Then he drove me to the taxi rank so that I could get a taxi home. I felt sad that he was dropping me at the taxi rank but I smiled all the way anyway.
“If you need anything, dear, call this number and tell the person who answers the phone what you need. If he asks who you are, tell him that you are dear to me and he will help you.”
A hug. I suppressed my tears. I really wanted to go with him. “Dad, can I come with you?” was on the tip of my tongue; I wanted to cry like a toddler when its mother leaves. He called my name again, just like he had the first time.
“Mokgethi. My dear, don’t cry ... I love you too much.”
I wanted to ask him to say those words again, but it felt kind of out of line.
When I got home, his son was there. I looked at him, taking in their similarities.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Khutso asked. “I am a natural charmer, I know, but for heaven’s sake, you are my sister and I am your brother. Please, don’t look at me with those eyes.”
“Today I dreamed of your father ... He said that I must give you a hug and tell you that he loves you.”
“When you dream about him again, tell him that I love him too, very much.”
“I am serious.”
“And I am very serious too.”
I wished that I could have given him a hug right then, but he wouldn’t have liked it much. At least I told him that the rabbit loves him.
Pieces of Mokgethi
Statements about Mokgethi:
Mokgethi is a beautiful girl, though she likes to pretend that she isn’t.
I always say that I am not beautiful, I just suit myself beautifully. I have a light complexion and I am tall enough to be a model (at nearly one point seven metres). I am not proud but I know I have a body, a body that makes all men think impure thoughts. How do I know this? Although my breasts are small, they started to develop when I was ten and by thirteen they had fully developed. They have been like this ever since and ever since the men cannot keep away.
Any part of me that I dislike? Yes, the fat. I am not saying that I am fat but sometimes I want to be thinner. Maybe it is because of outside influences, advertising. Most of the time, though, I am very fine and happy with myself.
Part of me that I like the most? It could be my brain, my thinking ability. But my brain is in my head; I cannot see that as part of me. The part of me that I like the most is my belly. It is the flattest belly that one could ever ask for. Just below the ribs it sucks itself in, so that on any given day I can eat as much as I want and it comes out only just a little bit. Unlike other people, I never suck in my belly in public – I don’t need to; it is always belly-sexy-licious.
Love my nails, my hands, though I am only growing the smallest nail on my left hand and my thumbnails at the moment. In this part of the world a girl has chores that are not nail-friendly. When I was in private school I grew them all and then painted them black. As soon as my grandmother saw this she demanded that I cut them immediately. When I asked her what was wrong with them she just got angry, so I cut them, but even when they are cut short they are still hand heaven and men notice them before I even say a word.
Mokgethi likes to walk fast.
I can move these two long legs I have; at times my friends say that I walk very fast. Because of this I love the miniskirt – it lets me walk as fast as I like. It’s just that when I am in one, Mars gets aroused and one never knows what they tell themselves after smoking weed and hanging around on their favourite corner. I don’t like to provoke Mars. When they notice me, they shut up and all eyes follow me, taking every step with me, and when I greet them they just keep looking at me without responding and I can still feel their eyes on me until I am out of sight. Scary. Very scary. I do not wear miniskirts when I am going out without my bodyguards.
Mokgethi enjoys reading and loves poetry above everything.
Writing poetry and reading: I do not know why I started doing these things but I am doing them. I try to read as much as I can and not only schoolbooks, which I have to not only read but understand and know as well. At my previous school I had a big library to play with, but here there is only a book storeroom that I have no access to.
A few books have had a profound effect on me. One was Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. Another was Camara Laye’s The Dark Child, which Mamafa holds dear. The funniest book I ever read was Chenjerai Hove’s portrait of Zimbabwean life: Shebeen Tales. I tried to read Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom but it proved to be a long read to freedom and I failed before passing the twenty-seventh page, which makes me feel like I haven’t reached freedom yet. I cannot say it is boring because for a book to be boring one needs to finish it and then say it as a fact, but I continually got stuck somewhere because of some other things that distracted me and I do not like to keep reading the same book for four weeks. Eventually I lost interest.
My ultimate love is modern poetry; it is short, direct, nothing but raw talent. Kopano Dibakwane is my ultimate contemporary poet. I always take his work to the loo, then take too much time, more than necessary, enjoying him.
Mokgethi doesn’t really care about magazines or newspapers.
I have never found a magazine that truly has that much to offer me. There was one that I used to buy; it was full of sex, celebrity news and fashion. Not that I am interested much in the sex but I read that as well. Newspapers: I do not really read a newspaper; I scan the headlines first, then I read what I think is interesting. But most of the time there isn’t that much that interests me.
Mokgethi dreams of playing tennis.
Netball is the sport that I play, but we only start to practise if we are going to play another school and usually only a week before the game. I would love to play tennis and here in our community we have a tennis court that has been vandalised, refurbished, vandalised and refurbished once more and today lies vandalised. In my whole life I have never seen anyone playing tennis there but I hope that one day I will play on it.
Mokgethi is a very intelligent girl who is concerned about her schoolwork.
I really am. I can solve any mathematical equation, write a very sound essay and read and understand a book on my own. I have never, ever failed a test or an exam in my whole schooling life and the last time I took an evaluation test they didn’t believe that I was from a rural/disadvantaged primary school. I can speak five of our national languages excellently and, except for Xhosa, I can converse in the others – not well, but okay.
Mokgethi likes to think that she is very sociable but she is definitely not streetwise.
I am a private person. I am my own best friend and when I am with this best friend I don’t notice time passing. I do not have a best friend from my primary school period as I do not have a true friend from the time I spent at private school. I have church friends only because I am going to church with them and high school friends that are only friends because of this common thing we share – school. I do not have a boyfriend as I never had one before and I do not think that I am ready to have one yet.
Above all, Mokgethi likes to think that she is an intellect.
Yes, I am an intellect. Why am I saying that? Because I am. My friends can tell me this and that, using their experience to guide me, but for anything academic they have to consult with me and listen very carefully.
Next year I will be in Cape Town, at the University of Cape Town preferably. I would love to be in Britain, at Oxford University, on my first step to greatness, but a hundred wishes squared plus nine wants minus a billion complications equals X. X as in the unknown sum. Mathematically I can solve any equation but this X, this real-life X, remains an X no matter what I do.
James and Mamafa
Today is a day that I do not have words for. I survived this long because there were people around