makes me feel safe. Calm. And I wonder if I could, or should, finally tell him yes. Yes to what he wants. To what he keeps asking me. Yes, come live with us. Yes, let’s be together, always.
But I keep telling him no. Despite everything. Even though I’ve already broken my promises to Gogo, that feels like it would take it one step too far.
“Hello, little Zi.” Little Man and Zi slap palms in a high five.
She’s so tiny, he’s able to lift her across his shoulders and carry her like a bag of mealies. She giggles and kicks her legs and finally cries, “Let me down, Little Man!” so he swings her back down and places her gently on the ground.
“Someday, I’m going to carry you all the way to town that way,” he threatens.
She sticks her tongue out at him and he laughs.
“Maybe I’ll just carry your older sister to town instead.” His eyes appraise me, those eyes that say so much more than the words. “Do you think I could carry you over my shoulder, Khosi?” he asks.
I blush and look at the ground. I won’t answer, he already knows, but he loves to tease me like this.
“Khosi’s bigger than you,” Zi informs Little Man, as if he didn’t know that already.
“I know.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “She’s perfect.”
“Stop it, Little Man,” I say weakly, looking all around to see if anybody is watching and listening.
“Oh, now, we’re embarrassing her,” Little Man tells Zi. “We better stop before we both get in trouble.”
They look at me with such pitiful expressions, I have to start laughing. Little Man elbows Zi and they grin at each other and then at me. I shake my head at them. “You are too much crazy.”
“We are too much wonderful,” Zi says. She leans into Little Man and he puts an arm around her. It reminds me for some few seconds of how much she’s lost—and I’m that glad Little Man has been in our lives these past three years. And that he is here still.
“Khosi, hey! I sent you some customers yesterday,” Little Man says.
“What did they need? What were they looking for?”
“They didn’t say.”
“Did you tell them to go to hospital?” I try to think like this: medicine first, then Zulu medicine. But I don’t always succeed. Being a sangoma is my livelihood, after all, and my dream of becoming a nurse is only getting further and further away, especially now that I had to quit school. So sometimes the Zulu ways seem more important to me…they are certainly more important now now, with my need to make money.
“They were coming from Edendale already,” he says. “She’d just been released. She had medicine but she wasn’t happy with the diagnosis. She said something about a relative that was angry with her and she thinks that relative may be practicing witchcraft against her… She has tried many things to get better and nothing works.”
I nod, grateful that he’s sending people my way.
“Bo’s here,” Zi announces, pointing to the white and tan khumbi that jerks to a stop at the corner. Bo, Little Man’s boss, waves the two of them over, a wordless hurry up.
Swiftly, Little Man reaches out, grips my waist to pull me close. He kisses me so sweetly, my whole body tingles. “Goodbye, S’thandwa,” he says tenderly and holds a hand out to Zi. “Ready, Zinhle?” he asks.
She takes his hand and they board the empty mini-bus, which will soon fill with passengers.
Little Man works for Bo seven days a week, long hours—it seems like twelve hours a day. Bo drives the taxi and Little Man collects money from the passengers.
It feels like we hardly see him anymore. Well, Zi sees him, to and from school.
He works so many hours because he’s saving up. He decided he wants to buy his own taxi and be his own boss. When I ask him about the bursary, and going back to school, he just shakes his head.
Still, even if I wish it was different, I couldn’t do it without his help. He arranged his long hours so he could start when Zi needs to go to school and he accompanies her. They drop her off at the front door of the school. He’s still working when school is over so his taxi swings by the school and picks her up at the corner, and he makes sure she comes safely home too. They’re always there to pick her up on time, none of this “five minutes, five minutes” business, which can mean an hour or even longer. I can’t even say how grateful I am for his thoughtfulness and care, since I can’t take her myself. Plus, he refuses to let me pay the fare. So there’s that too. Every rand I save counts.
He was angry when he learned that I had quit school without borrowing school fees from him first—but he doesn’t understand. I can’t be that in debt to anybody for anything. Even Little Man.
Sometimes I think I’d be happier if I sold the house and we moved to Durban, if I started up my healing practice there instead of here. Zi could go to a good school in Durban. Since water is the main healing tool or power the ancestors gave me, it would be nice to be near the warm, salty seas of the Indian Ocean.
But the thing about the ancestors is that they tell you where to go and whenever I think Durban, they say, No no no no. Or, sometimes, Not yet.
Plus, and this is a big thing, I must think about Little Man too. He’s an Imbali man through and through. I don’t see him leaving this place ever. After all, he wants to establish his own taxi business! Of course, I haven’t given him a chance to say he might be willing to move. I haven’t talked to him about what I want to do. I don’t even know why. Sometimes I’m afraid things will change. Sometimes I’m afraid things will stay the same forever and ever.
Maybe if I’d moved away as soon as Gogo died, like I wanted, I wouldn’t be in so much trouble now. Because something’s happened that I can’t take back… But then I have to wonder—is this thing that happened also the reason they keep telling me no no no? Is it too late to leave?
Tell me, Gogo. Did I make just that one wrong decision and ruin my future plans forever?
I hope not. But it’s possible. I might just be stuck here in Imbali… forever.
CHAPTER NINE
MEDICINE OF A SORT
After sending Zi to school, I stop at the tuck shop and part with a few precious rands for a cool drink.
The tuck shop on my street used to be owned by a man who lived just next door to the shop. But he sold it to a Somali family some few months back. Occasionally, the wife is here, wearing her long skirts and bright red or pink head coverings, her children hovering in the background, sucking thumbs or candy and staring at me. But most of the time, the husband runs the shop. I don’t know where they live but it’s not in Imbali—I’m sure they live far from here, probably because they worry all the time that they will be attacked. Now we slide rands through a small hole in an iron grid meant to protect the man inside from weapons. That’s because he’s already been robbed at gunpoint twice, and he’s only been in Imbali for six months!
The
