happened?” the doctor asks me.
“I looked into the mirror and danced . . .” I reply.
Nhlakanipho and Tongai look down.
“I realised that the world is selling us idolatry. I got tired of all these images: the TV, newspapers, magazines, internet blogs. I got tired of everything. The last time I felt like this was in high school after I smoked weed with a friend.”
“Do you smoke dagga?”
“I had my first joint when I was doing grade nine. I smoked with a friend of mine, Ringo. He is dead now. He was stabbed with a screwdriver. I mostly smoked on weekends. I never abused it – not one to smoke every day. People just assumed I smoked more than I did. I only started taking drugs this year.”
“Which drugs were you taking?”
“I snorted cocaine for the first time when I started hanging with Mfundo. It also became cool: the self-destruction. I wanted people to know I was on coke. One evening, on the day I had been paid, I spent almost two thousand rand on alcohol and cocaine. Later that night I scored myself a prostitute. I bumped into that prostitute not long ago. I told her that I felt very bad for having had sex with her. She looked sorry. I became too full of myself. I could even make prostitutes feel bad. Tongai came in the room when I was with the lady. He knew that I had company. He told me that he took a good look at her. What sort of a person does things like that? Since that night, I haven’t taken drugs, haven’t had alcohol or smoked. I broke a window in my room the week following my encounter with the prostitute. I think it was caused by stress. I felt trapped. The last time I smoked weed was when you, Nhlakanipho, came running into my flat with Mpumelelo. You were running from Mfundo. Since that day I felt nervous in the flat. I feared I’d walk in to find a gunman.”
“How much does cocaine cost?” the doctor asks.
“It goes for four hundred rand,” I reply.
“Four hundred rand a line?” he asks, looking shocked.
“No, they sell it in grams. It is four hundred rand a gram,” I correct him.
“How much did you get paid?”
“About nine thousand rand a month. When I was young, I cursed God. I remember I was sitting on the lawn of our house in Alice. I cursed in isiXhosa.”
Nhlakanipho rolls his eyes upon hearing this.
“My grandmother once came and cut all my hair with a pair of scissors. I used to have bad dreams when I was young: running in town seeing people dressed in black with necklaces of horns. Before sleeping, my grandmother used to rub me with pig fat to ward off evil spirits. I once dreamt of white women with black hair masturbating; they also had small penises.”
My speech is rapid. I am not thinking. My words cut Tongai’s and Nhlakanipho’s eyes.
“My father I saw only once dressed in his Zulu outfit. I did not really see him. I only saw a photo. It was in his parents’ home in Soweto. One morning he kept on beating me for spilling food while I was eating. His mother shouted at him to stop. I did not want to cry, but tears streamed down my cheeks. Tongai is the only person I’ve told that the last time I saw my father, he wanted us to take a blood test. I was fourteen years old then. I refused to go for the test. He once took me to a graveyard in Zola and spoke to the ancestors. When I hear that song by Zola, ‘Bhambata’, I go crazy. ‘Tsotsi usus’eka Bhambata namhlanje, sofa sibalandele baningi la siyakhona,’” I sing.
Tongai looks fearful as he exhales through his mouth.
“What does that mean?” the doctor asks.
“We’ll die and follow them; there’s plenty where we are going,” I reply.
When the doctor is finished writing, he will give the verdict: whether I will make it to heaven or not. Blemishes in my spirit keep surfacing; I confess these to the doctor. In all fairness, the process is just: first the body test, the perspective from my friends, and then the verdict.
“When I was about ten years old, me and my friends called this one girl into the back room in my house. We took turns sleeping with her. I was young and I did her on top of her panties. I met her later in life; she looked like a prostitute. She died from AIDS. Guys always blamed me for Bulumko smoking weed because he first smoked with me. But then they started smoking every day. Every day after school they’d go to the park. He got expelled. I don’t think he even passed matric. Whenever I met him, he was unkempt.”
One at a time, Tongai and Nhlakanipho go outside with the doctor. I sit quietly with the female nurse and one of my friends. I still have my Bible in my hands. What worries me is that I’m the only one with a Bible here. Don’t they realise that they need the holy book for reference? Before the doctor decides whether I’m going to heaven or hell, I have to get it all off my chest.
The doctor returns, followed by my friends.
“I went to a Portuguese church on Sunday,” I tell the doctor. “It was such a surreal experience. It was like the service was custom-made for me. The preacher spoke of the issues I’ve had for a long time of doubting God. He said we should yield to the music of the creator. I went to meet the pastor in his office after the service. Holding his Bible, he asked me my name. It felt like he was reading from the book of life. At the flat later in the evening we were watching South African crime stories. I was scared watching the programme.”
“Yeah, what was going on?” Tongai interjects.
“I thought that guy who had raped was going to turn into me. In the end I feared his face would transform into mine. I was also concerned that you, Tongai, were going to die. While in bed I had flashes of my life. Throughout my life it seemed everything had been a battle between good and evil. Is that what happens before you die, your life flashes back?” I ask the doctor.
The doctor shrugs.
I remember how I mistreated Nhlakanipho, how arrogant I was. At least Tongai was humble enough to apologise. I was walking with Nhlakanipho at about five in the morning. I was angry with him. I told him not to walk with me, to go home. I felt he was not fit to walk with me . . . That was my problem. I judged people too harshly.
“You, you speak ill of people.” I confront Nhlakanipho.
He scratches his head.
“Why are you looking down? That’s what you do. You never have anything positive to say about anyone. You gossip about everyone – even your own brother, Mpumelelo. That day when you were at my flat and you left thinking I was not in a good mood, what really happened was that I realised that your heart was steaming with hatred. I dreamt we were fighting that night, I was pushing you in the corridor, yelling ‘In the name of Jesus’. But I did not even believe in God at the time.”
Nhlakanipho only scratches his head again in reply. I address the doctor: “There’s so much about Nhlakanipho that tires me. This desire of his to be the king of the castle, whatever is on offer on the table, whether it’s food or liquor or cigarettes or attention, he wants the biggest chunk of it. Who gets drunk and wants to be the centre of attention? Spending time with Nhlakanipho became dreadful. He’d dump on me . . . all the problems he had with people. By the time he was done, I’d feel drained. I realised that I didn’t need this in my life. I did not have to go through it; it’s not like he was someone I worked with, whom I’d have to
