by JL Powers
Or perhaps it is Bo, believing I am a threat to Little Man and to his attempt to take over a taxi route
But then I have to think about what happened with Ahmed, too. That was surely a warning, that they killed him and left his body at my gate. Was that related to the taxi wars? Or was that related to MaNene and her terrible sons? Am I a threat to those who would expel the outsiders from Imbali?
Who has sent these men to harm us—Langa, Bo, or the Nenes?
Perhaps there is something else, something I am missing. My head aches as I try to recall something that would show me what I need to know.
I start to get hot and thirsty. The blue cloth bites into my skin.
“Kulungile, Zi?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer but she presses hard against me.
My bladder starts to ache. The baby nestled into the folds of my stomach, pressing against it.
It’s hard to imagine comfort. Or home. They are taking us so far away… it’s hard to imagine that I’ll ever be able to return. The longer we drive, the more impossible our situation seems.
The khumbi slows and begins to swerve, this way and that. We must have exited the N3. We are going up, so perhaps we are heading towards Hillcrest and the Valley of a Thousand Hills. But we could have gone a different direction, towards the Drakensburg Mountains instead. I’m really lost. It’s impossible to tell which direction we took, only that we are headed up.
“What is it you want with us? Who are you taking us to? Or where?”
“Shut up,” Mdu growls.
“If she really is a witch, don’t you think she would know?” one of the other men asks—the driver, from the direction of the voice.
At that moment, my stomach erupts in tiny little flutters, a million little wings beating against my rib cage. Along with it, joy and hope. Oh, little baby. You’re in there. You’re in there and you’re alive.
“I need to use the toilet,” Zi whispers.
We could make a run for it, if we had just that much space and just that much time to do it.
“Can you please let us go to the toilet?” I ask.
The driver starts cursing in Zulu. “You better not pee all over my car, Ntombi,” he yells.
A small part of me is terribly afraid of these men and what they might do. Another part realizes—no matter what happens, it is not the end, it is just the next thing. The Lizard was wrong, the Chameleon was right. We will join the herd—the millions of amadlozi on the other side, like the millions of zebra and wildebeest and springbok that moved across the land in the days before Europeans came to Africa.
So I am not afraid, not for me. But Zi is just nine. And this unborn baby, not much more than a peanut inside me but alive with possibility. For Zi, for my baby, I will fight. And for Sifiso, because I do care. I will fight for Sifiso, whether I ever see him again or not. Even for Little Man, even if he is no longer mine to fight for.
It’s not time to die yet. At least, not willingly.
“If you don’t let us go to the toilet, we’re both going to pee all over your car,” I say. “And Mdu, we are sitting on the same seat so you will sit in our urine too.”
“Pull over, Lethabo,” Mdu shouts. “Pull over now.”
The khumbi swerves off the road and slams to a stop. I hear the door sliding open. Mdu shoves me from behind, he’s in such a hurry to get us out of the car.
“Can we please take our blindfolds off?” I ask. “I don’t know how we can go without that.”
“Yes, but if you do anything stupid, Ntombi—” He makes a click click sound with his tongue and then he pulls back the trigger of the gun so we hear the real click sound.
Zi jumps and recoils, leaning into me.
“Shhh,” I whisper, removing my blindfold and then Zi’s, and looking around to see where we are.
It looks like an informal settlement in the veld, the houses built of tin sheets or gathered sticks, multi-colored cloths draped here and there to keep wind from whistling between cracks and holes. Smoke rises from campfires and a goat bleats loudly.
Something in the sunlight beyond the shacks. My stomach cramps in sudden excitement, and I squint to see further. Yes, in the distance, about half a kilometer away—it’s a reservoir of some kind. Swollen from the October rains.
Water.
Mdu prods me. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” He sounds just like a khumbi driver, or the one who takes the fares. I’ve heard Little Man shouting the same thing, hitting the side of the van as they careen away to get more passengers at the next stop. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”
And suddenly, all at once, as if they have broken their embargo on words, the amadlozi shout the same thing in my head. Now now now, they scream. Hamba hamba hamba. Go go go!
“We’re going to go behind that bush,” I say, careful not to betray anything with my voice. But I hear it shaking just that little bit. Please Gogo, don’t let them notice.
And he doesn’t. Too impatient. “Hurry hurry,” Mdu shouts.
“And don’t try anything or we will shoot you,” Lethabo yells.
I pull Zi in front of me, to protect her, and we head behind the bush.
“Zi,” I hiss, “if you have to go, you can pee in your pants. We aren’t taking the time to pee right now. As soon as I say go, you’re running. Run as fast as you can go and don’t stop, no matter what they do. We’re heading for that water. As soon as we get there, I want you to jump in.”
“I can’t swim, Khosi,” she whispers. Pleads. The begging in her voice.
Fear is a hyena, it slinks in, a coward. I will have to drop her in the water.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I have a plan.”
“But I can’t swim,” she says again, more urgent this time.
“Shut up,” I hiss.
We duck around the bush. I tug Zi’s hand and begin to run and she has no choice now, she has to follow.
We run. I try to keep us in a straight line behind the bush and out of the line of their sight as long as possible. But it is just some few seconds and Mdu shouts, “Hawu!”
The khumbi revs, tires squealing as Lethabo spins around, and drives off road. Bits of dirt and rocks spray upward from the tires as it rumbles towards us. The door swings open. Mdu appears at the door, ready to jump out and start chase or perhaps just nab us and drag us inside.
A hollow to the right looks like it could stop them.
“Turn right, Zi,” I shout, and push her towards it.
The khumbi swerves, tries to stop as Lethabo sees the ditch. Too late. They pitch headfirst into the ditch and stall.
“Hamba hamba,” I yell at Zi.
Already Mdu has leapt from the khumbi. He stumbles after us. Scrambles over the ground we’ve covered, waving his gun in the air.
Turn left, Mkhulu says.
“Left, Zi, left,” I hiss, and we jerk left, following a small path that crumbles as it inclines down towards the water.
The men’s shouts recede to a dim roar as we run. I’m concentrating too hard on getting there, I can’t pay attention to what what what they’re yelling. I look behind us. Once, and then once again.
Mdu stops. He aims the gun.
And then all at once the witch blocks the path. She’s waiting, a lion tail in her hand. She lifts her hands to the sky and the lion’s tail switches back and forth.
I stop, unsure. Is Zi safer behind me, where Mdu is shooting at us, or in front, where the witch could take her? I jerk Zi behind me, then again in front of me, then behind again. What should I do, Mkhulu? What should I do? Oh, Mama, please. What should I do?
Zi stumbles. I jerk her up.
“What’s going on?” she gasps.
And I realize she can’t see the woman who wanted to take her, who offered me money for her.
“Leave us alone,” I scream at the witch.
She cackles. “You can’t even see help when it’s right in front of you,” she shouts. “Didn’t the amadlozi send you to me so I could teach yo
u?”
She swats the lion’s tail towards me. It whips up little dust devils with its hard flicking motion. She may be old but she’s still strong, her arm muscles sinewy and bulging from her skinny arms as she flogs the dirt.
Despite her words, she is a threat.
Our eyes meet. Hers, gold-flecked, like her gold tooth, symbolic of her lifetime in pursuit of wealth only, no matter the consequence to others.
And I remember Mama. How Mama was all good, all good, so good that it was hard to believe she could do this thing, steal money from our neighbor. But she did.
And I think of Auntie Phumzi, who has always been a strong Christian Zionist, one of those who believes there is right and there is wrong, and she must choose the right side. Yet she is the one who has decided I am a witch and so she has turned her back on her own family, its own kind of evil.
And here is umthakathi, right in front of me. She is thoroughly evil, and how can I, even for a minute, think that she could be offering her help? It is impossible.
“They are telling you to go,” she says now. “They are telling you to trust. You grasp so hard that you cannot hear. Go. Go now.”
And she’s right. The amadlozi are indeed saying that, and the one ancestor, she is speaking to both of us. I cannot believe I have an ancestor in common with this enemy in front of me. But I do.
I shudder over the side of the path, a steep hill straight to the water’s edge, and Zi follows just behind me. A bullet zings past. Dirt and pebbles sting my legs as we slide down the slope, straight towards the water.
In front of us again, the witch is juddering over boulders. She leaps from one to another without pausing. She lifts her hand with the lion’s tail. Lightning crackles across the sky and hits the water, light rippling across its surface.
We’re at the water’s edge now.
What should I do? If we jump in the water, will we die from the lightning bolts shooting electricity in the water?
“Hamba,” the umthakathi shouts. “Jump in the water.”
Hamba, Mkhulu commands. Jump in the water.
Mdu halts. “Come back,” he yells. “Or I’ll kill you.”
Zi holds back, yanking my hand as if to say, Wait. Wait.
But I can’t wait anymore. Here is the water, my gift and perhaps even my curse. Sometimes we don’t realize how something can be both.
I don’t wait for Zi to assent, I grab her hand and pull her in. To the right, a bullet pings the water. To the left, the witch watches with slit eyes, the lion’s tail whipping around in her hand. I look at her and nod. She nods back, we’re allies now, and she turns around to face Mdu.
Zi’s eyes are huge and she’s squeezing my hand so hard, it’s bound to be misshapen from now on, her grip is that tight, but I put my other hand to her lips to stop the panicky words burbling from her lips.
Like all Catholics, I was a baby when I was baptized. I don’t remember when the priest doused me with holy water, claiming me for God. But I do remember Zi’s baptism: her puckered lips, the way she squalled as water hit her face, the priest laughing and handing her back to Mama, Mama’s solemn face and the twinkle in Baba’s eye. Gogo and I stood behind them, Gogo’s hand on my back.
Water. It’s life, and it’s death, and it’s…everything.
Zi’s sobs are the only thing I hear as I grab her around the waist and pull her under water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MY OWN THREAT
The water is cold and clear.
Zi’s eyes are closed, her mouth opened in a silent scream.
There’s no time to stop. I swim, drag her alongside me, kick to go deeper. Where the water is murky. Where fish skim the mud bottoms. Where these men can’t follow. The witch could follow but she won’t. She isn’t a threat, at least, she’s no longer a threat, for some few minutes. Perhaps my own worst threat has been myself. My own unwillingness to see what the amadlozi were trying to tell me.
These men will assume we have drowned. Perhaps they will wait to see if my body surfaces, or Zi’s. But they won’t wait long. We need to stay submerged, to keep swimming until we find the downstream current.
I’ve been here before and my body recognizes it. The Umgeni River. This feels like home. It is here where I learned my power, so long ago.
The reservoir is created by a dam and I need to find the outlet. So I swim where the voices tell me to go. Looking back, I see that Zi’s eyes are screwed shut, tight tight, but she is no longer panicking.
I swim, dragging Zi behind me, until we reach a current. It pulls us in a southeastern direction. Exactly where we want to go.
I let go.
Our bodies tumble in the current and it pulls us toward the mouth of the river. Toward the Indian Ocean.
I let my thoughts tumble too. Let them go where they will, the water taking our bodies and my thoughts towards the vastness of the sea.
Even in the cold water, my eyes are hot with tears.
I wanted to leave and the amadlozi told me no no no, don’t leave. And now I can’t go back. Because of Little Man. Langa. Bo. Gladys Nene. And Auntie Phumzile.
Oh, yes, Auntie Phumzi. The one who believes I’m a witch, and that I killed Gogo.
What was it the amadlozi told me? Open your eyes. Open—open—open your eyes!
The enemy has become an ally; my family—the enemy.
Because of the past month’s rains, the river is high. In places, it is so deep, we drift along like bottom feeders, keeping ourselves invisible from passers-by. But still, there are shallow spots where we stand up and walk, water and mud dripping down our legs.
“Do we have to keep swimming?” Zi groans. “Can’t we find a road and somebody will pick us up to give us a ride?”
“Hawu, do you want to get robbed and beaten?” I ask.
“What would they take? Do you have any money that they could steal from us?”
I ignore her question. She’s too little to know what they might try to take. “We are going to keep going all the way to the ocean,” I say.
“What about a taxi? Do we have money to catch a taxi?”
I actually do have some few rands stashed in a pocket. I pat it in sudden panic to make sure it’s still there.
“Zi, whatever money I have, we are going to need it, I promise you. We must just keep swimming.”
“Ugh,” she groans.
“Listen,” I say, “I’m doing all the hard work. And besides, you never knew you could breathe under water, did you?”
“Khosi.” Zi shakes her head at me. “I still can’t breathe under water. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know it’s impossible to breathe under water.”
“The amadlozi can do anything,” I say. “Just don’t ask me what our plan is when we reach the ocean, Zi. Because I don’t know. I only know we can’t go back.”
Big fat tears roll down Zi’s cheeks. They spark a response in my own. My eyes feel raw and red, from the water and from crying while we drifted down the river.
“What about Sifiso?” she asks.
I shake my head. I wish I knew.
“What about Little Man?”
“Zi, we must keep going.”
We’ve reached another deep spot, water up to our waists and about to get deeper. I ignore her tears. I have to. “Come,” I say, and push her under.
The river wends its way through the country. Thick bushes grow just past the riverbanks, and occasional huts or businesses pop into view. We stay under water as much as possible but occasionally, we surface, when it isn’t deep enough. Thankfully, we don’t encounter another human, though we see the smoke from cook fires rising just past the first layer of bushes and on one riverbank, clothes spread out to dry from some woman’s washing.
Finally, we reach the city. Durban. Houses and businesses are closer to the riverbanks now, and for awhile, it runs right next to a busy street. We submerge to pass under the overpasses and bridges, until the river widens at its mouth and rushes towards the sea.
/> Soaked, muddy, bone-tired, we crawl out of the water at the ocean’s edge, where fresh water and salt water mix.
I put a finger in my mouth and taste the salt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MY OCEAN
A family is picnicking on the beach, parents and their three children. They look startled when Zi and I appear in our mud-drenched clothes. The mother gives a little half-scream and then stops herself. “Shame,” she says. “Are you girls all-right? Must we call the police?”
“No, Mama, it’s OK. But may we use your cell phone?” I pull a tenrand note from my pocket. It is soaking wet, like me.
“I don’t need your money,” the woman says. She looks at her husband and he nods. She hands me her cell phone.
I dial his number. Yes, it is burned into my memory.
“Hello?”
I want to cry when I hear his voice, full of warmth. He is a safe place. I wish I could just crawl into his safety.
“Hello?” he repeats. “Who is it?”
“Sifiso,” I say. “It’s Khosi.” My lips feel numb. Perhaps from the cold. Perhaps a little bit from fear.
“Khosi,” Sifiso shouts. There are tears of joy in his voice. “Oh, thank God. I have been calling and calling you. Are you safe?”
So news of our abduction must have gotten out after all. “Yes, I am safe. Did you hear already? Did somebody see?”
But he’s babbling. “I was so afraid the two of you were caught inside. I was so afraid you were dead. Is Zi with you? Is she safe?”
He’s not making any sense. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“I’m here at your house. There’s a fire. Your house—it’s burnt to the ground. It’s ashes.”
“What?” I still don’t understand. We were just there, and now the house is gone?
“We were so worried, Khosi,” he says. “It was burning too hot for us to go inside to find you and Zi. It looks as though somebody doused the house in petrol. I’m sorry, Khosi, your hut has burned down too. Completely. There is nothing left.”