daskolo - Lwandiso Botozo

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Daskolo Lwandiso Botozo DASKOLO by Lwandiso Botozo For my brother, Lukhanyiso “Khanyisa” Botozo “Uyabona ke,” Sas’kolo hisses. “Ziz’qhamo zokubetha umzali ezi.” I carry on staring out the window, using the scenery to escape thoughts of my brother laying in a pool of blood. “Ewe, utata uyacaphukisa,” she continues. “Kodwa awukwazi ukubeka isandla kumzali. Ndandiyiqondile ikhona into ezolandela.” I want to open the door and jump out of the car. I can’t keep listening to my brother being slandered while he lays in a hospital bed, defenceless. I will be seeing Khaya, my best friend, after 2 years of not having spoken. I let that thought comfort me. * I look at the time – 12:22 AM – and begin sobbing. 10 years since your last breath. 10 years since I last remember having a whiff of happiness. Seeing you in bed helpless made me morbid, but my days were better then. You were still there. I could touch you. I could still see you. I could still hear your voice. All that has long faded away. I can’t remember the last time I heard your name in conversation. I feel like I’m the only one who still remembers you. Everyone seems to have moved on. Everyone seems to have forgotten you. They probably haven’t, but they don’t ever talk about how your absence has changed our lives. I noticed. I noticed how everyone has been hurting. UNkuja hasn’t been the same. He is always hiding behind his phone and politics. Oh, he has two kids now – twins, a boy and a girl. The girl, uMilani, is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen. She is my angel. U- Onke looks like i-timer, a carbon copy. UPhila has never been himself since you left. I don’t know what to make of him. He is quiet often. Please talk to him. Our sisters are still the same: uSas’kolo is always complaining about this and that, uNwabisa uyingxaki nje. Buya. * I wake up and boil some water for a bath. The house is a sauna, and judging from how bright it is, I assume that the sun is scorching outside. I’m going to see my brother at Tygerberg Hospital with Ma. I don’t want to go see my brother in a hospital bed, but I can’t say no to her. She prepares lunch and sends me to buy yoghurt and bananas. I gather that is the only thing my brother can eat as he is not in a stable condition. I feel nauseated and anxious. It’s been over a month since his attack. How can he still be unstable? “Kufuneka sikhawuleze,” she urges. “Kuyavalwa ngo-16:00.” 1 I run to the store, hoping she would cancel the visit. But I want to see how my brother is doing. She considers whether we take a train or taxi. She chooses a train because it stops at Tygerberg station, and it’s cheaper. She buys the tickets and holds on to both so that I don’t lose mine. I remember the time we all had to go to Paarl to make birth certificates. I needed to pee so terribly, and I couldn’t hold it any longer. We didn’t have a bottle I could pee in, so I peed out the window while the train was moving. That was a horrible idea because the pee flew back into the train. People were looking at us and laughing. Luckily, Ma was carrying a towel, and she used it to wipe me and the seats. The gartjies gave us a hard time because I had no ticket, but they let us pass because I was still very young. We don’t wait long before the next train arrives. We get on the train. There aren’t many people. Most people get on the earlier trains to go to work, and school. I stare out of the window. There isn’t much to see but grape farms and, in the distance, what seems like rich people’s houses. White people live there because, unlike us, they have money. We get to Tygerberg station after what seems to be forever. “Sizohamba ngapha,” she says. I follow her. She knows the way. She has visited every week since my brother got admitted. She comes to make sure he is washed properly, and that he is fed. Nurses are known to be negligent. She personally makes sure her son is well taken of. She would come every day if we could afford it, but Tygerberg is far and we don’t have a lot of money. I feel my stomach clench as I enter the hospital. It’s not well lit, and some lights are not working. There’s a sudden chill on my back as we get further into the hospital. We walk up a flight of stairs to some floor above. We finally get to the ward at the end of the staircase. I read the signs, but I cannot understand what they are saying. My English is not very good. “Sesizofika,” she assures me. I don’t respond. I keep looking around hoping my brother isn’t one of the people I have seen. A coloured man with a broken leg. Ma passes. A black man who is heavily bandaged. She passes. Another black man whose leg is raised, and one arm is folded in bandages, broken. We pass. He can’t be here. He can’t. Broken leg with bone sticking out, clad in red. We pass. I keep jerking my neck from left to right hopelessly. Another man covered in red. We pass. 2 We arrive at the corner and she finally pulls the curtains aside and enters the cubicle. “Silapha,” she murmurs. * My brother is laying on his back covered with a thin cream sheet. My eyes bulge when I see him. I stand there, motionless, staring at him. He is thin. He looks like the people I have seen in documentaries of poverty-stricken countries. I continue staring. “ULonwabo uzokubona,” she says. “Uyambona?” He turns to look my way. His eyes are blank. I’m not sure if he recognises me. I haven’t moved since I entered the cubicle and noticed how thin he is. She motions for me to come closer so he can see me clearly. I don’t move. She glares at me, gently. “Sondela azokubona,” she pleads. I slowly creep forward. I had never thought I’d see him like this. I’m traumatised. He has a large gash which stretches from the back of his head to just before his forehead. Another sits parallel to it and is half the length. They are stitched but I can see the dry lining of blood which has turned black. My eyes water. “Ungalili,” she stops me. “Kufuneka simnike ithemba ‘ba uzophila.” She talks like my brother is not present, but she told me that he forgets everything before we got here. She must remind him who she is sometimes. I wipe my eyes dry. She is busy washing him. “Daskolo, molo.” He murmurs something. It doesn’t make sense. I look out the window, and stare at the distance, where I would rather be. I want to turn and run away. Tears begin to flow down my face. “Mntanam, masithandaze.” I wipe my face before I turn, not wanting her to see I had been crying. I kneel next to the bed and close my eyes, hands clasped, trying not to touch my brother. I fear he will feel cold because he lost so much blood. “Bawo wethu osemazulwini…” Her voice fades. My stomach tightens. A chill runs down my spine. I want to go home. Ma says her final words of encouragement to him. I don’t know why she bothers; he won’t remember anything. She holds his hand and tightens the grip. He looks at her. There’s innocence in his eyes. “Siyahamba ngoku,” she tells him. She walks towards me to exit. I look at him one last time. He looks at me. I can see recognition in his eyes. My eyes water. 3 * UNwabisa has been so rebellious lately. She has become a drunkard, nje ngoTata. I don’t know what has gotten into her. She brags about how uMama worked so hard to make sure we had everything to her friends, and how she couldn’t have asked for anything more. With two kids – a girl whose father is not spoken of, and a boy whose father may one day come to find out that he is not the father of his beloved boy – she decided to quit the one job that came her way so she could be a drunk. UMama wamkhulisa nzima wamnika yonke into ayidingayo, kodwa yena uyakwazi ukutya imali etywaleni ingathi akanabantwana abadinga ukondliwa. I don’t think I’m being harsh in my judgement because she had everything. She was given everything she wanted. She got everything she needed. She has no reason to be such a moron. I only wish she could get some sense into her, that she would realise that her life is no longer hers do with it what she wishes. She had an incredible mother; those kids deserve a better mother. She is constantly fighting with someone at home about one thing or another. Sometimes we hear of it through whispers from her friends, or the mother of uNkuja’s babies. Sometime ago, when I had visited home from my varsity residence to see how things were – she had been putting us through a lot of trouble – she had a fight with uPhilani. It was over something stupid – I think it was about chicken that she had taken out of the house. Babiza uTa’mnci, uTa’kaNceba, azonqonda ukuba baxambulisana ngantoni. Andazi bekusuke kwathini, the next thing I know is that she called Philani’s mother a whore. She was complaining about not having milk when she was only an infant, implicating uMama in her distasteful rant. I can’t find it in me to forgive her for that. I’m still hurting. How can you say that to your brother? What does she think of me? I’m hurting still. * I hurry home after school trying to avoid being in the sun for too long. The heat is dry and the air stale. My stomach groans, and I hold my breath and hope that Ma is home. I’m famished. Sweat flows down the side of my face. It flows into my right eye, and I furiously close my eyes because of the burn. I almost wipe it with the back of my hand, but I stop myself, realising that it too is full of sweat and would only worsen the burning. I pull my school shirt up to wipe my eye. I don’t bother to think about the stain the sweat will make as I wash my school shirts daily. 4 I hear familiar voices as I approach an alleyway, and I recognise them as being those of my friends. I change routes, thinking about food and how much walking with them will only make me hungrier. They walk too slow, and their conversation are often nonsensical. I increase my pace, extending my strides till I feel a burn on my hamstring from overstretching. I catch a glimpse of Ma just closing my sister’s makeshift curtain for a door as I enter the house. “Ma!” I call for her. “Hm?” “Ndilambile.” “That’ isitya ocinga silingene wena pha etafileni.” The kitchen has a three-piece cheap Chinese mobile cupboard. It’s a dull brown colour, but enough to make our kitchen look dignified. I swallow the last bit of saliva left in me in anticipation for a great meal. I’m famished. I excitedly head towards the kitchen table. I run my eyes over the plates. I choose one that excites my stomach. I eat ravenously. “Umbonile uKhanya?” My heart stops. I struggle to swallow the spoonful in my mouth without chewing. My body tenses. I could barely look at him the last time I saw him. I mumble a response, attempting to swallow while simultaneously attempting to get the food back out. My response is muffled by the food in my throat. I almost choke. She doesn’t pay attention to my uninspired response. “Yiza, ufuna ukuk’bona.” My heart stops. I contemplate an excuse to avoid going to the room. My legs shake. I can’t think of anything. “Ndiyeza.” My response feels shallow. I feel my face turn cold despite the house feeling like what I imagine it would feel like in a sauna. I allow my mind to wander on the thought of being in a sauna – a steamy room with naked white men with only a towel covering their privates. I am weirded out by the thought. I return to my house. It still feels like a sauna, only without the naked white men. After placing my empty plate in the plastic dishwashing bowl, I head to my brother’s new room, my sister’s former room. “Molo.” I suddenly feel overwhelmed by the sight of my brother. I’m filled with excitement. He is home. “Kwedini,” he manages to mutter the words. The feeling of excitement is overshadowed by the sound of his voice - hollow, lacking the zeal it once carried; soulless. My eyes water. I remind myself of his zealous voice and I replay his response: “kwedini”. I manage a laugh, half warm and loving to see my brother back home, half ruined and broken by the sight of my brother, ruined, and broken. 5 I exit the room, and head towards my room which I share with my two other brothers. I undress from my uniform and wear casuals, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, no shoes. I grab my school shirt and socks and put them in a wash basin. I collect bits of green soap from all the rooms bar my eldest brother’s new room. I head to the communal water taps to wash the two items. After hanging my socks to dry, I prepare for soccer practise. * UPhilani andimazi ukuba ungenwe yintoni. Qho xa enxilile sixakana nento. Andazi ukuba ufuna sithini kuye kuba akukhonto ayivayo xa simcebisa. A father of two, potentially three kids – one boy and two girls. We hardly see any of them. I don’t know what they will say of us when they grow up. I never thought we’d abandon our kids like uTata did. I thought we’d be better than that. I especially thought he’d do better after uTata neglected him for so many years. He is just as negligent a father as his father before him. I never thought I’d come to say this about any of our siblings, but he might just be the second black sheep of the family. Isn’t it funny that both the black sheep were born in one year? I just wish uPhilani could stop drinking so much. Look at what it did to uTata. Look at what it’s doing to Nwabisa. Why can’t they just take better care of themselves? What about the kids? Why are we not better than our parents? I’m so conflicted. * I’m in deep sleep when I feel someone shaking me. “Hmm?” “‘Hmm’ ntoni?” asks my brother, Khulani, rhetorically. “Vuka!” “Ndizohlamba emva kwakho,” I manage a mumbled response, turning my head away from the light as I drag the blanket over me to get complete darkness. Khulani gets out of bed and snatches the blankets off me, leaving me completely uncovered. “Uzophinda ube-late kungxoliswe thina upha. Voetsek! Vuka.” It’s mid-autumn, and the weather has dropped drastically over the past week. I rise immediately because of the sudden chill, and I curse at him under my breath. “Uthini? Awunophinda!” “Ndizophinda ukuba ndiyafuna.” “Hamb’o’hlamba, uyekutheth’ into engavakaliyo apha.” 6 I turn to look at my brother as he snuggles under the blankets, infuriated by how he forced the blanket off me. I grab the blanket from near his feet, drag it off, and run out of the room. I can hear him curse behind me, but I know he won’t chase after me because it’s cold outside and he is only wearing his boxer shorts. After eating breakfast – Blue Ribbon brown bread and tea – I grab my backpack and start heading to school. When I get on the tarred road after skipping over black murky water which runs between our homes, I put my hand in my pocket to play excitedly with the R5 Ma gave me for lunch. I try not to think about the murky water I must jump over every day, which also contributed to Ma and my uncle getting TB in the past two years, as my mouth waters thinking about the buttered polony quarter I will have for lunch today. One certainly does not have a buttered polony quarter every day, I think. But I can’t stop thinking that I’ll see kids playing in the infective water from the pipes that burst two months ago and were reported to the municipality multiple times to be fixed to no avail when I return from school. I will have something in my belly during lunch today. I let that thought comfort me. I get to the school gate just moments before uTat’ uMqithi closes it. UTat’ uMqithi is the school multipurpose handyman. He fixes and cleans the toilets, sweeps the classrooms on weekdays, and mops up on Fridays. Sometimes, when teachers are feeling generous to him, they punish pupils and send them to him. He can order them around, making them clean wherever he pleases, and at that he rejoices. He is also the security guard and gate keeper. If you get to the gate after he has clicked the padlock closed, just go home and hope that teachers have an unplanned meeting that morning, so they arrive too late to class to take register. Sometimes, on rainy days, uTat’ uMqithi will open the gate to give pupils a pass because he pities them. Other times, on rainy days, he carries his umbrella and stands by the gate to watch as pupils plead for mercy for having been late as he recites his mantra: “Niyalazi ixesha lokuvalwa kwamasango esisikolo. Ndifika apha qho ngentsimbi yesixhenxe. Ndingena kwamagumbi onke ndiqinisekise ukuba yonke into isahamba ngendlela. Into zakwam ndizishiya kwam. Kodwa nifuna ukundixelela ukuba anikwazi ukufika apha phambi kwentsimbi yesibhozo nje ngabanye abafundi? Khona ngubani ixesha? Niyayazi imithetho yabafundi malunga nexesha. Khanigoduke nibuye xa nithe nalazi ixesha.” He is a man of rules and order. He is a man of respect and honour. He is incorruptible. Sometimes parents take their chances with him when their children have been denied access. Sometimes they threaten to have him fired for not knowing how to do his job. Sometimes they remind him that he is only just a caretaker whose job is to clean toilets and classes, not to deny their children access to a school they have every right to be in. Sometimes they remind him that he is uneducated and can never qualify to do anything better than to clean toilets for their children. 7 “Sizakugxothisa,” they’d chant, angrily. “Nifuna ukundigxothisa?” he asks them, sarcastically. “Ngenani niye kwelagumbi lomqeshi wam, UNgwevu. Nizombona ngobufutshane.” He turns to point at Mr. Ngwevu’s office. Mr. Ngwevu is the school’s short-tempered principal. He is especially short-tempered in summer. Some say he is short tempered because he has short man syndrome. Some say it is because he had a car accident when he was young, and they had to place a metal plate on his head to cover where his head was terribly damaged. Whatever the reason, everyone knows not to get on Mr. Ngwevu’s bad side on a hot summer’s day. Luckily for the parents, most children get to school on time in summer, and very little complaints are made about uTat’ uMqithi. UTat’ uMqithi continues: “Xa nifika pha kuye nizenimxelele ndivalele abantwana benu ukuze bangafuman’ imfundo.” He opens the gate and lets the parents in. They walk a fair distance before he adds, “Kodwa ningalibali ukumxelela ukuba bafike ngobani ixesha ndibavalele nje.” I watch the parents as they rush to Mr. Ngwevu’s office one after another, like ants at work when sugar has been spilled on a kitchen top and not cleaned. The bell ringer, a grade 9 student who is a known troublemaker but is always present at school and always on time, rings the bell to signal that classes are commencing. It is at this moment that I realise I’ve been standing and watching the commotion between uTat’ uMqithi and the parents for so long I had forgotten I just managed to make it through the gate in time. I rush to class to find my classroom teacher, Mrs. Mndekwa, just opening the register book. “Bhudla, you’re late,” she says. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” “I don’t want to hear your ‘sorry’. Get to class on time.” “Yes, ma’am.” During my interaction with Mrs. Mndekwa, I overhear some chatter from the girls who sit in the group behind me, closest to the door. “Watch how the teacher’s pet will get a slap on the wrist,” says Nomfundo, whose voice I recognise because it is high pitched and annoys me. Nomfundo always has something bad to say about me. It doesn’t matter if I offer help to her and her friends. What matters to her is that she takes every opportunity to drag me in the mud. Sometimes she’ll say I think that I know everything when I give an opinion on something. Other times she tries to discredit what I say only to say the exact same thing later and pretend she came up with the idea. She abhors me because I do better than her academically. She especially hates that I put minimal effort into my schoolwork. 8 “But the teacher hasn’t called anyone’s name nje,” says Zanele. “You’re being too harsh on him.” Zanele, Nomfundo’s closest friend, always defends me. Sometimes she will let things slide because she wants to keep her friend. Nomfundo bosses everyone around her. “You always defend him because you like him.” “You’re being ridiculous because he beat you in English.” The arguing continues for a little while before Mrs. Mndekwa interjects. “Who said you could make noise in my class?” * I don’t remember just how good your relationship was with Sas’kolo, but her relationship with uNkuja is surely not as great. You two got on well enough, I know that. I think she respected you more. I think she idolised you. She has no respect for uNkunja. When we talk, she claims that she loves him like she loves any of us, but you will never see them enjoying a good laugh. You will never see them in the same room for more than 5 minutes alone. You will never see them making plans together without them fighting. There is always a quarrel when they speak. It’s like a dog and a cat, or a cat and a mouse; one is always chasing the other out of the room. Just the other day, uSas’kolo asked me for Nkuja’s number so she could call him, said the number she had wasn’t going through. When I went to Nkuja to ask if he had her number, he told me he had a number that wasn’t going through. Just look at that, one would certainly believe they were sworn enemies if one didn’t know their relation. Ibingase bangahla phantsi bathethisane kude kuphele ingxabano. Kodwa andinathemba ukuba izokwenzeka lonto. Ndithini? Ndihleli nje ndighrunjwa yilengxabano yabo. * After returning from washing my school uniform at the communal taps, I tell Ma that I am going to see my friends. She, without turning to look at me, gently ushers me out as she slowly injects a spoonful of yoghurt into my brother’s reluctant mouth. She is patient with him, but I can see it deeply hurts her to see her eldest son in this state. She hasn’t been herself since he was reduced to being an infant again, and it hurts me to see her like this. It hurts me to see him like this. Everyone but Ma tries to avoid entering his room, and only doing so when she has stepped out and my brother wants assistance when he has to pee. Sometimes, for short moments, his mind is functional, and he is aware of his condition. Other times, when Ma has stepped out, he shouts at whoever is in the house to get him his pants and his 9 shoes so he can go to pee. When no one responds, he begins to cry, until his voice is coarse, almost ghostly. I run out of the house to head to the game shop, where I hope to drown myself playing The King of Fighters ’99. I don’t want to hear my brother’s ghostly cries for the rest of the day. I kept my R5 lunch money, and it will give me 20 credits if I use it all. I can use R2.50 to buy vetkoek with French polony, and I can still get 10 credits. I vow to challenge anyone who is playing The King of Fighters ’99. If I lose to them, I’ll challenge them until I beat them. I learned a few tricks from the best player of the game kwaLanga last weekend when I visited Khaya. Only he can beat me now. I let the thought of playing my favourite game which I enjoyed with my best friend comfort me. 10