Sugar Town Queens

by Malla Nunn

  “We could do a web search,” Goodness says as the church grounds empty and dust from the congregation’s footsteps darkens the air. “Come to the Build ’Em Up tomorrow morning. We’ll use one of my brother’s computers to get info.”

  Again, the Bollards and what they do for a living is none of Goodness’s business. Free access to a working computer and printer is hard to find here, though. I can’t turn down the offer. Goodness has a good plan, but I can’t make it. I have a date with Mayme.

  “We could use your phone like we did yesterday, if that’s okay,” Lil Bit says, and Goodness glances across the yard to where Mrs. Dumisa stands surrounded by other smiling women. All of them trying to get close to Sugar Town’s royals.

  “My mother took my phone away this morning. It’s just . . .” Goodness hesitates, on the verge of sharing personal information, then goes on. “She wanted me to wear high heels and I said, ‘No thanks. If I fall, I’ll break an ankle and how can I play soccer with a broken ankle?’ And she said it was time for me to start behaving like a proper girl. A lady. I said, ‘No thanks’ to that, and she said, ‘No heels. No phone for two days.’ That’s why we have to go to the Build ’Em Up tomorrow. My brothers will let us use the computer and the printer. Whatever we want.”

  I’m jealous. Goodness’s mother might be unreasonable about footwear, but her brothers have her back. Annalisa will fight to her last breath to keep me safe, but when she’s in her dark place, it’s just me, fending for myself.

  “Can we do it in the afternoon?” I shove my envy to the side. “I have to be in Durban North at ten.”

  “No problem,” Goodness says. “Between one and two?”

  The yard is mostly empty now, and Mrs. Dumisa’s expression has gone from sunny to stormy weather at being left waiting by an ungrateful daughter who refuses to wear high heels.

  “That’s great, but if you want your phone back any time soon, you’d better hurry over to your ma,” I say. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Goodness turns to leave and throws a quick glance at Lil Bit over her shoulder. “You have a bit of chocolate on the corner of your mouth. Right side.”

  “Oh.” Lil Bit ducks her head and rubs the chocolate away with her fingertip. And the way she does it, all quick and embarrassed and hot in the face, makes me think that, despite her rudeness on Friday afternoon, she likes Goodness.

  “See that? She offered to help without being asked,” I say, fishing for a reaction. “You still think we should stay away from her?”

  Lil Bit shrugs, too casual for the gesture to come off as natural. “Can I take that home?” She fiddles with the last cupcake. “The sugar hit might cheer my ma up.”

  Nice deflection, Esther Bhengu, but not good enough to fool me. Why she would try to downplay the fact that Goodness is cool and having her as a friend adds a new dimension to our lives is curious. She’s hiding something. I don’t know what.

  “The cupcake is for you.” I fold the napkin over the chocolate peak and the sugar tulip on top. “Eat it or share it with your ma. You decide.”

  Lil Bit smiles and says, “Don’t judge me if I take at least one bite on the way home. For the energy that fuels my giant intellect.”

  We leave the empty churchyard and go our separate ways. Lil Bit to a cramped one-bedroom brick house on Amazulu street and me to our tiny tin house on the lane. Lil Bit stops outside the gates and says, “Till tomorrow, when the secrets of the world will be revealed.”

  And damn, Lil Bit can’t help but be a preacher’s daughter. She takes words and makes them the word. Pity that she is tongue-tied around most people. Not me, though. And now Goodness. I never saw that coming.

  “Till tomorrow,” I say, and start walking home. Things have changed in two days. I have a new grandmother and Goodness Dumisa is suddenly a friend. And not by accident. By design, I think. She has chosen to hang out with two girls from the fringe instead of the cool kids with money. Maybe she enjoys the sense of power that helping out a couple of poor kids gives her? Or maybe there is another reason for choosing us that I’ve missed? Until all the secrets of the world are revealed at the Build ’Em Up, she can take up space next to Lil Bit and me as much as she wants.

  8

  On Monday, I creep out of the house after Annalisa leaves for Mr. Gupta’s law office, where she organizes legal files and cleans up the cigarette butts and chocolate wrappers that he hides under his desk. I get to the Amanda Bollard Institute at five minutes to ten, excited but nervous at having lied to mother, who thinks I’m doing homework with Lil Bit. A part of Annalisa’s rational mind must know that:

  Me taking time out to study on the first official day of the holidays is utterly ridiculous.

  Me staying away from Mayme is impossible and she shouldn’t have asked it of me.

  “Good morning, Miss Bollard.” Cyril, the big guard, waves me through the parking lot with a smile for who he thinks I am. A girl from the Bollard clan. He’d have a heart attack if he saw our shack and the dirt soccer fields filled with the bad boys of Sugar Town.

  The elevator arrives, and Cyril hits the button for the sixth floor. I want to say, Loosen up, brah. No need for the show. I’m poor as an empty pocket.

  Instead, I smile and say, “Thank you, Cyril. Very kind of you.”

  The doors close, and my nerves kick up a notch. It took ages for me to figure out what to wear from my limited choices. I chose poorly. Annalisa might be able to pull off a pair of faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a thrift shop tuxedo jacket with velvet lapels. Not me. On me, the clothes aren’t vintage. They are hand-me-downs that give off a 5:00 a.m. walk of shame from a stranger’s apartment to the bus stop vibe, as if everything was thrown together in a rush. I’ve never been inside an apartment or done the walk of shame through city streets with tall buildings rising up to touch the low belly of the clouds, but I did read about it in a novel from Mrs. Lithuli’s library. That’s the beauty of books. For five hours, I lived inside the skin of a messy white girl with runny mascara and gold high-heeled shoes that pinched her toes.

  The elevator glides to a holt.

  “Too late to turn back,” I mumble as the steel doors slide open on level six. This time, I know which way to go. When I get to room 605, there’s a note stuck on the door.

  Come up to the roof garden on the next level. It’s a beautiful day.

  “The roof garden,” I say aloud, and realize that this is the first time the words roof and garden have left my mouth together. In summer, the tires that hold down our tin roof sprout wild grass and daisies. Rusty red lichen spreads over the loose rocks. A garden of some sort, but definitely not a roof garden. There are no car tires or rocks on this rooftop. That much I know for sure.

  One level up, the doors open. In front of me, flowering grasses, golden marigolds, and silver-leafed shrubs stretch to where the edge of the roof meets the sky. Raised vegetable beds planted with spinach, squash, and beetroot with leggy purple stalks take up the right side of the space. When Mrs. M dreams of heaven, I bet this is what she sees: an abundance of flowers and vegetables worked by an army of bees collecting nectar.

  I was right about the tires (not one) and wrong about the rocks. Four tall slabs of weathered sandstone stand over a blanket of winter aloes. No way did those stones fit into the regular elevator. They must have been craned up and lowered onto the roof. Astonishing.

  “Amandla.” Mayme’s voice stirs me from my daze, and I turn to where she sits in a wheelchair parked in the shade of a potted milkwood tree. The beeping machine from her room is missing, and by her side is a boy about my age, pale-skinned and plain-faced, with sandy-blond hair the exact same shade as Annalisa’s.

  “Come and meet your cousin Sam,” Mayme says, and I’m afraid that if I blink too hard this waking dream will dissolve. The boy, Sam, stares and stares, and sweat breaks out on my top lip. The differences betw
een us are stark. He is white and dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt, and a pair of black Air Jordans with bright red accents. Goodness would know the style name, and Lil Bit the price. More than Mum earns in a month. Easy.

  My footsteps falter. Being here, with a God’s-eye view of the city, makes me feel anxious. My clothes are all wrong. I am all wrong. Mayme accepts me, but will my new cousin do the same?

  “Don’t be shy,” Mayme says. “Samuel is sixteen and he’s the best of the Bollards. He won’t bite.”

  Cousin Sam stands up and offers his hand confidently. I take it, and, up close, his expression is easier to read. It is not disapproval or distrust, but sheer amazement. Oh, of course. I understand. Mayme Amanda and I share the same face but in different colors.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” Mayme chuckles. “Amandla could be my daughter from a handsome black man.”

  Sam blushes, and I laugh out loud. Sugar Town mamas sprinkle hot sauce on their conversation to give it kick, but hearing that kind of talk coming from the mouth of an old white lady in a wheelchair is hilarious. Mayme has a naughty streak. I like it.

  “Samuel Bollard,” she says. “Meet Amandla Harden.”

  Sam’s hand is smooth with a strong grip. He wouldn’t last an hour in my township, but he’s not soft, either.

  “Walk and talk.” She points to the paths that wind through the garden. “Get to know each other while I take in the air. It’s good to feel the sun on my skin.”

  “Are you sure?” Leaving a sick woman alone in a wheelchair feels wrong. And without the beeping machine that was attached to her in the room . . . possibly dangerous.

  “Stop fussing, Amandla.” Mayme waves me off. “I’m old, not helpless, and I’d like a moment to sit and think.”

  Sam moves to the raised vegetable beds, and I follow. Walking with him is awkward and it’s not. He is a familiar stranger with Mother’s blond hair and blue eyes. If I belong to Granny in the looks department, he belongs to Annalisa. To my left is the wide expanse of the ocean, and to my right, tall buildings that scrape the clouds in the business district. The city of Durban spreads out below me. Cars and people move along paved streets and highways.

  “I’ve never been this high up before,” I say as a swallow swoops low over the garden and wheels toward the white sand beaches that hug the ocean. Being this far above the ground is powerful but also lonely.

  “It’s only six stories, plus the garden,” Sam says.

  Only six stories, he says. Like the sky has always been his limit.

  “The tallest building in Sugar Town is three stories, and I went to the top floor of the Pavilion shopping mall once.” I go with honesty even though a part of me wants desperately to lie about how low to the ground I live. “That’s as high as I’ve been.”

  “Truly?” He shoots me a sideways glance, uncertain how this sparrow fits into his flock of white seagulls. Stop trying to make sense of me, cuz. I don’t fit. My “vintage” clothes, curly hair, and brown skin give away everything. We are cousins: tied by blood, but not much else.

  “Why would I lie about something so silly?” I stop and bend low over a bushy plant with bright purple, orange, and red chilies. It is the perfect distraction from the uncomfortable knot of embarrassment tightening inside my chest. People from Durban call Sugar Town a slum and a breeding ground for criminals, and they are not wrong. Sugar Town is mostly slum, and for those with an appetite for guns and stealing, crime pays the bills and keeps food on the table. Sugar Town is also where Mrs. M grows food for her family and her neighbors, and her blind aunt knits scarves for orphans. Which reminds me . . . Mrs. M’s kindness has to be repaid, and I’ve found the perfect gift.

  “Mayme,” I call over my shoulder. “Can I take some of these chilies home for Mrs. Mashanini? She’s a keen gardener, but I don’t think she has a chili plant with different colored fruits.”

  “It’s a fairy lights chili.” Mayme names it right away. “Snip off whatever you like, Amandla. Seeds are for sharing.”

  I break off a small branch popping with colors and drop it into my jacket pocket. Mrs. M will dry the seeds out, and when the plants are full grown, she’ll set out a basket of fresh chilies for the people on the lane to choose from.

  “Where’s Sugar Town?” Sam asks. Come to think of it, the name Sugar Town does not appear on any map. It is an “informal settlement” self-named by those who live inside its shifting boundaries.

  “To the north. Right after the shipping-container graveyard and a few miles before the big sugar refinery.”

  “There’s nothing out there but . . .” He stumbles to a stop, too embarrassed to call where I live a slum.

  “Shacks and dirt roads and sugarcane fields.” I walk on, hunting green treasure for Mrs. M. An old black man in a thin dressing gown sits on a bench with his wife, who wears neat clothes for the hospital visit. Not a rich couple. A poor one. The Amanda Bollard Institute isn’t just for the wealthy after all. It lifts my heart to know there’s a place here for sick people no matter how much money they have.

  “You live in a township?” Sam asks straight out, brave now that we’ve established that there is no hidden mansion with servants and a swimming pool tucked in the cane fields. “You’re a Bollard. What happened?”

  I wish I knew for sure. I have guesses and random facts that may or may not be related to what actually happened. That is enough to start out with, though.

  “Grandfather kicked my mother, Annalisa, out of home. Forever. When she tried to come back, he sent her away to the country. Someplace bad. I need to get the full story from Mayme, but the split had something to do with me. With my black father.”

  Sam does not contradict me. His silence tells me that he thinks the story could be true. Until Mandela came to power and said that we are all one rainbow nation with our colors mixed together, blacks and whites lived separately. They did not mix or marry or attend the same schools. Even now in Sugar Town the races mostly remain at a distance from each other.

  Sam sits on the edge of a raised garden bed, and I sit next to him. He stares over the rooftops. “You should know that the best thing about our grandfather is our grandmother,” he says in a quiet voice. “Mayme is kind, and Grandpa Neville is the opposite. Cross him once and you’re an enemy for life. Holding a grudge is his religion. When you meet him, you’ll see what I mean.”

  In Annalisa’s mind, my grandfather is more than that. He is dangerous. Even with the blacked-out spaces in her head, Annalisa’s animal instincts tell her to stay away from her father. That is enough of an alarm bell for me.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever meet. Annalisa won’t let me go near him.”

  “Avoiding Grandpa Neville is better than trying to please him, which is what my father does. He won’t walk away from the business. I hate seeing how hard he tries to get Grandpa’s respect and how little Grandpa cares. It’s a shame. Father has some good ideas.”

  The words come out in a rush, like a dam wall breaking. Sam turns and peers into the rows of marigolds and winter spinach, seeming embarrassed at speaking his mind. I want to know more, but now is not the time to press him for details on what the business means.

  “Is your neighbor looking for anything in particular?” He moves the conversation to the safe topic of vegetables. I go with the flow.

  “Mrs. M loves unusual versions of ordinary plants, like that multicolored chili.”

  We comb through the garden bed, searching for cauliflowers with strange-shaped heads and bell peppers in colors other than green and red. Sam reaches for a yellow pepper with rusty-red streaks and freezes, his hand stuck in midair. Raised voices reach us. “Irresponsible” and “careless,” a male voice says. “My life, my decision,” Mayme snaps back, and what we’re hearing isn’t exactly a fight; it’s an argument about her being outside and unplugged from the machine.

  I part the green
stalks to see a tall man, tanned, with fair hair. Uncle Julien. Next to him is a handsome teenager dressed in the same simple but expensive style as Sam.

  “My father and my brother, Harry,” Sam says. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “No.” I pull him down beside me. “I’m not supposed to be here. My mother will lose it. You go. I’ll stay.”

  Sam hesitates. I give him a gentle push in Mayme’s direction. “Go before your dad gives her a heart attack for wanting to sit in the sun.”

  “All right.” He stands and brushes down his jeans, which have not one crease in them. “Mayme has my number . . . It’s school holidays. Let’s grab an ice cream on the beach if that’s okay. I’d like to see you again.”

  “Sounds good.” Annalisa takes me for ice cream on Main Beach maybe twice every summer. We fill our water bottles from the public drinking taps, and after lying in the sun for ten minutes max, we swim out past the breakers and gaze back at the skyscrapers crowding the shoreline.

  Sam goes to rescue Mayme from being lectured, and I lean into a row of vegetables to harvest the yellow pepper for Mrs. Mashanini. A long shadow in the shape of a man falls over me, and the skin on the back of my neck prickles. I tell myself not to look, but my head turns without my permission.

  9

  My grandfather stands at my left shoulder and stares down at me. He is tall and slim, with blue eyes and thick silvery hair, brushed back neat. His eyes aren’t a normal pale blue, I realize. They are arctic blue and cold as winter. He examines my face, my hair, my skin. Where Sam seemed delighted by my resemblance to Mayme, Grandpa does not like what he sees.

  “Unplugging your grandmother from her heart monitor and bringing her out into the open without a nurse or medicine,” he says in a stiff English/South African accent. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

  Block your ears to ugly voices, Annalisa says. Save your energy for the people you love. Grandpa is not on the loved list. I snip the pepper from the bush and stand up slowly. I look him in the face and see Annalisa in it. Maybe even a little of me. And I see anger. And maybe even a little bit of fear.