This Thing Called the Future

“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.”

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.”

“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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

“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.

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

“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.”

“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.

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.

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?