The Way He Went
written by: Frank Meintjies
Kenneth looked around the cell. In one corner was a brown bench, a thin plank fixed against the wall and supported by legs of metal piping. In the other corner was a bucket. A strong smell of urine came from it. He rubbed his eyes. Next to him, to his right, three shapes lay sleeping, the bodies curled up on grey blankets. In the murky pre-dawn light, he could make out peeling walls and a sagging ceiling with dark spots from past leaks.
He hated to think that, when they woke up, he would need to make small talk with them. Not that he was high-minded. He knew that although some could be criminals, they could just as well be young delinquents, the flotsam and jetsam that landed in the chookie over a weekend. Rather, it was that he had so much on his mind. He wanted the silence to go on; he needed to chew on his regrets for a little longer.
He was lucky. Before his fellow inmates could stir, he heard footsteps coming across a gravel yard and an outer gate creaking open. A key crunched in the cell lock, with all the stereotypical grating noises, the kind he heard when watching kung fu movies as a kid. “Gamede! Woza. (Come)”
“You are lucky, my boy,” the officer said, leading him back to the main office. “Someone cares about you. They paid bail for you.”
At the front of the police station, his mama, Marasta, awaited him. She was standing at the counter… She seemed a bit lost in the foyer. She stood there like a bird ready to fly. He walked up to the counter, signed a paper where the policeman had pointed, and turned to his mother. He thought about hugging her, but her eyes said: “Don’t.” he mumbled: “Nkosi, ma.” She did not answer, and the bluntness of the silence wasn’t lost on him. Marasta grabbed onto his sleeve. “Out!” she snapped, jerking her head, and the two slipped through one of the double-leaf glass doors with their blue and yellow police force crests. At the brick wall, she paused and turned to him. “What’s the matter with you?”
The air was still cold outside. A tear came to his eye, and he swallowed. In that moment, he resolved to try to do better; to make something of himself, to call it a night after he had gone three or four drinks beyond the point of drunkenness. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. Her hand came up fast, and he felt the stinging sensation on his cheek. He was shocked but not angry. It wasn’t like Marasta to hit – she would rather let the pain of disappointment gnaw at him. If truth be told, at that moment, hating himself for disappointing Marasta, he appreciated the slap.
She turned and began walking with purpose. They walked side by side, stride by stride, in silence. A procession of people walked in the opposite direction. Buses passed them, exhaling pungent smoke. Minibus kombi taxis drove past, some of them rattling. A mixture of modest and run-down cars trundled past, interspersed with a sprinkling of bakkies: Bantams, Datsuns, and Isuzus. In the silence, his mind swung between sharp awareness of people scurrying to work to being lost in thought, thinking about his life.
He recalled finishing school, saying goodbye to those twelve years of — as he saw it — forcing stuff into your head that you don’t need, happy that he had passed his exams. He remembered the day he turned up at False Bay College. His old Adidas sneakers had been cleaned. He wore a peaked cap, made in China, that Marasta had bought him at a flea market in Glendale the Saturday before. It was red with yellow, green, and blue strips — artfully done. That False Bay College stage of his life ended badly; he had started it with so much promise. But he left the big doors of False Bay College the last time a few years ago with drooping shoulders and a head hanging. The sojourn at False Bay had been wrong for him; there were too many disruptions, and he couldn’t get into a rhythm. The lecturers were part-timers who seemed to arrive at lectures at the college out of breath and leave in haste; the motor mechanic class was oversubscribed, and a college clerk had redirected him to boilermaking. He had so wanted to become a mechanic — to work for a car firm like Toyota or VW, or even one of the newer brands like Hyundai. Now he was here, wondering: who am I, what do I want; surely, I should have achieved more by now? “My life is not going forward.” The drunk driving charge was just another bad sign. “I’ve got to try to make a change,” he said to himself, and for a second time that morning, he felt a prickly wetness rise in the sockets of his eyes.
***
Marasta increased her steps. That morning, a Monday, she had woken up early to try to get the boy released. It was probably a good thing that he sat in the chookie for the weekend. He had been driving drunk, she learnt. One of the friends also had a gun on him. What is it with these kids – do they have a death wish? Guns go off and cars crash; then relatives of the victims and the guilty are left to pick up the pieces, identify the broken bodies, biting their nails. Kenneth walked beside her, but he always seemed a step behind.
For Marasta, whose nickname sprouted from her striking dreadlocks rather than adherence to Rastafarianism, raising the boy has been quite a journey. Alone, with fingerprints rubbed smooth from washing clothes for others, she had seen him through the toddler stages, then nursery school. The nursery school was a wooden outbuilding, the size of a shipping container and as cramped, with blankets on the floor. Daily, the children were given powdered milk and maize porridge. The staff were more like childminders than teachers, although one of the staff loved sharing stories and rhymes with the children. Marasta’s heart sank every day she came to fetch Kenneth. How she wished she could give him a better start in life. One day, Marasta gave the teacher some story books she had wheedled out of a young waste recycler who had taken them from bins in Glendale and Grassy Park.
Things got slightly better in the boy’s primary school years. Kenneth was accepted at a school in Khayelitsha, although the head teacher complained that Skwatsha informal settlement was outside the school’s catchment area. In his grey pants and blue shorts from Pep Stores, Kenneth was a proud boy as he boarded the taxi that ferried a group of children to school.
She felt the tear sliding down her cheek. She used her sleeve as a blotter. Things were much better for Marasta now. She still had a shack, but now with a bigger yard. From it, she sold the artwork she made. She was also pleased with the regular income from her spaza shop or house shop, which sold a few items, including vetkoek and cigarettes, Oros in paper cups, and airtime vouchers. She made a clear profit of about R200 every day except Sunday. She was happy with how she had pulled things together. Her only headache was Kenneth and his waywardness, his lack of direction, and now, his getting into trouble with the law.
***
A month or so before being arrested for drunk driving, Kenneth’s life had become interwoven with a group from Glendale. To these newfound buddies, he was known as KK. He had met one of them, Dawood, in a drinking session in Skwatsha informal settlement. They loved the same team, Orlando Pirates, and they both also, at some stage, wanted to become mechanics.
“Come meet us in Fynbos Road tomorrow. We hang out there on Saturdays,” Dawood had said. And he did. And so, many quarts were guzzled in the backyard dwelling at Fynbos.
There he had met Ben-Boy and a youngster called Kleintjie. He struck up a good rapport with Ben-Boy, who seemed to be more sober and quieter. He carried a Western in his back pocket – and Kenneth was sure he read some parts of it every time he went to the loo. Ben-Boy also asked questions that many boys of Kenneth’s age did not ask. “What are we going to do, guys?” he asked as they looked at him; the Castle Lager had by then slowed down the boys’ listening and replies. “We can’t just sit around, day in and day out, making jokes, drinking beer, and waiting for something to happen,” Ben-Boy continued. “I can handle it for now, but unemployment will kill me. I need to learn a trade. Or something.” At one point, Ben-Boy called Kenneth outside, in the space between the main house and the backyard dwelling. He said: “We’ve got a move on. Today. Do you want to make some bucks with us?” KK nodded and asked about how risky it was. “There’s always risk, but we know the spot very well. Don’t be a bangbroek.”
That night, Ben-Boy, Dawood, and Kleintjie wore their hoodies and dark pants. Kenneth joined, and they made their way past a small shopping area towards some storage buildings nearby. The buildings were surrounded by a fence with a razor wire topping. “There are guards at the gate, but they hate walking around in the cold. We’ll hit the back section, between the railway track and the fence,” Dawood said.
Their shadows blended with those of the buildings. Kleintjie stayed near the road while the others slunk between the buildings to the back section. They cut the fence and climbed over, and then carefully broke a window to enter the Coca-Cola depot. Kenneth helped with the cutting, taking the wire cutters from Dawood.
They returned with cases of Coca-Cola. It became clear to Kenneth why they needed him. Ben-Boy, Dawood, and KK each carried a case. Kleintjie was too small to bear a crate. Dawood fished the monkey wrench from his pocket and threw it towards Kleintjie. The boy tried to catch it, but it landed on the sandy ground that adjoined the road. The boy jumped back so the spanner missed his feet. “Fuck,” he said.
With Kleintjie going ahead and peering around corners, they made their way back to Fynbos Road. Kleintjie moved silently, like a mouse that knows its way around an old house. When a car drove past, the four stopped in the shadows and froze. “You never know when it’s a cop car,” Dawood said. Once or twice, they passed a local, in one case a man who looked to Kenneth like a churchgoer, dropping off a woman who wore a scarf and carried a handbag.
The next day, they sold the three crates of Coke for R8 a bottle to a shopkeeper in Steenberg. KK got R125. It was Ben-boy who decided what each one got. Kleintjie got the least, R70: “You get less, lightie. One day, when you grow up, you’ll get more,” Ben-boy said. Kleintjie twisted his face and shrugged. He stuffed the notes in his back pocket.
***
Kenneth met the Fynbos Road boys again a few days after emerging from the holding cells. They were in shorts, music was playing, and two quarts of Black Label were opened. Kenneth could make out songs by Stevie Wonder, Chicco, and Brenda Fassie. After smoking a Lexington and pouring some beer into a mug that someone brought him, he said: “What’s the hustle? I can do with some spare cash.” Dawood took out a half-smoked zol and patted his jacket pocket for a match, said: “We’re on a different move. We’re giving stealing a break for now. Tell him, Ben-boy. We are joining the fight for equal rights.” Ben-boy said, “We hooked up with some young comrades from Glendale. We’re helping them.”
“Guys, wait, wait!. You got me puzzled. Where did this come from?” Dawood struck the match and sucked on the skyf; the flame died and a red glow formed on the tip of the zol.
“I know. We’re not into politics,” Ben-Boy said.
“Speak for yourself, Ben-Boy. I am always into one-love. Equal rights,” Dawood said.
“Dawood, are you Muslim or Rasta?” Ben-Boy asked and took the spliff that Dawood held out.
“Why not both?” Dawood said. “Or one day a not-practising Muslim and another day a Rastafarian. Or maybe I’m just a lover of reggae music,” he grinned, and somehow his missing front teeth made him seem even more cheerful.
“Anyway,” Ben-Boy went on. “I met Nazima Hendricks at the supermarket several weeks ago. She was the sister of Rehana, who was at school with me. Nazima was on my case. She said the lighties at her school were protesting against separate development and a junior parliament for the coloured’s –God’s stepchildren. Why didn’t we join them? I just laughed and gave her my number. I didn’t even think about it again.”
KK was listening intently. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dawood get up to fiddle with the cassette: eject, flip, reinsert.
“But then she came to Fynbos Road one afternoon the following week. A boy called Pedras accompanied her. They said they needed people to help them. Ones who could go out late at night to drop pamphlets. Ones who can wake up early on big protest days to burn tyres and drag skips into the road. Barricades. You see, most of their group were young girls. Or young boys still under the parents’ apron strings – and who get a whipping if they are out too late at night.”
By now, the doobie had moved around and reached KK. He inhaled deeply, bringing back the red glow to the tip. Dawood said: “Aweh, that Hendricks girl is powerful.” He held his palm out to signal three-quarters of his height: “She’s only this tall. She speaks in a soft voice. But she’s got pluck. And the way she talks about freedom, it’s like she can smell it!”
Kenneth said: “Hey, I know the Boers are bad news and I hate apartheid. I stay in a squatter camp, after all. But I dunno about fighting them.”
Dawood said, “Are you yellow? It can’t be. When we were on the Coke depot mission, I could see you don’t skrik (take fright) for anything.”
“All I’m saying is – if you have a catty (slingshot) and you’re up against someone with a rifle, you’ll be stuffed,” KK said. “You’ll bleed first – and bleed more than them. In the end, you’ll backpedal. And things will go back to how they were before.”
Dawood exhaled smoke and then laughed: “Hey, KK. What about David and Goliath? He was sitting alongside KK on an old car seat that served as a couch. As he handed the ciggy to KK, he squeezed his shoulder.
“Look,” said Ben-Boy. “You may be wrong or you may be right. I don’t know. We’re just helping this Hendricks girl out for a week or two. Doing something for the community, man.”
“Then what?” asked KK, speaking as much to himself as the others.
Ben-Boy pointed at KK: “Now that’s a better question!”
He looked at each of the lads in turn. “I’m not sure. But we have to figure something out. Kleintjie, maybe you can go back to school.” Kleintjie let out an exaggerated groan and shook his head: “Not a damn!”
Ben-Boy ignored him and went on: “But the rest of us, we have to make a plan. Maybe we do a big hit, take the money, and start an operation selling vegetables up and down the streets, in places like Retreat or Lavender Hill. I dunno.”
The last of the zol had been smoked. Kleintjie opened a window and waved to clear the air. “If anyone has a better idea, spit it out,” said Ben-Boy. The three remained silent. KK leaned his head forward, holding his forehead against his hand. For the umpteenth time, his eyes followed the pattern on the vinyl mat in the backyard dwelling.
***
Nazima came carrying a box, Pedras in tow, holding another. It was dusk, and they went around to the backyard rooms at Fynbos Road. Ben-Boy opened the door and let them in. Pedras said, pointing to Kenneth: “Who’s he?”
“He’s Kenneth. He’s with us,” Dawood said. Pedras shook his head. “He should go outside. This is serious stuff.” KK walked up to the boy and said, “What’s your problem?” They glared at each other. “How do we know you are not ‘the system,'” Pedras said. Ben-boy and Nazima spoke almost at the same time. Ben-boy said: “Sit down, KK. I’ll deal with this.” Nazima said: “Pedras!”
Pedras stepped back, and KK slowly sat on the car seat again. Ben-boy pushed his chair over and sat on a crate that he pulled from under the bed. He pushed another to Pedras. “Let’s start again,” Ben-boy said. Kenneth is one of us. In our game — with some of the moves we’ve pulled — we have to have trust. Otherwise, I would be in jail.”
He turned to Pedras: “I trust him more than I trust you.” Nazima held up her hand. “Pedras, if Ben-boy is okay with Kenneth, so am I.” She stuck out her hand to KK, shaking it. “All good, Kenneth. Welcome on board.” Kenneth managed a crooked smile.
“Welcome to the gig,” said Dawood with a grin, his front teeth gap adding an extra bit of joviality, mocking the formalities.
Nazima opened the box, ploughed her hand in and showed them the pamphlet. She pulled it back so she could read from it: “Now is the time for the community to stand together. The learners of Glendale High call on the community to support them.. We are taking a stand. We will never support a dummy parliament …”
She paused. “That’s the gist. Important to know what you’re handing out. Even if you’ll just be putting them in post-boxes or dropping them at train stations,” Nazima said.
She conducted the business and told them the protest action was a day or two away. She told the Fynbos boys they should be ready. Nazima ended by looking at each one directly. “Let’s go around and check? Each one of you,” she looks at each one for a few seconds, “You know why we are doing this?” Dawood said, “Equal rights. As Bob Marley says, One love and justice.” Kleintjie said nothing, just nodded. Ben said, “You students are doing a good thing. It’s not my thing, but we support what you’re trying to do.” KK, who at first said nothing, said “I agree.”
***
Marasta watched to see what would happen with Kenny after his stint in the holding cells. In the week that followed, he helped (as usual) by day at the spaza shop. At night, he either stayed in or went down the road to a friend with the Fiat Uno; they opened the bonnet, shared a beer, and checked the revs. Now and again, they even took out old buckets, a brownish mutton cloth, and a torn-up t-shirt, and washed them. Then, sporadically, there was the drinking spree. On the days Marasta paid him for helping in the spaza shop, he burrowed deeper into the Skwatsha informal settlement. She knew he would be at a shebeen. He would quaff several quarts of beer and gamble away much of his pay. By the middle of the next week, he often borrowed money from her. He was neither a good boy nor a bad boy, she thought. Well, on many days, he showed his good side, helping in the yard, caring for her, and chatting to her about what she planned to do in the yard the next day. He was meandering, just drifting. And that was the problem. The townships and informal settlements swallowed up young boys. If Kenneth didn’t want to sink, it was up to him and her to keep him from drowning. What could he do? What could she do? The boy would be okay as long as he kept stepping (careening, lurching?) in some direction … as long as he had something in his heart that kept him hoping.
Marasta woke Kenneth that Saturday. He groaned and turned from facing the wall. “Okay, okay,” he croaked. She stepped out and lit the Primus stove. She tapped the coffee can, Koffiehuis Full Roast, and as the kettle hissed away, poured spoonsful directly into it. Kenneth stumbled into the kitchen cum living area. He had pulled on creased khaki pants. Marasta gave him a cup and sat next to him on the bench against the kitchen’s corrugated iron wall. “Can’t we get Jele to stand in for me today? I’m not feeling too good.”
Marasta could see that his eyes looked pretty small. In the corners were red streaks. “Ja, I can see. Headache?” she said. “I heard you come in in the early hours.”
Kenneth said nothing. He held his head. “I can get Jele to stand in.” “That’s not the problem,” she stood up and went to a small cupboard in the corner. She returned with three white pills in her hand. She handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said. She knew he knew what she meant when she talked about ‘the problem.’
She lectured him many times about binge drinking; she warned him about staying till late at drinking holes and then walking home through lanes where shadows danced as the wind whistled between the shacks. “Anything could happen. You needn’t be the cause, Kenny,” she had once told him. “All you need to do is be careless, not have your wits.” But now she just said, “You need to think about what you want to do with your life.” She watched as he swallowed the Paracetamol, using the coffee to flush it down. “Eish Mama. It is too early for that.” She stood and stared at him. He looked up, a small, broken smile on his face. “Maybe, I’ll go job-hunting on Monday. Or even go to church. Maybe I can find a girlfriend there.” She simply clicked her tongue and turned. She needed a cup of the strong coffee as much as him.
***
Kenneth arrived to bring back the remaining pamphlets, as agreed. He could take it to Nazima as he had his buddy’s Uno. He knocked on the door and she opened it. The room had been a veranda, but had now been closed in. It was longish and narrow, with a bed and a cupboard.
“Is this your house?” KK asked.
“No. But my parents have gone on Umrah; a kind of mini visit to Mecca. So I am staying with my sister Sali.” Nazima added. “This is where I doss. I have to make my bed properly every day as visitors walk past here to get into the rest of the house.”
Kenny looked around and nodded. It crossed his mind that, starting that afternoon, he had slugged back quite a few cans of beer and some cane; he wondered if he reeked.
Nazima took the box with leaflets. “We can use these today. I’ve got a few spots I can hit ‒ the waiting room at the social work office and the clinic, for example.”
She gestured to the bed with its eiderdown – a floral patterning of dark and light blue colours – and he sat down. “I have been meaning to talk to you, comrade.”
“Hey, I’m not a comrade, you know that. You are the comrade.” Kenny said, leaning back and pointing his finger at her.
“Okay. I’ll say KK, then. In the last two weeks, when I came to drop off pamphlets, I could see you have been hitting the bottle. What’s that about?”
He said: “It’s just a dop (quick drink) now and again. It’s not a big deal.” In that moment of uneasiness — aside from his Ma, no one had ever questioned him about his drinking. he gave a forced smile and scratched the side of his head. Nazima looked him directly in the eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t want to preach to you. But it was more than a drop or two – and you know it. Be straight with me.” He kept quiet, turning his eye to the curtain. He turned back to look at her. “You are preaching,” he said and tried to make it lighter by smiling. “You can’t judge someone until you know something about their life.”
On Nazima’s encouragement, Kenny told her about living in the informal settlement where one day flowed into another, where a youth like him had nothing to look forward to in the next week or next month. He told her about trying to study, his plan to be a mechanic, and how that plan bombed out. “Why not study again? Going to study at a Technikon is free,” she said, looking into his eyes. He stared at the green and brown linoleum mat. Silence. She said: “So what’s the problem?”
He shifted a little on the bed and scratched a spot on his head just behind the ear. He said: “It’s free, but I would still need taxi fare, money for books, and a few rands a day for a fat cake or a packet of slap chips. My Mama said she would help, but it will be tough on her.” Nazima remained silent, looking at him. KK went on: “But, hey, maybe you are right. The problem is me. It was hell at the Technikon. Don’t wanna go through that again.”
Nazima asked: “What else can you do?” His answer was a shake of his head. In the silence that followed, he stood up to leave. At the door, she touched the sleeve on his upper arm and said: “We’ll talk again. Think about what I said.”
The car door squeaked a little as he opened it. Sitting and holding the steering wheel with both hands, he felt the cold seat through his pants. He was a little irritated by Nazima, confronting him like that. Who did she think she was? Yet the conversation left a small glow inside. He remembered what Marasta told him. “When you pay attention to a plant, just noticing it or even talking to it, it grows.” He thought: “She checks me out; she doesn’t want me to mess up. But doesn’t she know – very little grows in the sandy soul of Skwatsha.
The car engine sprang to life as he turned the key, and he imagined Nazima listening just inside the closed front door.
***
This was the second time the barricades had been burned since the boys joined the youthful protestors in Glendale. News of the first had popped up on the local radio station, on the traffic programme. “There is a service delivery protest on … road. Tyres are burning. Motorists are advised to use alternative routes.” That one had forced traffic to detour, drew a small crowd of locals, but ended as the obstacles were cleared away, first by police and then by taxi drivers wanting to get through. The people gathering were left to guess what the issue was about. Dawood, wearing his trademark beanie, was there. “Aweh. People have many things to be gatvol about,” he said.
On this day, a Thursday, it started early again. Many youths gathered and joined what seemed to have started spontaneously. The spontaneous ignition was, in fact, the Fynbos boys who had set three tyres across the street. They had also pulled a skip over from a refuse corner a few streets away. The paraffin they had doused on the tyres eagerly plopped into flames. The more combustible material in the skip lit up in a woosh and was still burning. This smoke was sure to call them them being the Boers or as Dawood would say, the ‘downpressor man,’ summoning them to take note that the people had had enough; that the people were in a fighting mood. Now, other youth brought more obstacles into the street. Ben-boy, Dawood, Kleintjie, and KK had disappeared and now returned to the scene to join, looking like innocent bystanders drawn into the mayhem. Ben-Boy went to talk to some school students who stood in a group, chanting. “No to fake parliaments,” they chorused. “No to apartheid.” Kenneth ran over to help some youths who were rolling a tyre into the street. It was already streaked with paraffin. He drew the box of matches from his back pocket and flicked a cigarette in. Cars hooted and reversed on either side of the burning obstruction.
The special forces and the riot police arrived. There were no sirens, only a rumbling from the wheels of their vehicles. The brown hulks trundled up in a single file, but with the first three drawing abreast as they came close to the obstructions. Kenneth looked at the squadron of armoured vehicles that everyone knew as Hippos, with narrow rectangular windows and firing portals and, in the case of one or two, with small turrets on top. They were like giant insects, ready to squirt poisonous goo.
Kenneth and Dawood were part of the crowd that picked up and hurled rocks at the first two armoured cars that pulled up. A trooper stuck his head out of the turret of the middle vehicle, a megaphone close to his lips. The student chanting had started up again. Kenneth couldn’t hear well but assumed the megaphone message was a command to disperse. Seconds later, an armoured vehicle shot a projectile which hissed out white smoke where it landed on one side of the street. Teargas! People ran helter-skelter, some dashing behind houses and others across the street. Kenneth was breathing hard. He had dashed across the road and was lifting stones from yards nearby. His arm threw far and hard; he watched as his rock clunked off the Hippo and a helmeted trooper ducked back in. The next moment, Kenny felt a searing pain, and his legs buckled under his body. His hand snaked to his body, clutching somewhere. Then: darkness.
***
Maratsa heard the voices before she saw them — a cluster of students gathering at her gate. She recognised some of them in their green-and-white school uniforms, with Nazima among them, and watched as they began to move into the yard, respectfully finding places to sit or stand. She breathed deeply, strengthening herself for the emotions she knew these young faces and their words of care would stir up.
Jele came with some logs and crates, offering them as makeshift seats. A few students stood close to the door. Others drifted into the kitchen-cum-front room — young women, most of them wearing SRC badges. They sat around the old Formica table, leaned quietly against the wall, or sat on the three mismatched chairs against one wall. Marasta noticed one of them glance briefly at the little two-plate stove, where her pots, still gleaming from their last wash, remained untouched. Nazima entered and sat beside Marasta.
“I’m Nazima. I knew Kenneth; he was such a brave and kind boy,” she said gently. Marasta shook her hand.
And then — as if drawn from some deep place inside them — the singing started. “We shall overcome…” Their voices lifted in that familiar tune, unsteady at first, then steadying. It held everyone together. It seemed to rise like a prayer. Marasta pressed her knuckles lightly against her lips.
Pedras gave a small cough at the doorway, nodding to Nazima. Nazima rose and went to stand next to him at the threshold. She stood taller and began to speak, using her meeting voice. “Ma Gamede, we, the students from Glendale High and the SRC, are here to express our sadness for your loss and to stand with you, Ms Gamede. Let’s start with a moment of silence.”
Marasta could see her lips moving but missed some of the words; it was only as the yard hushed that she fully understood. The silence was deep. Raw. Looking at Nazima again, she saw a tear slip quietly down the girl’s cheek. The sight of it undid something inside her.
“Thank you,” Nazima said.
Pedras stepped forward. “Ms Gamede, we are here to show our solidarity. We are here to bring you strength. Kenneth … KK, as some call him, should never have died.”
Marasta bowed her head. She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief, pressing it to her eye. A hand rested gently on her shoulder — Nazima’s. The young girl stood beside her, steady, warm. Marasta blew her nose softly, and when she looked up, Nazima was still there, eyes full of compassion.
Nazima called on another student to speak. “They use guns to stop our protests,” the girl said. “We demand justice. They cannot kill our spirits.”
Although Marasta was grateful for the fire in the young woman’s voice, the words barely reached her. Her mind was elsewhere—one moment, a memory of Kenneth flickered through her thoughts; the next, she was wondering what to do next. The sight of so many young faces only deepened her sense of loss. She felt again that void, lodged somewhere deep within.
“Do you want to say anything, Ma?” Pedras said to her. Marasta first shook her head, wondering if she could say anything beyond a mumbled thank you. But then, slowly, she stood up shakily, her resolve steadying her trembling legs. “Thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. Your words and your visit will help me to carry this heavy loss.” She brushed away a tear. “Thank you.”
Marasta watched as Pedras stepped forward and, drawing things to a close, said, “Thank you, everyone.” The students began filing out, one by one. Some lingered outside the gate, waiting. One or two girls came to shake Marasta’s hand; she managed a faint nod and an even fainter smile, murmuring her thanks. As she returned to the kitchen table, her body felt slow, as though she were trudging through water. Nazima shifted the chair so Marasta could sit next to her. Nazima’s voice was gentle: “We loved Kenneth.”
Then Pedras returned, sticking his head in. “You coming? We’re heading off to the planning meeting. We also have to pick a rep for the Committee of Schools.”
Nazima turned to look at him, then back at Marasta. “You go ahead. All of you go ahead,” she said. “I’m staying with Ma Gamede.”
Marasta felt Nazima taking her by the arm. The two walked to the small bedroom and sat down. “Can I make you a cup of tea?” she said, adding: “Tell me what to do.” Marasta gave a slight nod.
Marasta felt Nazima take her by the arm. The two of them walked to the small bedroom and sat down. “Can I make you a cup of tea?” Nazima asked, adding, “Just tell me what to do.” Marasta gave a slight nod. It was something, this tea, this child’s warmth. It was enough for now.
- The Way He Went - June 17, 2025
- Lalla Saves The Day - February 23, 2025
