“Well, what gift have my boys brought me today?”
She angles her face towards us and beckons Sindi with a stolen hand.
Her smile speaks of the cold hours of winter nights when it seems dawn will never come. I put my hand on Sindi’s shoulder to hold her back.
Shame-Shame, All the Same
All eyes slide from Sindi to the woman. Everyone’s waiting to see who’ll be the first to give. Sindi takes a step backwards and some small child, nerves wired, giggles. A murmur runs through the watchers. Booysen and Marlboro spring to their feet and scurry towards us, flashing spite at each other as they pick their way over mattresses and people.
Marlboro reaches us first. He takes Sindi by the elbow and, with a smug grin, drags her into the centre of the room. “Ma, this the sista I told you about.”
I look at Booysen. He sucks his lips, says nothing. The oros woman folds her arms across her chest. Strong arms, solid slabs of hard fat, like Mama’s. “Well, girlie, you got a name?” she says, voice full of sugar.
Sindi sways.
“My name’s Wilhelmina, but you call me Ma Wilma like the rest of them. What you want us to call you?”
Sindi studies the toes that poke from under Ma Wilma’s skirt.
“Don’t she talk?”
Marlboro shrugs. “She talk, Ma, but not so much. I think maybe she’s tired. She been inside that heap of ou transis all night till I pulled her out.”
“Sho, bra, you lie.”
Ma Wilma snaps around. Her thick steel-coloured braids whip across her face and settle on her shoulders like spiteful Siamese cats. “Shut it, Booysen. This isn’t a competition,” she snarls, caramel tones burnt bitter. “For all I care a ’copter airlifted her here. You boys aren’t heroes. Yesterday you were all for boasting how you knew where to find little ones, now you want a kiss for bringing me this. You better hope she’s clean, otherwise the mess is going to be yours. Now both of you fok off and mind yourselves ’fore I give you a klap.”
Both boys slink into the shadows.
“And you, girlie, you a bit of a vuil pop. You need a wash.” She grabs Sindi by the arm and leads her away, shouting over her shoulder for Rissik and Bree to bring a bath. They disappear into the tunnel she emerged from a few minutes earlier.
As soon as she’s out of sight, the watchers start laughing and making kissie-kissie noises and I realise: they’re all children. And all girls, as far as I can tell, except for Booysen and Marlboro and two other boys around their age. They look like street kids, with their matted hair and dirty faces, but their clothes are clean enough and though they’re not fat, they’re not starving either. I do a quick headcount: about thirty girls. The smallest looks five or six; the oldest, a blonde girl, is maybe twelve. It’s hard to tell the ages of street kids exactly – they’re small from being hungry and sucking glue. Sometimes you meet a boy that looks ten and he tells you he’s sixteen. Maybe true, maybe not: it’s like that. The streets are full of lies and invisible kids nobody wants.
I find Sindi in a pipe lit by a single bulb. A double mattress, with a sinkhole in the centre that tells me it’s Ma Wilma’s bed, sits at the edge of the cold blue circle cast by the bulb. Next to the bed is a cardboard box containing a few dog-eared magazines. Beyond the lick of light, a white dress hangs like a lonely ghost on a clothing rail. I wander over and rub one of the lacy cuffs between my finger and thumb. Crispy, like crumbs of burnt toast.
I turn from the dress and look at my sister. She sits shivering on the mattress. Ma Wilma stands in front of her, holding her coat. Without it, Sindi looks small-small. I can’t remember the last time she took off the coat, but her jeans, belted with string, remember the width her waist used to be. Her jersey is faded and full of holes, the New Tiyang Primary colours stolen by sun and dirt. The sleeves are too short and sit halfway between her wrist and elbow: Sindi’s getting longer and thinner. Two girls come in carrying a washtub between them. Water slops over the sides as they set it down.
“Watch it,” Ma Wilma snaps. “Next time you waste water like that, I’ll bleed you to replace it. Take this and get rid of it.” Ma Wilma holds out Sindi’s coat. Neither girl moves. “Problem?” she asks, arching her brow. I see she doesn’t have any eyebrows or lashes. They shake their heads like their ears are glued together. “You girlies aren’t princesses either. Remember where I found you? I can put you back there.”
“Ja, Ma,” they say with one voice.
“Now get, and send Loveday with some clean clothes.”
The girls skitter out with the coat and Ma Wilma turns her attention back to Sindi. “You sick, girlie?” she asks, tilting Sindi’s head back. She pulls my sisi’s lower eyelids down. Sindi’s eyes roll, but she doesn’t pull away. “You got the sickness or what?” Sindi shakes her head. Ma Wilma looks hard at her face. “How old are you?”
“Thirteen,” I say.
“I asked you a question,” she says, shaking Sindi.
“I’m fift_teen.”
“Liar, liar pants on fire!” I shout.
“You ever been with a man? You got a boyfriend?”
Sindi shakes her head. Ma Wilma grunts and shuffles over to the cardboard box. She takes out a sewing needle and a white plastic stick about the length of a pen. The black swirls towards me when she stabs the needle into my sisi’s finger.
“Okay, okay,” Ma Wilma soothes. She twists Sindi’s finger so the drop of blood beading on the end of it drips into a small window in the plastic stick, then drops the stick into her pocket. “What happened to your hand?”
“A dog bit m_m_me.”
“Ah, a whole sentence. Good, I was beginning to think you were simple. Loveday will get that cleaned up, then we’ll get you something to eat and find you a bed.”
As if summoned by her name, a lanky girl with a shock of hair as blonde as Marlboro’s enters, carrying a bundle of clothes. Ma Wilma and the girl speak in low voices. I hover around my sisi. She’s shivering, hugging herself to try still the shakes. Ma Wilma leaves the pipe, her skirt hissing like a snake. When she’s gone, Loveday tosses the bundle of clothes onto the bed.
“Ma Wilma says for you to wash. She want me to do it, make sure you get properly clean but no way. You wash yourself, neh. I’m happy to look out for the laaities, make sure they gets cleaned up once a week, but you not a laaitie. You got years on me fo sho. And you stink worse than the ouledi’s blumas.” She flops down onto the mattress, takes a magazine from the box and flicks through it. Sindi doesn’t move. Loveday shoves her with a foot. “Look, sista, don’t mess around. Ma Wilma’s going to come back now-now. She’s got other uses for that knobkerrie, she’s not as old as she looks.”
When she still doesn’t move, Loveday stops paging and gives her a hard look.
“Jissis, moegoe. Move it.” Loveday drops the magazine, grabs Sindi by the arms and pulls her to her feet. The girl looks like a stick of the pampas grass that grows in the barren stretches of veld along the Ring Road, all white fluff on top of a thin
