Life After Death

by Brian Ndingindwayo

  ‘You needn’t tell me anything, honey,’ he said as he hurled the packed suitcase on his shoulder and dragged the other one with the other hand, impatient to get her home. ‘I can’t breathe,’ he said breathlessly as he fired the engine. ‘Natasha and I are going home.’

  ‘Pardon,’ Natasha snapped, a little sharper than she had intended.

  ‘Natasha and I are going home. Khumalo is the home.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ she exclaimed, now with controlled calmness. Joyously she added, ‘I should take my wardrobe with me. I’m too fat for your trousers. See what you did to me.’ She massaged her stomach and laughed.

  That yielded a laugh from Sipeyiye, which Natasha imitated, racking the whole of her body. Sipeyiye watched her over his shoulder, surprised that Natasha could now laugh.

  Natasha pondered on why she had put him off. It wasn’t because she wanted clothes. She wasn’t even sure she needed them until she was ready to go back to work. She had never discussed it with him, and she wasn’t the type that does anything before thinking twice. Or was she too careful, now that she was carrying his child?

  ‘It’s because I thought you should have some rest,’ Sipeyiye clarified. ‘You won’t relax well at your flat. You need somebody to do all the dirty work for you. I can’t be available all the time, like last night. John is there at my place, always snoring, but we can’t move him into your apartment, lest we’ll be crowded.’ John was Sipeyiye’s gardener.

  ‘I understand,’ she said.

  But when they got there, she didn’t take her clothes straightaway. Instead, they sat down and engaged in a long talk. Sipeyiye wanted to permanently move her out immediately. Natasha excused herself though and entered the bedroom to sleep in the afternoon.

  ‘Well…’ he said after a while and stood beside the bed, his hands inside his trouser the pockets. ‘Are you sure you’re ok?’ He felt her forehead.

  She got out of the bed in a reflex, to prove him wrong. She paced across the room, and leaned over the dressing table. She inspected herself in the mirror. She could see Sipeyiye in the mirror as well, his tall frame firm and gazing intensely at her.

  ‘You have been a strong man, Sipeyiye, which goes without saying. I don’t doubt your capacity to love me for a life time, even two.’ Sipeyiye cracked a smile. ‘But ….’ her voice trailed off. She turned around at him. ‘But ….well, you’re sort of impatient with me.’

  He didn’t reply then and she walked towards him. ‘Now does that hurt my old boy?’ she asked, inviting a smile and tracing a finger along his cheekbone.

  He did smile.

  ‘Well, you always have your way, don’t you?’ he said resignedly, throwing his hands into the air. He left the room, leaving her to lie down and sleep; only that she didn’t.

  She shifted the curtains to the window, and the light streamed in. She blocked its way, taking the slanting rays into her face. She gazed at herself in mirror again. She wasn’t impressed with what she saw. Too bony! She eased the window open and a flood of cool air rushed in. Across, she could see another block of flats, but there were no people around. School and work!

  It was promising to be a fine day, of moderate temperature, too.

  She was feeling just fine to go along with it. Who said she wanted rest?

  She began to plan what she would do for the day. Martial arts? No, maybe she wasn’t yet strong enough for that. The shopping would do. Maybe, she would be able to see that boy, after all.

  And that boy!

  Her heart threatened to leap out of her. She left the room.

  She had woven a yarn!

  Sipeyiye was in the kitchen, preparing something Natasha didn’t even bother to know. She leaned at the door and watched him from behind.

  ‘Mr. Sipeyiye,’ she called.

  ‘Mrs. Sipeyiye.’

  Natasha laughed

  ‘You see,’ she paused. Only then did he turn around at her.

  ‘What’s it?’ he asked, alarmed.

  ‘I just thought maybe we need not depend on John at all. I will be having a baby in eight months. Maybe, we just need a nanny instead.’

  ‘We need a nanny and a gardener, of course.’

  ‘No, I don’t want a lot of people around me.’

  ‘You don’t like him.’

  ‘Maybe, we don’t need him after all.’

  ‘I can’t read you.’

  She left the kitchen and Sipeyiye followed, having lowered the temperature to the stove. They sat in the lounge.

  ‘There is a boy I know whom we can employ.’

  ‘Why the boy now?’

  ‘No, I don’t want servants Sipeyiye. I just want a living soul around me.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘We’ll see then. I meant it for the mean time. I’m just against the idea of moving out at the moment.’

  ‘Any other reasons I don’t know of.’

  ‘We’re happy here, aren’t we? Come on, boy, let’s play romance once more.’

  She curled her lips in a smile, slowly twisting her mouth to one side.

  ‘You can’t tell me you’re not even looking forward to the baby.’

  ‘No,’ she wailed with emotion. ‘I’m.’

  There was an ugly silence, which trickled goose pimples on her skins. She was afraid. Afraid of what? Following her mind. No, this didn’t seem really true to her. Seeing a boy in the street and suddenly here she was, compromising what she believed in. She had never been so hurried in her life.

  Sipeyiye still sat there, one of his legs jammed on the coffee table.

  ‘You’re a bit difficult today. Could it be that?’ He gestured to her stomach with eyes.

  That was it. She had won it. She didn’t need to be told that. She could see with the joy in his eyes.

  Chapter 39

  Manata saw the tall, slender woman across the road. She was loitering intentionally. Manata scratched his head. He didn’t trust his senses. He was too crazy for money. He had run into dozens of women, having mistaken them for the woman who shoved wads of money at him. He’ll surely get into trouble one of these days, he reflected.

  His encounter with the woman changed his perception of people. Before, he hated the rich for their indulgence. The woman proved him wrong, though. There are some nice people within the generally bad society.

  Of course, men were generally bad. Like that man who beat him up for merely asking for money. Women were better. Especially women like that woman he met. He had just hoped the woman would appear again, but she didn’t. He would just run into every woman he saw in black, anybody he likened to the woman. He didn’t mind if she wasn’t, only it inconvenienced these women, but he had learnt to see her in every woman.

  A person can take the place of somebody, he realized again, surprised at himself. There were times when he met a person - it could be anywhere, a bus maybe. They might not talk, but in his sub-consciousness, his mind would register the person.

  The disaster came when he met, or thought he had met the same person again. Then his brain would really have to work overtime to establish where he had met the person. If he summoned little courage, he would ask. The worst could be when the person denied ever meeting him. And that won’t be the end of it. In this mind, this person will replace the former as if they had been friends. And it was painful when the person never seemed to give in as much as he did.

  Even more confusing or traumatic was when the person you have met was a friend and you came to make that intimacy with a stranger. It was something you keep in your mind, and that had all the power to crash you under it.

  Good people are few, and man multiplies them in his eyes.

  Could she be the woman he saw a month ago?

  She had now walked past the entrance of the supermarket, but had suddenly stood standstill, confused. Her eyes scanned the landscape rapidly. People hustled past her. A few passed unconcerned. Most of them squinted over their shoulders to have a second glance at her. She didn’t see
what she was looking for. She turned and reluctantly walked away.

  Manata broke away from the others, having decided eventually that she might not be woman she was looking for. She was interesting, though. Taking extra care against the stream of cars, he darted across the road.

  She turned around at him as he approached her. Her reaction was unique. She unfolded her arms at once at the first sight of him. She raised them fractionally over her head, releasing a sigh of guilty as if she had failed to do a simple calculation. She wanted to do more than that obviously, but she became calm again as an afterthought.

  ‘You,’ she accused him, waging a finger at him.

  Manata was startled. Had she said me? He immediately broke into the song he knew best, ‘Madam, can, I’ve dollar?

  ‘I don’t have a dollar. But I can give you more than that if you do a piece of work for me.’ She didn’t give him time to think, but started pacing away for him to pursue. There hadn’t been anything Manata had been afraid to do, let alone a job. When they were away from curious glances, she slowed for him to level up with her.

  ‘Well, what’s your name?’ she asked, chin straight at him.

  ‘Manata.’

  ‘You stay here?’

  ‘Just around the town, but I am here most times.’

  ‘Who do you stay with?’

  ‘An aunt’

  ‘She works?’

  ‘Yes, she sells in a bar’

  ‘A bar?’

  He didn’t answer. She had heard him, let her think what she wanted to think. He wasn’t sure where this conversation was leading so far.

  ‘Now, I did see you a month ago. You’re always at this place for sure?’

  ‘You’re the woman I saw?’

  ‘I think so. I was in hospital for the whole of last month.’

  Manata allowed his gaze to run up and down her. There was no doubt to what she was saying. She was very pale and thin.

  ‘Now,’ she continued. ‘I was looking for someone to help me with housework, a small boy to come and live in like you.’

  He didn’t think about it. ‘I want it,’ he shouted.

  She stood there, fascinated at his response.

  ‘When do you think you can start?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘What about your aunt? You should tell her, you know.’

  She chauffeured him to the back of the car. For a moment, Manata was bewildered as he sank into soft upholstery. She slid into the driver’s seat herself, checked on him over her shoulder. She fired the engine.

  They drove off.

  ‘What happened to your mother?’ she asked as they joined the other traffic. He ignored her deliberately. He just didn’t know what she was talking about. There had been no mother in his life. He had never heard of her, but he wasn’t bothered with it.

  She peered at him in his long silence. Her gaze met his for a moment. He stared away, overpowered. Manata wasn’t sure whether she wouldn’t change her mind, and suddenly say street-child get lost, I’ve made up my mind.

  Driving in her car was a treat. He was completely fascinated, watching the buildings fly by. It was a life really too much for him to imagine. This luxury… His place was limited to the pavement beneath, hustling when care-not drivers came speeding along. In some way, this didn’t appear real.

  Having driven avenues down the street, they turned left. At the gate was a guard with a green uniform. He opened the gate and smiled broadly. The woman nodded to the guard.

  He entered into a new world, or so he thought. A world that excluded the poor from the outside. It was all unbelievable, immaculate: the green lawn, white children, totally at leisure in tight-fitting clothing. They went up the stairs and turned to the left.

  ‘We have arrived, Manata,’ the woman said. ‘Do you think you’ll like to work here?’ He didn’t respond but managed a smile. She whole-heartedly returned it.

  The room he was ushered into had a red carpet coupled with white. It felt thick in the feet as he stepped onto it. He didn’t feel comfortable doing so, thinking he was messing it up with his dirty feet, but the woman didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘Ok, sit down. We’ll talk.’

  He sank into the couch, amazed again at how comfortable these things can be. He tested it, slumping himself a little and straightening immediately. He had a rough idea on how people who work for madams should behave, and sitting luxuriously wasn’t one of them. He even debated the wisdom of sitting here. He should have sat on a chair, but there was none.

  There weren’t many things either, just a set of sofas arranged around the coffee table. There was also an elephant idol an elephant idol in a glass plate hung above the window. The curtains were cream, so long that they swept the carpeted floor beneath. Books, a painful stack of them, big and colourful, filled the shelf opposite the window. He kept looking around.

  The woman reappeared. As she walked past him to occupy the sofa opposite him, he was amazed he hadn’t noticed that her stomach was a bit bigger than normal. She’s pregnant, he reflected. That’s why she wanted a boy. She wants me to look after the baby, Manata reflected. He didn’t like babies. Too much trouble. But he liked the job.

  ‘Do you think you can do the job?’ she asked. ‘This is the place. It isn’t much really, just to vacuum the carpet and to do plates. Most of the things I will do.’ She was talking to him, her eyes darting up and down him.

  Vacuum the carpet? What is that?

  ‘But you can’t start today,’ she said with a glint of delight in her eyes. It fascinated Manata. She had an air of lightness about her.

  ‘You’re going back to your aunt today. Tell her you got a job. See if she will allow you to. If it’s ok with her, let her write a note. Maybe she will tell you where I can meet her.

  ‘Fine.’ He was disappointed that he wouldn’t sleep here today.

  She was just too careful. His aunt would never mind that much of her absence.

  ‘What did I say?’

  Manata recited what she had said and was amazed at his own intelligence.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘You must be hungry. I will do you a cup.’ She rose and disappeared in the kitchen.

  Manata remained there, listening to his own mind. ‘Oh, he was so lucky!’

  Chapter 40

  Natasha coughed dryly, her stomach muscles contracting excessively as she did so. Nausea diffused through her, and she immediately ducked out of the bed as the smell of bile resurfaced.

  In the bathroom, she leaned on the toilet bowl, ready to pour out all her breakfast, but an unpleasant, a wish to pass it all out was all there was, and nothing more. A number of minutes, and she was convinced she wasn’t going to vomit just then. Perhaps, brushing her teeth would help. She reached for her toothbrush, just above her and behind the bathroom mirror. Squeezing the Colgate over it, she began to brush her teeth.

  She felt a little better thereafter, only better. She had never been able to reach her best ever since she was discharged. Her health had remained poor. She was losing weight alarmingly. And it wasn’t long then, it was only three days. And all the while she had been fighting it up with Sipeyiye. There was no way she was going to return to hospital. Enough was enough.

  The watch in the lounge showed 12:15 pm.

  She had been expecting Manata for the whole morning, but it was beginning to appear as if he wasn’t going to turn up. The joy of seeing him had kept her spirit especially high the whole morning. God, how she loved to have someone around this place!

  She was also hoping to drop at the hospital, not the General where she was admitted, but Mpilo. Maybe, she would get a different treatment that wasn’t admission. To sleep in hospital again was the last thing she wanted.

  There was a faint knock at the door. Natasha was high-headed. He has come! Indeed it was him. She ushered him in.

  He was putting on the same clothes: a black short and yellow ‘T’ shirt that he was wearing yesterday. He had tried to clean them up to no
avail. The yellow ‘T’ shirt was badly strained with dirt. Water without soap, as was obvious had been all the inputs, hadn’t been able to bring about much change.

  ‘I was beginning to get worried,’ she confessed, pointing to the couch when it appeared he was about to throw himself directly onto the floor. He returned a nervous smile, perching himself on it, taking too small a space for comfort.

  ‘I’ve been helping my aunt at the bar.’

  ‘You must be tired then, the bar?’ Natasha eventually said, wanting to switch on a new subject.

  He slipped a paper out of his pocket and passed it to her. It was from the aunt. She was glad the boy had found a job. She would be available at the city bar from eight in the morning to ten in the evening. Just that.

  ‘OK, thank you.’ She folded it and slipped it under the television set.

  ‘If you’re all that tired,’ she continued, ‘maybe, I can show you the shower, and you can clean yourself up.’ This boy didn’t look any presentable at all to Sipeyiye. He might as well assume she was mentally unwell if he saw a boy like this.

  ‘I don’t know. I was planning to leave soon, but I will be back in three or four hours. I’m dropping at Mpilo hospital. I haven’t prepared anything, but there are some fruits in the fridge. If you’re all that hungry, I will show you how to put on the stove as well.’

  ‘I think I’m Ok, madam.’

  Madam? Natasha thought of the title. She will never get used to it. Someone must stop this little boy from calling her ‘madam’, damn it!

  ‘The shower is at the end of the passage.’

  ‘OK, madam.’ Again! Natasha almost screamed.

  He was half-reluctant to leave, and Natasha wondered why. Maybe it was just he thought he was smart enough. Smart enough, or cold water.

  She called out, ‘You can put on the hot water, right?’ But she figured out he might not be able to do so or might burn himself, so she followed and knocked at the door.

  ‘You can put the hot water, right?’

  ‘Where’s it, madam?’

  She clapped the door open, but unfortunately Manata had already removed his clothes. As she took a step in, he turned around hugging himself and shying away.

  ‘Sorry Manata, I didn’t know,’ she apologized, having retreated and closing the door.

  ‘Now, can you put on your clothes and I will show you how to put on the shower?’

  A rapid fumbling with clothes, and immediately she heard, ‘You can enter, madam.’