CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

SLAP

We are all worried about Mama but we don’t talk about it until the afternoon before Mama is supposed to go back to Greytown.

Auntie Phumzi comes for Sunday lunch. While scrubbing the dishes, I step out the back door with a pan of dirty water. Auntie and Mama are huddled around the side of the house, deep in conversation. I pause.

“Richard says you haven’t been to see a doctor.” That’s Auntie.

Mama: “I’m too tired to wait in line all day.”

“I can send Beauty with you to the clinic, or you can take Khosi,” Auntie says. “It’s simple to solve this thing. It’s not a problem at all.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mama promises.

I’m afraid to move. If they hear me, they’ll stop talking. I look down at the dirty water, the bits of food floating in it. My eyes scan the horizon of houses in Imbali. Looking up, I notice for the first time that somebody has climbed the billboard and spray painted graffiti on it. STOP AIDS NOW is scrawled across the bottom.

“Elizabeth, you can’t just think about it,” Auntie persists. “We can see all the way through to the ancestors in the other world when we look at you, you have gotten that thin. We’ll arrange everything. You must go see the doctor.”

“Oh, Phumzi, I don’t want to go.” A muted wail in her voice.

“Why wouldn’t you want to get the advice you need to get well?”

“I’m frightened,” Mama whispers.

“Frightened?” Auntie’s voice sounds harsh, loud, in contrast to Mama’s whisper. “They have medicine, even for the disease of these days, if that’s what you have. These medicines can help you live longer, Elizabeth. And you must think of your girls.”

“But what if it’s too late, Phumzi? What if I’m already too sick?”

Auntie is silent for some few seconds. Then she says, “You can’t know that unless you go and see the doctor.”

“I don’t want to be weak, Sisi, but I am weak,” Mama admits. “I don’t want to hear what the doctor will say.”

I look down at the pan of water I’m carrying and suddenly understand something: this is a conversation I shouldn’t be hearing. Gogo would say it’s wrong to spy on somebody else’s shame.

Easing the back door open, I tiptoe inside and set the pan of dirty water by the door. I’ll throw it out in some few minutes, when Auntie is gone and Mama has come inside.

 

Gogo starts weeping that night when I begin to gather Mama’s things together for her return trip to Greytown. She hides her face from us, wiping away the tears with the edge of her skirt.

“What is it?” Mama asks.

“You’re too much sick, Elizabeth,” Gogo sobs. “I don’t think you should return just now.”

Mama takes a deep breath. “Well, I’m not returning just now,” she says.

I stop what I’m doing—placing Mama’s clean clothes in the little bag she uses to carry them back and forth from Greytown.

“I told the school I won’t be returning,” she says.

“But Mama, how we will live?” I ask. Gogo has a small government pension but it’s not enough to cover all our expenses. What about school uniforms? Clothing? Medical bills?

“I’ve already spoken to Phumzi and Richard about it,” Mama says, firm now. “And we don’t need to worry. They will sacrifice and help us.”

“What does this mean, Elizabeth?” Gogo demands. “Have you quit your job?”

“No, Mama, I’ve only taken some time off so I can get well.” She smooths invisible wrinkles in the bedspread.

“What are you going to do with your time off?” I ask, thinking of her conversation with Auntie Phumzi. “Are you going to go to the doctor?”

“No!” she says. “I just need to rest. I want to sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.”

Gogo and Zi and I all look at each other, not at Mama.

Mama notices immediately. “I don’t want to go anywhere or see anybody,” she says, her voice extra-firm. “Except family.”

“But what about my birthday?” Zi has tears in her voice. “We always go to Baba’s on my birthday.”

Mama sighs. “Of course we’ll go,” she says, but she sounds so so tired when she says it.

Gogo stands to her feet, slowly, looking older than she did some few minutes before. “Let us allow your mother some rest.” She holds out her hand to Zi, and we leave the bedroom.

Gogo may have silenced herself then, but this is not something she can keep quiet about for long. The next few days, she walks around the house, grumbling about Mama.

“But will she go see a doctor?” she asks the television while Mama and Zi watch our soapies—Generations, Isidingo, and The Bold and the Beautiful.

“But will she take the medicine that the sangoma gave her to take?” she asks the picture of Babamkhulu that rests on the mantle next to the television.

“But will she even go to the priest, who loves her as his own child, and ask him to pray for her?” This last one is addressed to the broom, which I’m pushing back and forth in my hands as I sweep the kitchen floor.

Finally, Gogo complains to Auntie Phumzi and Auntie joins the chorus of voices: “Elizabeth, you should go.” Gogo urges Beauty to beg her Auntie Elizabeth to go to the doctor and Beauty tries: “Auntie, we’ll be so much happier if we know you have the medicines you need to get well.” When Uncle Richard comes home from Durban for the weekend, Gogo moans until Uncle is tired and says, “Sisi, listen to our mother and go!”

She grumbles until Mama says, “All-right, all-right! I’ll visit the clinic Monday. Nomkhosi, you’ll need to stay home from school and go with me.”

“I have exams,” I say.

“Hawu! Exams? You see, she has exams, I cannot go.” Mama smiles, knowing what’s coming next.

“But will she call the school and see if they will excuse Khosi from her exams?” Gogo asks the refrigerator.

“I’ll call, I’ll call just now!” Mama starts to laugh but her laughter turns into coughing. She coughs and coughs into her hand, like she’s never going to stop. When she draws her fist away, there’s a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.

I reach out to wipe it off but Mama slaps my hand away. “Don’t touch it,” she snaps.

I look at Mama, at my hand, then at Gogo. Mama has never slapped me before. Never. Gogo has never raised a hand to me. Even Baba has never beaten me and that’s what so many babas do!

“What did I do?” My voice comes out strangled and high like I’m going to start crying. I can’t stand the sound of it! “I didn’t do anything!”

She starts to reach out to me, but I’m already running out the door and down the street, not even pausing to notice Inkosikazi Dudu, standing in her yard and shaking her fist at me.

I look back once and see Mama standing at our gate, her dress sagging off her thin body. She shouldn’t look so vulnerable. She should be strong and brave, and when I run away, she should be able to catch me and make me behave. That’s what mothers do.

Wiping tears off my face, I run through the darkening twilight, up one dirt road and down another, past tuck shops and cell phone booths, past cars that slow down as they pass me, men leaning out to wink at me and say, “Need a ride, Ntombi?”

I run all the way to Little Man’s house.

His mother is outside watering a small patch of vegetables, dipping a large wooden bowl into a plastic bin full of water, then scattering water across the green plants.

“Sawubona, Mama kaLittle Man,” I greet her, breathing hard.

She straightens up, then scans the evening. “It’s too late for you to be outside alone, Nomkhosi Zulu,” she says. “You should be home with your family.”

“I have a question about my homework,” I say. “Is Little Man home?”

She overturns the watering bowl to empty it and wipes her hands on her apron. She places the watering bowl on the cement porch near the front door. “You arrive at my door, out of breath from running all this way, because you want to know about homework?” She shakes her head. “Why didn’t you just call?”

I’m glad it’s almost dark, so she can’t see that I’ve been crying.

Little Man doesn’t notice either, but then he probably isn’t used to girls showing up at his doorstep in tears. We stand outside his gate while I admit that I don’t really have a question about my homework. “I’m just upset,” I say. I glance at Little Man’s mother, standing on the porch, watching us.

Little Man squints, trying to see my face better.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” Little Man’s mother asks.

“Noooooo,” I admit. “But I’m going home just now.”

“Don’t you young people think about your mothers at all?” she chides me. “She must be so worried, with all the drunk men between here and your house! Walk her home, Little Man, but you better hurry back!”

“We’ll stop and get a cold drink on the way,” Little Man whispers, his hand hovering near my elbow.

But the drunk man is sitting outside the tuck shop.

“Let’s go somewhere else, Little Man.” I stop so suddenly, Little Man bumps into me.

“He won’t mess with you while I’m here.” His lips tickle my ear.

“But what if he does?” I worry out loud. When I turn around, our faces are just a few inches apart, his skin so close, I can feel its warmth in the cold night air. We are close enough to kiss, if we were brave enough to do it.

Little Man’s eyes are dark, almost black. “You have to show him who’s boss,” he says, sounding just like Mama. “You can’t let him get away with it.”

And thankfully, the man just glances at us then looks away as we step up to the screen netting to buy a cool drink. Maybe he’s too drunk to recognize me. Maybe he can’t be bothered when Little Man is with me. Little Man isn’t as skinny as he was some few months ago. In fact, he looks like a proper young man next to me. I can’t help smiling secretly. Take that, Thandi, with all your sugar daddies, I think. Before you know it, you’ll be jealous of my friendship with Little Man. It’s true, Little Man is so handsome and tall, he is already beginning to put her older men with all their money to shame.

And anyway, as Gogo says, we all arrive Mr. Big Shot but leave Mr. Nobody. I don’t care that he doesn’t have any money. I don’t have money either.

We move down the street from the tuck shop and sit on a small cement wall to split the Coca-Cola. I shiver, huddling close to Little Man’s body heat—but not too close, in case somebody sees us.

“So what’s wrong?” he asks. “Why’d you come running to my house, crying?”

“You noticed I was crying?”

“Of course.” He reaches out and brushes my cheek. I shiver.

“Mama’s sick,” I say. “She won’t go to the doctor but—I think she’s really, really sick.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Do you think—” He doesn’t finish his thought.

“I don’t know.” Even saying the words “I don’t know” makes the whole future seem uncertain. But I guess it always was uncertain, I just didn’t know it.

He takes my hand and squeezes it. His skin is rough and uneven, but warm. It doesn’t solve anything or make Mama’s sickness go away, but it makes me feel better.

We sit there, holding hands, as long as we dare.

“Your mother is probably wondering where you are,” I say.

“She’s probably fuming mad.” Little Man grins. “You can see the steam rising out of her ears, like in the cartoons.”

So he makes me laugh before I have to go back and face Mama.

Mama’s waiting just inside the front door. I’m tired and hurt but ready now to accept it when she reaches out to embrace me.

“Anyway,” she says in apology, “it’s just that I don’t want you to get this thing making me sick. Uyaqonda?”

I nod. I understand. I do. But it still stings.

 

That night, while we watch television, Inkosikazi Dudu crosses the invisible barrier she’s erected between our houses. She stands on the front porch, knocking.

Gogo moves the curtain to peek outside but when she sees who it is, she lets the curtain fall and she does not move.

“I know you’re in there,” Inkosikazi Dudu calls. “I will be heard. I will be heard!”

“Shouldn’t we answer?” I ask.

But Mama and Gogo just sit there, the dining room dark, lit only by the light from the television, which Gogo turns up loud, to mask the sound of Inkosikazi Dudu’s constant knock.