No Turning Back (2 page)

B
P…SHELL…HONDA…COCA-COLA…Signs in front of garages and great boxlike metal, brick and concrete buildings flashed by on either side. Stretching his neck, Sipho saw people milling through gates and doorways. It reminded him of when Ma was working. Her pay from working at the cafe hadn’t been much, but with payday every Friday, his stepfather wasn’t always so angry then. As long as he got his beer money. Even so, they had argued. Like when Ma needed extra money for Sipho’s school uniform. But the really bad rows started when Ma got big with the baby and the cafe owner sacked her. Then there was no more regular money on Fridays. Perhaps if she had still been working, he wouldn’t have been running away now…

Suddenly the driver swerved and swore as another taxi pulled out in front of them. The passengers bumped against each other, and the old lady opposite was jolted into talking.

“Why is there still so much fighting, my children? We see death every day.”

He was relieved that the old lady’s gaze had shifted away from him. She was the oldest person there and seemed to be talking to no one in particular.

“It’s very true, Mama,” answered the man in the blue smock. “There’s nowhere safe nowadays.”

“My head is too old to understand all this,” the old lady continued, shaking her head. “Why is brother killing brother?”

His mother used those exact words too. Brother killing brother.

A smart-looking woman in a black suit with a small brown case on her lap turned to the old lady. “Let’s hope the elections will bring us peace, Mama. When everyone makes their cross on the paper, there should be no need for fighting anymore.”

The old lady sighed heavily, her face so creased with deep lines that it looked to Sipho like bark on a very old tree.

“Did you hear what Mr. Mandela said on TV last night?” asked the man in the blue smock.

“He talks like a president even now,” said a voice from the row behind.

As more people joined in, Sipho only half listened. He needed to see where he was going. The
garages and factories had given way to a mixture of shops and houses of different shapes and sizes. There were no shacks here. The early-morning sun shone on bright white walls and red roofs of houses, all with gardens and pavements between them and the tarmac streets. Not like the township, where lots of houses and shacks spilled right onto the dusty, stony roads. Springing up ahead, a mass of buildings reached upward to the sky. One was taller and slimmer than all the others. Sipho recognized the concrete drum with the saucer eyes. The tower slipped from view, and Sipho’s fingers tightened their grip on his seat.

“Short left! Hillbrow!”

The man who had taken Sipho’s fare signaled to him. The taxi jerked and whined as the driver pulled in to the left. Trying not to step on feet or packages, Sipho squeezed his way out of the taxi. He could feel the old lady’s eyes on his back. The sliding door wasn’t even closed behind him before the vehicle was hurtling off on its way to the city center.

Standing at the corner where he had alighted, he tried to take in where he was. Traffic was coming from all directions, and the smell of gasoline was almost overpowering. Didn’t Gogo speak about good country air, saying that town
air had poison? Perhaps this was what she had meant.

“Move over!”

A large hand pushed him roughly to one side.

“You’ll make us late for work!”

Another taxi had pulled up at the corner, with people clambering out. Within seconds it had swung back out into the road. Sipho looked around to see which way he should go. It could be any way. Apart from a garage opposite him, all around were tall buildings with the sun glinting in glass windows high above. The streets were lined with shops, and street sellers were setting up stalls along the pavement. Close by, a woman sitting on a blanket was laying out plastic plates with an orange, apple and banana on each. In between were small piles of sweets. Feeling in his pocket, he pulled out the remaining coins. Ma’s purse had been filled with coins that weren’t worth much. There was a one-rand coin, which he put back in his pocket. Offering all the others, which came to ninety-seven cents, he was allowed to take one of the piles.

Unwrapping the sweet, which was brightest red, Sipho savored its cherry flavor. Why not go down this street? There was no need to hurry now. Where would he hurry to? No one knew him, and he knew no one. All he knew was what his friend Gordon had told him. Children lived
on the streets here. Gordon had been to Hillbrow and seen them asking for money and doing jobs. That way they got something to eat. Well, if they could do it, so could he. And if he was lucky, some of them might be friendly too.

He walked slowly, examining the shop windows on the way. In a furniture shop he gazed at a mattress marked R475. Almost 500 rand just for a mattress! Ma had struggled to find twenty rand to buy his old one from the man who sold goods from his cart. Behind the mattress was a chest of drawers marked R600. This place was expensive. At home they used cardboard boxes for their clothes. Next door at the shoe shop, Sipho gave up checking the prices and just studied the designs. Would those white kung fu shoes fit him, he wondered? He could picture himself in a full kung fu outfit. Imagine if he was the strongest boy in the world! His stepfather would never dare to hit him then.

These shops were quite different from the local township ones, where everything was stuffed together into one small place. Nearly every shop here had something different…clothes…electrical things…medicines…even a shop just for books. But it was a window full of cameras that held the best surprises. The lenses stared out at Sipho like detectives behind dark glasses. If only Gordon was here! He knew a lot
about cameras because his uncle was a photographer. Sometimes the two of them pretended to take funny shots of each other. What if they had that camera with the long fat lens? Trying to imagine what it would be like to hold, as if he was a real photographer, he stepped backward, not noticing the body that lay near the shop entrance under a blanket.

“You blerry fool!”

The body propped itself up as Sipho almost tripped over it. To his amazement, under the blanket and a mop of bushy, matted hair was a man with a red, heavily bearded face! It was definitely a white man.

“Why don’t you blerry look where you’re going?” the man growled.

Backing away and saying “Sorry,” Sipho quickly walked on, but then turned back to look again. The man was clutching his blanket and rolling over. Lots of black people had nowhere to sleep, but didn’t all white people have houses? Gordon had talked about
malunde,
boys like him, who were street children. He hadn’t said anything about white people sleeping on the streets.

From the other side of the road, in big red letters, a sign beamed out FUN AND GAMES! Although he could see the place was barred up, Sipho crossed the road and tried to peer through
the bars. Inside, it was dark, but he could make out that there were machines with blinking lights.

“Do you like those kind of games?” said a voice.

Looking up, Sipho saw a white man with a pale face and a black mustache smiling at him. The man was laying out shirts and jeans on a table in front of the next-door shop. Not sure what to say, Sipho nodded.

“You must be careful you don’t spend all your money on them!” warned the man, whose mustache hung down a little below each side of his mouth.

Sipho nodded again. The man didn’t sound angry, but he sounded like a teacher. That could mean trouble. Although Sipho wanted to look longer at the machines, he turned and set off quickly.

The streets were filling up with people. Waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, Sipho took note of the cars passing by. Some were very sleek and shiny. Like the shimmering pale blue Benz turning the corner, which suddenly pulled up in the next block. As if from nowhere, two boys of about Sipho’s age appeared, one on the pavement, the other in the road, and began directing the driver into a parking space. They whirled their hands and pointed as the car
moved backward and forward, finally coming to a halt. Crossing the road, Sipho stopped nearby and watched as a lady with light brown hair tumbling around her face got out of the car. She ignored the boy on the pavement, who had raised the palm of his hand. He wore an old gray track top with a hood covering his head.

“I’ll do the meter myself,” she said.

Carefully she studied the writing on the machine by the road before putting in her coins, turning and clicking the metal key after each one. Finally she fumbled in her bag and placed a coin in the hands of the boy with the hood.

“See you look after it nicely,” she said, sweeping a glance at both boys before swinging her bag over her shoulder and hurrying off down the road.

The boy with the coin showed it to the other. It looked like ten cents from where Sipho stood. He was wondering if he should speak to them, when the boy who had been in the road came toward him. He was the larger of the two and was wearing what looked like an oversized brown army jacket. His nose was running a little, and he used his sleeve to wipe it.

“I see you’ve been watching us,” he said. His voice was rather low and rough.

“Heyta, buti!”
Sipho offered his greeting a little nervously. “I’m new in this place.”

“Where do you come from?” asked the boy with the hood. Sipho told them he had set off that morning from the township.

“What made you come?” asked the army-jacket boy.

“It’s bad there,” said Sipho. “I can’t stay at my home.”

He didn’t say how he had taken the money from his mother’s purse. He wanted to forget that, and they didn’t ask. But they didn’t seem surprised by what he said.

“I need to earn money. Is it hard?” he asked.

“It’s best by Checkers. When you push
amatrolley
for the shoppers they give you money or they give you something to eat,” said the boy with the hood.

“Sometimes they give you nothing and you can starve,” said the other abruptly.

Tilting his head back, he looked at Sipho through half-closed eyes and added, “Do you like to eat cats?”

Taken aback by this question, Sipho made a face.

“Don’t worry. He’s only joking,” giggled the boy with the hood. He turned to his friend.

“Hey, Joseph, it must be you that’s eating cats! You finished all the cats in Soweto and now you want to start in Hillbrow!”

Joseph swung out his arm to catch the boy
with the hood, but he was already out of reach, calling out to Sipho to follow.

“We’ll take you to Checkers. Then you can see for yourself how it is!”

J
abu, the boy with the hood, said that Checkers wasn’t far. Sipho offered his sweets. Jabu immediately popped one into his mouth, but Joseph pocketed his, taking out a small cigarette stump instead, which he lit. He inhaled vigorously a couple of times, letting out the smoke through his nose, before offering the
stompie
to Sipho. Still sucking his sweet, Sipho shook his head. He did smoke occasionally with Gordon, even though it made him cough.

Whenever a sports car passed them, Jabu called out its name or a comment. He seemed to know the makes of all the cars. When a red open-top BMW passed them, he whistled so loudly that the passengers turned and looked at him, half frowning, half amused.

“Be My Wife!” Jabu shouted behind them.

Grinning, he continued chattering about cars…which was fastest, which was the best and which he would like. Although Joseph
sometimes joined in, Sipho noticed that he was quieter and not so ready to smile as Jabu.

A loose collection of boys was spread out near the supermarket. A couple stood outside a shop with bread and cakes in the window. When someone came out of the shop, each boy held out an open palm. Another boy was pushing a cart and another was loading boxes into a car. Two others were leaning against the glass front of the store, talking. Jabu led Sipho across to them. They seemed a bit older than the others, and the one on the left was very tall. He wore a red peaked cap, which he shifted slightly to one side over his narrow face as he looked at Sipho.

“This is Sipho,” said Jabu. “It’s his first day in Hillbrow. He was looking for Checkers.”

The tall boy asked the same questions about where he had come from and why. When Sipho finished explaining, he just said, “That’s okay.” The boy next to him remained silent throughout. A scar ran down the side of his cheek, and his eyes were fixed on a spot just past Sipho’s face. Sipho felt his stomach crimp a little.

Walking away, Jabu revealed that Lucas, the tall boy, was the leader in their gang. If Lucas agreed, Sipho could walk around and sleep with their group. Sipho looked worried.

“How will he choose?” he asked.

“He’ll watch to see if you make trouble. If there are fights, he’ll say you must go.”

For a second Sipho felt his heart might begin its full puppy-tail thumping again. It would be scary, sleeping on the streets on your own. With others around it wouldn’t be so bad. He wouldn’t start any fights, but what if someone started a fight with him? Some of the boys looked a lot bigger than him. Jabu seemed to read his thoughts.

“You’ll be fine with Lucas,” he said. “But just watch out for Vusi, the one with the scar.”

Before Sipho had time to ask what he meant, Jabu led the way inside the supermarket.

“Sometimes they chase us like dogs. But other times they let us right in.”

He took Sipho toward a cash register. “Watch me,” he whispered.

There were packers helping the customers load their carts at the cash registers. A lady was ready to leave, and Jabu moved forward.

“Ma’am?” he offered, putting a hand out toward the cart.

The lady shook her head with a frown, almost knocking him with the cart. Jabu jumped back. A man was next in the line. Sipho thought he too would dismiss Jabu, but instead he let the boy take the cart from him and push it out. Jabu winked across at Sipho as he left.

Sipho stood back for a minute, looking into
the shop. Here were white people, black people, everybody. It was like that outside, but suddenly, inside the shop, he noticed it more. In the township there were hardly any white people. Except, of course, for some of the police and soldiers. In their tanks, like monsters with evil eyes and mouths, he had seen them crashing through the township streets—even into people’s yards. It had shocked him because on the farm with Gogo he had never seen such monstrous machines. When the police had come to the farm, it was always in a car or truck. There was always at least one white police officer who would lead the way into the house to talk in private with the white farmer. But it was never long before one of the house servants would slip out to warn Gogo and the other farm workers of the reason for the visit.

At one of the checkouts, a small fair-haired boy was crying to his mother that he wanted “sweeties.” His face had the same kind of light brown freckles that reminded Sipho of Kobus, the farmer’s son. He and Kobus had played together when they were smaller. Even when Sipho started working in the garden and doing jobs for the Missus, Kobus would come and hurry him to finish the work. They would run off to play soccer or climb trees by the dried-up waterfall. Sometimes they raced each other past
the mealie fields along the stony paths up to a hideout they had made on a hill. Sitting together panting, they would look down at what was happening on the farmland below and plan their games for the hideout. But if Kobus’s mother saw them, she would scold her son for stopping Sipho from doing his work properly. Then the time for playing got less. After the long walk back from the one-room school where he went with other workers’ children, Sipho had to spend most afternoons working in the fields. Kobus was sent away to boarding school. When he came back they didn’t play anymore, even on Sundays when Sipho didn’t have to go to the fields.

Scanning the customers by the checkouts, Sipho saw that black and white were lining up together in whatever order they had arrived. That had never happened at the country store where Gogo bought provisions once a month. Whites didn’t often go there, but if they did, they were always served first. Sometimes he had gone along with Kobus to buy sweets. The Indian shopkeeper would greet Kobus by name and ask him about his father and the family, while Sipho hovered by the door, hoping Kobus would choose some of his favorite sweets as well.

“Still here?”

Jabu was back already. Sipho grinned, feeling
a little sheepish. Caught dreaming! Just like at school!

“You have to move sharp if you want a job,” said Jabu.

Jabu kept his eyes trained on the registers, and before long he was again in charge of a cart. Sipho gave himself a little shake, determined to follow Jabu’s lead. The lady with the little boy who had been crying for sweets was paying and about to leave. The child, with a package of sweets in his hand, had slipped through the checkouts and was beginning to dart around the front of the shop.

“Robbie! Come back here!” his mother called sharply.

But the little boy took no notice, and as the mother let go of the cart to get him by the hand, Sipho stepped forward to take hold of the cart.

“All right! You can take it to the car for me,” said the woman.

“I want to push the cart!” announced the little boy.

Sipho couldn’t help smiling as the child eased himself out of his mother’s grip and struggled to reach the handlebar. He pushed the cart slowly so the little boy didn’t trip. The car was parked up the hill, and when they reached it Sipho helped unload the packages, then stood waiting by the cart as the mother put the child into the
car, strapping him into a special seat. With her back to Sipho, she looked in her bag before turning around and holding out a twenty-cent coin.

“You were very helpful,” she said with a smile.

Sipho bobbed slightly in thanks as she dropped the coin into his open palm. It wouldn’t buy much, but it was the first coin he had earned in Hillbrow! He was learning fast! He didn’t wait to see the car drive off, but quickly wheeled the cart back down the hill, ready to find another customer.