Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende

Dream III

I am in the cactus garden on a sunny day. The shadows are long and ghost-like, so it must be afternoon. A dark red rose in full bloom appears encircled by cactus plants with long needles. Smaller plants with tiny furry needles form a circle inside the larger ones. The rose petals are red like blood and velvet-textured. It has a long stem covered with sharp thorns and a few leaves. I am intrigued by the size and beauty of the rose, and the scent is so sumptuous it makes me drowsy. I shake my head to rouse myself, but the more I shake it the drowsier I become and the more magnetized I become. I reach out to pluck the rose. I have to be careful not to get stuck by the cactus spines. I take my time, slowly getting closer. I do it. I take the rose by the stem and bring it to my nose. I inhale and I am deliriously happy. I wake up.

Busi and I were inseparable. We finished secondary school and both chose to go to the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo. I was a scholarship student once again because of my father’s tenacity. This time, he managed to get me a full tuition and living expenses deal. Bulawayo was huge and intimidating, a far cry from my village in Empandeni. I thought our school of 600 girls was enormous. The NUST campus was a small town unto itself, with blocks of offices, lecture halls, residence halls, a bank, hair salon, and its own transport system to ferry students from one part of the campus to another. The campus lay sprawled on a hillside along the Bulawayo-Johannesburg road, a major route decorated with vendors hawking all things South African. Along the paved walkways students and vendors mingled and collided. Vendors aggressively pushed their matches, candles, air-time cards, cigarettes, chewing gum, dry-roasted peanuts, eggs, bread, Maputi, roll-on deodorant, perfume, and love potions into the students’ faces, and students dodged one vendor only to bump into another one.

Student digs were comfortable enough. They held remnants of a former glory when water gushed out of stainless-steel showers, and electricity flowed continuously to fire up desk lamps and kettles. Now the soot-stained walls told a tale of candles, wood smoke from secret cooking fires, decay, and lack of maintenance. The metal and plastic buckets in the showers spoke of water cuts and cold bucket baths. This was not much different from what we had at boarding school. It could have been worse, I suppose. Busi and I got a room together thanks to her father’s connections in the Ministry of Education. We were known to each other’s family as best friends and had on occasion visited each other. Busi had enjoyed meeting my family whereas I had been relieved when my weekend visit to her impressive home ended. We had less than her family for sure, less money and things. But we had more of those intangible things that cannot be replaced by riches.

Our room had narrow twin beds on one side, a shared wardrobe, and two desks on the opposite side of the room. There was a small bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower cubicle. The brown water stain in the sink was a tell-tale sign that the tap had not been turned on in ages. The white-washed walls were brown-stained with bits of sticky stuff where posters and photographs had once been. Busi and I used one of the beds as storage. We made the bed and kept books and clothes on it. We shared the other bed.

The first couple of weeks were frantic with registration for classes, buying books, and finding our way around town to get cheap groceries and other necessities. Running across busy streets, negotiating our way around vendors, potholes, bicycles, beggars-with-tin bowls and angry motorists was overwhelming at times. But most times, I was thrilled at being an adult and doing adult things like buying, choosing classes and what to wear to which welcome party. Busi and I went to these parties together. Puff-and-pass and alcohol appeared magically, and music was a must-have. Busi and I tried it all and liked it all. Later in our own space we would unpack the goings-on. We would imitate various people’s accents, how they chewed, or the pseudo-intellectual nonsense they tried to impress us with. We giggled over the boy-crazy girls, the ones you knew had been on lock-down at home or in a girls-only boarding school. They were the wild ones, frolicking like kudu freed from captivity. They were eager to mingle, and the young men were just as eager to please. We guessed who had gone home with who based on the flirting or brazen snogging or possessive arm-over-shoulder moves.

Busi and I were only apart during classes. She was working towards a bio-engineering degree while I had decided to study marketing. I looked forward to these times apart. I breathed a little easier. Busi seemed to get upset if I was sociable with other people, or if someone seemed to take an interest in me. I felt more comfortable being totally myself when she was not around. I was too busy to think about what this meant, but a feeling of unease lingered each time we went out together.

One Friday evening, a couple of months into the semester, I was invited to a party by my classmates at the School of Business.

“Hey Busi.”

I bounced into our room excited and happy the week was finally over.

“I am off to a get-together later with some of my classmates. We can have dinner together before I go. I doubt there will be much in the way of food.”

Busi was on the chair painting her toe nails. She did not look up.

“So you’re just going to leave me here by myself.”

“No. Of course you can come, Busi. I just didn’t want to assume…”

“Assume what Ludo? That I want to spend an evening with your dumb classmates? Well I don’t. I want to be with you. But I see you don’t want to be with me.”

I felt terrible and selfish.

“Busi, I am sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” She looked up and smiling she asked, “What shall we wear?”

I no longer felt good. In fact, I no longer wanted to go anywhere. I mustered a grin and worked some enthusiasm into my voice.

“Jeans of course!”

By the time we arrived the party was in full swing. It was on one of the sports fields that now served as a park where students met to do all sorts of things. It was remote from the rest of the campus, and there were no tower lights and a fire was blazing.

“Can you smell the meat braising? I guess there will be food after all.”

Busi’s energy was electric and infectious, and soon we were giggling and trotting towards the intoxicating music.

One dreadlocked Rasta with a fake Jamaican accent handed me a joint. I looked at Busi and she gave a nod, mischief in her eyes. I took a drag. Rastaman nodded his approval.

“Puff an-pass my sistren. Now hol’ it in sistren. Das right, hol’n’swallow. Hol’… an release.”

I coughed and spluttered, my air passages burning. Busi patted me on the back and laughed. “You still cough Ludo, come on!”

She handed me a glass of clear liquid and I took a huge gulp, thinking it was water. More fire ripped through my passages. Then delicious waves of warmth started to radiate from my belly. I relaxed. The music all of a sudden sounded amazing. The ragga base of Big Man’s huge hit Musarove Bigiman accompanied by his raspy chanting swept me to my feet and I started to dance. I was a stream trickling down a craggy mountain slope, carving out a path with my undulating body. I rolled my hips, hands on my temples. I was a river, wide open rhythmic waves. I swayed, this way and that. I bent forward moving my back, hands reaching upward. I was powerful. A guy came up behind me, put his hands on my waist and without skipping a beat drew me into his hypnotic rhythm. The music thumped, a heartbeat so strong I felt it in my toes. I was molten wax, an elastic band. In front of me another guy appeared. He smiled and moved into my space, smooth as polished marble. The music was killing me secretly, and I threw my head from side to side, eyes closed. It was me and the music and the blood coursing through by body. I opened my eyes onto an infinite blanket of undulating bodies. Everyone was pumping to the raunchy lyrics of Lady Bee and smooth-hopping to the sounds of Kwaito music. All of us were moving like one huge coordinated body whose life was the music. We were suspended in time and rhythm, away from books, power cuts, water cuts, and all things power to do with the state of our nation. I saw Busi out of the corner of my eye, dancing like she had forgotten herself. The rapturous look on her face, mouth slightly opened called out a yearning in me. She sensed me. Her eyes flew open and looked at me. We spent the rest of the night apart, watching each other dance with other people, desire blooming.

I don’t remember when we got home. I just remember Busi and me clawing at each other’s clothes on the bed. My skin yearned for hers, and as her hands worked frantically to remove my jeans I moaned and lay back. Her lips were butterflies on my belly. My hands found refuge in her thick hair and the sensation of her strands on my fingertips, and I closed my eyes. I felt her breath on my face, her hands prying mine out of her hair. Something in the way she gripped my wrists caused me to open my eyes.

Her flushed face, inches from mine held a look I did not like. Her eyes were smoldering. She was angry, and the energy between us shifted, jerking me into sobriety.

“Busi, what’s wrong?”

Her grip on my wrists tightened, and she pushed my arms back and pinned them to the pillow.

“Wena stop it, you are hurting me. What the hell has come over you?”

It did not once cross my mind that Busi would hurt me. So when she let go one of my wrists I did not expect the sharp pain as her hand connected with my face. I tasted blood as a tingling sensation webbed its way down the side of my face and neck. I was stunned. I did not fight back. I did not know how to fight someone, anyone who was not an adversary. The pain in my face was nothing compared to the devastation I felt.

“Ludo. Oh my God, I am sorry.”

Busi rolled off me and lay next to me face up. Her breath was raspy and she muttered.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I sat up and looked at her. Her eyes were closed, lashed dewy with suspended tears. Her lips, stained with the memory of lipstick were pressed together, trembling. She was wringing her hands, whimpering. I looked over her body in black panty and bra. The liquid fire in my blood had been replaced by tepid nothingness.

Her eyes opened, red and tormented.

“Ludo, I am sorry. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe a bad trip or something. Maybe I shouldn’t mix tequila and weed.”

“Yes. Maybe it’s the weed.”

I turned around, puzzled. The voice that spoke sounded like it came outside of my body. As though I had vacated my body and was responding to her from somewhere else. Maybe it was the weed. I got up slowly and walked to the bathroom. I felt disjointed as I sat on the toilet. A dull throbbing had replaced the tingling in my face. My bottom lip felt big. I licked it, but my tongue was like sandpaper. Maybe it was the weed. I got up and took a few cups of water from the bucket we kept under the sink. I washed my hands and only then did I look up into the mirror above the sink. The distorted face looking back at me frightened me. My lip looked like a piece of raw liver, and my left eye was bloodshot. I started to cry. I was confused, deeply sad, and so ashamed that I did not look again. I was lonely and I missed home. I missed my family. It was not the physical pain that made me cry, of this I was sure. But I could not identify this dreadful feeling I had. Maybe it was the weed. I just wanted to close my eyes and to wipe that night out of existence.

Busi came into the bathroom. She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind. I did not resist. Her I’m sorry mantra numbed me. She took a wash cloth from the rail, soaked it in water, and gently cleaned my face. Her touch was gentle and her energy caring. She handed me a cup of water, and I rinsed my mouth. She led me to our bed, pulled back the covers and helped me into it.

As I fell asleep, I felt her climb into bed and spoon me into the curve of her body. The rippling sensation that shot through my body each time she came close to me was not there. Nothing. I could sense that she was alert. I was too tired and too dazed to say anything. I felt lost. It was lost, though I did not know what that was. Maybe all this was because of the weed.

Pages: 1 2 3 4