This Thing Called the Future (9 page)

My body feels heavy, as though it's going to sink right through the floor and drown somewhere beneath the earth.

“Khosi, what's wrong?” Gogo calls from what seems an ocean's distance away. Then she's beside me, reaching out her hand through the watery waves.

“I don't feel well,” I mumble, grasping her hand, letting her help me stumble into bed.

Zi and Gogo stand over me, the same worried expression on their faces. “Do you want some food?” Gogo asks.

“No,” I say. “I just want to sleep.”

She covers me with a blanket.

“Do you want some water?” Zi asks.

“No. Leave me alone.”

Closing my eyes only makes the spinning worse. So I stare at the ceiling, which is no longer the ceiling but the road outside our house, the one that leads to the tuck shop and that drunk man, who is sitting on his bucket, drunk, nodding off.

As I float past, his hand snakes out, fast, grips my shirt and pulls me towards him, so close I'm looking at the tiny yellow lines streaking across the whites of his eyeballs.

“Who's going to save you now,
Ntombi
?” he growls, shaking me so hard, I can feel my bones move. “Is your mama going to keep you safe? She's nowhere in this world.”

I'm shrieking, glancing away from his eyes to the empty street all around me. The houses are vacant, lights turned off. Gates dangle open and there isn't a single dog in sight. The tuck shop is barren, its shelves bare.

His hand slips towards the skin revealed by my bunched up shirt. His eyes shift to my waist, little shots of fire spurting from his eyes to my flesh, burning a round mark of desire on my hip.

I open my mouth to scream, “Help me, somebody,” but I can't make a sound.

The drunk man's mouth opens wide, laughing, revealing wide teeth, long teeth, changing into a long crocodile snout right in front of my eyes.

“Help!” I screech, hopeless that anybody can hear me from wherever they've gone.

But then—a miracle! Both of us find our eyes riveted to the horizon as a dark-suited figure bobs up and down, moving closer until I recognize the face on the body.

Babamkhulu. My very own grandfather. Fire in his own eyes as he looks at the drunk man holding me captive. Slowly advancing, menacing. At last the drunk man's claws relax and he lets me go.

 

I come to consciousness, gripping a pillow, the sheets soaked in sweat.

Zi is lying in the other bed, sleeping peacefully, but Gogo is sitting beside me, dipping a washcloth in water and cooling my forehead.

“Khosi, you were somewhere deep,” she says now. “I tried to wake you but could not.”

I sit up, draping my feet over the edge of the bed. Put my arms around my body and huddle there, hugging knees to chest. I lift my shirt—I'm still wearing the same shirt I was wearing when I drank the herbal remedy—and glance at the skin on my hip where the drunk man's gaze burned me. Though the coin-sized sore he burned in my flesh is gone, there is a small circular shape, black as night, darker than my coffeecolored skin. I've never noticed it before. Was it already here?

I feel like he's branded me, like cattle. Marked me as his.

The nausea is swift and sure and I barely make it to the toilet, bits of bile, chicken, and tomato pouring out of my mouth in a bitter acidic mixture.

Gogo knocks on the door. “Khosi?
Uyagula
? Are you sick?”

“I'm okay,” I call, and wait until I hear her shuffling down the hall to
the kitchen. In the dark stillness of the house, I hear her turn the burners on to heat water for a cup of tea. She stumbles a little, and finally sits, heavily, in a chair. Its metal legs scrape across the uneven floor.

I sit there in the dark, on the floor of the bathroom, staring up at the box of Omo washing powder we store in the window. What just
happened
?

The drunk man starts waiting for me at the
khumbi
stop when Zi and I come home from school. He doesn't say anything to me—he just smiles with his big rotten teeth and follows us home.

One day, Thandi throws little rocks at him. “Leave her alone,” she yells.

He ducks to avoid the shower of small stones. But still, he follows.

“Big coward,” Thandi mutters. “What are you going to do?”

“You don't think I should make him my sugar daddy?” I ask her.

“Are you
crazy
, Khosi?” Thandi shouts. Then she sees I'm teasing. “You've gone mad, girl! I don't think you should make jokes about that man. He's dodgy. You shouldn't ever walk anywhere alone.”

“Who's going to walk with me everywhere I need to go?” I ask. “Gogo's too old and Mama's not here most of the time. I just have to learn to protect myself.”

But how? I sound brave even while my insides are one big bowl of mushy
phuthu
. The problem is that I don't see a solution. So I have to
act
brave. Of course, I pray to God, hoping that he can hear my prayer out of the millions flooding his ears. Sometimes, I pray to Jesus. At least Jesus was a man and they did terrible things to him before he died. Maybe he understands my fear. Maybe he'll help me, like Babamkhulu.

Thandi glances over her shoulder. The drunk man keeps his distance, but he ambles along, some few houses behind us, running a stick along the metal gates.
Ching ching ching ching
. A chicken darts across the road.

“You need to come get some protective
muthi
from my
gogo
,” Thandi advises. “She has
muthi
that can make you invisible to your enemies.”

“I'll come get it,” I say. “Tomorrow after school.”

But that night, Gogo tells me that Mama is finally coming home, after so many weeks—two months—away.

“She will be here tomorrow night,” Gogo says. “She said they have given her a three-week holiday.”

I'm surprised. It isn't the right month for winter holidays so how did Mama get three weeks off?

“Who is teaching her class while she is gone?” I ask.

“She didn't say. But we must plan a special meal, Khosi.” Gogo sounds so excited, like a little girl.

“All Mama's favorites,” I agree. “I'll go shopping tomorrow on my way home from school.”

 

The next day, I hurry to pick Zi up as soon as my last class is over. We run through the city streets to catch a
khumbi
back to Imbali.

Zi always says hi to all the women traders sitting on the sidewalk in front of Freedom Square, the ones selling bracelets and necklaces and toys to the people rushing past. Today, we're the ones rushing.

“Don't make me drag you home,” I threaten Zi when she falls behind.

“Why are we running, Khosi?” she complains. “I'm tired.”

“Mama's coming home today,” I remind her. “Don't you want to hurry? Wouldn't it be terrible if Mama arrived home and we weren't there yet?”

Zi's entire face brightens and she shouts at the women, “Mama's coming home! Mama's coming home!”

They wave at her, their special little friend, calling after us, “
Hambani amantombazana! Sheshani!
Hurry hurry hurry!” They shake with laughter when she runs past on her fat little legs.

As our
khumbi
zips out of the city and down the road toward Imbali, the driver turns the music up. I put my fingers in my ears and nudge Zi to do the same. It's too loud to talk so I lose myself in warm thoughts about Little Man. His dreadlocks, so long they reach his shoulders. His
gorgeous
smile.

Actually, I'm a little embarrassed about how often I've been thinking about him lately. At lunch, I'm so shy, even Thandi has asked me if something is wrong. Little Man doesn't say much to me…but it
feels
like he's aware of every move I make. So many times when I look up from my food, our eyes meet.

For the millionth time, I wonder: does he like me?

Zi interrupts my thoughts, poking me in the side. “Look, Khosi, a new advertisement!” she shouts, pointing at a billboard with a cartoon drawing of a man and woman together, embracing on a blue sofa. Large block letters announce: “A man can get AIDS by having sex with an infected woman.”

“Shhh.” I glance at the other passengers to see if anybody heard. Zi's too young to know you don't talk about these things, not in public.

The
khumbi
turns left, passing the faded red “Coca-Cola! Welcome to Imbali!” billboard that announces the entrance to the township. I tap the side to let the driver know we want to get off and he pulls to a stop right in front of the tuck shop. The drunk man is there again, slumped over on his bucket, wearing the same clothes he always wears. Does he ever go home and change? Does he even have a home to go to? Today, we are able to stop for some few small items for Mama's feast, and then slip by him without his noticing.

On our way to and from the market for vegetables, Zi scares dogs in yards, her usual after-school routine. But today, even over the hectic barking, we hear shouting as we near the house. We both start running, book bags slapping our backs.

As soon as we arrive, we see what the shouting is all about. Inkosikazi Dudu has finally broken the silence of the last weeks. She is standing in the middle of her yard, shaking her broom at Gogo, her flower print apron flapping with each arm movement.

“Your daughter will pay me back,” she yells. “Or she'll see what we do to cheats in Imbali.”

Gogo is huddling in front of the house, waiting for us outside like she always does when the weather is warm. But hearing these words from our neighbor, she retreats into the open door. Even from this distance, I can see her whole body trembling.

The neighbor sweeps vigorously, as though she's sweeping Gogo right out of her yard. She turns around and sees me.

“Hah!” she cries, her voice ugly with triumph. “Khosi, you tell your mother she has nowhere to hide.”

“What do you mean, Nkosikazi?” I ask.

“I see what she's up to, I have eyes in the back of my head, spies everywhere.” She shakes her finger at me.

“Elizabeth has done nothing but try to help you when your husband died,” Gogo says from inside the safety of the house. She's just like me, brave from a distance! I'd be hiding in the house, too. “If you're so angry, talk to her. I'm sure she can explain everything.”

“Na, and can she tell my children why they have nothing to show from their father's death?” She grimaces and spits on the ground. “Can she tell me where all the insurance money went? Can she tell me why it disappeared after she helped me?”

“The mouth is a tail to swat away the flies,” Gogo says, ushering us through the door. “And it is your mouth that will get us in trouble, Sisi.”

But even as we go inside and shut the door, we can still hear the neighbor lady calling after us, her voice like nails shooting through the walls: “I'm not just talking uselessly, Busisiwe Mahlasela! Tell your daughter she can't hide the truth from God.”

Gogo sinks into a chair by the door, the scarf that covers her hair shoved to the side. She readjusts it and presses a wobbly hand to her mouth.

We peek outside. Inkosikazi Dudu sees our heads poking through the doorway. She stops sweeping and stares at us until we close the door, leaving just a crack open to let air flow inside.

“Gogo, what's making her so angry?” I ask. It's true that evil is blind but anger is a path in the forest, guiding evil through the dark, right to your doorstep.

Gogo's headscarf flutters in the breeze. “Zi, go watch TV while I talk to your sister,” she says. After Zi leaves, the words bleed from her mouth. “Her children think your mother took some of her husband's insurance money after he died!”

“What?” I'm shocked. “What will happen if the neighbor keeps
talking like this and everybody believes her?” The thought makes me feel lonely deep inside, at the pit of my stomach. We could be shunned by everybody, if they believe this thing.

“How can she think your mother would cheat somebody who's been a friend and neighbor for so many years?” Gogo crosses her arms under her breasts, looking vulnerable.

“What about the paperwork?” I ask. “It should prove that Mama didn't cheat her.”

Gogo clucks her tongue, shakes her head. “She can't read. What good is showing her the paperwork?”

“Maybe she'll forget about it,” I say, but we both know you don't forget something like this.

Gogo slumps down in the seat and grabs one of my school folders. She begins to fan herself with it. “It's so hot today, the fish are jumping out of the water.”

“Gogo, why don't you wait for Mama outside?” I ask. “It's not so hot out there.”

“I don't know…” Gogo trails off, looking anxious.

I peek through the back door at the neighbor's house. “Inkosikazi Dudu has gone inside. She won't be giving you the evil eye anymore.”

So Gogo grunts and, slowly, starts to stand up. She struggles so much, I put out my hand to help her, but she waves it away. She likes to be independent.

I understand that, I do. I like to be independent, too.

Auntie Phumzi and Mama drive into the yard. I leave the mealie-meal boiling on the stove and run outside just in time to glimpse Zi's skirt flapping up and showing her pink underwear as she runs to greet Mama. It looks like I need to buy her longer skirts, to protect her from dirty old men.