reassuring, in this case, that Nhlanhla simply wags her tail and does not move. She keeps her eyes trained on the young man but otherwise, she is at peace.
“Welcome,” I say. “Please sit.”
“Thank you, Makhosi.” He sits to the side of me and nervously picks at the collar of his shirt. He looks uncomfortable. He keeps running a finger around the inside of his collar.
“What do you need?” I ask.
“I am looking for a job,” he says. “But I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
He bows his head, ashamed. “I am afraid somebody has cursed me, to prevent my success.”
I light impepho and begin to hum as the scent swirls around us. The young man’s ancestors can hardly sit still, like eager and overactive children. They have been dying to speak to him for some time now and this is their first chance. I begin to ask the young man questions about his life so they can tell me what is wrong.
“Are you working already? Do you have a job?”
“I had a very good job, Makhosi, and some few months ago, I was laid off. I have been searching ever since with no luck.”
“Do you have a wife?” I ask.
“Yes.” He has a look of desperation on his face. “I have a beautiful wife. I paid a very high sum for her lobola. We have been married for two years yet and we do not have a child. She is worried. Why can’t she fall pregnant?”
His ancestors murmur together. His great-great-grandmother looks agitated and begins to gesture as she whispers to the others. I catch a word here and there and slowly begin to see the whole picture.
“You have a twin brother,” I say.
“Yes, Makhosi,” he says.
“Is he married?”
He shakes his head.
“Your brother is very jealous,” I say. “It seems he has always wanted what you have.”
Drops of sweat gather at his temples and roll down his face and then neck. “I know this, Makhosi, but is he the one behind this?”
“The amadlozi seem to think so,” I say. “It seems he wants your wife and is seeking to destroy your success so that you lose her.”
He rubs his arms and shivers. He looks more sick and afraid than angry. “I have seen him watching her,” he says. “But I never thought—my own brother.” His groans are low but powerful, coming from a deep place of agony.
I reach out and gently touch his shoulder. “It will be all-right, mfowethu. I will send some herbs for your wife to take that will help her to conceive or help prepare her body for pregnancy.”
“Siyabonga, Makhosi, siyabonga.”
“And for you, I will give you some muthi to cleanse your body and mind. And then I want you to know that your brother’s curses cannot work, only if you believe them. You must talk to your brother. He is your family. The amadlozi do not like this thing of contention between the two of you. If you talk to him, you can work it out, and the power of those curses will dissipate. Like mist in the air.”
He sighs, a hollow well of what was once fear and now is simply relief.
When he leaves with a packet of herbs and some of the water I have blessed and instructions to return to me when he has found a job and his wife conceives, I take a moment to pray for him. I pray to the amadlozi and also to the Lord of the Skies. It is not easy, what he must do. It would be easier just to take the medicine and think everything will be solved, but no. Dissension of this kind, it will only be solved if he confronts his brother.
I never had that chance with Mama. She died before I could tell her how angry I am with her—for stealing money from our neighbor, for refusing to take medicine for her HIV so that she ended up dying. I have tried to make peace with it, and to forgive her, but I wonder sometimes if I have succeeded. She is restless, she wanders back and forth among the amadlozi, never speaking to me; I also never speak to her and I too feel as though I can never rest. I must go here, go there, seeking something. But what?
Plenty sits still but hunger is a wanderer. And I am hungry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFRAID THINGS WILL CHANGE, AFRAID THEY’LL STAY THE SAME
Zi stands before me, a certain begging in her eyes. It’s not that what she wants—money for some little what what what that is all the big rage at school—is such a big deal. But I’m barely holding on as it is, trying to pay for everything we need.
“Don’t be like the hyenas,” I tell her, “the ones who go after the lion’s leavings.”
Her eyes tell me that I am a lioness, she is my cub, and therefore she doesn’t need to be a hyena, she simply needs to wait until I get hungry enough to provide. But she says nothing.
“Now get ready for school,” I say, “or you will be late. Little Man’s taxi is coming now now to take you. In fact, I already received a text saying he is on his way to meet you.”
She hurries into her uniform, a white shirt and green skirt, the same uniform I wore every day before I had to quit. I miss it, all of it. It’s a quiet ache in the back of my throat—always there but barely felt now.
Zi shrugs a coat over her uniform, and then her backpack with her school things. We head outside, locking the door and the gate, even though Little Man’s khumbi will come right to the corner to pick her up, within sight of the house.
But locking up is something I do religiously. Yes, yes, I placed a charm around my place to ward off thieves. Of course, my ancestors will do what they can to keep the place safe. But I still lock up. That’s good sense. If nothing else, training to become a healer has taught me the limits of my powers. I can put a protective hedge around my house but I cannot guarantee that evil will not find a way in. I will never be one of these sangomas that passes out pamphlets in city squares, promising miracles. If people come to me, I will do what I can, the best I can do—the best my ancestors give me in any given circumstance. Sometimes what I have to give them will work. Sometimes what I have to give them will fail. That is all. No guarantees. No false promises.
But the real truth is that sometimes people ask for one thing when it is something else they actually need. And they aren’t always happy to learn this.
The morning is cold enough to see our own breath. Smoke rises from fires in yards as we walk past fences along the dirt road towards the taxi rank. A blue haze hovers low in the horizon, the landscape dotted with houses lining the zigzag streets and going up into the hills in the distance. A flock of squat brown Hadeda jubilate across the road, greeting the morning with joyous squawks.
Little Man’s waiting for us at the corner, sitting on the stone that people use as a bench, hunching into his black hoody against the cold wind. “Hey, Khosi,” he greets me.
“Hey, Little Man.” My voice is still rough with leftover dreams from the long night.
He
