Click to read part I

My relationship with my parents was generally peaceful. I rarely stepped out of line and always brought home good grades. My father was often busy with work. He and I only spoke when I needed something or when he would ask me about sports that I didn’t care for and athletes I could not name. My mother was not actually my mother. She was a woman my father married a few years earlier. They met at a seminar my father attended in Ghana. She grew up in exile during the apartheid era and returned to South Africa to help build her family’s empire after the freedom of 94’. She had always been well taken care of and her relationship with my father never really included me. My father grew up in Naledi, Soweto. He never spoke about his upbringing much and we never visited our family there. For all I knew we had no family there at all. It was just us, in the five bedroomed house in Rosebank.

Three months passed and it was the beginning of the second term. By now I was expecting Nontobeko to have abandoned the person she was when she arrived here but she was more resilient than the average student. Unlike most of the students who were at our school through scholarships, she was always willing to talk about where she came from and how she was raised. She was so proud of where she came from that even I, having had only a handful of conversations with her, knew that she grew up in Orlando, Soweto, raised by her grandmother. I grew increasingly curious of the place she could not stop talking about. I wanted to hear more, I wanted to imagine it all for myself, fill my head with new thoughts to keep me company in my room every night.

“Your average was five percent above mine last term, we can’t have that” as I said this she refrained from facing me. “If you’re not careful it will be ten percent higher by June” she continued scribbling in her notebook. “What would you suggest we do?” I took a step closer and sat on the desk behind her. “What would you suggest we do? You’re the one lagging behind” her indifferent tone persisted. “I say we work together. See how well this buddy system can work if we actually try”. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was smiling. I knew, because I was smiling too.

In the weeks that followed, the two of us spent any free time we had at school working together. Studying and getting better. Eventually we found ourselves doing less and less work in each other’s presence. I liked spending time with her. I liked hearing the Soweto stories about boys playing soccer in the street with plastic balls and bricks as goal posts, the wire cars with empty Vicks containers for wheels, the girls playing kgathi with the balls of yarn their mothers warned them not to touch. I wanted to hear everything and she was happy to share it all with me.

I had a new found burning desire to meet our family in Naledi. I wondered what they were like and if they had stories like the ones Nontobeko told me. She asked me time and time again to call her Nonto, but stubbornly I always used her full name and smiled after saying it, as though the smile were part of her name. I asked my father about our family in Naledi for the first time, I only knew about Naledi because one of his colleagues brought it up during a speech at an office function I’ve since forgotten the reason for. “What is it like there? Is there a house for our family? Do you think we could move and stay there a little while?” My father was outraged and offended. He believed I was being ungrateful for the life that he had given me, the life he had worked hard to maintain, the life and childhood he never had. My father’s outbursts never lasted long and after a sentence or three it was over. I knew I had touched a nerve, so I vowed never to mention Naledi or Soweto in his presence ever again. Still curious, I decided I would learn more about Soweto without him. I didn’t want the history book experience. I wanted to have my feet on the ground.

The next morning I arrived at school early and waited patiently at the gate for Nontobeko. When she arrived my composure left me and words came rushing out of my mouth without so much as a ‘Good morning’ to lead them. “Let’s go to Orlando together. Today, this afternoon, after school. I want to see the stories”. It must have sounded so strange to her that early in the morning, almost as if I wanted to run away with her. She laughed for a moment when she first heard me, but my face was serious and my eyes locked on hers without a hint a humour in them. Her laugh stopped. “You’re serious aren’t you? I’d love to take you there, but right in the middle of the week? If you still want to go by Friday then we can go. I think you should make sure your parents are okay with this little trip first”. Slightly disappointed and extremely excited I waited for Friday. I had no intentions of telling my father anything. My driver was always under instructions to take me wherever I wanted to go and I knew my father would try to talk me out of going if he knew.

I looked at the taxis. They were like herds of wildebeests stopping at every waterhole they could find, I watched the people waving strange hand signs in the air to stop them. I studied the small market outside Hector Peterson memorial, recording the novelty items with my eyes and storing them safely in my head. The “I heart Soweto” merchandise, the colourful dashikis and Steve Biko table cloths. Everything was as enchanting as Nontobeko had made it sound. She watched me as I gazed out of the window with my eyes wide as a new-born’s, every now and again whispering to the driver where to take us next. The white SUV stopped and she hopped out. I followed her excited as a child. “Are you hungry? Let me show you our take on fast food. Have you ever had a kota? Come, it’s my treat”. It was massive. I could not believe how much they had stuffed into it; chips, eggs, russians, a burger patty, achar and sauces from unlabelled red, yellow, white and transparent bottles. I almost felt sorry for the heavy laden piece of bread. We got back into the car and all I could do was stare at the thing. I prepared myself to remove the plastic wrapping. She grabbed my hand before I could finish. “Not here, not yet” she said. She whispered one last destination to the driver and her soft, warm hand released its gentle grip. A short while later the car stopped at two structures that stretched much higher than anything surrounding them. We got out of the car and began to walk about the area. I watched to see how she unwrapped and ate the kota and mirrored her actions. “The Orlando towers. They’re wonderful aren’t they?” she said as she stood between them and myself. The distance between the towers and ourselves shrinking them down almost to our size. “They’re beautiful” was all I could get my lips to say as I stared at the towers and the sun retreating behind the horizon. Behind her.

It would not be my last trip to Soweto. Nontobeko and I made a ritual of spending our Friday afternoons together. Before long she was no longer the one doing all the talking. I didn’t have many stories to tell, and definitely no stories as interesting as hers, but I had myself to share with her. I shared my hopes, dreams and fears. I said things that I had never imagined my lips would allow me to and she always listened tentatively. Sometimes I would get carried away and go on too long, but she would never stop me. She just looked at me. She looked at me like I was the smartest person in the world and she would smile every time too. Always before I had said anything, always a moment too soon and always after the moment was gone. She looked at me like I was the smartest person in the world, and every time she did, I was inclined to believe in the honesty of her gaze.

The “Mhlongo Construction” stickers on either side of the white SUV would soon betray me. My father caught wind of one of his non-construction vehicles being spotted in Soweto on a number of occasions. He questioned all the drivers the moment he heard. He knew what had been happening but wanted a confession before confronting me with the facts. I arrived home from school one afternoon to find him sitting in the main lounge. He was never home around this time and I knew from the moment I saw him that my little secret had grown beyond a reasonable, concealable size. He was calm, but the fury oozed from his eyes fixated on me. The details of what followed were among few details that I have allowed to slip out of memory. Rather, I lashed the memories from my mind with a thin leather belt. I watched the memories as tears slid down their faces. I struck them repeatedly as they begged me to stop and let them explain. I asked them what they thought they were doing as they gasped for air between the laughs in their cries. My father banned me from ever going back to Soweto. All the drivers were given strict instructions never to take me there ever again. As I smiled at Nontobeko the next morning she saw right through me. “You’ve never lied to me before” were the only words she said to me that morning. I waited quietly expecting more as I allowed the smile to fade. I saw many things in her eyes that morning as she avoided looking into mine. When she grew tired of my silence she walked away.

We went months without talking. Once completely comfortable in solitude, I was now plagued by loneliness. My old habits of people watching and constantly loathing all the insincere interactions I saw on a daily basis weren’t very entertaining to me anymore. Somewhere along the line I changed and allowed a little light into my life. Now nothing looked the same, nothing ever would. I would watch her sometimes, my eyes always knew where to find her. There was an announcement on the intercom one morning after I had stolen a glance at her, our presence was requested in the principal’s office immediately. We walked there together but neither one of us said a word. When we arrived we found our register teacher, school counsellor and the principal waiting to receive us. “Do you know why you are here?” the question in the principal’s voice echoed. Both of us stared him dead in the face and said nothing to him. He smiled briefly. “Sixteen percent” he whispered. “Six. Teen. Per. Cent” I couldn’t believe it. We were in an academic hearing. I had allowed myself to fall too far behind her in the time since we last spoke. Embarrassed, but refusing to let it show, I sat silently through most of the hearing allowing his words in through one ear and out the other. Speaking only at the end of the hearing. “I won’t let it happen again, sir” I said in a conviction-less tone. “Neither will I” she followed convincingly. As we left the hearing she walked faster than her normal pace to avoid walking with me on the odd chance that I might force her to speak. The sound of her shoes tapping against the tiles in the corridor echoed and began to echo further and further away from me. “Do you think you could teach me how to catch a taxi to Orlando?” I shouted. “I would love to come by on Friday. In the afternoon. After school”. She stopped walking, turned half way and nodded her head twice with half a smile on her face. Half a smile that knew the full story that I never told her. Half a smile willing to forgive my silence. I rushed to join her and walk beside her. She shoved me to the side as though she didn’t want me there, but she smiled a moment too soon and with a laugh in her throat she told me “I like you better when you tell the truth”.

Before long I knew all the right hand signs to get myself to Orlando. I was part of the crowd now. Part of the waterhole the wildebeests sought after endlessly through every day. But the happiness of my reunion with Nontobeko would be short lived. The people who found her at her old school and brought her to mine were monitoring her closely and still looking to provide her with the best possible opportunities. She came to meet me outside her grandmother’s house with a pensive expression on her face one afternoon. She greeted me with her eyes, they told me she had something to say. The stiffness in her lip should have told me it was something I didn’t want to hear. “They’ve found a programme in Hong Kong for international students. They put my name forward and I’ve been accepted to study there when I finish high school.” Her eyes now glaring at the ground as she kicked the dust gently. “That’s great news! Your grandmother must be so…” she cut me off. “They say I would have to finish high school there to qualify, Fikile” and then silence.

September fifteenth. That was the date we weren’t thrilled to be hurling toward. That was the day she would leave. The day came and went. I remember her last smile. The smell of her tears still lingers on my skin from the hug she gave me and the sound of her goodbye rings in my chest on many of the nights I spend alone in my study, sometimes with the lights on, sometimes with the lights off. I think about all the things I never said to her. The morning we met when she outsmarted me for the first time, that afternoon when she stood between myself and the shrunken Orlando towers at sunset, that day in the principal’s office when she reminded me that I was no longer alone. Every single time I failed to say it. I failed to say how beautiful I thought she was, she was always beautiful. I failed to tell her that, for me, her smile never came soon enough. I failed to tell her that I wish she had never let go of my hand in the SUV. I failed to tell her that I think I love Soweto, and that day outside her grandmother’s house as she created dust clouds at our feet, I failed to tell her that I wanted her to stay.

I’ve been staring at her letter on my desk for weeks now. I’m not sure I want to know what is in it. I don’t want to be invited to her grand wedding. I do not want to read about her first born child’s baptism. I do not want to send idle letters to her back and forth for years pretending nothing has changed. Why would she send me a letter after all this time? What was so important that she just had to tell me now and not five years ago? I won’t open this letter. She forgot me for over ten years and its time I did the same! But I have to know… I always have to know.

“Dear Fikile

September Sixteenth.

With Love

-Nonto”