2. Lera

I shove her inside the car and run around to get in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t understand why you doing this,” Rorisang says. “It’s not over yet. Look,” she points through the window at Liyabo’s triple storey home. Coming here was a mistake. No, coming here with Rori was the mistake. What was I thinking, taking her with me, simultaneously taking aunt Joyce’s advice?

I put the Tazz on the road. Silence in the car. She has her eyes at her side’s window, looking at the houses I speed past. It is always like this. When she doesn’t get what she wants she always sulks in silence. 

My nose soon becomes restless as I snuffle and sniff the air around us, loud enough to get her to look at me but she doesn’t bother. 

“Now you’ll get my car smelling like weed,” I say and roll down the window as I turn the wheel for the left corner. 

“How many joints you smoked?” I ask Rorisang, she only replies with silence, her stare against her side of the window. But I’m not trolling though, she smells like she sprayed her whole body with an antiperspirant of marijuana stench. If I had my eyes closed I’d say this smell comes from ten stoned Rastamen, not my little sister.

Speaking of antiperspirant, I remember my play Girl spray I once put in the compartment. Is it still there? I take my eyes off the road for a second to open. I find it, take it out and shake it. 

There’s still some inside. 

I spray it at Rorisang she tries to block herself. “Fuck. No. Stop,” she exaggerates in a tiny cough.

I just harden the press on the nozzle, spraying down to her legs. “Open your goddamn window,” I yell at her. She rolls down the window. I hate how I always have to yell at her for her to listen to me. But it is what it is, I don’t mind. It makes sense in a way because our mother used to scream at us if we misbehave, sometimes beat us.

In a way I feel like I’m Rori’s mother now. I know she’s my sister but it just feel like I’m more than that, especially at how I always look out for her and put her above everything else includung me.

Robbers had broken in our home three years back. They took everything, including the lives of our parents. I was nineteen at the time, Rorisang only sixteen. The robbers spared us. Just like that. You sitting at home enjoying mom’s rice and potato soup. Dad cracks one of his corny jokes where you are forced to laugh. Next thing you know the door is kicked open, four masked men waltz in. Click-clack of the guns. They promise a bullet to mom’s neck if she doesn’t quit screaming, so dad holds her mouth and shoulders to calm her down.

I do the same to Rorisang. We just froze there. The robbers took all the valuables in the house and the way they moved, we could tell that these four weren’t in the house for the first time. One of them kicks me and Rori to the room and they shut the door. We heard gun shots, and Rorisang just lost it; she burst out crying I had to struggle holding her, fearing that they would enter the room and finish us off. But they didn’t.

We heard doors opening and slamming. That was followed by silence, and we stood awhile until we assumed it was safe to come out. When we did come out – Rorisang behind me holding my hands tight – we found the men gone. The mess. Just like that. Blood on the tiles. Parents are dead. Dinner is ruined. Joyce, our aunt, took us in after the double funeral. Till today no arrests have been made. 

I get to the house, 20H00 on the dot. Rori is asleep, curled up like a fetus near the half open window. I park the car on the driveway because there is a white Toyota sedan taking up my parking space in the concrete yard near the pink garden. 

It’s my first time seeing this vehicle. FUK U 2 on the license plate number. Aunt Joyce has herself a one of a kind visitor. I get in and flick the kitchen lights on. “Aunt Joyce, we back,” I say, kicking off from my tingling feet the white Nike air sneakers: a gift I bought myself on my birthday. Instead of wishing me a happy birthday Rorisang complained so I had to return to the store for a second pair.

“Aunt Joyce?” I say. She doesn’t yell back in that sing-song tone of hers as usual. But I could still hear her voice, though, not in sing-song; I hear it as a moan. A moan from her closed bedroom door as I lean my ear. Sounds of tapping flesh. More moaning, and that of a man.

I sigh, remembering her words when I told her that I’m going out to Liyabo’s house party for the whole night. “That’s nice, but please take your sister with you. She’ll be bored here all alone. Share the fun with her,” Joyce said. Turns out she had her own fun planned. 

There padding footsteps behind me. It’s Rorisang, yawning and stretching out her arms like it’s morning.

“Why didn’t you wake me up? Where’s aunty? Aunty! We back!” She yells louder than me. She always does. The moaning and the flesh-tapping sounds I’ve been hearing from the closed door come to an abrupt end. Me and Rori hear whispers behind the door. She looks at me with half open eyes, asks: “is she sleeping?” 

“Yeah,” I say, “but not alone. Didn’t you see that white car parked outside?”

“Fuck you too,” she says, while giving me a tired smile. I don’t know whether she was low key insulting me or merely telling me that she too saw the car.

Aunt’s bedroom door creaks open, she comes out dressed in her pink night gown, tying its rope around her waist. Hair is looking messy, and she appears to be wearing nothing underneath that gown. “Why are two back so early?” The first thing out of her mouth. 

“We are fine, thank you for asking,” I say. 

“I’m sorry, girls.” She sighs on her fist but I see it’s all fake. I already heard everything. 

“Lera says you not sleeping alone.” Trust my sister to say something stupid. I quickly clear my throat to fill the awkward gap and ask aunt Joyce whose car is it that is parked on my spot. “Fuck you too,” Rori says. 

I snap my face at her, “will you shut up?” 

She runs to her room. For some seconds the air between me and Joyce is carried by silence. The man in her room is obviously waiting for her. “Sorry to disturb you,” I say. 

“It’s fine, Lerato,” she says. “Why are you back so early? What happened?” She holds my hand and walks me to the couches. She sees me looking at her bedroom door.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s asleep,” she says. 

“Really?” 

“You don’t know Richard like I do,” she grins. “Poke your ear on the door, then you’ll hear his snore.” 

Yet that’s not what I heard earlier. I begin to tell her why we had to come back so soon. 

“Rorisang was way too uncontrollable. Puking all over–”

“She puked?” 

“You should’ve seen how it was. She was smoking and drinking way more than she should have. We had to leave before she did worse and that’s why–” once again I’m cut short off mid words, by a male voice in Joyce’s bedroom, calling for her. That must be Richard. 

“Oh, goodnight,” Joyce lays a quick kiss on my cheek. It’s not even a real kiss; her mouth touch my cheek for a second, then she runs back to her room. Her ass jiggles, the night gown behind gets sucked between her butt cheeks a little. It’ll be a good night indeed. I shake my head with a sigh.