Bom Boy Read online

  My grandmother places the keg of palm-wine by my feet. The handle is sticky, the red cap is loose and the cloudy liquid seeps out.

  She tells me her troubles. It is not her rash she seeks to be cured, or the loss of her hair and her beauty. ‘Seven boys,’ she wails.

  This is simple I think to myself. People have come to me before with such requests. They want a boy or they want twins or they want a girl after twin boys. I throw and I start to see the complication in this special case. I throw again. My grandparents crowd me, their sweat drips off their skin and interfere with the Odu.

  ‘What is it?’ They want an explanation for the frown on my face.

  ‘An old curse,’ I say. ‘Forgotten. You will bear only boys.’

  They shudder because they know forgotten curses are harder to remove than remembered ones. When people curse and then forget they cursed, the medicine is left to marinade, seeping into the cursed family – becoming part of their DNA.

  For some people they would have let this slide, gone home and lived their lives. Not my grandparents – At any cost, Mama Wole begged. She wanted to bear a girl before she died.

  ‘At any cost?’ I ask them and human beings are so hungry for whatever it is they are hungry for – both grandparents – Mama Wole and Oga – nodded without a second thought.

  Thursday 11th October 2012

  ‘I got her number.’

  Leke turned his head and then turned back to his computer.

  ‘The chick,’ Gene continued. ‘Tsotso, I got the digits.’

  He pretended not to hear.

  ‘You listening?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have my ways,’ Gene laced his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him, grinning.

  Leke continued with his work.

  ‘Don't you want to know if I called her?’

  He was trying to keep his breathing steady. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Not yet. It has to be just right. I'll get her though, watch me.’

  Leke could feel his muscles tightening and he wanted to smack the look of mirth off Gene's face. During his lunch hour he walked to the back of the Western Medical Fund building there was a small open car park bordered by grass and some poplar trees bent into submission by the southeaster.

  The wind jumbled his thoughts, he liked the feeling. He knew when he returned to his desk the sense of longing would come back but then it would soon be 5pm and he could go pick up Red and drive to the parking tower.

  A single concrete bench had been constructed on the grass. Leke sat down and closed his eyes. Even though the wind was cold, a high sun warmed his cheeks and forehead. The smell of smoke alerted him and he opened his eyes.

  She was looking straight at him.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  He wasn't sure if she meant did he mind her sitting with him or did he mind the smoke. He signalled no.

  Not seeming to regard his response, she took a deep pull and stubbed out the remaining cigarette with her shoe.

  ‘You drive a red Volvo right?’

  Her voice was husky; it made Leke think of something that was seldom used. Her skin let off a warm glow, misplaced with her stern looks; plump but straight lips; flat eyes. Her hair pulled back off her face in thick corn rows.

  ‘I saw you last night and a few other times. I wasn't sure it was you till yesterday.’

  He'd returned repeatedly since that first night he'd watched Tsotso guide the old woman along. Normally they got in around 5.30pm but on a Wednesday and Friday it was later. He'd wondered where they were coming from so late.

  ‘Are you stalking me or something? Are you some kind of weirdo?’

  Leke could tell no one ever messed with her. In heels she was taller than him, his eyes looking straight ahead found a spot on her nose. He had to glance upwards to meet her gaze.

  ‘You deaf?’

  ‘No,’ he flinched thinking she was going to hit him but she pulled another cigarette from the pack in her shiny leather handbag slung off her shoulder.

  She wore brown patterned tights and a skirt that reached to just above her knees, her yellow coat was almost the length of the skirt.

  She slackened her glare and leaned against the wall.

  The garden area marked the end of the office property. It was closed off by a wire mesh fence. Sometimes Lewis could be seen patrolling this border but often the field remained abandoned. Talk of expanding the office -building another wing – and doubling the workforce echoed through the tea pause area but nothing ever materialised.

  Leke looked straight ahead, beyond the fence there was some kind of laboratory and men and women in white coats were constantly crossing the street to buy cigarettes and coffee.

  ‘Why do you go there?’

  He'd almost convinced himself she'd left.

  ‘I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you,’ he walked off and avoided her for the rest of the day.

  Tsotso's voice followed Leke home. It crowded his studio.

  Friday 12th October 2012

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Seeing Marcus standing outside his studio Leke felt descended upon. He'd been working up the strength to call and ask for the brown envelope but this was different. He didn't enjoy seeing Marcus on his home turf.

  ‘Didn't see you at the grave on Sunday. I ran a bit late, I thought maybe I'd missed you or something. Can I come in?’ Marcus asked and followed Leke into the studio.

  Leke had never been in the space with anyone else except Rhododendron's niece, Esmeralda, when she showed him the place, and then she'd stood just outside the entrance. It suddenly seemed small with two people inside. He decided to leave the garage door up.

  ‘I brought this for you,’ Marcus held out the brown A4 envelope.

  It was torn in the corners exposing its contents, crinkled whke papers. It was less offensive than the first time Leke had seen it. The envelope. Marcus had said that Jane wanted him to have them. A peace offering? An apology?

  ‘Why do I need it?’

  ‘It… when we got you, it came along.’

  An instruction manual for his adoptive parents, but instead of reading it they'd kept it for him to read.

  ‘What if it was meant for you?’

  ‘The envelope has your name on it. That's how we knew what to call you.’

  Curious, Leke stepped forward to study the face of the envelope. Marcus angled it. “For Leke” it said. Then underneath it said “Lay-kay”. It was an instruction manual.

  ‘What kind of name is that anyway?’ Leke mumbled.

  It had become a rhetorical question over time. He'd asked it in earnest when he was younger but nothing Marcus said was useful in fending off school bullies. A Google search brought up a motley selection of answers:

  Leke was a fashionable clothing brand in Antwerp. There was Albanian Leke and 1000ALL converted into about 7EUR. It was the name of a restaurant in a Balinese resort. It was a town in Diksmuide – a part of Belgium.

  ‘Take it, Leke.’

  The envelope was heavier than he'd imagined and the texture of the brown surface, soft – the dry softness of an old woman's wrinkled cheek.

  ‘What do you say?’

  He hadn't been listening even though he'd watched as Marcus made a short tour of the studio and stopped by Red with his hand on the roof.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Let's go for a drive. Come on! When was the last time we drove out together?’

  ‘Maybe another time, Marcus,’ he wanted him to leave so he could put the envelope down, it felt strange holding it. He wanted to put it down.

  Marcus walked back towards the door, stopping by Leke and hugging him.

  ‘See you, son.’

  Leke pulled down the garage door, sat on his mattress and stared at the envelope. He wanted to hide it somewhere but was also afraid to have it out of his sight. Like a naughty child who would get up to mischief once left alone.

  Two more hours passed before he tore the
flap, dust came off where the glue had caked like the whisper of a jinni. He pulled out the papers inside and reached for the hanging light switch. They had an uneven texture, thin in parts so the ink seeped through, the scribbled words from either side of the sheets bleeding into each other.

  He shuffled through the pages, looking for the beginning and tried to start reading but his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He put the pages down on the bed but as he studied the words his eyes clouded. He blinked, thinking he was crying but nothing came. He looked around the room, he could see Red in sharp focus, the new wipers; he could see the grit on the floor, the screw on the handle of the fridge door, the zip on his backpack, but looking back down at the pages the words blurred.

  He stuffed the pages back into the envelope and got his car keys.

  His mouth watered in anticipation as he drove to the car park, every few minutes he glanced at the seat beside him where the envelope rode like a dangerous passenger.

  Wednesday 14th October 1992

  For Leke:

  When I was six I found a photograph of my parents – black and white which I thought was funny because that is what they were.

  How I found it was: after pressing purple and red flowers between the pages of heavy books I would put them on the shelf and forget about them. And then many weeks later raid my parent's library. It was like harvesting crops, opening all the books, holding them at their spines and shaking them out. The delicate dried flowers would fall to the floor. And one day the photograph fell out. It was magic for me. I was certain I had planted a string of daisies in between the pages. When the photo fell out instead it was as if the book had chewed up my flowers and spat out the picture in their place. I loved that picture. I made my mother read what it said on the back.

  I kept the picture, claiming ownership. When I grew older I decided that it had been taken in South Africa. I made up that it was the last picture my parents had taken of themselves in South Africa, wildly in love and illegal. They were about to flee and then they asked someone to take a picture of them. Perhaps they thought they would never come back again. They were both smiling. They'd interlaced their ringers and squeezed their joined hands between their cheeks. They pressed into each other and my mother's face would have been flushed pink and my father's smile was beautiful. They did seem happy but there was also something else. Perhaps they pressed too hard against each other. You know, like maybe when you’re in bed at night, in the dark with strange shadows in the corners. And you squeeze the blankets extra tight. They were squeezing each other like that so perhaps that's what it was.

  Sunday October 25th 1992

  Elaine hesitated at the gate, she tucked her head down and pulled in the smell of the sleeping baby.

  The southeaster turned tight corners in the neighbourhood of Salt River and rustled the rubbish along the road. A rusting coke can rolled along with a forgotten plastic bag. At the entrance to the building a rubbish skip overflowed. Occasionally the wind would catch and throw something into the air. Every few seconds the crash and shuffle of old cartons and bottles on the ground filled the space. Above the steel gates hung a wide multi-coloured signboard that several summers and repeated rains had bleached. There were cartoon figures and little children. In the centre of the sign was written “The Black River Parkway Boys’ Orphanage – Sponsored by Coca-Cola”.

  ‘Soek jy iets?’

  There was an elderly woman standing on the other side of the gate. Elaine never forgot that face, the skin gnarled by time making her look pointy and crooked.

  Elaine shook her head and turned around.

  That night the old woman's worn face floated into her dreams. She'd seen it somewhere before. The realisation woke her up – it was her own face, after forty more years of living tired and dead inside.

  She recalled the lines along the cheeks and the wasted bulges beneath the eyes. When she looked in the mirror she saw this face instead of her own.

  Saturday 27th October 2012

  ‘E’

  ‘The next.’

  ‘F_ P’

  ‘Next.’

  ‘T_ O_ Z’

  ‘Next.’

  ‘L_ P…’

  The voice, in the dark, peeled off the walls of the small room. Each time he said ‘next’ the word slid off the skin of the room and teased from Leke another slew of letters from the jumbled alphabet.

  The hard plastic pushed against Leke's chin, he tried changing positions but felt locked in by the unwieldy machine. In between instructions he forgot it was his eyes he was testing, enjoying the sound of the sharp clicks as another lens was moved into place. It sounded clean and made him think of Red's windscreen wipers. Click. Click.

  ‘Perfect,’ the doctor said with a note of admiration that irritated Leke.

  So there was nothing wrong with his eyes, then.

  Friday 16th October 1992

  Although Oscar knew his own safety was assured he dreaded the hour of activity during the day when the prisoners were allowed to roam what was referred to as “the field”. It was not a field. It was a patch of dirt, a would-be quad, between the various prison blocks in his wing. That hour was important for the gangs, apart from mealtimes it was when they got an opportunity to discuss matters and mete out punishment.

  For Leke:

  The exercise yard is brown and the wind sweeps up the dirt. It gets in my eyes and the other prisoners think I'm crying.

  ‘Take a snail of this size,’ the Ifa priest cupped his hands so his fingertips touched. ‘Stand under a low shade and pluck it out of its shell. Cover the body in lime and salt, wrap it in these cloths,’ he indicated strips of dark blue adire, that musty smell reminding me of visits to the tailor and agbadas that never fit.

  ‘Place the igbin on a shelf in your store room and don't bother it for seven days. After seven days have passed, every seven hours, squeeze the rag over her tongue,’ he points at Mama Wole but is looking right into Oga's eyes.

  ‘Seven drops in the middle, here,’ he touches the centre of his tongue. My grandparents watch, mesmerised.

  I always wake up sweating, the faint smell of the adire still in my nose.

  Monday 29th October 2012

  3 pm

  ‘Oi! Wake up dude,’ Gene snapped his fingers in Leke's face startling him into wakefulness. What, did you go clubbing last night or something? You've been snoring. Drink some coffee have a smoke, do something!’

  Leke shook off his fatigue. Checking his backpack for the envelope, he felt the familiar softened edges and relaxed.

  Gene, watching frowned, ‘What's up with you and that freaking bag of yours? You’re constantly feeling it up. What you got in there? Kryptonite?’

  In the bathroom he put the envelope to rest against his chest, fitting the bottom into the band of his trousers so it was held in place.

  5.20 pm

  Leke checked his phone as he drove, straining a little, using the street lights to find the right buttons. Marcus had called earlier and he'd let it go to voicemail.

  “How are you? I just wanted to check on you and say hello. See you this Sunday? Bye.”

  Leke pressed seven and put his phone back into the cubby-hole. He pulled up the ramp and found his new hiding spot where he hoped Tsotso wouldn't see, crouching behind the large bony steering wheel. The few times he'd returned since she'd confronted him, he'd managed to stay hidden.

  Monday 29th October 2012

  6 pm

  Walking her grandmother from the car into the flat was always the most challenging part of the day.

  ‘There you go. One step, two step,’ Tsotso found that if she counted aloud it entertained her grandmother, distracted her enough to make her compliant as they walked through the car park. The numbers seemed to enthral her. ‘That's it,’ Tsotso encouraged.

  ‘One, two, three.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One, two, three,’ her grandmother giggled exposing dark gums and a slack tongue.

  They were moving alon
g when Umakhulu tripped on her shoelace which, Tsotso hadn't realised, she'd undone in the car. The old woman's legs crumbled underneath her and Tsotso was pulled down with her onto the hard concrete floor. Umakhulu screamed.

  ‘Makhulu!’ Tsotso jumped up and started trying to lift her. She was worried a car would come and run them over but the old woman refused to budge.

  She checked for bleeding, there was none. A scratch on the old woman's elbow. Her screams were more calls for attention than indications of pain.

  Tsotso grabbed her underneath her arms and tried to hoist her up.

  ‘You heavy, Makhulu,’ she grunted and her grandmother twittered like a bird.

  ‘Can I help?’

  She hadn't heard him approaching and her heart jerked, ‘You frightened me, dammit. Don't do that!’

  ‘Sorry. I thought you might need some help.’

  She appraised him, moved to one side of her grandmother and said, ‘Take that hand.’

  Leke followed her instructions.

  ‘Okay, Makhulu, we’re getting up now We’re going to feed the rabbits.’

  They heaved the old woman through the parking lot and up the steps into the apartment block. By the time they'd put her to bed Leke was sweating. Tsotso offered him some water and he followed her into a kitchen that reminded him of Jane's walk-in clothes cupboard. She opened the fridge door and retrieved a white plastic bottle, indicating with her head that he take a glass from the dish tray.

  ‘One for me too please. I'm beat,’ she said walking back out to the living room which also served as a dining room.

  It was a small one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of the block, a slice of light from a neon sign came through the window but most of the space was drenched in the shadow of the surrounding blocks. Pushing aside a scattering of sheet music, Leke sat down on the couch and drew his legs up, he felt a soft bundle of blankets by his ankles and realised he was sitting on Tsotso's bed. A stack of books was piled next to the legs of the couch, he stretched to see the top title.