Chapter 8 (Sand in a bottle)
We drove all night. He dropped me off at my flat, bid me a good evening and drove away.
I placed the bottle of sand on my mantelpiece. That’s all I have left of my home, a bottle of sand.
I bathed, and I made tea. I wasn’t hungry, I was tired. I think I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow, and I was in pain, I didn’t want to tell Inkosi, that the trip was too much for me.
I woke up, when I heard the front door open. I knew it was Inkosi, because one never heard him.
He switched on the light. He had a bottle of water, and a container of tablets in his hands. “Drink this, it will help with the pain.”
I cried, because he had noticed, and because he is so darn kind-hearted.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Are we strangers now? That we cannot share things of importance? I phoned the school doctor, he told me just how sick you are, because you go to him, when you can’t travel. I am angry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I drank the tablets, I struggled to get up. I became stiff with the pain at times. Inkosi helped me up.
“What alleviates this pain?”
“I need to walk, and a warm bath with half a cup of salt, helps to pull the pain out.” He went into the bathroom and I could hear the water running, then to the kitchen, mug in hand, back to the bathroom. I tried to stand. I was clipped by the pain.
He picked me up, and walked with me to the bathroom, he undressed me and placed me in the tub, he gently washed my back. Inkosi could see where the problem areas were, these are the wondrous benefits of being a premature baby. My bones are now severely deformed. The beatings did very little to help, the erosion that is crippling me. It’s too advanced and no cure.
He helped me out of the tub, and placed a robe around me. “Go lie on your tummy, I’ll rub your back.”
If my mother had given a hoot about me, and the tests were done then, they could have fixed my spine, she only saw me as dead, and it was easier to pass the parcel. I have met her, I didn’t not like her. I don’t want to like her. I never had a mother. Gran and Mama Nandi was all the mother I needed.
I dozed off to sleep. When I turned, I found my Chief in my bed. “Hey, are you feeling better, I was worrier, what I saw in the rear view mirror frightened me. Are you feeling better?”
“No, not quite, I think you need to kiss me, yeah I do, that’s what the doctor ordered.”
Inkosi smiled from ear to ear. “So the doctor’s diagnosis is, a kiss will cure all your ailments?”
“Well, Inkosi, not all of them, it will have to be many-many kisses.” We laughed. He tried not to hurt me. He kissed me, oh bloody damn did he kiss me.
“Inkosi, the doctor said, I need to be active, busy. It will help my bones, yeah, that’s what he said.”
“I think I might like your doctor; the man sure knows how to heal” I hid my smile. “He’s the best, his name is Inkosi.”
When he entered me I climaxed. I had tried to subdue my need for him, it was greater than I. it took him a few minutes, as I reached my second climax, it set him over the edge. It was beautiful.
“Am I hurting you?’
“No, just hold me.” We fell asleep like that, I have never done that in all my life, fell asleep naked in a man’s arms. All it did was ignite the fire.
I cannot put what I feel into a bottle, and place a lid on it. I might not be well, but that does not change the fact that I am still a woman, I feel, I need and I desire. I am everything, a teacher, a nurse. A homemaker. A chef, but I am also a woman that desires. That has a need, especially when he is near, it’s all consuming, it’s all I can think of. My mind goes blank, and body comes alive, the way he makes me feel, every time, now and then, is something I cannot express in words, I don’t think words should be used to define how I feel, it would spoil the sacredness of this bonding of two souls.
“Nichole, tell me what’s wrong with your body.”
“I have many tests that I need to have done, to determine exactly what I have. I don’t have that kind of money right now.” I did tell him as best as I could what was wrong with me.
“Does the pain ever go away?” I shook my head no. “No, some days, it is crippling. I walk, I take a bath, the bed can really hurt me, I struggle to get up, because my bones are too stiff. Once I bathed and I walk, it helps a little.”
I could see him thinking. “You need a special bed?”
“Yeah, I do. This one was here when I moved in.” He nodded. “How often do you see the doctor?”
“As often as I can, sometimes once a month.” He nodded again.
I dozed off, night shift is hard work.
When I woke up, he was gone, however he left me a note, saying I need to stay in bed, he would return with breakfast.
I still fear, I have panic-attacks, and my heart is not ticking as well as it should. I do not allow my dictator to write these words, because I want a pity-party, the etymology of the word has long eluded me. Plus, the hats are too colourful, it will clash with my complexion.
There are times I want to abscond, abandon ship and run for the hills, oh how I miss those hills. However, my dictator in unyielding, I need to make this very clear, my unburdening of the soul, is not for monetary gain, not for a pound nor a penny, that would be a grave misconception, and an insult to the one writhing my memoir.
I do not believe everything happens because we chose, no I cannot believe that, at times, fate, karma, or pure coincidence steps in and takes the lead. Not everything in life, is a life lesson, oh-no.
I didn’t chose to love, my heart allowed me, it gave me a gift. I have long since poured out that bottle of sand. I came to the realization; one cannot bottle your memories. They are like butterflies, they will land, when they feel the need to.
Have I made other errors in my judgement? Absolutely, the biggest on was seeking my biological mother. One may call it a life-lesson, and eye-opener. I call it an abortion of hope. Ignorance is bliss.
Inkosi arrived with a tray, he balanced it on one hand as he closed the door. It was cold, the snow clung far up on the mountains. I shan’t colour them blue.
“Morning, why aren’t you in bed?”
“Because I had to bathe and I get stiff lying down.”
He placed the tray on the table. “I think we might suffer from the same affliction.”
I did thank God for those pain killers, it took a second for his words to sink in, damn he should have been a court jester, it’s the way he expresses himself, so self-assured, and so seldom with a smile on his face.
I know it wasn’t that funny, if you could have seen the look on his face, after the fact…priceless. I had to sit down and wipe my face, I rubbed my yaw. I can’t remember when last I had laughed like that, I can only ever recall, it was in his presence.
“I have ordered a new bed, sorry if I am late, but the school has been broken into. I’ll have to get the men to bar the windows. So much for freedom. And the same will be done to your flat. I need to know when I am not here, that you are safe, eat, stop sipping the tea. What were you thinking of before I arrived? I think I know you well enough to see, your thoughts were a million miles away.”
“My biological mother.”
He refilled his cup, tea has never tasted the same. Not when Gran made it, and not when Inkosi made it. I have tried every tea, I could get my hands on, and time has not done justice to a good cup of tea. Call it the ice in me, it needs that cup of tea, or my life feels incomplete.
“You met her?”
“Indeed I did.” I ate, I did not speak while I ate. Inkosi had made maize with a dash of ‘sour-milk’. Every spoonful took me back home. It ached in my belly, not what I had lost, endured. The fact that I cannot turn back time.
He stretched out his long legs. I am still not use to seeing him, dressed up. I have seen Zulu’s in full ‘dress’. It’s both frightening and powerful. It’s the epitome of Africa.
Africa is unbiased in its beauty, yet it is a deadly force. My grandfather had hunted snakes for sport, I would cringe at the black and white photos. Those weren’t snakes they were monsters. Even the chickens, learnt not to sleep on the ground at night, they climbed in the trees at dusk.
“What was she like?”
“I have made it my life’s mission to understand people, their beliefs, their dreams. But that woman was vile. In ways that are difficult for me to utter. Inkosi, gran and Mama, they were my mother’s, I don’t need a mother. Our paths crossed, don’t ask me how, I don’t really want to muse about her. I did meet her when I was young, very young, and in my childlike fascination, I held on to her because she was my mother. I guess I was looking for a saviour. What I found was something I wished I had never experienced. Never again, heed my words, you accuse me of being stubborn. No I am set in my ways, even if she lay on her dying bed, I shall not go.”
Inkosi frowned. “I have never heard you speak ill of anyone, not even Veronica. You got up and you carried on. You hide your scars, well to the outside world, nevertheless I have known you all my life, and I have never seen hatred in your eyes, you don’t need to tell me about her. I think you have too many ‘demons’ in your past. She is in the past, correct?”
I nodded. “Oh, she is in the past, that I can assure you.”
“You will not teach tomorrow. Now go to bed.”
“No, I don’t want to go to bed, the bloody thing hurts me.” He scoffed at me, and I got a ‘look’.
“Where would you like to sit? I can start a fire, I know the weather was lovely on the farm, but the cold is coming off the mountains. So tell me where is it comfortable for you?”
“I don’t want to sit; I have a basket of washing I need to wash.” He was up, took my basket and walked out the door. I could feel the cold in my bones, it scared me. My chest was heavy this morning, and my body ached. I knew when it would rain or snow, I felt rustic inside my own body.
I tidied up, swept the floors. He walked back in. Grabbed the broom, he nearly pulled me right off my bloody feet. “Go and sit down, you don’t look in the mirror often do you Nichole? I can tell you truthfully, you scare me to death, when I look at you.”
I sat on the couch next to the fire-place. Inkosi had started a fire within seconds, it took me half an hour at most. I sat down. He pulled blanket over my legs, I didn’t like the feeling of being coddled, not by him. I didn’t want him to see me as an invalid. It somehow degrades me.
He sat down after he swept and washed the floors, packed the dishes back on the tray, then folded his hands in his lap, and looked at the fire.
It’s amazing how somethings, can stay so clear in one’s mind.
One of my fondest memories are of that day. The silence, the wind howling around the corners of my flat. I love the wind. Be it cold or warm, it soothes my soul. I glanced at him. I need to imprint his face in my mind. That thought left me feeling cold. Why would I ever have thought like that?
“The police came. Right after you had left to see your father in hospital. I didn’t know then, that, that was the reason you had left. I was waiting in your bedroom. I didn’t hear the sirens. I heard the front door being bashed open, so I ran, not fast enough to out run their dog’s. Those dogs are trained to seek out only one scent. I asked Funani not to tell you, I would do so, if time and life allowed our paths to cross one more time.”
I didn’t utter a word. I waited for Inkosi to form the words.
“I stopped running, the dogs were the same breed as Sheba, one cannot out run that dog, it will kill you, so I stopped. The cop handling the dogs whistled and they sat down, three huge perfect animals, just as Sheba was, the lowered back legs, and a chest so thick, you use to use it as a pillow. I understood every word he was saying to me, the one arresting me, he didn’t know I spoke his language. I didn’t say a word. They kicked me, punched me, the interpreter asked me where you were. I truthfully told him, I didn’t know. Thank your God, you had gone, I heard what they said about you, what they wanted to do to you, for fucking a kaffir.”
I sat looking at the fire, willing it, to keep me from allowing my fear to overflow.
I waited again for him to speak. “I studied in prison. I now know why you were so afraid of it, you were right Nichole, I was wrong, it’s a bad place, a very bad place, no matter the colour of your skin, that’s one places I will never go again, I will rather die. The shame of that place hangs around my neck. When I look at you, I see courage, raw and unbiased, I am very thankful, you had left. Not that your father had taken ill.”
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