be.
“Fikile, please. You’re taking this too far,” I interjected.
“Am I? Is the cancer not in my lungs and liver and God knows where else in my body? Is it not? Look, we may not have another chance to talk. I know Thiza took out life policies for me and is paying good money for them; he will be filthy rich after I die. Anele, I want you to tell him you know about the money. I want you to tell him that my children should not go hungry or not get a good education because of his greed. Promise me.”
Ma eyed her briefly, hurt and defeated, exhaled sharply and started to make her way out of the room.
“Mama, don’t go. Fine, I take back the cremation and the three days, but anything more than a week I will not tolerate. And I’m serious about the policies.”
I nodded, though Fikile knew very well she was asking the impossible, Thiza parting with money? It would never happen. I was aware of the policies Fikile was referring to, life insurance and funeral covers Thiza had taken to cover her – forty thousand here, one hundred and fifty thousand there. It all added up to something significant. Shortly after Fikile completed her chemo and radiation treatments the first time, she had shown me the documents.
“Look here, funeral covers, life covers, all kinds, and I’m in all of them. Bastard is planning to cash up when I die.”
“You’re being dramatic. You are sick, yes, but you will not die. What I want to know is, where does he get the money to pay for this? How much money is he making from renting his shops, surely it can’t be that much?”
“My darling husband pays for everything with his dick, don’t you know that?”
“The same one that got you into trouble in the first place.”
“Same dick, what can I say. It’s like Thiza is saying hurry up and die so I can live.”
Within a few months the conversation was different, Fikile was dying and we couldn’t pretend otherwise. I remembered that moment in Doctor Seme’s office when she said it wasn’t looking good, not good at all. Fikile had lost nearly half of her body weight, Bafana struggled the most with the changes in his mom. Once Fikile had spent a few weeks at the hospital after she came down with an infection. When Bafana saw her, he cried and called her “ghost”. Lesihle held his hand and said, “It’s not a ghost, it’s Mama.”
* * *
As the eldest child, Fikile was always responsible for the logistics of our family events. Together with my aunts, she schemed for days concocting mouth-watering menus, organising stretch tents and Tiffany chairs and tables, picking out the right type of animal to sacrifice. My job was limited to contributing a few frozen chicken packs, ten kilograms of rice and flour, and cooking oil, showing up on the eve of the event to assist with peeling vegetables, and offering my car for general use if I was feeling charitable – but with a list of terms and conditions.
But Fikile is gone now.
Thiza’s phone is still off. I leave a message this time: it’s urgent, call me. I decide to arrange my sister’s funeral without my brother-in-law’s input.
From the house I drive to the funeral home, a lone, single-storey lime building lying proud in the middle of a corner stand, massive and impressive. The main gate, a wrought iron structure with a decorative sculpture of an elephant, trunk broken in the middle, stands wide and open for business. Hearses, big and small, white like purity with golden crosses embossed on their bonnets, are parked in a neat line under the shaded parking. By the weekend the cars will stream out of the funeral home to various destinations across the location to collect the dead and deliver them to the township’s two cemeteries. A large white-letter sign with the inscription Vilakazi Funeral Undertakers: We Are With You At The Time Of Need sits perched high up on the outside wall of the entrance.
I park my car in the visitors’ parking and pause to catch my breath and wipe the sweat forming on my brow. Fikile’s funeral policy is tucked inside my handbag.
We took the burial plans at the same time, years before Fikile’s diagnosis. It was the year of new beginnings for us. I had graduated a year before with a Bachelor of Accounting Sciences in Financial Management from UNISA, and had a new government job as an accountant. It was a junior position with low pay, but it came with paid leave, pension and medical aid, things I had not had access to before. Fikile was armed with a national diploma in Early Childhood Development and a dream to start her own crèche. We were both high with knowledge and promise of financial independence.
The air is cool and dry inside the funeral parlour. My mind wanders to the sound of the refrigerators humming at the back stuffed with dead bodies: I see Fikile’s body, cold but not yet stiff with ice, wrapped in the faded floral sheet it came in.
“Can I help you?” It is the voice of a young woman seated at the desk closest to the door. She is wearing a black T-shirt with the parlour’s logo of a white flying dove above her left breast. She has a warm, trained smile. I move towards her.
“I’m Anele Mabuza. My sister’s body was brought here this morning.” From my handbag I take out the crumpled manila envelope with Fikile’s funeral cover and hand it over to her.
The young woman introduces herself as Nina. She only has a few questions for me – time of Fikile’s passing, cause of death. She is respectful throughout, does not pry for details about Fikile’s death and spares me compassionate talk.
“Excuse me.” She stands and walks over to one of the steel cabinets lining the wall, and pulls out a small folder. “Everything is in order,” Nina says after paging through Fikile’s file. “Here, this is what you will be getting from the Essential Funeral Plan.” She shows me a picture of the coffin my sister will be buried in, a solid wood casket, with simple gold trimmings and plain white silk interior, what Fikile had chosen for herself. The package includes a small blue-and-white tent, a set of twenty-five plastic chairs, forty bottles of water, a hundred printed funeral programmes, and grocery money to help on the day. She asks me if we would like to brand the water bottles with Fikile’s photo or name or something. I tell her no.
“Would you like to see the actual coffin?”
“No, it’s not necessary.”
“Who will come to dress your sister?”
“What?”
“Dress your sister on Friday,” she repeats. “Someone must come and wash and dress your sister before taking her home.”
I have not thought of this. “My aunts,” I say. “My aunts will.”
“Please tell them to arrive early, otherwise it gets busy in the afternoon.”
I know what she means. Scores of bereaved families will descend on the funeral home to fetch their departed in preparation for the next day’s burial. Rows of cars with their hazards on, driving slowly, with dignity, inconsolable families inside, heads down, following the hearses. This time, we will be part of the procession.
I thank the young lady and leave.
* * *
I can tell by the booming voice coming from the house that Auntie Betty has arrived. I can’t contain my relief and fleetingly forget the heaviness of the two grocery bags in my hands. My aunt will know what to do.
Ma and Auntie Betty have removed the mattress on which Fikile died and placed it in the garage, and pushed the furniture in the lounge against the walls such that there is space to accommodate additional chairs. I’m not surprised that at their age, with a handful of children and grandchildren, and a dead husband in between, they have the strength to manoeuvre large pieces of furniture with only tiny beads of sweat showing on their foreheads. I recall as a child how Auntie Betty, assisted by Ma, slaughtered a Boer goat to prepare for a family ceremony marking the end of Ma’s mourning period. The sun was going down and the men were at the back of the house feasting on traditional beer and biltong someone had brought along. Auntie Betty became agitated. She and Ma cornered the animal, held its feet together and with