“You do it on your own,” she says, simply.
So I try calling Auntie and Uncle but neither answers the phone, nor do they call back. I text—We need to do ukugeza, I am planning to do it, are you both coming?—and hear only silence in return.
But you can’t wait forever to cleanse the hut. At some point, life must return to the living. Even sangomas know this, we who are always with one foot in that world and one in this.
What should I do?
Go to her, my child, Mkhulu says. Your Gogo is here with us but she must have peace. Your Auntie Phumzile has forgotten tradition.
But what Mkhulu doesn’t say, is this thing of accusing a relative of witchcraft—that is also tradition. Not real tradition. Not like a wedding or a funeral, where you can say, This is how things are done, nee? You have the food so, and the people so, and the impepho so, and here is where the amadlozi sit, and you must, you must, you must. But even so, these accusations, they happen all the time. What do you think of that, Mkhulu? Is that tradition, hah? Sometimes I am not so sure about “tradition.”
Thandi and I have a quick cup of tea after but Hopeful is misbehaving, chasing after the dog and knocking into one of her grandmother’s customers waiting in line, an elderly gentleman sitting on a broken chair. He wobbles for a second and then totters over, so slow it’s almost comical.
“Oh, Mkhulu,” I say, “let me help you up.” He grips my offered hand and I raise him to standing position.
While I’m helping the old man, Thandi is already yelling at Hopeful and chasing her through the yard and into the house to swat her bottom.
I wait some few minutes, then tell Thandi I’ll come by again soon. I’m so glad I’m not a mother yet.
That Saturday, Zi and I walk to the other side of Imbali to Auntie’s house. They are home, I know this because her husband’s car is there, and Auntie doesn’t drive, but we rattle and rattle the gate and nobody comes out. We wait and wait. The sun beats down on us. We rattle again and wait. The dust rises and settles. Zi coughs. It feels like the grit is stuck in my throat.
“Why is Auntie rejecting us?” Zi asks. “Mama was her sister.”
It does not make me proud to admit it, but I collapse at Auntie Phumzi’s gate, sitting right there in the dirt as though I was a chicken or goat.
“What are you doing, Khosi?” Zi’s voice rises high and shaky.
It’s been three weeks since you left us, Gogo, and we’re all alone. That is what I say to her.
But even as I wail silently, I know we’re not alone. I have this cast of characters, as my drama teacher used to say, and they follow me everywhere, commenting on everything. Just now, they stare at me in stark disapproval. Get up, stop being a child, their stares say, even while their mouths remain closed.
“I don’t know what to do, Zi,” I say. “My spirit isn’t in this fight. I just want to do what is right for Gogo. And for us, for the family. We must do the cleansing.”
Zi rattles the gate and starts to call, “Auntie! Auntie Phumzi! You must come out. We must talk to you.”
You’re letting Zi do this alone, shame, Mkhulu says finally. You mustn’t give up. Her voice is small and it doesn’t carry, it’s like a mosquito in a large room. Your voice will travel. You must just fly near your Auntie’s ear so she cannot ignore you.
You cannot give up, my girl.
That is a new voice. A woman speaking. I peer at the people surrounding Mkhulu. Who is it, speaking to me? Who is this person? I have never heard her before. They gaze back at me, unperturbed. Any one of them can speak to me, and they are multitudes. But mostly, they let Gogo or Mkhulu speak.
“What are you looking at, Khosi?” Zi has turned back from the gate, defeated.
“Oh, nothing.”
You mustn’t be like the beasts of the field, those who graze and do not even know what they are eating.
It is that same voice again.
I’m not a beast of the field, I grumble at her, whoever she is.
“What, Khosi?” Zi asks.
Did I say that out loud?
“Please, can we go home now?” she asks.
That forces me to my feet. I stand and dust the dirt from my skirt. I do not have a loud voice either. Zi and I, we are just Imbali girls, trained to be quiet. But like Mkhulu says, I can send my voice right into Auntie’s ear.
“Auntie,” I say, as though she were standing right beside us. I picture my voice flying through the air, perching on her shoulder, speaking directly into her ear. “Auntie. We are here, and we are not going home until you come out and talk to us. If we start to yell, and make a scene, your neighbors will all come out and hear how you are neglecting your sister’s children, how you are not willing to do ukugeza for your own mother. All the amadlozi are here with me, and if you think they won’t help me, you are mistaken. I am the one they chose, I am a sangoma. I can hear them just as well as you can hear me now, even though I am nowhere near you.”
“I’m here,” Auntie says suddenly.
She stands by the gate, hair wrapped in a black turban. She’s glaring at me so hard, her eyes bulge right out of her head. I want to tell her to stop staring or a bird will think her eyes are a ledge that they can land on. But I stay silent. Her husband and my cousin Beauty stand on the porch, keeping their distance.
“Speak, wena, and let us be done with it.”
“We must do this thing,” I say. “It’s time.”
“How can you do ukugeza?” Auntie protests. “You are not even wearing proper mourning clothes, hah! Are you going to burn your everyday clothes? And tell me, how will we buy a goat? Do you have so many rands that you can just go and buy one? If so, why are you not making your entire family rich, eh?”
I can’t afford a goat, it’s true, but it’s also true that I know people, namely, a whole host of amadlozi, and they are on my side. They will help me. Auntie is forgetting that.
“I will get a goat,” I say. “But you must come.”
“How will you get a goat?” she shouts. “You see, hah! You can just conjure up a goat, like that. You are a witch. We will never come to your house. We will do our own ceremony here.”
“Gogo is not here,” I say. “She doesn’t sit by your hearth in your hut. She is in my hut, at my hearth, in her own home. How can you do the cleansing here?”
But she is already gone, slamming the door behind her.
Zi and I are silent for a long time as we walk home. “How are we going to get a goat?” Zi asks finally.
I wish I knew. “You will see,” I say.
How am I going to get a goat? It is not like goats wander the streets of Imbali, looking to be slaughtered so that you can do a cleansing for a loved one. Even if we were in the rural areas, goats are valued creatures.
Zi is asleep, taking a Saturday afternoon nap. It is a hot day and she grew sleepy. I would love to crawl in beside her and join her but I am vexed with this problem. We need to do the cleansing, and if I am on my own to do it, I am on my own.
Why can’t it be a chicken, Gogo? A chicken I can find. A chicken I can buy, somehow. I can search for rands in the dirt, like a chicken pecking for food, and I can stand out on the street corners offering my services as a sangoma until enough people employ me so that I can buy a chicken.
I will tell you how to get a goat, my girl.