This Thing Called the Future (23 page)

The drunk man slips into the water, his belly suddenly scaly, his legs morphing into a strong tail, his eyes bulging, his crocodile grin becoming the long snout I saw on his face earlier.

Back in the deep, in the darkness of water and slimy plants and slithering snakes and the stalker-crocodile's sleepy-slow-sudden hunt. His hunt for
me
.

Do I have the power to overcome both a witch and her servant, a crocodile?

But Mama is going to be here, soon, crossing over into the land of the shadows, where the ancestors live. I know this as surely as I know the witch will never stop unless I teach her a lesson she doesn't want to learn, unless I show her the power of the ancestors on my side.

If Mama is coming to this place, maybe I, too, should stay here.

Perhaps I don't want to return,
I say out loud.
Perhaps I want to stay here. And when the crocodile comes for me, I'll let him take me. You can't fight death.

So I stop resisting the water or the crocodile or the snake and accept the punishment that comes.

Soft, through layers of water, a sudden splash.

My eyes fly open.

Little Man is in the water, staring at me, his eyes wide open with horror. “What are you doing, Khosi?” he shouts. “Why aren't you fighting back?”

“I'm afraid,” I admit.

“So afraid you're willing to
die?”

“If I die, at least I can be with Mama,” I say, knowing suddenly that this is the place where she is going, if she isn't already here.

“But what about Zi? What about…what about me?” His voice shakes, the warm tenderness of his sobs cuddling me.

Oh.

At that sound, my body shudders and rebels, resists this fate, dying here in this watery grave.

The crocodile comes for me. I grab his mouth as he strikes, a tooth sinking into my thumb, blood spurting out. But I hold on, thrashing and kicking. Stunned, he lets me go, his powerful tail thumping against my backside as he swims away.

The witch's eyes meet mine.

She's as shocked by the power surging through my body as I am.

My breath is coming fast in short, funny spurts. Even with power, you can still be afraid.

Before she can seize on my fear and turn it against me, I threaten her.
Is this what you want? To fight until you die? Or are you going to turn around and leave too?

Behind me, across the river, the ancestors are gathering.

The witch looks at all of us, angry, then turns around and swims away.

If you dare come back for me or for anybody I love, I will hunt you down and kill you,
I shout at the sinewy figure retreating.

Sharp awareness for one painful second when I surface from the deep deep water and Auntie breathes, “She left us, Khosi, she left peacefully, saying only, ‘I love you all.'”

Looking beyond her, I see the
sangoma
, her old wrinkled face looking concerned.

“Where did my mother go?” I ask.

“To the other side,” she replies.

“No! She can't leave yet!
I'm not ready!”

Slowly, I sink back into the dream world. “Sleep, Khosi,” the
sangoma
says. “Sleep—but then return to us. Find your way through the water and bring your gifts of healing back to this world.”

Slipping back into the world with the river, Babamkhulu, and… Mama. Mama's on the other side of the river, shouting at me. She's so far away and the river is so big. How did she get here? And why is she on the other side?

I look back across.

Mama is no longer alone. Behind her are hundreds of people—no, thousands—all of them waving at me.

“Goodbye,
mtwana wam'
, my child,” Mama calls, still waving. “
Sala kahle!
Stay well!”

She turns her back and disappears into the trees on the other side of the river.

“Wait, Mama!” I call. “I'm coming! Don't go!”

Everything is black and murky around me, my legs and arms moving through thickness of water, learning to touch and identify. I'm pushing aside the watery resistance—until I see dim shapes in the water ahead of me, a sudden vision of my
babamkhulu
and oh! of Mama. She's there with me, in the water, her face restored to its beautiful roundness, her beautiful body swaying in the water.

She smiles at me. “Khosi, my child,” she says, holding her hands out towards me. “Forgive me.” Even in her happiness, she is weeping, knowing what she has done.

But her face is shiny again. The bruises, gone. The weeping sores—disappeared. The insistent thought, and I'm grateful:
She's been healed. She's been healed.

And then Zi's voice, whispering my name, over and over. “Khosi. Khosi. Khosi. Khosi. Khosi.”

I wave fingers towards Mama but do not touch her. It's like I'm saying goodbye but promising to return at the same time.

“You must do the right thing,” Mama says, her voice now beginning to fade as I float upwards. “I'm sorry. Please forgive me…”

I know exactly what she means. “Of course, Mama. I'll take care of everything.”

I look over at Babamkhulu. He nods and I nod back, knowing that I'll see him again.

Then I swim to the surface. Because Zi still needs me. I can hear it in her voice.

“What happened?” I gasp, feeling as though I've just breathed for the first time in my life, air knife-like as it thrusts through my lungs.

I open my eyes and, as I do, Zi clutches me, buries her face in my
shoulder, sobbing. Stretching my arm over the sofa, I look beyond Zi to Gogo and Auntie, their faces pale; then I glance at my thumb, which throbs and aches, and notice a small puncture wound right in the center.

Gogo's face floods with color. Auntie's relaxes into all manner of peace.

“Some drunk man beat you badly, Khosi,” Auntie says, tenderly.

Flashes of the drunk man's face morphing into the crocodile.

“Did he…?” My voice cracks on the words. I'm not sure I want to complete the thought. “Am I still…?”

“Your virtue is still intact,” Gogo assures me.

Thank God. He didn't rape me. I'm still…safe.

“How did I get away?” I ask.

“One of your school friends found you and carried you home,” Auntie says.

“He was distraught,” Gogo says. “He kept saying, ‘I should have protected her.'”

Gently, I feel my bruised face. My eyelids are heavy, my lips swollen and sticky. “Who was it?” I ask. “Who rescued me?” But I already know.

“Little Man Ncobo,” Gogo says.

I groan, my face to the wall.

“He likes you,” Zi says, her face popping up a few inches from mine. “He likes you a lot.”

Gogo sighs. But in that sigh, I hear a promise. I just hope it isn't too late—that Little Man really does like me that much, like Zi says.

“The police came and took that drunk old man away,” Auntie says. “He won't bother you again.”

But what about the witch? Is
she
also gone for good? Did I really leave her behind, stuck in the dream world? Or has she just started playing games with me?

Whatever comes, the ancestors will protect me. That witch is not the only one with power.

I wander around the house, looking at everything covered with cloth—the television, the mirrors, pictures, even the windows.

I never want to eat again.

The truth? I feel like I've lost. I no longer care what happened in the dream world. I don't care that the witch slithered away or the stalker realized I'm stronger. No matter where I wander, there's one room I must avoid: the bedroom. Mama is there. Or rather, her body is there, shrouded in a sheet, Gogo sitting beside her, mourning.

I should go inside that room, but I can't. I don't want to look at her body. I would rather remember her, waving at me happily from the other side of the river, calling out, “Stay well, my child! Stay well!” That is a much happier vision than the one I glimpse when I pass by the bedroom to go to the bathroom—the edges of the sheet, Gogo's keening, her deep breaths, the sobs.

I speak from the hallway. “Do you need anything, Gogo?”

She shakes her head. Pats the bed, inviting me to come sit beside her. It's where I should be, the oldest daughter, mourning my mama with her mama.

But I can't. I can't go in that room. “I'll be back, Gogo.”

For two days, neighbor women have been making all the food for the family members and friends who are here. I'm just well enough to toddle into the kitchen and watch them as they stir sorghum in a massive
pot on the stove. One lady has a pot full of
phuthu
. Watching her stir it, I stare at the white grains sticking to the wooden spoon.

“How much food are you making?” I ask.

“Enough for a thousand people!” she claims. Then she tells me what I should be doing, rather than watching her cook. “You should sit in the bedroom with your grandmother.”

I drift outside where the men are roasting meat over a fire. Baba and Uncle Richard and all the other men who knew Mama throughout her life sit around the circumference, drinking
utshwala
and talking, falling silent when I approach.

Baba meets my eyes. There is something really different about him. He seems shaken, his face haggard. I notice a few white hairs in his scraggly beard and coiled through the black hairs on his head. He's getting old, my father. He's getting old and now, unless he goes to the clinic and gets help, he's going to die, sooner rather than later, and I will have lost both my parents.

The tears well up in my eyes.
I'll speak to him
, I promise.
But I can't think about it just now.

I wander back inside to the sitting room, where many of the women, even Gogo Zulu, are gathered around Auntie. I stand there, listening to the women chatter, until Zi comes and stands right beside me, perfectly silent, fiddling with the knobs on a drawer. She doesn't look at me.

Finally I notice her hair: the tight curls knotted and matted, as if she's been neglected. Zi still hasn't learned to let any of the rest of us be her mother.

Putting my arm around her, I say, quietly, “Zi, will you let me wash and comb your hair, please?”

She's very still for a minute, even refuses to respond, but when I reach my hand over to caress her head, she doesn't jerk away like usual. She lets me work my fingers into the knots, threading through them. As my fingers dig deeper, she begins to hiccup and then to sob and finally she's quiet. But she stays near me. When I'm done, she buries her face in my stomach.

 

A few hours before the funeral, the men begin to look solemn and
official. The house and yard, which has been so crowded, empties as people leave to walk up the hill to our church.

“How will we possibly feed everybody at the feast afterwards?” Auntie Phumzi frets, but then she shakes her head. “It is good,” she says. “Elizabeth was well-loved.”

Our next door neighbor emerges from her house, sober, for once silent with her accusations.

Her children and grandchildren wait outside while she exits the gate and comes over to our yard. She calls to Auntie, “
Sawubona
, Phumzile!”

Auntie's eyes meet mine. I peek at Inkosikazi Dudu. She's standing at the gate, a shawl draped around her bent shoulders. She looks… penitent. Maybe she believes her curse caused Mama's death. For that, she should be ashamed. But now that I know what Mama did, I know that we're covered in shame too.

Auntie walks over. Their conversation is brief but Auntie nods and touches the old woman on the shoulder before she shuffles back out of the gate. She and her family begin the long walk up the hill to the church, to the funeral.

“What did she want?” I ask when Auntie returns.

“She said we must use her yard and home for all the people that come.”

“That's kind of her,” I say, knowing Auntie has no idea what I really mean. “Gogo's missed her friendship.”

“Perhaps her anger is gone now,” Auntie says. “Death is the greatest force for forgiveness.”

“Yes,” I agree, wondering if I can forgive Mama myself.

Finally, it's our time to go. Men load Mama into a wooden coffin and place it in the back of a van we've borrowed for the day. Gogo and Gogo Zulu get into the van. Gogo calls out to Zi, “Come, child, come with us,” and Zi runs over to climb into the van.

There's no room for the rest of us. Auntie is driving her car but it's already full too. So Baba and I are left to wait until she comes back to pick us up.

I want to be angry at Baba, for what he did to Mama. But all I can think is how he will leave us, too, unless he goes to the doctor
now
now to
get help. “How's your business, Baba?” I ask. But what I really want to ask is this:
How are you feeling
?
Are you well
?
When will you die, Baba
?

“Oh, it's getting started that's so difficult,” he says.

“I tell you what I would really like to do,” he confides. “I would really like to sell some things that make
muthi
and the other things that
sangomas
need to do their business. That is what I would like…” His voice trails off. Then he adds, “But I don't have the money to make a business.”

I want to offer some few
rand
s to help him, to take some money from the bank account so he can make his business. But it isn't my money to give. Instead, I offer a smile and again I promise myself that I will talk to him when all this is over.