“Eish!” I said, thinking quickly. “Ah, I forgot. He wanted a tape for tonight—he promised the DJ he would bring him the new Brenda tape and I think he went to get it from Kgosi.” I tried to sound carefree but I hardly ever can when telling lies.
Then I pulled down the mirror above the passenger seat so that I didn’t have to look at Mama. I fidget when I’m nervous.
She sucked her teeth. I smoothed my hair. The sucking of the teeth let me know that her store of patience was dropping, and I fidgeted some more—fixing my hair, rubbing the tips of my nails, pulling at my clothes.
Just as we were ready to turn the corner, our eyes peeled as we searched the road for signs of him, there came Basi striding casually up the road. Surprisingly he was with Kgosi, even though Kgosi was not coming to the social.
My mother hooted in three short bursts: be-beep-beep! But Basi and Kgosi, instead of parting immediately, stopped to say something to each other.
Again my mother sucked her teeth, and I pulled at the hem of my skirt.
Now I was getting frustrated with my brother, who was making us late and making my mother angry and all in all ruining the beginning of my first big night.
Kgosi and Basi spoke like two conspiring businessmen these days. They would shove their hands in their pockets, their heads close together; they would each speak in a low voice, the other nodding furiously.
For as long as I could remember my brother and his friends had talked about cars: cars they admired, cars they wished they could have, cars other people had, and cars they were going to buy someday. Then they went to high school and all they could talk about were girls, in exactly the same way as they had talked about cars: girls they admired, girls they wished they could have, girls other people had, girls they were going to have someday.
I watched Kgosi and Basi and felt a now familiar tightening of my stomach, wishing I could make Kgosi leave. Whenever Kgosi came to our house, Basi acted as if he wanted me to go away, and when I didn’t, they would leave instead. So now there they were, with their backs turned away from us, as though they were unaware of us.
When my mother pressed the base of her palm against the hooter again, the sound came out longer and louder: beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Which had the boys finally doing their strange handshake—some odd hand-holding, thumb-pressing and prolonged pulling of fingers. Kgosi then turned around and disappeared down the road without even glancing in our direction.
Basi ran towards the car and I stepped out of the front seat as I always did. When we met briefly between the two open doors I said softly but irritably, “Ayeye,” which means, “You’re in trouble,” and he winked at me, happy as a clown. It always had the effect of making me feel both reassured and silly.
This was and still is Basi: he moves through the world calmly and smoothly, making it all look so easy and fun. When we were growing up it made me and everyone around him look overzealous. You always felt you needed to calm down around Basi—and even more around Kgosi. They’d throw you a wink or one of their confident smiles and you’d think: I need to get sorted.
As soon as he climbed in he said, easy as a summer breeze, “Sorry, Ma.”
Mama didn’t say anything. She pressed her foot quite forcefully against the accelerator and if we had been on the unpaved roads further down the hill we would have left a cloud of dust behind us.
Once we were on the main road she said, “Is his mother still in prison?”
This was something Mama brought up every time she saw Kgosi. Whenever she said it, Basi would take a deep breath and pause, gathering his thoughts before nodding easily.
“How much longer?” she asked, now sounding much calmer.
We were almost out of the location, the car going towards the highway. Fruit sellers along the road were packing up their stock—slowly, in case anyone wanted to stop and buy something at the last minute. When we came to a set of robots, a woman with a child wrapped in a blanket around her steadily stood up from the ground, her feet wide apart and one arm holding the baby on her back. The child had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her mother unwrapped the blanket and pulled her close to her breast, stroking her head gently.
I watched and wondered why I wanted to know them. My mother’s voice pulled me back into the car.
“How much longer will she be in there?” she was saying again—not actually asking. “They’ll never let her out. Women like her make allies in there. She probably isn’t behaving.”
Basi fiddled with the radio without engaging.
“They bond in there!” Mama’s voice competed with the sound of the radio. “There are so many of them who’ve done what she’s done, that they just bond in there like the criminals they are. Heh! Waitse, I remember Nono from the time we were little girls.”
The song “One Love” came on. Mama’s fingers wrapped more tightly around the steering wheel.
Let’s. Get. Together, and feeeel all right.
And then a man’s voice, with an English-Afrikaans accent, said: The time is now . . . And then it was Cyndi Lauper singing: Time after time, time after time, time after . . . The quicker Basi’s fingers moved the knob, the louder Mama’s voice rose.
I didn’t like it when Basi was upset. He went completely silent.
“What she did shocked everyone, but I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t even a little bit surprised.”
Pepsi Cola— . . . It is now sunny and mild in Pret— . . . Two men in the East Rand were found guilty of—
Basi turned off the radio and rubbed his hands together as if to warm them.
“Ka nnete, Basi.” Mama sighed with relief and slowed herself down. “This is not the type of family you should be around. You have a lot more to lose if something happens.”
I looked at her, confused.
“Like what?” Basi said sharply, turning his head to Mama.
She was taken aback by the abruptness of his tone. From my seat in the back I saw her head shake and her hands rub the steering wheel up and down.
After another deep sigh, she said, “I’m not saying anything would happen. But look what kind of mother he has . . . I don’t think he’s capable of . . . Well, I don’t think he has good role models.” She took another deep breath. “I don’t think he has good role models. That’s all.”
Basi’s hands went around his headrest and then tugged at his seatbelt.
Oh no, I thought.
“Kgosi is the most decent guy in the world,” Basi finally said, forcefully, in English. “The absolute, most decent guy you’ll ever meet,” he continued. “He’s a solid guy. A solid guy!” If he had been inclined to raise his voice he would have, but he didn’t. Basi’s voice tended to go lower the angrier he got.
Mama sighed and shrugged. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said softly, a bit rattled. Here she reached out and rubbed his cheek.
My mother was always affectionate with Basi when they were in disagreement.
I couldn’t look.
My eyes wandered to the scenes outside. There was the big shopping centre that was going up. Next to it was the old one that was being torn down. There was the new suburb, the one most boys from his school lived in. There was the bridge with graffiti that said: Stop the Gravy Train. There was a White man holding close to his chest a sign that said: Twee kinders. Geen kos. Two children. No food.
“I would give him money for food if he would work for me,” Mama said. “But he would rather die than work for me.”
In a few minutes I would be arriving at my first social and hopefully meeting my first boyfriend. And then, finally, there we were at Basi’s school. We could hear the music in the hall as we drove in.
It was dark in the car park and the only brightness came from the entrance to the hall. In the dimness outside I recognized a few people. There was Lesedi, a friend from school, with a skirt that was even sho
rter than mine and her hair in a tight ponytail. There was Marjorie, all legs and long blonde hair, talking to Jason—also all long legs with blonde hair—on the steps going up to the hall entrance. When our car stopped I jumped out and slammed the door in my excitement, then turned to use the car window as my mirror.
Basi waved to a group of boys who were standing and laughing at a distance. Two girls I didn’t recognize walked past our car and said, “Hey, Basi.”
With a broad smile and his hands in his pockets, looking like he owned the car he was now leaning on, he said, “Hey,” which had them giggling as they walked off.
I turned around to search for my friends and when my name was called from two directions I first turned to the one that was coming from our car.
“O itshware pila,” was what my mother said before starting the engine. To Basi she said, shaking her head, “Only pick one girl. They’re already lining up.” She laughed at her own joke, then she started to manoeuvre the car through the crowds of the excited and heavily made-up girls she was referring to.
“Basi!” I called out to my brother and held on to his sleeve.
“I know,” he said. “Mom’s going crazy.” Basi always called her “Mom” when we were around his friends from school. Never around Kgosi or any of his other Kasi friends—around them she was “my ou lady” or “Setswadi.”
“Heh?”
“You saw how she was. Kgosi and his mom and all of that?”
“Basi, how do I look?”
“I mean, can you believe that?” But he was distracted and walking away, waving at people all along the way.
“Ba-si!” I said through clenched teeth. “How. Do. I. Look?”
My two best friends—Kelelo and Limakatso, girls from school—came and stood with us. Both staring at him like he was a beautiful sunset.
“Haaaaaaaaai Basi,” they said in unison.
“Hey girls,” he said smoothly in a soft voice I didn’t recognize.
I looked from them to him in wonder. How was it that every girl I knew—except Ole—thought my brother was, as they said, “Too bloody cute”?
He must have seen the look on my face because he put his arm over my shoulder and then, with a kiss on my forehead, said, “You look stunning, Nedi.” Which didn’t count because his eyes were already across the rugby field looking at another group of girls.
I smiled anyway.
He looked back at my friends. “You girls—sorry, I mean ladies—look beautiful. Really.” He ran his eyes up and down each one. And with a kiss on the tips of his fingers he said, “Really, you’re all beauts,” a word all the boys at his school used just about every two minutes.
“He’s such a gentleman!” they cooed as he walked away.
I rolled my eyes.
“He’s being strange,” I said. “When we get home he’ll for sure be staring at his maths homework like it’s for sure the love of his life.”
“Oh my gosh! That’s, like, the cutest thing in the world!” Limakatso was using her there-are-boys-around voice, which was nasal and involved saying “like” all the time.
“Shall we go in?” Kelelo’s way of speaking at these times involved incessant questioning (as in: “Shall we talk to those boys?” “Shall I dance with him?” and “Shall I ask him his name for you?”) while “for sure” was my contribution to the language we used around boys.
Going up the steps was a challenge, since the boys from the school stood there examining us as if deciding which one to pick for their prize. We tried to hold back our giggles while hoping not to fall and trying to look like we were perfectly comfortable in our short skirts.
When we walked through the large open doors of the school’s main hall it was into throngs of guys and girls chatting, laughing, putting arms around one another. It felt as if we had walked into a free and forbidden world, a place teenagers dream of and parents dread. I saw a boy pull a girl, their hands in each other’s back pockets, and a couple in a corner with bodies pressed against each other, the boy kissing the girl’s neck. All I could think was that I wanted to be at each and every coming social for the rest of my school days . . . and I never wanted to go home.
My friends and I were first separated by Limakatso’s boyfriend, who took her to the centre of the hall to slow dance beneath disco balls and dimmed lights. Kelelo and I stood waiting at the edge of the hall, trying not to look too hopeful.
Basi was standing near the door chatting with a boy I immediately recognized—because although I had tried not to look like I was searching for someone, I had been hoping to see him from the moment I had heard about the social. He looked in our direction and if the room had been brighter I might have seen whether he was smiling or not. Soon he left the hall and so did Basi.
A boy called Neo came up and put his arm around Kelelo and pulled her to the dance floor. He didn’t speak to her, just smiled in a self-assured way that I didn’t like, though it didn’t stop me from being envious. So, afraid of standing alone in a dark room full of couples dancing and whispering into each other’s ears, I moved swiftly and walked through the door.
There, facing the door, was my brother talking with his friends Moabi and Kitsano and two other boys. I didn’t know where to look, but they were right in front of me, so I had to go towards them, trying not to smile too broadly. I felt as if they were all watching my every step, and I had never felt so exposed and uncomfortable in my life. I wondered if my lipstick was smudged, or if I had any on my teeth, if my hair was flat, if my breath was fresh and if my skirt was too short, and felt my back suddenly get very warm.
But Basi moved towards me with a wink and put my arm in his, patting it as we walked towards his friends.
“Gentlemen,” he said with mock gravity. “My sister, Naledi.”
Moabi smiled at me.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Naledi.” And then he laughed and I sort of laughed. A bit. I couldn’t relax. I felt Kitsano’s eyes on me and couldn’t look in his direction.
“Nice to meet you,” Kitsano said, slowly. His smile was guarded. I thought he seemed more shy than I had imagined. He said nothing else, so I stood there making small talk with my brother and his friends, hoping for something to happen to me that I could talk about at school on Monday morning.
So when Kitsano—the tall boy with smooth, light skin and a clean-shaven head—touched my left breast a bit later that night, cupped it and wildly rubbed my thigh, I thought: I’m so glad I’m wearing my favourite red bra. And also: Am I supposed to pull my tongue back or stick it out the way he’s doing in my mouth?
The darkness behind the school’s main hall gave you privacy, even though you could see the outlines of other teenage bodies pressed together in the distance and were wondering, if they looked up and saw you, would they recognize you? Would you want them to, or not? I didn’t mind if, on Monday, everyone talked about me being Kitsano’s girlfriend. He was so cute and he wasn’t a prick at all, by private school standards. I had never seen him talking to more than one girl at a time, unlike my brother and his other friends, who always had a large female audience. And I didn’t remember ever hearing about him standing up a girl, or kissing her and telling everyone about it.
I had had my eye on Kitsano for a long time. He was the new boy from Botswana whose parents were diplomats in South Africa. I had seen him for the first time a few weeks before, when he’d played hockey with Basi against Boys’ High. I’d liked him right away because he was new and not one of the ones all the girls in my school were already talking about. He was also so cute, I thought, and so quiet that when I said hi to him after another match—having been dared to by Limakatso, who was sick of me talking about him without actually knowing him—he smiled a broad, pearly white smile and winked instead of speaking, and I was smitten.
Now here he was, sitting next to me, cupping my breast and kissing me furiously. I didn’t know what
Ole was so sceptical about. I didn’t find boys boring at all.
When Basi called my name, I was embarrassed but more annoyed.
“Mama’s here,” his voice rang out from somewhere in the distance.
When I looked up his back was turned to us and his hand was raised, gesturing towards the front of the building. I stood up and so did Kitsano. Not knowing how to look him in the eye I straightened my skirt and stared at my shoes.
“Can I call you?” he mumbled and cleared his throat.
“Yes.” I grinned. I turned around and walked away.
***
“What . . . Where were you and who were you with?!” my mother’s voice roared from the front seat as soon as I had closed the door.
I didn’t say anything.
“I hope . . . I really hope you were not with a boy,” she said. Her body was turned towards me. When I steeled myself to glance at her I saw the look of disgust on her face.
“Well,” Basi said slowly, with a slight laugh, “she might have been, if she hadn’t spent so much time with her girls.” He turned around casually and smiled at me. “What do you girls talk about anyway?”
Mama looked from me to him. “She wasn’t with a boy?”
He shook his head and laughed again, as if her question amused him greatly. Then he turned around and pulled down the mirror in the passenger-seat visor, eyeing me in its reflection. “Ja, sure. Nedi, it’s a social because you’re supposed to socialize . . . you know, with people you don’t know?”
Mama straightened up and turned on the car. Basi shook his head.
Then, as if he had just remembered something, he added, “We put a lot of effort into this thing. The least the girls could do is stop huddling together in the toilets doing their lipstick and giggling . . . I just may not take you any more.” His voice was teasing.
Mama kept driving and said nothing for a while. And then: “I’m glad you were there to watch her.”
6
NOZIPHO JACQUELINE NOKANE, also known as Nono, was born Jacqueline Nozipho Maseko in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, which is also known as Phelindaba or just Pheli to its locals. She got married to Moitshepi Raymond “Speed” Nokane in the firestorm that followed the massive 1980 Sasol bombing in the Orange Free State. They say Bra Speed, as he was known to all of us, came to his wedding black and blue and bold-faced, wearing a perfectly tailored suit to go with the large bandage circling his head and the swollen lip, the dried blood, and the stitches that ran the length of his left cheek. He looked straight ahead out of his right eye, the only one that was open, and forced the right corner of his mouth into a smile.
This Book Betrays My Brother Page 4
