Chanda's Secrets (9 page)

Like I said, that was the last time I saw him. In fact, it's the last time anyone saw him. He's disappeared for real. Even Mary doesn't know where he is. I think we'd have heard if he'd turned up dead, so I guess he's alive. Maybe he's at his family's cattle post, or hustling booze at some squat out of town. Who knows?

There's rumors, though. A week after he disappeared, Mama and I were in the yard hanging laundry.

“Where's that man of yours been hiding himself?” Mrs. Tafa called over the hedge. Her voice was all honey—sticky for dirt. She's queen of the scab-pickers, that one.

“Oh he's busy at this and that,” Mama replied, so calm she didn't even drop a clothes-peg.

“Glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Tafa. “I didn't believe the rumors.”

What rumors? I wondered. I'm sure Mama wondered too, but she had too much pride to let on. “Oh ‘the rumors,'” she laughed. “Rumors, rumors, rumors. Some poor fools have nothing better to do than gossip.”

“Why, that's the Lord's truth,” Mrs. Tafa agreed, as if Mama
wasn't talking about her. Then she made a remark about her kettle boiling and hurried indoors. I was so proud of Mama for putting Mrs. Tafa in her place that I gave her a wink. She pretended not to notice.

“My joints are giving me a hard time today,” she said, nursing her elbows. “Could you finish up? I have to lie down. Maybe take some devil's claw root.” Her voice was kind of lost. As if, deep down, the truth had finally hit that Jonah wouldn't be back.

Since then, Mama's hardly waited up at all. Some nights she may pace in the main room, or wander through the garden. But mostly, she curls into a ball on her mattress, clutching a pillow. Sometimes she doesn't get up for a day or two. She'll just lie there, eyes shut, rubbing her temples.

The first time I saw her like that was scary. I told her I was going for a doctor, but she grabbed my wrist. “Don't you dare!” Her eyes blazed. “There's nothing the matter with me. It's just a headache.” Then she fell back on her mattress.

I'm used to her headaches now. And she's right. They're nothing to be worried about. If I had everything to think about that she does, I'd have them too. So instead of troubling her with doctor talk, I try to stay cheerful and do the chores she can't.

As soon as the rooster crows, I go to the coop, feed the chickens and collect their eggs. Then, while I make the breakfast, I get Iris and Soly dressed, and lay out a few things for lunch. That leaves me an hour to work in the garden before heading to school. If Mama still isn't herself when I get back, I go to the standpipe for water and make supper. Laundry, housework, and cutting firewood I save for the weekend.

Now, when I sit beside Mama at night, she doesn't tell me to go back to bed. She just pretends she doesn't see me.

She pretends about a lot of things. For instance, she pretends everything's normal. She never talks about Sara in front of Iris or Soly. She never mentions Jonah or her headaches either. It's as if she thinks by pretending everything's fine she can fool us into happiness.

Well, she's wrong.

Soly's started to wet the bed. At night he covers his eyes for shame while I wrap him in a rag towel and stick his legs through a plastic bag. Iris has been surprisingly kind, considering it's her bed too. She's only called him a baby once.

She's been mean about other things, though. Soly waits all morning to play with her. But when she gets back from kindergarten, she tricks him. “Let's play hide and seek,” she says. Only once he's gone to hide she doesn't bother looking for him. Instead, she sneaks off to explore the neighborhood. Eventually Soly comes out of his hiding place crying. When I get back from school I head out to find her.

It isn't easy. Iris can be anywhere. The playground, the gravel pit, the junkyard at the end of the road...

“Are you crazy, child?” Mama demands when I haul her in. “That junkyard's a menace. Full of old iceboxes and trunks. Little ones like you get themselves locked inside and suffocate to death. As for that gravel pit—you could break your neck.”

It's in one ear and out the other. The next day Iris is off again.

Yesterday I caught her at the back of the junkyard behind a pile of bicycle tires, peeking over the lip of the abandoned well. I grabbed her by the arm. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Playing with Sara.”

“That's a wicked lie,” I said. “Sara isn't anywhere near this junkyard.”

“Yes, she is. She lives here.”

“Where?”

“Sara says I'm not supposed to tell. It's a secret.”

I held her shoulders firmly. “Whoever, or whatever, you've seen at this junkyard, it isn't Sara. Sara's an angel. She doesn't want you getting hurt.”

“You don't know what she wants. You and Mama don't even love her anymore. You just want her to go away.”

“No we don't.”

Iris stuck her fingers in her ears. “Do do do do do do do!” she cried. “Well, if Sara goes away, I'm going away with her.”

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Iris was possessed. But I do know better. In English class, Mr. Selalame talks a lot about the supernatural, comparing stories about wizards in Western folklore to our tales about traditional doctors. He says there are superstitions all over the world. For instance, in the West, some people use lucky numbers for lotteries. They think a magic number can make them rich.

“People believe in superstitions to make sense of what they can't understand,” Mr. Selalame says.

I know he's right. All the same, when Iris mentions her imaginary friend, I chant a prayer to protect against evil spirits. I feel silly, but why take chances? If this is an evil spirit, I'm terrified where it may lead her next. Especially if it decides to come at night.

W
HEN
M
AMA'S UP TO IT,
which is usually, we spend early Sunday mornings touring “the ring of death.” That's what Esther calls the cemeteries circling Bonang.

We leave at dawn in the Tafas' pickup truck. Mrs. Tafa drives while Mr. Tafa stays behind to babysit Iris and Soly. He lets the two of them play in the mud and pretend to help him patch the holes in his tenants' walls. Soly says when he grows up he wants to make houses, like Mr. Tafa. Iris rolls her eyes; she wants to be a foreman and give orders.

Mama feels guilty that Mr. Tafa's stuck with the kids.

“But he loves them,” I say. “Besides, he's probably happy to get Mrs. Tafa out of his hair. Even happier that he doesn't have to watch her drive.”

“Chanda,” Mama laughs, “you shouldn't say things like that.”

“Why not?” I laugh back. “It's the truth. If he knew how she tears around in his company truck, he'd have a heart attack.”

He would, too. Mrs. Tafa is the scariest driver in the world. She's so busy nibbling treats from the bag on her lap that she hardly ever looks at the road. When she does, it's to stick her head out the window and yell at whoever she almost hit. Meanwhile, we're taking curves so fast I'm surprised we don't fly to the moon.

All the same, I shouldn't complain. Mama and I are lucky our relatives share cemeteries with Mrs. Tafa's, and that she's willing to drive. Otherwise, our trips would be impossible. We can't afford taxis, local buses are rare, and Mama's legs aren't up to biking. (It's times like this I envy the white families who run the diamond mines. They can afford spots in the cemetery downtown, with marble headstones, a gardener to keep things nice, and plots big enough for all their relatives to be together.)

Our first stop is the graveyard where Papa and my brothers are buried, along with Mrs. Tafa's first husband. It's near the mine. For a few years after they died, we came by all the time.
But after a while we started to miss a week here and there, until before I knew it we were only coming on special occasions. I'm glad we're visiting again. Everyone says, “Life goes on,” but it's awful to leave the people who loved you, even if you remember them with stories.

Papa and my brothers are buried a piece from the road. In the beginning, Mama took my arm to make it over the rough ground. Now she uses a walking stick she got from Mrs. Tafa. It was left behind by a former tenant. The handle is carved to look like an eagle. Mama thinks it looks so nice she's started to take it everywhere, even to the store. “Be careful,” I say. “People will think you're an old lady.” She tells me not to be silly.

Anyway, at the graves we say a few prayers. Then I rake the ground until it's tidy, while Mama and Mrs. Tafa share their stories from the mine. Mama's too tired to laugh the way she used to, even at the story of Papa and the black beans. But she manages to smile.

The next cemetery we go to is home to Mr. Dube and of one of Mrs. Tafa's sisters. We pray and tidy there, too. Then we drive to the cemetery where Sara is buried, along with Mrs. Tafa's son Emmanuel. As soon as we pass through the gate, Mrs. Tafa's cheeks go tight. She daubs the crumbs from her mouth, turns right, and hums a memorial song from her village.

We can see Emmanuel's plot from a distance. Mr. Tafa built him a moriti on a base of brick and concrete. Every week Mrs. Tafa unlocks the miniature gate in front and adds another plastic flower wrapped in cellophane. The moriti was getting pretty full until last month when vandals took a machete to the nylon roof and stole them all.

When she saw what had happened, Mrs. Tafa couldn't get
out of the truck. She just sat behind the wheel sobbing, “Why? Why?” The look on her face made me ashamed of all the awful things I've ever thought about her.

Mama held her the way I'd hold Esther. “It's all right, Rose,” she comforted. “Emmanuel doesn't mind. He was always so generous. His flowers are with poor souls who didn't have any.”

After prayers for Emmanuel, we visit Sara. Her mound has barely settled. The plot number painted on her brick is still fresh. Mama and I can't afford artificial flowers, but if a wild hedge is in bloom, we break a sprig for her. Otherwise we write a poem on a piece of paper and leave it under a stone. It's not much, but it's something.

Once Mama's ready, she and Mrs. Tafa get back in the pickup and I haul my bicycle off the flatbed. While they drive back home to get the others ready for church, I head twenty rows over to be with Esther at her parents' burial site. She's always there waiting for me. Since she doesn't go to school much, it's the one place we're certain to meet. (I could always bike to her place, but she's made me promise not to. She says her auntie and uncle would shame her.)

Mrs. Tafa used to drive me to the Macholos' graves. She and Mama would park at the side of the road while Esther and I said prayers. Only Mrs. Tafa was always rude about the way Esther dressed. “No respect. Not even for her own dead parents,” she'd say. “You'd think the little tramp was going to a dance.”

One day I finally had enough. When Mama and I got home, I said: “Don't have Mrs. Tafa take me to the Macholos' graves anymore. I'll bring my bike and go on my own.”

Mama frowned. “You won't make it back in time for church.”

“Being with Esther's more important.”

Mama got a troubled look. Then she sat me down beside the washtub. “I know you and Esther are good friends,” she said. “You've known each other since we moved to Bonang. All the same, I think maybe you shouldn't see her so often.”

My heart thumped into my mouth. “I hardly see her at all.”

Mama ignored me. “I like Esther. She's a nice girl. But people have started to say things.”

“You mean Mrs. Tafa has started to say things.”

“I mean
people
.”

I looked at my feet. “What sorts of things?” I asked, as if I didn't know.

“Things about boys.”

“Esther flirts, that's all.”

Mama paused. “Chanda, folks judge other folks by the company they keep. I don't want you to be Esther's friend anymore. I'd hate for people to say things about
you
.”

I was sweating all over. Even the back of my wrists and knees. “Mama,” I pleaded, “this isn't you talking, I know it. You don't care about what people say. If you did, you'd never have run off with Papa.”

Mama took my hands. “This is different,” she said gently. “You're my baby. I worry about you.”

“Mama, Esther has no one. If I cut her off, what kind of person would I be?”

Mama had no answer. She took a deep breath and gave me a hug so long and hard I thought she'd never let go. You see, she knew I was right. I can't abandon Esther. She's alone now. Her little brothers and sister are gone.

It's nobody's fault. All the same, Esther blames her aunties and uncles. After the doctor saw her mama, Esther asked them for
help. Her papa's oldest brother, her Uncle Kagiso Macholo, spoke for the family. He said they'd send food and whatever they could, but they lived too far away to do much else. The exception was her Auntie and Uncle Poloko, from her mama's people. They lived nearby in a section of Bonang even poorer than ours.

When I first saw the Polokos, it was obvious they hated Esther's whole family. She says it's because they were jealous of her papa's job at the mine. Sickness didn't make them friends. Her uncle chopped a bit of firewood; her auntie fixed some meals. But they were scared of the rubber gloves, so they never came inside. Instead, they'd sit in the yard and pray.

Esther did everything else until the funeral. Then the out-of-town relatives arrived. After the burial feast, they had a meeting in the main room to see who'd look after Esther and her brothers and sister. It went on for hours.

I waited outside with Esther until her Uncle Kagiso called her to join the circle. As soon as the front door closed, I sat under the window and listened through the shutters. Esther's aunties and uncles tried to be kind, but the truth was hard. “None of us can afford to take you all,” her Uncle Kagiso said. “We can barely feed our own. But there's an auntie and uncle for each of you.”