by J. L. Powers
I stumble out of the hut, Gogo’s muthi clutched tight in my hands. Perhaps the words Inkosikazi Nene spoke to me should fill me with confidence. But they don’t. How could anybody think that I can stop a powerful witch? A witch with an army of zombies working for her?
CHAPTER SIX
VISITING LITTLE MAN
Instead of going straight home, I head towards Little Man’s house, cutting through a corner alley behind Mama Thambo’s shebeen. The blue light of the television spills out through the open door, where two men are lighting up and smoking dagga. The sweet odor drifts towards me. Inside, men and women are cheering for Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s soccer team.
I wander past, ignoring the cat calls from the men standing outside. I’m deep in thought about what the sangoma told me. Usually, a visit to the sangoma is so comforting—either there’s nothing wrong or she can help you fix it. But today…
When I look up, I can already see Little Man’s yellow matchbox from a distance, crowded up against the houses next to it. His mother is growing a garden in the front yard; the corn looks like it’s ready to harvest.
Despite the worry over the witch, my stomach clenches in excitement at the thought of seeing him. I’ll pass by slowly, just once, I tell myself. Maybe he’ll be outside so I can say hi.
Seeing Little Man will make me feel better, I realize, even as I think, Gogo would kill me if she knew about this.
When I reach Little Man’s gate, his dogs run out, howling in greeting. The gate swings open and Little Man strolls out, whistling, winking at me like he knows I’m coming by to see him.
Anyway, I’ve gotten my wish and my heart leaps so far, it might as well have taken a fast airplane flight all the way to Zimbabwe.
While I’m trying to snatch it back from wherever it went, Little Man says, “Hey wena Khosi, what are you doing here?”
“I was just passing by,” I gasp.
“Where were you going?”
Now I have to find an excuse. I never pass by his house except with my family on our way to church. “I was just at Thandi’s,” I say, pointing in the direction of her house. But of course, my house is in the wrong direction to come this way. He’s going to know I wandered by this way just to see him. Oh, my God, how embarrassing.
I’m getting hot and itchy. I’m hoping he’ll ignore the fact that I wouldn’t normally pass his house. I point to the wrapped newspaper full of Mama’s muthi. “I’m just out getting some few small things for my gogo.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “My gogo sends me to the sangoma’s house to get muthi, too.”
We’re silent while I think of something to say. At school, my other friends help carry the conversation so there are no awkward silences.
I ask the first thing that comes to mind. “Have you ever gone to a sangoma when you were sick?”
He shakes his head no. His tightly coiled dreads reach to his shoulders and swing with the movement of his head. I like them. No, I love them.
“We go to the doctor if we’re sick,” he says. “That sangoma medicine, it’s all superstition and lies.”
All those warm fuzzy feelings I have for him dry up in defensiveness. I don’t want to argue with him, but I can’t keep my mouth shut. “These herbs really help my grandmother with her arthritis.”
“I bet doctors have some medicine for your gogo’s arthritis that will help her a lot more than a bunch of old herbs.”
“But herbs are natural, not like the medicine you get from doctors,” I protest.
“Do you really believe in all that ancestor stuff?” Little Man asks.
“You don’t?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what I think.”
“I believe in it.” I lower my voice, as though Gogo and Mama are listening in, even though they’re nowhere around. Since Mama doesn’t believe in things like that and Gogo does, I can’t talk about it without offending somebody.
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve seen some things. And at the end of the day, I couldn’t explain them.”
“Like what?” he asks.
I think about everything that has happened in the last two days—the witch who told me she was coming for me and nothing could stop her, the drunken man who changed into a crocodile and then back into a man right before my very eyes. Did I just dream his sudden transformation? And that’s another thing—the dreams I’ve been having, dreams so real it feels like I exist in two worlds at the same time.
But I don’t know how to tell these stories to anybody else without sounding crazy. So I just shake my head.
“I thought you loved science,” Little Man says. “Aren’t you making the highest marks in biology?”
I nod. “I think it’s interesting to learn about the human body. I like learning about diseases and how people cure them.”
I don’t really know how to explain how I feel about biology—like I belong somehow. It’s as if everything I learn, I already knew, somewhere deep inside, but biology gives me the words I need to talk about it. At the same time, I know there are things it can’t explain about the human body. Maybe that should be a scary thing, but it’s actually comforting. At the end of the day, we still need God.
“But you still believe in witches and ancestors? Scientists say those things don’t exist. So if you love science, how can you believe in those things?”
“I just think there’s a lot science can’t explain,” I say. “Maybe someday we’ll understand how it all fits together, but as for now…no matter how much we know, it’s still a mystery.”
He swipes up my heart with his smile. “That’s what I like about you, Khosi,” he says. “You always say just what you think.”
I wish that was true! Little Man sees me with different eyes than the ones I use to judge myself.
Little Man leans forward and whispers, like we’re in some conspiracy, “Okay, if I was dying, I’d go to the sangoma. What would I have to lose? It might help and it won’t hurt. My gogo swears by it and I love my gogo.”
Somehow I don’t think my gogo would like it if she knew a young man was grinning at me like this. But I’m so glad, I’m bursting. Maybe… maybe…maybe Little Man likes me, too.
“Have you ever heard the joke about the woman who went to see a sangoma because her daughter-in-law had cast an evil spell on her?” he asks.
“No.”
“Yeah, the old lady had been cursed with so much toe jam, her feet were stinking like—whew!—a chicken’s arse.”
Now we’re both laughing. But soon the laughter turns into what-do-I-say-next awkwardness.
Little Man kicks at the dust with his flip-flops.
“Are you watching the Bafana Bafana game?” I ask.
“Sis man, it’s as if you think I’m not South African,” he says. “Of course I’m watching! In fact, I’m missing the game because I came outside to talk to you.”
When he says that, it feels like I’m dropping from the top of a tall building and falling fast towards concrete. I’m reluctant to leave but if he really wants to be watching the game instead…“I can’t stay. I need to go home.”
“I’ll walk you,” he says, quick quick, and my heart leaps again, hurtling forward, fast like a cheetah.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to keep you from watching the game,” I say, wishing immediately that I hadn’t opened my mouth. Of course, I want him to walk me home. I just don’t want him to feel obligated.
“You live five minutes away,” he says. “I won’t miss much.”
But there’s a bigger problem. “Gogo might be angry if she sees me with a boy.”
“I could put on my mother’s skirt and we could pretend I’m a girl. But Mama’s so much fatter than me, I don’t think it would stay up.” He grins at me. “I’d walk through the streets of Imbali, showing everybody my underwear.”
I can’t help laughing. Little Man is as skinny as a hyena. Who cares if a man is skinny? It’s women that should be nice and fat in order to grow babies.
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“Anyway, I’ll see you in school on Monday,” I say, smiling at him. “Bye, Little Man.”
“Bye, Khosi,” he says. He pauses for a second, and then adds, “It was really fun talking to you. Thanks for coming by.”
Oh my God, I’m so happy to hear that! On the way home, I can’t help it—I dance the toyi-toyi, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and shaking my fist in the air. When people see me, they wave their fists in response and call out, “Amandla! Power!”
“Awethu!” I wave back and toyi-toyi, winding my way through the maze of streets that make up Imbali.
The cell phone rings, interrupting my dance. It’s Gogo, wondering where I am.
“I’m coming now now,” I say, hanging up just as somebody grabs me from behind with the crook of his arm.
The cell phone flies through the air and lands in the dirt.
I start screaming.
“Shut up,” the drunk man says, rough, choking me with one arm, forcing all sound back into my throat. He holds me firm against him, his body curving around mine, his fingers brushing against my neck, scaly and cold.
Crocodile skin.
God, please please help me.
I struggle against his arm, kicking at his leg—all the time, gulping at air, the way I imagine I would if I flew up, up, up, so high that oxygen disappears. Black light creeps up over my eyes, blocking the world out, but not before I see his face looming over me as I crash onto the packed dirt road.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAMA’S GUMPTION
“This drunk man I saw sitting at the tuck shop the other day just attacked me,” I tell Mama and Gogo. They are sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea, the door open to provide a breeze.
Mama inspects the red marks on my arms where he grabbed me. My head aches, but I don’t know if it was the choking or falling that caused it. He touched my neck. The neck is the place of anger. If somebody touches you there, they want you to die. He is that angry with me. But why? What did I do to him, except refuse to let him be my sugar daddy?
I don’t mention the way his skin felt, like crocodile skin—Mama would scoff at me if I said anything—but I wonder: Could he be a sorcerer? There’s something evil about him. Something more than just a drunk man.
“Men!” Mama rages. “They think they can just get away with anything.”
“But what are we going to do, Elizabeth?” Gogo rocks back and forth on her chair, one of the legs wobblier than the others. “There are drunk men everywhere.”
“That is true. But this drunk man attacked our daughter.”
“Do we know this man, Khosi?” Gogo asks. “Do we know his family?”
I shake my head. “But lately, he is always at the tuck shop around the corner.”
“What is happening to us?” Gogo sips her tea and looks out the open door, her eyes distant, seeing nothing in front of her. “In the past, it was always the men who protected the community. And now, they are the ones we must fear.”
She reaches out and grabs my hand, her eyes focusing on mine. “You must be careful, Khosi,” she says. “Not just with this man, but with every man, especially if they are drunk.”
I nod even though this is something I already know.
“I am not going to sit here and scold my girls to be more careful.” All Mama’s anger gives her sudden energy. “Come with me, Khosi! We’re going to pay this little coward a visit.”
She grabs my hand and, like two determined crazy women, we march out the door and down the street. Actually, Mama’s the mad woman and I’m lagging behind, wishing I hadn’t told her who attacked and robbed me.
“Don’t go so fast, Mama.” I hope maybe she’ll turn around and we’ll go back to the house and pretend this never happened.
She glances at me, quick quick, then turns back to the road. “Why didn’t you fight him off?” Her voice, demanding.
“I tried.” Now the tears are spilling down my face. Why is Mama blaming me for something I couldn’t help? “He surprised me. I wasn’t prepared.”
“Izzit?” She slows down so that I’m beside her. She reaches out with a rough hand and wipes the tears from my face. It stings where she touches me. “You didn’t try hard enough,” she says.
“He was stronger than me,” I protest. “He was choking me!” I point to the red marks on my neck, where he held me with the crook of his arm.
Now she gets up in my face, fierce and unrelenting. “And next time, he could rape you or kill you. Is that what you want?”
There’s nothing to say. I can’t tell Mama that he had animal strength. So I just look at the dirt, to avoid Mama’s accusing gaze.
“You must learn to notice what’s going on around you and defend yourself.”
I open my mouth to protest, then remember how I wasn’t noticing anything when he attacked me. I was just too happy about Little Man.
“Very soon, you are going to need more courage than ever before,” she says. She reaches out again and wipes more tears from my face, her touch still harsh but this time, there’s a gentleness behind it. “Don’t ever let yourself be a victim, Khosi.”
I wonder why Mama thinks I’m going to need courage? I’m too afraid to ask. And why is she blaming me for getting attacked? This is a new side to Mama.
The man is sitting on his bucket in front of the tuck shop, his eyes closed, his head nodding as he sleeps.
“Is that the man?” she asks me.
“Yes, Mama.” I hope she doesn’t make too much trouble for me. If she humiliates him publicly, what will he do to me the next time he catches me alone?
Mama snorts. “Him?” she asks again. “That tiny man?”
I nod, ashamed. He has surprising strength, I want to say, like a crocodile’s.
Mama doesn’t hesitate. She strides over, slapping him so hard, he falls off the bucket and lands in the dirt.
When he looks up, startled, Mama swoops down, grips his shirt, and shoves him back down.
Our eyes meet. His, coal-black and hard. You’ll regret this, they say.
“Shame on you,” Mama screams.
His eyes dart around, looking for something. A weapon, perhaps? An escape? He grips the earth, his fingertips curling around a clod of dirt.
Mama’s firm hand presses him down. “Are you such a big man, to go around preying on young girls? Do you think you’re so tough?” she yells.
The old man flicks his gaze toward me. “Is she your little protector?” he asks, contemptuous, like I’m Zi’s age and need an adult to fight my battles.
I guess he’s right. He knows he can’t say a thing to Mama, so he goes for the weak one here—me.
“Khosi doesn’t need my protection,” Mama says. She lets go of him and wipes her hand on her skirt, as if his shirt made her hand dirty. “People will be watching you now. You won’t bother her again.”
Maybe Mama’s certain of that, but when she turns her head to look at the small crowd that’s gathered to watch this crazy woman beat up a man, he winks at me.
I suck in my breath. I knew it. I knew this could create trouble for me. Mama’s gone all week long, and that’s when I will have to face this man.
“If I hear you’ve done anything to her—” Mama shakes her finger at him and gestures at me to leave. “Believe me, you will wish you hadn’t.”
I wish that made me feel safe. But it doesn’t.
As we walk away, I sneak a look backwards. The drunk man is just sitting on his bucket, laughing silently. At me.
If I were as strong and brave as my mother, he’d leave me alone. But I’m not. Even as Mama says, “He’ll leave you alone now, Khosi,” fear splits my heart right down the middle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE LIGHTNING BIRD
I tell Gogo all about the sangoma visit as we take Mama’s freshly washed clothes off the line in the backyard. The air is growing hot and heavy with rain that wants to fall but doesn’t.
“Khosi, why does it rain?” Zi asks, interrupting my
conversation with Gogo. She’s tracing the cracks in the cement with her fingers.
“You see, the sky is a man,” I say. “And the earth is a woman. When it rains, he’s sending his seed to the earth, so the earth can give birth to all the plants that feed us.”
“So the sky and the earth are married?” Zi screws up her face at me.
I laugh with her. “Yes. And when the sky is angry with his wife for something she said, he punishes her by withholding his seed. And then the earth grows cracked and dry and infertile and pleads with her husband, ‘I am a foolish woman, with a terrible temper. Please forgive me and send rain so I can be fertile and beautiful once again.’”
We hear the distant rumbles of thunder. It worries me. We never have lightning storms this time of year.
“And thunder?” Zi asks. “Why does it thunder?”
“Even God above has this thing of anger,” Gogo says as we hurry inside with the last basket of clothes.
Auntie Phumzile and her girls arrive just as I fold the last skirt. “You’re lucky we finished so you don’t have to help,” I tell my cousin Beauty.
Mama comes out of the bedroom and everybody crowds into the dining room. Beauty and I go into the kitchen to cook phuthu and beef—a treat that Auntie has brought—and Beauty tells me all the secrets she’s saved up since last week.
“I have a boyfriend,” she giggles.
“Izzit?” It seems sometimes that the whole world has a boyfriend, except me. I just want one, that’s all. “Does Auntie know?”
The look she gives me makes me feel stupid. Of course, Auntie’s just as ignorant about Beauty’s boyfriend as Mama is about Little Man.
“I like someone too,” I confide, looking at the carrots I’m chopping instead of looking at Beauty.
“Does he know you like him?” Beauty asks
“He must,” I say. “I don’t think I hide it very well.”
“Shame. You shouldn’t let a man know you like him, not until he asks you out.” When Beauty shakes her head at me, her long lovely plaits linger on her shoulders, caressing her before they tumble down her back.
