tickles my forehead as I drift back into the world of dreams, the drumbeat troubling me even in sleep. This one is a white dream, the color of the moon in the afternoon sky, so I know the ancestors sent it to me.
I’m sitting in hospital with Mama. Her skin is weeping underneath a white bandage. “They’re going to remove the burnt skin,” she explains when I wonder why we’re here, especially when I see all the bodies of dead people piled up in the corner.
We wait for a long time and finally they call her into a small room. The nurse comes to remove Mama’s bandages, her gloves bloody from the last patient.
Mama jerks her arm away. “No, Sisi, I do not want you to do this until you change your gloves.”
The nurse crosses her arms. “Listen here, I have been working at this hospital for fifteen years. Are you going to tell me how to do my job?”
“That last man you treated could have AIDS,” Mama says.
The nurse storms out of the room. Mama takes the nurse’s instruments and begins to scrape the dead skin off. “You see, this is why we need good nurses in South Africa,” she tells me. “Otherwise, they just do this thing of spreading HIV.”
The dream changes and now we’re sitting in church as the collection plate is being passed around. When it reaches us, Zi carefully places the five rands that Gogo gave her in the plate, looking proud and happy that she’s giving to the church.
I pass the collection plate to Mama and watch as she starts to put a twenty rand note inside, then stops, clutching the money before passing the plate on by.
“Mama?” I whisper, surprised. Mama always gives to the church. It is our duty and obligation as Christians, she has always said. If we fail to give to the church, which feeds our souls, it is stealing from God.
“Hush, Khosi, we need it to pay the medical bills,” Mama says, and I notice that her bandage is bloody and weeping a thick yellow substance. She sees the look on my face. “It is just a little thing, Khosi,” she says. “God understands we need the money.”
I wake, a taste in my mouth that comes only after dreaming. And my shoulders ache, like I have been lifting heavy bags all night long.
I know that dreams are not exactly what they seem. But I also know that to dream is to see the truth at night. You may think one thing during the day, but find out it’s a lie when you dream. Sangomas hear the voices of the ancestors all the time, but night is when their spirits speak to all of us, even we regular folks.
What are the ancestors trying to tell me?
CHAPTER TWO
ENCOUNTER
Gogo leaves the house for two things only: church and funerals. Today it’s Umnumzana Dudu’s funeral. While I cook phuthu for breakfast, she clucks around the house, grumbling. “Every Saturday, another funeral,” she says. “It is too much sadness.”
“Yes, another funeral and another day of listening to lies,” Mama says, as if she is agreeing with Gogo.
“What do you mean, Mama?” I am busy wiping the counter, even the parts where chunks are missing. When I’m done, I start to sweep the floor. It’s a difficult job. The floor is uneven, with ridges that make it hard to sweep dirt away.
“You watch, at the funeral, they will make Umnumzana Dudu out to be such a kind man,” Mama says. “But he’d get his paycheck, go to the shebeen, and come home drunk. Then he would beat his children and wife. We could hear the cries, every month. You remember? It is always that way at funerals, we say what we wish had been, not what really was. At my funeral-”
“Elizabeth!” Gogo hushes her, quick quick. “You are just talk talk talk. Don’t speak of your death; it’s bad luck.”
Mama laughs. “God already knows the day and hour of my death, Mama,” she says. “There is nothing anyone can do about it.”
Gogo shakes her head at Mama’s foolishness. “Witches might hear you,” she says. “They have the power to steal life before it is your time.”
“But that doesn’t bother me, hey,” Mama says. “I’m a Christian.” She sounds almost smug when she says this.
Mama and Gogo argue about this all the time. Mama believes in the things of white men, science and God only. She says the only power witches have over us is our fear. But Gogo says there is African science too, and the white man’s science knows nothing about these things.
Na mina? I agree with Gogo. All my life, I have seen and heard things I can’t explain. Like the dream the ancestors sent me last night.
“I’m a Christian too,” Gogo mumbles as Mama disappears into the bathroom to get ready for the funeral. “There are witches in the Bible,” she reminds me. “It is not only because I’m an old woman and foolish that I believe these things.”
“I know, Gogo,” I say, soothing her as I button her black funeral dress. She doesn’t like being helpless, as though she is just Zi’s age. She tries to help, fumbling with each button until I reach it. But her fingers are too gnarled and weak from arthritis.
When Mama and Gogo are dressed in their funeral finery, we set out to walk up the hill to the Zionist church where the Dudus worship. Mama looks so amazing in a lacy black dress and a black hat with roses attached, her bosom spilling out of her dress. I hope I am as beautiful as Mama when I dress up!
We walk up the dirt road, dodging chickens and khumbis that roar past, trickling loud kwaito music, the side door open and the fare collector looking at us with a question in his eyes. Do you need a ride? We shake our heads and each khumbi zooms by, seeking other customers, beats blaring—doof doof doof—through the township.
Ahead of us, Zi clings to Mama’s hand and looks up at her as she chatters away, wanting her attention one hundred percent.
I walk beside Gogo, towering over her. I’m not a tall girl but Gogo’s so short and bent over, the top of her head only reaches my chest. I put my arm around her as we walk, to help her up the hill.
“It is too much hard, this hill,” she puffs.
“Why don’t you rest just now?” I say. “There is no hurry.”
Gogo smiles, revealing her missing front teeth. She leans against a tree stump, catching her breath.
Halfway up the hill, we can look out over the dirt roads running up and down through Imbali’s hills. Smoke rises from thousands of small houses and shacks crowded together, as far as the eye can see. Just beyond is the city of Pietermaritzburg, shrouded in early morning smog. Imbali was created for we blacks by the government, during the time of apartheid. Only whites could live in the city during those days, so we lived in these sprawling townships hidden off the main roads and just outside the city limits. Now, of course, we can live wherever we want-but most of us can’t afford to live anywhere else.
When Gogo has stopped breathing so hard we start walking again. I try to talk so that Gogo doesn’t feel like she has to. I just let words fall out of my mouth while Gogo struggles
