile in, two of them in the front, the others sitting right next to us, shoving us until the metal digs into my side. They slam the doors shut and start the engine.
Mdu eyes me, keeping his gun focused on Zi. He understands my weak spot. He knows what I can never let go of. Not even the amadlozi could make me. I would go crazy first.
I put my arm around her and stare at him.
“No matter what happens to me,” I say deliberately, “you and your brothers have cursed yourselves.”
His lip curls up. “Oh, are you a witch now? Are you calling down all your evil powers upon us?”
The driver glances back quickly. “Is she admitting it? That she’s a witch?”
I laugh. “I don’t have to be an umthakathi to understand what is going to happen to you.” I point my chin at the man in the driver’s seat. “He will die a violent death.” I nod at the man in the passenger seat. “He will also die a violent death.” And then I nod at Mdu. “And you? It’ll be slow and painful. It’ll take a long, long time. Years, in fact. You’ll be betrayed by these very men you think are your friends and brothers.”
He sneers at me but the driver jerks the car as though startled.
“Hey, watch it,” Mdu yells. I think he’s yelling at me.
We drive past Nhlanhla’s body, a cold lump on the hard earth. We turn right and another right, then down the road and past the shops on our left to the main road towards town.
“Let me have your phone,” Mdu says.
“You can’t avoid the truth,” I say.
“Shut up and give me your phone,” he snarls.
I picture my phone at home, beside my bed. I didn’t bring it because the amadlozi were sending me on a journey and I didn’t know when we’d be returning. The last journey did not involve electricity. I was out in the wilderness for a month, in the snow, the rain, the wind…swimming through the river and down to the ocean… So this time, when they told me go, I didn’t bother packing something that would only be a burden.
Am I still on the journey, Gogo? Or was it abandoned and this is a different plan? And would you please answer me?
I wish I had brought it. I could have texted or called Sifiso by now.
“I don’t have a phone,” I tell him. “It’s at my house.”
He glares at me, unbelieving.
I empty the pockets on my jacket and then my skirt. I open my bag and show him the jugs of water and Marie biscuits, but no phone. “See?”
“What about her?” he asks of Zi.
“If she has a cell phone, I don’t even know about it,” I say. “What about it, Zi? Do you have a cell phone?”
“If I had a cell phone, I would have already called Sifiso,” she says. She turns to the men. “Do you know who Sifiso is?”
“Who?” the driver asks. “Sifiso who? I don’t know this Sifiso.”
I nudge Zi and shake my head at her. The last thing they need is to hear her say, “He’s a policeman and he’s in love with my sister.” We don’t know who these men are or why they’ve taken us but the less they know, the better for us. We need to keep them distracted. Zi opens her backpack and shows Mdu the loaf of bread and oranges I packed inside. Mdu slings our bags into the back of the khumbi and slumps against the seat, glaring at us.
“What do you want from us?” I ask again.
One of them grunts. That is the only answer it seems they will give me.
I look out the window. Zi shrugs into me and I put an arm around her and kiss her curly hair. I’ll get her out of this, Mama, I promise.
Even as the words roll through my head, I stop short, realizing this is the first time I’ve ever addressed Mama as one of the ancestors.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE LIZARD WAS WRONG
The road from Imbali to Pietermaritzburg is short and the landscape barren and ugly. Trash is strewn on all sides of the street and up against fences and walls. On either side of the road, factory buildings, petrol stations, and shacks burrow close to the ground. We approach the city and move towards the city center. At one time, I imagine this was a beautiful place, with its stately redbrick buildings, the museum with Grecian columns, the statue of Gandhi, the classic style building with a lion and unicorn etched in stone. All very European but now the African parts creep in, with the people and the bustle and the noise and the… well, all the people. We crowd in here and we make it ours. It’s not always lovely, not in that empty grandiose museum building kind of way, but it’s beautiful in its own way. It’s ours. It’s us. We make it beautiful because we are beautiful.
I look at the men who have captured us and I realize that they, too, are beautiful in their own way. They have beautiful black skin and white teeth and big noses and st
rong arms. They stare out the windows, their jaws set and their profiles something worthy of statues.
And I realize that even if I don’t know why they’ve kidnapped us, and no matter what happens, I can recognize that even a little bit of the spirit or soul within them each is good and worthy of love.
We pull into the Scottsville shopping mall, and the man closest to us hands me two blue cloths and motions for me to tie blindfolds, first around Zi and then around myself. I tie a cloth around Zi, trying to leave gaps so she can see. Her breathing gets fast and she grips my hand and I whisper, “I’m right here. You won’t be able to see but I’m right here.” I leave what I think is a subtle gap in my own blindfold but he reaches forward and adjusts it so that all I can see is blue.
“Hamba, hamba,” he yells at the driver, and we’re off.
Mdu leans closer and whispers, “I’m keeping the gun aimed at your sister. Can you do anything about that, umthakathi?”
“I’m not a witch,” I mumble.
He snickers.
I follow the direction for the first few turns but the driver is going fast fast and swerving around corners. Then at some point, he must get onto the N3, because we’re speeding along without any stops. But I can’t tell if we’re headed towards Durban or the opposite way, towards Howick, because we took so many twists and turns before we exited town.
Who are these men and what do they want with me? With us?
If I had a better idea who was behind this, Gogo, I’d know how much danger we are in. Just a little bit or a whole lot.
I don’t need to know the name of my enemy to know the danger we are in. But to solve this thing, I must know, Who is my enemy? My mind races through the possibilities.
Little Man is mixed up in some terrible things. And Langa knew that he was my boyfriend. Could this be Langa and his men? But why would I be a threat to the taxi wars? Unless, as they say, they really believe I’m a witch and somehow on Little Man and Bo’s side.