all over, this weekend. I checked at one of his friend’s houses, the one they told me he was with. A neighbour told me the family was away. I’ll check in the morning.’
A very thin layer of worry lifted from her face. Nonetheless, it was a grim Sunday. I did not eat. The house was filled with the delicious smells of Sunday supper, but I felt sick.
Later, I fell asleep on my books, but then woke with a jolt due to a nightmare in which a green Golf was going up in flames.
By my first class at Tech, Tourism Policy, the bad dream had been forgotten, as nightmares and even happy dreams often are. I was supposed to study past test papers for the rest of the day, but the weight of the weekend won. I squeezed in a few hours of rest in a friend’s room while he was in Technical Drawing class.
I stared at the ceiling for a while, but then fell into a deep sleep polluted with bad dreams that went on and on, and chilled my bones. Nightmares about Simphiwe, or rather his voice, for he was out of focus and far away. There was no background either; just a thick blackness and his voice: loud, complaining, accusing …
‘Of all people, Khulekani, I thought you would find me. Do you know how cold it is here? When you come here, bring my jacket!’ he shouted.
‘Which jacket?’
‘That blue Nike one, with the white tick.’
‘But you sold it for straws of wunga.’
‘Just bring me a jacket. It is cold here.’
His voice faded away.
I bolted upright, soaked in sweat. I grabbed my backpack and went down to the road to hail a taxi to Umlazi township.
The taxi dropped me off at the butchery near Sango’s house. I made my way to the neat house with the lush, trimmed lawn. Sango’s parents, both teachers, had lived in this house for a lifetime. When we were still in school, especially primary school, Sango would come and play soccer at our section, in our yards, but we never played at his house. Their grass was too manicured for our kick-abouts.
They raised Sango right. Connections got him a dream job when he left high school. He married his girlfriend from church and babies would surely be on the way soon. He had probably been promoted too, as he was now working in Richard’s Bay. His was a life prescribed, and he aced it with flying colours. Sango the genuine good son – yes, they succeeded in raising him right. It was with their youngest son, Dumisani, that they achieved the opposite. From a crybaby, Dumisani grew to be general bad news: high-school dropout, addict, killer kid.
Sango’s parents’ dining room could pass for a shrine to Christianity. The face of the clock on their wall was a solemn, gazing Jesus Christ. There was a print of a blue-eyed Virgin Mary and one of Joseph and Mary staring at baby Jesus. Nordic, of course – all their halos bright and gold like the colour of the hair on their heads. And JC again, this time on a cross carved out of wood. In the mix, away from this centrepiece, there was a photo of Sango and Dumisani with their parents – dignified folk in their Sunday best. Peace brimming in everyone’s eyes, except Dumisani’s. There was something that looked to me like confused evil in his stare.
Sango’s parents welcomed me warmly, with a genuine goodness of manner that made it hard to understand how they had given birth to a killer.
‘How can we help you, my boy?’ the father, Mr Mlaba, asked.
‘My name is Khulekani and I’m a schoolmate of Sango’s. I’m looking for my brother, Simphiwe. He was last seen with Dumisani. I was wondering if he could tell me where Simphiwe is?’
As he answered, a deep, silent pain surfaced and settled in his eyes. ‘We last saw Dumisani on Friday when we left for the conference. These kids, they are not back even today and Dumisani is still supposed to be signing. If his parole officer gets here to find him absent, there’ll be trouble. I’ve never seen a person care less than my boy.’
‘We have the same problem at home.’
‘Where have you heard of a sixteen-year-old gone for the whole weekend? Who knows what evil they are doing? They don’t go to church. They don’t believe in the Saviour. A life without the fear of God is not a good life.’ His eyes shifted to my backpack and he asked, ‘Are you coming from school?’
‘Yes, I’m at Mangosuthu University of Technology.’
‘What course are you studying there?’
‘Tourism.’
‘That’s the way, my boy. There are no shortcuts to a better life. You must have education and faith. Where do you praise?’
‘Catholic.’
‘That’s very good. Keep it like that. You can never go wrong with education in your mind and Jesus in your heart. Leave your number. I’ll get him to call you when he gets back.’
‘I’d greatly appreciate that.’
‘Mama, please get my diary.’
I noticed that Mr Mlaba had the latest cellphone, but he still believed in writing numbers in his diary. I saved his number on my phone while he heaved to get up and buzz me out into a wintry, silvery-orange setting sun.
Simphiwe was still not back in our room. But I told myself that he would be back the next day. Simphiwe never came back later than Tuesday after disappearing over a weekend. He would show up, high out of his mind, and exhausted. He would sleep until Wednesday afternoon. When he woke up, I could recognise parts of his pre-wunga self, before the drug took hold. But by that evening the craving would call him back and he would be gone.
In the few clean hours he had, he used to take out his pencils and draw, or read a magazine. The day he picked up the wunga habit, Simphiwe stopped drawing things from nature. Instead, he drew only self-portraits again and again. The first portrait was detailed and impressive. He had expressed his character on paper. But, as the moments of sobriety became scarce, so his portraits lost their detail.
I sprawled Simphiwe’s art over his unmade bed, and realised that since the drugs started he had never finished a drawing. He began afresh on new paper after only sketching a few details of his face. The portraits started missing ears, then hair, chin, mouth, nose, eyes, until the last drawing was just an outline of his head. He had drawn his own disappearance into drugs.
Ma and I watched TV and talked about the news, the weather, and the good Simphiwe of the past, the Simphiwe who was still a child in our eyes. I consoled Ma, told her he would return and draw beautifully again. The conversation turned to Sango and his perfect life, and then to how expensive my education was, and ended with us grumbling about how the price of cooking oil had rocketed.
On Tuesday I wrote and, frankly, aced the test. Afterwards I sat in the quad and smoked a cigarette that made me dizzy by the third drag. Then, while downing a Red Bull, I saw her, the beautiful Anele, my friend who was steadily stepping away from the friend zone. She waved and walked over.
Tall, spindly, a high jumper in high school, with a face that deserved to be on a magazine cover. While next to her in class, or working on assignments in the library, the pull between us was magnetic. Every time I leaned into Anele, I inhaled strawberries and my insides twisted. I had told her how I felt. She’d smiled and doubted, but slowly she was warming to the idea.
Now she laid
