then again, Teacher’s car was very slow. They’d had to stop at the Engen garage to buy Fezeka some sweets because she’d become very agitated when she realised they were taking her back to Aunt Thembeka. When Teacher handed her a KitKat through the rear window, a strange resignation came over her. She nestled against Karabo on the back seat and sucked slowly on the chocolate-covered wafer. She sat staring at the back of Teacher’s head all the way to Aunt Thembeka’s house.
To their surprise, Father Majola was already there when they arrived. He was the priest from the All Saints Cathedral in Mthatha. Even though he was not wearing his robes, Karabo thought Father Majola was terribly impressive. He was a thickset man, built like a retired heavyweight boxer. He had large hands and a bald, polished head. And when he spoke his voice soared and dipped in the style of a Baptist preacher. It was quite wonderful to listen to him, even if he was only saying good morning.
Father Majola clasped Teacher’s hand in both of his.
‘What a terrible thing to happen to Thembeka,’ he said. He held onto Teacher’s hand so intently it was as though he were reassuring himself that Teacher could be trusted and would not run away.
‘This is Precious, my wife,’ Teacher said. ‘Thembeka’s elder sister.’
He stepped back to allow Precious her moment with Father Majola. Unlike the many families in the Eastern Cape who had an age-old allegiance to the Methodist church, the Mtakwendas had always been Catholic. It was only much later in life that Precious had swung away to the Latter Day Church of Holy Fire, dragging Karabo and Teacher along with her. Thembeka had remained Catholic. That must be why Father Majola had come.
Precious simpered and curtsied like a little girl. ‘Thank you for coming, Father.’
‘Oh, but I had to,’ Father Majola replied in a deep baritone. ‘Thembeka is like my very own daughter. In a manner of speaking, of course. There are others in the parish with dementia but they are all much older than her. For them, it is almost expected that their minds should wander.’
Then he shook Karabo’s hand and Fezeka’s too. He would have rubbed the top of Karabo’s head if she hadn’t ducked. Her mother glared at her for such impertinence but Father Majola just laughed. The deep rolling chuckle seemed to rise effortlessly from his feet.
One by one, they trooped into Aunt Thembeka’s house with Father Majola leading the way. As the doorway was quite narrow, Father Majola had to turn himself sideways and even then he struggled to wriggle through. Karabo and Teacher, on the other hand, stooped to avoid bumping their heads on the lintel. Only Precious and Fezeka passed through the doorway without any difficulty.
It was several months since Karabo had last seen Aunt Thembeka and she dreaded what she would find. She sniffed the air for the sharp tell-tale smell of shit but thankfully there was none. The house was small but surprisingly neat inside, with family pictures in matching frames arranged on a wooden counter.
There was one of Precious and Teacher in black, grey and white, both of them standing to attention on the steps of the church in Mthatha where they had been married. Next to them was a picture of uTatomkhulu leaning out of the driver’s cabin of a locomotive. He had all his hair then. And although the photo was faded and old, uTatomkhulu’s eyes were bright with possibility. Now they were just dark and empty. The most poignant photo, however, was one of Aunt Thembeka herself. She was dressed in baggy overalls with a patterned bandana tied around her head. There were two similarly dressed men on either side of her, their arms linked protectively through hers. The three of them were leaning forward and it looked as if they might tumble out of the wooden frame at any moment. Above them was a sign that read ‘Mercedes-Benz South Africa. A Daimler Plant’.
Aunt Thembeka was sitting quietly in her chair. She had always been the more attractive of the two sisters. Her hair was pulled back to expose a fine, delicately proportioned face and she sat upright with seeming confidence. But then she saw her visitors and began to giggle uncontrollably. They could have been a band of comedians who’d come to perform just for her.
Precious ran to her sister and knelt by her side. She stroked Thembeka’s face and talked to her as if she were a small child, which to all intents and purposes, she was.
Father Majola laid his hand on Precious’s shoulder. ‘I must pray with your sister alone.’
‘But, Father,’ Precious said, ‘we’ve come all this way. Let us pray together. Didn’t Jesus say where two or three are gathered in my name there I will be also?’
She looked away, embarrassed at having quoted scripture to a man of the cloth, but Father Majola nodded gravely.
‘Very well.’ Father Majola took the chair next to Aunt Thembeka and indicated that the others should sit in a circle around him holding hands.
‘May we all bow our heads,’ he intoned.
He began to pray. The rich timbre of his words was wonderfully hypnotic. As Karabo listened to the melody of Father Majola’s phrasing, her eyes grew heavy and her head slipped onto her chest. Then all of a sudden she felt Fezeka’s fingernails dig into her palm. Startled, Karabo opened her eyes and looked at Fezeka. Before she could ask what the matter was, the little girl jerked her head urgently in Father Majola’s direction. His hand was underneath Aunt Thembeka’s cloth and wedged firmly between her thighs. His eyes were shut tight and as he prayed, Aunt Thembeka hummed and giggled quietly to herself. She looked as if this were the most commonplace occurrence in the world.
Karabo nudged Teacher with her knee. He looked at her and Fezeka and then at Father Majola.
‘Do something!’ Karabo mouthed to her father.
Teacher’s mouth opened and closed but no words came out. Strangely, his vast vocabulary appeared to have deserted him. Karabo slumped back in her seat, overcome with despair. Then Father Majola was holding Aunt Thembeka’s hand in the air and crying out in triumph, ‘Amen, Amen, Amen!’
Dazed, Karabo shook her hand out of Teacher’s grip and stood up. She felt as though she were not really there, but had been watching the gathering from the very edge of space. She left the house and sat in the car while her parents said their goodbyes to Father Majola. But the priest came up to the car and seized Karabo’s hand through the open window. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself.
‘Karabo, is it?’ he said. ‘I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. And about the wonderful work your father is doing in our school.’
He had large hands and stubby fingers that each sprouted a small thicket of dark, wiry hairs. There was the trace of something sticky and viscous on his fingers, as if he’d dipped them in slow-drying glue. And as he pumped Karabo’s hand, she pictured his fingers scrabbling inside Aunt Thembeka and wondered if he’d used one finger or two.
Teacher waited for Father Majola to drive out first. His car, a brightly polished Morris, was much like Father Majola himself: large, immaculate and surprisingly nimble. They watched it manoeuvre easily out of the narrow driveway and out into the road where it was swallowed by a dip in the valley.
‘Are you all right?’ Precious asked Teacher gently.
He looked at her as if he did not know who she was. ‘What did you say?’
‘I can see you’re overwhelmed by Thembeka’s condition. Or was it the service Father Majola conducted?’
‘Does Father Majola visit Thembeka often?’ Teacher asked roughly. ‘It is a very long way for him to come.’
Precious clapped her hands in delight. ‘What does the distance matter?’ she gushed. ‘Tell me, where have you ever seen a man like that? Such concern is so rare these days …’
Her voice disappeared into a pink fog of Father Majola adulation. It seemed that if Father Majola had asked her right then to take off her skirt so he could walk on it, she would have done so without hesitation. But Teacher didn’t say another word. As he drove, Karabo saw his head move, trying several times to catch her eye in the rear-view mirror, but she kept her face turned to the side.