“I never come this way alone,” I say. I’ve already learned to avoid the places where tsotsis hang out. I don’t like the way they approach, slow, like they have all the time in the world. They pass by me, staring, their faces a mask but their eyes lit up with—with what? Something I don’t want to see. I’ve never seen a tsotsi smile, though surely they must, somewhere, sometime…right? Maybe they smile at their mothers.
But Mama isn’t done fretting. “No, you need to be very careful.”
It’s like Mama thinks I don’t know what those men could do to me. I may be young but I have friends all over Imbali and they tell me just what happens if you flirt with danger. Even one of them, Sibu, told me it can happen with men you know. Her own uncle crawled into bed with her one night! She didn’t dare tell her parents.
I’m glad my mother’s brother Richard is nothing like that. When he comes home on the weekend—hayibo!—the only thing I have to worry about is his dirty socks. He has never tried what what what with me. No, he is just like Gogo and Mama, always telling me not to be like other young women. “Wena uzihloniphe,” they say, over and over. “Respect yourself. Protect your virtue.” Though I agree with what they say, I don’t understand how you are responsible for protecting your virtue if a man attacks and overpowers you.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” I say, impatient.
But of course, Mama isn’t comforted by my words. So I try again. “Mama, the farthest I go alone is to the sangoma’s house to pick up herbs for Gogo. That’s only some few streets away.”
“I wish you didn’t ever have to leave the house, mntwana wam’,” she says finally, smiling.
“That is impossible,” I say, treating her comment like a joke. But horror clamps around my heart. My world is small enough as it is—Gogo only lets me go from home to school, the tuck shop near our house, the vegetable market, or the sangoma’s. If I am gone even some few minutes longer than she thinks I should be, she gets so worried. One time last year, I lost our khumbi money. So after school, Zi and I had to walk from the city all the way back to Imbali. It took an hour. By the time we arrived, she was sending an entire impi of neighbors all over Imbali, looking for us.
Still, Gogo doesn’t have a choice. She is too old to go with us everywhere and she depends on me to buy food and run other small errands while Mama is gone. Like Mama, my uncle Richard works far away, and he comes home even less often than she does.
“Mama, don’t worry about Khosi,” Zi says. She has stopped dancing around in front of us and is holding Mama’s hand. “I’m always with her. I’ll protect her. Just yesterday…”
I look at Zi and shake my head slightly. Don’t tell Mama about that man that grabbed my leg yesterday.
But Mama’s laughing. “You’re right, Zi, why am I so worried? You’ll take care of her.” And she reaches out to smooth Zi’s hair.
Families file inside the sanctuary and sit in the pews. Some women are dressed in our church uniform, a white and purple gown. They prance down the aisle, looking special, like they belong more than the rest of us who just sit here in our ordinary Sunday clothes. We can’t afford the uniform. Some of these women can’t afford it either, but they scraped and saved for weeks, maybe months, to buy it.
Mama starts singing beside me and I join in, Zi dancing and whirling beside us, as the priests walk down the aisle holding high the cross with the crucified Jesus Christ. Alleluia. Alleluia. Amen. We stand as they pass, make the sign of the cross, then sit when they reach the front of the sanctuary.
When I was younger, I used to have trouble putting together all the different things we believe. There’s God, the ancestors, the saints, and Jesus. Who should I pray to?
“Pray to all of them,” Gogo told me. “The spirits of the ancestors are like the saints. When we are in trouble, we can call on them. The Lord-of-the-Sky is in heaven but the departed are still here with us on earth.”
“Why don’t we just pray to the Lord-of-the-Sky?” I asked. “He’s the most powerful.”
“Sho!” she exclaimed. “God is too busy to be doing what what what every time we pray. With all the thousands of people praying all at the same time asking for everything, do you think that God can hear all of us at once? I do not think so. We worship God only but we are grateful for the people who can help us on earth. Your ancestors are the people who gave you life, Khosi. They will trouble you when you have misbehaved. They will help you when you do what’s right.”
Mama, Zi, and I stand as we join in collective prayer. I wonder if it makes a difference when thousands of us—millions even—are all praying to God for the same thing, all at once? Does he hear us then?
“For all those suffering from AIDS, tuberculosis, and cancer, we pray to the Lord,” the priest says.
I peek around the congregation. Everybody here—everybody—has a relative who has died or is dying of AIDS. But we never talk about it. No. Not in public.
“Lord, hear our prayer,” we murmur.
After church, my friend Thandi nearly knocks me down with her hug. “I have so much to tell you,” she squeals.
Thandi always has so much to tell me, even though I saw her in school just two days ago. Thandi is not what Gogo would call a “good girl.” She has had more boyfriends than I can remember, and most of them are sugar daddies, older men who buy her things. I think she has gone all the way with them, and she’s my age! One of these days, she will fall pregnant. One of these days, she may get sick from what they give her. I hope not, but it is a common problem. Two of my uncles died from HIV already. How does anybody think they will be the lucky ones to be spared?
“You have a new boyfriend?” I guess. Thandi can meet a man on the short walk from the khumbi stop to her house and by the time she’s reached her front door, he’s already proposed.
I’m not disappointed. She flips open her cell phone and shows me his picture. “He owns a jewelry shop downtown,” she boasts, holding out her hand to show me the slender gold band on her right index finger. “He’s already given me so much cellphone airtime, I can talk whenever I want.”
“Thandi, he looks way too old for you,” I say. Not that Thandi cares. She likes older men. And their money.
“He’s not that old.” Thandi frowns, grabbing the cell phone back. She inspects his picture.
“He has a beard,” I point out. “And it’s gray.”
“I don’t care. Girl, he has so much money.”
This thing isn’t worth the argument. “Anyway, is your grandmother working today?” Gogo and I like Thandi’s grandmother because she is honest. Some sangomas, they are just trying to make money and what what what. But if Inkosikazi Nene thinks you need to go to the doctor, or that she can’t help you, she’ll say so.
“Yo, she had such a long line waiting for her when we woke up this morning,” Thandi says. “That is why she isn’t in church.”
“Can I walk home with you? I need to get some muthi for Gogo.” I’m not about to tell Thandi about the witch.
“Yebo, let me tell Baba.”
I don’t want to be like Thandi, but I’m jealous of one thing: she lives with her father. I will never live with Baba. When I was Zi’s age, I wished Mama and Baba would get married. I didn’t understand then how expensive is this thing of lobolo. In order to marry my mother, my baba has to give Gogo a lot of money. Back when Gogo was a girl, men gave cows to the bride’s family. These days, they just give money instead. But still, it’s too expensive. That’s why not many people get married.
Baba