This Thing Called the Future (19 page)

We hurry past.

I hold Zi's hand on one side and support Gogo on the other. Gogo puffs
her way up the hill, gripping my arm so hard, I'll have bruises tomorrow.

“Zi, why don't you run ahead and tell Thandi's
gogo
we're on our way?” I suggest. “I'll help Gogo up this last little bit of the road.”

The apprentice is sitting in front of the rondavel, weaving a grass mat and talking with Inkosikazi Nene.

“I'm not surprised to see you, Sisi,” Inkosikazi Nene says when we join them.

“Sho! Why not?” Gogo asks.

“I lose my appetite quite a lot when spirits are fighting,” she says. “I haven't been hungry for two days. But the ancestors have not yet spoken to me about this thing. They are waiting. Perhaps they'll speak this evening.” She gestures towards her hut. “Please, my friends, take your shoes off and enter.”

Still out of breath, Gogo grunts and pushes Zi towards the apprentice.

Zi grasps my hand like she won't let go. She tugs until I lean down. “I want to come inside,” she whispers. “Please, Khosi?”

I give Gogo a pleading look but she shakes her head. “You're too young,” I tell Zi. “Here, you'll be sitting right next to the door. We won't be far.”

Reluctant, she drops my hand and goes over to stand near the apprentice.

Elders go first so the
sangoma
enters. Gogo struggles with the low entrance. It is so hard for her to bend down—her knees are too swollen. She mutters, tries, straightens back up. I reach out a hand to help her but she shoves it away. Almost like Zi, wanting to do this thing for herself, asserting her independence.

Slow and rusty, she begins to lower herself. Suddenly, her knees buckle and she crashes to the ground, her legs splaying out behind her.

Tears spring to my eyes as I rush towards her.

She's breathing heavily and spittle gathers at the corners of her mouth as she quickly turns herself over, her face grey.

Walking here was too hard on her. She almost never goes this far, up such a steep hill.

“Gogo, I can go inside by myself,” I say, helping her up and over to
a chair by the entrance. She heaves herself onto the chair, taking deep, heavy breaths. “Stay with Zi.”

So I crouch down and crawl through the entrance, joining Inkosikazi Nene inside. The sweet scent of
impepho
swells and disperses throughout the entire room as it burns. The scent will linger in my plaits and school uniform. I should have thought to change before coming.

Smoke curls upwards in thin wisps while the
sangoma
arranges herself on a cloth spread on the floor towards the center of the hut. She takes out a small drum and, placing it in front of her on the cloth, begins to drum, a steady beat. Eyes closed, she hums then sings, a high-pitched melodic song with each line ending on a wail.

While she prepares herself for the ancestors to speak, I gaze around at the plastic bottles and glass jars filled with brown liquids, the animal skins strung along the walls and the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling.

She drums and drums and drums. The everlasting beat lulls me into a state close to sleep. If only I could lie down and take a nap.

But though I can hear the muffled rustles, the whispers, like the world is swirling around me and I'm about to faint, I can't understand the words. It's like the wind carries them away.

The beat echoes in my head, begins to sound like a voice speaking to me. It seems to come from the animal skins on the right.

My eyes fly open as I hear the
sangoma
gasp. She's sitting upright, one hand posed over the drum. “You are wondering if the ancestors have lifted their protection?” she asks.

“Yes,” I agree.

“Let me ask them,” she says.

She begins to drum again, a slow beat this time. “Everything is so murky,” she says. She is staring at me so hard it makes me fear what she will see: doubt, fear, anger—so many of the things that make a person impure. “The voices of the ancestors are blurred. They are faint because there is so much fighting going on.
So much fighting
. They are all talking at once.” She closes her eyes again and asks, “Is it possible—is it possible that the ancestors could be angry with one of your relatives? A female?” She asks like she doesn't want to ask but must because of what she's hearing.

“It's possible,” I say, beginning to shake, a deep shaking that feels like it isn't part of my body. It's deeper than that.

“Your—your mother,” she says, uncertain. “Could they be angry with her? Has she done her part honoring her ancestors?”

There is so much to honoring the ancestors—cleaning their graves, making sacrifices, and what what what. It is so expensive! Too expensive for us to afford. Anyway, even if Mama believed in the old ways, we would probably have failed in some ritual sometime, there are so many. I know we are not as faithful cleaning their graves as we should be. When was the last time? Oh, a year ago or more. That is too long.

If you do not honor the ancestors, they may lift their protection.

I bow my head, ashamed. “These days, it's difficult to do what we should,” I admit. “Especially with the modern way of life.”
And because of doubt,
I want to add.
My mother doesn't believe in any of this. She's never honored the ancestors. And she never will.

Inkosikazi Nene looks toward me but her eyes are downcast. “You have a very strong ancestor who watches over you, Khosi,” she says. “I can see him, sitting beside you. He sits, just the way you sit now.”

My skin prickles when I realize she's averting her gaze so that she doesn't look my ancestor right in the eyes. She's showing respect in the old way to one of the old ones.

“It's your grandfather on your maternal side,” she says. “He is very jealous of your life and wants things to turn out well for you.”

“Gogo's husband?” I ask. “Babamkhulu?”

She nods.

“He died the same day I was born,” I say.

“No wonder his protection over you is so strong.” She smiles.

I wonder if I should feel him next to me. But all I feel is this shaking. And this sudden fear.
Is this normal?

“Have you ever told Thandi anything like this?” I ask.

She laughs. “Thandi? She has none of the spirits about her!”

I guess I already knew that.

“Khosi, can you hear him?” She pauses. “Listen. What is he saying?”

It's true, I hear it myself, a dim whisper as present as the air that
surrounds us, a whisper from those that have passed to the other side. I breathe it in. My
babamkhulu
. And others too. My fears stilled. Even though my family hasn't always done its part, they are still here, watching over us.

And suddenly I know the truth. “My family
has
been cursed,” I say.

“
Impela
, this is also the thing I sense,” she agrees. “Let us ask who has cursed you.”

But I already know. “It's the next-door neighbor,” I say. “She's been accusing my mother of cheating her out of some money. I've seen her with that
sangoma
who lives in the big house at the top of the hill, the one Gogo always says is a witch.”

“Are you very sure your mother hasn't done this thing? That she hasn't opened up the floodgate of evil?”

“Why would she steal money?” I ask, thinking back to the conversation where Mama said she would steal if we were starving. “She has a job. We have enough food. Anyway, she's an honest woman.”

“I know this, but you should not accuse anybody of witchcraft unless you catch them in the act. Have you seen your neighbor putting
muthi
anywhere near your house?”

I shake my head, but then I tell her about the dream I had and how we found the streak of mud under the bedroom window, exactly where I saw the neighbor rubbing it in my dream.

“Sho!” she exclaims. “This dream may be the proof—but it is hard to know because you have never been trained. Is there anybody else who might have a reason to be angry with your family, besides this woman?”

I stop to think about it. “You know about the witch. But there's also this man,” I say. “He keeps bothering me. I don't know—Mama tried to get him to stop but it didn't work.”

She closes her eyes again, listening. We both listen. Maybe it's a strange thing to do but in this little hut, with the
sangoma
beside me, it feels like the most normal thing in the world. Still, I'm not going to tell
anybody
that I hear voices. They might think I'm a freak.

Words form in my mind and I tilt my head to listen better to the
chant beating its rhythm in my head:
Pur-i-fy the house. Cleanse the soul. Hon-or your dead and dy-ing. Heal the land.

“Gogo, I want this thing with our neighbor and with this drunk man to be over,” I say. “Even if we don't have proof of witchcraft, I do know our neighbor's very angry with us. And there's the drunk man, his anger smolders so deep, I am afraid of what it will do to me if it doesn't disappear. Can't anger be a curse?”

She nods. “Yes, strife can cause disease or prevent us from healing or give us bad luck in our daily life.”

“But I don't think it's just the next-door neighbor,” I admit. “I keep hearing these words that I don't understand.
Purify the house. Cleanse the soul. Honor your dead and dying. Heal the land.
That's what I keep hearing, over and over, in my head.” In fact, I still hear those voices whispering, even as I talk.

“Yes,” she says. “I hear it too. The spirits are fighting each other—something has happened within your family to bring this on.”

“You mean…this is something we've done to ourselves?” I ask.

“You've felt it.” She reaches out a hand to touch me.

Holding back tears, I ask her, “What can you do to help us?”

“You and your grandmother can go through the purification. I can help your family search your hearts, to find the things that have allowed this evil to take hold of you and cause these problems, this self-doubt and the neighbor's anger and the man who keeps bothering you. We will do what we must so that you will have the ancestors' protection again.”

“Purification is hard on the body,” I say, wondering if Gogo has the strength to do it.

“You cannot fight an evil disease with sweet medicine,” she reminds me.

I forget that I'm supposed to let the
sangoma
leave the hut first, since she's my elder. I just crawl through the entrance, popping my head out to look at Gogo. “We're going to do a purification, Gogo,” I announce. “We'll start as soon as possible.”

I'm glad we're going to do something to help the family. But I'm scared too. What if we find out something I'd rather not know?

Mama calls on the cell phone as we walk home from the
sangoma's
. “Khosi, I woke up and Gogo isn't here.
Uyakhona nawe?”

“She's here, Mama, but we're walking along the road and it's better if she doesn't talk just now.” Gogo is breathing hard as we puff our way back down the hill. She's limping, probably because of her fall, and leaning hard on me.

“Where have you been?” she asks. “It's so late.”

I can't lie to Mama. “We went to the
sangoma's
, Mama. I had a dream last night, and we found some
muthi
smeared on our house this morning. We think the next-door neighbor put a curse on us.”

She is silent, then says, “Khosi, really.”

“Mama, it's just because we
care
.”

She sighs. “I'll see you when you get here.”

And she is not happy. She yells at Gogo. “What do you think you're teaching
my daughters?”

“They are my daughters too,” Gogo says. Zi is hiding behind Gogo and peeking out at this mad Mama of ours, sitting up in bed, her hair a wild mess of clumps sticking straight up off of her head.

“You can do what you want, Mama,” Mama says, “but please leave my girls out of it.”

I take a deep breath. “Mama, this is something
I
want to do.”

“No,” she snaps.

“Mama—”

“Don't,” she says, just the one word, before she starts coughing and gagging. I grab the rubbish bin we keep near the bed. Blood and saliva pool out of her mouth in long thin red and silver threads.

 

I never do get Mama's permission. She's just too sick, and the
sangoma
arrives early the next morning, while it's still dark, ready to begin the purification. Guilty and afraid, I make the decision to do it even though Mama disapproves. Gogo is urging me on. And I don't know what else to do to help my family.

Inkosikazi Nene cuts the soles of our feet, our ankles, and the skin just behind our ears with a small razor blade, dabbing with a newspaper as blood pools near the skin. Gogo accepts cuts on her legs as well but I shake my head. I don't want scars where people can see them.

After cutting us, she rubs a mixture in each open wound. It burns at first; then it starts to itch, slow and steady, as though a small bug was crawling around under the skin.

She takes a plastic bottle from her bag, pouring a liquid mixture of grey-water and brown-black sludge into plastic cups. It contains bile, bits of gall from a slaughtered cow, herbs, perhaps some crocodile oil. Who knows? The contents of
muthi
are secret. Each
sangoma
concocts it with guidance from her ancestors.