Lesihle sits quietly at the top of the bed, next to her mother’s head, her face full of unshed tears. When it is time for them to go to bed, Lesihle asks to spend a few more minutes alone with her mother. I hear soft sobs behind me as I close the door. My eyes prickle.
Sizwe comes home soon after the children are in bed. I let him wash off the grease and heat, and, after a few moments with Fikile, bring him a plate of food and a beer. We sit on the veranda not saying much. Only after midnight does Sizwe lead me inside the house to our room. I stop in Fikile’s room, lean over her bed to check her breath. Satisfied, I turn her body, and watch her sleep in her morphine-induced state. In bed, Sizwe takes my hand in his and kisses my forehead. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.
Three hours later, my eyes push open.
I slip out of our bedroom into Fikile’s room, find a space next to her and lie still. Lying next to my sister reminds me of when we were younger and the roaring thunderstorms would wake me from sleep, dazed and panicked. I would leave my single bed and crawl into Fikile’s next to mine. My sister would groan, spread herself across the bed, covering every inch of space and in her sleepy voice tell me to grow up and get off, that the lightning was far away and could not hurt me. I didn’t believe her, and would push and beg until she made room for me. She would tell me not to touch her, that she didn’t need extra heat. Of course it was impossible for our bodies not to rub; still I would sleep on the edge and will myself not to move, intent on pleasing my sister, and grateful for her small mercies.
I wake up with a jerk an hour or so later. Fikile is dead.
Because I cannot believe that my sister is gone – shouldn’t she have sent a signal, a warning, stirred some drama of sorts? – I lean over, holding my breath, watching intently for the movement of the blanket covering her body. I run my fingers over her face, feeling the thin skin along her cheek bones, prominent and sharp from the ravages of her illness. I place my index and third finger under her jaw right next to the windpipe and press lightly. No sign of life there either. Eventually I pull back to steady the quivers shooting through my body, blood pounding in my head, my mouth cold and too numb to call for help.
* * *
It is a while before I leave Fikile’s dead body and step over into the narrow corridor towards Ma’s bedroom. I tap once, let myself inside. In the dark I make out her silhouette, on her knees beside the bed. Ma does not look up. She continues to pray, harder, faster. The sound comes from a deep place in her body and squeezes out of her through her throat, pained and coarse. I expect the children to wake up, cranky, disturbed from their sleep; no one stirs. I remain standing for another minute, then gently shut the door behind me, and go to wake Sizwe. He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his thighs, head in his hands, his body shaking. I sit next to him and bury my face against his chest.
The first call I make is to Doctor Thusi. He answers his phone on the first ring, like someone who is prepared for action; a combat soldier. If he was sleeping, he does not give any signs. I inform him of Fikile’s passing. Doctor Thusi is mute for a moment. I fear I may have to repeat myself. As I open my mouth, he speaks, his voice clear and steady from years of counselling and healing. He tells me he will come straightaway.
I proceed to call members of my family. Auntie Betty swallows her heartache in a single sigh and promises to catch the first taxi to our house. Auntie Ntombi sobs on the phone and asks me over and over to say it isn’t so, until I hang up on her just as she is calling one of my cousins to come to the phone to help her understand what has just happened to her niece. My younger brother, Mbuso, answers on the third ring. I only say: “It’s Fikile.”
“I’ll be there before noon,” he says in the quietest tone.
Thiza’s phone goes straight to voicemail.
“He switches off his phone at night; obviously, he doesn’t want his whores to disturb him when he’s pretending to be a family man,” Fikile once said. I don’t leave a message. Ma suggests that Sizwe drives over to Thiza’s house to find him. It’s a pointless mission, both Sizwe and I know he won’t find him there, but neither of us have the heart to tell Ma. So Sizwe drives to Thiza and Fikile’s house in the other section of the township to tell him his wife has died.
My father’s younger brother, Uncle Majaha, does not pick up his phone, and after a familiar recording of a baritone voice commands the caller to “Khuluma” – a crude message as Ma has pointed out to my amused uncle on several occasions – I leave a message: Fikile is gone. My father’s older sister, Auntie Nomzamo, asks me to pray with her for Fikile’s soul. She prays to the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the King of Kings. She prays until my right ear is hot and buzzes. My phone battery dies and that marks the end of our conversation.
“Is she coming?” Ma asks.
“We got cut off. Why wouldn’t she?”
“I never know with your aunt, that woman never liked me from day one.” She wants to say more, but her voice does not let her. Instead she swallows, sighs. “We shall see.”
“She will come, Ma. Fikile is – was – their child. This is not about you or Aunt Nomzamo.”
I’m numb from making all the calls. We agree to contact the remaining family members later in the day.
* * *
Half an hour later Sizwe returns without Thiza but with Maria, our neighbour and family friend. We call her Auntie Maria. The look of disappointment at not seeing Thiza is evident on Ma’s face, she does not say anything. Auntie Maria is distracting her with sobs. A pink satin nightdress shows underneath Auntie Maria’s loose blue pinafore, the red doek is skewed on her head. Waves of tremors like small earthquakes spread from her chest and shoulders and roll down to her layered belly. When she gets closer to Ma, she flings herself down in front of her, bellowing: “Fikile! Why leave us? Why?” This goes on for a while, until Ma, who has been swallowing her tears, lets them pour out.
Sizwe turns briefly to me, pleading with his eyes: do something. I shake my head. Ma maintains that when people come to pay their respects to the aggrieved family it is rarely about the deceased; she says people are there to mourn their past personal losses, and that as an aggrieved family it is important to keep your grief in check and not to get caught up in other people’s emotional tangles. I am convinced now that Auntie Maria is weeping for her dead husband.
In her own time, Auntie Maria rises from the floor and takes a seat next to Ma.
“I don’t know what to say,” she speaks with a voice full of grief. “I just don’t know.”
“We are waiting for the hearse, Doctor Thusi is also on his way,” Ma says with regained composure.
I have known Auntie Maria since I was a child. She moved into the house next door to us a few years before my father’s death. Auntie Maria arrived one day in a small bakkie with only a few belongings – a bed, a two-seater sofa, sealed boxes. She didn’t have a fridge and for a few months shared ours. Ma kept an entire shelf for Auntie Maria’s perishables – long-life milk, eggs, Stork margarine, occasionally polony and cheese, which we eyed with drool dripping from our mouths. We watched the two men unload boxes and take them into Auntie Maria’s house. They were gone within an hour. Auntie Maria remained behind, alone. Ma waited for what she called a respectable amount of time to pass before crossing our yard to the new neighbour, Mbuso and I trailed along.
We live in an old section of the township, a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone; new arrivals stand out like thorns. We learned that Auntie Maria had moved to the house next door after her husband’s forgetfulness became too much to bear. He had forgotten small, insignificant things at first, but soon he couldn’t remember how to tie his laces, would pause mid-sentence in the middle of a conversation before continuing on an unrelated thread, and once looked at Auntie Maria steadily and said, “Gogo, where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you.” That’s when Auntie Maria had taken him to the mental hospital for assessments.