Page 8 - The Mending Season

so shameful about that, but I knew that it was scandalous enough for her to make up a different story.I knew that Ngemti, the township madman, had not been bewitched as everyone believed; he had lost his mind after an accident at a chemicals factory in Gauteng. Most people had never heard that. And I knew that the woman whose house he sometimes went to was not his sister but his former wife. You had to listen and watch very closely to know that. I was helped by the fact that most ofthe time no one took any notice ofme. I knew everything.Then there was Tihelo Masimo, a very light-skinned woman who lived on the same street, and whom I liked very much because I thought - from the top ofthe tree - that her skin seemed to glow from the sun. I envied the large curl in her hair - she was lucky, she never had to relax it like the rest ofus. She always waved, asked how I was, and, unlike the oth­ ers, did not cross to the other side of the street. I knew Tihelo had a White mother who lived in another country. Everyone knew that, although they pretended not to, but I also knew that she sent letters to her White mother every week on Fridays because that was when the mail went out from the post office. And she received letters from her White mother at the post office too so that the mother she lived with would not find out. (And also because the postman in the township had erratic hours. He only came about once a month.)So: this is me, Tshidiso. I am an only child, born ten months after my eldest aunt poisoned herself. (At least this is what I heard a bitter neighbour say as she chose a good cab­ bage at the market). My aunts say my eldest aunt was poisoned but no one ever talks about her any more. Only the oldest people on our street remember a child living in this house before me, and that was when my aunts were my age.I live with my three aunts, Mmamane Malesedi, Mmamane Malebone (actually my mother) and Mmamane Mabatho.8