thought I would avoid this side of Imbali the rest of my life. I know I am safe, at least with the amadlozi on my side, but it seems prudent to avoid your sworn enemy. Yet here I am, staggering up the hill.
It is very still up here, as if the wind itself refuses to breathe. Or as if the air is weighted with the heaviness of all the evil practiced in this place.
And it is just as my ancestor said. There is the goat, tied to the tree. The witch is nowhere in sight. I do not have to go to her house or speak to her, I can simply snatch the goat and leave.
I breathe a quiet sigh of thankfulness. That woman, eish, she truly does have sins she must pay for.
I leave the jar of amanzi—water I harvested from the Indian Ocean and then blessed with the words of the amadlozi—and I take the goat home. In the morning, I will ask Little Man to help me slaughter the goat. I will take the goat to emsamo, the place where the amadlozi sit in my healer’s hut. I will burn impepho and speak to them. Zi and I will mix its stomach guts with water and wash outside. We will burn our mourning clothes, such as they are, since Gogo told us to wear our everyday clothes. And then, the cleansing will be complete.
As for me, I will be happy to have completed this important part of releasing Gogo to that side. But otherwise, I am uneasy.
I pray that the witch uses my amanzi for good, not evil.
I pray that I have not entered an unholy alliance.
CHAPTER SIX
BREAKING PROMISES
Now that Gogo is gone, the days feel endless. It isn’t that I am doing more work than before. In fact, I am doing less because I no longer need to care for her like I did while she was dying. But Gogo was always so joyful, even when she scolded and even when she was so sick she could barely breathe. Now her love is gone. That’s not true, it is not gone exactly, it is just changed. Now she is one of the ancestors and it is no longer give and take. Her spirit is right here in the kitchen corner and her voice is in my head, talking, talking, talking. Khosi, do this. Khosi, do that. I am just a tool in her hands.
In fact, she is glaring at me.
What else could I do, Gogo? I ask.
Gogo hasn’t been dead for a month and just today, I broke one of the promises I made to her—that no matter what, I’d finish school. I’d matriculate and then go to university.
You promised, Khosi. You promised you would finish school.
Yebo, impela, I promised, Gogo. I did. I know it.
I stare at the twenty rand note on the counter. It is all I have left after paying Zi’s school fees this afternoon. There wasn’t enough money for my fees also. And I have no one to go to for help. It’s just me and Zi. Completely on our own. I have become what they moan about on the evening news: “a child-headed household.”
I told all my teachers I’d return, soon, but I’m not sure any of us believe it. And it’s the worst possible time for a student like me to quit—right in the middle of my matric year. The final year before university. I can’t suddenly go somewhere else, like one of the fee-free township schools. They don’t offer the same courses I’ve been taking. Even if they let me attend for the final half of my matric year, they’ve been preparing students for an entirely different set of exams than the ones I’ve been preparing for these past three years. Instead of being tested in Afrikaans or calculus, both classes I’ve been taking in preparation, they might test me in history and accounting.
For a long time now, my dream has been to go to school and be a nurse while also practicing as a healer. I was initiated as a sangoma just before Gogo caught pneumonia. The goal was to make some money as a sangoma while finishing school, to help pay my fees, but we all hoped I would get a bursary too. That was before, when we still had Gogo’s pension from the government, and Uncle and Auntie were giving her some money each month to help raise us. Now, Zi and I are completely dependent on the money I make as a sangoma, for living as well as for school fees.
And it’s not enough. At least, not yet. After all, I’m new. I still have to establish myself, create what my business teacher called “a customer base.” It could have been more difficult if my teacher had asked me to go somewhere else to practice since she is already practicing here in Imbali. But Makhosi said there was more than enough for both of us and she will send me her overflow. I am grateful that she loves me that much, that I’m not just somebody she trained. I am truly her daughter.
Even so, there hasn’t been much overflow. I need more customers if Zi and I are going to eat next month. But Gogo still expects that I would be able to pay for my school fees too?
I know I promised, Gogo, but that’s before I knew how hard it would be. Would you have made me promise if you knew? I’d like to think you’d release me from an impossible promise.
But the dead broker no compromise. Right is right. The eye crosses the full river, Khosi, she used to say.
In other words, if I wanted it, I would make it happen, no matter how hard or seemingly impossible.
But Gogo, I do want it. I want to finish school more than anything. How am I supposed to go to school if I don’t have the money to pay for it, eh, Gogo?
Sometimes when I talk to her about these things, the conversation is a one-way street. All she does is glare at me from wherever she is sitting or standing.
But now she speaks.
Don’t tell me what what. You’re a sangoma, my child, she says. You have a way to make money. Enough money to pay for school.
Perhaps in time, yes, but not so soon. That’s what I want to say but I leave the thoughts in the part of my head she can’t hear. It feels too disrespectful.
Plus, and this is not something I say to her, her daughter’s accusations—my auntie’s anger—may have made the neighbors afraid to visit me, to consult me as a sangoma.
But now that I’m not in school, I’ll certainly have enough time to work. I don’t say that to Gogo either.
And I don’t say anything to Little Man when he comes over later that night. Perhaps because he has such excitement spilling from his eyes. He rattles the gate, sending Nhlanhla into a tizzy. She gallops toward him, goofy and long-eared, while I hurry out, fumbling with the lock. He picks me up, swings me around, grunts oof, and kisses me hard on the mouth. It leaves me breathless, he keeps his lips planted on mine so long. I take his hand and pull him inside. Zi is with my neighbor so if he’s going to kiss me like that, he can do it without God and everybody watching, the sun shining on us with a bright intensity, almost as though scrutinizing our kisses.
As soon as the door shuts behind us, leaving Nhlanhla outside, shivering with whimpers, he reaches for me again.
I lean with my back against the wall and let him kiss me. Little Man has always liked to kiss me though usually they were stolen good-bye kisses, between the house and the gate when we were sure Gogo wasn’t watching. Now he plants a series of quick, sweet ones on my lips, taking little breaths in between, and then a few long ones that make my knees shake. I grab his jacket to hold steady.
“I have a job,” he announces.
“What?” I stare at him. This was not the plan. I’d take a step away but my back is
