And then a few days later you come home from playing to find your mother crying on the floor, kneeling as if in prayer, shoulders heaving, a telegraph lying like a dead moth beside her. You know someone has died. That’s the only time telegrams come to Soweto. You know better than to ask any questions, better than to approach her. So you sneak to your room and you listen to her prowling and muttering to herself as she deduces the mystery, and you hear the terrible words that confirm a fear that until now has sat in the pit of your stomach, gnawing away.
How did White Alice know the truth, she asks herself. Was it Sunil? Was it Sunil’s story about his father, about where he was hiding, that led Alice to the truth?
And you know she has put it all together. And you realize that this was no fairy tale, even though she had said it was, said the word in Zulu, ignanekwane. This was no mere tale. Your father was the father in the story and he is real. He was the head of an armed ANC faction launching guerilla attacks on shopping malls to bring down apartheid. He fled to Rhodesia to escape and he was hiding in an ANC training camp on an island. The fairy tale contained the directions and White Alice finally figured it out on a map while you ate beans and bread and drank Coca-Cola and told your story. And although you tell yourself you could not have known the truth, you know it is a lie, because you were four when your mother first told it to you, because your father left when she was still pregnant with you, and you needed it. But now you are twelve and if what the Bible says about Jesus is true, then old enough to debate your elders in a temple; and certainly in Soweto, in the ’70s, to be twelve is like being twenty, but there is still a four-year-old who missed the father he had never seen and who needed someone to hear his story. This is what you tell yourself.
But you hear the terrible whispered truth as your mother prowls the house like a hungry ghost. And White Alice, who was once white but turned colored because of a sickness; White Alice, who lost it all — her husband, her kids, her nice home in a white suburb, her white pass card, her privilege — and had to live in Soweto like a kaffir; White Alice, whom Dorothy had taken in, taken to, a fellow lost soul, Alice had betrayed her. Stolen Sunil’s story and day by day reconstructed the truth. A truth she sold to the secret police in the hopes of getting her life back, her kids, her husband, her home, her whiteness. And who wouldn’t, Dorothy muttered, and who wouldn’t. But still, but still. And now her husband and many other men dead, and Sunil without his father, not even a mythical one. And all because of a story, a story and a mouth that told it. She was good at stories.
The last sound you hear that night draws you into the kitchen. And you see your mother sitting there, shoulders shaking with sobs. Terrified, you approach, terrified because you have never seen her this way, this woman whom everyone deferentially calls Nurse Dorothy.
And then she looks up when you call to her, and you scream.
You don’t scream because of the mascara running down her face in black witch tendrils, or the rouge of her cheeks smeared with tears and sweat. It is her mouth that terrifies you. She has sewn it shut, the needle still dangling from a piece of black surgical thread. Not a mouth at all but flesh, meat, raw and bleeding.
And so you run. Run to White Alice’s house.
And then the men come in an old ambulance and take your mother, and though there is a murderous rage in her eyes when she sees White Alice, there is also an understanding, gratitude for this gift of the men dressed in white uniforms.
And Dorothy looks from you to White Alice and because her mouth is still sewn shut, the women can only exchange looks.
Yes, White Alice says, yes, I will take care of Sunil.
Again that murderous rage and gratitude, then Dorothy is gone.
You are twelve.
You never tell your story again.
Johnny Ten-Ten, who lives down the street at Ten-Ten, says: You know why your mother sewed her mouth shut and then got taken to the crazy house?
You know better than to answer, you know that children can be cruel.
SATURDAY
Seventeen
It was early, and a mist thrown by the heat and the sprinklers covered the grounds of the Desert Palms Institute. Invisible in the whiteness, peacocks shrieked like god-awful creatures. Water, unable to sleep all night, was wide-awake when the nurse came round on the forty-minute-interval suicide watch. Although Sunil didn’t actually believe the twins would kill themselves, he wanted to be sure.
The nurse brought coffee. Is it how you like it, he asked Water, passing a Styrofoam cup of hot liquid.
Four hundred billion cups of coffee are consumed across the world every year, Water said, sipping gingerly.
You didn’t sleep much, did you?
The record for the longest time without sleep is eighteen days, twenty-one hours, and forty minutes, Water said.
Is your brother still asleep, the nurse asked, pointing to the caul-covered Fire.
Water’s stomach growled loudly in response. The rumbling made the nurse smile.
I’ll bring you something to eat in a minute, he said, closing the door gently.
Water walked across the room and stood by the window. The mist was dissipating, revealing well-manicured Japanese-style gardens rolling down to a fence. Even with the landscaping, the place still looked like a corporate park. The room, decorated as it was like a high-end but impersonal hotel room, added to the effect. The nurse returned.
The kitchen isn’t open yet, but I did find these in the vending machine, he said, holding out a bag of M&M’s and a packet of Red Vines.
The main flavor of licorice candy is anise but for red licorice it’s cherry, Water said, putting a Red Vine in his mouth.
I’ll be back in forty minutes, the nurse said, turning to leave just as the caul covering Fire snapped back like a venetian blind.
Fire blinked, adjusting to the light. Sniffing theatrically, he said: Red Vines.
Water passed one. Fire chewed-on it for a minute, eyes closed, then spat the chewed-up red candy into his cupped hand. The nurse watched from the half-closed door, mesmerized.
Fire looked up. Hello, he said to the nurse.
Hi, the nurse said.
Disgusting habit, I know, Fire said, but I’m not good at digesting anything that isn’t liquid. I get most of my nutrition from Water.
Like a baby, Water said. That’s why I eat for two.
You eat for three, Fire said.
Water laughed so hard, Fire looked like he was riding a mechanical bull.
That’s quite all right, the nurse said, retreating.
Did you sleep, Fire asked Water.
No, Water said.
Is the coffee any good?
No, Water said.
What’s that horrible screeching?
Peacocks, Water said.
What’s with the curt answers, Fire asked. Are you in a bad mood?
Water shrugged. The peacocks screeched again.
Jesus, Fire muttered, how many of those fuckers are there?
An ostentation, Water said.
A what?
A group of peacocks is an ostentation, Water said. Like a bouquet of pheasants, a kettle of hawks, a deceit of lapwings, a descent of woodpeckers, an exaltation of larks, a murmuration of starlings, a siege of herons, an unkindness of ravens—
Fuck, Fire said, you really are in a bad mood. He passed the handful of spat-out Red Vines to Water and retreated under the caul. I’m going back to sleep, he said, voice muffled. Maybe you should try and get some.
The caul snapped shut.
Closed for business, Water said, and finished his coffee.