[Chapter 2]
~The Womam~
He met Siyanda at the road by
midmorning, the way they met most days — not by plan exactly, more by the gravity of having grown up in the same small place and running out of other directions to walk.
Siyanda Zulu was two years older than Dla and three inches taller and had been talking about leaving since they were teenagers.
He'd never left.
Mpho Mokoena caught up with them at the bottom of the hill, slightly out of breath, smelling like the argument Dla had heard through the wall.
"Your father again?" Dla asked.
"When is it not."
Mpho fell into step beside them. He was quieter than Siyanda, more watchful. The three of them together made a particular kind of sense that the town had long since stopped noticing.
They walked without purpose, which was its own kind of purpose.
Down past the spaza, past the women with their baskets, past the old men who sat in the same spot every day as if they had been assigned to it.
"I heard there's a woman," Siyanda said, after a while.
Dla glanced at him.
"What woman?"
"Came in yesterday. Staying at Mama Dube's place."
He shrugged, but it was the shrug of someone who had already decided this was interesting.
"Looking for workers apparently. Farm work up in Joburg. Good pay."
Mpho made a noncommittal sound.
Dla said nothing. He was looking at the sea again, at the grey flat line of it at the edge of everything.
Farm work, he thought.
He thought about Amahle's shoes. About her dress with the loose hem. About his mother's struggles. About the processing cooperative that was always three months away from hiring.
He thought about the loop.
"How good?" he said.
Siyanda smiled. Like he'd been waiting for exactly that question.
~~~~~~~
Nomvula Shabangu wore her money the way certain women did.
Not loudly, but precisely. The cut of her blazer. The particular heel of her shoe on Mama Dube's uneven floor.
The way she set her handbag down on the table like it was used to better surfaces and was tolerating this one.
Dla noticed all of it before she said a word.
She had asked to meet them at nine. She was already seated when they arrived, a cup of tea in front of her that she hadn't touched, a folder closed on the table beside the cup.
Late thirties, maybe early forties — it was difficult to tell with women like her.
She had the kind of face that had decided on an age and committed to it.
"Sit," she said, and it wasn't rude, exactly. It was just a word that expected to be obeyed.
They sat.
Mama Dube hovered in the doorway for a moment and then decided she had somewhere else to be.
Nomvula looked at each of them in turn. Not quickly — she took her time, the way you looked at something you were considering purchasing. Dla felt the assessment move over him and kept his face still.
"Siyanda," she said, and Siyanda straightened slightly without meaning to.
"Mpho." Mpho nodded. Her eyes settled last on Zithulele. "And you."
"Dla," he said.
"Dlamini Zithulele," she said, gently, as if she already owned the full version of his name. "I was told you're the clever one."
"Who told you that?"
The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile. "Does it matter?"
He said nothing. She opened the folder.
The offer was clean on paper.
Agricultural work outside Johannesburg — a large farm, a private operation, good facilities. Three months minimum, with the option to extend.
The pay was more than anything any of them had seen written in a single number.
There were no contracts to sign today, she said. Just an agreement in principle. The paperwork would be handled when they arrived.
Siyanda was nodding before she'd finished speaking.
Mpho was doing the math in his head, Dla could see it in his eyes, the quiet calculation.
Dla was looking at the folder. At the paper inside it with the letterhead he didn't recognise, at Nomvula's hands, which were very still on the table.
"What kind of farm?" he asked.
"Commercial agriculture. Mostly produce."
"And the work itself. What exactly."
"General labour, to start. We assess skills as we go and place people accordingly." She paused. "Smart people move up quickly."
Siyanda made a sound of satisfaction.
Dla looked at the letterhead again. Then he looked at Nomvula.
Something was not perfectly aligned, he could feel it the way you felt weather coming, a pressure change before the rain arrived.
But the number on the paper was real. The shoes Amahle needed were real. The loop was real.
He thought about his mother's back, permanently curved from years of bending over other people's washing.
"When do we leave?" he asked.