Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree. Niq Mhlongo

charm had gone. He seemed agitated. There was a strange burnt smell in the air. The doors had been opened as if to let out the smell. What was he hiding? Angrily, Lulama removed her jacket and dumped it over the sofa.

      “What is this smell now?”

      Mohapi squared his shoulders. “We have decided to consult a healer, and all of us have to use sekgopha.”

      “What do you mean we decided to consult?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

      “Ousie Maria took me to a healer today.” He enunciated the name Ousie as if learning a new word.

      “Since when is she making important decisions in this house with you and without me? She works for us, not the other way round.”

      Her tone conveyed her irritation. She waited patiently, looking casually around the dining room the way partners do when they have an argument in front of the children.

      Mohapi snorted.

      “Go and call your Ousie Maria,” she commanded.

      “You have to work with me on this matter.”

      She deliberately watched his mouth as he talked. Rivulets of sweat were trickling down his face. “I made the decision as the man of the house, and it’s final.”

      “Is that so?” she said, mocking him. “Let me teach you a thing about what the man of the house should do. He must take the final decision with his wife rather than listening to an illiterate domestic worker. There’s a letter from school that says your children are not doing well. It is from their three teachers. That’s what you should be attending to instead of burning muthi inside our house. The headmaster will soon find an excuse to suspend them. I was forced to sign a warning today when you were busy consulting a sangoma.” She spoke slowly, and gesticulated before every word.

      Lulama’s retort seemed to have stung Mohapi. When he didn’t say a word, she walked out of the house to Ousie Maria’s cottage. Without wiping her feet on the mat as usual, she tried the door, ready to stomp in. Locked. Lulama had noticed that, ever since the cat died, Ousie Maria was afraid to be alone in an unlocked room. Every sound gave her a fright. She became afraid of the darkness and never turned the lights off. It was as if she was afraid that something bad might happen to her in the split second of darkness.

      Lulama paused, listening before knocking. She felt a sudden unconcealed dislike for Ousie Maria. After a third knock, the door opened. Ousie Maria looked at Lulama intently.

      “I came to understand what gave you the right to take my husband to your sangoma without telling me. What’s going on here between you two?”

      “I was only trying to help,” said Ousie Maria. “I thought he would tell you. Well, I didn’t offer him instructions on what to do. I was merely giving him advice. He was free not to take it at all.”

      “We brought you here to help with the cleaning and washing. Not to plan my family behind my back.”

      “How can you talk to me like that? I’ve been with you for the past fifteen years, even before your children were born.”

      “That’s my point exactly. I think you have overstayed your welcome. Now the children are old enough to take care of themselves.”

      Ousie Maria took a breath, seemingly to calm herself, before saying, “Let me tell you this before I grant you your moment of outrage. I’m the one who helped you with the traditional medicine so that you could conceive. I helped you bring back that radiant expression of joy to your face.”

      “I’m sorry, you will have to leave,” Lulama insisted. “I can’t have someone stay who acts like my husband’s first or second wife. There will no longer be trust between us.”

      “Do your children and husband know that you’re chasing me away?”

      “Don’t worry about that. I will sort it out.”

      Lulama looked around the room. The bed she had given Ousie Maria was sitting on bricks. She arched her eyebrows and looked pointedly at the bricks. This mad Ousie Maria is even afraid of imaginary tokoloshes when she is sleeping in her bed. No, she will definitely have to go, Lulama knew. For a long moment, she looked at Ousie Maria, and held her hands clasped in front of her. She didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say. She stormed out of the cottage and banged the door behind her.

      After Lulama had gone, Ousie Maria paced up and down in her room. When she got into bed, she could not sleep until the early hours of the morning. When sleep finally caught up with her at dawn, the violent seizures of a nightmare afflicted her. She dreamt Bonaparte was licking her all over her face. This time he was white. The cat walked backwards towards the swimming pool. By the pole under the shade netting he arched his back to a strong taut bow and yawned. He kept a steady gaze on her face, then purred loudly, the tip of his tail jerking back and forth.

      Ousie Maria kept on jerking and twisting in her sleep. The cat crouched back and licked its lips and washed its face and whiskers. Its tail stretched out straight and flat to the floor. Then it flicked the last inch of its tail while smelling the ground.

      She woke up in a cold sweat the next morning, shivering all over. Throwing her blanket off, she went to the toilet where she flushed and watched thoughtfully as the water whirled down the bowl.

      She remembered how she had mixed butter with chillies and spread it on the edges of the swimming pool the day the cat drowned. They were the same chillies that Mohapi put in the engine of his car to discourage snakes and rats from sleeping inside the engine at night. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She recalled the day she tried to chase Bonaparte out of the children’s room with a broom and how the cat had leapt out of reach. Then he sat down and licked the pads of his raised paws before attacking her.

      She wiped her tears away and started to pack her things.