This Thing Called the Future (25 page)

Seeing that money disappear from my hands into Inkosikazi Dudu's makes me certain that I want to be a healer in
both
worlds, the world of science and the world of the ancestors.

Maybe I can do both,
I think.
Maybe I can be a nurse and a
sangoma.
Maybe mixing traditional healing with medicine will really help people in a new way. It'll be hard, but I know I can do it. Why not? Who's going to tell me I can't do it in today's South Africa?

Thandi's bruises are healed but she still hasn't gone to the clinic. At first, the excuse was Mama's funeral and this was something I could agree with. But then the days slipped by and, finally, I confront her about it.

“Really, you should go,” I say. “Have you spoken with Honest?”

“I haven't seen him since that day,” she mumbles.

She agrees to go if I accompany her. But, she says, we must go to a clinic far away, where nobody will know.

“Anyway, I can't do these mobile clinics,” she says, “where they come and you test and by the time you leave, everybody knows if you have this thing or not.”

“Have you told your family that you're pregnant?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “They'll find out soon enough.”

At school, Thandi's pregnancy is the topic of conversation for everybody. Katie Green tells me her father would
kill
her if he found out she was pregnant.

“Really?” I ask. “Thandi's young, but I don't think her family will be angry.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“At least, she's able to have children,” Little Man jumps in to explain. “That's the most important thing.”

“I don't know if I even
want
children,” Katie says.

I've never heard of such a thing before. How could you not want
children? Having children is the most important milestone in life. “You need to meet my little sister,” I say. “Then you'll want children.”

She laughs. “You should meet
my
little sister. Then
you'll
change your mind!”

It feels good to laugh at her joke. But somehow, it hurts at the same time.

As we go inside the school, Little Man holds me back.

“It was lonely here while you were gone,” he says.

“I missed this place too,” I say.

“That's not what I meant.” He looks at me full on, eyes meeting eyes. “I missed
you
.”

I reach out my hand, suddenly bold, taking his and squeezing it.

He grins at me and I feel better. About everything.

Katie pokes her head out of the door where she just disappeared. She sees us holding hands. “Hey, are you two lovebirds coming or what?” she calls, mischievous.

Little Man grins at me, jubilant. Because of the “lovebirds”?

“After you,” he says, opening the door and bowing slightly as he ushers me inside, just like a British gentleman.

 

A few days later, Thandi tells me she isn't going to go to the clinic to take the test after all. Why? Honest has come back to her!

“What about his wife?” I ask.

“He'll leave her,” Thandi says.

“When?”

“He says he will and I believe him.” She sounds annoyed that I don't believe him.

“Okay,” I say, trying to figure out a way to convince her to go to the clinic. Making her mad won't help. “Why don't we go anyway? It's better to know.”

But Thandi covers her ears with her hands as if the nurse is right there, waiting to tell her whether she has HIV. “You can go for yourself some day, Khosi,” she tells me.

“If you have this thing,” I say, “it'll kill you. Unless you take medicine.”

“Then let it kill me,” she says. “Honest came back to me, and that's what matters.”

“It's too late to stop the pregnancy,” I point out. “But it's not too late to—.”

“I don't want to know.” Thandi pushes at the air like she's pushing me away. “If I get really sick,
then
I'll go to the clinic. But even then, I'm not certain what good the knowledge would give me.”

“There's medicine for it,” I protest. “You don't have to give in to this thing.”

“So many people we know have it,” Thandi says. “What good does testing do for us? If I have it, I'll still die, whether I know it or not. If what they say is true, it is probably the thing that will kill me, the thing that will kill us all.
You
just as much as anybody, Khosi.”

I'm like God in my firmness. “It won't kill me,” I say.

“How can you be so sure?” Her question is almost a taunt.

But I don't need to answer Thandi. I know it's true.

I'm too young to know whether Little Man is always going to be in my life. But I do know one thing. Little Man is a good friend. He's not going to pressure me, not the way Thandi's sugar daddies do. He's too kind. And like me, I'm certain that he wants to be safe, to hold the future secure.

I've decided: I'm going to stay pure, even if it's old-fashioned.

So I already know I'll avoid HIV.

And someday, when I'm done with my studies, I'll get a good job. I'll be a
good
nurse in South Africa. Maybe I'll move to England, like Mama wanted. But whatever I do and wherever I go, I'll take Zi with me.

To protect her too.

I'm finally ready to tell the
sangoma
my decision. Little Man, Zi, and I walk to Inkosikazi Nene's house after school.

“Don't you two get into trouble while I'm inside,” I tell them.

“Yes, Mama,” Little Man says in a high voice, like he's a little kid. He and Zi laugh, then give each other high-fives.

I'm glad they get along so well. Gogo also loves Little Man. She says he is her grandson as surely as I am her granddaughter. Even Uncle Richard and Auntie Phumzi have accepted him.

There's a long line of people in front of the
sangoma's
hut. So many people waiting to see her, just like they wait at the medical clinic.

I slip around the side of the house to find the apprentice. She's squatting on the ground in front of a big black pot on a big fire, scattering herbs into the thick liquid. Her black skin is pasted over with thick white paint, just little bits of black peeking through, like the opposite of stars in the night sky.

“
Sawubona
,” she greets me.

“
Yebo
,” I reply.

“
Ninjani
?”

“
Sikhona
,” I say.

She starts to stir the thick porridge in the pot. It smells like burning rubber and meat and some herbs.

“Are you here to tell Inkosikazi Nene that you're going to train to become a
sangoma
?” she asks.

I nod. “What's it like, the training?”

“Sho!” she exclaims. “You must not expect to sleep. You must know that you will be working very hard.”

She puts down the thick stick she's using to stir the
muthi
. “Wait here,” she says. She disappears for a minute or two and then comes back and motions for me to enter the hut.

The room is smoky. Inkosikazi Nene looks really tired, her eyelids thick smudges as she reaches out to squeeze my arm in greeting. “Nomkhosi Zulu,” she says. “Have you come to say you will be a
sangoma
? That you will come train with me?”

“Oh, yes, Gogo,” I say. I know absolutely it's the right thing to do.

She smiles at me. “Good. I'm glad. We'll begin as soon as you're ready. Tomorrow, if you like.”

“Thank you.”

We sit there in silence. I have another question for her, but now that I'm here, I don't know how to ask it.

“What's worrying you today?” she asks, eyes closed.

Inkosikazi Nene waits and I wait. It is almost like we are listening.

There are so many things I want to ask but I have one overwhelming question, the thing that dictates my every thought right now. Do I dare ask it?

I take a deep breath and let my voice find me. If I can't trust Inkosikazi Nene with these questions, who can I trust? “Do you think if someone does something really wrong here on earth, they can still make peace with what they've done once they've died?”

“Eh!” she says, her exclamation more of a breath than anything like surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Can…can my mama become an ancestor even if she did something wrong?”

Her touch and tone are gentle. “Khosi, healing doesn't only come here, now, on this earth. It's also something for the other side.”

I suddenly remember this is a Catholic belief too. Purgatory. And
now I realize why we did the purification, and why we kept praying, even after we knew Mama was going to die. No matter how strong and powerful your enemy is, you keep on doing it, no matter what, because there's always hope, and if anyone has enough power to help you, it is God. Healing an illness isn't about healing the body. It's about curing the soul. And only God can do
that
.

“Life doesn't end with the separation of the spirit and the body.
Akudlozi lingay' ekhaya,
” she says. “No spirit fails to go home.” She reaches out and pats my hand. “The hard part, Khosi, is for those of us still living to let go of our anger towards the people who have already passed on to the other side.”

I guess that means I have to learn how to forgive Mama for what she did.

Those dim voices that spoke to me, first here in the
sangoma's
hut and then when I was sick, they're babbling now. Like they're all trying to reassure me, like they're all saying we're in this together. I guess this is something I'll have to get used to if I'm going to be a
sangoma
. I'm even beginning to recognize Babamkhulu's voice through the gaggle of voices murmuring to me.

“Thank you,” I say, grabbing Inkosikazi Nene's hand in mine, making my promise to her with touch. This whole thing will be hard—forgiving Mama, becoming a
sangoma
, becoming a nurse, just living life—but it's what I have to do.

When I crawl out of the hut, the first thing I see is Little Man and Zi sitting on a wall outside of the gate. They're laughing so hard at something that they don't even hear me coming up to them.

Zi stops laughing and slips her hand inside Little Man's. She looks up at him, as if what she's going to say is confidential, a secret. “Do you think Mama can hear us?” she asks. “Do you think she knows you're my friend?”

I'm surprised by her questions. Waiting to hear Little Man's response, it feels as though somebody is pounding on my chest.

“I don't know,” Little Man replies.

“You don't know?” Zi crinkles up her nose.

He reaches out his finger and pokes her belly and she squirms away,
giggling. “I think Khosi would say yes, your mama can hear us,” he says. “As for me…I hope she's right.”

They look up then and see me. Little Man's face breaks out in a happy grin, and Zi charges forward, hurtling towards me, arms outstretched to hug me.

I remember what Mama said not too long ago, how you couldn't change the past.
Now you must look ahead
, she said.
There is only this thing called the future.

I take a deep breath and go towards it.

This is a book I wrote because I fell in love with African women—little girls and teenagers and young mothers and grandmothers. I could not possibly have written this book without many lengthy trips to South Africa, where families welcomed me into their homes and treated me like a daughter. Though I am writing in the voice of a young woman whose experiences are so radically different from mine, underneath the exterior differences of culture and language, Khosi has many of the same needs, desires, and fears that I had at fourteen.

Any errors in understanding Zulu culture and language are all mine.

I have so many people to thank. I must first thank my Zulu instructors—Galen Sibanda at Stanford; “Mama” Sandra Sanneh at Yale; and Nelson “Baba” Ntshangase and Mary Gordon at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. I would also like to thank my academic mentors in African history: Charles Ambler, Iris Berger, Richard Roberts, and Sean Hanretta.

There are many families and individuals whom I have stayed with or spent considerable time with in South Africa. Here is a brief, but not exhaustive, list of people who have been very helpful for me in writing this book: The Nene family from Imbali. Gugu Mofokeng. The Dube clan—Bukhosi, Buke, Dumisani, Leocardia, Phillip, Tsepo, Sikumbuzo, and Fikile. Helen and Ross Musselman. Charmaine, Tony, and Nadine Botto. Henry Trotter. Abby Neely. Thokozile Nguse. Anne and Graham Dominy. Izak and Elma de Vries. John Little Bear and his wife Desray Britz. Stephen Carpenter of the Hilcrest AIDS Centre. Dominic Carlyle Mitchell of Fakisandla Consulting, as well as his sister, who took me around the herbal market in Durban and introduced me to several
prominent herbalists. Philippe Denis of Sinomlando. Robyn Hemmens. Berenice Meintjies of Sinani, Survivors of Violence. Kevin and Monique Peterson. Wayne Symington. Marie Odendaal and John Inglis. Dr. Ravi Naidoo and Dr. Bheki Ngcobo, both of the Howard Campus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. S'the Ndlovu of Izimbali Zesizwe. Dr. Nceba Gqaleni of the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine. Fay and Barney Flett. Hilary Kromberg Inglis and Robert Inglis. Zinhle Thabethe, Xolani Zulu, and Dr. Krista Dong of i-Teach, based at Edendale Hospital. Izak Niehaus of Brunel University. Robin Root of NYU. Richard Steele and Ben Wulfsohn, both homeopathic practitioners in the Durban-Pietermaritzburg region. John Daniels and Elan Lax, both who served on the Truth and Justice Commission. Debbie Mathew of the AIDS Foundation of South Africa. Alan Whiteside of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division of Howard Campus, University KwaZulu-Natal. Thulani Zondi, formerly of L'Abri and of i-Teach. Heleen Johnson of the Thusanani Children's Foundation. Trudy Mhlanga from Zimbabwe.