This Thing Called the Future (21 page)

I don't notice the stench unless I've been gone for some time and I return home. Then I realize that our house is beginning to smell like the carcass of an animal, rotting on the side of the road.

She's wasting away.

And Gogo's weak too. She sleeps more now than ever before. Even during the day, she naps inside near Mama's bed.

Yet she seems content.

I'm the opposite. All the time, I hear those whispers, and they're still saying the same thing:
purify purify purify
. It's becoming an urgent chant in my head, and even my worry about the fight I had with Little Man recedes in the face of that word. Over and over and over.
Purify purify purify.

But that's what we're doing!
I shout at the voices in my head.

Purify purify purify,
they shout in response.

And then there are the dreams. Every night.

In one dream, I see the gold-toothed
sangoma
watching as Gogo and I purge the red
muthi
. Instead of vomit, a snake slithers out of my mouth as I bend over the blue bucket. She cackles as she watches and I wonder if her medicine is so powerful, it's blocking ours.

In another dream, I see Mama standing in a long queue, waiting to see God. The queue is made up of all the people that need healing. I float up above the queue, up up up, above the earth, until I can see how it stretches all the way around the earth's perimeter, coiling and winding and twisting from China to Europe to America. It's a giant serpent, swallowing the globe.

“The purification isn't working,” I tell Gogo.

But Gogo refuses to stop. “First we have to complete it,” she says. “Then we'll see if it is working or not.”

“That's not what I meant,” I say. I try to explain, but I don't have words. “I think there's something
else
we need to be doing.”

“Hush, Khosi,” Gogo snaps. “You bite and soothe like a mouse.”

She doesn't understand. She can't hear the voices whispering in my head.

“It's not working,” I tell Auntie Phumzi.

“Don't let doubt stop you now,” she says.

So we keep going, even though I'm beginning to feel like anyone can look at me and see right through me.

Mama stays in bed all the time now. Nothing changes. In fact, the only thing that changes is where I sleep. Each night, I make up a bed for myself in the dining room on the sofa. In the morning, I fold the sheet and blanket and put them, with my pillow, back in the bedroom.

For the first time in my life when Mama's in town, I'm sleeping alone.

It feels like I've started to puke blood and guts every time I purge. There's a small itch in my chest. And a raw feeling in my throat, like I've swallowed boiling liquid. Raging sores dot my tongue, the insides of my mouth.

I'm beginning to feel like I am all emptied out of everything. All I'm doing is the next thing and then the next thing after that.

Is this how Mama feels?

Strange things have started to happen. I feel this strong sense that somebody is watching me, that I'm being tested. Sometimes, dizzy after we expel
muthi
into the bucket, those dim, distant voices break through the fog and roar like lions.

Clearly, yes, the ancestors are trying to give me a message. And I'm sure, whatever it is, it's important. But I have no idea what they're saying anymore.

I'm just hoping for something to happen that makes me feel whole again.

“You're losing weight, Khosi,” Auntie Phumzi observes while we're standing at the foot of Mama's bed.

Mama is so sick now, she doesn't even
try
to clean her own bloody cloths. We put them in a big tub with bleach and let them soak for a long time before we clean them, just in case.

We've moved everybody out of the room—even Gogo and Zi are sleeping in the dining room with me. I'm the strongest, so I help Mama
during the night. Auntie Phumzi comes during the day so I can get a little rest. I haven't gone to school in two weeks. What's going to happen to my studies? My good grades in biology? And if my grades go down, will I lose my scholarship? I try not to think about it.

Mama starts to speak through her cracked lips. She has almost no voice, so we have to lean in to hear her. “You need to stop,” she whispers.

“Mama, today was the last day of
muthi
,” I protest but even as I speak, my voice gives out, just like Mama's, cracks and breaks and bleeds. “The only thing left is a feast for the ancestors.”

“The expense,” Mama moans.

“How do you feel?” Auntie asks, looking at me with concern. She looks in my face, puts her hand on my forehead. “Khosi, you're burning up! Are you well?”

Mama suddenly sits up, then falls back on the pillows because she is too weak to sustain herself. “I don't like this,” she murmurs. “You
must
stop it.”

“I'm fine,” I insist, my voice hoarse and deep. “It's not the
muthi
, I promise, Mama.” I've never before felt my vocal chords but now each word I speak feels like I'm pushing on a blister deep inside my throat. “
Angiguli
. I just feel a little weak, that's all, not sick.”

Mama grabs my hand as I start to walk out. “Khosi,” she whispers. “I want to tell you something.”

My stomach hurts as I sit on the bed beside her. She wipes her mouth off with the back of her hand, then reaches under the blankets and brings out a sheaf of wrinkled papers, clutching them in her hand. “I've been saving money since you were just a baby,” she says, still coughing.

“Mama, do I need to hear this just now?”

“Yes,” she says. “I need to tell you before it's too late.”

She shoves the papers towards me, thrusts them in my lap. “This money, it's not much but it's enough to pay your school fees at university if you're careful. So you can go to college.”

I glance down at the papers in my lap. “That's so many years away.”

“Keep them someplace safe,” she says. “Don't tell anyone about the money. If you tell anyone, they'll want to use it. We always need money
for this, for that, for nothing, sho!” She shakes her head. “It's better if they don't know about this thing, hey, Khosi?”

“Where is this money?” I ask.

“It's in a bank account in Pietermaritzburg,” she says. “Those papers have all the account information. It's in your name. Nobody can withdraw that money but you. Nobody.”

“Why, Mama? Why are you giving this to me now?” I already know the answer but I want to hear her say it.
Mama, please talk to me.

She ignores the question. “You like biology,” she says. “Become a nurse. If you become a nurse, you'll always have a job.”

“What, practicing medicine with this thing of HIV running around our country like elephants that have gone crazy?” Yes, I'm mad. I don't even bother to keep the anger out of my voice. I've never spoken like this to Mama. Of course, I'm not angry at her. Or maybe I am. Yes, I guess I am. Why did she wait so long before she went to see the doctor, and here she is, urging me to go into medicine? “That sounds like a death sentence, Mama! It's only a matter of time before—”

“No, no, you mustn't stay here in South Africa,” she says. “As a nurse, you can go to England. You can take Zi with you and escape this place.”

“I don't want to go to England!” I protest. “Everybody I love is
here
.”

But Mama has it all planned out. “Hush, Khosi,” she says. “It's a good place to live. You can go to England and escape this thing of AIDS.”

“You want me to leave Gogo?” I ask.

“Yes!” she cries. “Leave before the whole country goes up in flames, before everybody dies of this thing, before only the old people and the children are left.”

“But I love South Africa,” I say. “I want to help my country.”

“You think I don't love South Africa?” she asks, and the tears roll down her sunken black cheeks, once so fat and round and lovely. “I've lived here all my life and I'll die here without ever leaving. But you and Zi can escape if you're smart and get training that they need in England. Hey, Khosi? Hey?”

“Let me think about it,” I say, the words sour in my mouth.

“Promise me you won't tell anybody about the money,” she insists,
and her voice is urgent now. “They'll want to use it for my funeral, to make a feast for the ancestors. They'll spend
all
of it on my death. They'll waste it honoring me and sending me to the other side when the best way to honor me is to use it for your education. Promise me you'll keep it a secret, Khosi.”

What else can I say? I break down, crying. “I'll keep it secret, Mama.”

“You won't spend a single
rand
on making a feast for me after I die,” she says.

“No,” I sob.

“And you'll become a nurse,” she prompts.

I've never thought about becoming a nurse. But now it feels like this is the one thing Mama's asking me, like I'm making a death-bed promise while she grips my hand. “Yes, Mama.”

“I see a healing gift in you, Khosi,” she says.

“If I have some kind of healing gift, why can't I help
you?”
I cry. “That's all I want. To see you well again. That's it. Nothing else. Anyway, why do you think I'm doing this stupid purification?”

“That's exactly what I mean,” she says. “See, Khosi? You have a fierce desire to help people. You'll make a wonderful nurse.”

I sigh, wondering if I have what it takes.

“Promise me something else, Khosi,” Mama says. “Before you go to England, you won't get involved with men here.”

I think about Little Man. Does he count? He's not a man…yet. “I'll try.”

“As a nurse, you'll be able to pay for Zi's college,” she says.

“Mama, why are you asking me all these questions? Why are you asking me to make all these promises? Are you—?” Even I can hear the pleading in my voice. I stop just short of begging to know.

And of course, Mama doesn't answer my questions, just as she hasn't talked to anybody about what is making her so sick.

Instead, she reaches out her hand, stopping before it touches me. Her hand hovers in the air. “Khosi, it's just a matter of time before Baba also—” She chokes and stops. She speaks in a very low voice. “You'll always take care of Zi, won't you?”

“Of course!” I almost shout the words. How could Mama think I wouldn't take care of Zi? I'm her second mother. She's my heart, my blood.

She relaxes back, the pillows sighing with a poof of air as she sinks into them. She looks almost peaceful now, like she's settled something in her mind, something she hasn't wanted to talk about for so long but now she's finally broken the silence.

As for me? I feel like a ghost, wandering through the house, not even sure anymore what is real and what is a dream.

I try to embrace what Mama has told me. I try to understand it. I try to pretend that the nagging doubts aren't there.

But they are.

I lie down on the sofa, closing my eyes, trying to get rid of a headache. Gogo sits beside me, rubbing my forehead with her soft, wrinkled hands.

“Gogo,” I say, keeping my eyes closed, “you need to call the priest.”

“For what, Khosi?” she asks. I can hear the worry in her voice, and I can interpret it easily. She thinks something is wrong with me.

“For Mama,” I say. “He needs to come to our house to see Mama.”

Gogo's voice drops to a whisper. “I can't tell the priest we are doing this thing of purification.”

“He doesn't need to know,” I say. “But Mama needs to give confession.”

Through a haze of sleepiness and waves of pain in my head, I hear Gogo on the phone, chattering in rapid Zulu, inviting the priest to come. Rolling over so my face is to the sofa's back, I let my body sink into sleep.

 

I stagger to the bathroom, the voices in my head thumping and throbbing. Passing the bedroom, I peek through the open crack. Mama is inside, murmuring, her voice low. The priest, Baba Mkhize, is kneeling at her bedside, holding her hand.

I stumble back to the sofa and lay there until I see the priest come back into the dining room. Even though I feel terrible, I sit up to greet him.

“
Sawubona
, Baba,” I say.

“
Yebo
, Khosi.” The look in his eyes. Sad and thoughtful. Like he knows more than he should know about the world, and about my mother, and about this family.

Gogo hobbles out of the kitchen. “Baba, Khosi isn't well,” she says. “Can you pray for her?”

He kneels beside my head, withdrawing a small jug of holy water and a small jar of anointed oil from his pants pocket. He sprinkles me with water and makes the sign of the cross with oil on my forehead.

“We pray that you will heal this little one, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” he murmurs.

For just a minute, the babbling in my head ceases. Reaching out my hand to touch his, I look at him, the questions in my eyes, wondering what Mama told him, wondering what I need to know.

“Shhh, Khosi,” he says. “God forgives. And I know you will do the right thing.”

My head bumps back into the pillows as he leaves. I close my eyes to an image of Gogo's large hips as she disappears back into the kitchen.