Petite and with a droopy resignation to gravity, her mahogany body seemed barely able to carry the enormity of her spirit without her ribcage threatening to splinter with each laboured breath Phumla took. Hers was a losing battle against the sweltering November Cape heat, failing as she was to swat the lantern-eyed, nefarious carrion flies off the fresh offal she sold every weekend, at the taxi rank near Khayelitsha Mall. Consistent with that time of the year, it was a Sunday buzzing with activity: from the shuffling feet of domestic workers scurrying to catch taxis at 5:00 am to their madams’ houses, to the ZCC members dressed like God’s private army, and walking to their newly erected tent a good 60 km west. A bunch of millennials migrated from Aces’ in varying degrees of hangover, clad in last night’s crop tops, torn skinny jeans and patent leather heels for the girls, and camo pants, biker jackets and All-Stars for the boys.
Methodist women in their red, black, and white uniforms, accessorised with King James’ version bibles, would soon start marching purposefully past her around 8:00 am, some passing greetings, as others mumbled amongst themselves about sinners who insisted on working on ‘the Lord’s day.’
None of these types ever stopped by her 3m by 1m table ─right next to the barber’s─ despite her best efforts to holler ‘Speshel! Nice meat for Sunday kos!’ at the top of her lungs, in that shrill voice that used to fill the town hall in her days as a rising rural gospel singer. That, of course, was a lifetime ago, and best left forgotten…
“Ola, sisteri!” greeted a roguish-looking youth with a Nike-shaped scar spotlighting his protruding forehead. He cleared his throat melodically to rouse her attention, ushering her back from a vision that seemed to have left her eyes vacant and her ears deaf.
“A R20 piece of liver, tu,” he said, handing her a crumpled brown note he had rescued from the pocket of his tattered denim jeans.
She greeted him apologetically, yanking herself back to the present to tend to his order with a compensatory proficiency of a waitress who’d just messed up orders on her first day of work. On the contrary, Phumla had been selling raw offal to neighbouring households and fire-grilled entrails and liver to taxi drivers and sundry for the past seven years. ‘Binnegoed’ was the widely used Afrikaans colloquialism for the kind of meat she traded, the meat that found its way to the delicatessen list of low-income households. Poorer cuts that butchers used to sell ‘cheap, cheap, mama!’ before they caught on to the townships’ demand for such…
Not that she hadn’t dreamed of a bigger, better life for herself. Selling offal was a far cry from singing on world stages. She’d craved neon lights and dazzling billboards with her name written in bold for the world to see. Instead, she spent her days cringing at the thought of people who knew her from Jo’burg stumbling upon her in that sorry state.
Suddenly aware that she was drifting off again, she glanced at the scar-faced man staring at her with a wiry smile.
“You look very familiar,” he said.
“I’m here every day, from 7 in the morning,” she answered.
“No, I mean maybe from a magazine. TV?” He squinted his eyes to channel a memory which failed to manifest and finally gave up when all he got from her was a blank stare.
The last thing Phumla needed was someone digging up the past she was determined to leave buried.
“You’re obviously mistaken,” she said with abrupt finality.
With practised finesse, she took out her carving knife, and glided it through the bloody mess of flesh to adroitly carve a R20 piece the size of two adult hands, blew at the coals in her braai stand to awaken their embers, and rolled the piece of meat in a reddish, nondescript seasoning. She threw this swiftly onto the braai stand before placing a large piece of blubber on top of it to keep the meat hydrated during the flame-grilling process.
The hissing, sizzling sound it produced harmonised well with the hooting of fast-paced, overloaded minibus taxis, loud, thumping stereos, and the deafening ring of the first church bell of the day.
“Nearly done,” she assured the scar-faced man, who was licking his ample bottom lip while watching the aromatic meat with avid anticipation. Phumla soon lifted it from the fire with a pair of tongs, wrapped it in a piece of newspaper, and handed it to her grateful customer with a courteous smile. “Enkosi,” she curtsied, wiping her greasy fingers on the stained floral apron that accentuated her hourglass figure instead of covering her grey dress. The man walked away, making sure to steal a glance back in her direction when he was sure she was too occupied to catch him.
Grateful as she was to her late aunt who’d bequeathed her this business, Phumla had difficulty suppressing the feeling that she was a failure. The descent from being a member of Glorious Revival─the country’s biggest commercial gospel choir─to being an informal food vendor at a township taxi rank had dealt an irrevocable blow to her self-esteem. Nkabinde had chewed her up, sucked the marrow from her bones, and spit her out, ending her future and altering the course of her life permanently.
2:00 pm. The equivalent of rush hour in the township. Sunday afternoons often turned the taxi rank into a mass, bursting with activity. Those who weren’t rushing back to the city to their domestic quarters in white people’s houses, where they served as house servants, were shuffling off to Sunday chill sessions at the shebeen. The loud kwaito music would drown their complaints about the rising food prices and soothe the emptiness induced by their ever-rising financial woes. Sundays were also for ‘Seven Colours’ ─the township-style Sunday lunch spread, aptly named for the variety of colours in such elaborate offerings as to only appear on the table on ‘The Lord’s Day.’ These included the dark maroon of beetroot, the green of cabbage and spinach, the orange of carrots and butternut, the brown of meat stew, the white of rice, the yellow of grilled maize, and the cream/off-white of potato salad with mayonnaise.
The thought made her long for home. She knew, though, that there was nothing left there for her, especially with her son coming to join her. Instead, she’d have to create that feeling for him. Fill her house with such magical smells that passers-by would mistake it for a professional watery. Most importantly, she secretly hoped Lihle would love her cooking as much as her customers loved her meat. This would be the first milestone in bridging the rift between them.
She imagined herself having to chastise him for chewing with his mouth open, imagined the boy relishing the flavours of her spicy chicken, and licking his fingers in appreciation.
About a dozen middle-aged women walked past the stall, chattering animatedly and giggling, between proclamations of ‘Praise the Lord!’ One stopped to purchase R80 worth of tripe. Another, some grilled sheep intestines “…for my husband…”
The tripe was easy to prepare. Its fleecy texture brushed against her hand softly, she dug her nails into it and tore off some fat with her other hand. Her hands were covered in a mixture of blood and dung, which she wiped off with the decaying dishcloth she kept near the grill.
“Don’t forget to include ibhayibhile,” the woman reminded her, pointing to a piece of tripe with multiple folds that was popularly compared to the pages of the Bible, perhaps for how tightly stacked and voluminous its ‘pages’ seemed. There was no guessing how or when this cut of meat had derived this name. Phumla chuckled at the irony of a devout Christian using this reference, wondering if God approved of his word being devoured.
She wrapped the first parcel up in newspaper, put it in a plastic bag, and handed it over to the woman who’d been eyeing her suspiciously the entire time, determined to catch her out if she cheated her of her money’s worth.
“Thank you,” the elderly woman finally said, handing over the money.
Phumla sunk her hand into the tub at her feet, fishing out a tangle of gore which she cut at about half a metre. Squeezing the tubular flesh between her thumb and forefinger, she aided the now-butchered animal’s posthumous peristaltic movements, by running the string of flesh between those two fingers from one end to the other, ejecting the digestive waste onto a piece of newspaper. Repeating this action a few times ensured that the meat was ready for preparation. Phumla washed it in a bucket of water set aside for this purpose. The trick was to always leave a bit of bile to give the meat a bitter taste and season it with coarse salt and the brown-red spice that kept her customers coming back for more. The embers of her grill were quick to convert the stuff into a spicy meal, its bile and barbeque fragrance soon overpowering the pungent dung fumes, engulfing the air and announcing the completion of that process. Her customer was happy to hand over her money.
“Papa’s gonna be very happy with his present,” teased a younger woman.
“Praise the Lord!” cheered the rest of the group mockingly.
“Hopefully he’ll offer Mama some small meat too, in exchange.” The women gasped at the crude remark, made by a buxom woman with a wig underneath her black doek.
There were some giggles amidst the gasps. The cheeks of the woman who was subject to the teasing had turned very similar in colour to the stuff inside the tub at Phumla’s feet.
Mortified, she sucked her teeth at the others and shook her head in an exaggerated show of disgust, breaking into the last line of the hymn they’d sung upon arrival: ‘Was Blind but now I see…’ The rest took up the ‘mama-mama/ mama-mama’ hum, the one with the wig stepping forth and extending the song with zealous jubilation in her improvised ecstasy of high notes and rhythmic clapping.
“Yes, father…you delivered me from sin/Hallelujah! Thank you, Father. Amen/
Said I once was lost but now I’m found/Was blind as a bat but now I see!”
The lump in Phumla’s throat threatened to block her breathing completely, causing her head to feel dizzy. It was all too familiar a feeling, and she was doing a lousy job at quelling it. The last thing she needed was to experience an episode at the taxi rank. Nobody knew that side of her there, and she was determined to keep it that way. The last thing she wanted was to go into a trance and speak in tongues at the taxi rank. No. She’d left all of that behind in Ngqamakhwe.
Not that it hadn’t followed her to Jo’burg. It was her anointing that highlighted her to Nkabinde on the afternoon of her audition.
“Next!” he’d shouted impatiently.
In walked a knock-kneed rural girl with over-processed relaxed hair the colour of burnt butternut, hardly able to withstand the man’s appraisal, as he stared at her and instructed her to stop wasting his time and sing. Having gotten off to a jittery start, it was in the second verse that ‘The Spirit’ had taken over. All Phumla could remember was the onset: the urge to take off her high heels, stomp her feet against the wooden floor, belting out a sonorous offering that reverberated through the walls of the hall and left everyone around her in awe. She’d later hear from the other contestants that she’d received a standing ovation, a glass of water from Linda, and an instant offer to tour with the choir…
A part of her was envious as Phumla mused over how carefree the church women seemed. Religion had that effect on people: soothing the pain of their daily adversities, and immersing them in the spirit of worship enough to convince them of a better day that lay somewhere on the approaching horizon. If only she still had room for such fanciful fables in her concept of reality. Instead, she worried daily about paying rent for her one-roomed shack, sending money back home to Ngqamakhwe for her son, Thembelihle’s schooling, and saving up so that she could renovate her parents’ house one December in the near future. All these ambitions rested haphazardly on the back of her struggling offal business! What good was a god who looked on from heaven while she suffered down here in Site B and expected tithes from her meagre earnings instead of blessing her with good fortune? Hay’ suka!
Blasphemous though her disdain for the church, her heart skipped a beat when the women broke into that impromptu rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’. It took everything to galvanize herself against the bursting waves rising from the pit of her stomach, piercing her heart with their intensity and threatening to erupt through her lungs and out her mouth in song. This particular song had once meant so much to her.
Fourteen years ago, she had been a starry-eyed nineteen-year-old rural girl, escaping the sense of mediocrity threatening to engulf her future. Determined not to succumb to a fate of arranged marriage and rapid child-bearing, she was certain there was more for her ‘out there’. More than singing in the church choir every Sunday to please her clergyman father who held her to impossible standards of virtue.
Daring to defy her father’s rule, she made a plan to steal off with a truck driver to the ‘City of Gold’ at midnight. Seduced with gold-plated trinkets and boxes of fragrant fried chicken he brought her from town, she’d been certain that a life of opulence awaited her. The fried chicken was an indicator of wealth to a girl only accustomed to seeing it at Christmas. One whose staple diet of samp and beans ─umnqusho was occasionally accompanied by a stew of curried tripe on the days the parishioners were generous with their offerings, and her father, Reverend Mathebula, equally benevolent in the budget he gave his wife to cover the month’s groceries.
Even on her last night under her father’s roof, she had hummed ‘Amazing Grace’ as she stood at the kitchen sink, scraping dried lard off the pot before washing the dishes.
“You’re in a good mood,” her mother smiled.
“Praise the Lord!” she’d replied, her voice chirpy and gait sprightly, as she moved through the small kitchen collecting dishes and depositing them into the greasy, lukewarm water.
She’d carried on like that much to her mother’s amusement, giving the house what only she knew was her final salutation…
As the women disappeared behind the supermarket, her phone rang.
“Hello?” she answered, surprised. It was her son, chattering excitedly as soon as she’d greeted him.
“Mama, ndim uLihle,” he identified himself, much to her assurances that no assistance was necessary to decode that mystery. It gave her goosebumps to hear him referring to her as his mother. A tear trickled down her left cheek.
“Uncle Sandile is driving to Cape Town on the school holidays and has agreed to take me with him. Grandma and Grandpa have agreed and I will be there in seven days. Can’t wait!” the thirteen-year-old enthused.
“Wow. Okay” was all she managed to say. She’d always imagined she would fetch him when her living conditions had improved. Not for the first time, she admitted a sense of failure. Had she not promised herself that Lihle would come home to a house where he had his own bedroom, a TV, and a wardrobe filled with new clothes? Instead, he was sure to arrive in seven days and find her renting a derelict shack in somebody else’s backyard. If only life had not insisted on wiping the floor with her dreams!
***
That night’s sleep was particularly troubled. She was back in Joburg, having just joined the country’s biggest commercial gospel choir. Shutting the door of her bedroom, she slipped out of the corseted orange and brown dress she’d worn for that afternoon’s performance. The door flung open without a knock. It was the creative director of the choir, Mr Nkabinde. The lustful glare in his eyes confirmed the uneasy feeling she always registered around him. He stood at her door expectantly and inched in towards her before she had time to ask what he was doing in her room. Her protestations muffled by the palm of his fat hand falling squarely across her face. His stubby fingers traced their way around her trembling body. She begged but he persisted, assuring her that all the other girls had given him what he wanted when the time had come, as should she. Did she think she was special, a rural whore that she was? No! He was the boss, and this would guarantee her a solo in two weeks. Besides, all the other girls had stayed behind at the hall in Nasrec…
Phumla woke up wishing to die as she had thirteen years ago; only this time, she was alone in a shack in Khayelitsha instead of a flat in Loveday Street, Jo’burg. And there was no Linda to comfort her and tell her it wasn’t worth reporting Nkabinde because none of the girls who had done so had gotten any justice. This time she was alone. And older. A mother to a boy she had spent thirteen years convincing herself to love, despite his albatross status hovering over her past. A boy she had named for her hope for a better day that she was not brave enough to admit was too idealistic to ever materialise. Yes, her son would soon arrive and force her to confront the resemblance, which she dreaded to admit, he bore to the beast who had forcefully sired him. An afternoon that she had almost succeeded in convincing herself had never occurred until consistent bouts of morning sickness had persuaded her to purchase a home pregnancy test and finally visit a clinic 5months later. Just as it had been too late for a termination, it was too late to dissuade Lihle against the impending visit. Phumla was overwrought with guilt as these thoughts sent a hollowing pain through her heart, more acute than birthing contractions had been to her body.
Hoping to escape the wagging tongues of the villagers, she’d arrived after midnight with the wailing infant. Her mother’s crestfallen expression was the first unwelcoming sign, as Phumla had limped towards the woman, kneeling before her and weeping bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” she had pleaded, handing her the child, whom Mrs Mathebula took reluctantly.
“Is this how we raised you?” the old woman had cried.
There was no befitting reply, so Phumla continued to cry.
“What’s going on here?” her father had said in a grave voice, shuffling into the lounge with his walking stick clawing the dung-polished cement floor.
“Mfazi, what unholy gathering is this? Are you in cahoots with the witches of this village?”
The joke fizzled and evaporated in the air the moment he saw her. It looked as if he were having a stroke, the way he froze with his mouth agape staring at her and the bundle in his wife’s arms in horror.
“Get this abomination out of my house,” he said in a frightening growl.
“Tata, please–”
“You lost the right to call me that when you left my house without my blessing,” he sneered, using his stick to punctuate his fury.
Neither Phumla nor her mother could placate the Reverend. Instead, he got up and returned with salt from his bedroom, which he threw at her as if she were an ungodly apparition.
The baby started to cry, further infuriating its grandfather.
“Get that little devil and its mother out of my house now!” he shouted at his wife.
The commotion startled the dogs, whose barking was sure to bring the neighbours knocking.
It was Uncle Sandile, Phumla’s mother’s brother that managed to placate his irate in-law.
“Let the girl rest overnight. I’ll take her with me when I leave for Cape Town in the morning”, he reasoned.
“Cape Town?” his sister shrieked.
“Yes, to Cousin Ruth. She’s struggling to find reliable help for her business,” he said.
Ruth was an aunt Phumla had only met once. Her mother’s junior by five years. Hers was one of those names you didn’t mention without hearing about hell being the dowry of sinners and harlots. Her biggest sin? Escaping an arranged marriage and moving to the city, turning her back on her people. The last time she’d returned had been to bury her father when Phumla was ten. The girl had been justifiably intrigued by her aunt’s startling similarity to her own mother and was immediately taken by her permed hair, gold earrings, and tight dresses.
“They deserve each other. Take both the girl and her spawn there,” said Reverend Mathebula.
“No!” shouted his otherwise soft-spoken wife.
The silence that followed was deadly. Not once had she ever stood up to him.
“You dare raise your voice in my house?” the man asked incredulously.
“The child stays!” she said unflinchingly.
“Over my dead body,”
“Don’t tempt God,” said the old woman.
He was about to slap his wife when Uncle Sandile broke up the altercation.
“Brother-in-law, you know what custom states,” he begged. The old man harrumphed indignantly.
“What, that a woman may defy her husband’s rule?”
“That a child born to an unwed girl belongs in her father’s homestead,” said the calmer of the two.
“Please, Tata,” added Mrs Mathebula, laying her hand on her husband’s shoulder. He shook it off coldly.
“I don’t care where you take her. She’s not welcome here a minute longer than cock crow tomorrow,” the old man spat at Phumla’s face before walking away.
Phumla’s mother, knowing there was nothing she could do to revoke his wrath, pitied her grandchild yet. He was, after all, an innocent victim and a consequence of her foolish girl’s decision. Phumla though would have no choice but to leave with Sandile.
The girl and her aunt had immediately found solace in each other. One clutched onto a piece of her sister in the other, while the latter reprised a spitting image of her mother.
“You’ll be all right,” Ruth had assured the devastated girl. A few weeks later Phumla started to emerge from her shell. Her aptitude for business put her in excellent stead as her aunt’s apprentice. At first self-conscious, she eventually learnt how to ward off their male customers’ advances and to use their fascination with her to generate sales for their meat business.
Ntsundu, one of her most ardent suitors, had even dared to try and convince her aunt to put in a good word for him with Phumla.
“Have you forgotten you are married?” Aunt Ruth had scolded him, chasing him from her doorstep, though not before she’d grabbed the bottle of brandy he’d hoped to offer as supplication.
“I’m a Thembu man. We are polygamous by nature,” he’d argued.
“And she’s a Christian girl ─they’re monogamous by nature!” Ruth had laughed. “Besides, I don’t think your wife would appreciate that!” she continued, finally slamming the door in his face.
The two women had laughed riotously, Phumla fascinated by how street smart and different to her mother her aunt was. That night she’d enjoyed her first glass of brandy. The fiery liquid had glided down her throat roasting her insides with its warmth. And her heart warmed at the feeling suddenly light and euphoric. Those were the days…
How swiftly the years had passed. One minute they were laughing together, working side by side, and the next, she was singing ‘Amazing Grace’ over her adoptive parent’s grave, surrounded by their patrons from the taxi rank. Many had remarked over her voice then, yet none had ever convinced her to sing since. She had simply gone on with her dismal existence that relied on the proceeds of a business she found thrust upon her by misfortune. From that day, she simply persevered and forgot all about her dream of singing. There was too much pain attached to it.
***
She lay in her single bed, wailing uncontrollably until her voice was hoarse, and the lump in her throat felt like a punch descending to her gut, further convulsing her diaphragm. She was convinced she could feel her innards rupturing like those of a sheep gutted by a butcher’s skilful hand. This time, her secret wound was the butcher, and her heart the sheep.
As if to match her torrential tears, it started to rain outside as if the sky was bleeding. The drip-drop of rust-infested water sifted its way through her fast-eroding corrugated iron roof and created little puddles on the floor. Work. Phumla soaked the puddles up with the old golf shirt that she’d turned into a mop and wrung it dry into the 5-litre bucket that functioned as her lavatory at night. One of her pet anxieties was the probability of one day coming home to find that the stuff inside her shack was drenched and destroyed by the rain. It was nought but the few morsels she had salvaged from inside the belly of life after it had swallowed her alive. Her fingers stiffened at the coldness of the rainwater. She opened her creaky window to dispose of the bucket’s water and urine content.
It was Monday and she had her sewing class at the community centre at 9. Her vaskom, towels, soap, and deodorant were already at the foot of her bed; she filled the jug kettle with water from the bucketful she fetched daily from the communal tap. Her ablutions were performed without the insult of ceremony, given the scarcity of resources to instigate any inclinations towards viewing this perfunctory act as leisure. Dressed in a pleated green skirt and a black blouse, she tied a red doek around her head and camouflaged her troubles with an elegance that belied the emotional turmoil and anxiety threatening to cripple her. Breakfast was a simple gruel of oatmeal with sugar and milk.
‘The dishes won’t die if I leave them covered,’ she convinced herself before locking up her uncharacteristically ramshackled shack.
Her walk to the community centre was sufficiently uneventful: she strode hurriedly past her weekend trading spot, offering polite greetings to the taxi drivers who hooted salutations as they registered their recognition of her. As she turned the corner round the supermarket, a taxi stopped and. Its lone driver peered out the window to speak to her.
“Let me drop you off,” he offered, much to her polite decline.
“I’m nearly there, just ten more minutes,” she said, shaking her head ‘no thanks’ and increasing the pace of her stride.
“Khwela, sisi; you’ll be soaking wet by the time you get where you’re going,” the driver substantiated his offer.
“Andinamali, so I can’t pay you,” she remonstrated with a shrug.
“On the house. Besides, you always give me more liver than my money’s worth on Saturday mornings!” he insisted, flashing her a toothy grin. Of course. It was Ntsundu. He was one of her aunt’s devoted customers, whom she inherited when the woman died of heart disease. The filter of rain streaming down her face had made it difficult to take a proper look at the man in a balaclava and black leather jacket. Persuaded by the weather and his cheerful laughter when he realised she hadn’t recognised him, Phumla jumped over the muddy grass patch between her and the vehicle and accepted the offer. Would she like some coffee? He offered, handing her his flask. She declined. They chatted about everything and nothing till they were parked in front of the community centre.
“I can pick you up when you’re done if you give me your number and tell me what time to come back,” Ntsundu said.
“I don’t think your wife would approve,” Phumla shrugged.
They both chuckled. The reminder of her late aunt’s words did not go unnoticed by Ntsundu.
“She’d be very proud of you, you know,” he said, the words dissolving into the cracks on the surface of her heart and soothing her hurt. She thanked him and ran in through the gate as he drove away.
The sewing instructor opened the session with a solemn prayer.
“Heavenly Father, we invite you into our place of work and our lives this morning.”
Phumla rolled her eyes at a God that needed to feel like an esteemed guest to do his job. Where had he been when she’d needed him? Was he simply watching her, ignoring her desperate prayers, and waiting for his invitation while she lay writhing under the weight of that lascivious pig? Where was he then, when she’d needed him to rescue her?
“In your mighty hands, we put our lives, Oh Father,” the woman continued.
“Yeah right. Plenty of good that did me,” thought Phumla irreverently as the woman drowned on. She pushed the voice and the image of her torn dress from her mind. God didn’t even deserve to know how furious at him she was, so she chastised her tears from falling.
All said ‘Amen’ when she had finally finished and resumed what unfinished projects they had abandoned on Friday at 4:00 pm. Phumla’s was a shirt made from a combination of white linen and brown sishweshwe. It was small in size and had a unisex look about it. She hoped it could fetch R120 at the very least. This would be her second complete project since joining the group last month. The first had been a panelled skirt, which she now wears to the market with pride. This shirt was a great improvement to her initial project, Mrs Zwide, who sat beside her, encouraged. Phumla beamed. It was lunchtime, and the rain hadn’t stopped pouring, eliminating the option of walking to the store to buy herself magwinya and vienna sausages for lunch. Instead, she worked on a pair of trousers to match her shirt. The pants, she hoped, could fit a thirteen-year-old.
It was time to go home to her emptiness and trepidation. The weather had cleared, thankfully, and Phumla passed by a vegetable stall to purchase a packet of potatoes. A mob of men and women came burgeoning towards her speedily, chasing a young man who seemed determined to escape them.
“Stop, thief!” screamed the Indian who operated the biggest store in that vicinity. Muhammad in his off-white kaftan that had given up on its wish for soap water, pointed in the direction of the lithe-limbed youth as the crowd took up its paces in pursuit.
“Got him!” shouted one taxi driver, having tripped the now supine youth and caused him to fall on the filthy ground.
Phumla recognised him. Xola. He used to help her set up her stall in exchange for a meal. He’d disappeared months ago. She’d found out that his grandmother had passed away, leaving her house to be sold by relatives who put him out.
The boy lay screaming there, showered by an influx of expletives, kicks, and lashes from all present who fancied a hand at this version of justice.
“Stand up!” shouted one of the bystanders. The boy complied with great difficulty and the last remaining traces of defiance on his face.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” shouted one woman.
He averted his gaze, mumbling something incoherent. One of the taxi drivers lifted a sjambok above his head and sent it slashing into the emaciated thief’s limbs. His ripped skin bled onto the tarmac, the copper of his blood mixed with the sulphuric smell of stale urine synonymous with the taxi rank on most afternoons. Nobody in the crowd flinched at the sight of his wounds. Instead, they cheered and encouraged for him to be whipped some more.
This, Phumla realised, was what happened to boys that were not wanted. They ended up in trouble for stealing what should be afforded to them naturally.
“Stop it”, Phumla screamed, hurling herself toward the enraged crowd and positioning herself between the boy and the taxi driver before the whip rose again.
“He’s a dirty little thief, and we don’t tolerate that here!” shouted a woman in the crowd. It was one of the church women ─the one who had made the sexual innuendo.
“So much for being a God-fearing Christian,” Phumla snapped back.
“An eye for an eye. You’d know that if you came to church on Sundays instead of enticing married men for a living.”
It took saintly restraint for Phumla not to curse her out. There were few things she despised as much as self-righteousness.
“John 8, Verse 7.” she shot back. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” The woman’s ire shot up to challenge Phumla with a litany of Bible verses declaring her a heathen. Phumla was unmoved.
“What did this boy steal?” she asked the Indian.
The taxi driver pointed at a woman standing by, who showed her a plastic bag with a loaf of bread and a packet of frozen chicken feet.
“This? You’d kill an orphan for this?” she said, grabbing the plastic bag from the woman and throwing it at the taxi driver’s face.
“He must be punished.” shouted the crowd.
Phumla put her hand inside her bra, taking out a crumpled red note and handing it to Muhammad.
“There. Keep the change, you miser.”
“He’ll steal again. You won’t be around to save him next time.” said the taxi driver.
“Just leave him alone. I’ve paid his debt,” she said, shaking her head in exasperation.
“Fine. Take the food. You paid for it.” The burly man said, shoving the plastic bag against her chest. She handed it to the boy, who took it shamefully.
The crowd dispersed as instantly as it had gathered. The boy must’ve escaped to avoid a further beating, for he too was nowhere to be found. There was no telling what would become of him, thought Phumla as she negotiated the pangs of empathy that left her feeling helpless.
There was one boy she could save. A boy who’d lived on the fringes of her conscience for far too long, barricaded away by her trauma.
The journey home was hardly noticeable, consumed as she was by her anxieties about Lihle’s impending visit.
By 2:00 am she was still unable to sleep and resorted to burning impepho to help calm her senses and invite a much-needed tranquil aura into her home. It worked and she drifted into a deep, unperturbed slumber.
Whereas sleep afforded her troubled soul some rest, morning came laden with urgent epiphanies: she had never told her family about the circumstances of Lihle’s conception. Nobody back home knew the real reason she’d given up a potentially glamorous life as a gospel singer. Some wounds were just covered by time, not healed. The stuff inside was puss and smelt worse than the dung she had to eject from the intestines she sold on weekends!
As these thoughts lobbied her attention competitively Phumla made herself a cup of sweet rooibos. Its warmth was a comfort against her freezing hands. She rocked to and fro on the makeshift chair beside the bed whose clutches she had managed to escape. It was Tuesday morning.
The shack could do with some proper cleaning, she told herself. She took out everything she had been hoarding since moving to this place many years ago. Everything that wasn’t needed was tossed into the communal bin, including what heirlooms threatened to invoke the memory of Joburg and…
No. She was not going there. Much like she’d refused to do so physically when her choir mate Linda had sent her a letter to say her perpetrator was on his deathbed and begging to see her so he could apologise. She’d torn that piece of paper up and tossed it away just like she was trying to do his violation of her.
She’d learnt though, that sometimes when the wind blew so hard, it managed to drag the rubbish one thought to have discarded back indoors.
“Let prostate cancer ravage him to pieces!” she’d thought, enraged. There was no way she’d forgive him. If there was a hell, she was satisfied with the thought of him burning in its eternal fire. Hopefully, the devil had a pair of tongs with which to repeatedly turn Nkabinde over to make sure he was well done!
She’d felt a sense of vindication when newspaper reports announced his death. That was the end of her ordeal, she had hoped. If only life were that simple. If only her son wouldn’t grow up to be the spitting image of the man. How cruel a reminder of her frailty in the hands of fate. She felt inadequate as a mother. How do you admit to not being able to love a child you carried for nine months?
They’d diagnosed her with something called Post-Natal Depression when, by the seventh day, she was still refusing to take the infant to her breast.
“He’ll die of hunger,” the nurses had implored her. How despicable of her was it to secretly wish that tragedy should strike exactly as predicted?
It never did. Instead, Lihle seemed determined to fight. He’d greedily gulp down the formula the nurses gave him, thriving in their surrogate affection. When she finally relented, Phumla adopted a stoic regard for the boy. He was a part of her, after all. By the time she’d resolved to go back to Ngqamakhwe with him, her heart had long warmed up to the feeling of his tiny hands wrapped around her giant index finger…
Now she had to prepare for his impromptu homecoming. Overwhelmed though she was, her anticipation turned her into a minor renovations expert. By midday, she had done an impressive job on the interior of her modest abode: wall-papered the rhino board walls, cleaned and repacked the cupboards, swept, mopped, and polished the PVC carpeted floor and changed the curtain and bedding. She didn’t even realise that she was humming that hymn again. Or was it that she couldn’t help herself and so had given in to its whisper? There was something very embalming about it that she had tried to escape for years, to which she was finally surrendering.
‘Was Blind but now I see…’
Phumla was very pleased with herself. Her spirit was at peace. She bought some paint from the local hardware store and gave the place a bright red exterior. She earned herself a month’s worth of sore muscles to match; having refused numerous offers of help from neighbours and potential suitors passing by. At 9 pm, she dozed off while reading an article on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in an old magazine.
The next day was spent at the flea market in town, foraging for clothing items for her son. Her R500 budget prohibited more extravagant options, and she settled for a miscellany of shorts, t-shirts, caps and a pair of summer sandals in a size she hoped would fit the boy, having sent money home instead of clothing throughout his life. Happy with the spoils, Phumla took a train back home at 3:00 pm. It was packed and felt as though all its occupants were haggling for space in a cramped sardine can – most claustrophobic! When she disembarked at her native Nonkqubela station, it was to the realisation that her phone was no longer in the pocket of her loose-fitting jersey. Calling it from her landlord’s phone when she got home proved that it had indeed been stolen and that the sim card was immediately discarded. A monumental setback for someone expecting her child’s arrival in two days…
She was back at her sewing class on Friday morning. It was a pleasant enough day, and she was learning that the only way to deal with the depression she hadn’t yet found a name for was one day at a time. By 4:00 pm, she had finished the white linen pants with sishweshwe pockets and turn-up. All the women agreed that hers was the most beautifully completed project.
“Let me buy it for my grandson,” offered Mrs Zwide, who instructed the class. Knowing the offer to be a gesture of financial support instead of a genuine purchase, Phumla declined.
“It already has an owner, Ma Zwide,” she explained. Pressed for further explanation, her smile was the only reply as she steamed the stylish outfit, hung it on an especially bought wooden hanger, and covered it with the kind of plastic sheath you might find cocooning a suit at the best department store’s menswear section.
Phumla left for the supermarket when the group disbanded at 4:00 pm. There she bought some cold drinks, a cake, a tray of eggs, a tub of ice cream, biscuits, beef burgers, and some condiments, all of which were deposited into her cupboard at home except for the frozen foods, which her landlord agreed to refrigerate. Phumla had one more errand to run: the purchase of a live chicken from the poultry seller at the taxi rank.
“R120 for a cock,” she was told. A natural negotiator, she bargained with the man, himself shrewd and unrelenting an entrepreneur. Well-matched, he finally relented when she challenged, “Andinayo. I’ve only got R90 left.” She paid, picked up her prized purchase, and held it by its feet, head dangling with its beak threatening to peck her, as the two made their way home.
Phumla was deep in the throes of her home-making and humming a sweet tune as she boiled rice, roasted potatoes, and peeled butternut, all prepared on her two-plate gas stove. Then it was time to prepare the bird, now cackling nervously and tied in a box behind the door. A bucket filled with boiled water was already set aside for the feather-plucking that was to follow. She picked up the hen, took her axe from atop the cupboard, and headed outside, where the asphalt awaited as the execution site. The hen cackled loudly and fluttered its wings rapidly before it was swiftly beheaded.
By 10:00 pm that evening, Lihle’s welcoming feast was laid on the table, awaiting the hooting of his uncle’s car at midnight. It looked like a royal affair, and the young mother secretly hoped her estranged offspring would approve. Laying on the bed was the white linen outfit she had made him, pristinely wrapped. The shack looked and smelt like a home. Truth be told, the shack was too small to house the hopes Phumla harboured for her ill-begotten son. She didn’t know what a new day looked like, but she was determined to cram its beginning into the tiny hovel that had housed her for the past 12 years and force the shack to make room for her healing, their joint uncertainties, and the future that would come knocking at her door in a few hours. The truth too would someday have to be given room to live there, however uncomfortable their cohabitation was likely to prove. For now, she had her son to embrace.
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