Page 68 - The Mending Season

It was mid-morning, the time which people call “late” or “day” in the township. By “late”, you should be clean and out ofthe house already. Everyone was done with their housework. The dust that rose when they swept their front yards and the space just outside had settled. Children were allowed to start playing on the street. Men were out starting their first beer of the weekend. The women took time to share the events of their week with neighbours while lunch cooked on their stoves. In my house, the floors sparkled and the stoep had already been shined better than anyone shines their shoes. There wasn’t a single dish in the sink and the yard had been swept when the sun first came up.The aunts sat chatting and laughing in the kitchen. Mmamane Mabatho was relaying stories about people from her work at the grocery store two streets away. I could hear Mmamane Malebone’s giggle and Mmamane Mabatho’s loud laugh - I imagined her throwing her head back and tears streaming down her cheeks, because she always had tears when she laughed that much. I could also see, in my mind’s eye, Mmamane Malesedi grinning, letting out quiet laugher while her shoulders shook up and down.“Come and eat something,”Mmamane Mabatho called out to me. I was not even dressed yet. Eating was the last thing I wanted to do. I looked at the clothes again: tight blue stone- washed jeans and a simple white chiffon blouse on my bed, and on the other bed a black dress that was tight around the chest and loose around the waist. The shoes would be the same either way: a pair of relatively new black sandals - the only part ofthe outfit I was confident about.‘Tm not hungry!”I said, biting my lip and unable to decide. Mmamane Malebone appeared in the doorway, startling me.“Definitely the dress,” she said. “You look nice in it.”I was not convinced. “Maybe I shouldn’t go,” I suggested, only half-seriously.68