This Book Betrays My Brother

by Kagiso Lesego Molope

  ***

  For me, the first sign that it was all about to go to hell came later that Monday afternoon. I was feeling rather exhausted, even though it hadn’t been a particularly difficult day at school. I just had the sense of my heart being pressed down by a heavy hand. So I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t. I had to go to the shop and I thought of lying and saying I was still tired from the day before, but I decided it wouldn’t be fair. There was a lot of stock coming in and my parents needed extra help in the office. So I left school with the driver Papa had sent to collect me.

  The puzzling part was not that Basi had disappeared—he had gotten into the habit of disappearing—but he never missed important dates. The two of us always sat down with our parents and marked out on the calendar the days that the deliveries were made. It was crucial that we were there on those days. Basi was even friendly with half of the men who came to give us our monthly stock.

  I was at the front counter, giving a customer her change and chatting about school—she was an old primary-school friend I recognized but whose name I couldn’t remember—when I heard my father’s thunderous voice reverberating through the store.

  “Basimane! Is he here?”

  I swallowed the gum I had been chewing and looked at Aus’ Johanna, who was packing cans of sardines into a blue plastic bag for someone. She looked back at me without stopping what she was doing.

  We both understood the gravity of this. I turned to the girl I had been speaking to and said, “Sharp,” and she said, “Sharp, Nedi,” which sounded so sweet and familiar that I felt awful for not remembering her name. I turned back and shrugged at Aus’ Johanna’s questioning look.

  Papa was pacing past the bread and biscuits section, his shiny black shoes matching the polished black floors.

  I bit my lower lip and chewed as I rearranged the cigarettes and sweets behind the counter, and then bent down to repack the pads and tampons on the lower shelves. Aus’ Johanna had asked me to speak to Mama about taking the tampons and pads from the toiletry section and placing them out of sight at the front counter. A few girls had made this request to her—there was always a woman working at the front counter, so they could be bought more discreetly. Aus’ Johanna and I always placed them in a plastic bag below the counter before handing them to the customer.

  As I put one box of Lil-lets on top of another, Papa screamed, “O tlha kae?”

  I think that my body stopped moving. I knew that Basi had walked in, but he didn’t respond. I remained squatting on the floor, looking at my reflection on the perfectly polished floor. A door slammed and someone’s knuckles rapped on the counter above my head. I didn’t—couldn’t—move my legs.

  “Sorry? Askies? Aus’?” someone called out.

  The knuckles rapped again and a pair of heels clack-clacked impatiently.

  I took deep breaths to collect myself. When I did finally stand up, I came face to face with Aus’ Johanna.

  “Khante?” she asked.

  Before I could think of an explanation that wouldn’t sound insane, Basi came out marching furiously from the office. He turned the corner, almost knocking over a customer, and disappeared through the doors. Papa followed Basi with just the same furious march and I think you could hear an ant move because the place was so quiet.

  Most people in Kasi knew my father as a dignified, slow-walking man who politely asked about your family. So seeing him rush through the shop like that, his arms swinging and his tie loose, stunned everyone. Just when we thought they were gone, Papa and Basi came back into the shop and went directly to the office, both only a little bit calmer. People pretended not to stare but couldn’t help it. Aus’ Johanna and I busied ourselves with the customers, but we both strained our ears to hear what was going on in the office.

  It took a very long time for them to come out of the room.

  I was serving someone when Basi walked out, looking distraught. As he walked towards the door, Kgosi walked in, also looking sullen. I watched as the two of them huddled together, their heads bowed.

  Aus’ Johanna shook her head with relief.

  “Ah, it’s just boys. You know boys,” she said, losing interest.

  A moment later Papa came out of the office. Gravely, he shook Kgosi’s hand, spoke briefly to the two of them and then gave Basi a set of keys.

  For the first time, Basi turned to look in my direction and raised his hand to call me over. I reluctantly went to pick up my school bag from the office, thinking about how I had, so far, managed to avoid spending any time alone with him.

  I needn’t have worried. Kgosi stepped in at the front seat and neither one of them said a word to me.

  We drove to Kgosi’s house, where Basi turned the car off at the gate and said, “Let me go and greet your ma.”

  I waited in the back seat. When they had turned the corner of the grey brick house with the bright burgundy door and the shiny red stoep, I looked around the street and watched people without taking much in. Ole was nowhere to be seen, and for the first time it occurred to me how strange it was that Ole and I hadn’t spoken that Sunday. It bothered me. I lifted myself off the seat and tried to get a good look at her house, the orange brick one with the bright green door and the red stoep, but there was no sign of anyone there.

  I leaned further against the seat and closed my eyes. My heart felt so heavy that I wished to go to sleep right there.

  But of course I couldn’t sleep. Outside Kgosi’s house, Basi and Kgosi came into view accompanied by Aus’ Nono. They were deep in conversation, seemingly unaware of anything or anyone around them. At the gate Aus’ Nono gave Basi a kiss on the cheek, and it looked to me like she was comforting him but I was too far to tell. Basi said something to her and then put his arm around her. She threw her head back and laughed, sending the other two into a chorus of laughter.

  I knew I should get out of the car and greet, it being the polite thing to do, but I didn’t want to move. Instead, I opened the window, and Aus’ Nono seemed to notice me. I waved at her and managed a sizable and convincing grin, and she did the same. Then I forced myself into the front seat.

  I watched the three of them standing there, looking like the perfect little family: a mother and her two very handsome boys doting on her. I preferred watching them from a distance. It was fascinating how they made sense as a threesome. Basi and Kgosi didn’t exactly look alike, but they could pass as brothers.

  The car was getting hot in the autumn afternoon; I wanted Basi to come back so that I could go home and lie in a cold bath.

  “Nedi, you know you should have come out and greeted,” Basi said when he had settled back into his seat. He was touchy about the way I behaved with Kgosi and his mother. I knew how upset he was when he continued, in English, “It’s not . . . it’s not OK, Naledi. Come on. Be respectful.”

  I thought: I’d love to be completely immersed in water right now.

  He turned to look at me when we stopped at the corner of the street. His eyes softened and he sighed. “Sorry.”

  I shrugged.

  “So. How was your day? I haven’t spoken to you since—” His voice stopped abruptly as his eyes caught something in the distance.

  Confused, I followed his gaze and saw it. Moipone and Ole, sitting on Moipone’s front stoep. Sitting, I should say, very close together. I held my breath, dug my teeth into my thumbnail.

  Basi took a deep breath and clenched his jaw. The softness in his eyes disappeared and he gripped the steering wheel and sped past the house, leaving the two girls in a mighty, vengeful cloud of dust.

  He sped all the way through the location, bumping us through deep potholes and not stopping at stop signs, until he brought us to a frightening and violent stop in front of our garage, sending me lurching forward towards the dashboard. Without turning the car off, Basi opened his door and marched furiously out.

  “The car key!�
� I called to him.

  He marched back, turned off the car and yanked the keys out before proceeding to stomp like a sulking child into the house.

  I ran after him, our feet crunching furiously on the pebbles. In the kitchen, Aus’ Tselane stood wiping the kitchen counters and didn’t smile to greet us the way she usually did. Without looking at her, Basi’s hand went up, and when it came down it sent the keys flying across the shiny kitchen floor.

  “Basi!” I yelled, but my brother was already gone and the door to his bedroom was slammed shut.

  Aus’ Tselane didn’t seem perturbed at all. There was such emptiness on her face that I had to look away. I wanted her to be stunned, horrified, upset even. She looked instead like a soldier eyeing a familiar horror. She clicked her tongue before turning around and going back to work.

  I went straight to the bathroom, shut the door and locked it, and turned on the cold tap for a bath. Then I changed my mind and made it hot. When it was so hot that it was barely tolerable, I took off my clothes and left them on the floor. When I dipped my toe into the bath I felt some release.

  I stayed underwater for as long as I could. Now and then I came up for air, and the house sounded quiet and serene. One time when I came back up, I heard Mama knocking furiously on Basi’s door.

  I immediately sunk back down.

  20

  “TELL ME YOUR DEEPEST, darkest secret.” Ole spoke in a hushed tone coloured with a dark anger.

  It was now the day before the dance and she was sitting in my bedroom while I got dressed, a ritual neither one of us was ready to abandon.

  Ole sat on my window sill and watched the quiet road in front of our house. She was still and pensive, moving only when she brought the cigarette to her mouth and sucked in the nicotine. I stood behind her, nervously pulling on and taking off clothes. I hadn’t spoken to Ole all week although I had seen her, of course, on that strange afternoon when my brother and I had driven past her and Moipone.

  It had been a rather solemn week. The news of my brother and Moipone had seeped through Kasi like unidentified liquid from a rubbish heap.

  “Aaah . . . ” I pretended to be distracted. “We haven’t played that in a while, have we?” I pulled on a little black dress and feigned deep interest in my figure as I stood in front of the mirror.

  In the reflection, Ole turned her head slowly and her eyes pierced through me. I forced my gaze to stay on her.

  “It’s not a game,” she said, her deliberately lowered voice without a hint of warmth.

  My eyes turned sharply to the floor as I pretended to examine my shoes, desperate for somewhere else to look.

  “Go on. Tell me.” She stared at me through the mirror and dared me to speak.

  I smoothed my dress. Of course I knew what she was talking about. I knew what she had heard and I guessed what she and Moipone had been talking about that afternoon.

  Five days before, I had been in the bath when I had heard Mama, clear as a bell, yelling, “What is this Moipone girl saying?”

  And I had been in the shop when I had heard Aus’ Johanna saying to Mama, “Not Basi. I won’t believe it. Sometimes girls do this to boys.”

  ***

  Let me go back a little, because this bit, where my conversation with Ole comes in, is rather harrowing. I’ll get back to that.

  The evening of Basi’s strange and muted tantrum had been difficult. By the time I had come out of the bath, where I had been trying to hush my haunting thoughts, Mama, Basi, and Papa were sitting together in the sitting room. They were watching a football match and the commotion I had heard from the bath seemed to have completely disappeared.

  Mama looked up from the brown leather sofa where she was sitting with her legs crossed and a glass of wine in one hand.

  “Why such a long bath?” she asked, and I shrugged.

  Basi moved over to give me room on the sofa. Football matches could be a fun family event, but this one was between teams no one really cared about, so I guessed that they were all just looking for a distraction.

  I sat myself at the far end of the sofa and looked at the three of them: Mama in her royal blue tracksuit with her glass of wine in the hand with the sparkly gold bangles; Papa in his usual work uniform (a suit and a tie, now loosened); Basi in his long denim shorts, a white long-sleeved T-shirt that hung loosely over his shorts, and his white Nike tekkies.

  I held on to a large red cushion that had been carefully placed at the far end of the sofa. We had black leather sofas with a red-and-white carpet, red-and-white pillows and red-and-white curtains—my mother called it the “love theme” and had got the idea from Femina or True Love, I can’t remember which. I clung to that scatter cushion like it was the last place of safety.

  When an advert came on, Mama looked at me and said, “Do you know this Moipone girl?”

  I nodded, then cleared my throat. “A bit. I’ve . . . ” Here I looked at Basi and wondered what to say, but his eyes didn’t meet mine. “I sort of know her.”

  “Is she a friend of yours?” Mama asked. She leaned forward and put her wine glass on the coffee table.

  I looked at Basi again and still he didn’t look my way.

  “No . . . not really. Why?”

  “Why?” She sat back, folded her arms across her chest and cleared her throat. She glanced at Basi, at Papa, and then back at me. “I think she has strange fantasies.” She forced a brief and scornful laugh.

  Visibly taken aback, Basi looked at Mama. I think he didn’t know if he should smile or frown.

  “Fantasies?” I asked.

  Mama leaned forward, picked up her wine glass and held on to it as if it were a cup of hot chocolate on a winter night.

  “Yes. What she wishes would happen. She’s got ditori.”

  No one said anything as she took another sip of her wine, bangles chiming softly. She settled back into her seat.

  “Let me tell you, I’ve had a terrible evening. First, I saw Vera—”

  “The ghost?”

  “Yes, Naledi. The ghost. I was driving home from the shop, just coming onto the main street from lekeisheneng, and there she was, running across the road. This is the first time that I’ve seen her alone. I mean, I was alone. Not her, she’s always alone.”

  I shifted in my seat. Papa put off the volume on the TV as we all settled in to listen.

  “She came straight towards me. Usually, you know,” she looked at Papa, “she’s crossing. Last time we saw her she was crossing the road, going from one side to the other.”

  “And I heard she’s not always coming from the same side,” Papa added gravely. “It could be lekeishene or diEx. She just runs.” His finger flashed forward from behind his ear.

  “Yes. So there I was, focussed on the road—I wasn’t on my phone or anything—and I saw her coming towards me.” She pressed her hand to her forehead like she was trying to stop a headache. “I nearly had an accident. I nearly drove into someone’s house along the road. I was terrified. But as soon as I swerved, she was gone.”

  We all sat still and a rather sombre silence engulfed the room.

  “Whose child is that girl?” Mama spoke with empathy, more to herself than to any of us, but it made me think about the people who had loved a lost daughter.

  “Why is she called Vera?” I asked the room. “Does anyone know?”

  Papa cleared his throat and spoke in a quiet voice. “There was a woman named Vera many, many years ago. When the location was still coming up. She was very beautiful, as the story goes. She was striking. People say that she disappeared after going out to buy vegetables on a Sunday morning.”

  “Some say she was just going to the dustbin to throw something out,” said Basi.

  “And some say that she was killed in her own house, but the body was never found. Her husband cleaned the place until it was spotless. S
o she runs around looking to go back home. Looking to get a lift back home . . . or something like that.” Mama sighed and cupped her wine glass without taking a sip. She swished the wine around a bit and then closed her eyes as if trying to drown the thought.

  “But I was already driving with a heavy heart. I wonder if that’s what brought her to me. She senses sadness, some people claim. Anyway, I was driving back from the shop, where Johanna had told me that Five Bop had just told him that this Moipone girl is spreading lies about Basi. I mean, Basi, how well do you even know this girl?”

  She looked right at him and I saw sorrow in her eyes.

  Basi looked right back at her without flinching and said, “Only a little bit.”

  I involuntarily cleared my throat. My back felt cold.

  “Was she the one at the rugby match?” Papa recalled, narrowing his eyes.

  Basi nodded.

  “We’ve only seen her once, then?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “So it can’t be serious.”

  Basi clenched his jaw.

  “Hao! Then why is she saying these things? Rape? Rape? Whose child is she?” Mama said spitefully. This time, her words called into question the integrity of a family, and I remembered how, just moments earlier, she had talked about the people who had loved Vera. The difference was not at all subtle.

  Basi stood up and started walking out of the room.

  “Basimane, come back!” Papa’s voice roared. “Tell me something. What do you know about her?”

  Basi slid one hand into his pocket, leaned against the door frame and casually scratched his head.

  “Ummm . . . not much. She lives with her mother. She’s . . . she’s a nice girl, I guess.”

  I almost stood up. I turned abruptly and glared at him, but he didn’t look my way.

  Instead, he continued casually, “Ja. She’s very pretty.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean . . . I was just getting to know her.”

  “Sit down,” Papa demanded. “This is not to be taken lightly. If this girl is saying these things, we should listen. People can try to ruin what you have, who you are. When they do that, you should pay attention.”