Mzwempi brought MaNgobese here, to her mother’s homestead in the village near Port Shepstone, when pointed fingers and talk of witchcraft in eNdlandlama village made it too dangerous for them to stay.

It was her, the people said, who had made Mkhulu die such a painful and slow death. She had been angry and bitter that he had found a rich and powerful woman in Johannesburg. If it hadn’t been for MaNgobese, Mkhulu would have been a big businessman by now, giving everyone in the village jobs.

In the weeks after Mzwempi and MaNgobese left eNdlandlama village, which was at the foot of the snow-capped Drakensberg, she had raged about his father, Mkhulu, and his “prostitute” girlfriend in Johannesburg. She had also raged about his wife number one in eNdlandlama who had made sure they were left with nothing. These women had stolen what should have been hers, she spat, and now she was reduced to begging from her maternal family.

“When I feel better I am going to get a job and pay a witch doctor to curse them for generations,” she said.

“Forget them, Ma, we will be okay,” Mzwempi said.

“Mkhulu was a liar and a cheat and he deserved to be bewitched and to die. They will never be happy because I will make sure they die painful deaths in poverty. Yes, all of them, every unborn great-great great-grandchild descended from his number-one wife and his Joburg whore.”

But MaNgobese never did get well. As she grew weaker her mind played even deeper games, and she became a child again. Mzwempi listened as she fought with people he had never known and only she could see. Eventually, though, the fighting stopped and most of the time she lay on the blanket sleeping. Sometimes, on a beautiful day, he pulled her on the blanket into the morning sun as it streamed into the doorway and she watched him smoke outside the hut.

During the nights, when the hut was dark and cold, he curled up on the mud floor close to her, pushing his back against her wasted body for warmth. He knew she was dying. There were others in different the villages like her now and none of them ever got better. This sickness was why the family was afraid to come near her and why, when he had tried once or twice to seek out the company at the homestead across the river, they had thrown stones at him.

When she could still talk MaNgobese told Mzwempi that Mkhulu had made her sick. She had only realised this after he died. He had brought the sickness with him from Johannesburg, from that woman who had taken all his money and left her, MaNgobese, to take the blame for the family’s loss.

After she told him, Mzwempi wondered how it all worked; why was he still well when his mother was so sick? Why was she suffering so much? They had thought his mother’s family, her many sisters, would care for her but in the end it was only him at her side. He could see they were afraid and, other than the hut and the calabash of pap, they did nothing.

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