Her stepmother’s voice rings through her head: “Always take something – anything. It’s rude not to. Even the smallest thing will do.” Bhekiwe parks her car and walks toward Killarney Mall. It’s just after nine in the morning. She remembers seeing a flower shop close to the entrance. Flowers. That should do.

She finds the florist right where she thought it would be. Amid mounds of flowers she sees five small pots of pale pink miniature roses. She is drawn to them. She likes the size, just right for a first visit to someone’s home. But she doesn’t like the formal look of the arrangement. Also, they are roses. But there is nothing else miniature.

She veers towards the bunches of wild-looking, multi-coloured chrysanthemums. She recalls reading in a magazine that Chinese gardeners were the first to cultivate this flower from indigenous perennials. They wrote many songs and poems about it. And Confucius was the first to record the presence of this flower as far back as 500 BC. She’d read this just three days ago, in a hair salon. She likes their multiple colours, but the flowers are a bit too loud – and too large for a first visit.

Her eyes skim over numerous arrangements in silver pots to one containing single strelitzias. They are called birds of paradise – she recalls reading this somewhere, too. These are just right. The shape of the petals suggests both

pride and humility. The colours are a surprisingly fitting mix. She picks three stems. Three is a fine number for a first visit. She pays. The cashier assures her that she has made a good choice. She heads out of the mall building.

Zodwa had told her that the Seven Palms block of flats was on the road leading from the mall parking lot. She told her to keep walking – no turns, keep looking right – it wouldn’t be too far to walk. As she walks, her mind returns to the day she first noticed Zodwa, almost a year ago.

It was at a parents’ meeting at Holy Mary College. Bhekiwe was attending the meeting at her father’s request, as he had a business meeting to attend. She watched, listened and took notes. Each time the discussion strayed, Zodwa stood up to remind the meeting what the focus of the discussion was. She used her hands a lot when she spoke. Bhekiwe admired Zodwa’s fingers. Slim, very slim, as if trimmed to look just right. She wondered what cream Zodwa used on her hands.

Zodwa was the teacher representative on the School Governing Body, and so she was at each of the subsequent meetings that Bhekiwe attended on those occasions her father couldn’t make it.

One day, Bhekiwe asked her one brother if he knew the name of the teacher who always wore loose pants, loose tops and colourful head wraps.

“Miss Black.”

“Is that what you call her – why?”

“She was always in black, like, always. Well, in that first month when she came to our school.”

“Really?”

“Now she wears other colours, not many, but the name kinda, like, stuck.”

“Is she a good teacher?”

‘She doesn’t teach me, but my friend says she’s, like, very strict. He hates her.’

“What subjects does she teach?”

“Physical Education and isiZulu, juniors only. Why do you care, Sis’Bheks?”

For a moment Bhekiwe was silent, asking herself the same question.

“Curious. I’m just curious. Anything wrong with that?” She realised she was speaking to the wind. Her brother was already running towards the car.

On prize-giving day, Bhekiwe made a point of sitting next to Zodwa.

“Hi there. Anyone sitting here, Ms Black?” “Oh, hi there, Ms Beautiful.”

It was the first time someone apart from her father had called her beautiful without it sounding like an insult. Who would ever have thought being beautiful could be such a curse?

“My name is Ntombizodwa. Non-learners call me Zodwa for short. What’s your name?”

Their hips and thighs touched. Bhekiwe noticed how firm Ms Black’s hips were. Much firmer than hers. She wanted to remark on it, but quickly commanded the idea to go away. In fact, her stepmother’s voice uttered the caution: “Bhekiwe, that would be rude.”

When the event was over, they wished each other season’s greetings, and did not see each other to speak to again until the following year.

A month after school reopened, Bhekiwe was waiting for her brothers near the main gate when Zodwa walked past. Bhekiwe stepped out of the car and greeted her. They exchanged a few words. Zodwa surprised her by asking if she would join a group of her friends at Kippies Jazz Club. “We all love Taiwa, come join us. It’s a women’s night out.”

Bhekiwe had no idea who Taiwa was, but she agreed. The only jazz artists she knew were her father’s favourites, whom she had begun to like via osmosis.

During the show, Zodwa asked why she was named Bhekiwe.

“I thought you teach isiZulu, don’t you know what Bhekiwe means?”

“Of course I do – I’m asking why you were given that name.”

Bhekiwe was embarrassed to realise that she had never asked her father. During a break, she rang her father, and then told Zodwa the story: because she was born in exile, there was no family around to help raise her. This had made her father anxious. He named her Bhekiwe to reflect his wish that their relatives and the spirits of the ancestors would look after her.

That evening, Zodwa talked a lot to her other friends and colleagues. As her hands moved, Bhekiwe noticed a thin copper bangle embracing her left wrist. When Zodwa’s hand moved closer to hers, Bhekiwe caught a whiff of citrus fruit and wondered again what hand cream Zodwa used. She made a mental note to ask her, on another day, at another moment. At the end of the show, Zodwa went home with a colleague. Bhekiwe did not see her again for a couple of months.

Then, the day before school closed for the winter holidays, Bhekiwe was helping out by fetching her brothers from school. She offered Zodwa a lift home. When they arrived at Killarney, Zodwa suggested they have coffee before she went off to buy groceries. Bhekiwe’s brothers went to the bookshop while she and Zodwa talked, sharing stories about their families.

Bhekiwe confided, “Daddy has been unlucky – his fiancée died a few months before they got married. My mother died two years after I was born, and my stepmother a year after my baby brother was born.”

“Ag shame man, Bheks, that’s too much for your old man.”

“I know, I know. He says he’ll never get married again.” “What was your father’s fiancée’s name?”

Zodwa’s question surprised Bhekiwe – she’d never asked. But this time, instead of calling her father, she asked why Zodwa wanted to know.

“The short answer is, I’m curious. The long answer is, I care.”

“Care, care about what?” “History.”

Zodwa then went on to tell Bhekiwe she was the last of five children, two of whom had died of AIDS, and one in a car accident. Zodwa paid school fees for two nieces and a nephew, all in schools in Limpopo. She also supported her mother, who lived with the three grandchildren. She’d come to Johannesburg when she got the position as a physical education teacher – her passion. In Limpopo, no school would employ her; they said they preferred male teachers because they were better at sport.

Then she smiled, changing the subject: “Hey listen, Bheks, enough of this family stuff. Would you like go to a poetry session with me one of these days?”

“Didn’t know you’re a poet.”

“I’m not, I just write a poem or two now and again. But I love listening to poets do their thing.”

“Will you let me read some of your poems, then?”

Zodwa announced that she needed to buy a few groceries before Pick ’n Pay closed. She stood up, grabbed her handbag, took out a notebook and said, “I bought this notebook last week, there are two poems in there that you can read. Tell me what you think.”

Then Zodwa waved goodbye and half-ran out of the coffee shop.

A rather bemused Bhekiwe got up and found her brothers engrossed in their books in the deep couches at Exclusive Books next door.

It has been a quick walk to the Seven Palms, and Bhekiwe is filled with anticipation. With the strelitzias in one hand and Zodwa’s notebook in her bag, she rings the bell. After greeting the security guard at the desk, commenting on the weather and signing the register, she asks if Zodwa is in. He tells her that Zodwa has just got back from her morning run. When the lift reaches the third floor, Bhekiwe steps out, turns left, presses the buzzer at number 34 while calling Zodwa’s name, and waits. The door opens. Zodwa stands there, her hair hanging free and shiny black. Her tightly twisted locks fall with abandon over her collar bones. She is in her running gear: a pair of long black stretch pants and a black athletic top. The gap between the top and pants reveals tight abdominal muscles, with a soft line of hair running down from the navel. Bhekiwe wonders what it would feel like under her fingers.

They stand silent for a split second.

Bhekiwe has never imagined Zodwa in close-fitting clothes, despite knowing that she teaches physical education. What she now sees is what her aunt would call “a sculpture of womanhood”. Her aunt used to say that the reason some women had such artistic bodies is because women made their own moulds when God took a break. What Bhekiwe really wants to ask is why Zodwa always wears baggy pants and loose tops that hang over her hips, hiding this sculpture “I remembered it’s the first day of school holidays. I thought you might be home. Sorry, I should have called. Your notebook.”

She holds out the flowers and the notebook, and her handbag slides down her shoulder to just below her elbow. Zodwa repositions Bhekiwe’s handbag, touching her arm as she does so. Bhekiwe looks down at her arm as if it is not a part of her body. Then, as if in slow motion, Zodwa moves her hand away, saying that the flowers are beautiful. “No need to apologise. I’m glad you’re here. Come in.

How’re things?”

“Fine, fine, in fact better than fine. I decided I’m sick and tired of being exhausted. I’m taking three days off. Boss lady agreed. And guess what? I’m not even going to be working on my Masters. My supervisor is off to a conference in Kampala.”

“Coffee?”

Zodwa leads the way to the kitchen. Bhekiwe notices the muscles on Zodwa’s shoulders and upper arms. The JT top she is wearing seems designed to show off such firm shoulders. The shine of sweat reminds her of massage oil. With a quick shake of the head, she forces herself to focus on the moment. She notices the lounge area, which is almost bare of furniture. There are two tall bookshelves along one wall, cushions scattered on the carpet, and in a corner, a music system and a stand stacked with compact discs – over a hundred, Bhekiwe estimates.

“I liked your poems, Zodwa. They’re beautiful.”

“You have to say more than that. What exactly did you like?”

“The simplicity, the truth. And I feel as if I’ve learnt more about you.”

“Really? You’ll have to tell me more about that.”

The kitchen is narrow. It’s a glorified corridor. Bhekiwe settles on the breakfast stool, wriggling her bottom as if that will create more space. Zodwa busies herself with mugs, coffee beans, the French press, milk and sugar.

“How’s the research going?”

Bhekiwe’s research focuses on women who are organised into small craft groups – in her case, beadwork – how they survive economically, and how labour laws affect them.

“Have you narrowed down your research area yet? The last time we spoke, that was your plan.”

“Ja, well, we’re getting there. My supervisor agrees with you. She says I must just focus on the women, since that’s what I’m most interested in – interview them, you know, in-depth personal interviews, and forget about labour laws and the economics of it all.”

“Mm … but it sounds like you’re still married to your old idea?”

Bhekiwe takes a packet of Cartier Menthols and a lighter from her brown handbag. “Can I step onto the balcony, please?” She opens the back door, and after closing it again slightly, she lights a cigarette.

Half-shouting, Zodwa asks, “Does your father know you haven’t stopped?”

“Zo, let’s not go there. Daddy knows I’m stressed right now.”

“So Daddy lets his Bheks smoke herself to her grave?”

Bhekiwe shuts the door with a bang. Didn’t Zodwa remember what she’d told her about her father’s repeated encounters with death? After a while, she opens the door again and returns to her seat in the kitchen.

“Sorry, Bheks, I didn’t mean it that way.” “Sure, no sweat. Where were we?”

“Your women bead-jewellery makers, their life stories versus their economic survival and problems with labour laws.”

“Ja, well, for my sanity I think I’ll stick to personal histories. It makes more sense. And it’s simpler.”

“Talking of personal histories – I need to shower, my period is on. You don’t mind waiting, right? Go listen to some music in the lounge. We’ll carry on talking about your research afterwards while I make us breakfast.”

“Zo, what has your period got to do with personal histories?”

“Well, let’s see, I started menstruating the day before my fifteenth birthday. I’m thirty-two years old. That’s seventeen years; 204 months of bleeding. But I missed six months when I was 19 because of medication I was on. In 1985, I was in prison during the State of Emergency, and my period disappeared. Stress, I think, but it was only for three months. I’ve been regular since. That brings the total down to 195 months. Can you imagine how many litres of blood that is?”

Zodwa stands up, smiles with her head slanted to the left, and disappears into the bathroom.

Bhekiwe drinks her coffee and ponders. The talk of menstrual blood has awakened her vagina. She feels a sudden seeping of juices, and smiles to herself.

Minutes later, she walks to the lounge. She reaches for Taiwa’s Genes and Spirits, and the lounge absorbs the vibrations. She chooses the largest cushion and sits on it, supporting the small of her back with a smaller navy-blue one. She wants to know who Zodwa really is, but she doesn’t even know what questions to ask. All she knows for sure is that Zodwa is unlike any of her four close friends. They are all the children of returnees – and she’s only known one of them since childhood. She met the others through their parents, who hold regular get-togethers to talk about the struggle, their countries of exile, the democratic government – its foibles and fortunes, black economic empowerment deals, and affirmative action.

She wants to page through the books on the shelves. Her stepmother would say it was rude to go through someone’s bookshelf without permission, but she doesn’t feel like shouting a request in the direction of the bathroom.

Just sitting like that, with Taiwa in the background, is enough for the moment. Her mind goes back to that night at Kippies: the copper bangle on a narrow but strong wrist; the whiff of citrus fruit in the jazzy night air of Jozi; firm thighs under a pair of black pants. She sees Taiwa’s soft elongated face, his moustache and beard that needed trimming, his far-seeing eyes, his half-smile, and his nimble fingers on the keyboard. When the track “Genes and Spirits” plays, it transports her to the dusty streets of her childhood in Tanzania. There’s a sound to it, a cadence that she recognises as belonging somewhere north of here. She feels the humid Tanzanian air embrace her body, caressing her skin, easing into her pores. She closes her eyes and wonders why this track had not produced the same feeling that night at Kippies. But then Taiwa’s rhythms change, evoking other places.

“‘Spirits of Tembisa’, it’s my favourite track on that CD.”

Bhekiwe looks up at Zodwa, who is now wearing a pair of loose-fitting black tracksuit pants. The long-sleeved jacket is fully zipped up in front. She is back to being the real Ms Black. A black head-wrap covers her twisted hair. She has a look of preparedness.

“Are you dreaming, Bheks? I’m not surprised. Taiwa has this knack of taking you away, somewhere far, where you’ve never been.”

Slowly Bhekiwe gets up from the floor: “Oh, sorry – you were saying?”

“I was saying I’d like to find a place inside you, that I’d take somewhere you’ve never been.”

“And where is that?”

But Zodwa turns away, showing Bhekiwe her back. “To the kitchen. Come, I’ll make us breakfast. Follow me.” Zodwa walks to the kitchen, Bhekiwe behind her.

Bhekiwe’s eyes are fixed on the head-wrap, and she visualises Zodwa’s hair hanging against her bare shoulders, as it had just a few minutes ago. She peeps into the bedroom as they walk past. A black and white bed cover dominates the room.

As they step into the kitchen, Bhekiwe prompts, “You were saying something else…”

“Nothing much, I was just saying I love that track, ‘Spirits of Tembisa’. You know, after listening to it a few times, I decided to go to Tembisa.”

“Oh, really? Is it that good?”

“Dunno, there’s something about those drums, Bheks, you can only understand it once you’ve been to the place. Funnily enough, I love it for the drums rather than the piano.”

“Hmm, I must listen to it again.” “And then go to Tembisa?” They laugh.

As Zodwa starts to prepare breakfast, Bhekiwe asks, “What’s your other favourite track, then?”

“‘Finding oneself ’. It’s on his other CD of the same title.”

“Where did you take off to after listening to that one?” “My core.”

“Your core?”

“Yes, my core; you know, inside me – where it all begins.”

Silence.

Bhekiwe looks around the kitchen as if in search of something. The yellow cabinets and black floor tiles do not give her an answer. She suddenly feels uncomfortable on the bar stool. The padding is too thin. The circumference is not wide enough. Her elbows are not in a relaxed position. She remembers how she had discouraged her father and brothers from buying bar stools for their kitchen. This was three years ago when they’d bought furniture for their new home in Rivonia. Her brothers teased her about her “massive behind”, but her father had supported her. The vote was split, so the adults won.

Bhekiwe climbs down and goes out onto the balcony without another word. When she’s finished smoking, Zodwa starts, “Back to your research. What stage are you at now?”

“Forget about my research for now. I asked Daddy about his fiancée’s name.”

Zodwa’s face opens up. Her dimples deepen. Her eyebrows lift toward her hairline. Even her earlobes seem to curl forwards.

“And?”

Bhekiwe is surprised by an urgent desire to dip the tip of her index finger into Zodwa’s dimple. She feels embarrassment deep inside her stomach and rearranges her face to suppress the feeling.

“You’re not going to believe it,” she smiles.

“Hey, I haven’t seen that kind of smile on your face before! It’s not a smile, actually. What is it?”

“Zo, have you been monitoring my smiles?”

“Bheks, I teach a language. But people don’t only speak with words, they speak with their faces and their bodies, too. My job is to watch.”

“I see. Well, you have the most athletic body I have ever seen.”

Again, there is a split second of silence.

“Don’t change the subject. What was her name?” “Bhekiwe.”

“Seriously, Bheks? Her name was Bhekiwe? Now isn’t that something! Do you think your mother knew?”

“I have no idea, Zo. Daddy doesn’t like talking about the three women who, as he puts it, ‘died in his hands’.”

Zodwa was quiet for a while, then asked, “How do you like your egg?”

“Sunny side up.”

“So, Bheks, what’s the next question you’re asking Daddy?”

“No, Zo, my father can only deal with one question at a time. Same with me – with this, at least. It all feels a bit eerie.”

“Sure. I can imagine. Your father loves you, Bheks.” “Can we talk about something else, please?”

The oil in the pan releases a whiff of smoke. Zodwa moves it off the hot plate and reaches for the eggs from the fridge. Before she fries the eggs, she puts two slices of brown bread in the toaster. Bhekiwe’s hand reaches for it. “No, no, no, you are the visitor here, don’t,” Zodwa pulls the toaster away from Bhekiwe until it almost disconnects

from the power point. They laugh.

Zodwa takes two tomatoes from a vegetable basket made of tightly woven grass, cuts each into quarters, then puts them on the plates, next to the toast and eggs. Bhekiwe is relieved when Zodwa does not suggest that they say grace – as her brothers always insist she should.

For a while they eat in silence. Sunrays pour over Zodwa’s right shoulder and onto their plates. It’s warming up. The morning cloud and the weather report had suggested a much cooler day. Bhekiwe feels a tinge of excitement at the idea of a warm winter day. However, the weather is the last thing she wants to talk about.

“So, how do you like Holy Mary College?”

“I love my job. But I’m not so sure about the school.” “Why?”

“Catholicism and education: deadly combination. I would think thrice before sending my child there.”

Bhekiwe makes a note to herself to ask her brother about this apparently lethal combination. Zodwa seems to expect that she knows something about Catholicism when in fact she doesn’t have a dot of an idea. She thinks about her father, who decided that Holy Mary College would be the perfect school for her brothers because Mandela’s grandchildren went there. She makes another mental note to ask her father if he’d done any of his own research on the school, and what he knows about the Catholic faith. She wants to ask Zodwa more, but the right question does not come.

“You run a lot, don’t you? Do you do races?”

“Yes, as many as I can. This evening I’ll do a short, fast run. I’m training for a marathon.”

“And in between?”

“What could be better than reading? I read all day long.” They eat in silence. Bhekiwe’s mind drifts. Her gaze shifts. She lifts her eyes from her plate to Zodwa’s chest, wondering what she is wearing under her jacket. She eats mechanically. Then her meandering mind finds a warm, welcoming and self-affirming space. She goes inside. Deeper.

When they finish eating, Zodwa boils the kettle again and serves coffee.

“I must go. It’s going on for eleven already. Thanks for breakfast and coffee and everything.”

They get up at the same time. Bhekiwe collects her bag, stretches slightly, and walks towards the door. A thought enters her mind – she’s got to get going with that weight- loss programme she’s been postponing. Zodwa is three years older than her, but she looks five years younger. When she reaches the door, Bhekiwe steps aside to let Zodwa open it and let her through.

They bid each other farewell. As Bhekiwe walks to the lift three doors away, Zodwa waits at the door. Bhekiwe feels her eyes between her shoulder blades. At the lift, she turns around to discover that these eyes are accompanied by a smile, one she cannot explain. She waves goodbye.

Before Bhekiwe turns on the car engine, she opens her diary to make a list of things to do. “Finding oneself ’, she writes – but nothing more. She tries to remember the mental notes she’d made earlier that day. Nothing. Then she starts up the engine. And as she drives out of the parking bay, pays, and continues into an unplanned day, she can feel Zodwa’s smiling eyes lingering on her.