Sugar Town Queens

by Malla Nunn

  “He gave it to you?” Goodness squeals. “Lewis hates guns. Never touches them. How did you manage to convince him?”

  “I asked.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  Goodness’s mouth falls open. “Oh my God. There’s only one word for what he did for you!”

  Stupid? Blind? Irrational?

  “Love.” Lil Bit laughs. “Am I right?”

  Goodness and Lil Bit giggle and throw their arms around each other, cheek to cheek and hip to hip. They are making fun, but somehow, I think that they are telling each other the truth about how they feel without saying it out loud.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s love.”

  Mayme and Uncle Julien come out of our house with Sam and Harry. I hadn’t even realized they had gone inside. After this morning, the shape of the family has changed, though I’m not sure what that means for Annalisa and me. For now, though, there’s food to eat with our friends and neighbors.

  Mrs. Khoza brings her twins to meet Mayme and everyone gathered in our yard. Father Gibson is relaxed. He balances a Khoza baby on each hip and rocks side to side, to the amusement of Mrs. Khoza and Mrs. M. He is, it turns out, fabulous with babies.

  “Here.” I break a chocolate bar into pieces and share it with Lil Bit and the Bollard boys, who sit on plastic milk crates collected from the surrounding streets. Goodness passes on the chocolate. She’s more of a savory girl.

  I sigh and lean back. There is beauty in our shabby lane, but it only becomes obvious when you really look. The soft color of the sky and children’s laughter. A woman’s song caught on the breeze. In this hard place, life is all around. Full and vibrant and humming. I soak it all in. I commit the details to memory. Deep in my heart, I know that my time here is coming to an end. But not today.

  * * *

  * * *

  Annalisa has gone deep inside herself to heal. Mrs. M says that she might sleep for an hour or for a week. It’s impossible to tell. Mayme suggests we read the report aloud in the hope that the sound of our voices will bring her back to us.

  We sit side by side on my cot and take turns reading. Together, we tell Annalisa her story. We give her back her lost memories. When she wakes, I will read it to her again, as many times as she likes. The information might stick in her head or it might drain away, but at least she’ll know what happened sixteen years ago and why. Not all knowledge is sweet. Some of it is bitter but worth the pain.

  Mayme finishes reading the second-to-last page and puts the report down. My turn. I pick it up and see that my hand is shaking. I know what comes next, and it sits like a stone on my heart. I could bury the report in our murderous front yard, where the soil will kill every word in it. I won’t.

  I lean close to Annalisa’s cot. I tell her the truth in my own way. “On the night you met, Joseph Funani Malaba made the perfect Sazerac cocktail in a chilled old-fashioned glass. ‘A perfect cocktail for a perfect girl,’ he said. A pickup line for sure, but you noticed him. Tall as a lala palm. Dark as a moonless night. His long, elegant fingers wrapped around the chilled glass, and he had a smile to melt the ice cubes in it. You stayed till the bar closed. Six months later, you picked out an ivory silk dress for yourself and a sharp gray suit with a blue tie, iridescent like peacock feathers, for him. Wedding clothes.”

  I stop and take a long breath. I need a minute to find the right words to finish the story. Mayme takes over. “That was the plan. To marry in a civil ceremony with a witness pulled off the street. You knew to keep it a secret, but your father found out. He had you committed the day before the wedding. Neville told everyone that you’d run away. I’m your mother. I’m sorry. I should have known that he was lying.”

  She stops, short of breath and out of words. It’s up to me to finish.

  “Joseph stood on the steps of City Hall in his suit and tie from nine o’clock in the morning till nine o’clock at night, waiting for you. When you didn’t show up, he went to your apartment. The apartment was empty. He came back every day for three weeks to search for you. When you didn’t show, he left Durban and went to live with his parents in the countryside.” I reach across the space that divides us and take Annalisa’s hand. “Five weeks later, Joseph drowned crossing a river at night. Nobody knows why he went to the river or why at night, but I imagine his mind was in a daze from losing you. At least that’s what the report suggests.”

  Annalisa sleeps through the revelation. The shock treatments tore a hole in her memories of Joseph. How they met. Where they met. His name. How they came to be separated . . . Gone. All that was left were images of a tall black man with curly hair who loved to dance and to kiss and who would, one day, come back to her. She has no idea that this man, whose name she could not remember, is dead. My own sadness is almost overwhelming. Next time I tell her the story, maybe the hurt in my heart will have softened. “Joseph,” I say, “isn’t coming home.”

  Joseph Funani Malaba, my father, is gone. Fact.

  Mayme takes Annalisa’s other hand. She talks softly, her voice a balm to heal all wounds. “Joseph wanted a life with you, Annie. A home. Children. The future you planned was stolen from you both, but you escaped. You saved yourself and you saved Amandla. His daughter. He’d be proud of you, Annie. I am proud of you.”

  I blink back tears and wait for the dam inside me to burst and for the water to drown me the way it did my father. Then I wait for the darkness to swallow me the way it swallows my mother. I sit and wait, but the darkness doesn’t come. My heart beats slowly and steadily.

  I am Amandla Zenzile Harden, daughter of Annalisa Honey-Blossom Harden and Joseph Funani Malaba. My father’s faraway voice whispers from the other side. It tells me to turn and face the sun.

  28

  On the fourth morning of Annalisa’s deep sleep, Mayme and I sit and play cards at the kitchen table with our ears strained for any change in Mother’s breathing. Cot springs creak, and we turn to find Annalisa awake and blinking at the ceiling. She is small and pale under the blankets, and I’m afraid that, if I make a sound, she’ll close her eyes and disappear again.

  “I met your father last night,” she says. “He was sitting on a rock, waiting for me.”

  “Oh?” My heart beats out of my chest.

  She turns to face me and Mayme with a dreamy half smile. “I had to cross a river to find him. The water was deep and cold, and he pulled me onto the opposite bank. We sat on a rock in the sun, holding hands. It was beautiful. The days went by so quickly. I wanted to stay with Joseph, but he said the time was wrong, that I had to cross the river again and go home. To take care of our daughter.”

  I blink back tears. It is the first time I have heard my father’s name spoken aloud by Annalisa.

  “He said that when I’m ready to cross over a second time, he’ll be there, waiting. He has all the time in the world, he said. I begged him to come home, but the river wouldn’t allow it. He can’t make the crossing. He lives on the other side now. Do you know what means, Amandla?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “I understand.”

  “I would have stayed with him if it weren’t for you,” she says. “But you need me more, and he promised to wait. I’ll know where to find him when the time is right.”

  “Not yet,” I say. “Not for a long time.”

  “Not for many years.” She smiles at Mayme. “I heard your voice. I thought it was a dream, but it’s true. You are here.”

  Mayme sits on the edge of Annalisa’s cot. “We don’t have to worry about your father anymore. Amandla and I talked to him. We told him to keep his hands out of our business, and he listened. I can go wherever I want, and I want to be here with you.”

  They sit together in silence, enjoying the closeness. I fill the teakettle and unpack the mixed box of coconut and gingersnap biscuits that Mayme brought. She always brings too many, and Mrs. M’s grandchildren and Blind
Auntie are happy to finish whatever is left over. I dump tea leaves into the teapot, and the warm, woody smell of rooibos fills the room. Annalisa whispers a question, and Mayme leans in close to answer. They need time together alone.

  “Tea is brewing in the pot,” I say. “Me, Goodness, and Lil Bit are going to check out the Christ Our Lord Is Risen! yard sale. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  Annalisa sits up with Mayme’s help and says, “Goodness, Lil Bit, and I.”

  I laugh at the correction. Five minutes awake and she’s already schooling me in the “proper” way to speak. In time, we will find a way back to our own kind of normal. I stop in the doorway and turn to Annalisa and Mayme: two Harden women with no more lies between them. “It’s good to have the both of you here and together. Don’t you go anywhere without telling me, Ma!”

  Annalisa laughs, and Mayme smiles to hear it. I do, too.

  * * *

  * * *

  Families pack the yard of the gospel hall. Stalls selling cakes, counterfeit-brand clothes, and ingredients for muti—traditional medicine—take up a small amount of ground. Children run wild. I pick through a pile of dried leaves at the muti stand, just browsing, while Lil Bit and Goodness test out the beauty products that Miss Shembe cooks up in her kitchen.

  Lewis walks through a crowd of little girls chasing soap bubbles. I am surprised to see him at a church yard sale in the middle of a workday. He stands next to me in sneakers and jeans, his T-shirt stained with wood sap. Even when he’s messy, he’s a gorgeous hunk of boy.

  “Hi,” I say. Classic opening line, I think. “It’s a workday. What are you doing here?”

  He blushes. I kick myself. Good work, Amandla. Push him out of the yard, why don’t you?

  “It’s lunchtime.” Lewis grabs a bunch of twigs and flips them over in his hands. “I thought I’d come over and check out what’s cooking. No reason. Just filling time.”

  He clears his throat, aware of how bad just filling time sounds. We like each other. That’s obvious, but who takes the next step? Me or him or the both of us at the same time? Mrs. Gabaza, wrinkled and missing an eye, comes over to us. She points to the bundle in Lewis’s hand and grins.

  “Boil two of the sticks for two hours. Drink the liquid and you will go all night and all day. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

  Wait. Is she talking about . . . ? Mrs. Gabaza winks her good eye at me, and yes, she is talking about exactly what I think she is. Lewis drops the twigs like they have teeth, and I laugh. He is mortified. I love how his skin darkens in a blush.

  “Let’s walk,” I say. “Goodness and Lil Bit will be ages.”

  We start a slow circuit of the yard. The stalls are set well apart, with plenty of space between them for awkward silences to build.

  “How’s your ma?” he asks.

  “Better. She woke up this morning and talked to me and Mayme.” I stand in the thin shade of a jacaranda tree. “Mrs. M thinks that the trauma from the attack will fade in time, but the scar is there to stay.”

  “Show me yours,” he says, and takes my hand.

  “What?” My face goes hot.

  “Your scar.” He turns my hand over and lifts it to the light. A long red wound cuts across the width of my palm. It marks out a new lifeline that will lead me to who knows where. “Does it hurt?”

  “Sometimes. When I close my hand.”

  Lewis moves around to the other side of the jacaranda tree and takes me with him. I go willingly. Nervous and thrilled. This is the first move. Lewis lifts my hand and kisses the scar, a soft press of his lips to ease my pain. Be careful, Annalisa said. But not too careful. I am happy to be not too careful.

  He says, “I was wondering if you had a chance to add more names to your list of potential boyfriends? It’s been nearly a week since your ma got hurt, and a lot has changed since then.”

  My hand tingles, and the scar throbs with the opposite of pain. The list is the last thing on my mind. It’s hard to keep my thoughts straight.

  “There’s still only one name on my list,” I say. “And nothing has changed.”

  He smiles. “As soon as your mother is well enough, your grandma will pull the two of you out of Sugar Town. It’s only a matter of time. A few weeks and it’s goodbye.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. The future is unfolding one day at a time, and I only know about right now. This very minute under the Jacaranda tree with Lewis, my hand tingles from his kiss. Now is perfect. Now is all I want. He’s nervous, though.

  “What about you?” I ask. “Is there still only one name on your list?”

  “Yes, but the girl will break my heart when she leaves me, and she will leave.”

  He’s so certain I will walk away without a backward glance. That was my plan: to leave and never come back. Now I’m not sure. So much has happened. Lewis has happened. “The girl grew up in Sugar Town, but she doesn’t know where she’ll end up,” I say. “The world is a big place.”

  Lewis runs his fingertip across my palm, slow and smooth. “There’s a new housing development going up just before the turnoff to town. It’s close to the city and close to Sugar Town . . . a good place for the girl to get used to living on paved streets and eating in nice restaurants. Once she’s moved, she doesn’t have to see anyone from Sugar Town again.”

  Though our move from the township now seems inevitable, Lewis is pushing me out before I’m ready to go. He wants to protect his heart, but ending things between us is a lose-lose situation. I’m not ready to walk away.

  “So what do you want?” I ask. “A marriage certificate and five kids to prove that the girl is still interested?”

  “No,” he says. “Just a kiss to test the waters. But only if she wants.”

  I tilt my head and examine the dips and curves of Lewis’s lips, and the word that comes to mind is mouthwatering. Better than juicy, but not by much. I will leave Sugar Town one day, but for now, I want that kiss. I want Lewis right now, in the fenced yard of the Christ Our Lord Is Risen! Gospel Hall.

  “The girl on your list would like a kiss,” I say. “But besides a few dry pecks and wet slobbers in primary school, she doesn’t know much about kissing, while the boy on her list probably has experience.”

  Lewis keeps a straight face. He gives the matter thought. “All right. How about she kisses him? All she has to do is follow her instincts.”

  I take his advice. I follow my instincts and trace the shape of his mouth with my fingertips. I reach up and press my lips to his and slowly, slowly move my mouth across his. The contact creates a delicious friction that sends a shiver through me. I nip and press and lick. He does the same, and then we are kissing, and it feels exquisite, amazing, and new.

  I could do this all day.

  A soccer ball hits the fence close to us: a stray kick or warning from an old granny to respect the house of the Lord or go home.

  Lewis steps back and says, “Worth doing again?”

  “Yes,” I say, breathless. “Absolutely yes.”

  So we do it again. And again, careful to keep the trunk of the jacaranda between us and the yard. Pastor Mbuli preaches on the coming days of heaven—how the gates to paradise will open only if we are good and serve the Lord. He’s wrong, I think. Kissing a beautiful boy in the dusty churchyard is heaven. Right here. Right now.

  * * *

  * * *

  Lil Bit walks me home after the yard sale. Correction. She walks. I float. Lil Bit loves to eat, but I think kissing is better than the best food in the world. Kissing is a feast. I slant Lil Bit a curious sideways look. I wonder . . .

  “Have you kissed Goodness yet?”

  “What?” Lil Bit snaps back. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because,” I say. “I’ve seen how you act around her . . . A light goes on inside you when Goodness is close. You like her. You like her the same way that I like Lewis.�
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  She shakes her head. No. No way. “If I liked her that way, that would mean that my father and I are both, you know . . . Imagine the gossip. The things the church ladies would say.”

  I can imagine very well, but Lil Bit didn’t deny her feelings for Goodness. Instead, she focused on all the negative ways that a relationship with another girl will mess up her life. She’s afraid of the gossip. Of being labeled unnatural.

  “Look on the bright side, Lil Bit. If you stick with Goodness, the church ladies will stop asking you to babysit their children. You’ll be free of them.”

  Lil Bit smiles. “True, but what about my mother? She barely leaves the house after what Father did. Another scandal will kill her.”

  It won’t, but the feeling that she is responsible for her mother is strong. I understand. It’s hard to think of your own needs when your parent needs so much care and attention. You live your life in service to them.

  “Your ma won’t change no matter what you do. She has to fix herself. You can help, but that’s all you can do. It’s all anyone can do.” I throw my arm around her shoulder. “Meanwhile, you are missing out on kissing those juicy Dumisa lips.”

  “You pervert!” Lil Bit snorts. “Juicy?”

  “Yes,” I say. “You have to try it.”

  “Maybe . . .” Lil Bit says. “Maybe I will. But if you tell anyone about this conversation, I will be forced to kill you.”

  We walk down the street with our arms around each other, sisters and secret members of the newly formed Dumisa Appreciation Society.

  29