This Thing Called the Future (24 page)

When we reach the church, it's filled with people—neighbors and relatives singing hymns, clapping hands, waiting for the funeral to begin. They struggle to get the coffin out of the back end of the van, and the people part so we can pass. Zi runs over to take my hand. We follow Gogo and Gogo Zulu inside, after Uncle Richard, Baba, and the other men carrying Mama's coffin shoulder their way through.

We follow them up the aisle towards the front of the church. I look out at the sea of faces, at people I don't recognize. Baba Mkhize, the priest, is standing at the front, waiting for us, waiting to begin.

And then I see Little Man. He's sitting a few rows behind Auntie Phumzi.

My eyes move from Little Man to his mother, sitting next to him, and then to his father, who looks like he's swallowed something bad and it hurts his stomach.

Little Man looks like his father, his face solemn as he watches me. He gives me the slightest nod, like he's encouraging me, like he's saying I really can do this. Like maybe he's saying he's sorry.

Inkosikazi Dudu sits in the back, her head bowed, ashamed. Soon, I will have to go to her and tell her about the money. Give it all back to her.
I'll do it,
I promise. But that is a task for another day—another task I can't think about just now.

I sink deep into my own thoughts, so deep that I don't remember the service. I don't remember the songs we sing or the words the priest speaks or how many people press money into Gogo's hand afterwards, a tradition that will help us pay for the feast and for all the food we've been feeding the people who came the last days to mourn Mama's death.

Zi sits through the service, holding my hand and glancing up at me for reassurance every few minutes, the way she once did with Mama. I hold her hand and I sing hymns and I listen to the priest, his words drifting over me like clouds in the sky. Here, but gone so quickly. I think about all that Gogo and I did to purify our family, and what I found out because of it. I wish Mama was still here. I wish I could talk to her about stealing the money. I wish I could cry.

By the time it's over, my lips feel like they're bleeding.

A few days after the funeral, Gogo looks out the window and sees Little Man lingering by the gate. “Khosi! Khosi!” she calls. “Your friend is here, outside the gate!”

I glance in the mirror in the bathroom—wow, my face is still so swollen—even as she yells, “Khosi,
shesha!
He's leaving!”

It's true, he's about to turn and walk away. “Little Man!” I yell, fumbling my way out of house.

He turns around, quick quick, and grabs the gate. “Khosi,” he says, sounding so glad to see me that relieved little tears spurt to my eyes. “Come talk to me.”

I let myself out of the gate and we walk down the dirt road. He holds my elbow with his bony hand. “When are you coming back to school?” he asks.

“Next week.”

“Thank God,” he jokes. “All these girls keep bothering me, and I keep telling them, ‘Khosi Zulu's coming back to school. She's my girl and if you don't leave me alone, you better watch out ‘cuz she's one tough girl.'”

The way he says “tough girl,” it feels like he's caressing me, his voice low and intimate. It's confusing. There was our fight, and now here he is, and things are back to normal, except everything's changed. Everything. Everything except my feelings for him.

“I miss school,” I say. “What are you studying in biology?”

“The life cycle of the malaria parasite,” he says. “Boring.”

“It sounds interesting to me. And important. Do you know how many Africans die of malaria each year?”

He laughs. “Yes, they told us. Almost a million!”

“Malaria is not as bad as AIDS,” I say, “but they say it kills more people than AIDS in the long run.”

“You really do like science, don't you?”

“I'd like to go to college and study biology,” I admit, “but my family doesn't have the money.”

“Sis man,” he says, “haven't you heard of scholarships?”

Scholarships. No, I hadn't thought of that. All I'd been thinking about was the money Mama stole, the money I still need to give back.

“Do you really think I could win a scholarship?” I ask.

“They have a lot of scholarships for black students these days,” he says. “And you're the smartest girl
I
know.”

The way he says that makes me feel shy. “Thanks.”

He elbows me. “Come on, let me see where the
sangoma
cut you.”

“Didn't you say I was stupid for doing the purification?” I ask.

“Ah
wena
,” he says. “I told my mother what you said and she told me I'm the stupid one. Maybe you can forget about it.”

I tilt my head until he can see the slits where Inkosikazi Nene cut me behind the ears with her knife. They are already slender long scars, barely visible.

He touches them. I shiver.

“That's nothing like the bruises I have from that man's beating,” I say.

“I know.” His fingers move to the bruises on my face. They're healing but still visible. His touch is light. Loving, maybe.

“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” I say.

He shrugs, hand dropping to his lap. “All I did was carry you home.”

“Maybe you saved my life.”

He grins. “Then you owe me.”

I go along with the game. “What exactly do I owe you, Little Man?”

“A kiss?”

My breath comes out in a sudden whoosh. “I'd like that,” I whisper, “but not here. All the houses have eyes.”

We both look around us at the innocent looking matchboxes on all sides. He touches my hand. “You're right. But I'll hold you to it.”

“I better go inside before Gogo gets suspicious,” I say. “Before she starts complaining that I'm out here with a boy.”

“What are you talking about? Your
gogo
loves me now.”

I laugh. “You're right, she does. If I hadn't come out to say hi to you, she would have come out herself. But how did you know?”

“She came to my house while you were still sick. She said your whole family is in my debt.” He grins. “I think we can be friends now and she won't care.”

After I go inside, I open the door to peek out, to see if Little Man is still out there. He sees me watching him and this foolish grin breaks out all over his face. He waves at me, then takes off, running down the road.

I watch him until he completely disappears.

“Sibongile Nene was here this morning,” Gogo says a few days later, twisting a cloth around her old hands as she speaks, nervous or excited or both. “She says your sickness was
ukuthwasa
. She said she believes you will be a particularly powerful
sangoma
, if you would like to become one. She would like to train you.”

My head jerks upright.

Ever since I knew Mama was sick, was sick for real, was sick beyond healing—I knew this was coming.

Or perhaps I knew when I saw Mama and all the ancestors behind her on the other side of the river, perhaps then I knew that this was coming.

Certainly, ever since the ancestors came to stand behind me until the witch slithered away, I knew that I had received the call.

And when I walk outside and up the hill and see that witch who attacked me—reduced to mumbling in her yard, gazing at the trees and the skies but looking like she never sees anything at all—every time, I know what I'm supposed to do.

“She said to tell you, ‘Dreams are our eyes,'” Gogo says. “She said you would understand.”

What I want to say is difficult. “I want to do it,” I say, the words slow to come. “But Mama wanted me to be a nurse. And I promised I would try.” I do want to be a
sangoma
. But that's such a different world than the world of nursing.

“Why not?” Gogo responds, quickly. She looks disappointed for a second, then says, “You can do anything you want.” She rubs her eyes, tired suddenly. “I don't know how we'll afford it,” she adds. “But we will manage something. Phumzi, your uncles…”

“I'll study hard and get a scholarship,” I say, thinking of what Little Man told me. “Besides, becoming a
sangoma
is expensive, too.”

“For you, Sibongile said she would do the training for love.” Gogo lifted her hands, palms up, to show me they're empty. “We would need to make a feast at the end—that's all.”

I start to speak, but instead begin to cry.

“What's wrong?” Gogo asks.

“It is just that I—I miss Mama so much.” I'm overwhelmed by the sudden emotion of it. The vision I had of her in the water, beautiful and whole again, with God and with our ancestors, is beginning to fade. Over time, will it disappear?

I remember the way I jumped in the river to get to the other side, to join the ancestors, to join Mama—even though I didn't know how to swim, I wanted to be there. How tempting it would have been to stay there forever, with Mama and Babamkhulu.

But I'm here, not there. And I have a lot of difficult decisions to make.

“Oh, Khosi, your mama has become one of the ancestors,” Gogo says. “You can still turn to her for help.”

But I keep wondering about that. Can you become an ancestor if you've done something really wicked here on earth?

 

I hope Gogo isn't looking out the window when I let myself into the Dudus' yard. I don't want her to ask questions later. This errand is private. But I'm sure Mama, up in heaven, is glad to see me doing it.

I knock on the door and enter when I hear, “
Ngena
.”

Inkosikazi Dudu is alone, sitting on her sofa in a dining room that looks almost exactly like ours except we have a newer sofa and a bigger TV. She starts to rise when I enter, then she sits back down as if she's given up, the air escaping from her mouth in a low hiss.

Tears roll down her cheeks and she hides her face in her hands.

“Nkosikazi, what's the matter?” I run to her side and stroke her hand, gentle. Now that I know she was justified in her anger—even if she wasn't justified in going to a witch and cursing us—I feel tender towards her. Anyway, all those problems caused by witchcraft are gone now. Even Gogo's sore knees are better!

“I'm sorry about your mother,” she says. “I'm an old woman and I don't want this anger between us anymore. Can we just live in peace?”

“I didn't come to fight you,” I say. And because I'm holding back all the tears of these last few months, I hiccup.

Then I open my bag so she can see all the
rands
inside, not all of the money in my bank account but what they would allow me to take out in one withdrawal. I thrust it at her, not wanting to see it again, just wanting to get it off my hands and go home.

“It's yours,” I say. “It's all yours.”

“What? Where did you get it?” she wails, and in her voice, I can hear all the suffering she did these months since her husband died.

“It was in a secret bank account,” I admit, hoping she'll stop asking questions so I can leave and we can get back to our normal interactions as neighbors, just saying hello, being kind, nothing between us.

She goes as silent and still as Mama did when she first accused Mama of stealing her money.

“I didn't know,” I whisper. “I didn't know until just a few days before my mother died.”

She looks up and our eyes meet and I know she understands.

“Shhh,” she says. “We won't speak badly of someone who's gone to the ancestors.”

“Gogo doesn't know,” I say. “Nobody knows except for me. Please?” I know I don't have the right to ask her to keep it between us but I hope she will.

“Shh, shhhshhshhh,” she says again, and I understand that she won't say a word. This secret is between us.

I begin to weep. All those pent up tears. I weep and weep, kneeling beside her, until she puts her hand on the back of my head.

“
Ngiyabonga
,” I thank her.

“I'm so ashamed,” she says, bowing her head. “I'm ashamed of all my anger.”

“I'm not worried about it, Gogo,” I say.

“I'm worried about it,” she insists. “I've sinned against your family. It's terrible, what I've done.”

I don't want her to speak these words out loud. It's better if we leave the knowledge of what she did in my dreams. I wipe my eyes with my blouse. “Anger leads us all to do things we regret.”

“No, but I went out of my way to harm—”

“I understand,” I say, silencing her before she confesses to witchcraft out loud, which would mean I must do something about it. “I was angry with you, too. Please forgive me.”

She still hasn't taken the bag with her money in it, so I shove it at her again. “Take it, please,” I say. “It's yours. And there's more coming. I just have to bring it.”

Finally, she closes her hand around it and lifts it into her lap, gazing at the stacks of money inside.

We're still, a quiet that is more than two humans not speaking. The voices that have been filling my head for weeks now are at rest. At peace. They aren't gone, they're just calm. I can feel their approval in the peaceful silence.

I already know that when I need them, they'll be back.

Can I live my life now?
I ask and hear my answer in the silence. Because living my life isn't about leaving all of this behind. It means embracing this, all of it. The voices. The call to be a
sangoma
. Mama's dream for me to be a nurse. Inkosikazi Dudu's hand resting on mine. All of it, everything.