Sugar Town Queens

by Malla Nunn

  “Just for the time being. I brought my uniform to change into. When my mother leaves, I’ll head off to school.”

  “Auntie, go see if Miss Harden is gone,” Mrs. M says, and I wonder how a blind woman will know. Yes, she knits scarves for the children at the Sugar Town Orphanage without dropping a stitch, but that’s different than spying on our house across the lane.

  She shuffles out of the kitchen, and I have to ask: “Mrs. Mashanini, how will she know?”

  “That one can hear a pin drop in Zimbabwe,” Mrs. M says. “If your mother is home, Auntie will know. If your mother is gone, Auntie will know. Put on your uniform and get ready to run. You don’t want to miss the first bell.”

  I shrug off the blue sheet dress and pull on my school uniform. Standing half-naked in a strange room for even a short while should embarrass me. Strangely, it does not. Mrs. M sips tea and spreads the eggplant seeds on a piece of paper to dry. She worked in the emergency ward of the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital for twelve years. A round-hipped brown girl in plain cotton undies is nothing compared to what she must have seen on the wards. Babies being born. The tragic aftermath of traffic accidents. Bones shattered by gunshot wounds. Death delivered by the hour.

  “Unyoko akasekho,” Blind Auntie says. Your mother is gone. She sits at the kitchen table and takes up knitting the last panel of a scarf made with leftover red, pink, and brown yarn. “But your tap is dripping. Mr. Khoza, there by the red roof? He can fix it.”

  Mr. Khoza. Short legs. Wide chest. Bald head. Twin daughters. He lives four doors down from us, but we don’t talk. We nod hello in passing. That is all. Why make friends, Annalisa says, when we’ll be leaving Sugar Town soon? That is my mother’s dream. We’re no closer to leaving now than the first time she said it. I can’t even remember the first time she said it.

  And now it is my dream, too. At night, I lie awake and imagine the wide road that will lead me away from the dirt streets and back alleys of Sugar Town. At the end of that wide road is a brick house with picture windows and separate rooms. On the kitchen table is an invitation to a cousin’s birthday party, and on my mobile phone is a long list of family names and contacts. The house is a safe place for friends and the network of aunts and uncles who exist only in my imagination. Best of all, the house is built in the middle of a far-off town where the color of my skin doesn’t mean anything, a town where I am at home in my roundness and my brownness.

  I think that escaping from where we are is going to take longer than my mother imagines. Right now, though, being here inside Mrs. M’s house, Sugar Town isn’t so bad.

  “Sit, Amandla. Auntie will do your hair.”

  I wrestle the tiara from the whirlwind of Afro curls and sit on a low stool next to Blind Auntie, who stops knitting and runs her fingertips over the contours of my skull. She parts my hair down the middle, a first. Then I feel her fingers working in rhythm. It’s firm but gentle—no hair pulling, but nice and tight. My breath matches the rhythm of her fingers, until suddenly, she’s done. She has plaited the sections into two chunky braids that dangle over my shoulders. Another first. When she’s done, she pats my shoulder and goes back to knitting. I’d love to see what I look like, but asking for a mirror is rude, so I don’t.

  “Go, now,” Mrs. M says. “Or you’ll be late.”

  “Thank you. For everything.” The words come out stiff and embarrassed at having to ask for refuge inside an already-crowded house. Nothing comes for free, Annalisa says. Favors have to be paid back one way or the other. How will I repay Mrs. Mashanini’s kindness? My pockets are empty. Mrs. M sees my awkwardness.

  “Neighbors help each other, Amandla.” She pours her aunt a mug of red bush tea, adds six teaspoons of sugar, stirs, and adds another scoop to make seven. “That’s Ubuntu.”

  Ubuntu. We learned about it in primary school: the Zulu idea that a person is a person through other people. We are all interconnected in a living, breathing ocean of compassion and humanity. If that is true, then Annalisa and I are the anti-Ubuntu: two individuals who live in the community but are not part of it. Maybe it’s better that way for everyone.

  Social interactions are awkward. Annalisa’s voice might drift off when her memory hits a blank spot. Or visitors might be held prisoner by a ten-minute lecture on how to brew the perfect pot of tea. Or she might suddenly stare at the ground. Or at the sky. Or just walk away.

  “Come by anytime, my girl. Bring your mother,” Mrs. M says. “My door is always open.”

  I nod, speechless, and creep through the narrow front room, afraid of waking the sleeping children, all under five and too young for school. A strange feeling burns in the pit of my stomach. Not from the lumpy birthday porridge, which was all kinds of wrong, but from Mrs. M’s simple Come by anytime, my girl. Bring your mother. Mrs. M knows Annalisa is strange—and she doesn’t care. And now her daughter has crashed into her house looking for help. Despite all that, her invitation stands. Anytime, my girl.

  Outside, the lane is quiet and the sun’s rays slant over the rusted rooftops. On either side of me, Mrs. M’s winter garden glows green with broad beans, thyme, and winter gem lettuce. Today will be long and hungry with just that spoonful of porridge to keep me fueled.

  “Amandla!” Mrs. M is right behind me. I turn, and she puts a piece of steamed corn bread with butter in my hand. “Go!” she says. I run without even saying thank you.

  The bread is still warm.

  * * *

  * * *

  Brown, white, and mostly black teenagers pack the schoolyard outside a low classroom building painted with sunflowers on the outside and rolling ocean waves on the inside. Lil Bit, my best and only real friend, waits for me in the shade of the parsley tree where the poor but ambitious students gather.

  “What happened?” Lil Bit’s gaze narrows on my face, all-seeing. “Your hair looks amazing, but you’re sweating a river.”

  Lil Bit’s real name is Esther, but she hates that name, and Lil Bit suits her better anyway. She is a “little bit” of a girl: dark-skinned and slender as a dancer. Inside her delicate skull, her planet-size brain is always thinking and making connections. I don’t need to pretend with her. I lay it all out:

  “Annalisa had another vision. She cut up an old blue sheet and tried to get me to wear it to school. The sheet was meant to bring my father back. Blue was his favorite color, apparently.”

  Lil Bit is the only one I tell about Annalisa’s highs and lows. We are both only children. We both have parent problems. I have my mother and her visions. Lil Bit has her father, the Reverend Altone Bhengu, who was caught behind the church altar with a teenage girl named Sunshine. Both of them were naked. That was a year ago, but the scandal is still fresh. Together, Lil Bit and me spend hours plotting a path out of Sugar Town to the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, fifteen kilometers away on the map but an epic journey for two girls with no money.

  “I think it’s nice,” Lil Bit says, and I raise an eyebrow.

  “Which part is nice exactly?”

  “My mother wants my father dead. First, she’d cut off his legs and make him crawl through the streets to beg for forgiveness. Then she’d dump his body in the bush for the wild dogs to eat. Your mother loves your father and wants him back,” Lil Bit says. “That was the nice part of your story.”

  “I guess . . .” I can’t imagine what it would be like to have Annalisa tell me a bedtime story about wild dogs feasting on my mythical father’s corpse. I get a love story instead. Pale girl meets dark boy under a sky full of stars.

  We move to the far side of the parsley tree and into the shadow of a concrete water tower with Nelson Mandela’s face painted on the side. This is our place, set apart from the others and right under Nelson’s beaming smile. Nelson Mandela, aka “Madiba,” is our patron saint. He gives us hope that one day the South Africa he dreamed of will come to pass. His dream is slow in coming. Money
and race divide us. The rich are still rich and the poor are still poor and none of us is truly colorblind. Not yet. The black kids give Lil Bit a hard time for hanging out with “that colored girl” instead of “one of her own.” The white and mixed kids do the same to me. Old habits die hard, I guess.

  “Happy birthday, Amandla.” Lil Bit hands me a brown paper parcel tied with twine. “If you don’t like it, I’ll get you something different.”

  I have my first genuine smile of the day. “Thanks.” I untie the string and carefully peel open the brown paper wrapping. Lil Bit is poor like me. A gift from her is worth more than the money that she spent to get it. My breath catches at the sight of a square sketch pad and a set of high-quality graphite drawing pencils. Nothing this fine is for sale in Sugar Town.

  “You shouldn’t have.” I hug her, and then I hug the parcel to my chest, torn between delight and guilt. “You could have been caught.”

  “Please!” She snorts with amusement. “This girl never gets caught, Amandla. The lady in the store followed me around for ages, but she had no idea who she was dealing with. The Lightning Thief.”

  Lil Bit has a quick brain and even quicker fingers. Her talent for theft borders on the supernatural, but much as I’d like to scold her for taking stupid risks, I aim to keep the sketch pad and pencils. They are perfect, and now they are mine. Besides, Lil Bit only “shops” in the city on special occasions and never here in Sugar Town, where the store owners scrape by on the thin trade that comes through the doors. She’s a thief with a conscience, which helps to ease mine.

  “Thanks again.” I pull her into another quick hug as the morning bell rings. “I love my present. You’re the first person I’ll sketch.”

  She shakes her head, Not me, and her lack of confidence is painful. I want to tell her that the Bible is wrong, that the sins of the father are not visited on the daughter. Reverend Bhengu’s sins are his alone. She is Esther Junia “Lil Bit” Bhengu, a separate and sovereign being with a heart and a mind that are all her own.

  “I want to try to capture your inner criminal,” I tell her as we walk side by side to class.

  “Sorry, my sister. I have to stay invisible. It’s the only way to be free.”

  3

  After school, Lil Bit waits outside the girls’ toilets while I pull the blue sheet dress over my uniform. Meeting Annalisa straight off the city bus is a birthday tradition, and if she were to see me not wearing her magical outfit, she’d get upset and start asking questions. Resigned to being stared at, I slip on my blazer and step out into the yard. Lil Bit whistles low and laughs.

  “Tuck the sheet into your skirt and button up your blazer,” she says. “When your mother gets off the bus, pull the sheet out and let it hang over your uniform. If she asks, tell her that Miss Gabela made you wear the blazer. That way she’ll never know that you went against her.”

  “Brilliant!” I follow Lil Bit’s instructions, glad to get back to a semi-normal state of dress and extra glad that she’s my best friend rather than my enemy. She’d get away with any crime she committed.

  We walk through narrow dirt streets with tin shacks and identical government-built plasterboard homes crowding in on either side of us. To the east is a shipping container graveyard, and to the west, the endless fields of sugarcane that give the town its name. The sky is flat and vast above us and, somehow, lonely. As if we needed reminding that we live on the fringe of a great city but are not a part of it.

  We cross the outer limits of town and head for an isolated bus stop on the edge of the fields. Minivans run into Durban from Abdullah Ibrahim Street, but the public bus that drops passengers off two kilometers from the center of town is cheaper. And, where Annalisa is concerned, cheaper is better.

  “Here it comes.” Lil Bit points to the white coach moving through the young cane stalks. We step back into the vacant land behind us as the bus pulls up. The doors swing open. Any minute now, a smiling Annalisa will appear, weighed down by shopping bags. Factory workers and sweaty dockworkers in dirty overalls pour out. No Annalisa. She never gets off the bus this late. I scan the windows for her. The bus is mostly empty now, with only a few passengers left.

  Then Annalisa stumbles down the stairs with strange, jerky movements. No smile. No shopping bags. For a moment, I think she’s drunk, but I know she doesn’t drink.

  I forget about untucking the sheet dress and rush forward to grab her arms. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  She staggers and leans her weight against me. I stumble to the side, and Lil Bit pulls me straight to help me regain my balance. We move away from the bus and into the vacant lot next to the road.

  “No,” she says, straightening up. “Take me home.”

  The bus pulls away, and Lil Bit and me guide her onto the road that leads to Sugar Town. She walks slowly, stopping every few minutes to catch her breath. Her skin is even more pale than usual, and her eyes are puffy and red from crying.

  “What happened?” I ask with a lump in my throat.

  “I need to lie down. I need to sleep.” She clutches her oversize bag to her stomach. “Did your father come home?”

  “No,” I say. “He didn’t.”

  “We’ll try again next year,” she says. “Next year he’ll come back to us.”

  “Next year for sure.” I guide her into scrappy Makeba Street, and I wonder if wearing the blue dress for real would have brought Father back to us and kept Annalisa from falling apart. It’s a stupid thought, but it sticks in my head, the idea that whatever happened to Mother in Durban is my fault. I made this happen.

  “Easy now,” Lil Bit whispers when Annalisa stumbles over the uneven ground. “Almost home, Miss Harden.”

  “Just a few more minutes,” I tell Mother, who wears a dazed expression. “Keep hold of my hand.” I’m trying not to attract too much attention along Makeba Street, but we get strange looks from a few people anyway.

  Lil Bit and I steer her onto the dirt lane that runs between Sisulu Street and Tugela Way. We pass Mrs. Mashanini digging fresh chicken manure into her garden. She pulls off her gloves and rushes to the fence, concerned by Annalisa’s blank expression and slow steps.

  “Is your mother sick, Amandla?” she asks.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I tell Mrs. Mashanini. “She got off the bus like this.”

  “Let me see.” Mrs. M comes out her gate into the lane. She grabs Annalisa’s wrist to get her pulse. “Steady,” she mutters, and gently cups Annalisa’s face between her palms, scanning and analyzing. “No physical injury,” she says. “Just grief. And sadness.”

  I see it, too. A sadness as wide and deep as the ocean. How do I stop her from drowning in it?

  “Time is the only cure,” Mrs. M says as if she’s read my mind. “And rest. Take her home. Let her sleep. Give her warm food to eat.”

  I can do that. Me cooking dinner at the stove while Annalisa grabs a nap between three fifteen and four is part of our normal after-school routine. “Thanks, Mrs. Mashanini.” I move quickly to our house and pull Mother through the yard. She stares at the red paint flaking off the front door with a faraway look. She’s here but not here. I take her bag and dig through it, searching for the key. My fingers brush against a thick stack of paper, and I pull the bag open to see what’s inside.

  “What in heaven’s name?” Lil Bit says over my shoulder.

  In the bag is a wad of cash held together by a thin rubber band. It’s more money than I have ever seen at one time, though that’s not saying much.

  “Standing outside with this kind of cash is asking for trouble.” Lil Bit checks the length of the lane with narrowed eyes. “Get in the house.”

  True. I find the key and open the door. Inside, I flick on the overhead light, an extravagant use of electricity when it is still day out. The tin room brightens. Annalisa blinks and comes back to the present long enough to throw herse
lf, fully clothed, onto her narrow cot. She snuggles down with a deep sigh. Her breath slows, and inside of a minute, she is fast asleep. I creep into the bedroom area, carefully take off her shoes, and place them neatly at the foot of the bed. The soles of Annalisa’s feet are damaged, the skin covered in circular scars that look like miniature moon craters. I have never been told how she got them.

  * * *

  * * *

  Lil Bit and I stand on opposite sides of the kitchen table with Annalisa’s bag between us, fat with questions and secrets. How much money is there and where does it come from? Should I look inside or not?

  “Yes, you should count it,” Lil Bit says with cool logic. “Your mother won’t know, and I won’t say a thing.”

  “You’re right. She’ll never know.” I pull the cash from the cavernous leather bag and place it gently on the table, as if the money is sleeping and might run out the door if I wake it up. Next, I pull out a crushed piece of white paper, lipstick, a pen, and a broken fortune cookie with the fortune missing. My usual birthday presents: a new “best dress,” a new “best pair of shoes,” and seven pairs of sensible cotton underwear are missing, along with the usual shopping bags.

  “How much do you think is there?” Lil Bit asks as I flick off the elastic band holding the cash together. The rand notes are soft against my fingertips. Not crisp like I was expecting. I flex my hands to stop them from shaking and count. The bills are a mix of big and small denominations, and all of them are wrinkled.

  “Those notes look like a cow chewed them,” Lil Bit says. “Money from the bank is different. Cleaner.”

  “Shh . . . I’ll lose count.” I build a pile of messy bills and make a final tally. “Forty-five thousand rand.”

  “Enough to last a few months,” Lil Bit says. “If you’re careful.”

  Living costs money. Annalisa works two days a week at Mr. Gupta’s law office and stocks shelves at Mr. Chan’s Dreams Come True Variety Store once in a while. I never did the math before. Her wages are not enough to keep us in a one-room shack with two beds, a gas stove, and a pit toilet in the back yard. The money on the table must help to pay for our food and shelter and my school fees.