It was another usual afternoon for Keabetswe. She was bone tired and forced her heavy and aching legs to propel herself. When she got home, right before she entered her small yard, she noticed a black car parked just a stone’s throw from her house. It was a Range Rover, it registered in her mind. It was easy to notice because it was out of place; a luxurious beast in a squatter camp residential area with no tar but shapeshifting waves of sand. The last time the people of Bones Squatter Camp saw such a car was when Mayor Lebisi was running for a second term. Keabetswe noticed it because it was similar to the beasts that she often saw at her Madam’s house from which big white and black men with shiny heads emerged. She halted to look at the car holding her tree-branched and steel-wired gate, it kept wobbling in her hand. She had a foreboding feeling about the beast but she managed to sweep it off the table of her mind, entered her yard, and hinged her gate shut.
When she was about to soak her feet in hot water mixed with coarse salt, a tentative knock came on her metal door. She did this every evening to ease the pain that was embedded deep in her flesh and shot right through the marrow of her bones. It was a light knock but it was too impactful to send ricocheting trills across her small corrugated shack. She was stuck between opening the door and ignoring it because this was a peculiar moment for her. No one had come knocking on her door at that time of the evening since she moved into her shack. She instantly knew it wasn’t Martha, because she knew Martha went home at the end of the month and she saw that her shack was dark. She knew it wasn’t the water guy either because it wasn’t a water day. She turned to glance at the water buckets behind her, they were full. Her mind moved to think it was the man who sold her the place, maybe he wanted it back. She quickly shook her head. Her last resort was thinking that her Madam had sent for her but she immediately remembered that no one in that family knew where she lived. She held tight her breath and looked at the door as another determined knock sent reverberating trills through her shack.
Her nerves and anxiety solidified into a gigantic curveball in her stomach. She swallowed all the air that was trapped in her throat as the knocking continued. She took tentative steps towards the door. Slowly, she reached for her chipped, rusted door handle. She heard movements and steps disappear into the evening, she pulled open her door and saw two familiar ladies. She gasped for air immediately. With a hand on her chest, she backtracked with one hand searching the air for something to hold on to until she walked back to the chair she was sitting on.
“Abe?” One of the ladies called out. Keabetswe looked nonplussed.
“My dear sister.” The lady added in a musky voice from the door. Keabetswe abruptly stood to shut the door. She slid down her door to the floor that was cracked and had sand puddles on it. She sobbed silently from the floor. The vibrations of her sister’s knocking transmitted to her body and became a part of her at that particular moment. The vibrations were in sync with her sobs. The two formed a dynamic yet disturbing sound.
“Abe, your sister and I come in peace”, the other lady assured. “Please, let us in.” She pleaded further. They kept knocking and calling Keabetswe, who continued to sit, sob and pull her uniform in frustration. After a few minutes of realizing that they were not going to leave, she opened the door and stood on one side. Her face was puffy, her eyes were bloodshot and had a heavy red bag underneath. They entered and the sister scanned the shack with her hands folded on her chest. Keabetswe offered them chairs. The sister’s eyes rummaged every corner and beam of the shack.
“What brings you here?” Keabetswe asked in a dull tone. Her eyes did not meet those of her unannounced visitors.
“We have been looking for you. We came to take you home.” Her friend answered softly.
“How did you find me?” Keabetswe asked, still not meeting their eyes.
“Does that matter, Abe? What we want to focus on is knowing how you have been.” Her sister’s voice rose and cracked.
“Tshepiso,” the friend held Keabetswe’s sister on her shoulder in a mollifying manner. She turned to Keabetswe. “Friend, your family and I have been writing to you for years; or so we thought. But as time went by, we noticed that you did not receive the letters, or they got lost on the way or even worse, they got delivered but you did not read them.” The two ladies looked at Keabetswe anticipating a response that did not follow. “I went to search for the place on the address with the hope of finding you but instead we found Miss Mkhize who informed us you sold the house to her years back. You told her to keep your mail for you in the mailbox so you can collect it. Even when you did, you did so without even greeting her, she would be lucky to see you walk away. She told us that she could not track your visits because you collected the mail randomly.” She added in a whisper, covered her mouth, closed her eyes, and faced the roof.
“We hired a private investigator to track you down until he found out where you lived and here we are,” Tshepiso added.
“Now that you have found me, you can go,” Keabetswe said dismissively.
“You are telling us to go? After we have put so much effort into looking for you? Really? Is that all you are going to say to us for taking the time to look for you because we love you and need you back in our lives?” Tshepiso intoned. She was up on her feet now.
Lifting her face for the first time since they were in her home, Keabetswe’s eyes were masked with much stronger emotions than regret, remorse, and gratitude.
“You love and need me? Since when Tshepiso? Huh, Sheni? Since when?” Her eyes alternated between both ladies, with tears and snort rolling down her face. Tshepiso giggled and threw her hands in surrender. “We all know that you are here to remind me how much I have failed our parents, how I have failed myself, and how I have wasted my life. You want to tell me about love? Where was this love when I left home?”
“It has been there, you just never saw it because you always thought you were the victim of the circumstances. You never saw it from the point of view of Mama and Papa.”
“Yes, I know I was stupid enough to think he would launch me to be a big-shot singer, a global sensation with the voice of an angel. And for that, you were right, I could have continued to conduct the church choir and praise the Lord for our father as he ascended the pulpit.” She said sarcastically.
“Abe, please stop. We did not come here to open old wounds. We want to fix things.” Sheni pleaded, taking a few steps towards her but Keabetswe raised her index finger in silent protest. Sheni halted and nodded while taking steps back.
Keabetswe looked pensively through a hole in her brittle and corrugated iron walls. “I believed everything he said. All the promises he made. I believed that he loved me and pushed all the precautionary comments aside because I thought people envied me. I thought you envied me.” She let out a defeated chuckle. “Not able to see that I was taken for a ride. Instead, everyone felt for me for the aftermath that would follow me after he had gotten in between my legs and deprived me of the pride of my womanhood. But in the end, it is all on me. I let him in. I gave him all of me, for he said he will fulfil all my dreams.” She continued to narrate in a calm tone. “And my parents never missed a chance to remind me of my…”
“Sister, please stop.” Tshepiso interrupted as she sat down and covered her eyes. “Please, stop. Please stop.” Tshepiso erratically repeated these words. She was rocking back and forth on the chair with tears rolling down her cheeks. All the images came to her mind, reminding her of how their father declared in front of the entire family that he had only one daughter and it was not Keabetswe. Her mind took her to how broken and forsaken her sister felt and seemed. She relived the terror of the morning she woke up to find her sister gone with her wardrobe emptied and a letter with an address left behind.
“They hated me,” Keabetswe shouted in response. “They hated me for bringing shame to God’s family.” She continued to scream with her hands shaped into fists, she viciously pulled off her doek. Her hands rummaged through her hair.
“Abe, Tshepi is having an episode,” Sheni called out to Keabetswe. Keabetswe opened her eyes, wiped off her tears with the back of her hand, and went over to Tshepiso.
“Please massage her back, in between her shoulder blades and I will massage the knuckles on her fingers. She should respond.” Keabetswe ordered in her older sister’s voice. Tshepiso’s voice gradually declined.
When all was calm, silence had befell them. Their faces were indecipherable as the wheels of their minds kept on churning. Tshepiso’s face was covered with her hands as they rested on her thighs, and Sheni’s head hung hopelessly in between her shoulders facing the cracked floor. For a long time, no one uttered a word. It was just sniffs and loud sighs that dominated the atmosphere. Breaking the trace, Tshepiso announced, “Our father has died.”
Instantly, Keabetswe replied flatly, “I know. His funeral was aired on television. Everyone knew that the Son of God had died.”
“Abe, please come home. We beg of you.” Sheni said in sheer sincerity.
“You call the place where I was publicly disowned home? I am working here. I am trying to make something out of my life. I am twice the age I was when I left home. I am not married. I am working for a girl who is suitable to be my daughter. Doesn’t that fall within the shame I have brought to my family? Please tell me,”
“Our mother is sick and bedridden. She asked us to find you and bring you home.”
“Tshepiso, this,” Keabetswe said with a revolving finger, “is my home”.
“She is dying Abe!” Tshepiso exclaimed.
Keabetswe’s heart skipped a beat. She quickly sought her composure. “That is why she needs me? To ask for forgiveness so she would get granted access to Heaven? How selfish! I thought she had changed. She can rot in hell for all I care.” She instinctively blurted out. Tshepiso and Sheni were dumbstruck.
“Friend, you do not mean that. I know you do not.” Sheni said.
“You no longer know anything about me, Sheni.” She retorted.
Realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, they stood to leave. Holding the door, Tshepiso said, trying to hold back the tears too, “At least she is willing to ask for forgiveness so she can be freed. How long will you allow yourself to be kept hostage by rage and hatred? Let yourself be free so that you can enjoy your last days on this Earth without having regrets like our mother.” They shut the door and left. She sat there and heard the beast’s ignition turn on before it drove away.
The next morning, Keabetswe retrieved a brown briefcase from underneath her single bed. It was covered in dust and cobwebs. She opened it and inside it were thousands of unopened letters. She took them one by one, in search of one specific letter.
“30 September 2014, the leaf has dried and fallen.” The letter read on the envelope. She regarded it with fear. She let out a heavy sigh before she ripped it open. Unfolded, she saw her father’s cursive handwriting.
“Keabetswe,
I have failed you as your father and as the servant of God. I am sorry from the bottom of my heart and with all that comes after the bottom of it. I want us to fix things before the clock chimes and I am called to the afterworld.
Please, come home at your earliest convenience.
Your father, Ephraim”
Tears fell from her eyes onto the paper. She was greatly touched because she remembered how her father used to sign off his letters, “Pastor Ephraim Kgoro”, they would always read. She felt her chest constrict with pain, regret, and remorse. She faintly sat down and cried. Taking another glance at the letter, she summoned the strength to stand up, grab her handbag and leave her shack. After a few hours, she got off a taxi on the street that led down to her parent’s house. Everyone looked at her as she passed, her handbag right underneath her arm. People whispered to each other as she walked down the street. Some even called out to each other. She did not care about that, there was only one thing on her mind and she hoped she wasn’t late. She got to the house and knocked.
“Abe, you came!” Tshepiso said when she opened the door and hugged her. “Please come through.” She followed Tshepiso to her parent’s room and she realized that the house had not changed in twenty years. She found her mother lying inanimate on the bed. She threw her handbag to the floor.
“Mama, it is Keabetswe. I came back.” She said softly as she engulfed her cold and soft-skinned hand in hers. She kissed the hand and ran her hand on her forehead. Her mother did not move and Keabetswe looked around to Tshepi with an alarmed face. When she looked at her mother again, tears fell sideways from her eyes even though she did not move. They both noticed her lips vibrate at the attempt to speak and her eyes then prised open.
“Ke…Keabetswee. You will al-al-always find me in yo-yo-your heart. My life, I-I-I give to you. I am so sorry.” Her mother managed to say. Her voice was faint. Her eyes were white as the clouds. Keabetswe slept next to her, so close that she heard when her mother let out her last breath. Sitting up right from the bed, she called out to her mother. She checked her pulse and let out a cry when she could not feel it.
Lazarus Kgageng is a 22 year-old author and poet originally from South Africa, in Limpopo. He debuted as an author with his short story titled, “Moving Sands” that was published in 2022 through the Something In the Water Anthology. This was after he trained as a scriptwriter by the South African Arts and Culture Youth Forum in 2019. He is currently pursuing his Honours degree in Political and International Studies at Rhodes University. Apart from writing he is invested in student governance and serves Rhodes University as the Secretary-General of the Student Representative Council.