After Tears

Twenty-Nine: Tuesday, May 9

210 tweNtY-NINe Tuesday, May 9 two months after I had started my self-imposed exile in Diepsloot squatter camp, north of Johannesburg, I found myself at germiston Station waiting for the Shosholoza Meyl to whisk me away from the blinding Jo’burg lights. As I waited for the train, my mind wandered over everything that had happened to me. the evening after Mama had confronted me at home Affairs, I had called Yomi to tell him what had happened. he had told me that Mama had also caused a scene in front of everyone at the office . Yomi had agreed to remove all my certificates from the walls of my office and bring them to his flat in Yeoville. the first night I had crashed at Yomi’s place, but in the morning Yomi had suggested that I move in with his friend tolu in Diepsloot, as no one would know me there. the two months that I spent hiding at tolu’s place in Diepsloot squatter camp, operating the public telephones and working in the spaza shop, had quickly taught me that this was not what I wanted to end up doing with my life. eventually, after I had agreed to pay him half the remaining money in my bank account, Yomi had given me the name and address of a friend of his who stayed in point road in Durban. that’s where I was going. I was hoping that Durban was going to offer me a new lease of life. I had convinced myself that I didn’t deserve to suffer any more and, with my degree certificate and statement of results on me, I thought I was ready to move on. 211 As the train left germiston Station, at about half past seven in the evening, I opened my bottle of J&B whisky. through the window , I stared out into the fading evening light, thinking of my bad fortune, which was unquestionably well deserved. No one had been able to track me down in Diepsloot as I had changed my cellphone number, but I could still read my e-mails from the internet café at Diepsloot Library. As I swallowed my second tot from the cap, I thought of the long e-mails that I had received from Vee and Nina over the last two months. Vee had been deported back to zimbabwe after failing to secure her work permit, and she was now working on the idea of going to London. She wasn’t angry with me, so she said, but she wanted to know how I’d been able to hoodwink everyone about my results. Nina’s recent e-mails had begged me to come back home immediately . According to Nina, Mama never told anyone what had happened between us and now that we had a baby brother, Mama had cooled off slightly. he had been born a week earlier and he still had no name. She wondered if I had a beautiful name that I could give him. Nina also briefed me about what had happened in the township during my absence. She told me that Dilika was still a drunkard, but pp had suddenly become very ill and bedridden. the rumour circulating in the township was that he had Aids. Meanwhile, sis zinhle had reconciled with her husband. By the time the train left Newcastle Station, at about twenty minutes to midnight, my whisky bottle was half empty. the whisky had freed me from the tension in my mind and, before the train reached Ladysmith, I fell asleep and dreamt of my uncle and his dog, Ver- 212 woerd. Verwoerd was trying to maul me, just as he had the first day I had come back to chi from uct, while my uncle, Mama, sis zinhle, pp, zero, Dilika, Vee, Bunju, Nina and uBaba Mfundisi stood around laughing. ...