his head back in. “Fphst.”
“That nywana dead, bra, you think of that?”
“How’d she die in here, huh?” His voice sounds like the second bounce of an echo. “No bra, she’s alive, I see her move.”
“Ag, you ’magined it, she dead bra, los it or we gonna miss last dish.”
Beanie Boy pulls his head out. He shrugs. “Let’s waai then, I’m hungry.”
But they stand like statues, waiting-waiting.
I lose interest in them and scan the sky. A few blushing cirrus clouds streak against the blue. The sight of them makes the black in my head swirl and stirs something at the bottom of me. I kick the heels of my babydolls against the bumper. The hole spins, faster, faster. I feel sick. I think I might vomit. I open my mouth and a word pops out: “Spookasem.”
It floats in front of my face like a tiny sunset cloud. I stare at it. I want to put it in my mouth, eat it, roll it around on my tongue so I can say it again, again, again. I clap my hands over it, but when I open my palms the fluffy cloud is gone and all that remains is a squashed mat of pink fibre no bigger than a piece of chewing gum. I put it in my mouth. A burst of burnt sugar fizzles on my tongue and is gone. I burp.
On the tanker below, the boys look at each other. “You hear that?” asks Beanie Boy. Sticking his head back into the space, he shouts, “Sista, can’t you speak?” He pauses to listen, but there’s no reply. “She can’t speak, maybe she can’t speak.”
“If she can’t speak, she’s dead. Let’s waai,” says the boy with the coat.
“Sweet, waai. What about Ma Wilma? What you gonna tell her? No, sorry Ma, we chafa a girl and now we lost her. Ma Wilma going to be kwata.”
“Aggg! I don’t know why you told the ouledi we got a nywana in the first place. Why you do that, huh? Move, let me look.”
They shuffle sideways, swap places. The boy in the long coat sticks his head into the space. “Okay, sista, no worries, we going to get you out!” he shouts. He takes off his coat. Without it, he looks skinny-skinny and too tall. He gives it to the other boy, then wriggles into the space until only his feet stick out. I watch the bottom of his shoes kick up and down, like swimmer’s feet. Swimming through cars, a swimmer in a car dump. The thought of it makes me laugh.
“Marlboro, pull bra.” His voice is muffled, metallic, like one of the rotten cars is speaking.
I laugh harder. The laughing catches and I can’t stop. I laugh so hard I begin to cry. Tears roll down my cheeks, dripping off the end of my face. I watch them drop, like tiny stars falling from the sky. When they hit the ground, they explode. Sisi’s going to fall and the . . .
I stop. The weird feeling in my guts is back. I clutch my belly. Something stirs, pushes against my hands. It’s like I’ve swallowed a snake and it’s trying to chew its way out. “Help me,” I try to shout, but my voice is hoarse. I can only manage a whisper.
“Rilexa, sista, we helping you.”
Below me, the boys begin to pull something from the dark hole. They work as if the thing is fragile. Maybe they’re helping a butterfly from a cocoon – but if you do that, the butterfly will never be strong enough to fly. And if a butterfly can’t fly, it will fall and shatter on the ground.
Sisi’s going to fall and the . . .
A girl emerges. They sit her down on the ledge and hold on to her shoulders. I watch them for a while, relieved that she isn’t a butterfly. After a few minutes, the boys begin to climb down, lowering the girl between them. The snake in my belly squirms. I push down harder, trying to squash it, but each time they drop a car, my abdomen jerks like it’s trying to follow. It jerks so hard I fear I might fall. I let go of my belly and wedge my fingers into the crack between the bonnet and the windscreen, but the pull is strong, dragging me down.
I look at the clouds and the trees and the grey rainbow. I want to stay up here, float above the world forever. The ground is bad, I’ve been there before. Down there it’s dark and cold and you can hear things scratching. Then the girl looks up, straight at me, and I see her face, sharp as the pine needles. The face is my face, mine but not mine. Her name creeps up my throat onto my tongue. I whisper it, “Sindisiwe,” and saying it makes me know my own name.
Her gaze, hot and spiky, pricks my mind slowly – like a pin stuck through sellotape into the skin of a balloon. My memories hiss out and I begin to know myself. In her head and in her heart she holds the pieces of me, and her gaze glues me back together.
Then she looks away and, with a last glance at the twilight dusting the blue, I slide to the ground.
Streetlights flicker through the trees. The boys lead us past the mountain of cars towards the quiet suburban streets that lie on the other side. Three guard dogs come from nowhere and walk alongside us, but the boys don’t seem bothered. The dogs whine, lonely as lost souls, and lick the boys’ fingers.
“Chila,” the one in the coat says, “these hounds been well fed.” He laughs like he’s cracked a joke.
The boys are the same two who ran from the shacks. They’re called Booysen and Marlboro, though Marlboro says his name like he’s not so sure of it. He’s the one wearing the beanie. Booysen, in the coat, is taller and looks older. He has a circle tattooed on his neck, just above the collar.
“Next time you need a spot to hide, sista, check out this g-string,” he says, bouncing on the boot of a white BMW. There’s a click and the latch releases. They let Sindi sit on the mouldy carpet in the boot for a while, “to get straight”. She sits with her legs hanging over the bumper and her head in her hands. Her right hand looks like a boxer’s glove, but the boys, if they notice, say nothing about it.
Marlboro paces, glancing sideways at Sindi. I can tell she makes him nervous. He takes off his beanie and runs his fingers through grimy blond hair. It stands straight up, stark and surprising against his tanned skin. He sits next to Sindi a second, then springs up again. He bounces on the balls of his ragged sneaks a while, then leans forward and wipes his sleeve across the scratched white paint of the BMW. “This was my daddy’s car.”
Booysen laughs. “Sho! You, bra? You think your daddy’s a fat cat now? You wish.” He gets Marlboro in a neck hold and rubs his knuckles across his head.
Marlboro struggles free, cheeks flushing red. “Fo sho, I know the plate. This is my daddy’s car, from way back, when I was a laaitie.”
Booysen leans against the BMW, pulls a packet of Stuyvesants from his pocket and lights one. He drags, slow and long; smoke escapes from the corners of a sneaky smile. He points the cigarette at Marlboro. “Foshizi? Okay, chizboy, tell us then, how long ’go your daddy own this car?”
Marlboro shrugs. “How must I know exact? I was just a laaitie.”
Booysen nods like he doesn’t mean yes. The air between them is electric, and I sense a fight about to spark. “This scrapheap been here years,” he says.
Marlboro tilts his head, sniffs, “So?”
“So, bra, how old you now?”
Marlboro shrugs, looks at his sneaks. Booysen whistles and shakes his head. “You don’t know how old you are? You some
