Pinky had refused to go for further education after barely passing her matric. She got a day job and lived the life of a party girl almost every night, much against her eldest sister’s church-going ways. For almost a year the house rang with the sound of their fighting. Ayanda kept out of it, mostly because she could understand how both her sisters felt. She didn’t like watching Pinky throw her life away, but at the same time she had grown tired of Thembi’s bossy ways. They all needed to live their own lives.
When Pinky fell pregnant, the arguments escalated and hit an eardrum-popping level when the baby’s father turned out to be a thug called Bushe. Thembi loved Pinky’s daughter, Buhle, as if she was her own, but wanted nothing to do with Bushe and made that preference known loudly and regularly.
“What are you doing with a gangster like that? Mama must be turning in her grave,” Thembi exclaimed one day.
Pinky wasn’t going to have the man she loved being discredited like that. “So when did you become an expert on who is and who isn’t a gangster, eh, Thembi? Is that yet another thing they teach you at nursing school?”
Thembi stood up, placing her hands on her ample hips, preparing her sisters for one of her lectures in the voice Ayanda and Pinky called the Mama-left-me-in-charge voice. “Anyone with a scrap of sense can see that boy is a criminal. I wouldn’t be surprised if he owned a gun. I suggest you end the relationship as soon as possible. We can’t let this innocent baby grow up around a man like that. God knows what types will be loitering around here if I let this go on any longer.”
Ayanda sat quietly in the corner. She knew better than to intervene on either side.
Pinky shot to her feet, ready for a face-off with her eldest sister, but Thembi had almost 100 kg on her, so the move didn’t gain her any points. Still, her balled fists and the way she hopped from one foot to the other told Ayanda that Pinky was in a serious fighting mood.
“For your information, Thembi, I run my own life. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’m an adult. I’ll see who I want!”
“Not as long as you live in my house,” Thembi said.
Ayanda could feel the pressure push up a few hundred notches.
“Your house?” Pinky screeched. “When Mama died, she left it to all of us! This is my house and Ayanda’s house as much as it’s yours! I’ll be with whoever I want! You’re just jealous because you’ll soon be an old maid!”
Thembi’s face couldn’t hide the wound Pinky’s words had inflicted. She walked away and a fragile, precarious silence fell.
Since then the three sisters had managed a shaky peace in the house, mostly through Bushe not coming around when Thembi was there, and Thembi never mentioning him again. It wasn’t perfect, but it was working, at least for the time being.
Ayanda needed to get up. She looked at the time – 7:15am. Not too early to call a gangster, she thought. Grabbing her cellphone, she tried Mogolo’s number again. She was happy to hear it ringing. She hoped that meant he was still alive.
“Yebo?” said a groggy female voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi . . . Can I speak to Mogolo?”
The woman didn’t respond. After a few seconds, Ayanda heard her source’s voice, “Yeah?”
“Mogolo, it’s Ayanda Nkosi, the reporter. What happened last night? You said you’d call me.”
“Yeah, okay . . . something . . . uhm . . . came up. Let’s hook up later, about eleven o’clock, at Chillers. Do you know the place?”
Ayanda agreed to meet him. She jumped out of bed, thankful her story was back on track.
* * *
When she arrived at the office there was an over-the-top bouquet of flowers on her desk, courtesy of Sipho, with a note everyone had taken pleasure in reading before Ayanda arrived. It said:
Can’t wait to see you on Saturday! Sipho
By the time Ayanda left to see Mogolo, she was sick to death of all the comments about her and her “rich lover”.
The meeting with her source was unsettling. Ayanda arrived at the dark, cave-like bar just before eleven. She stepped in and had to take a minute to adjust to the darkness and the stench of stale beer, vomit and urine. Cleanliness was obviously not high on the owner’s agenda, nor that of the clientele. She spotted Mogolo in an even darker corner. He was sitting at a table and looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. He sat facing the door and hardly took his nervous eyes from it while they spoke.
“Reetsa, my sister . . . this is serious shit. I could die here. You hear me? I could die. We need to be careful. It’s serious . . . serious shit.”
“Yes, I get it. But don’t worry; I never reveal my sources. I know the situation. I’ll make sure you’re gone before we run with anything that could put you in danger.”
“Nothing in that paper of yours until I’m gone – free and klaar. You hear? I got bucks now. I’m ready. But nothing until I’m history. Got it?”
“Of course. That’s what we agreed,” Ayanda assured him. “So tell me, what’s going on?”
“Okay, it’s like this. We cross the border; usually the boss goes proper-like to organise the meeting and we sneak over through the bush, me and Lulu – we don’t want shit from the border cops. That side in Zim we got a guy the Boere hooked us up with. He’s from DRC and stuff.” He stopped and looked to the side where someone came out of the toilet, the only other person who was in the bar that early in the morning – an old man, dead drunk before lunch, and looking as if it was a daily occurrence.
Once Mogolo realised there was no threat, he continued. “So like these Boere, they are some serious big shots in the mine industry. They want this gold from DRC to up the money they take home. They wash it clean through their books or something; I don’t know how it all works. I never met those Boere. Only the boss does that. Me and Lulu just meet this DRC guy and get the gold, give him the cash, and bring it over through the bush, so no one sees anything. The boss takes it from there. But this is big stuff. Really big.”
“So do you know anything about the company that’s involved? Its name? Or the names of those Afrikaners? Anything I could go on?” Ayanda asked.
A wave of paranoia swept over Mogolo. “Listen, I said you need to keep this quiet . . . keep me out of it. These guys are serious. I understand the one Boer worked up in Namibia with the SADF; he is a serious fucking dude . . . he won’t give it a thought to kill me – or you . . . They’re not playing here, my sister. These people are mean fucks. Even the boss and Lulu. I hope you’re right and they’ll be put away once you splash this story.”
Ayanda tried to calm him. “We’ll take this slow, Mogolo; you call the shots.”
He relaxed somewhat. “Yeah, that’s right. I call the shots . . . I call the fucking shots. We need to get this right so I can get out of this shit alive.” He stood up, finished his beer and threw some money on the table. “Okay, listen, there’s going to be a meeting. I’ll call you when it’s happening.”
He walked out of the door before Ayanda could say anything else. Now she was back to waiting. Waiting and still no story.
