Page 59 - The Mending Season

TV. I wont speak to them, they dont know what they re talk­ ing about, I thought. Then I changed my mind. “Who tells her? People are spying on me?”I spoke to them in English for the first time and was discouraged by the sound ofmy accent.“Iyol ”my mother said. “That’s how you speak to your elders?”I was only grateful that Mmamane Malesedi was not home yet.“He\ What are you afraid of? Whats wrong with how you speak?” Mmamane Mabatho insisted. I shifted my body and stared with determination at the TV screen.“There’s nothing wrong with how you speak, wena! Don’t let White people tell you that. Who said there’s something wrong with how you speak?”I refused to say anything*.“Who?”I pressed my thumbnail against the sofa and didn’t take myeyes away from the TV.“Nana, don’t let them upset you,”Mmamane Malebone said. “Bathong,”she looked up at the youngest aunt, “she’ll learn.It’ll be fine.” It was her way of saying, “Leave her alone.” “Go and prepare your uniform for tomorrow,” Mmamane Malebone said to me. I lingered stubbornly for half a minute before I stood up, turned off the TV and went to polish myshoes.“Onale nkane, man!”Mmamane Mabatho said. “You can beso disrespectful.”Tshidisosfather was a drifter - he went wherever work took him, so it never did seem right to him to ask Malebone to come away with him. He also understood the way the Masemola sisters lived\ and came and wentfrom their home with quiet acceptance. He had no hand in raising Tshidiso and would never have expected things59