are you going?”
“Next week. Will you come with me?”
I nodded.
My face must have been plastered in terror because Fikile said, “Oh, gosh, Anele, wipe that look of death off your face. I’ll be fine.”
I remained glued to my seat watching my sister finish preparing her feast. I’m certain she spoke to me, and I responded. I’m also certain we even laughed at something or someone or both. Yet, when I was driving home after she had dished up for the children, and packed some food for us in her matching Tupperware, I remembered nothing of our conversation. I arrived home and served Sizwe and Ma, then went into the bathroom, and for the longest time touched and squeezed my breasts until they become tender and painful. I heard Sizwe call my name and ask if I was okay in there.
* * *
Doctor Thusi had referred Fikile to a radiologist in town for a mammogram. Fikile and I drove to their offices. A few days later, Fikile received a call to come see Doctor Thusi to discuss the results of her tests. We did not talk about the tests during the short drive to the doctor’s surgery in New Hope, though we both knew that a call from the doctor’s office was never a good sign. Doctor Thusi gave away nothing as he cheerfully embraced and ushered us into his consulting room. His manner was still amiable as he poured a little too cold water into our glasses that gave me a momentary brain freeze, and marvelled at Bafana’s growth (as if he couldn’t wait to catch up with his siblings, the doctor said laughing), and as he asked about our mother’s wellbeing. I forgot for a moment our business there.
“About your tests,” Doctor Thusi said, jolting my mind back. He opened a drawer and pulled out several X-ray sheets, studying them intently as if seeing them for the first time. His jaw tightened for a second. “I’m afraid there is something in your breast, but we don’t need to be alarmed.”
Fikile and I hunched forward and watched the doctor point at the black-and-white film showing the web of veins and tissue, Fikile’s breast. The mammogram had confirmed our fears, a lump the size of a large marble had lodged itself neatly under her nipple. Fikile needed a core needle biopsy, a procedure to remove a sample of breast tissue to test for cancer. He gave Fikile a business card of the surgeon who would assist her.
“We don’t need to be alarmed,” the doctor said again with measured concern, I thought. I turned to Fikile, seeking out her face, but she was already standing to take the envelope.
We left Doctor Thusi’s office each engrossed in the chatter in our heads. Only when we were in the car, me behind the wheel, trying to suppress the threatening tears, the results of the mammogram in a large brown envelope on the back seat, did Fikile bring up the subject.
“I agree with Doctor Thusi, there is no need for alarm,” she said, her voice full of conviction.
“We do not have a history of cancer in the family, on both sides, so it can’t be cancer,” I pointed out, the steering wheel clutched in my hands such that I had to take turns wiping my palms on my skirt.
“I know, right? And I don’t smoke or drink, and I had my children at a good age.” Fikile leaned back and closed her eyes. “That’s why I think it’s nothing.”
We had spent the days before getting the results consuming every bit of literature we could lay our hands on regarding breast cancer and watching videos of survivors. We had filled our vocabulary with new words – stage I-IV, metastasis, tumour, benign, malignant, mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiology, breast prosthesis, remission; words that until then had existed in other worlds, not ours. We had concluded Fikile was not at risk.
But in the car my doubt set in. I stole a glance at Fikile on the passenger seat. At that moment, the afternoon sun’s rays shone through, emanating a halo around her face. She looked like an angel from our childhood biblical stories who had descended on earth to protect us. The image lasted a split second. Many years later when Fikile’s illness finally caught up with her, I went back to that moment, to me it was the day she died. Or rather the day I killed my sister.
We drove in silence for the rest of the way. I looked straight ahead with concentrated effort.
When I stopped at the gate at our house, Fikile said she didn’t want to come inside. “I want to go home. Please don’t say anything to Ma yet.”
“Okay.”
“It’s nothing, you’ll see,” Fikile said again.
* * *
My sister and I never told Ma anything. When we were young – I must have been ten – Fikile started her periods. I noticed the rusty spot on her white denim shorts. We were in the kitchen; Fikile was bent over the sink rinsing pumpkin leaves for dinner and I was grinding peanuts to go with the pumpkin leaves. Ma had not returned home from work and Baba was on the road. My then four-year-old brother, Mbuso, was outside by the gate waiting for Ma as he often did.
“Go get your brother, he needs to take his bath before the water gets cold,” Fikile snapped.
“Are you hurt, Fikile?” I asked, pointing at the spot.
“What do you mean?” Fikile responded without turning.
“You’re bleeding at the back.”
“What?” Fikile twisted her neck. “Where?”
“There, your bum.”
Fikile rushed out of the kitchen. Her loud scream made me ditch the peanuts and dash over to see what was happening.
“Don’t come in,” Fikile yelled, locking the door.
I leaned against the door and started to cry, to myself at first, but the tears came flooding out, soaking my face and neck down to my T-shirt; I did not realise I was sobbing loudly.
“Stop, I’m not hurt,” Fikile yelled from the other side of the door.
But I couldn’t stop. I started to shake and couldn’t breathe from hiccups. The door was yanked open and Fikile came out holding the soiled shorts and underwear in a tight ball under her arm.
“Anele, I told you I’m not hurt. I have a period. It happens to girls once they reach a certain age, part of growing up.” She held me tightly with her free arm until my hiccups subsided.
I followed Fikile outside to the laundry area, and watched her soak the soiled clothing in soapy water with bleach.
“It will be over in a few days,” she said.
I was scared. “I don’t want a period,” I said finally when we were back in the kitchen to our respective tasks.
Fikile laughed. “You can’t stop it. It’s one of those things that happen naturally to women. If we didn’t have periods, we would not be able to have babies, which means you and I wouldn’t be here. Listen, don’t tell Ma about this, okay?”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
When I got my first period a couple of years later, I only told Fikile.
* * *
Fikile’s surgeon’s name was Doctor Seme. We arrived early and met her at the consulting room in the basement of the hospital. She said she had heard a lot about Fikile from Doctor Thusi. Over good, strong coffee for me and sweet rooibos tea for Fikile and herself, Doctor Seme took her time to explain the biopsy to us. She showed us pictures of a giant needle piercing through breast tissue and explained the possible outcomes of the biopsy and what would happen afterwards.
“I don’t like what I see from the mammogram. Let us determine what we’re dealing with first, then nip whatever is growing on your breast in the bud,” she said. Fikile listened intently throughout. My lower body went numb. Fikile agreed to return for the procedure three days later.
The doctor performed the biopsy in less than an hour and sent the breast tissue