there they would find her at the gate. One morning, the man asked her to choose between his boss’s three sons. She chose Lehlogonolo, the eldest son, as they were in the same class, and with that she guaranteed herself half of Lehlogonolo’s lunchbox, which for a poor girl was luxury. Though she shared his lunchbox every day, she only kissed Lehlogonolo once – and that was in the presence of the driver, who had coached him – but this became the foundation of what she knew her beauty could do for her.
As she grew older Pretty learned quickly that her beauty scared men out of their minds, but she also learned that men don’t deserve to be trusted.
Only once had she trusted a man. Her Standard Four class teacher was someone she could talk to. She thought of him as a second father, as he appeared to be the only person in her world who was concerned about her.
She trusted him until one Friday afternoon when she found her back flat on his bed, her legs spread, her body racked with excruciating pain.
“Please don’t tell anybody,” he said afterwards as he put money in her hand.
And she didn’t tell anybody. Not because she didn’t want to tell her story, but because she never knew how to start telling or to whom she would tell it.
Monday came and some more currency was paid. She did not know what to say. Then Friday came around again and another appointment was made. Her legs took her to his quarters on Saturday, and there were new shoes and a beautiful miniskirt that she had to wear there and then. Dressed in the new clothes, she looked at herself in the mirror and for the first time in her life she saw herself as if she were looking through someone else’s eyes and was overwhelmed by her own beauty.
Then people started talking about her. She was a poor girl wearing expensive clothes, and it wasn’t long before the truth was exposed. Then the teacher tried to distance himself from her, but he couldn’t keep away. He tried to be discreet, but there were eyes that saw and tongues that wagged and waggled until the authorities could no longer continue to turn a blind eye.
After that Pretty tried to avoid the chilli-hot whispers and pointing fingers, but by the time she made it to high school her back had been forced down naked by many people she knew in the community. There were always men who wanted to be part of her life, and when they found that they fell short of her expectations they came with currency, and for a poor girl the currency was what mattered.
Then Bongani came along, when she was sweet sixteen. She didn’t even want to get to know him – there was nothing about him that interested her – but eventually his father’s money engulfed her and swept her off her feet.
Although she felt nothing for him, Bongani worshipped her. He even took her home and introduced her to his parents.
Bongani’s mother loved Pretty, and there would have been an engagement and a marriage if Bongani’s father hadn’t called his son to one side. “Son,” he said. “It is a good thing to have a wife. We all love your girlfriend, and are very proud of her, but you and your girlfriend don’t yet have the willpower to sit on the red-hot fire that is life. If your mother, son, ever had an affair, that would be the end of us as a family, but although there are many men who want your mother, they know what a strong woman she is. She has resisted them because she has the power to resist, and that is a quality that your girlfriend has not acquired yet. A woman without resistance cannot build a family. Wait, son, and eat it knowing what it is. Don’t be surprised later.”
Then there was a row in the family because Bongani’s mother was pushing for them to get married and his father was resisting. Some members of the family even thought that Bongani’s father hated Pretty for some reason, but his father, seeing what was happening, called a meeting. “We all love Pretty,” he said, “but I want to ask that they wait until they have both passed their matric. Then, if they still want to, they can marry and we can send them to university together, if they want to go.”
Pretty heard about the meeting and knew that after matriculation she would marry into one of the most affluent families in the community, and that she and Bongani would go to university together – if they wanted to. The thought made her smile.
A year later Bongani came to his father with tears in his eyes. He looked like he had just walked a thousand kilometres. “Son, stop crying,” his father said, hugging him. “Women are just like that. If you give them your heart they will always find a way to tear it apart.”
“She has not acquired the power to resist, Dad,” Bongani responded, his voice drenched in tears.
“She will grow up,” his father said, trying to comfort his son. “And maybe, when she has grown up, you will still have the power to look her in the eye and love her despite what she has done to you.”
But deep down they both knew that Bongani would never forgive her.
When Pretty split with Bongani she was doing Standard Nine and dreaming of becoming a lawyer and defending the defenceless. But after matriculating her dreams were put on hold for two whole years, while she listened to her father’s promises. “I am going to take you to the University of the North,” he told her. Which became, “I didn’t save enough, but let me talk to people . . .” at the beginning of the following year.
Pretty got a job in a supermarket. She didn’t like it, but she thought that if she worked there for a year or two she would save enough money to take herself to university. That thought gave her the strength to wake up every morning and go to work, but saving money was more difficult than she had thought it would be, and she soon discovered that the way she was living didn’t allow her to save.
One afternoon, when she was working, Sport came to the outlet because he had heard some people talking of her beauty. He had asked that they show him what they were talking about, but they had refused. “There is no need for that,” one of them told him. “Just go in there and walk around, if she is on duty you won’t miss her.”
Sure enough he didn’t miss her, and for the first time in his life Sport did not know how to conduct himself in front of a woman.
It was later, during her lunch break, that he approached her. She was window-shopping, unaware that Sport was following her in his sports car, a GT. I have seen beautiful women, but none have scared me as this little girl does, he said to himself, shaking his head.
When Pretty went into a shop, Sport parked his car and followed her. Inside he greeted her humbly: “Hello.”
She acknowledged him with a gesture.
“My boss sent me to tell you that you can have anything you want.”
“And where is your boss?” she responded, smiling.
“You will see him. He is waiting outside.”
“I don’t want anything, I am just looking,” she replied. “Tell your boss that I said ‘thank you’.”
“Then I say, on his behalf, that you can take anything you want, anything you want even if you don’t want it . . . Take it for your cousins.”
Slowly he persuaded her, and eventually he bought her a very expensive pair of shoes, a leather jacket, a pair of jeans, a shirt and some cologne.
They were laughing when they left the shop. “I was instructed to drive you home safely,” he said.
“By your boss, I guess,” Pretty said.
“You guessed right.”
And that was how Sport bought his way into Pretty’s heart.
There was nothing wrong with Sport. He seemed to be a sweet man who liked the finer things in life. Pretty never asked how he earned his money, she just accepted whatever he presented of himself, but Sport asked her all about her life and it puzzled him that she never asked about his. “I have asked you nearly everything about your life,” he said one day when they were together, “but you have never asked me anything about mine.”
“I think it is a good thing not to know too much,” Pretty said. “I just accept things as they are, at