I tried not to take offense at the way she said “Basimane,” like she was recalling the bitter taste of unripe fruit. I didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want to ask. OK, fine, to say I didn’t want to know would be more honest.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “You haven’t been down here in a long time.”
“Yes, I have. I come every—”
“Without your parents. Walking. Without a car.”
I didn’t go down ko motseng very much, it was true. I spent my life moving from our house into the car, from the car to school in town, or from the car to the shop, from the shop to our house and so on. The girls who took taxis to school had learnt to get around without their parents’ cars, and made fun of me sometimes. Ole was one of them. A lot of the time she just rolled her eyes at the whole thing.
“I came . . . to the shop,” I said finally.
I followed her through the streets, the two of us slowly making our way there. Ole said hello to many people as we went along, most of them groups of young men standing around at street corners, listening to music or throwing dice and gambling. They raised their hands and voices, greeting her like she was one of them. “Eh, Ole! Heita, jo.” They invited her to play the way they only did with other boys, the way they never would with me. In fact some of them said, “Who’s that cherrie, Ole?” and “Come introduce us to that sweet cherrie, Ole!” My ears twinged when one said, “Hey, Ole, where do you find these nice cherries? I like the one you were with before too.”
They whistled and complemented my “nice legs” and “sweet lips.” Ole took it all in stride. I secretly felt glad that I was with her and not just another girl, and I was struck by how Ole’s social standing seemed to have changed. When we were little there had been a fair bit of teasing, but now the boys seemed to waver between ignoring her, teasing her, and sometimes having a cigarette with her. What they never did was whistle and make comments about how pretty she was. I didn’t want to remind her how painful it had been at times, how she had gotten into fights with the boys. I had always felt sorry for her when her mother said, “Olebogeng, if you acted like a girl you wouldn’t come home with a blue eye.” I wouldn’t want to be reminded if I were her.
Instead, I pushed back the memories and waved to people whose faces I thought I recognized. I hadn’t been down there, on foot, I realized, in probably two years! We walked past children playing games, people standing at their gates talking and shouting happily (or not) across their fences to neighbours and friends. Mothers were calling children to come home, or sending them to buy something from the shops.
I reminisced quietly about what my mother called our “past life.” It really did feel like another world. I had been so removed. Half my life was in town now. Most of the time I spoke English—both my parents and the school insisted on it. Most people I was around—apart from at the shop—spoke English. Except for Ole and Basi, of course. They went to school and made it work, then came home, washed their hands of it. They both acted like town and English were more a part of my world than theirs. It was a wonder they weren’t friends.
I was more my mother’s child, although she wouldn’t say so. I rarely missed motse. Although I missed the clusters of girls giggling together, sitting under large trees braiding each others’ hair or drinking cooldrink and biscuits on blankets on their front lawns. You couldn’t people-watch in diEx. The walls were too high and the streets were too quiet.
When we walked down Ole’s street, one street away from where we used to live, I felt like I had been transported back in time. There was the smell of chips from the corner house with the spaza shop—Nellie’s Tuck Shop—where we used to buy sephatlho, and where the boy thought I was pretty and gave me a little extra atchar. There was Nkele’s Sizzling Designs, the hair salon two houses down that had started as a small business but had grown so much that the owner—Nkele, a very beautiful and well-groomed woman then in her twenties—had had to build back rooms. You could smell the burning hair and fragrant hair products from the street.
We walked carefully around a game of Fish so as not to step on the perfect drawing on the ground; the little girls playing it looked at us appreciatively.
Through someone’s backyard I saw our old house, a big white house that had been renovated years ago, standing larger and higher than the houses around it. It had been the biggest house on the street when we lived there, but slowly people had extended their apartheid houses so that the street had started to look grander and fancier. Although here people didn’t build walls for fences: it was considered rude and downright hostile. Up in diEx, however, high walls only sent the message that you could afford privacy. Ole once said, “The rich have different needs and different rules from the rest of us”—something she would later repeat under very different and much more painful circumstances.
I know they do. I mean I know we do.
Ole pointed to a faded-orange house with its front windows facing the street. Its door was a very bright red and so was its stoep, which had been polished and shone brightly against the fading late afternoon sun. She pointed with her cigarette.
“That’s Moipone’s house.”
It was quiet and it looked like no one was at home. I glanced around curiously, unsure of what I was hoping to see.
“She lives just with her mother. She works late.”
I nodded and kept examining the house as if it would give me some clues about Moipone. Finally I asked, “Is her mama pretty?”
Ole laughed at that.
“She’s pretty. She’s very pretty. She used to be Miss Marapong when she was in high school.”
I could only imagine, given Moipone’s looks.
“There she is.” Ole pointed to a tall, slim woman with shoulder-length hair walking up the street towards us.
She wore a knee-length light-green summer dress with a black jersey and black high-heeled shoes. She took long, confident strides up the dusty street towards us, but then suddenly stopped as if something had got her attention.
“Momo!” she yelled out to someone we couldn’t see from where we were standing. Then, from out of the house in front of her, came Moipone, hurrying towards her mother, her hair flowing behind her and her blouse blowing in the breeze. Her mother put down the parcel she had in her hands, adjusted the strap on her handbag and then spread out her hands to receive her daughter, kissing her before she enveloped Moipone in her arms.
For some reason I couldn’t move my feet. Ole was about six steps ahead of me when she turned around and called me to keep going.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, but it took me a moment to realize what she had said. I shook my head and started walking to her—and towards them.
I stared and stared, with a furrowed brow and my mouth wide open, through the introduction to Moipone’s mama, who said hello with gentle eyes but no smile. I looked past Moipone and saw that she had been sitting with Basi, Kgosi and two other girls who I didn’t recognize. I would have kept staring without saying anything had Ole not nudged me and repeated, “What’s wrong?” at which point I cleared my throat, shook my head and said, “Hello,” too late, to Moipone’s mother.
***
It wasn’t until I was home and lying in my bed with the light turned off listening to the calming voices of Boyz II Men singing “End of the Road” that it came to me, as slowly as the music and just as poignantly: Moipone’s mother didn’t just love her the way most mothers love their children. She wholeheartedly adored her. My mother never held her arms out to me like that, she rarely kissed me and she hardly ever called me by my nickname, Nedi. I had seen her hold her arms out like that, though. Of course I had. I had seen her give that kiss and that hug and that look of absolute delight. I just hadn’t seen it directed at me.
It took what felt like forever for me to fall asleep. I had not been someone who had trouble falling asleep before then. In fact, most
nights, I never even heard the end of the first song I played on my CD player. But that, I see now, was the beginning of many, many sleepless nights that have continued well into my adulthood. One thing became clear to me that night, quite forcefully, really.
It was what people meant when they said that it was a great day when my brother was born.
A great day for all of us, I kept thinking.
12
THE BIG SURPRISE the Saturday of Basi’s game was not the fact that Papa came. He rarely made it to Basi’s games because he was working, but I had known that he was planning to come to this one.
The big surprise was that Moipone and Kgosi were there. Well, Moipone more than Kgosi. Many times Basi had gone to watch Kgosi’s school soccer matches—Kgosi played soccer because he went to school in the location, where they didn’t have what were known as “White” sports like rugby or cricket. Even I had gone sometimes with Ole and we had all watched him together while eating sephatlho and drinking Stoney on the sidelines in the heat.
We didn’t see them when we arrived at the school and they hadn’t come with Basi. Basi had been at his school early with his team, getting a pep talk from their coach, who was also the sports teacher. We had all gone in Papa’s car and dropped him off there first.
Basi was very excited that morning when he got ready. The rest of the house was buzzing nervously around him, running around looking for this and that: “Where are your socks?” “What do you want to eat?” “Basi, shouldn’t you eat something?” But Basi had shown no nervousness whatsoever.
I was disappointed when I realized that of course Kitsano would not be there because he was still in Botswana, but he had remembered it was the day of the big match and had phoned about twenty minutes before we left. Mama had given the phone to Basi, and Basi, thankfully, had given it to me.
“Howzit?” came the deep voice through the phone that had me collapsing onto Basi’s bed. Basi had the privilege of a phone in his room, installed as a gift when he turned sixteen.
“Your brother must be stoked,” he said slowly in his confident-sounding voice. Why was it that boys were never as nervous around girls as we were around them?
I was nodding furiously and grasping the duvet cover on my brother’s bed when I realized that I was required to speak.
“Ja . . . ,” I said finally. My legs felt wobbly. “He’s excited. We’re all excited,” I added a little too loudly. “So . . . how’s Botswana?” I managed to say.
Mama yelled, “Naledi, off the phone! We have to go, now!”
I crossed my legs and clasped the phone tighter with my now sweaty hand.
Kitsano said, “You have to go?”
“Umm . . . yes. But . . . um . . . not now.” I was trying to sound cool but knew that I wasn’t quite managing.
“Botswana’s OK. It’s OK. Lots of relatives . . . ” There was an uncomfortable pause. “So . . . two weeks, huh?”
“Yes! Two weeks,” I said, shutting my eyes tightly with the realization that I sounded much too excited.
Kitsano gave an easy laugh.
“I look forward to it,” he said.
When we were all hurrying into the car, Mama stopping to examine what she thought was a scuff mark on her shoes, Papa patting his pockets for keys, and me clutching my stomach to calm the butterflies, I was struck with the distinct and embarrassing feeling that I had no impressive skills in speaking to boys.
As we sped toward the highway I remembered what Limakatso had said to me that week in school: “You know he’ll want to take the next step, right?” The next step. We’d hardly even been on a date. We’d only kissed that time at the social, and seen each other next when Mama and I were picking up Basi from school. We were going out but hadn’t really gone out. The matric dance was the next step. I was definitely not ready for the kind of step Limakatso was referring to, even less ready when she had offered her lesson on boys: “The thing is . . . when boys are ready, there’s nothing you can do.”
“We’re almost there. Are you ready?” Mama’s voice brought me out of my daydreaming. I think Papa must have sped to town because we had arrived sooner than I had anticipated. So much was going on! I couldn’t find a comfortable point for my mind to rest on: rugby match, Moipone, Moipone’s mother, Ole and Moipone, Kitsano . . . the “next step.”
So when we finally settled down on the stands and I looked over to my left and saw Moipone and Kgosi arriving, I was floored. I thought: This is risky. Mama is going to be so angry. Is Basi mad?
He probably was. I didn’t know if this was his way of telling our parents that he was in love and showing Moipone his world at the same time. For a moment I imagined that maybe Kgosi had planned to come and had decided to bring Moipone as a surprise, to cheer Basi on. But I knew of course that that was ludicrous. What did Kgosi ever do without Basi knowing about it?
So I sat up straight as the two of them walked towards me, and I waved. Then I put my hands underneath my thighs to stop from fidgeting. I noticed as they slowly approached that Kgosi, looking as comfortable as if he went to rugby matches all the time, was wearing a Kaizer Chiefs cap, which I knew he had done to be funny.
Moipone, in a short blue skirt and white blouse, sat next to me, so that I was to her right and Kgosi to her left.
“Hello,” she said confidently.
“Hello. Ah, Kgosi,” I said, pointing to his hat. “I like your kepisi.”
“Sure, jo,” he said, nodding and not smiling. “Where’s Basi?” He looked over the crowds.
I pointed as Basi’s team arrived in a small bus that parked just outside the school gates. Out they came, running over to the field, looking ready and excited.
People started cheering and clapping. I heard Mama’s voice yelling, “Heeee, Basiiiiiiiii!” She was sitting in front of me with Papa and some of the other team members’ parents and after she cheered, she turned and gave me a what-are-those-two-doing-here look. I shrugged and hoped, really sincerely hoped, that neither Kgosi nor Moipone had seen that.
Moipone put her fingers gently on my knee to get my attention.
“Is he the only Black guy?” she asked in Setswana.
I looked around, taking deep breaths to get over my nerves.
“No. This is just the first team. There are two other teams.”
She was sitting so still, her hands clasped on her knees and her legs crossed. She looked quite composed.
“So . . . there are a few Black guys in the school. He’s just the only one on the team,” I said.
“He could go far. He could go on to be one of the first Black guys on the national team in a few years. If he is chosen,” she said.
I nodded.
“So where are the other Black guys? Why aren’t they on the team?”
“Uh . . . ” I licked my lips and looked at my watch just to do something with my hands. “He’s the only one in the first team. I don’t know . . . Basi says it’s hard to get chosen.” That didn’t really answer the question. It never did for me.
Both teams ran over to their respective coaches and I had to speak above the excited cheering.
“He thinks that’ll change . . . ,” I said, shrugging.
She nodded, more because she had heard me than because she was impressed with anything I said.
Basi had always said it didn’t make sense. His only explanation was, “You have to remember these schools only opened for us recently. These other guys have been playing rugby for much longer. They’ve been on teams much longer.” Even he didn’t seem completely satisfied with his own answer.
“Still . . . ,” I’d say to him sometimes.
“Ja. Still . . . I mean, a lot of the Black guys are good. I mean really, really good . . . but the coach is tough, man!” he’d laugh. He felt very loyal towards his coach.
Just then there was some confusion. The coach of
the other school marched over, taking hurried and furious strides towards Basi’s coach. He beckoned with his hand as he approached, and Basi’s coach skipped over to him, the whistle around his neck bouncing up and down his chest.
Nothing seemed seriously amiss, so I looked over at Moipone and thought I may as well start getting to know her while we waited.
“Which school do you go to?” I asked.
“Marapong High.”
I nodded. “Hoh! Are you and Kgosi in the same class?”
“Ja.” She looked over at him. “He’s always making the class laugh, this one,” she giggled.
“Are you and Ole good friends?” I thought she’d look startled by this because we hadn’t been speaking about Ole at all. But she didn’t. She laughed softly again. She didn’t raise her voice above the noise, so I had to lean over to listen more closely.
“Ja.” She took out her Lip Ice and rubbed it on her lips. “Is she your best friend?” she asked.
“Ja,” I said. “Sort of.”
“She likes to take care of people, Ole. She has a lot of friends at my school.”
This made me feel uneasy—I knew I didn’t have as many friends in Kasi as Ole and my brother did.
Moipone put the Lip Ice back in her small bag. “She shows me around, tells me who to stay away from. She’s like a big brother.” Here she looked away and over at the field. She cleared her throat. “Except she’s a girl,” she added.
It was awkward then. People didn’t know how to talk about Ole. They called her a boy all the time. Those who didn’t know her, with a little malice in their voices, would call her “Transie.” “Why does she want to be a boy?” they’d ask.
This Book Betrays My Brother Page 10
