I wanted to ask Moipone all kinds of questions. But right at that moment what I really wanted to know was if she understood that Ole didn’t want Moipone seeing her as a sibling.
There was a commotion on the field. The game was about to start and I was nervous. I was always nervous at Basi’s games. There was always someone on the sidelines yelling some profanity at my brother. At home he would tell me to watch closely and see how he was targeted on the field; some guy was always yelling things like “Get the Kaffir!” It was horrible, but he was used to it, he told me. It was a rough game, rugby. Just rougher for him.
Basi’s coach ran back to his team and threw his hands up in the air. He spoke to his team for a minute and they all talked amongst themselves, a few shrugging, shaking their heads.
We saw Basi turn around and walk back to the bench.
Mama stood up and so did Papa. “Basi?” she called out.
For a second I thought he was just going to fetch something, but then he picked up his rugby bag and started walking away from the field. Behind him the teams ran towards each other, the whistle blew and the match started.
Without him.
Moipone, Kgosi and I tore down the steps of the stands two or three at a time, following my parents, who were running after Basi.
We could hear people asking, “What’s going on?” “Why isn’t he playing?” “Is he sick?” Then as I got to the last step, I heard someone say, “He’s probably having a tantrum. You know these Black guys.”
“My brother doesn’t have tantrums!” I yelled in the direction of the voice.
***
I saw Basi put his bag in the boot of Papa’s car and then open the back door to get in.
We ran the length of the field, my parents getting to him first. But before Moipone, Kgosi and I got there, Mama let out a scream, passing us as she ran back and onto the field, interrupting the game.
The players stopped. Some shouted at her to get off the field.
I saw her yelling and pointing at the coach, who stood still and seemed to do nothing but shrug his shoulders and spread his hands out helplessly.
13
IT WAS A LONG ride home. No one spoke in the car.
When we got home the first thing Basi did was hurl his rugby bag across the floor. We stood behind him and watched it slide across the kitchen and land in the middle of the passage. Then he marched to his room and slammed the door behind him. This was the angriest I had ever seen him. About five minutes later he walked out of his room and Kgosi, now alone, suddenly arrived at our door ready to whisk my brother away.
My parents and I were standing around in the kitchen trying to find something to do, waiting for Basi to talk to us, when he walked right through the kitchen, out the gate and down the road to Kasi, where he was to stay until much, much later that night.
***
When I think back, I wish I could erase the two weeks that followed. I’d like to change the story so that after the rugby match that didn’t happen, we could skip over the next two weeks and go straight to the matric dance. Then we’d be done with it. It would have been difficult, I know, to have a nice dance after that match, but I like to believe we would all have gotten through fine if nothing else had happened.
That my brother and I would still be close.
That my feelings about him would still be simple.
I like to imagine that there are people in the world for whom uncomplicated truths remain. These people may go to the end of their lives without having these truths tested—without ever losing a grip on the things they’ve always counted on. Without feeling that deeply disconcerting sense of their world crumbling around them.
I am not one of those people.
What happened at the game? Basi got to school on time. He met his team, who were fired up and excited. Their coach gave them a slightly more charged pep talk than usual. They patted each other on the back, and said “Let’s go get them!” and whatever other things teammates say to each other before a game. They then proceeded to get into the bus and sing morale-boosting songs all the way to the other school, where they saw their parents and friends excitedly waiting for them. They waved to everyone. They got on the field and had another pep talk.
Then the surprise: the other team declared they wouldn’t play with the Black guy. Infuriating? Yes. Surprising? Not if you’d heard all the stories we’d heard. Basi was used to getting unfairly put out of a game, but this was the first time he was refused a chance to play at all. What did his team do? They shrugged and said, as Basi told me, “Too bad, mate,” “Ja, it’s tough because the selectors are here,” and, “This is a big one, mate.” They’d shaken their heads. “We can’t shut this game down.” And in the end, simply put, they got on with their game.
“I’m the captain. I’ve stuck my neck out for a lot of those blokes,” he later said—more to himself than to me.
“Why didn’t the coach say anything?” I asked—and this I still wonder about.
Basi, at this, shook his head. It’s the closest I’ve seen him come to crying.
14
NONO, Kgosi’s mother, came home was the first sunny day after four straight days of rain. In Marapong this was unusual both because it was now April and because we normally had quick and furious thunderstorms that lasted, at most, thirty minutes.
Not that week. That week didn’t feel right from beginning to end. The first day of rain was that Saturday of my brother’s rugby match. The following Saturday was the hideous incident.
***
In the week following the match I could see that Basi was determined to pick himself up, dust himself off and walk away unscathed.
“I’ve always known who my brothers are,” he told me when I asked about what his teammates had said when he’d seen them at school on Monday. “I’m not interested in those guys’ bull.”
He’d asked the rugby coach if he could be excused from matches for the rest of the season, and when he was not allowed to quit—because the coach insisted it had been the team’s decision for Basi not to play the other school, and that it was “just one game”—he feigned illness all week. Dr Moeng, Papa’s friend whose surgery was just behind our shop, wrote to the school at Papa’s request and said that Basi had a problem with his knee that would not allow him to play rugby in the foreseeable future. That was the end of that, for rugby. Neither Basi nor my father wanted to talk about it. It didn’t stop me and my mother from asking questions though.
“I’m proud of him for showing them this is not the end for him,” my mother told me one day as we were finishing up at the shop. “He’s going to be someone big and rugby . . . ” she pursed her lips angrily and shook her head, “ . . . heh-eh, rugby is not everything. They do this to Black guys all the time.” She was clearing the table in the office too hastily, her hand moving furiously across the surface, picking up things and putting them back down. “There’ll never be a Black guy on the national team—and now we know why. First hand.”
But Basi seemed to move on. There was the dance coming in two weeks. His finals were in six months and his studies at UCT, Rhodes, or Wits—he still couldn’t decide which—would start in less than a year.
I thought with deep regret of how much I would miss him; how much my life at home would never be the same. No one would stand up for me when Mama was angry. I wouldn’t sit in his room and listen to stories about ko motseng. I would have to go to socials without my protective older brother. I felt nothing but dread at the thought of Basi being out of the house, even though I knew how much of his life had been leading up to this: the beginning of his path to greatness, like other honourable women and men who had gone into law and changed our country. I understood what it meant to him to become a lawyer because he talked so much about it—about Kgosi’s mother and all those women unjustly imprisoned.
So in the end, when it
all happened, it wasn’t that I was jealous and had “never wanted him to succeed,” as Mama later put it.
***
It started with the end of the rain, a strange heatwave and, most importantly, Kgosi’s mother’s release. It was quite an unceremonious homecoming, at first: there was barely mention of it in the location. People felt rather ambivalent. No one really knew how to look her in the eye. A woman accused of murdering her husband doesn’t inspire praise poetry, I suppose.
Basi, on the other hand, was very excited at her release and anxious to be with Kgosi every step of the way. He wanted to be there when she came out and, unbeknownst to our parents, had arranged to meet Kgosi after school so that they could go to the jail together. He told me this and insisted with a very serious wagging of the finger that I not say a word.
“Not even to Ole,” he said, looking me in the eye.
“I don’t tell Ole what you tell me.” I was offended by the suggestion.
“I just mean no one, Nedi. No one.” Then he added as an afterthought, “Ole loves to talk.”
I looked away. I would later understand, very painfully, what he meant.
He asked Papa if he could stay away from the shop because, as he put it, Kgosi needed him. I think Papa knew—because he knew everything that went on in Kasi through his employees and his friends who were lawyers and knew about the case—but he didn’t fight him on it.
It was a hot day when she came home, too hot for April. At school I had taken off my jersey, which I had worn in the morning because it had been cool, and tied it around my waist like a belt so that it brought up my school dress a little bit and showed off more of my thighs. Those of us swimming in the thrilling waters of puberty had found creative ways to bear the heat in our uniforms; one or two braver girls had even unbuttoned their dresses, risking the wrath of the teachers.
Mama came to fetch me first. When I climbed into the car she gave me her most disapproving look.
“Pull down your dress. Bathong, Naledi!” She waved her arm impatiently at me, her bangles chiming furiously. “Why do you make yourself look like you’re hoping to find a man?” She clicked her tongue as she started the car.
I pulled down my dress a little bit, but she wasn’t satisfied.
“Put that jersey back on. Look decent, please.”
I didn’t say anything in response and only tried to keep my face from looking defiant. In a few minutes we would see Kitsano, who was back, and I didn’t want to be in a bad mood then. I had resolved not to let my mother upset me. I rolled down the window, pushed my seat back and closed my eyes, letting the breeze sweep over my face. Mama turned on her music and seemed to let it go as she sang along to the songs.
***
I saw Kitsano almost immediately: he was standing with Basi at the bottom of the steps that led to the school hall. Mama drove up so that they were on my side of the car, and Basi was already walking towards us before we came to a stop. I noticed that he didn’t have his bag.
“Mama,” he greeted. “Nedi, can you come and help me get my bags, please? I’m taking more things home.”
I almost jumped out of the car and kissed my brother at that moment. Kitsano was standing behind him now, his hands in his pockets the only thing betraying how nervous he was.
“OK,” was all Mama said as she pressed the button to open the boot.
Kitsano and I walked side by side a few steps behind Basi, whose stride became more hurried so that we were lagging far behind by the time we reached his class. He sort of disappeared then, giving us a moment to ourselves.
“How are you?” Kitsano said, his fingers brushing against the tips of mine as if deciding, before he held my hand firmly in his.
“OK,” I said and grinned foolishly, trying not to giggle. Basi had told me that boys found giggling annoying.
“So . . . do you have a dress yet? I hear all the girls have been rushing around trying to catch their breaths . . . hoping to get the best dresses in town.”
I was charmed by how he sounded like an American teenager, pronouncing the “r” in girls and saying things like “in town.” Some people from Lesotho and Botswana did that. They would go to international schools, where they mixed with Americans and then they would come out with American accents. Usually I found it annoying, but not this time.
Basi came out of the room carrying two large sports bags. He handed me one without saying a word and then started walking towards the car. As soon as he turned the corner Kitsano said, “Let me take that,” and took the bag from my hands. As he did, he leant forward and brushed his lips against mine. My knees went wobbly and I held onto his arm for support.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist.
I pressed my body against his and felt all of him against me. When he finally let me go I realized that the world had gone completely quiet.
By the time we were back at the car I was trying not to grin too much.
Kitsano put the bag in the boot and winked at me as he walked away.
“I’ll see you on Saturday.”
I really, really, like him, was all I could think on the way home. I wonder what else we’ll do at the dance. I hardly noticed anything or anyone even though I stared out of the window the entire time.
I really liked him.
15
WHEN BASI CAME HOME from the prison he was subdued but not exactly sad. I sat on his bed with him while he told me about it. It was nice to see Aus’ Nono come home, he said.
“She cried when she saw Kgosi standing outside waiting for her. It was really sad, but also really nice.” He was lying on his back with his knees up and I was sitting near the edge of the bed, listening.
“I think we’ll have a party on Saturday. Just a welcome-home thing. Nothing big.” He closed his eyes, listening to his music—a mixed tape he had recently put together, with my input. The tree just outside his window was blowing in the breeze, the cool air making its way into the hot room.
“This is exactly what I want to do, Nedi,” he spoke with his eyes closed. “You know, women like her don’t get fair trials. People don’t understand that men—our men, I admit and it’s very hard for me—” Here he took a deep breath, opened his eyes and touched his chest with the palm of his right hand. “But it’s all men—Black, White, Indian, Coloured—who hurt women and then the women have to defend themselves. Aus’ Nono was in there because of self-defence. Bra Speed used to beat her up. I mean . . . I could tell you some really rough stories. Eish!” He closed his eyes again. I thought he was deciding whether or not to tell me.
“He hit her, right?” I was speaking with my voice low, trying to sound nonchalant.
Basi sat up, leaned against his headboard and stretched his legs. He looked down at his hands.
“He did and . . . ” He rubbed his face with one hand and then sighed deeply as if he were exhausted. “He did. He did.”
“So, now she’s home.”
“Yes. Now she’s home. Shouldn’t have been in there in the first place, but she is home.” His voice lifted and he slapped his knee. “And we’re having a party!”
“Basi . . . aren’t people a little . . . I mean, who is . . . Who will come to the party?”
Basi sat up straight and looked at me.
“Nedi, you don’t know. People loved Bra Speed. We all did. Everyone is sad that he’s not here. Everyone. But some people still love Aus’ Nono. I mean, some people just think it was an accident. There’s still a lot of speculation.”
“Didn’t she admit it?” I was piecing together things that I had heard over the years that she had been in prison.
“No. She never did. She always said it was an accident.” He moved closer to me and held my arms. “Nedi, no one knows that it wasn’t. This is the biggest secret. No one knows. People suspect, but she has always said it was an a
ccident. She said she was cleaning his gun and shot him by accident. Don’t ever say a word otherwise. To anyone.”
His grip got tighter and I swallowed hard. I could feel the seriousness of what he had just told me.
“People gossip, but they don’t know for sure. If they did . . . I don’t know if anyone would support her. People really loved him.”
I nodded. I understood very well how much people loved Bra Speed, and how they would find it difficult to forgive Aus’ Nono if she said that she had done it. I promised myself that I would never tell anyone what Basi had told me. Ever.
But now you know.
You have to know, because if I don’t tell you this part then the next part would come out of nowhere. I’ve also sworn to myself that if and when I tell this story, I will tell the whole truth.
That afternoon—that Wednesday afternoon after the rain, after Aus’ Nono’s release—would be the last time that I spent a quiet, easy time in my brother’s room. I would never go in again, sit on his bed again, share jokes the same way after that. That was the end of those easy, lazy hours that we would spend together.
It is another slice of time, another packable moment that I carry with me wherever I go.
16
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? What do I remember? I know the answer so well. People tell you that memory is an unreliable ally. “We should never trust it wholeheartedly,” was what my father once told me. “It’s a tricky thing.” I know that. I know it even better now, being almost fifteen years older. No one goes through their turbulent twenties without realizing that much of what they remember about their childhood is either embellished to get them through the difficult times or completely tucked away, for the same reason. My story—I mean, what I saw with my own two eyes—is neither, however. I never remember it differently. The details are never fuzzy, nor do they ever change. I have never had moments of thinking: Was it a white blouse or a red blouse that she was wearing? Or: I can’t think what colour her shoes were.
This Book Betrays My Brother Page 11
