Triangulum. Masande Ntshanga

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СКАЧАТЬ at home. My aunt won’t be back until late.”

       November 9, 1999

      Tata came out of his room for breakfast the following Saturday, which surprised me and my aunt, although she was careful not to draw attention to that surprise. The three of us gathered in the kitchen, where she ladled sour porridge into his bowl and scrambled us eggs with Bisto and bell peppers. Tata seemed stronger that day, even sociable—willing to talk.

      “I’ve been taking the medicine,” he smiled, as Doris placed a mug of tea next to his plate. “Haven’t you heard how quiet it’s been?”

      It hadn’t been quiet. Tata couldn’t remember his coughing anymore.

      The fits now took a different course, assaulting him an hour or two into sleep. Last night he’d woken me up again, but the coughing stopped before I’d had the time to knock on his door. My aunt had slept through it.

      I watched her pull on the sleeves of her bathrobe. “I’m full,” I said.

      “No, you’re not.” Her back was turned to us. “Ever since I got here, all I’ve seen you do is pick at whatever we eat. There’s bread you’ve left moldering in that cupboard.”

      “I don’t like porridge.”

      “Have your eggs, then.” Doris dropped a plate of toast in front of me. Then she lifted my wrist and circled it with her thumb and middle finger. “Have you seen yourself? You’re a stick.”

      “Leave her be.” Tata was bent over his tea and quieter now. He didn’t look up. “The child said she’s not hungry. Why don’t you let her eat when she wants?”

      My aunt didn’t release me. She drew in a breath, but didn’t concede. “You’re telling me this is normal, Lumkile? This child is underfed.”

      Tata shrugged, seeming to lose his strength again. “Her mother was the same. The two of them, built like birds.” Then he turned to me, pushing his tea aside. “Have as much as you can and then you can go out.”

      I pulled my arm back from my aunt and made a sandwich with the toast and eggs, biting into it without taste.

      I took my SSRIs in the bathroom, using warm water from the basin, pulled on my backpack, and left.

      I held back tears as I weaved through the library aisles, a heat at the base of my throat, my eyes gliding across the spines without reading them. I found a seat at the desks with the newspapers, resting my head on my arms until my eyes dried. It was close to midday when I got up again. In the aisle with the hardcover book on UFOs, I closed my eyes and felt for it, hoping I could be drawn in and lost in whatever lived inside it. The library closed at 1 p.m. on Saturday. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering in town, wanting to be alone, waiting until I knew that Tata was in his room and Doris was visiting her friends in Club View.

      I thought of going to the Musica at the mall, but the bass from the loud gospel music made me feel nauseated, and the men behind the counter were known for pushing up against our school uniforms after school. I didn’t want that. I was alone and knew no one. So I went to the CNA store. The stationery shop wasn’t well stocked; nothing was well stocked in our town. To make it worthwhile, I had to have a look at everything in the aisles, including the dictionaries. I’d seen most of the glossy magazines. Doris read them—she’d brought along a thick stack with her when she moved in, and each night, she fell asleep with one of them open on her lap. I went to the newspapers instead.

      There was a thin one lying sideways on the top shelf, a tabloid, which reported on a murder trial which had exposed the network of a minor drug syndicate in Cape Town. There was an article on Y2K, and another on how white babies were on sale for adoption at R50,000 a head. A woman said the ghost of her dead ex-husband had forced itself on her, and there was an article on The Phoenix Strangler, who’d been sentenced to more than 500 years for rape and murder.

      I was still reading about him when one of the men from Musica walked in and came to stand next to me, humming. I could smell the sourness of his sweat under his deodorant, and he was smiling, looking down at me. I dropped the tabloid and walked out down another aisle.

      I took a corner table at Munchies, where I ordered a Coke and waited for a slice. I was eating pizza to spite my aunt—the way she’d held my wrist between her fingers and called me a stick. I didn’t want her thinking she knew who I was, even if it made me ill.

      Like this would.

      I looked down at the ground beef. I pierced the lemon slice in the Coke with my straw, pushing it down to the bottom below the ice-cubes, and sucked on it hard enough to make my forehead numb. Then my vision doubled.

      It was possible to forget about Tata, I thought with relief.

      Then I made myself vomit in the public toilets, and walked home.

       RTR: 009 / Date of Recollection: 05.30.2002 / 3 min

      The garage feels like a cardboard box that’s been left out in the sun. The lights don’t work, so I’ve brought a flashlight. I let Part and Litha in, spread an old mattress on the floor, and open a window.

      I drop the package between us, raising a cloud of dust, while the rain makes a soft patter against the panes. Hold on, I think. I find an old rusted cardboard cutter. Holding it close to the blade, I draw a line on the tape sealing the box, from the top to the bottom. It sighs open. There’s another, smaller box inside, with a different address. I open that, too, spilling the contents across the mattress.

      There’s a smooth, rounded stone, and an exercise book with newspaper clippings jutting from the edges. Between Part’s knees lies a locket that’s snapped open, revealing a black-and-white photo of a middle-aged woman. I look at everything on the mattress.

      “I don’t know what to make of this.”

      Part reaches for the locket. “Me neither.”

      I flip through the exercise book. Most of the clippings are still glued to the pages, but some have started to peel, the paper yellowed with time. Then I realize what the headlines all have in common. I look at Litha and Part. “It’s all missing persons.”

      The book slips from my hands and opens to the middle, where I see four articles about the Yugoslav Wars. In one of them, a family credits a strange, glowing presence for its survival. Next to it, there’s an article on post-traumatic stress disorder.

      The three of us go quiet. Litha reaches for the book. “Let me hold on to this.”

      I pick up the smaller box again and look at the address.

       Stanfel Petrović. 10 Jameson Street, Quigney, East London.

      I stop to think. It seems possible.

      I turn to Litha and Part and tell them this is it: “This is the sign I’ve been waiting for. There’s a connection between Kiran and the girls. And I know what to do. I’ll wait for the machine.”

      “And then?” asks Part.

      “If it comes back, then we should start looking for them.”

      “The girls?”

      “The СКАЧАТЬ