Such a Lonely, Lovely Road

by Kagiso Lesego Molope

  Once we were in my flat, I took the food into the kitchen, and Sediba again walked to the window, as he had done that morning. My place looked out over the city and the beach so that in the mornings you could see the sun rising above the ocean, but at that hour of the night only the city lights were visible and the view was spectacular.

  Sediba said, “I guess this is what foreigners mean when they say it’s not the Africa they imagined.”

  Then, looking restless, he walked over to the music player and looked through the CDs. I stood watching, meaning to move but unable. He pressed the glass door of the music stand and then the button to see what was in the player. When he was done Boyz II Men came on, singing “Yesterday.”

  He started to laugh quietly, shaking his head. I had been fiddling with my keys and staring at the package with food as if it required a key to be opened, but now I stopped and watched him sitting on my coffee table, shoulders broad and his shirtsleeves revealing his toned arms. In my mind I could see the scar above his navel, the burn mark I had noticed years ago.

  I put down the keys and the bottle opener I had been holding in my right hand, and started making my way towards him. He didn’t turn around even as he heard my footsteps, which were slow as my body was now oddly relaxed and everything seemed to come to a complete standstill around us. I could smell lilacs as I got closer—either from his scent or from outside. Then I sat at his side and asked, “What’s so funny?”

  His eyes on the CD player, he said, “I can’t believe you still listen to this!”

  I laughed too, recalling high school days, December at Trunka’s house with the guys, lounging on the trimmed lawn or sitting on turned-over beer crates. I remembered how we’d play those early R&B songs until the tapes were scratched and sticky.

  Sediba said: “These guys! Remember that video? Shorts and ties? Eish, no man.”

  The sound of our laughter rose and then faded into the quiet of the room at the end of the song.

  I reached over and turned him towards me. He was serious when he looked at me, no longer thinking about the shorts and the ties. And I was the one who went forward first, thinking I’d kiss him gently but was surprised by the rush through my body, how much it felt like that first time, all-consuming and dizzying. His hand went to my waist and he pulled me in. When I drew my head back it wasn’t because I wanted to stop, but because it was all so powerful I had to take a breath, calm my racing heartbeat. And he seemed to understand because he said nothing, only resting his hands behind him on the coffee table, waiting. My palms were on my knees as I breathed in, my eyes closed.

  When I looked back, his eyes met mine and there was a gentle calmness about him that took me back to the younger man I used to spend evenings with, lying on my parents’ lawn drinking Coca-Cola from tall glasses and eating tea biscuits. I said: “Stay” and he kept his eyes on me, his expression not changing. So I took his hand and led him to my bedroom, where the windows were wide open and you could smell the sea breeze like we were two steps from the beach.

  When I put my palm on it, the skin under his t-shirt was smooth and warm. He was brushing his lips against my bare shoulder when I pulled his shirt up, and I stopped before it was all off, letting him kiss me some more, my body moving to the rhythm of the mood. I had never seen his whole body so bare and so close, yet whatever part I touched, held or moved my lips against felt familiar.

  Still, what we were doing—my teeth on his skin, his palm around my erection—was different from what I’d imagined in the many moments alone in my room at UCT or here in my bed when I could think of him without the guilt and old shame. Every time I had imagined something hurried and clumsy but this was nothing like that. Our lovemaking was slow and rhythmic, steady but uncontrolled. Sediba’s movements on top of me, while charged, were graceful. He had always had a powerful body and moved in it with confidence and deliberate, incredible skill. By then I thought of myself as a good lover or at least impressive enough. For me it was all about demonstrating your competence, showing off, and letting your lover see what you were good at. Sediba had a different idea of it. With him lovemaking mimicked the back and forth of a good conversation. He was interested in how I felt, what I wanted; the kind of lover who appreciated a response. And I found out that that was an intoxicating and wildly erotic thing: making love with someone who wants to look at you.

  I slipped away from everything I had known until then, my world suddenly making sense. Inside I was falling into a more peaceful place, a place I had spent many years looking to find. That night we were in bed for hours, kissing, caressing different parts of each other, slowly discovering, learning what the other wanted and then resuming our lovemaking. By the time the sun came up I was both achy and relaxed, wanting more and already regretting that he had to leave.

  It was dawn and my day off when Sediba started getting ready to go. The sun had not yet begun to warm the rooms and there was only a little bit of light coming in when I pulled back the curtains. He kissed me at the door holding my head in his hands, reluctant to let me go.

  “One more hour,” I begged between kisses.

  He stepped back inside and leaned against the wall near the door, head just beneath a photograph of Winnie and Madiba that I had bought in Cape Town from a dodgy-looking man reeking of weed.

  “Don’t say that, I’ll never leave.”

  “There’s a thought.”

  He threw his head back so that his laughter was so delightful I almost wanted to him to do it again. Then he patted in his pockets looking for his keys before he took my hand, saying: “Walk me to my car.”

  Durban was hot and humid, the air heavy with both sweet scents and stale odours. He had let go of my hand by the time we closed the door behind us. Distracted, I tried to get us back to easy conversation. “How’s the salon?” I asked.

  “Actually, it’s great. We’re doing really well, but I’m busy with something else.”

  “What’s new?” I asked him once we were inside the car. It felt more awkward here than it did inside the house. Maybe it was the anticipation of parting, knowing he would now be six hours away, and not knowing what would follow next.

  Sediba clasped both hands in his lap and said, “I see this guy sometimes, about starting my own product. You know how I was thinking about that before?”

  Of course, I remembered. “Ao! That’s grand, Jo!” I said, truly excited. “Wow, so it’s happening?”

  “Yes. I’m going to start coming here in about two weeks to start working on it.”

  “Sure, Jo. Wow. So . . . ”

  “So . . . ”

  He was now nervously running his finger along the outer edge of the steering wheel. “Ummm . . . look, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but last night was . . . well, I had a really great time.”

  I nodded and said, “Yah. It was. It was really great.”

  “So when will I see you?” he said, now bringing his face closer to me.

  Nervous, I took a breath. “OK.” he said “I don’t know. I mean, I remember you were never the kind of guy to be tied down . . . ”

  He was being playful, but I was embarrassed. This took us back to a time when I had my arm draped around a different girl every month, thinking only of myself, as if it didn’t matter—as if the girls didn’t have feelings. I looked away from him and through the tinted windows.

  His voice dipped slightly like he was not allowing himself to hope. “I don’t know, this may be a one-time thing for you . . . but, but I want to call you.”

  I turned to face him, wanting to say something to make him see that I was not like that anymore, that I wanted the same thing, but all I could say was: “No. Not a one-time thing.”

  He smiled delightfully and gave me a quick peck on the lips but I held his cheek and leaned in for a long kiss goodbye. “Call me,” I said.

  He
nodded, and bit his lip.

  Afterwards, as I stood outside his car I thought of how, if you were seeing us for the first time and your mind didn’t tend to think of two men or two women sleeping together, you would only guess that we were two friends or colleagues, nothing else. And as I watched him drive off and images of the night before danced around inside me and I stood a few steps away with my arms crossed and my legs far apart giving a slight, tense wave, who would have imagined that we had just spent all night tangled in each other’s arms and the bite marks on his lower back were from my teeth during lovemaking? I probably I looked like just another fit young man saying goodbye to his chum after a night of drinking beer and trading stories about women. I didn’t know if that was funny or sad.

  And my flat was different when I walked back into it. It smelled of things that had never been there before, things I wanted to keep. Never before had I had someone come to my place, let alone stay the night. It was as if I had crossed over to a new zone in adulthood and I very much wanted to hold on to it.

  It was my first weekend off in a long time and I spent it sleeping in and reading, exhausted from a very long week of work and wanting the time to pass quickly until the next time we saw each other. When I was not sleeping I lay in bed replaying our time together over and over in my head. My bed still had the scent of his body but it seemed to be fading with each passing hour. And when my mother phoned, I was transported to a different place and my lover’s presence felt like something I’d imagined.

  “I called you last night but you were not answering,” she sounded tired and anxious. Her voice was hoarse but I couldn’t say if it was from being sick or having just woken up.

  I took the phone to the sitting room and turned on the TV as I spoke to her, trying to calm myself down. The pleasures of the night before were long gone.

  “Did you just wake up?” I asked.

  She cleared her throat. “No, I feel like I’m getting a cold, I think. Listen, I was thinking, why don’t I come down to Durban this next weekend if you’re not working?”

  The sitting room was hot now, the sun having fully landed, its heat radiating off my walls and floors. I stood up and walked over to close the blinds half-way and then turned towards the kitchen, thinking maybe I could find myself something to eat.

  “Ah . . . I’m working next weekend actually,” I said finally.

  “What about the following weekend?”

  There was a pause. I pushed the glass in my hand against the fridge door and let it fill up with ice, aware that the machine was making too much noise for either one of us to speak. I hated lying to my mother, but I wanted first to see if Sediba could come and then I could leave the weekend open for him.

  “The whole weekend? You’re working the whole weekend?” My mother was also pouring herself some water on the other side.

  I put a cube of ice against my lips then moved my tongue around it, tempted to crush it with my teeth and make an irritating noise that would force her to let me off the line, but I only sucked it instead. Are we ever adults around our parents?

  “Mama . . . I may have some time off. Why don’t I let you know tomorrow? I’ll know my schedule better then.”

  She sighed with palpable relief. “OK, OK.”

  “You sound exhausted. Too much work at the shop?”

  “Agh . . . I should sell that place. It’s part of the problem. I’m always busy.”

  “Mama you love being busy.” I had never before heard her complain about being busy.

  “I do. I did. A woman shouldn’t be too busy for her home . . . for her marriage.”

  “Mama . . . ” I didn’t know what to say. It was so unlike her to make such an intimate statement that I felt as if I’d walked in on an adult conversation.

  There followed an uneasy pause as we were both trying to undo the previous minute. She surely regretted it, because the next thing her voice rose and she was almost cheerful when she said: “Haai man! Eish . . . tell me about you. What’s new? Hm? How’s the hospital?”

  I leaned back and proceeded to tell her about my patients. She always liked hearing about their personal stories while my father was more interested in their medical conditions. With my mother I had to mention that they had traveled from a distant rural village to the city, their children had hurt themselves while under someone else’s care, or their husbands seemed detached. That was what kept her engaged. So I kept talking about what I had found interesting, and the more I spoke the less she spoke, and the less she spoke the calmer I felt.

  I put down the phone thinking that under no circumstances did I want her to come for a visit—even though I couldn’t shake the feeling that coming to see me was some sort of life-line for her. But if I let her come, the things I kept hidden from her might come out, fierce beasts lunging at her, forcing us both to see who I was and what I wanted. My parents had not returned to my flat since they helped me move in. Whenever they visited Durban I went to meet them at their hotel or at a restaurant of their choice, where we sat together for a meal, happily pretending that my almost being a doctor was the only thing worth talking about. I feared at these times that we might have a run-in with a man I had been with, a knowing look might pass between us, exposing to my parents this other life.

  At work Andrew was quick to remark that he’d noticed a change in me. We were three days away from the weekend and it would be another two days before Sediba returned. Andrew and I were sitting with some students behind the new wing of the hospital building in the area designated “Staff Only.” While I was enjoying a break from the rain and the burst of sunshine, my thoughts were terribly scattered. I only caught bits and pieces of what Andrew was grumbling about.

  “I mean, it’s weird, you know? In America I was just considered black. No one ever, even for a second, called me anything else. And . . . here I’m called Coloured.” I could see Sediba’s arm across my midriff. “It’s such a mess . . . ” There was Sediba’s grin, his eyes narrowing when he laughed. I was impatient for him to be back. Even as we kept in close touch, calling each other every night, he seemed farther and farther away as the days went by and I felt more and more irritable.

  “My dad told me all the time. He said: ‘In my country, I don’t see anyone thinking you’re just Black.’”

  I must have looked as anxious as I felt because Andrew stopped speaking and took a forkful off my plate, which startled me because it was so out of character. We were not the kind of friends who shared anything but a lift from home to work and a beer once in a while. I looked up in surprise. He was happily chewing a mouthful of my green beans and smiling, his eyes daring me to get annoyed. When I didn’t say anything he said: “Dude, if you’re not gonna eat it, someone should.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “I was . . . actually, I was going to eat that and I am a bit distracted, I’m sorry.”

  “I know I’m talking with food in my mouth,” Andrew couldn’t help apologizing for himself, something I was not at all used to, having gone to school with some of the most arrogant guys I knew. “My mom would be pissed. Eating and talking is one of her pet peeves.”

  “I’ve never heard anyone say that before: ‘pet peeves’?”

  “Yeah, it means things you absolutely can’t stand, like bad restaurants or constant misuse of apostrophes.”

  We both laughed but Andrew now pushed away his plate and folded his arms, looking at me with a slight frown, as though I were a puzzle he was trying to put together.

  “Now, back to you. Why aren’t you eating?”

  “Oh,” I picked up my fork now and regained my interest in my food. “I must have had too much for breakfast.” I steadily avoided his eyes.

  “Mmm-hmm.” I started to fidget.

  “I’ve noticed a change in you this week. You’re cheerful, something I’ve never known you to be.”

 
“Oh, come on!” I snapped. I was annoyed, because I had always thought of myself as quite a joyful person in spite of everything. If I had been good at anything so far in my life it was putting on a good face. I could get rowdy with friends when all I wished for was to curl up and cry in a corner. I could laugh at jokes that sounded like thinly veiled contempt about my sexuality. I was good at being jolly.

  But Andrew’s inquisition remained undeterred.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking,” he leaned forward and started to whisper. “Either you’re in love or you’re just plain gettin’ some.” He laughed heartily either at his observation or at his impression of a southern American accent. |

  “Ha! You’re mad then,coming up with bizarre theories. Come on.” I widened my eyes, tried to look incredulous. “I am stunned, my friend. Stunned! I’ll have you know I’m in a good mood because my mother just said she’s coming to visit in a few months,” I lied. “She doesn’t travel very much anymore, so this is big. But thank you for giving me a life I don’t have.” I forced a laugh and stood up to throw my brown paper wrapper into the dustbin. I had had this feeling before, this fear that someone was on to me, that they were aware, and it made me feel as if I were slipping into the ocean and there was nothing to hold on to. People had cornered me—I remembered my high school friend Beast in particular and his low voice, his icy and determined stare—and I had felt as if I were losing ground. It was best to walk away, I had learnt. You didn’t stare down the inquirers because it made you look defensive, but you also didn’t stay and fidget. You laughed and walked away, you pretended they’d just told you that in spite of the research, they actually did believe the earth was flat. You made them look silly, not yourself.

  But Andrew was different. Whereas guys like Beast had maintained their stare and stood firm, Andrew laughed with me and followed me, saying as he walked past me, “I bet I’m not wrong.”