After three hours they have covered many kilometres to reach their destination – the hospital.

“Is he unconscious, or should we try to wake him up?” Onikwa asks, standing next to Khayone’s hospital bed.

Bantwini shrugs his shoulders: he doesn’t know.

A nurse comes to give Khayone his daily dose of medicine and gently pats him on his shoulder to wake him up. Khayone opens his eyes. As always now, he feels ashamed of what he has become.

He knows that back at Kwanoqabaka he is among the unmentioned. Men spit in disgust when the name Khayone comes up. Women’s chests are heavy with insults. Insult piled on insult wait to be spewed on his return. Words such as ‘nofotyela’, ‘nontywentywe’ and ‘ilulwane’, are used to describe him as a tainted man.

“What do they say about me at the village?” Khayone asks Bantwini and Onikwa. He moves to adjust his back against the cold steel bars of the hospital bed. The cold reminds him that he is alive.

“They miss you. We all miss you, Khisto,” Onikwa answers, sitting on the bed. She kisses him on the cheek.

“Who do they say I am now?” he asks, his eyes fixed on Bantwini.

“You’re Khayone … Bhuti Khayone. You’re Ta-Killer,” Bantwini answers.

Khayone shakes his head. He is no longer the ‘Killer’ Bantwini knew, nor is he the ‘Khisto’ Onikwa recognises. He is now the pathetic Khayone and this is a very strange and difficult situation.

Onikwa remembers the last time she was with Khayone, before he headed off into manhood. They were under the red and orange colours of sunset. She held Khayone by his hand and wrapped around his wrist a bundle of beads that she threaded herself. Back then there was no telling that the smile he exhibited would fade.

In the hospital ward, she is now staring back at the face that cries out: “I’ve given up on life.” It breaks her heart.

“Can you give us a moment, Onikwa,” Bantwini says, taking in Khayone’s despair.

Khayone’s eyes turn red, fighting back tears.

“Ntangam–”

Bantwini is cut short by Khayone, who is fuming with anger. “Didn’t you promise to stop calling me that? I am not a man.”

“But you’re still my friend and we’re equals,” Bantwini says, calmly.

Silence fills the hospital ward again.

“I don’t know why I got myself into this,” Khayone says.

Bantwini is lost for words.

“At the time I saw nothing wrong coming here. I was trying to save my life. I had to come to hospital. Now that I’ve recovered, I regret everything,” he keeps repeating.

“You talk like a criminal,” Bantwini says. “You made the right choice coming here.”

“I am nofotyela. Be honest,” Khayone insists.

Bantwini tries to evade this but finally admits. “Yes, they are already calling you names.”

Khayone covers his face with a blanket and begins to nurse his tears.

“You didn’t ask for this,” Bantwini says, comfortingly. “It’s not your fault.”

“No-one will ever touch me again. Touching me is bad luck, the curse of nofotyela.”

“We have your back … Onikwa and I,” Bantwini says.

“What am I going to do with her? I have forfeited all rights to be with her, to get married, to have children. She doesn’t have a reason to stay with me now that I’ve lost my manhood.”

“She won’t leave you for that. She loves you, unconditionally.”

Outside the ward Onikwa finds a spot on a bench under a tree to wait for Khayone. She rubs her belly. She looks excited. Then she realises that it will soon grow into a bulging swell. She starts to sob. She gains control of her mood swings, to avoid attracting attention. She doesn’t want people to know that she’s pregnant.

Khayone is discharged from hospital the same day. He is soon destined to face ridicule at Kwanoqabaka.

But good feelings warm up Onikwa’s heart when they reach the peak of Intaba Yethemba, on their way home. They look down at the great village.

They fear what is ahead but, in their hearts, the strongest kind of hope you can imagine tells them to be strong. They go down the mountain, cross the river. Before they reach the village it starts to pour – the rain pelts down as if it is weeping for them.

***

Tell us: What has likely happened to leave Khayone without his ‘manhood’?