Thabang arrives home and finds his father slumped on the couch. He looks exhausted and defeated.
Thabang touches his bruise and puts his hand over the cut on his cheek. The last thing he wants to do is explain that he got into brawl at the mall. No, wait – he got pummelled by his best friend, who could have been trying out for the World Wrestling Entertainment. Explaining all this is the very last thing he wants to do. All he wants is to go to bed and forget what happened. Perhaps it was a dream? A long, gruesome and awful nightmare. He just wants to go to bed.
He tiptoes towards his bed, and accidentally kicks the basin he was washing himself from earlier.
“Eish,” he mutters.
Without looking up, his father shouts out his name: “Thabang!”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Give me a beer – from over there.”
Thabang looks around and sees the crate with a few quarts of beer left in it. He grabs one and heads to his father. He looks down, away and even at the ceiling in order to avoid eye-contact, and hands the quart to him.
His father grabs it, pops it into his mouth, holds the cap between his teeth and opens it. Thabang turns around and heads to his bedroom, satisfied that he has not been found out.
“What happened? Come here, let me look at you.”
Thabang turns back to his dad. His father inspects the bruises and the cut on his cheek. Thabang’s stomach is still aching.
“What happened? Did someone beat you up?” his father says seriously, and stands up.
If he tells him the truth his father will want to right the situation. It’s how he is. He will want to confront Sthe’s father and demand to see his son. It will only make things worse. His father has no money for lawyers.
“I fell,” he says quietly. “I’m tired Papa. I’m going to bed.”
“You fell?” His father sounds like he doesn’t buy it.
“I was at soccer, Papa. I was tackled, hard.” He can’t look him in the eye.
His father nods and slumps back into the chair, swigs his beer, wipes the foam from his lips and seems satisfied with the answer. Then he says:
“It looks like you were in a fight. I hope you got the person who tackled you. You don’t take things like that lying down. In this family, we always fight for what it is ours, for what is right, do you hear?”
Thabang knows he is talking about more than just his injury.
“Yes, father.” He waits for a moment, expecting more, but his father only stares at the TV screen.
“I heard that you were on the news, Papa. What happened? They say the riot police were called in.”
“It’s over now,” his father grunts. He doesn’t want to talk about it. “I’m too tired. You go to bed now.”
Thabang hesitates. He has never seen his father like this, weak and unable to take control of the situation. This is not the father he knows.
His father is the big man in the family pictures. Thabang knows this father as the man who holds Thabang as a toddler in his one hand. The man Thabang knows is one who smiles confidently at the camera with his red shirt half opened while holding on to his pretty young girlfriend – Thabang’s mother. Thabang knows a man who stares from the Drum Magazine as a teenager after winning a boxing competition. He knows a man who is proud and is never afraid of a challenge.
“Unhappiness is following us – why is it always hungry for the poor? I don’t know.” He looks Thabang in the eyes. “I hope you will never be unhappy. I hope you will succeed. Promise me.”
This scares Thabang and he whispers the words out of his mouth: “I…” He clears his throat. “I will succeed, Papa.”
The man grabs Thabang by the collar. Thabang smells the malt on his breath.
“I promise, Papa.”
His father lets him go. “Good.” The knobkerrie is resting next to his father’s miner’s hat. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing, Papa. It’s … just…”
His father looks at the knobkerrie and sighs. “One day you will know the truth,” he tells Thabang. “I hope that you will never have to use that,” he says and points to the knobkerrie. “I pray that the ancestors protect and bless you and that you never see the depths of the darkness.” Thabang’s father taps the knobkerrie against his temple.
“For a brief moment you touch the shining, sparkling rock, God’s breath … and then somehow it all ends up costing money that I will never earn in my life.” He turns to Thabang. “Promise me, my son that you will never end up like your father.”
He sighs again. He looks at Thabang and smiles. “I remember when you were born. You were not breathing, you know?”
“What?”
“Yes, it is true. The nurse had to hit your back like this,” he says as he pats Thabang’s back firmly. “Until you started screaming.” He lets out a gentle laugh. Thabang smiles with him. “You expanded your lungs and you breathed. That is life and living. Screaming for your opportunity to live. We miners are also screaming to get our voices heard.”
“They will hear them father.” For what seem like many long minutes, Thabang and his father sit in the silence.
“Go to bed,” his father then tells him.
He goes to the bathroom and washes his face. He winces as the water touches the open cut. When it is clean he dries it and then lies down on his bed. He feels the punch connecting with his cheek again, and Sthe’s anger as his boot pounded his ribs. He remembers Naledi’s hand, warm and soft, wrapped around his.
When he falls asleep he carries her with him into his dream; Naledi’s holding his hand. She smiles at him and kisses him.
Then the shock of Sthe’s fist enters his dream all over again. He wakes up, chilled to the bone.
*****
In the morning he finds his mother in the kitchen dishing up porridge. She sees him and jumps back, startled.
“Thabang! What happened, my baby?” She starts touching, poking and prodding.
“Nothing, Mama. I was hit by a cricket ball.”
She looks at him. “Your father said that you fell playing soccer.”
Eish! he thinks. Quickly – come up with something.
“I was embarrassed to admit it to you Ma but it’s true – I did fall at soccer. Showing off. You know me, trying to be Ronaldo,” he lies.
His mother ceases her questions, suspicion written on her face.
“Is there breakfast? Something smells good.” He goes to the table, hoping that his mother will let the matter go.
“You know that it is just porridge, baby.”
He looks around. “Where’s dad?”
“He has gone out for the march.”
“They are still striking?”
“Thabang, you should know that sometimes these things take a while.” She looks outside as if she hopes to see him. “God knows that I pray that it ends soon.”
“Will they get their money?”
“We hope so. You father tells me that he feels it is their day, their demands will be met. They are planning a big gathering at the top of the mountain. To show their strength in numbers.”
“Cool.”
He grabs the plate and starts eating. His mother observes him; he becomes aware of her look.
“What, Mama?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing … oh OK … yes … something is different. I have been observing you.”
“You have?”
She nods. “Before this,” she says, pointing at his wounded face. “You have been exercising, using your father’s cologne and checking yourself out a lot longer than usual in the mirror. That means something.”
“What?”
“There is a girl.”
Thabang blushes and almost chokes on his food. “Nope.”
“Who is it, sweetie?”
“Mama, have you been taking some of Papa’s evening medicine? You know, the malt?”
She laughs. “I know you, so well. There’s a girl in your life and she has you wrapped around her little finger.”
“OK, OK.”
His mother claps her hands and smiles. “So, what’s her name?”
“Naledi.”
“A star. That is a beautiful name. Is she as beautiful as her name?”
Thabang blushes again.
“I’ve got my answer. I remember when your father proposed me. He was so shy. He kept stuttering like a fool.”
“Papa … stuttering?”
“Yes, he was. He had memorised lines from a New Edition song.” She bursts out laughing. “But he couldn’t remember the words. I knew the song, so I sort of helped him out. It was so sweet.”
Thabang laughs with his mother. “Does, this mean I have to memorise lines from a song? Sounds a bit lame to me.”
“What do you kids do these days?’
“Go to movies and hang out.” As soon as he says this he remembers the fist and kicks from Sthe and he involuntary touches his aching stomach.
“What’s wrong, baby? You don’t like the food?”
“It’s great, Mom. Thanks. I will see you later.” He gobbles the rest of the meal and gets up.
“When you come back, I want to hear more about, Naledi.”
He turns back and faces her. “Sure, but I don’t think anything new will happen. It’s complicated.”
***
Tell us: Is it OK for parents to quiz their teens about girlfriends/boyfriends, like Thabang’s mother did?