towards his child; Lord knows, she wasn’t asking him to disown Lunga. It was the mother of the child who was the problem. Pinky was furious with her for finding love with Thomas. Two years Nandi had known this woman, two years that felt like eternal hell. Life wasn’t fair. All she wanted was a loving man and a peaceful relationship, not a lunatic ex-girlfriend with entitlement issues. Was that too much to ask?
* * *
Zaza Zulu slowly opened her eyes. She was greeted by darkness. She lay still and watched unfamiliar silhouettes take shape and form around her. After a minute or two her eyes adjusted. She became aware of a hand resting comfortably on her waist. Zaza smiled; how could she have forgotten? She turned, careful not to disturb the hand, until she was facing the owner of the protruding limb. In the dark she could see his outline – a small round nose, broad shapely mouth and a strong square jaw that had taken her breath away the first time she saw him. She wanted to run her fingers along its contours. She thought he was the handsomest man she had ever laid her eyes on. Zaza smiled again as she took the hand into hers, resting both on her naked chest. The owner inched closer to her and tightened the grip of his hand. Zaza closed her eyes. Bliss.
Hardly a minute later, her pillow started to vibrate. Zaza cursed, her moment of ecstasy disturbed. With her free hand she took the cellphone from under the pillow and switched off the alarm. Reluctantly she slipped out of bed and felt around for her clothes. She found her bra and panties on the bedroom floor. She picked them up and negotiated her way along the dim hallway, following the trail of her clothes. It was the first time she had come to the flat at night, but she found her way around without difficulty. She liked the place and its shabbiness, the naked walls with their chipping greyish paint and the sparse second-hand furnishings. She found it unexpectedly homely. Her three-million-rand house in exclusive, leafy Bryanston was immaculate, perfect, filled with stylish furniture as if it were a television advertisement home, the type one saw on Top Billing, or a feature in Garden & Home magazine. Yet, here she was in a dilapidated flat in Sunnyside, Pretoria, many kilometres from home.
In the lounge Zaza turned on the lights. She spotted her cardigan lying haphazardly on a tattered brown sofa, her slacks on the kitchen counter, and her shoes – one on the floor by the entrance hallway and the other under a white plastic chair behind the door. She dressed and went to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and dried it with the back of her sweater. She caught a glimpse of her face in the bathroom’s cracked mirror and quickly ran her fingers through the knotted tangle-free three-thousand-rand weave. She needed to go home before her children woke up and came barging into her empty bedroom demanding toast and Rice Krispies. She fastened the buttons of her cardigan and went back to the bedroom to wake him.
Their first night together had gone well despite her earlier misgivings. She had almost not come, had thought the idea of a nightcap too reckless. She had been cross with him for even suggesting they spend a night together. So what if her husband, Bheki, was in Tanzania on business for a few days? That didn’t give her permission to leave her children and whore around town all night.
“We might as well sit my husband and your wife down and tell them we’re sleeping together,” Zaza had scolded him. She noticed he was getting bolder and increasingly reckless with his ideas. Last time they met he had forgone the obscure and soulless, hourly rated hotels they often stayed in and booked them a deluxe room at the opulent Westcliff Hotel, the same hotel where she and Bheki had celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary earlier in the year. She was incensed; what was he trying to prove? And then a few weeks later he brought up the idea of them spending an entire night away.
“I thought you might like spending more than an hour with me. I wasn’t being disrespectful. I’m sorry,” he had said, sounding genuinely wounded by Zaza’s attack.
As days went by, and with Bheki often out of town, Zaza found herself thinking the idea of their spending a night together wasn’t so preposterous any more. They met at his work in Kempton Park after she had seen her children to bed, and drove in his car to the flat in Pretoria. They made hungry love, ate pizza on the lounge floor and drank expensive red wine in clear plastic glasses he found in one of the kitchen cupboards. Later, full and tipsy, they made love again, smelling the salami and wine on each other’s breath. She couldn’t remember when they had finally drifted off to sleep.
He was awake, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, when Zaza came into the room. The side lamp on the floor emitted a dull orange glow.
“We must go, Bongani.” She sat down and planted a kiss on his cheek. “It’s getting late.”
He didn’t say anything, only turned his head to face her. Their eyes met. There was such intensity and longing – and something else, something endearing – in his stare that she didn’t want to let go of it. They were both intent on capturing the moment, perhaps afraid a blink would take them back to reality – a place where passion and tenderness weren’t far short of mythical. Zaza’s cheeks burned as waves of heat coursed through her body like small volcanic eruptions.
“Do you ever wish things were different for us?” he finally asked, still holding her gaze.
“What do you mean?” Zaza laughed nervously and averted her eyes from his. She had never seen him so intense, so purposeful.
“I mean, don’t you wish we were together?”
“But, baby, we are together.”
“No, not like this. I can’t stand this merry-go-round any more. I can’t stand the lie I’m living. Zaza, I want you. I’m tired of these stolen moments.” He cupped her face in both his hands. “I think about you all the time. Each day that goes by without seeing your beautiful face or hearing your voice is like a wasted day. I live for our next meeting; I count the days, the hours, the minutes, until I see you. I keep telling myself the feeling will disappear, that one day I’ll wake up and not think of you. I go home to my wife and children and think, ‘ This is where I’m supposed to be. This is where I belong.’ Only I’m miserable there.”
Zaza stood up and walked over to the window. She felt the intensity of his gaze bore a hole through her back. The street lights below flickered in despair. With the exception of the occasional car passing by, the street was deserted. If she left now, she could be home in thirty minutes; everyone in her household would still be fast asleep.
She thought of the day ahead. Bheki was coming back from Tanzania that morning; she needed to fetch him from the airport. Then she planned on meeting with her friend Nandi for sundowners before spending some quality time with her family. She would work from home, there was no need to visit eThembeni Home or be at the boutique.
“I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I can take you home now,” Bongani said, coming up behind her.
Zaza was startled; she hadn’t heard him climb out of bed or change into his clothes. She turned to him, arms folded across her chest, and said, “Yes, do take me home.”
* * *
The same morning, fifty kilometres south of Pretoria, in the lounge of her first-floor apartment in Parktown, one of Joburg’s oldest suburbs, Princess Mokoena woke to the blaring sound of gunfire and galloping horses. Except for the flickering light coming from the television, the room was dark and chilly. Without opening her eyes she felt for the television remote control. She found it under the book she had been reading before she dozed off. Swiftly she turned the television off and lay back with her head resting on the armrest of the sofa. A cricket chirped insanely somewhere in the room, but despite straining her neck she couldn’t locate the sound. A chair? bed? scraped in the apartment above. Outside, in the distance, a car hooted and tyres screeched. She held her breath and waited for the impact.
Princess
