From that day on, I visited Mrs Naki at least three afternoons every week. I’d been so curious to know what her family would be like, since she never mentioned anything in class: did she have children? A husband? Would the other kids be jealous of me going home with her? Would her husband?

It turned out that Mrs Naki had no children and no husband – at least, not staying with her. She lived in a modest but lovely little brick house, with her younger brother and sister. And both of them were just as nice to me as she was.

The younger brother, Ayanda, had finished high school but could not find any work. ‘We are saving up money for his studies,’ Mrs Naki explained. ‘One day he will be an engineer!’ The sister, Andiswa, nodded her head: ‘And me, too!’

Some afternoons, I walked with Ayanda to deliver his job application letters to all kinds of shops and little businesses in Graaff Reinet. ‘I can’t just sit and wait and let my sister do all the work,’ Ayanda said. ‘And, besides, I need a job – it doesn’t matter what it is – so I can save money for my studies later …’

‘Don’t you have parents?’ I asked him while we were walking home one afternoon from Graaff Reinet.

‘No,’ Ayanda said. He was silent for a long time. I did not press him, knowing that I had to wait.

We were already at the entrance to Masizakhe when he stopped walking and took hold of my hands: ‘Our father and mother both died many years ago because of Aids. I was just your age, and our oldest sister was only thirteen … she’s been looking after us ever since, while we finished our schooling.’

‘You are such a good family,’ I said deeply moved, thinking of my own broken one. I still had a mother but far away in iKapa, and a father somewhere in South Africa. And a brother who was like a stranger to me since my return. Ayanda saw the tears that came up in my eyes. ‘You won’t cry, Mbu, will you?’

‘No, I will not,’ I said with determination.

***

I kept going to Mrs Naki’s home to be with her and her family whenever I could. I still called her Mrs Naki (though I knew by then that her first name was Asethu), but I called her brother Ayanda and her sister Andiswa by their first names.

Everybody had special tasks in the family. I was good at cleaning the floors with a mop and soapy water. And I was the best at polishing their red stoep. I did it all alone and was so happy when Mrs Naki said: ‘Looks like it’s freshly painted, Mbu!’

I slept at Gogo’s house and I had breakfast there with the other kids. But after school I’d go to Mrs Naki’s. Only on the weekends did Gogo not allow me to join the Naki family. ‘As long as you stay in my house you’ll go to church with us, Mbu,’ she had told me once. I did not dare to ask again.

Even worse than weekends were the Christmas holidays. All the foster kids were allowed to travel to their relatives; it was only Mavusi and I who had to stay behind. We had to do the chores of all the others, like helping with cooking or dishwashing, cleaning the yard or fetching water. And there was no escape from yet more church services.

‘I want to go and see how our mother is, Mavusi,’ I said to my brother one evening, as we each lay alone in a big, empty bed all to ourselves.

‘I don’t,’ said Mavusi, and turned his back to me. His health was no better than when I’d first arrived. He had to take pills that the doctors at the hospital had given him for his coughing, but they did not seem to help much.

In my second year at Gogo’s, our mom phoned at Christmas. I was allowed to speak to her. ‘When can we come and visit you, Mom?’ I asked.

‘Unyako olandelayo – next year, my baby!’ she said, and I knew that she was not sober.

The following year at Christmas when she phoned, she said the same thing.

Mavusi refused to talk to her at all.