Читать книгу The Ones with Purpose - Nozizwe Cynthia Jele - Страница 6

Doctor Thusi found a lump in Fikile’s left breast eight months after she gave birth to Bafana. My sister was thirty-one years old. I had gone over to Fikile’s house as I often did in those days to drop off basic groceries and relieve her of baby duties. I also had my own good news to share, having finally taken the pregnancy test that morning after my period was a week late. I wanted her to be the first to know.

As I approached Fikile’s kitchen, I was greeted by aromas of rosemary and lemon and spices. I found her sitting by the table surrounded by mounds of half-chopped vegetables. Fikile gestured for me to place the bags on the sink counter.

“What is it?” I asked, examining her face. Having cooked for Ma, Mbuso and I throughout her teens instead of loitering with friends, exchanging notes on boys and writing pop music lyrics in A4 college exercise books, Fikile loathed cooking. In the early years of their relationship, Thiza had complained about Fikile’s lack of domesticity, the absence of rich meat stews and pap and Sunday’s seven colours at the lunch table, and when it was clear that Fikile was not yielding to his pressure, he had told her jokingly that she shouldn’t be surprised if he went elsewhere to be fed like a man should be. Fikile had snorted and said she would bet a cow that even if she cooked all day for him, he would still go out and poke his penis in other women’s vaginas.

I looked around the kitchen that afternoon, at the cut meat pieces marinating by the fridge, the steam bread bubbling on the stove. This was a feast; my sister was not known for cooking up a storm randomly.

I took a seat next to her, alarmed. “Fikile, what happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just being a good wife cooking for her family. Is that a crime?” Fikile’s voice was strained as if she had been crying. She coughed to break the phlegm. “I do cook sometimes, you know.” A tight smile appeared on her face. “Your problem is that you’re always suspicious. Relax, I’m fine.”

I regarded my sister once more. She shook her head and continued grating the piece of carrot in her hand.

“Okay, sisi, if you say so. Where is everyone? Where is my boy boy?”

“The baby is sleeping. The others are out there in the streets; home is boring you see. My children are complaining that I make them do things – fetch this and that, make me tea, rub my feet – they don’t like that. Lesihle is pissed off by the whole baby thing. She says I don’t even talk to her except to tell her to do something. To retaliate, my children make themselves as scarce as possible.”

“Must be hard for her, all the attention taken away from her by someone who can’t even say Mama.”

“Tough luck. We’ve all had to contend with younger siblings. You were the same with Mbuso.”

“No, you lie. I loved that boy.”

“Ask Ma, before Mbuso came it was you and dad. I was sick with jealousy. Then he happened, and ruffled the order. Not that Dad loved you or me less, but Mbuso had him wrapped around his tiny finger. And him being a boy made Dad gooey with affection.”

“I wish Baba was still alive,” I said to Fikile who was mixing the grated carrot and cabbage. I stood and took out mayonnaise from the fridge and handed it to her. I was dying to tell my sister about the growing bundle in my stomach, but was determined to figure out what had triggered this uncharacteristic behaviour. I did not believe that it was nothing.

“Me too. Life would be different, good, I believe.”

“Anyway, where is the man of this house?”

Fikile rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Never mind. What can I help with, have you eaten, taken a bath at all today? How long have you been stewing in this kitchen in the name of good housekeeping?”

“Everything is under control.” Fikile was silent for a moment, then burst out, “I have something to tell you.”

“I knew it. What?”

“I saw Doctor Thusi this morning.”

“Is the baby okay?”

“Yeah, Bafana is fine,” she paused, started to chew on her lower lip. “It’s me. Doctor Thusi found a lump, a sizable messy thing, right here,” she said touching her left breast, the culprit breast, as if to reprimand it. “I went to see him because of a pain in my breast just below the nipple that refused to go away, even after taking countless painkillers.”

“What?” I said out loud, unintentionally. “What?”

“A lump, here. Can’t you see it looks funny?”

“A lump?”

“It’s here, been here for some time, don’t know how I missed it. But then, when was the last time I checked my breasts? When was the last time you checked yours?” Fikile lifted her shirt and bra, exposing her breast. She raised her left arm over her head in the way I’d seen illustrated in magazine articles and pamphlets on how to check your breasts for lumps and other unusual things. I couldn’t remember the last time I touched mine that way.

“Is it serious?” I asked, touching the spot her index finger was pointing to.

“Here.” Fikile took my hand and guided it to the area just beneath her full breast.

I only felt the softness and warmth of her skin. I shook my head, withdrew onto my seat, my hand trembling. “Is it cancer?”

“I don’t know yet, have to get it tested. It’s probably nothing. Breasts are lumpy anyway, and I’ve just had a baby, all sorts of things could be going on in there.”

“When are you going?”

“Next week. Will you come with me?”

I nodded.

My face must have been plastered in terror because Fikile said, “Oh, gosh, Anele, wipe that look of death off your face. I’ll be fine.”

I remained glued to my seat watching my sister finish preparing her feast. I’m certain she spoke to me, and I responded. I’m also certain we even laughed at something or someone or both. Yet, when I was driving home after she had dished up for the children, and packed some food for us in her matching Tupperware, I remembered nothing of our conversation. I arrived home and served Siz­we and Ma, then went into the bathroom, and for the longest time touched and squeezed my breasts until they become tender and painful. I heard Sizwe call my name and ask if I was okay in there.

* * *

Doctor Thusi had referred Fikile to a radiologist in town for a mammogram. Fikile and I drove to their offices. A few days later, Fikile received a call to come see Doctor Thusi to discuss the results of her tests. We did not talk about the tests during the short drive to the doctor’s surgery in New Hope, though we both knew that a call from the doctor’s office was never a good sign. Doctor Thusi gave away nothing as he cheerfully embraced and ushered us into his consulting room. His manner was still amiable as he poured a little too cold water into our glasses that gave me a momentary brain freeze, and marvelled at Bafana’s growth (as if he couldn’t wait to catch up with his siblings, the doctor said laughing), and as he asked about our mother’s well­being. I forgot for a moment our business there.

“About your tests,” Doctor Thusi said, jolting my mind back. He opened a drawer and pulled out several X-ray sheets, studying them intently as if seeing them for the first time. His jaw tightened for a second. “I’m afraid there is something in your breast, but we don’t need to be alarmed.”

Fikile and I hunched forward and watched the doctor point at the black-and-white film showing the web of veins and tissue, Fikile’s breast. The mammogram had confirmed our fears, a lump the size of a large marble had lodged itself neatly under her nipple. Fikile needed a core needle biopsy, a procedure to remove a sample of breast tissue to test for cancer. He gave Fikile a business card of the surgeon who would assist her.

“We don’t need to be alarmed,” the doctor said again with measured concern, I thought. I turned to Fikile, seeking out her face, but she was already standing to take the envelope.

We left Doctor Thusi’s office each engrossed in the chatter in our heads. Only when we were in the car, me behind the wheel, trying to suppress the threatening tears, the results of the mammogram in a large brown envelope on the back seat, did Fikile bring up the subject.

“I agree with Doctor Thusi, there is no need for alarm,” she said, her voice full of conviction.

“We do not have a history of cancer in the family, on both sides, so it can’t be cancer,” I pointed out, the steering wheel clutched in my hands such that I had to take turns wiping my palms on my skirt.

“I know, right? And I don’t smoke or drink, and I had my children at a good age.” Fikile leaned back and closed her eyes. “That’s why I think it’s nothing.”

We had spent the days before getting the results consuming every bit of literature we could lay our hands on regarding breast cancer and watching videos of survivors. We had filled our vocabulary with new words – stage I-IV, metastasis, tumour, benign, malignant, mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiology, breast prosthesis, remission; words that until then had existed in other worlds, not ours. We had concluded Fikile was not at risk.

But in the car my doubt set in. I stole a glance at Fikile on the passenger seat. At that moment, the afternoon sun’s rays shone through, emanating a halo around her face. She looked like an angel from our childhood biblical stories who had descended on earth to protect us. The image lasted a split second. Many years later when Fikile’s illness finally caught up with her, I went back to that moment, to me it was the day she died. Or rather the day I killed my sister.

We drove in silence for the rest of the way. I looked straight ahead with concentrated effort.

When I stopped at the gate at our house, Fikile said she didn’t want to come inside. “I want to go home. Please don’t say anything to Ma yet.”

“Okay.”

“It’s nothing, you’ll see,” Fikile said again.

* * *

My sister and I never told Ma anything. When we were young – I must have been ten – Fikile started her periods. I noticed the rusty spot on her white denim shorts. We were in the kitchen; Fikile was bent over the sink rinsing pumpkin leaves for dinner and I was grinding peanuts to go with the pumpkin leaves. Ma had not returned home from work and Baba was on the road. My then four-year-old brother, Mbuso, was outside by the gate waiting for Ma as he often did.

“Go get your brother, he needs to take his bath before the water gets cold,” Fikile snapped.

“Are you hurt, Fikile?” I asked, pointing at the spot.

“What do you mean?” Fikile responded without turning.

“You’re bleeding at the back.”

“What?” Fikile twisted her neck. “Where?”

“There, your bum.”

Fikile rushed out of the kitchen. Her loud scream made me ditch the peanuts and dash over to see what was happening.

“Don’t come in,” Fikile yelled, locking the door.

I leaned against the door and started to cry, to myself at first, but the tears came flooding out, soaking my face and neck down to my T-shirt; I did not realise I was sobbing loudly.

“Stop, I’m not hurt,” Fikile yelled from the other side of the door.

But I couldn’t stop. I started to shake and couldn’t breathe from hiccups. The door was yanked open and Fikile came out holding the soiled shorts and underwear in a tight ball under her arm.

“Anele, I told you I’m not hurt. I have a period. It happens to girls once they reach a certain age, part of growing up.” She held me tightly with her free arm until my hiccups subsided.

I followed Fikile outside to the laundry area, and watched her soak the soiled clothing in soapy water with bleach.

“It will be over in a few days,” she said.

I was scared. “I don’t want a period,” I said finally when we were back in the kitchen to our respective tasks.

Fikile laughed. “You can’t stop it. It’s one of those things that happen naturally to women. If we didn’t have periods, we would not be able to have babies, which means you and I wouldn’t be here. Listen, don’t tell Ma about this, okay?”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

When I got my first period a couple of years later, I only told Fikile.

* * *

Fikile’s surgeon’s name was Doctor Seme. We arrived early and met her at the consulting room in the basement of the hospital. She said she had heard a lot about Fikile from Doctor Thusi. Over good, strong coffee for me and sweet rooibos tea for Fikile and herself, Doctor Seme took her time to explain the biop­sy to us. She showed us pictures of a giant needle piercing through breast tissue and explained the possible outcomes of the biopsy and what would happen afterwards.

“I don’t like what I see from the mammogram. Let us determine what we’re dealing with first, then nip whatever is growing on your breast in the bud,” she said. Fikile listened intently throughout. My lower body went numb. Fikile agreed to return for the procedure three days later.

The doctor performed the biopsy in less than an hour and sent the breast tissue for testing. We left the hospital with hope in our hearts.

A week later Fikile and I returned for the results.

Fikile had cancer alright. Doctor Seme said they would have to cut out the cancer-infested tumour, and might be able to save her breast. The lymph node closest to the tumour would also be removed to test if the cancer had spread. Radiation therapy would assist in eliminating cancer cells remaining in the breast tissue. “And hopefully that will be all that’s needed to get your health in top form again.”

The procedure, called a lumpectomy, was done in under an hour. I took Fikile home and spent the night with her and the children. Except for telling Thiza and Sizwe, we had not fully disclosed Fikile’s condition to the family.

A few days later Doctor Seme called, and we found ourselves back in her office. I sat with my arms folded over my chest and fixed my eyes on the piece of paper in the doctor’s hands. Doctor Seme did not offer us a drink. She had bad news, she began, slowly as if unsure of her words. Very bad news indeed.

“Not what I hoped for, not at all what I hoped for,” she repeated.

The cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, and it appeared aggressive, attacking and mutating and destroying everything along its path. The breast and affected nodes would have to go. And then there would be chemo and radiation therapy and five years of hormone treatment to reduce the chances of the cancer returning, Doctor Seme said.

The word “mastectomy” danced in front of my eyes. Fikile didn’t bat an eyelid, which was just as well because my downpour in Doctor Seme’s office was enough for both of us. Instead, she sat up straight, looked at the doctor and said in the most serious tone, “When can we do the surgery?”

The doctor smiled. “Breast cancer is a war. You are already on your way to winning the battle with your positive spirit.”

She scheduled the surgery to take place in two weeks.

I called a meeting of close family members to share the news about Fikile’s cancer. Ma wept, asked why God had not given the cancer to her, and pleaded with him to spare Fikile’s life to raise her children. Auntie Betty scolded Ma, said she was being dramatic and childish. Ma told Auntie Betty that she wouldn’t understand, that only women who had given birth would understand her anguish. Auntie Betty rolled her eyes, took her tub of snuff and went outside. We heard her sneeze several times. Auntie Ntombi, the youngest of the three sisters, quoted impressive survival statistics. She mentioned friends of friends who walked around without breasts and were just as alive as women with both breasts. Thiza sat quietly through­out, and later got smashed; Sizwe had to pick him up from the local tavern and drive him home. Fikile took a pair of pantyhose and moulded it into a tight ball and, lifting it up, said laughing, “I’ve always wanted to have perky boobs.”

No one laughed with her.

“Come on. People live through cancer, right? It’s not a death sentence. I’ll beat it,” Fikile protested. “I will.”

After Ma and my aunts had prayed for Fikile, long prayers I did not know they were capable of spewing from their mouths, and everyone had gone, I called Mbuso. I had not spoken to my brother in months, and had not seen him since that incident at his wedding earlier in the year, which had left a spectacular awkwardness between him and Fikile. Mbuso said he would come on the day of the operation, he asked me to keep his visit between us, he said he was not ready to face the rest of the family.

All through this, Fikile hadn’t cried.

* * *

We congregated in the hospital waiting room on the day of Fikile’s operation – me, Auntie Betty, Auntie Ntombi, Ma, Sizwe and Thiza – raising eyebrows and murmurs from other visitors and hospital staff as we tried unsuccessfully to keep our voices down. Ma read a verse and prayed every few minutes. We all joined at Amen. Doctor Thusi showed up. He spoke quietly to Fikile just before they wheeled her to theatre. He held her hand to his chest and cried. I had never seen him cry before.

Two days later as we were driving home after Fikile was discharged, I wanted to know what Doctor Thusi had said.

“He said it’s not the end of the world, that I will live long enough to see Bafana attend university. Do you believe him?”

“You will live. You have to live.”

“I know, I know. I must live. I’m not yet done with this world,” Fikile said, and closed her eyes.

* * *

The operation to remove Fikile’s breast went off without a hitch. I held her hand the whole time until we reached the theatre doors. Mbuso arrived shortly after Fikile was wheeled into theatre. I slipped off and met him in the parking lot. We sat inside his car and spoke about Fikile’s diagnosis and everyone’s wellbeing. Mbuso mumbled something about his wife, Mapule.

“I’m glad you came, Mbuso. Look, I don’t want to meddle in your life or tell you what to do, but at some point, you must return home. Ma is a wreck, and we’re all trying every­thing to manage the pain but it’s tough. I can’t bear to think of our lives without Fikile.”

“She will be fine.”

“We need you, Mbuso.”

My brother negotiated with the night nurses to see Fikile after the visiting hours, after we had all left and gone home. And then he was gone.

After she was discharged, I went straight from work to see her every evening. I helped her drain the blood and tissue fluid from the wound. After the tubes were removed, we sat on her bed stretching her arms to reduce the stiffness from the operation. Although Fikile was in pain, she did not once ask, “Why me?” or “What have I done to deserve this?”

Doctor Seme removed the bandages when ten days had passed. We watched as she peeled them off revealing scar tissue, a deep, brown line running from Fikile’s left armpit through the middle of the chest. Her other breast, the healthy one, stood upright and defiant.

“Do I look hideous?” Fikile looked directly at me.

I sensed apprehension in her voice.

“You know what it reminds me of? Remember when Le­sihle was two or three and learning to draw straight lines? Every­thing was a canvas for her, waiting for her lines.”

Fikile threw her head back and laughed. We started referring to her breast as Lesihle’s line. A month later, she called one of the companies listed in a brochure she had picked up at the hos­pital and made an appointment to fit a breast prosthetic and mastectomy bra. Fikile was clear that she would not reconstruct her breast yet, she said her scars would serve as a reminder of what she’d been through. I drove with her to the fittings.

The shop, located in a small shopping centre, looked like any lingerie shop with its displays of mannequins in racy allures of reds and black mesh and lace underwear. We were welcomed by the owner who proceeded to take Fikile’s measurements, chatting to her like it was a normal bra fitting, as if Fikile did not have a thin line where her left breast once was. I sat on the couch drinking cold bubbly with a cherry dancing at the bottom of my glass and browsing through a women’s health magazine. Occasionally I lifted my eyes to scrutinise Fikile’s bra parade, screaming “Yes, that’s the one!” or frowning in disapproval. Fikile did not leave the shop with a handful of bras and a white nightdress with black lace trims, she left a complete woman.

On our way home I broke the news of my pregnancy. My sister said it was the best news ever, a sign of new life and longevity for the family. She said she knew she would beat cancer. She directed me to a lodge outside town, a place I had never been to nor had known existed. She said it was her favourite place in the world. We ordered rump steak and grilled potatoes and glazed pumpkin; we ate until our tummies threatened to burst.

The next morning Fikile met with her oncologist.

* * *

We had not anticipated the fatigue of chemotherapy. Once every two weeks for twenty-four weeks, Thiza, once, and I drove Fikile to treatments at her oncologist’s office. We all drove with Fikile on the first day of her chemotherapy treatment, and crammed the small waiting room, which resulted in Fikile forbidding visitations by more than one person at a time. I sat with her as the nurse drew her blood for testing, and held her hand as an IV was inserted into her right arm, allowing the drugs to drip into the bloodstream. We stayed in the hospital for five hours. Fikile would repeat this procedure many times. After each treatment Fikile came back as if a small part of her was taken away; she appeared a little less complete. She complained of constant waves of nausea and vomit that threatened to pull her guts out, mouth sores, and hot flushes that left sweat marks on her bed. And pain, she was overcome by pain, in her back, her legs, her head. She lost her sense of taste. Fikile slept for hours, sometimes days at a time. She stopped going to work fulltime, leaving her assistant to manage the early childhood development centre, a three-roomed structure she had opened adjacent to the church a couple of years before her diagnosis.

“I will not bow down to this disease. I have a life to live, kids to raise, bills to pay,” Fikile said each time after recovering from the chemo session, full of optimism, ready to resume her life. “I can’t die. This cancer must be defeated. No, this cancer will be defeated.”

Fikile also refused to move in with us during her treatment, even after Ma threatened her in our dead father’s name. My sister was defiant, said she was capable of looking after herself and her family. But she couldn’t. Lesihle called, sometimes in tears, to alert us to another dizzy spell that left her mother crawling on the kitchen floor. So, for a couple of days after each session, Ma packed up her life and deposited herself at Fikile’s doorstep and took over the household.

By the end of her third chemo session, a wedge of hair had fallen off in the middle of Fikile’s head, leaving a bald dry patch that even thick braids could not conceal. Fikile asked Sizwe to shave off the rest. When he was done, he gave Fikile a mirror. I stood watching her, my belly knotted.

Fikile gasped when she saw herself, then a broad smile spread across her face. I exhaled.

“I’m too beautiful for New Hope, I should have been a superstar.”

“You are a superstar.”

“Maybe. All I need is red lipstick and some blush, don’t you think?” She started wearing lipstick every day after that.

Radiation therapy followed. Fikile said those few weeks were like living under earth. Only after she completed her radiation therapy did she have a good cry. She couldn’t stop, as if every scrap of tension was breaking loose from her body. And with that, she believed, the cancer was too. We slaughtered two goats and brewed sorghum beer to thank our ancestors and the doctors and God, and everyone who prayed for Fikile’s recovery.