Читать книгу Under Water - J.L. Powers - Страница 13

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE PROBLEM OF JEALOUSY

And so begins our new life.

While Zi is at school, I open the gate and leave a sign that says I am available for customers. I wave hello at all the neighbors, even the ones who just look my way without responding because they believed all of Auntie’s lies. But a sangoma has to be friendly to all the people…even though I really just want to sink into my own private world with Zi. It is hard to always put on a public face.

They say a prophet is never honored in her own country. How can my neighbors ever accept me as anything but little Khosi, the girl they saw grow up? How can they ever let me be this thing among them—a sangoma, a voice for the ancestors? And how will they ever get over all the suspicion and lies that my aunt spread?

Once the gate is open and the sign is out, I wait.

Well, I sort of wait. I can’t keep still for long, so I make some tea with lots of hot milk and sugar. I drink it slowly. Then I examine Gogo’s garden. It is looking pretty scraggly, so I water it carefully and then look for weeds to pull.

“What do you think, Nhlanhla?” I ask. “Should we start a new garden?”

Nhlanhla crouches at the foot of a tall, bedraggled mealie plant and barks.

“Yebo, I agree,” I say. “Let’s start over. Tomorrow, we’ll hike up into the hills and find some plants that we can transplant. Winter herbs…”

It’s cold outside so I light a fire in the hut and Nhlanhla lies down beside me. We look at the fire, at the smoke curling upwards, and I start to drift into a sweet, sleepy haze.

“Makhosi?”

I jerk awake. A young man has entered the hut, smiling, flashing white teeth at me. Nhlanhla’s tail thumps loudly on the floor.

I’ve decided to keep Nhlanhla beside me whenever I’m seeing customers. She stays in the hut by my side and growls if somebody gets too close. I don’t want to be unwelcoming but twice in the first week, two of the men who visited me thought that because I’m a young woman, they could get more than what they requested. But they underestimated the protection of my ancestors.

The first man left with a hole in the seat of his pants and a fresh dog bite on his rear end.

The second man was shocked when a snake started slithering towards him, fangs wide, glistening with poison.

I haven’t been bothered since then but it’s early days yet. I keep Nhlanhla beside me all the time. I’m not taking any chances. I like to think Gogo’s spirit passed into her and sometimes, I swear, I see Gogo looking at me through her amber-brown eyes. Or I hear Gogo’s voice in her whine.

Not that I need Nhlanhla to hear your voice, Gogo. God forbid that you should ever shut up.

It’s reassuring, in this case, that Nhlanhla simply wags her tail and does not move. She keeps her eyes trained on the young man but otherwise, she is at peace.

“Welcome,” I say. “Please sit.”

“Thank you, Makhosi.” He sits to the side of me and nervously picks at the collar of his shirt. He looks uncomfortable. He keeps running a finger around the inside of his collar.

“What do you need?” I ask.

“I am looking for a job,” he says. “But I am afraid.”

“What are you afraid of?”

He bows his head, ashamed. “I am afraid somebody has cursed me, to prevent my success.”

I light impepho and begin to hum as the scent swirls around us. The young man’s ancestors can hardly sit still, like eager and overactive children. They have been dying to speak to him for some time now and this is their first chance. I begin to ask the young man questions about his life so they can tell me what is wrong.

“Are you working already? Do you have a job?”

“I had a very good job, Makhosi, and some few months ago, I was laid off. I have been searching ever since with no luck.”

“Do you have a wife?” I ask.

“Yes.” He has a look of desperation on his face. “I have a beautiful wife. I paid a very high sum for her lobola. We have been married for two years yet and we do not have a child. She is worried. Why can’t she fall pregnant?”

His ancestors murmur together. His great-great-grandmother looks agitated and begins to gesture as she whispers to the others. I catch a word here and there and slowly begin to see the whole picture.

“You have a twin brother,” I say.

“Yes, Makhosi,” he says.

“Is he married?”

He shakes his head.

“Your brother is very jealous,” I say. “It seems he has always wanted what you have.”

Drops of sweat gather at his temples and roll down his face and then neck. “I know this, Makhosi, but is he the one behind this?”

“The amadlozi seem to think so,” I say. “It seems he wants your wife and is seeking to destroy your success so that you lose her.”

He rubs his arms and shivers. He looks more sick and afraid than angry. “I have seen him watching her,” he says. “But I never thought—my own brother.” His groans are low but powerful, coming from a deep place of agony.

I reach out and gently touch his shoulder. “It will be all-right, mfowethu. I will send some herbs for your wife to take that will help her to conceive or help prepare her body for pregnancy.”

“Siyabonga, Makhosi, siyabonga.”

“And for you, I will give you some muthi to cleanse your body and mind. And then I want you to know that your brother’s curses cannot work, only if you believe them. You must talk to your brother. He is your family. The amadlozi do not like this thing of contention between the two of you. If you talk to him, you can work it out, and the power of those curses will dissipate. Like mist in the air.”

He sighs, a hollow well of what was once fear and now is simply relief.

When he leaves with a packet of herbs and some of the water I have blessed and instructions to return to me when he has found a job and his wife conceives, I take a moment to pray for him. I pray to the amadlozi and also to the Lord of the Skies. It is not easy, what he must do. It would be easier just to take the medicine and think everything will be solved, but no. Dissension of this kind, it will only be solved if he confronts his brother.

I never had that chance with Mama. She died before I could tell her how angry I am with her—for stealing money from our neighbor, for refusing to take medicine for her HIV so that she ended up dying. I have tried to make peace with it, and to forgive her, but I wonder sometimes if I have succeeded. She is restless, she wanders back and forth among the amadlozi, never speaking to me; I also never speak to her and I too feel as though I can never rest. I must go here, go there, seeking something. But what?

Plenty sits still but hunger is a wanderer. And I am hungry.