 
Kattey's Arrow

Kattey's Arrow

_Cruel journey to her purpose_

Kentse Badirwang

Copyright © 2016 Kentse Badirwang

First edition 2016

Published by Kentse Badirwang at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Edited by Gil Harper for Reach Publishers

Cover hand painted by Loui Lance

Cover designed by Loui Lance

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: reach@webstorm.co.za

#  Acknowledgements

Tsela kgopo ga e latse nageng. I would like to thank God Almighty. You knew me before I was born. You knew my life was destined to be full of pain and sorrow. You knew it was going to be dark, yet you loved me so much that you gave me an arrow with a magical light, as I was born into a dark jungle called life.

To my father, Mr Gabriel Badirwang, thank you for your angelic shadow that boldly intervened when the heavy rains fell on me. To my mother, Mrs Joyce Badirwang, thank you for finally seeing the arrow with its shining light and embracing it. To my siblings, Thapelo Badirwang and Tlhalefang Gaborone, I love you deeply. To the little souls that were sent through to rescue me when death was due – my sons Bontse and Kalifa Badirwang – your profound purpose in my life is spiritual, and a divine testimony, that no one is born without God's plan. I love you and thank you for your continuous encouragement, love and undying support. A special thank you to Dannyboy Mlambo for believing in my manuscript and making it a dream come true.

To everyone who played a role in my journey, may the grace of our good Lord bless you.

This is who I am...

Ke bapo mmina Tlou

Ke thethe kgopi ya matebele, ya kgopa bo rrarona matebele a mogale wa dintwa, a marete maramaga, a ntoto e lebedu

Kentse yo kentseng ke tlhafu ya thaba Bapo

Bapong ya kgosi Mogale

Kokomane ya Mokonyane

Peo ya Legalamitlwa pitsa ya bo rra Badirwang

tau e roduma bophirima, ya tsaya popelo ya Bapo ga nna jalo Ka nna yo Kentseng bophirima le bokone ga bopiwa lerumo la newa tlhabo ya letsatsi a belegwa ka lona a nna yo antseng a bitswa Kentse

Ga nna jalo

#  Contents

Chapter 1. Childhood

Chapter 2. The shows

Chapter 3. Health

Chapter 4. The system

Chapter 5. The ball

Chapter 6. Jozi

Chapter 7. Motherhood

Chapter 8. Abduction

Chapter 9. Death Blows

Chapter 10. New dreams

Chapter 11. The dark horse

Chapter 12. Going up

Chapter 13. Setbacks

Chapter 14. Victory

Chapter 15. I am there

#  One  
Childhood

Her mother, as she had now come to realise, was very pretty. She was getting ready to go to school. Across the dark candlelit room sat her grandmother, whom she was made to understand, after much confusion and explanation, was actually her great-grandmother. A pot of porridge was overflowing on the prima stove and her mother ran to save the situation before her granny could scream at her like she usually did. Kattey almost believed that this was the normal way adults communicated. She could not think of it otherwise. In the humble spiritual space that dominated her great-grandmother, her soft voice came across as very squeaky and lame to the little girl. A few minutes later, the little girl was walking hand in hand with her mother who was rushing, with Kattey, almost in a marathon race, trailing after her. She would drop Kattey off at her primary school who would then stare at her mother disappearing into the narrow road that led to her higher education school. Kattey would also throw her head back to once or twice glance at her mother who always looked weary and tired even though it was that early in the morning.

Having to enter the school gate, Kattey first took time to look at and admire her school dress which was very big and had lots of pins which made sure the dungaree fitted her like that of some American model, throwing her soul on the ramp to land herself a contract that would secure international exposure. Kattey really felt so proud that she was going to school and liked it very much, especially the part when people would praise her and say she was going to be a teacher or nurse someday.

After school she then had to wait for her mother to collect her so they could go home together. Her mother Rejoice had very little time for her as she had so many responsibilities at home. The only time she got for herself was when everything was done and when her great-grandparents had finally resigned to their sleeping chambers. Her great-grandmother, Oumama as she called her, had lots of time, being an old woman with nothing to do but rock in her chair the whole day. Mma Mokgethi had lots of time for Kattey and that was as close as she could get to a woman's chest... or did they call it a hug? After many moons, as Kattey could not figure out how they calculated months, her mother told her that they were moving to a brand new house that both her mother and father had bought. There was a man who looked so much like her, and used to wear a soldier's uniform.

She realised later that he was her father and he looked so young and strong. She did not quite understand what a father meant or how it had a connection with her but she loved the whole idea. When her father, as how she understood him, came to visit, it was always an event. He would bring goodies from the so-called big cities. Kattey promised herself that when she grew up she would, like her dad, go to the big city and get all these nice things that her father usually brought home. She was not sure though if the city was a place that only men went to, as she saw that all the women stayed home and waited for men to come from that miraculous place. She often sat and wondered what kind of a place that was and why it accommodated men only.

One morning she was told that her great-grandmother had died but she did not know what that meant. The whole funeral thing was so sad yet exciting. She saw so many of her relatives from the cities called Johannesburg and Rustenburg. People there had a deep sadness in their eyes but one picture that always haunted her was that of the tears on her mother's face that lasted for days and days, and to this day she still cries when she thinks of that ceremony. Kattey failed to understand why she would cry for somebody who made her life a bit uncomfortable as she remembered. Her mother was now sad but had no one to shout or scream at her anymore. She thought it was okay for her mother to do things at her own pace as she now took over the role of shouting at people and especially at her.

Being that age, she wanted so much to grow up so she could take over the role of shouting from her mother and then pass it on to her own daughter someday. Life was fine as usual and they finally got to the new house. The house was nothing like her late great-granny's four-roomed house. It had what was known as electricity, a bath with running hot water and lots of space. She even had her own room. It was pleasant to stay in that castle although now the distance to school was too much for her. Life was better and her father was now staying with them on a full-time basis. He was a nice and very sweet young man who made her laugh a lot.

Her glory in being the only child did not last long as she now had a male baby sharing or, rather, stealing her limelight. This didn't sit well with her, and she sank into sadness. What a way to wrap acceptance around her little heart.

She was too busy enjoying the new neighbourhood with her funny looking baby brother to even realise that her mother was sick. Her tummy was growing bigger and bigger and she could not understand why this was happening. She noticed how tired and miserable she always was. In her mind, she'd also feel the same if she had to live with such a big tummy day in and day out. One day she got so sick and her dad took her to the clinic. Her mother was there for a couple of days and she really missed her a lot. Why would they not let her see her own mother? That is a question she only got an answer for much later in life. When she finally came home, her tummy was not as ballooned as before and she looked very pale and tired. She observed as she slowly made her way into the house. Her dad was carrying a bundle of something that she could not figure out what it was. The bundle was then put on a bed and her dad was peeping through the little blanket that was covering this thing. She was then called to come and see and, to her shock, saw a small very strange looking human being. She was told that she was her little sister. She did not know what that meant or where she came from. This thing came with no marketing as her baby sister just popped into her life and she was forced to deal with it.

The one night she was alone, next thing her baby brother was there, and now this... she braced herself with possibilities that as she was not involved in the recruitment of the two UFOs, her mother would always procure them in her tummy and go and pick them up. There was nothing she could do to stop this invasion. This process was more of a revolution to her existence and she had to think way beyond her childish mind and strategies about how she was going to end their presence, seeing that she could not stop the process of the actual revolution. Her little sister was born and they were now three and she did not even know what that meant for her in the family. She could not even say she was happy or sad. Kattey found herself in this neutral mode that sang a song of confusion. The latest baby was there and there was nothing she could do about that. Her parents were so happy and spent every moment they could with this new 'bundle of joy'.

Many people came to see the strange baby with a rather big forehead. She was not there as a person any more, as conversations from near and far were all about the baby. Her mother had no time for her and she would always send her on little errands. Her life changed a little bit as she could not go and play anymore. She had to look after her baby brother and was expected to help her mother with the new baby as well, and with this and that too. She slowly but surely had a burning feeling in her chest that always wanted to make her cry. It was so painful to watch her parents play and adore that bundle of the so-called joy. If she had to explain and find words to describe how she felt, it would be plain hatred and envy towards her innocent little brother and new sister. She felt so betrayed by her parents because they did not tell her or prepare her for the life-changing events that had already happened. It was then the beginning of her life, and this carved one of her characteristics of being by herself most of the time.

The intention of being alone was to try to resolve problems or feelings that she could not understand or situations that she could not get herself out of. Kattey had a picture of her little brother's birthday that archived its memory safely in the bottom shelf of her heart where pain ruled. Years went by but that memory was an event that stuck to her mind like the white colour on rice. The gift of an orange tricycle... the cake with his name written on top of it was the cherry on top. Lord knows how badly she wanted to destroy that cake. Her brother was then royalty material for as long as she could remember, and her little sister an oyster in her mother's ocean. Kattey truly believed that she was ugly and ended up blaming her parents for not liking her and for her misery. She felt she deserved it and that was how she came to feel it was okay for bad things to happen to her. Kattey was always in her room and became very fearful of playing with other children, after her duty as a second mother to her siblings was done.

As she grew older, she learned to read and made a new friend. Her friend comforted her greatly and she was always eager to finish her duties to go and be with her friend. Her new friend was reading. She became obsessed with reading and she became a hunter of books in all forms and shapes. She read one book about people with whom she shared the continent with. Another was about a Nigerian country and their strange language: 'Without a silver spoon', a wonderful story of a Nigerian boy who suffered at the hands of poverty, who walked in a dark tunnel of challenges, whose heart burned with the desire to be educated. Kattey got to travel with this boy and fell in love with Africa, promising herself that she would live beyond South Africa someday and get to travel and explore the whole of her motherland, Africa. During her hunting sessions one day, she stumbled upon an old book that was written in simple English that she could by that time understand clearly. It was a book called 'Tajewo and the sacred mountain'. In her head, she thought the Nigerian book glorified her thirst for knowledge and discovery but the Kenyan Maasai existence blew her curiosity dimension and she packed her bags and entered Tajewo's world as a secret agent.

She followed him around from the very first day when the stranger appeared in the forest where he and his friend Meromo had been herding 10 of his father's remaining cattle as the others had slept on the ground, dead from the drought that had stolen the rains from their lands. If she had to have an opportunity to travel, her first trip would be to see the very land in which Tajewo lived. Tajewo was such an amazing boy to whom she could, in some strange way, relate. He spent most of his time in the bush taking care of his father's herd of cattle. When the stranger had finished eating from the gourd that Tajewo had given him, he called the two boys and revealed to them a prophesy that Tajewo had to fulfil by going on a dangerous quest that would end the drought that killed many of his people, and swallowed the godly possession of the Maasai people which was their blessed cattle. Tajewo was, like her, troubled and faced with adult challenges. She felt encouraged by him for as young as the three of them were, they had hearts of lions and did whatever they could to bravely travel the journey of honour.

The challenges might have taken different forms but Kattey found comfort in knowing that there were sacred children like Tajewo and the Nigerian boy who suffered in early childhood and had to bear the heavy emotions of life for a reason. When the world in her home got cruel and the storms tormented her, she would go to her room and draw strength from her warriors of life. She felt like she was blessed to be on Tajewo's quest to the sacred mountain to hold the magic charm and restore the life of his people. To Kattey, she still had to discover and wait for her stranger to come and reveal a prophesy that would complete the answer to her purpose or destiny.

After completing her worthy expedition with Tajewo and Meromo, she left Africa and landed in the 18th century, courtesy of her trip being paid for by Emily Bronte, an amazing English author who captured Kattey's heart and opened up a whole new light burning inside her. The ways and traditions of people living in England, her vast interest came across through the types of movies she would see on television. The stories of royalty surrounding King Arthur's Empire, Robin Hood prince of thieves, and stories told in children's books, the likes of 'Snow white and the seven dwarves' and 'Little red riding hood'. Coming back to her own culture as a young Motswana, she read so many stories webbed in literature at school and mostly in books stolen from her aunts or anybody who would leave them lying around. Kattey thought of it as a weird type of addiction or crime – she was a self-sculptured book thief. She would dwell in thanking Him of many colours (a Maasai description referring to God) for giving her the ability to operate an underground movement of stealing which was not at all punishable by a beating. She was blessed as her strict father would punish any form of stealing with harsh strokes of a belt, tearing the skin of the convicted, but she would not be in a murder trial if a book or two was missing.

What other people considered as useless old books that were stored in garage shelves, was to her like the warrior arrow that Tajewo's brother had proudly surrendered to him a night before he had to leave his father's Inkajijik (Maasai word for a house) and go on his quest to save his people. Observing from her unauthorised entry into 'Wuthering Heights', she lived and studied the characters in the book, reading it again and again until she made up her mind that Heathcliff's plans to revenge the sufferings he was drowned in by his step-brother Hindley, would be the same plans she would use to make her brother and sister disappear into thin air. She spent more and more time in her bedroom, engaging in plots with her mentor Heathcliff who came to Wuthering Heights with nothing and ended up owning it and the one his beloved lover's husband inherited from his late parents. Her lonely life set her apart from her peers and that filled her heart with endless sorrow and like Heathcliff, her revenge plate would be best served cold when the time came.

As she was playing by herself one day, she discovered that her white pair of shorts was full of blood. She was so terrified and did not know what to do or where the blood had come from. She went to the toilet to try and see what had happened. There was no answer or indication as to where the blood had come from. She thought her time had come to eventually go to heaven and join her late great-granny. She did not want to die so she made a brave decision to go and tell her mother of whom she was very afraid. She was devastated to share with her the mysterious blood that painted her pair of shorts like an award-winning painting. She could not speak and tears were streaming down her face as she stood in front of her mother, trying to explain the blood drama. When she finally stopped crying, her mother reacted in a way that took away a chunk of her confidence in terms of approaching people. From that day, she feared having to speak and even had a problem at school when she had to stand in front of a class to recite a poem. She was only 11 years old at the time. Her mother called out to her ancestors, cursing and crying, and asking 'why should this happen to her' of all the mothers in the world. Kattey was stunned and could not get it because the blood thing happened to her, so for her mother to be cursing like that made her so confused.

Standing there for those few minutes felt like the longest time of her short life. Her mother took a deep breath, sat her down and started telling her another confusing episode. Her mother told her that she was a woman now, at age 11, and she was to have her period, as it was called, every month. She was not to play with boys as this would make her have a baby, and when that happened, she guessed that would be the right time to join her great-grandma Mma Mokgethi in heaven. She was to wear a very funny thing called a 'pad' that was to be pasted to her underwear so it could absorb the blood coming out of her body. She was not to play with other girls as she was now a woman, not that she enjoyed playing anyway but... It was amazing how this blood had changed her life in a short space of time.

She did not know how to deal with it. And to this day, she's felt pain from her mother blaming her for being too forward by getting her period early. To her, this was supposed to be a sacred affair but mommy dearest told the whole rainbow nation of her misfortune. If it was in Tajewo's generation back in the Stone Age, she was sure the ntitiriii ntiriiiiiii bird would have flown to Kenya, Nigeria and England and spread the news that their valued revolution member was graced by blood. That's how her mother made her feel – she had indeed hit the media's highest target of breaking international communication barriers. How she felt people's eyes tearing her very skin when she walked past the street from school. Her reasons to be in the house were now profound as this was her safe haven from cruelty that roamed the streets.

When a young girl entered into this blessed passage of womanhood, she was to be honoured as a woman and not shamed for something that is natural. Her brother Kgothatso was always there hanging like a heavy cloud and Kattey was, in a way, used to him. She did not like playing with him because he would distract her from her reading. One day she got ideas from reading Heathcliff's many brilliant strategies of revenge in the sweetest way and realised she could also eliminate the very siblings who made her life hell. It all made sense to her: Her parents would love her, her brother and sister would be dead, or even gone back to whatever planet they had come from and the family would all live happily ever after. She plotted and calculated for days, about how she was going to get rid of her brother and the little 'intelligent girl' as her mother called her little sister. The songs of praises, which sounded like songs of hell to her, would soon come to an end when her master plan unfolded.

She went outside and she did it. Kattey stood there before Kgothatso, with hatred in her heart, her eyes cold as a winter's night and she hit him with a half brick on his head. The brick was in an orange sack and she asked him to close his eyes and stand still. When it hit him, the impact and pressure threw his skinny body to the ground and he cried a bit then kept quiet. A brief sense of relief and excitement rushed through Kattey's body. She had done it – she had finally killed her brother. He lay there motionless as she stared.

What now? She guessed she had not thought of plan B; what would happen after the death part. When it finally sank in, she ran into the house in shock and horror of what she had done. She cried and lied to her mother that it was an accident. Her dad came and she really didn't remember what happened to Kgothatso but, to her disappointment, he did not die. She must have layered the orange sack heavily around the brick. It was painful for her to say that she was not happy to see him alive. Her bitterness and hatred for Kgothatso and her little sister grew even more. They loved him even more and the pampering was now like that of King Arthur the Third. In her own thinking, they resented her even more. She now did not hate only her brother, but she hated her mother too. For some stupid reason, she loved her dad and in his own funny way he loved her too.

Kattey now wanted to get rid of her little brother, sister and mother for good. She learned from one of the characters in her book that revenge needs years and years of planning. She was going to get her revenge one day. She made peace with her little brother being alive but kept herself busy by inflicting pain on both her siblings when she was left to take care of them, burning them here and there. Kattey did that every chance she got. Oh how good it felt. It pleased her to see the burnt marks on her little sister's knee and the sadness on Kgothatso's face for allowing him to be beaten for things he did not do. Kattey's sister Botlhale was praised as a brilliant and pretty child. How her mother knew the child's intelligence level when she was that small, freaked her out even more. Her mother's friend would spend hours worshiping the little brat while Kattey was like a forgotten soldier from World War I.

She swore by now that the baby was hers. She had to prepare her bottles, change her nappies, bathe her and many other tasks. For crying out loud, when she went to sleep at night, she felt like Botlhale should just sleep and never wake up, but she did morning after morning. She made so many mistakes where mommy dearest was concerned. You wouldn't believe how often the "stupid" and "ugly" words were thrown at her face. She actually believed that there was no glimmer of basic intelligence attached to her existence. She cried most of the time and when she could not anymore, a new person was born in her. Kattey was now a grown-up as it was forced upon her. She always went to church, even though she did not believe that God loved all human beings equally because if He did, then she would also be a princess in some queen's castle. God did not love her and that was it, period. They created a picture of a devil at church where she used to attend her bible classes, and she was glad to tell herself the devil himself was no match for the person that she had become. Kattey often seduced herself with the memory of how she went to the stoep (veranda) with Botlhale strapped to her back and untied the cloth with which her mother had pasted her sister to her back and... boom! The sound of baby Botlhale as her head hit the floor, followed by hysteria, was like sweet revenge. She was only a few months old.

Her head got big and swollen at the back, and she was again taken to the sick bay as that's where they all went for medical reasons. If you had to see her denying the whole scene, and blaming her personal assistant, who was hired as a helper at their home, one would say she belonged to some television drama. Kattey looked so innocent and told her parents how Mma Lesiba had done the whole thing and wanted to put the blame on her. She was sorry but that was the life she knew and bad things happened and it is how she lived to know that. The poor lady got fired, and that too comforted her. She was now happy that her friends in her books were really proud of her, as to them she was one intelligent graduate who could get away with anything. She was confident that she would blow up a lie detector test any day and even get away with murder if she practised her new skill hard enough. She grew up physically abusing her siblings in ruthless ways that if she had to write about all of them, one would trace and kill her on contact. For the love of peace, she chose to lock the cruelty in her mind.

It had been four years since she had become a so-called woman. She was like any other human female, developing breasts and pubic hair. No big deal, as she was crowned a woman anyhow. She was becoming a bit pretty and as much as she hated to admit it herself, boys started noticing her. The monkey features that she had always carried on her shoulders were slowly but surely beginning to fade away. She remembered how her mother related her birth story to her. Her mother had been brought to the clinic with labour pains to grace a baby into the world. After the painful ordeal, they left her to rest and took away the little black thing that was covered in a white sheet.

The few women who had given birth that day had already heard the news through the nurses' gossips that one of the women had given birth to a kgabo (Setswana word for monkey). Rejoice, Kattey's mother, also entertained the gossip and threw in a comment or two, wondering who could have been so cursed as to deliver a sorry excuse monkey for a baby. While she was trying to recover her strength, the nurse walked in with a little bundle and, to her shock, the little monkey everybody including her had been mocking, happened to be the very bundle that the nurse was presenting to her as her baby. She thought of this every time the word "ugly" would be thrown at her face, and she comforted herself with the peace of trying to reason with her mother's anger towards her at times. She calculated and tried to put herself in her mother's shoes that day of being embarrassed like that in the clinic. The kgabo would go to her room and blame herself, with tears streaming down her face. It was her fault for as long as she could carry it that her mother resented her. She did nothing more than accept herself as a kgabo and the community saw her as such too, especially the boys growing up with her. They would use the "ugly" word in reference to her at every opportunity they got. Her unbearable shame of being ridiculed about her ugliness made her heart even darker.

It was the most amazing feeling ever to be called by a boy. Wow! That's all she could say. She had girls she knew from her new school and they formed a peer group of some sort. They were all very pretty and she could not stop thanking her lucky stars about her inclusion in this amazing movement. The 'Brights' would meet and discuss boys, music, who's hot and who was not. It was painful to think that she had the award of being crowned the ugliest girl in the group. It didn't hurt that much as she worshipped the entry rights that were given to her by default. One day as they were walking down the street, all her so-called friends were called by boys. There was only one boy and Kattey left. When the boy's friends urged him to call Kattey so they could talk, he loudly said he would rather kiss a monkey than be seen with an ugly girl like her. It took her that experience to realise how small the world was. The news soon spread across Africa and jetted off to our brothers and sisters in the US of A. She didn't know much about different types of advertising but she was sure and confident that entrepreneurs should never ever underestimate the power of word of mouth. She did not dare to go out for months as she had become the laughing stock of the century.

Kattey went back to her room and found more books to read. She hated everyone now. How she wished she could be a president of some country and have the pleasure of committing a senseless crime that would hit CNN headlines... by murdering her whole family, her so-called friends and, of course, her mathematics and accounting teachers as well. She hardened her heart and became Heathcliff, her most adored character in one of her favourite books she read repeatedly, who was so consumed by anger and hatred with an obsession for revenge. Even from beyond the grave, she and Heathcliff would get their sunny day.

#  Two  
The shows

Kattey fell in love with music, dancing and performing. Her profound understanding of performing arts amazed her. It felt as natural as a second skin. She was still not sure how that came about. She had a mirror in her room and whenever she looked into it, she felt bad and wanted to kill the very figure that she saw. The kgabo was right there – always there. Kattey would try to ignore it but often found herself sinking to the floor of her room and releasing tears of anger and bitterness towards herself and the kgabo.

Why was she not like other girls? Who decided in heaven or hell that she had to be like that? Who decided? Where did the meeting of her kgabo status get finalised and for crying out loud, why? Why? Why? Those were questions that befriended and tormented her day in and day out and she never deciphered the riddle to settle them. She had grown up to be a young lady with very low self-esteem, lower than the deepest oceans. She took a comb one day and sang a little song and pretended she was a famous singer performing live on stage. Kattey slowly enjoyed it and she even saw the person in the mirror looking better than usual... kgabo's hair faded a bit, its flat nose rose a bit from its flat position, the small eyes became like those of a Chinese lady.

She didn't know why, but a lot of people called her Brenda Fassie. They reckoned she had 90% resemblance to the great amazing singer. To her that was so wrong, yet so true. She was not sure how she felt about that but after a while it sank into her soul and she embraced it. If her ugliness gave a shadow of her brilliant and amazing superstar, she tagged it in her heart for dear life. How can an ugly duckling like her be compared to this amazing singer? She loved it and she engraved the thought into her soul day by day. She now started to have an obsession. Little did she know that she did not just pre-inherit the look, she also got the 'don't give a continental pillow' attitude and the bold self 'expression mark' that distinguished her from the other artists. There in her room, the high-class shows that took place were to die for. There in her room and head, she was Brenda Fassie. It was time people saw Kattey as the 'Weekend special' star. The energy and positive vibe she got from being Brenda transformed her inside out. She was shocked to see what a pretty young duck she had become. She blushed when boys stopped her to say "hi" or wanted to talk to her.

Kattey had one good thing going about her body though. She was called the Coca Cola girl because her body was shaped like a coca cola king size bottle. She was 14 and old enough to enter the annual local talent show in her small town. This was the show where one had to mimic a song of a famous musician. It was judged by a panel of high-profile officials within her community. The show promised many life-changing opportunities as along with the price money came fame, fame and more fame. She had met two girls from school and they formed a group called GWA (Girls with an Attitude). Why they called themselves that, beat her up to this very moment. The time for the show was near and they had to start practising the dance routine and the words of the song. They chose a song called 'Warning' by Adeva. The actual day of the auditions came. What an experience. There were lots and lots of people getting ready for their turn. How could she do this audition process when it was hard for her to go to her teacher's desk and utter a word? She was terrified and kept on drinking more and more water as her mouth felt like it was turning into the Sahara desert. She was sweating and felt that if there was a sesame cave, then she would be the one who told it to open up so she could get in, and forget that she wanted to perform. The moment of truth finally came and they played the song. No one could believe what happened.

Kattey instantly turned into a zombie and forgot everything that they rehearsed for almost two months. She didn't know where she was for those five minutes, but she dived into a coma in front of what could have been her fans for a long period to come. She froze and was sure it was what was called stage fright. After that horrible ordeal, her dance partners wanted to kill her, and her future fans called her names. She went up the staircase in the darkness of the theatre and felt it wouldn't kill her to cry a little. Her world was over, her dream was blown away, and most of all, she had let Brenda Fassie down. Kattey was sure if she had to meet her she would curse and kill her on the spot.

I am a monkey, what was I thinking? She wept like a woman who had just lost a baby. She rested her body on the theatre chair and let it all out.

That was how bad she felt on that day at that moment. There was a guy who used to win the competition year after year, for as long as she could remember. Kattey had never met him in person but heard how handsome and great he was. He was a few years older than her, and she never for once imagined herself meeting this star, especially after the comedic drama that she just performed at the audition. As she was crying, with rivers of Babylon dripping from her eyes, she heard a deep strong voice saying, "Hi". She really thought that she was so messed up that Jesus himself had decided to come and take her as she had enough troubles for a 14-year-old. She slowly lifted up her head, which was stuck between her knees, so Jesus could jet her off to her great-granny so they could live happily ever after in beautiful heaven. As her face rose to look at the owner of the voice, she could not believe her eyes. It was him, the handsome guy that every Jack and Jill talked about. He was the superstar who won the competition, every year in succession.

Her face turned white, her jaws dropped and she thought she had really met her creator. Kattey was so embarrassed by her wet face, and the thought of how ugly she looked in that situation made her want to disappear into thin air. He was the most handsome and beautiful man she had ever seen. She always thought her dad was handsome but she took it back when she saw this gorgeous human being who was staring right into her eyes. She didn't know if there was something wrong with his brains, but he sat next to her, took off his sunglasses and asked her who she was and why was she crying. Kattey apologised, for what she did not even know. She told him her name. He said her name was sweet and he offered to give her a new name that went with her beautiful face. What? Beautiful... when he said that it now made sense why he wore glasses in the theatre that was already dark. Maybe he was a vampire and had problems seeing during the day. If he saw Kattey as that, then he should really consider visiting an optometrist as that could rule out the possibility of his eyes not functioning as well as they should.

He took her little hand and said, "I think I will call you Pretty." Kattey had never heard anything as heavenly as the sound of his voice when he called her Pretty. For a while she struggled to figure out if she was awake or was having one of her regular daydreams that made her get zero for her maths tests. While she was struggling with reality, she figured that she did wash her ears regularly because she heard him say he liked her and how he would like her to be his girlfriend.

Wow! Now she confirmed severe insanity, and in Kattey's heart she recommended their small, local hospital for this suffering soul. How could he? It was not real and...

That was the most difficult second of her life. "Yes. Yes." That was what was supposed to be coming out of her mouth, but after a while she noticed that she was mumbling nothing, like a toothless old granny, who did not for some reason get her monthly pension grant. How stupid she must have looked. It was done, no way; even the most merciful of saints would have thrown in the towel where her bad luck was concerned. She was bewitched, cursed, spat on, kicked and eventually it sank in. She was a proud owner of a world-class moron award.

Thank you, thank you, if it was not for my... and God's... blah, blah, blah... This was the acceptance speech that she imagined herself mumbling at the Grammy awards for an award that didn't even exist. Grammy awards? That's where she was at that time. Thanking the masses for her well-deserved award.

Holy smokes! Was that a kiss? She had never been kissed in her whole short life nor even thought of being kissed in the next coming century. He had kissed her while she was on stage at the above-mentioned awards. (He did, no he did not, and yes he did!)

This World War III argument in her head went on and on till she had to choose who to believe because she could not even track her own existence. He kissed me, period. She had read of violent rivers flowing in people who were in love, and she now had a clear idea of what they were like because by now the blood in her body was twisting and rising, pounding and making all the jungle sounds you could ever imagine. Her heart beat so hard, and she remembered the sounds of drums that were heard by her friend Tajewo when he was in the bush, as they came from his village. Those were songs of praise that they would play for him when he came home with a head of a dead lion that he had killed with his spear and bare hands. She was aware that she could be a good liar, but not this time. She didn't know what love was, so she couldn't say how or what she felt was love. Throughout her life thus far, her only understanding of love had existed in her books and on television.

It was perhaps how Heathcliff loved Catherine. It must have been how he felt when he saw her for the first time. He promised himself he would love her forever, and even beyond death.

Prince Charming took her hand and told Kattey, oh yes 'Pretty', how okay it was that she was now his girlfriend. Shock threw her off balance when he was gone, and she could not stand up from the stairs, weakened by paralysing thoughts and a wave of new love or new something she could not comprehend. Wheelchairs were not the only things that made you realise that, indeed, you could not walk. She was normal but she just sat there and her feet were numb and somehow motionless. Could this be for real, this beauty and the beast tale? The beast of course being Kattey and him being the beauty part of it. How was she to tell her friends this story? There was no way in hell they were going to believe her. Feeling pleased and very content with her scary experience and the possibility of having the most handsome dude for a husband was enough to heal the whole mess of her life. Her inner being felt so awakened by what had just happened. She could not understand any of it but something amazing moved inside of her, a feeling like no other

Still in shock about what had happened that afternoon, she just picked up her bag and made her way to the taxi rank. While walking, her knight in shining armour came from behind and offered to walk her home. He took her school bag and held her tiny hand with the other. Had she done something right in heaven for this to be happening? Every pair of eyes was on kgabo and, for once in her life, she was a princess in this prince's castle. It was so unbelievable. They were slowly pacing through the crowds and she thought that she really wanted to see the effectiveness of word of mouth work for her just that once.

She could feel the sting of people's eyes as their gazes penetrated her skin and sent chills down her spine. So she did not get a cake like her baby brother with her name written on top of it, but this was better than a stupid cake and was even better than the cherry itself. It was time for her to climb into a taxi and superman kissed her again. He did this in front of Jah (Jamaican word for God) people and he looked cool with it. She was happy but also embarrassed, because there were elders in the taxi and lots of taxi drivers hanging around there.

Kattey then decided to bury her face in her school bag to save herself from Shaka Zulu spears that were pointed at her in the taxi. They were mumbling and grumbling, ready to attack her and feed her the whole disrespectful plate. It was her turn to be dropped off, and she thanked her ancestors for providing a fast set of wheels that took her home so quickly. That day when she had stormed into her mother's bedroom with her pair of shorts full of blood she had memorised a few things that her then angry mother had told her.

One of the lines in her mother's script was that the day she had a boyfriend, her mother would automatically know about it, and that she would also see it in Kattey's face if she was kissed by a boy. Mama Rejoice would know her lips had had contact with a man, dude, guy or anything that represented the male species. She just realised this a few minutes before she opened the door of her parents' house.

Was that true? She could not bear to find that out. If that was true, then surely she would go to heaven like her dear mother promised her years ago. That was the least of her problems. Good gracious Mary! She remembered her words clearly now and realised how very pregnant she was. I am pregnant! The kiss, more than one... kisses. Lord knows she was going to have a big tummy and, like her mother, bring home a bundle of joy in a human form. She suddenly fell down, having figured this out; she could not open the door. How could she get herself into so much trouble in one afternoon? She was sweating and felt so hot. Kattey was going to throw up: Morning sickness so they called it. She just got worse. While she was in that dilemma, the door just opened and she thought of being the great Ezekiel Sepeng and running for dear life. The difference was that her race would have a starting line but not a finishing one. She would be like Tajewo and Meromo and run for hours without getting tired, running as far as she could from the pregnancy trial case that was facing her. She wondered for a brief moment if she too was going to have a little kgabo like her mother.

She wanted to run until there was no place she could run to. Her mom was standing there and she nearly hit her with the door. Mama Rejoice was in a very awkward mood because she had, earlier that afternoon, gone to town and bought Kattey a teddy bear. Kattey was shocked. Can you believe the reason for that was because it was Kattey's birthday? It was her birthday? She had those every year and they came and passed. No big deal. The teddy bear was nice and soft and she decided to call it Thuli. At least it made no demands like her little brother and sister did. She figured it would be easy to mother something that just stood there motionless but also offered some kind of comfort. She was roaming around the house slowly and quietly like a witch who had lost her broom. She was trying so hard not to make eye contact with her mother. She suffered from the thought of her finding out about her pregnancy, being kissed and the taxi rank fairy tale. She couldn't imagine what her dad would do to her. Kattey had heard that her mother's father came from Mozambique and she thought if the truth came out, it would be a perfect time for her to go sailing in the white Maputo sands and connect with the ancestors from Xai Xai (a town south of Mozambique) village.

Her days in Mzansi were coming to an end. She was frozen like an ice queen, but when she heard the sound of the five o'clock bus that brought soldiers home every evening she rapidly melted. She was so afraid and did not even realise that her mother had seen nothing and she just reacted in her own normal cranky way. Her dad would then use his army skills to sniff out the enemy in the bush, which was unfortunately her in this regard. He came in and did his routine and called her to his side. She shook in horror as she slowly made her way to him. There was Kattey being hugged by her dad, as he cheerfully told her that it was her big day and soon she was going to be a fair lady. Kattey gave him a crooked frown. She did not know how to deal with feelings like these because they only came once in a blue moon. She was so uncomfortable. Was she to feel happy? She could if she only knew how. Her little brother and sister were there being their usual selves. Kattey thought of them as little lion cubs, playing with a monkey in the jungle. How jungle fabulous was that? Thinking of her family of five always brought on feelings of being misplaced and not fitting into the perfect picture, which would have been of world-class value if only she was excluded from the painting. She wondered how family members were chosen, placed and distributed in heaven. She hated her family structure. Her mother always made her feel like she was adopted as that was the only way that would make her understand the daily pain she fed her.

They had supper with a special treat of dumpling, homemade chips and fish, all fried like the ones served in a real restaurant. She was shocked when it finally hit her that it was almost time to sleep, and her secret was still inside her in one piece. She could not believe it. Her mother was a Harry Potter wannabe! As she lay in her bed after a small token of appreciation and her evening shift, she felt pleased that her mother was a liar of all times. She lied to her about her being able to see and notice if Kattey was to be kissed by a boy. She got angry thinking that she had even believed her previous dramatic scene. Now that she had all that information, it was her against the world. Her mother had no secret agent skills to know everything she did in her absence. She had a boyfriend now.

She did not sleep that night. She wondered how they were going to hang out, or be in love, or date or do what boyfriends and girlfriends did. Kattey asked herself if the dude was going to come to her school and see her, or maybe he would realise he had made a mistake and want nothing to do with her. She wondered why the kgabo did not mess up her life like always, or if it was hiding and plotting to come out later. How was she going to see her boyfriend again? Her mind worked and worked and found no answers until she gave up and fell asleep. She woke up the following morning feeling cheerful and kissing her jungle counterparts, and was very nice to both her parents. If they were clever and had a detective bone in them then they would have noticed this behaviour and realised that indeed something major had happened to her yesterday. That was the beginning of Kattey's new world.

She went to the bus stop and made her way to school. For the first time in years, she liked school. She could not wait to see her friends and see the green-eyed queen of jealousy pop up in their eyes. She could tell that the news had already spread across her school. There was a way in which the kids looked at her. It was such a great feeling to be instantly transformed from nobody to a noble queen of Africa. When she finally caught up with her crew, they could not stop talking about her new found treasure. She did not think her mind was at school that day or the rest of the years that were left for her to finish her senior certificate. This was how she came to lose focus and interest at school. They finally got the results for the talent show auditions. They could not believe how, even after Kattey's whole zombie scene, that their group was selected to be part of this amazing show. It must have been a divine intervention from her royal prince. They were over the moon and she really put her heart and soul into their rehearsals. The show of her life was beginning and Brenda Fassie, the star, was back and this time to stay with her for the rest of her famous life.

Her dance group was now the talk of the town. The show and her new boyfriend changed her life at home because she was happier and friendlier with her baby brother and sister, and in a short while the abuse of her siblings dropped below the 30% mark. She had found something better to occupy her space. The big night came and everyone looked like stars. It was a real show like the ones on TV. Her mother was there and for the first time, she felt the warmth of mama Rejoice as she sat front row and cheered. She looked like a mother peacock, proud with colourful feathers. Her new found love of her life was there. He was going to perform a rock piece with his band. He had no competition because he won the 'rock with instruments' category every year. Kattey was very pleased to know that he was her boyfriend or she was obviously a captain of his netball team. She learned not to care much about the mistresses that invaded her territory and made peace with it. How could she expect him to have her as the only one when he was so painfully handsome? Kattey always wondered if her lover did not see the kgabo in her, or maybe he did but loved her anyway. The feeling of being loved was so amazing but the fear of losing him was always at the back of her mind. However, she dared not to entertain the thought as it would destroy the little mud castle she had built in her heart.

The big question was whether her mind was going to play tricks on her again and make her a fool in front of the Israelites? Her 'man' – she could not believe how sweet that sounded to her ears – came to see her before she went on stage to give her the whole 'you can do it' motivational talk. He was so sweet. He really lifted her feet off the ground and took her to cloud nine. Was that what she needed because she performed without fear and the true Kattey came out? She was not sure what had happened to the monkey but it became one with her, in that moment. When she was on stage, she could not see the crowd but she heard that they saw them bright and clear. The show went well, and Kattey and her group made waves that night. The first show of her life went well. Her dude saw her just as she was about to go home. He kissed her; not like the first kiss but this was a real TV and white people's kiss. She could not understand what the big deal about that kind of a kiss was. She did not feel anything special but was very scared. She went home and had a peaceful sleep.

She was so happy that day that she imagined she could have seen angels carrying her up to heaven for a visit. She was at peace and wondered if the darkness of the monkey had finally left her soul or if it was somewhere designing weapons to destroy her newfound world of flowers and sunny skies.

She was popular and was getting used to it. Her boyfriend was now seeing her on a regular basis and she really enjoyed being with him. Kattey thought he was the most wise person she knew, but that was so obvious because he was five years her senior. Her concentration at school started dragging down because she was thinking about him every second of the day, as well as thinking about dancing and acting. The school's fourth term ended and they wrote exams which she failed. Her friends went to the next standard and she remained in the same class. She wanted to die when she got her year-end report. Her parents blamed the show for her poor performance. How was she going to face the world at school? The celebrity girl was blonde. She guessed it was true then: Brains and fame did not go together but fame and being blonde was indeed a great combination. Her insecurities crept in and fear of losing her boyfriend because of her stupidity enslaved her mind for the entire summer holiday season. The little world she lived in also expected her superman to dump her and replace her with a cleverer girl, bright, brains and all.

Kattey's boyfriend comforted her and became her best friend. The reality was that there was no meal at home without her being dessert. Her little brother made sure that her big F (fail) was known to all nations. How she wanted to get rid of the little brat once and for all was a thought that never left her mind. She was now spending more and more time with her lover. She knew very little about grown-up stuff. She found him to be the most perfect being in the world. He could never be wrong in her eyes. World War III was nothing compared to the fight that she had with her parents about her leaving superman. The more they wanted her to stop seeing him, the more she beefed up her soldiers of war. She vowed to put her soul to rest if they forced them to part.

Kattey was now so head-over-heels in love with this man that she started bunking school, lying to her parents and spending more time with him. Time went by, and the so-called time for her to be a woman drew closer and closer. Pressure from friends was mounting day by day. How was she going to escape this one? There was no way out; it was now time for her to have the big SEX that all teenagers who'd given up their virginity, bragged about. Her small-time research skills provided information that breaking one's virginity was the most painful thing one could ever experience. If that was a fact then why the hell were people doing it? This question she only got to understand much later in her life. He gave her the look, the one that said if they did not do it soon he would leave her. She loved him; there was no way she could lose him. Her mind was made up: Pain or no pain, she was going to do it. She did not know about the 'having a baby' part but it did not matter. She would be the luckiest of all the maidens to have Prince Charming's baby if it had to come to that. It all made sense to her. He would love her forever and she would be his wife and spend the rest of her life in his arms. That's how simple life was going to be in her fantasy world. She was ready that Saturday for the moment of truth that would separate girls from women. She was shaking like a frustrated leaf on a cold winter's morning when she boarded a taxi to his village. It was like she was going to die but she felt she had to do what a girl must do to save her relationship, which at that point was like a marriage to her.

Kattey beefed up all her might and went to his house where she found him with his sisters. He was so laid back like it was going to be a walk in the park. She was sure that the age gap between them had everything to do with his confidence and his super-cool cat behaviour. In her heart, she felt like a goat that was due to be slaughtered for some ceremony. All thoughts took her on a trip to differentiating characters of a goat and a sheep. A goat would never go down without drama, while a sheep would look at the person who is supposed to kill it with eyes that said, "It's okay, I understand. I was born for this so don't feel bad, go right ahead and kill me. You won't hear a single bah from me." She thought she could make a decision to be a goat and rebel against demands of teenage-hood and risk losing her man, or she could take it like a man and be a sheep.

All this debate going on in her head landed her nowhere but in Kevin's black bedroom which looked like an interpretation of hell. It was not an ordinary room; she meant that of a normal boy with pictures of basketball, rugby and soccer players with a finishing touch of nude white girls. The room was painted black with funny writings on the wall. There were drawings of hell and upside down crosses on the wall. One could not really tell the difference between day and night because of the black colour that dominated the room. She admired his ability to go upstream against the current, and the way in which he never defended himself for his different way of living. There was also lots and lots of silver decorating. Kattey loved it and she found peace in her boyfriend's room. She had never experienced what she felt when she was in there – it was amazing how it felt like heaven in such a place. Happiness and peace were the order of the day in there. The music was loud, not the kind that one would hear anywhere. She'd never known such music existed. It was called heavy metal rock and one would think it was just a bunch of lunatics making noise, but in time she got to understand it and thought it was the most beautiful genre of music that stupid people were too ignorant to know.

Kattey was on top of things as far as she was concerned. She now knew of many people who lived inside her body. She could control each and every one of them. It was all about mind over matter. Her boyfriend taught her how to use her inner strength; he made her discover the power of words, reading and most of all he gave her freedom from pain. He worshipped Kattey, monkey and all, and Kattey loved and accepted him as satanic, as he was rumoured to be. Kevin was misunderstood by everyone and between him and Kattey, they both found a special place of comfort in each other's hearts. He was somehow also accompanied by a kgabo, so entirely misdiagnosed by people in their society, at times hated and rejected. They labelled him a Satanist and accused him of all sorts of spiritual crimes: Of making people disappear and drinking people's blood. The way she loved him, she would offer her blood for him to drink if that was the case. The weaknesses she had lived with that were caused by her monkey bad luck spirit died; her spirit became a woman, and her body became a premature baby.

Straight to the core of the scene, it was painful, losing her virginity like that. It was like a hot knife making its way through butter and she could tell that she was the butter in all that. She had been crying. Ag man no, it could not be! Why on earth people had to engage in such cruelty to one's private parts bugged her. It was over: Was she to feel something? She was so confused. Was she a woman now? The price was of a high stake. They slowly walked up the street to get a taxi that went to her township. He looked so pleased with her, he being the only one who enjoyed their little party. She finally got home too freaked out to do anything. Kattey did not even care if her parents read her forehead or not.

She had paid the price of being a woman that day but it didn't make sense because she became a woman when she got her period at 11, when she mothered her siblings like they were her own, when other children her age played and she was at home doing chores. She figured losing her virginity was an endorsement to her womanhood and with a heavy heart, she sighed and made peace with it. She could not grasp the meaning of it all and she eventually gave up trying to figure it out and fell asleep. She was still in pain and all went well when she found her place in lala (sleep) land.

School was as normal as could be – she was not doing well and hating every minute of it. She had by this time parted ways with her so-called friends. She had become a weirdo of some sort to people and she thought of them as stupid. She was busy with her love life more than anything in the world. Kattey then came to a painful realisation that things are not always as rosy as the famous fairy tale love stories. As much as her boyfriend loved her, she heard rumours that he was seeing other girls. She never saw or caught him with any or confronted him with such. 'End of the road'. That was not her calculated route but a song by the famous Boys to Men. Death was the only separation that was due to them from each other. The thought of him being with other girls made her sick; she could not have that so she stayed with him year in and year out. She was the wife and they were the girlfriends; she made peace with that and the girlfriends did the same. Polygamy was the order of a black man so it was said. Her parents had, by this time, given up on trying to separate Romeo and Juliet and made a wise decision to accept them. He was welcome into her home and the community was also forced to deal with it whichever way they chose. Kattey cared less and felt nothing for anybody. The world was hers.

#  Three  
Health

Hating school with a passion did not make things easy for Kattey as she was still trying her best to finish standard 10 but the years went by so slowly, like a very long winter's day. How she wanted to finish school and grow up. There was so much that she wanted to do. On this note, she had no idea what she wanted to do when she passed or if she ever would pass, but she was sure it had nothing to do with university. The deal was to hit the road and go to Jozi, the big city, and get to be a star. Now surely she needed no formal education to do that? Her day would come and the whole world would have to kiss her feet and call her mama action. They were offered career guidance class once a week. The nice lady spoke of careers that she could not picture herself entertaining between now and her next life. Of every standard to which she was promoted by chance, she landed her admission to the last class of that block. The clever kids were in class A and B and average boys and girls were put in class C. Kattey never had a burning desire to be in one of those classes. She had a crew of boys who were always following her like a mother hen to class D (for donkeys) and E (for elephants). No teacher liked these two classes because they gave up hope just by looking at their doors. She was convinced they were forced to teach these kids with special needs. All the learners in her E class were different and hated school like her; some drank alcohol, some smoked. The boys often came to class with a black eye, a stab wound here or a horrific scar there. They freaked out most teachers at school.

Kattey had two gangster sisters in the class, and the three became every teacher's nightmare. They would go out of the class to share a cigarette at break time and forget to go back to class. It would mean the end of a school day when that happened. Way beyond the second term, their books would still be empty with only a few notes or bits of homework here and there. When the teacher stood in front of the class, the inmates would all be in their different planets and she or he would blabber on and on. They could not have cared less. For them going to the principal's office was like a long-awaited ramp walk that they strived on doing each and every day. The 10 E class was perfectly situated at the back of the school next to the tennis courts and that made it the discarded part of the school. The inmates of this prison loved the isolation it offered them.

In this regard, Kattey was elected to be on the Students' Representative Council (SRC). As a negative element to the course, this was a seat to ensure her cell mates were in the know about activities taking place in school. She hardly attended meetings and would be seen walking out from boredom. They never discussed issues that interested her. She wanted a force that would allow them to burn the school or something exciting along those lines. She wanted corporate punishment to be demolished and for the white teachers to go to the farm and teach chickens and farm animals. She hated how the black teachers had their own staffroom and the white teachers theirs, graced by cupcakes and juice while the black ones would be seen in a line of fat cakes at the gate where they would buy chicken feet. She hated the school system, the farmer's clothes that the white male teachers wore like they were fresh from counting their chickens or farming their land. That to Kattey came across as some form of slavery and presented black teachers as deprived or disadvantaged. They would walk with their teachers to the taxis while the white baas (boss) would change big cars from here to kingdom come. She often lay awake at night wondering if their salaries were the same, and she concluded that they were not.

Her group at school was composed of 10 boys and her. She was the queen of the group and loved every minute of it. They were quite popular, in the principal's office that is. Her safety was guaranteed in and out of school. It was a family unit that gave her peace and security; at times they would go out of their way to protect her from getting a hiding. They worshipped her like their very own goddess. Among the group was one that came from an upper-class family who always came with a lunch box fit for a prince. Did he ever eat it? No, it belonged to the one and only queen of the jungle, Kattey. The boy was tall and skinny and very sweet, and Kattey often wondered if his parents were too ignorant to know that he was being bullied at school, by a girl to make it worse. It could be that he allowed her to have his lunch box because he had a disturbing crush on her like the rest of the pack. Hanging out with boys made Kattey's animal element take a gangster turn – she jumped from a monkey's body to a honey badger's. Honey badgers are fearless little devils of the jungle that do not even fear the most poisonous of deadly snakes. After a few years of rebellion in high school, a honey badger was the best animal she could be compared to.

It took her a while to sit back and realise that she was forever in and out of hospitals. Her good health certificates were of short periods. She was sick most of the time. If it was not this then it was a bit of that. Every time she got sick, she saw the same picture on her parents' faces. As much as they ran into all kinds of concerts with her concerning everything negative about her, they really cared about her. The big question was: Did it have to take her being sick to see the love and care that they had for her? At first she thought her poor health was in her head as her parents often suggested; they knew she had no love feelings for school and all, but she realised that it was serious when she saw herself at the back of an ambulance with her dad holding back tears. She did not go to school that day. She told her dad that she had a headache and he gave her pain killers. The next thing she knew her temperature sky rocketed and she saw the world of the living drifting before her eyes. She was rushed to the hospital and was there for a couple of weeks. She knew that she hated school but not really to the extent that she'd want to exit this world like that. A stupid headache? That was not on. She was diagnosed with a weird virus or infection of some sort in her brain. She spent most of the time sleeping as it hurt her eyes when she tried to open them. Time made no sense to her as she would spend days not knowing what was really going on or where her existence was trapped.

Wow! That sounded too serious. She became tired and thought maybe she should start negotiating with heaven's consultants to call her number so she could go and join Jesus and His disciples. Thinking about her meaningless life, she really wanted to go. She lost interest in life but mostly she did not want to go back to school. Heaven sounded far better than having to listen to her accounting teacher who went out of her way to embarrass her in class. She would loudly read out the marks of her exam paper containing percentages which were way below the temperature in the South Pole. She did not know if she hated her or the subject that she was always trying to drum into her head. She could have sworn that the debit and credit words might have been the very cause of her so-called virus in her brain. "Double entry system, what you do on the left, must also be done on the right!" If she had a gun, she would have shot the living lights out of this woman.

It only mattered later in her adult life that she realised that her teacher was so right, it was not even funny. If she could have listened to the nice lady, her life would have been so different. She'd be rolling in an X5 BMW and swimming in cash. That was again not written in her journey of life. People had their roads constructed long before they were born. The pastor was brought to her bedside one afternoon to pray for her; she did not know if the prayers were for God to have mercy on her or for Him to open her exit path. They prayed and prayed. She thought they were just making noise but for some reason she felt a wave of fire or light flowing through her body. She sensed she was being kept for a reason. She sensed there was someone or something outside her body keeping tabs on her.

Why so much trouble? Why the sicknesses? Why not a normal relationship with her mother? Why trouble at school? Why the anger? Why did she let herself get all the sexually transmitted diseases and not do anything about it? Why could she not leave her boyfriend who disgraced her with many girlfriends? Why, why, why?

Tears dripped silently in her hospital bed while she slowly looked at the water-filled plastic device that was connected to her by a tiny tube and a needle. She sighed under a heavy breathing pattern and wished she could sleep and end it all. Kevin, her man, was another story. In their small town, a wildfire rumour of Kevin being a prince of some satanic cult, got the better of her parents and they tried so much to make her see reason for them to separate. It was natural for her parents to try to protect her from him. Kattey suffered and dared to not wake up as she could not even begin to understand what life would be like without the one person who made her happy. The more her dad brought people from his church to come and pray for her, the more she begged God to take her life.

Kattey and Kevin were like bread and butter and loved each other in an amazing way. One afternoon as she was sleeping as usual in her hospital bed, she felt the warm hand that she had been longing for holding her. It was his hand, the love of her life. She slowly opened her eyes and saw him; she could not figure out if she was in dream land or still on earth but when he kissed her, she knew that it was real. At that point, she did not want to know how he managed to get access to her room as the hospital staff were instructed not to let Kevin anywhere near her.

"You can't take her granddad, please bring her back to life. I will do anything that you ask of me." Those were his exact words as tears were streaming down his face. This did not come as a surprise to Kattey as she spent a lot of time in her boyfriend's room and once in a while, he would engage in conversations with Lord knows who and she was advised never to question what was going on. That was a reality that she had to cope with, even if it meant stepping on her curiosity blade. People said creepy things about Kevin and she had no intention of entertaining any of the rumours unless someone had full proof of allegations that were thrown at him. She loved him with all her heart and if she was bewitched, then she was gladly going to die for the man who gave her happiness that the world could not offer her. The conversation between Kevin and the invisible visitor went on for a while and at the end of it he said, "Thank you".

He gave her a hug and whispered, "I love you" then disappeared as quietly as he had come. Please do not leave me. These were the words that she wanted to say but only mumbled meaningless sounds that came out of her mouth. She was still very weak and dehydrated.

A day or two went by and Kattey was released and went home. Could that have been God's divine intervention? She had lost a little weight and stayed home a lot. As soon as she got better and regained her strength, she started her life from scratch. She went back to doing the shows and won each time. Kattey was back in the who's who list of the hood. She then got sick again and retired from everything with such deep sadness as she could not understand why her life was so full of ups and downs.

Her spirit was so sick and tired of going to see different doctors. In her conclusion, she thought doctors went to medical school for seven years to learn the skill of confusing people. They just could not get what was wrong with her. Some said sexually transmitted disease when she had major abdominal pains; some said her menstrual cycle was messed up. Her cycle was something else – she would be in so much pain when her period came for a monthly visit that she would have headaches and bleed like there was no tomorrow. It seemed like she was the only girl who went into severe pains and suffering when she menstruated. All the girls she knew went through all that with very little effort. I am a monkey. That was the comforting statement that saved her every time she would question her journey.

Her dad was quite clever in his own army way. He loved her to bits but at some point she saw how he had it all figured out. He had diagnosed her in his own mind as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)... woohoo. She was not sure if that was true, but he missed the important part as a doctor. The root causes analysis! If he was so brilliant as to get the diagnosis right then surely he'd know how to treat her, and offer her follow-up counselling. She needed no pills if that was the case, no sangoma (traditional healer), no priest but equality in her country which in this case, was her very own home. If he could stop his wife, Kattey's mother, from her continuous attacks, and resolve the agony that she had caused her as a child then he would, to her, be the best doctor ever. Maxi, the nickname Kattey and her siblings gave her dad, was a mad man who was always seen on the streets entertaining his own mental disorder by biting his hands, clothes and everything his sharp teeth could get hold of. It was an irony because her daddy was a true man of God if she could call him that. He was the man... when he prayed he sometimes spoke French, Spanish, Swahili, Zulu and all the other languages you could think of, in one sentence. A true spiritual gift. In Christian lingo, they called it speaking in tongues. You could imagine how he must have felt when he finally decided to try the route of the inyanga (traditional healer or diviner, specialising in using herbs). Kattey's sickness did not seem to get better and the poor man was in a tight corner.

Kattey was taken to Johannesburg and arrived at some fat Venda woman's place who was researched to be the best of the best in terms of spiritual healing. Her enemy of a mother was now very frustrated. She looked like she loved her, or maybe she did. It was on a Saturday morning when they drove all the way from her home to the heart and soul of Soweto. Chiawelo was a place that was dominated by the Venda people. They had been driving for a long time and after getting lost a few times, they finally reached their destination. They parked at the gate and waited for the woman's workers to come and fetch them. Very fascinating indeed. She was carried into a shining zozo (shack). The zozo looked like a scene from a very horrific movie being filmed in the Amazon. It had all types of beads hanging on the walls, as well as a black snake's skin, and dried up herbs and roots. It looked very dark. While the floor was made of cow dung, it was very clean. The woman was wearing traditional Venda clothes. They took off their shoes and were summoned to sit on the cold floor. The herbal or traditional doctor greeted them and took out an animal skin bag. She blew some air into the bag and asked Kattey to do the same. When the bones hit the floor, she slowly shook her head and told Kattey's parents some weird story. She had just spoken to the ancestors to request some guidance on how to treat her sickness. She told her parents that she could not really help their child. How great was that?

The ancestors' prescription was that they were to go back home and her mother was requested to go to her ancestral land to get information about her great-great-great-great-grandmother to the power of 16 who was also a traditional healer a very long time ago. Mama Rejoice was then required to write the old granny's name and surname on a piece of paper and bring it back to the big mama of the foreign hut, and only then would she be able to heal her. That did not make sense to Kattey at all. What she wanted was to get well and live a normal life.

Now the orders of the ancestors to drag her mother to Rustenburg on some family tree investigation process, was not on. What if they did not get that information? What would that mean for her? End of the road. She was in no mood to listen to the song.

The whole investigative ordeal went on for a period of two weeks. Her mother made tracks to a small village in Rustenburg called Bapong. That's where her great-great-great-grandmother originated from. She was amazed at the history behind her existence. When they came back with the required information, the ancestors granted that the healing processes may begin. She threw the bones again, three or four times mumbling foreign words to herself. It must have been Venda or the ancestral language if it existed. So she had a direct link or network with the spirit of the dead – how the Venda spirit interacted with her Setswana spirit confused Kattey more. She left the thought for a time when she was all better. Kattey was then put in a big pot and was cooked with water and a whole lot of herbal roots and stuff. Do not wonder, believe it. She literally cooked Kattey the way one would cook meat or vegetables. She then smoked her and put a heavy plastic over her body so the smoke would go undisturbed to her poor lungs. The ancestors nominated her to be the lucky one. If she did not adhere to the calling, then her whole life would be troubled but Kattey believed her troubled life was caused by her monkey... Now it was the calling of healing? It was like from one disaster and sickness to another. Shocking and very disturbing.

Meaning at some point she would have to leave the glitz and glamour of life and become a sangoma, traditional healer or something related to that. She almost wondered if her long sickness had something to do with her traditional or spiritual gift. What flipping gift? The monkey curse! She just did not understand the ancestors' communication and what they wanted from her. They must just remain dead and leave me alone. All they ever did was make her sick. She was tired! There was no gift; she had nothing special in her. She had plenty of time before a gun would be put to her head before accepting her calling. She was sent home with lots and lots of goodies from the big mama's jungle with which to entertain her body. Each packet of herbs came with instructions on how they were to be administered. One had to be taken with porridge, one used like foam bath, one like sugar in her tea, and another to burn in her room before she slept. She wondered how anything medical or traditional taken without faith could heal one's ailments.

Kattey and her boyfriend spent most of the time studying the Bible or rather investigating the scriptures. She did not know why but it was just one of the books that fascinated them. She did not listen to the pastor most of the time when her dad would force them to go to church. She thought church was a waste of time as she always found it better to read her Bible in the comfort of her own home. Kattey's own understanding of healing was that if you don't believe in anything that you are given to heal you, then there was no way you were going to be healed. She had a meeting with herself and concluded by trusting in God and believing that the medication given to her would work. She would be healed as she was tired of being in a zombie mode. She followed the instructions to the last detail and slowly found that she was no longer getting sick, was eating well and that her coca cola bottle shaped body was springing back into existence.

She got better and better and got sick no more. Now what was that? Western verses tradition. Freedom of choice – aren't human beings blessed to have that? I am saved. So where do I stand? She was still a Christian and now wanted to know more about old women who would come to her in her dreams and tell her secretes that only the elders of her family knew. She dreamed of stuff, but most of the time she ended up not understanding the dreams. Her idea was still to hit the road and the Jozi streets as she could not see herself being a traditional doctor. The thought of her healing people was a big joke, as she needed help herself. How was it possible for a person as sick as she was, to be in a position to heal others? She was young and she did not care about all that. Kattey did not know what selection or criterion was used to brand people who should have a calling. There were so many candidates in her family who would suit this role and choosing her was not the wisest choice the deciding committee could have made. Kattey, a sangoma? At her age... with all the dreams of being famous tempting her like that.

Well, there was no way – not now, not ever – that she could abandon her dream to be like Brenda Fassie, to heal people. Spend her days nursing spirits that would pop in and out of her body the whole day.

#  Four  
The system

How embarrassing that she was bothered by things called pustules, and of all places, she had to find her private parts being befriended by these things. Was it because she was sexually active or what? She could not understand it. She thought her folks were more humiliated than the owner of this catastrophic encounter. Her father was a medical officer in the army. She was not exactly sure what he did, but he worked at the army's sick bay. Her family went there for all their medical needs. Kattey thought the doctors were sick of having to dissect her so-called pustules on numerous occasions. They did not go away as intended; she would be freed from one and then get another one a week later. It was such a painful procedure. The doctor would insert a disturbingly long needle into the abscess, to get the affected area numb and then tear it apart with a very sharp razor blade. She would scream with pain but not a single tear would drop from her face. On one visit to the sick bay examination room, she had an experience that changed her profoundly. Her dad left her with a young soldier and requested him to prepare her file for the doctor while he went to a meeting or parade or whatever they did before they could start working.

The man was ordered to check her vital signs, temperature, record her pulse, measure her height and weight. How hard could that be? Kattey had a deep love for reading and she read everything that her eyes could get hold of except her school books. In this instance, she used to study all her father's medical text books and she knew a lot about medical procedures, the human anatomy, chronic illnesses and what caused them. Every time she got sick, she would go deep into her father's books to match the symptoms with what was in the book, try to pick up a diagnosis, study the treatment, and ended up with the mental healing of any sickness which was known as counselling or therapeutic healing. She knew a few mental diseases as well and knew the causes, diagnoses, treatment, and possible different routes or medication to be prescribed for such mental disorders. She knew that a human body was made up of the mind, body and soul. These elements worked hand in hand and that was why the last phase of treatment would also end up with counselling, so as to reconnect the three. She always wanted to investigate so she could get answers on why her body's immune system was so weak that it easily attracted sicknesses.

She knew the procedure that was done before the doctor could examine the person. This young soldier decided to play doctor 'feel good' on her. He got the normal procedure right and thought it would be good to try out his fantasies on her. He asked her what was wrong and did it in such a convincing manner that it made Kattey trust him enough to show him where the problem was. The sheep-skinned wolf made her comfortable, but little did she know that she was actually rubbing shoulders with the big bad wolf. He examined her and saw her misery all swollen hard and sore. Kattey's mind was blank from stupidity, trust and innocence. He touched her wound and he told her to lie on the bed as he could not see clearly. The sun was shining through the little examination room and she could not understand what could have been wrong with the young wolf's eyes for him to request her to lie on top of the bed so he could have a clearer view. She felt so uncomfortable but was not too sure if that was right or wrong. He was wearing a uniform – surely that came with honour and respect? Being a soldier came with its integrity and pride. Was 'protect and serve' not one of the core oaths that young cadets had to swear by? She could have stopped him from invading her body but she did not. He did not have a gun pointed to her head either. Kattey's mind flowed like a balloon in that room... not in her wildest imagination did she ever imagine rape happening to anyone in her community, her home land Bophuthatswana, and least of all, to her. Those were bad news stories that were reported on TV and happened in war-stricken African countries.

He had no gun, no knife or Samurai sword, but only two strong hands that enabled him to force himself on her. How did it even get there? In a short space of time, her body was in shock. Her voice got locked in a secret space where she could not retrieve it. Her body was right there but her inner being was somewhere in a peaceful land, in hiding. When he was done, her spirit slowly crept back into her body and lay there motionless. Her mind was like a white sheet of paper and she did not know what to do at first. She heard him saying something like she must not dare utter a word to anybody or else he would...? At that point, he did not even need to threaten her as there was no way in hell she was going to let the cat out of the bag anyway. She was afraid of him and felt she would even take it to the level of moving to another country so they would never see each other again. She got dressed and went to the bathroom. She sat on the toilet seat so the dirt in her could drip out and make its way to hell where it belonged. She was shaking like a leaf.

She tried so hard to wash the damaged part with water but she realised that the shame would never be removed by plain water. This incident would never leave her body or soul. It was the monkey's fault. Her dad finally came and did not have a clue of what had just happened while he was not there. It was then her turn to see the doctor. The little old lady did what she had to and Kattey went home. The painful procedure was done and she did not scream as usual. She just lay still like a dead animal. The bus came to fetch them and they went home. She sat quietly next to her father, wondering if he saw something that would give away her secret. Her head was just looking out the window of the bus. She could not grasp reality. Her soul had left her body to escape the pain and the embarrassment; hot tears were tearing her skin like Tajewo's knife, cutting the cattle that had left the land of the living due to drought. It would break his heart when he had to go into his father's hut and kneel down beside him and tell him that one of his cows had died. It tore Tajewo's heart apart to see an old figure, too weak and weary, who was once the proud owner of 200 cattle, the pride and joy of his existence.

When she got home, she went straight to the bathroom and took a long and painful bath. She kept on refreshing the water and rinsing herself over and over again. When she finally became tired, she jumped onto her bed and wanted to die, but a nap was all she could afford as her mind was busy trying to digest what had happened to Miss Talent Show. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, her head spinning and her eyes wet from tears that could not stop. Oh, how she wished someone would pinch her and wake her up from this horrible nightmare. A fairy godmother would be appropriate for her at that moment because she would wave her magic stick and wish her nightmare away. She was a kgabo and the kgabo curse was always going to be with her. She wondered where the hell the angels had been when she needed them; always praised for being with people, especially children to help and protect them. Was it because she was no longer a child as her mother had made her a woman by the age of 11, and she gave up her virginity by age 14? Maybe she deserved all this, for not loving her siblings the way she should have and for hating her mother? She rested a bit after unpacking all the facts that made her understand that she deserved it which was why the kgabo had punished her.

There was a knock at her bedroom door. Her superman Kevin had bunked classes to come and see her. She recognised his voice when he asked her to open the door and she wanted to be the wind and disappear into some faraway country's mountains somewhere. She took forever to open the door and after a long debate in her soul, she dragged herself out of bed and went to open for him.

When he saw her, he hugged her for a long time and held on to her as if he knew what had happened. They were so close and had a connection that nobody could understand. She tried so hard to push back the tears and the urge to just break down and cry, and managed to be as normal as possible. While he was holding her, she realised that he was a man, and could have easily been the guy who penetrated her existence by force. She suddenly felt a lot of anger brewing inside of her, and she pushed him away a little. When they let go of each other and he wanted to look at her, she wanted nothing more but to take a sharp knife and do away with him. This new emotion freaked her out so she snapped and pushed him as far possible as she could.

Kevin was shocked by Kattey's wildness. Of all the things that they had been through, she had never treated him badly. It was always the two of them against the world, not against each other. Kattey could not help it but fell down on her knees and began to cry uncontrollably. He did not ask questions but put her on his chest and let her cry for as long as she wanted to. After a good two hours of sobbing, he begged her to tell him what was wrong. She wanted to, but how so? She just wanted to sleep. No one would ever help Kattey, no one could make the monkey spirit go away. The author of her life was cruel; she felt it would have been better if she was never born into this world. The thought of having to tell him was even more painful. It was possible that he would leave her. She was not the same anymore, and the worst thing was that she felt so dirty. No detergent was ever going to wash her clean.

She could not stop thinking that it was her fault – she had let that happen to her. Kattey thought back and realised she could have cried for help, kicked, screamed or did something. She could have bitten him or done anything that showed resistance. Surely that meant she enjoyed every minute of it? She had a choice, she could keep this to herself to save herself from the cruel world or she could tell and deal with whatever that was going to happen. Rape was a thing that happened on TV, in Soweto or Congo where there were broken homes or rebels raping women and children in huge numbers while their country was going through political instability. Cape Flats maybe, where it is rife with gangster wars. She read about these stories. Yeah that's what they have always been to people, stories. How does something like this happen to her? No newspaper headlines for her story. Was she that bad a young lady that her punishment had to be orchestrated by some evil force? Nothing made sense to her. What would her parents say about this? She had a clue of what her mother would say and just thinking about it made her want to take a pen and write a letter that said, "To whom it may concern. I have no desire to live and hereby resign from my current role as a living person. Please don't cry for me as I went to a better place."

It sounded like the best thing to do. If statistics had to be released in her small town, they would probably state that it had very low crime rate; she was sure she was going to be that 1 % that would make the minister so proud to say rape crime is of minimum concern and not something the government should lose sleep over. She made a decision to tell her boyfriend and then they could keep this between them for life. She was more scared of the rejection that she was surely going to get from her boyfriend, but she gathered all her strength and told him. She sat on her bed and watched him as he paced up and down her room with horror and anger. He started beating the wall, and she thought that was the best time for her to play hide and seek. Tears started rolling down his face and he swore that he would kill that animal even if it was the last thing he would do. He was not going to leave her – not then, not ever. He held her in his arms and all her fears and insecurities melted like ice on fire. Kattey had never experienced so much love and affection. The way Kevin made her feel could not be understood by anyone else. At times when people accused him of worshiping the devil, she found it perfect to think of him as her own personal angel that God had sent to save her from her own destruction.

All people would do was look at how freaky he dressed and then judge him. They did not know the Kevin that she knew. She often heard stories of how Kevin beat up people and how everyone in his village was afraid of him. He might have done those things but when he was with her, he was an angel, a harmless kitten that would not even touch a mouse. He might have multiple personality disorder or maybe he was living a double life as the gossip suggested, but she was not going to let such things get in between them. He gave her what she could not get from her parents, family or friends. That was one of the reasons she chose not to have friends – Kevin played every role that she needed. Elderly people in their community condemned their relationship, more so because they felt he was leading her into darkness and the mere fact that Kattey was five years younger than him made the gospel song seem profound. Everybody went to heaven and stole God's thrown and capacity as judge where Kevin was concerned. When Kattey was sick and depressed, who was there for her? When her little brother and sister got all the love and attention and she got left out, who reassured her that she was special? When days were gloomy and money was tight and she could not be given an allowance to buy pretty things, who gave her money? Kevin. Most importantly, who loved her in good and bad times, through sickness and in health? Kevin. All these thoughts wandered in her mind and she did not realise that Kevin had stopped his pacing and was now sitting on the bed next to his wounded she-wolf.

"Did you tell your dad, my angel?"

Her dad? Now what was that all about? No way, what on earth made him think that she was going to do that? What they did not agree about was Kattey telling her parents. She did not want that to happen but Romeo dearest gave her no choice. If she did not tell them then he was going to... Wow! So the drama began. Her dad was devastated. A case was opened against the soldier dragon and she had to go to court to testify or speak or do whatever they did there. Kattey was so scared of that, but most of all was very scared of seeing her master again. She went to court eventually. They asked her two to three questions and the case was postponed. Three months later they asked her the same questions that they had asked her in her first court appearance and she gave them slightly different answers. The way this whole court thing was going down, she was sure that she was the one who had raped the poor man. The doctor also went to the stand and said some stuff. She did not really listen when she was there because half the time she was shivering with fear, and found her mind somewhere in happy land rather than the actual place that she was supposed to be. After all was said and done, months of stressful nights, nightmares and not being able to look at herself in the mirror, the tense mood in her home was as still as an art gallery. If she had known the emotional hell she was going to go through, she would have never uttered a word to anyone.

Kattey felt this rape ordeal did not mess up her life as much as the post-treatment did. Her whole life had been turned upside down and no one in her home talked about it, although the shame was always seen on her parent's faces. She had to live with it every waking moment of her life. All the while, she wanted to go to Kevin's room and allow the tears to flow as much as they wanted, to sleep as much as she wanted... that was the only place where she could have peace and not do anything. The fear that always crept up on her about Kevin leaving her, melted away as he never did, nor did he treat her differently. He loved her more and was more protective than ever. He went to see her at school every day, spent as much time as he could with her and throughout the duration of her court appearances, stood by her side until the judge hit the hammer on the table after passing judgement.

The big day finally came and the court ruled the verdict as not guilty! She did not understand how that was going to affect her but it sure influenced a lot of things that she did in life from that day. Of all the kgabo trophies of pain that she collected, this was the masterpiece. This was confirmation that someone hated her in heaven and hell. She made a decision to never think, speak or remember the invasion of the three dimensions of a human existence, her mind, spirit and body. For all they cared, she had lied, she made it up. They did not even offer a reconnection of her trinity by form of counselling. She had rolled the good name of the defence force in mud as far as they were concerned. She took the whole thing and buried it deep in her soul. She was never raped – it did not happen. She had lied. As for the men of the world, I will live to destroy you, your siblings and anything male related. When they left the court room, she sank in shame and wished for instant vanishing cream. She felt she could take it, but the pain on her father's face was the worst blow that could ever happen to a little girl's soul. She blamed herself for hurting him and causing him pain and shame. How on earth were they going to deal with it at home? A case lost due to technical errors because she took a bath and did not report the crime on time? Her head was spinning with lots of questions. The question that haunted her all her life from that day, was: Why? She thought her rejection issue was with her mother only, but now she had more scars from being rejected by the justice system. The whole journey could be summed up in one word. Cruelty.

Hate is a painful emotion, but it was something that accompanied her from that day onwards. Like so many South African women, girls, mothers, grannies and aunties, the system that was to protect her, had failed her. A rapist was awarded a medal for destroying a young girl's life by not being found guilty. That was the so-called goodness of the system. Our very own system that allows men to rape children as young as six months old. So at my age, I am a woman who deserved nothing more than an unwanted invasion of my privacy.

She had to learn to live and make peace with that. She was let down, hardened, converted into a beast. Kattey now was a child with an animal behaviour engraved deep inside her heart. She was a honey badger with a monkey soul. She wanted to know who would represent the male species and answer this question: Are you a man created by God in His image? Who on earth are you?

WHO ARE YOU?

She crawls, and falls for you to pick her up.

You look at her and see not a wet nappy and not the innocence of God's creation. You see a woman whom your blood is racing to conquer. Your eyes red as blood with envy, your manhood bursting with desire to undress her and claim her virginity. Who are you?

She calls you uncle, brother, papa and grandpa. She respects you, admires you, and feels safe in your presence. You call her while she is playing as the child that she is, show her sweets worth 50c; while she reaches out her tiny hand with excitement, you grab her and promise to kill her if she screams.

You put a strong dirty hand over her mouth, roughly undress her and penetrate her soul. She bleeds and bites her lips from pain. You go in and sigh with enjoyment as you climax in her tiny body. Who are you?

She thinks you're the most intelligent teacher ever. You ask her to come to your house so you can help her with her maths sums. You offer her a glass of cheap wine, and moments later you're on top of her developing body. Her body dripping with wetness, from your stinking sweat. You promise to make her life at school hell if she tells anyone. You give her R20 and order her to go home. Who the hell are you?

Her parents did not send her rent money in time to pay for her accommodation at college. You chip in with your flashy wallet and save the day. You make her feel like she owes you. You put your big tummy over her and insert your small embarrassment in her dreams. Seconds later, before she figures it out, you've dropped dead next to her. Shame on you, sugar daddy. Who do you think you are?

She married the man of her dreams and stays home to take care of his children. She cooks, cleans and even washes your sinful underwear. You come home drunk in the middle of the night and demand your property. She is tired but you shoot her peace with your dead stick. "You're my wife and I paid for you, so you shall open your bloody legs." You are her husband, but who do think you are?

She got a new job, works until late in the evening to impress her boss. You tell her she'll go places. You promise her that dream promotion or the boot. She thinks of her parents and siblings back home who are struggling to make ends meet. She's the family's bread and butter; you take her to a cheap hotel and blow her world to pieces. Are you her manager; who are you?

Are you a man who was made by Him who created me? Are you that weak, to boost your low self-esteem by killing me, my baby, sister, aunt, mother, cousin? Shame on you for killing an elderly defenceless wisdom. I pray to all the human beings who lost themselves to the devil. I hope you can stand before God some day and tell Him who you have become. Heal the female nation and tell the whole world, who you are?

#  Five  
The ball

Kattey had been thinking about her matric dance for so long. It was not a fantasy that inhabited her mind as she never saw herself actually passing her senior year. She was less interested in school and hated it with all her being. In her mind, she was a genius in her own interests which had nothing to do with getting flashy symbols for her senior certificate.

Kattey was a girl who wanted to get nothing more than the lucky lotto draw of just jumping the minimum mark, for her parent's sake, so she could then live her fantasy life afterwards.

The time was drawing nearer and all learners were experiencing some shopping fever for this and that. She could not entertain that because she knew her family was going through a very difficult financial phase which had nothing to do with her dream dress and a clutch bag. What really led her to care less about the stupid event was the school's golden rule of not allowing them to bring outsiders as dates. At that time of her life, she had been staying with her grandmother as her family had now moved to a small town called Zeerust which was about 60km away from Mafikeng where she attended school. The date of the bling night drew closer and she still did not have a sign of any grand entrance projected in her poverty-infested head. Her grandmother, on the other hand, behaved like she was the one who was going to the ball. Koko's persistent interest in the ball irritated the living lights out of Kattey. The move to Zeerust landed her a cosy spot in her grandmother's house. It was not a bad thing because she loved her granny very much and her granny adored her just as much.

Grandma told Kattey how she was going to be the lady of the night with her amazing beautiful dress that she had worn millions of years ago in some tavern (club) in Sofia Town, somewhere in Johannesburg. Grandma Jenny was a queen of the night back in her days. She had owned a tavern called Jenny's Inn. It was a normal flat during the day but as soon as the night hit, it would be converted into a club. It was very fascinating to find out that her grandma and she shared the same dream. During those hard times, it was illegal for a black woman to run a pub, so for this reason it was the daily norm to convert a home into a club. This was expected to be a diversion from the police's random search of illegal shebeens (informal drinking places), as they called drinking venues in those days. Grandma Jenny was not joking. Kattey got to realise this when she pulled out an old suitcase and opened the sesame cave.

It was full of dust. She sat there staring at it as she slowly pulled out an old velvet dress, some Cinderella-looking fashion suicide. Her lungs nearly sent her to the hospital from coughing and she almost got instant bronchitis. Her grandma's eyes were burning with excitement and right there she saw her drifting into space, and landing on the dance floor of Bra So's tavern. Grandma Jenny changed in front of her eyes and she saw a beautiful 17-year-old girl... her big earrings, afro hair and some red lipstick. Her high-heeled red shoes made a pretty picture that gelled with her blazing personality. She saw traces of herself in this old face that was now wrinkled and had suffered the punches of poverty. She was at some time like Kattey: Full of dreams, ambitions and having to make a decent life for herself and her children. Life never played friendly games with this blessed being, nor gave her a smile to embrace. The sun never shone on her then fair skin.

She served her madam and sailed the beautiful oceans with her kids, while her own children were left at home with her mother. That explained her mother being raised by her grandmother's mother. Mama Rejoice sometimes touched a sad note of her mother and her sisters having to see their mother once in a blue moon. Grandma Jenny worked for the madam and sent home a handful of shame in monetary disgrace. It made Kattey sad. As much as she thought she was exposed to great hardship, it melted down to ashes compared to what she saw in her grandmother's face that day. Born without a silver spoon, it was her tale, her story. Kattey's grandmother, being a mother to Mama Rejoice, who was a mother to her, so the circle went on like that. They both missed the opportunity to enjoy their youth. She tried to put herself in her mother's cracked and dusty-filled shoes.

The picture became clear, and she longed for her mother's love. She sobbed every night, wondering and cursing at her mother, who was sobbing and longing for her children, and such pity that the truth was never known. Pain was conceived by poverty that brewed a lot of anger, from her great-grandma, to her grandmother, to her mother who beat her up with it, and now it would stop with this cruel journey that she was forced to travel. Kattey wiped a tear from her eyes after seeing a flash of her family's life in a split second. Grandma Jenny danced a bit and sat down next to her. She was warm, tired and hopeful. Tears streamed down Kattey's face. Her life was no red carpet. Times had changed.

"You will be beautiful, my Brenda Fassie. I will wash the dress and iron it for you. Where it's torn, I'll sew it. It will be as good as new, just like you." She pulled her close and held her to her chest.

They both cried; she did not understand that while Kattey loved her granny, there was no way on earth she was going to be seen wearing a sentiment-filled beautiful old dress. Kattey's heart bled from disappointing her.

"I can't wear that dress granny. I won't. I can't. It's 1995."

One day, I will make it up to you granny, I will be somebody. I will change your life. She sobbed and held her granny for consolation. Their hearts beat against each other's breasts; it was going to be okay. They will be okay. The Friday of the big night came. Her mind was sedated from what had happened between her and her grandmother. She would not be going to the matric dance. It didn't matter; she would wear the dress for her at home, and they would sit with her grandpa and make tea. Her grandparents adored her. She had written the matric dance off – bad debt written off as irrecoverable.

It was a strange day. The sky was ugly and grey and the wind was not friendly either. Her wish was almost a reality; her fairy waved her magic wand and fiddled with the weather. She wanted it to rain so her schoolmates' plans would be ruined. She became a witch, and a very angry one for that matter. If she had access to African chemicals, she'd have turned that evening into a living hell. As her mind wandered, she heard a knock at the door. Who the hell could that be? Someone coming to harass my granny for something she had borrowed? That made her angry and she ransacked her emotions. She did not expect anyone and had no intentions of seeing a soul. She would send them to the devil. She stood up from her small cold bedroom and went to the door. She could not believe her eyes; she stood there with shock as the door flung open. It was her; she did not believe it. The unexpected visitor's smile and laughter sent her into a dizzy mode.

"What are you waiting for? I got the money; you are going to the matric dance!" Kattey immediately disappeared into an unknown planet where she never thought dreams would come true.

Questions seduced her comprehension; her mother was just not interested in giving her answers. Her grandmother sprang from the kitchen like a young lioness. She pushed her to the bathroom so she could get herself ready to hit the stores. She even forgot about her old dress that was laid on top of her bed like a princess's wedding gown. Her grandmother's hopefulness manifested into a dream that she never thought would be possible. Mama Rejoice, Kattey's estranged mother, had gone out of her way to make sure that she didn't miss one of the important events in her child's life. She had come through for Kattey. She did not know what to do or say to her. She always thought she couldn't care less about her but as little as her efforts were that day, she vowed to never forget that sacrifice. She was her mother, and she had saved her. The most amazing act of motherhood. A time where she, her mother and her grandmother shared a perfect love moment. She silently wished her great-grandmother could also have been there to complete the circle.

They both went to the shops and she could not find a dress that she liked. After checking out a few more shops she bought a white cloth from an Indian fabric store and wrapped it around her body. She looked like Nazira Abdula. Yes, she was dressed like an Indian maiden. She got to the matric dance venue late, an intentional move. She always wanted to be Cinderella. Like her grandma told her that emotional day when they spiritually drifted into each other's bodies, she was the prettiest and that was a night she would never ever forget. Mama Rejoice had gone back to Zeerust as she could not stay. She had gone to a loan shark and borrowed money for her daughter to be one of the fortunate girls. She earned so little money. That was proof that she gave birth to her. Evil spirits came between them most often, but for the miracle she had created for her, she would always salute her! She loved the little monkey that was wrapped in a white sheet and handed to her, a monkey with pink hands and feet.

Mama

When you opened your eyes, you saw her.

You were breast fed today, tomorrow and on the third day you were a woman.

You were taught to fetch wood at age six, make fire at seven, and cook at eight.

Her mother was old, and you became her mother,

While she was gone, gone to the city that never slept.

She took over the madam's house, her kitchen, her kids and everything else,

Except the madams wallet, as she earned little money which never got to buy you a dress.

Mama, my understanding of the first 10 years of your life is that

You were cheated, robbed of your childhood, your breast milk limited, your nutrition stolen, as there were many times when you slept on an empty stomach.

My understanding, mama, was that you got hurt; before you hit puberty stage I am sure you cried, from your cave you called out, to God you cursed but you were never heard, and your words were in vain.

You made up your mind to cope with each day, with all that pain. To my understanding, mama, you turned 11.

You woke up at three o'clock in the morning, chopped wood for the fire, cleaned the house, cooked for them, washed your body, put your school uniform on your skinny body.

You wanted to have your bowl of porridge but the other children had gone past and that meant there was no time; you rushed and thought maybe you would eat it later.

By six o'clock your bare feet made contact with the cold ground, your books in your ice cold hands, your jersey torn and very thin-like, looking like that much of an Indian curtain.

You got to school and to me, mama, you had to stretch out your hands, stretch them so the teacher could give you his best shot; shot of his cane that sent paint straight to your heart, from the cracking sound made by the noise when his cane kissed your hands, mama, very cold hands. You were late today, like yesterday, and you will be tomorrow, mama, but they did not care.

You cried, mama, and your hands healed, only for a few hours, a brief relief until your next beating tomorrow.

When you were 14 mama, there was something in your tummy; you did not know what it was.

You had pains, you bled, and your mother put you in the corner of a room; you pushed and screamed, you sighed and it came out silent.

To my understanding, mama, you had a miscarriage, and as the child that you were, you saw your son. They wrapped it in an old small blanket, you wanted to see it, but they refused.

It was buried, and you were ordered to never tell a soul. His spirit is out there but to this day, mama, you have never been to his grave nor even know where it is.

To my understanding, mama, your spirit was broken, damaged by pain, which lives deep within the dark places of your heart, brewing anger, mama, that was seeded on the fifth day of your existence.

Eighteen years later you were married. You wanted to escape from it all. The following year there was something in your tummy, and to my understanding, mama, the bundle of joy was me. I am sure you wanted to breast feed me with love, not rob me of nutrition, and also hold me in your arms.

To my understanding, mama, I was the ugliest baby in the ward. I wanted to make you happy; I was sent to heal you, to repair your spirit. To my understanding, mama, it was never your fault when you had to cook and clean for your in-laws. Not at all your fault, when you had to take care of me when my stomach was hurting from hunger, when my father was in the mines working for us.

You wanted to love me but you were tired, and you were hurt, you were angry, you had no peace, mama.

I'm sure we could have been, but life did not give you a chance to forget, to reflect and deal with your past.

And to my understanding, mama, your tummy grew and my little brother came. You are healing, but try, mama, try hard to forgive yourself, accept your past, embrace the future and then to my understanding, mama, your spirit will be free.

I forgive us as to my understanding, mama. The Lord loved you and me, sent us to be each other's healing process.

I am your eldest princess, because I saw that in your eyes, and to my understanding, mama, you have always loved me, and never meant to hurt me, as your mother never meant to hurt you, as her mother never meant to hurt her.

#  Six  
Jozi

The broken girl, after a whole lot of ups and downs, managed to finish her matric. Her results were not glamorous enough to attract investors. During that time, the status of her results was called 'school leaving'. Tight like that! She meant they were cool for her, perfect since she was expecting to dance on the same grade for another year. So if it meant her cup of school was finished to the last drop, the condition of the cup was no value to her. Hell no, she did not want to be a doctor, accountant, or any of the bling bling careers that required serious brain interrogation. Symbols like distinguished A, fabulous B, C to be cool, D for donkey and E for Ecstasy. Do not miss the boat here. Kattey just wanted to go to Jozi and flow with her lyrics, make money, smoke cigars, ride some limousines and live the red-carpet life she imagined. Now did she need a fancy senior certificate to get that? No. Pure raw talent was entry level to this fabulous life. Some people are born for the office and some had to be born for this kind of stuff, some are born to mess with figures, computers and big books and some are born free and famous like her!

In that December, she could not wait for January to come so she could pack her bags and hit the road. She wanted to do sound engineering, filming producing; something along those lines. Thinking about her future made her so excited. The thought of being away from home and all that freedom, gave her goose bumps. In September of that year, Kevin had behaved like any other man. It was bound to happen anyway. He was handsome and so in the spotlight. That went to his head somehow and he started falling for girls of all walks of the current century. When Kattey was in her senior class, Kevin stooped lower than low by straying to the junior class and got himself a baby girl. Kattey heard the rumours but ignored them. One afternoon when he hadn't seen her for weeks, he came to her house. She had been missing him and she thought he had come to see her so they could fix things. The welcome was rather cold.

Kattey figured there was something wrong but knew they had managed to overcome challenges over the years and that there was nothing that could get in between their love nest. This time she was wrong. Kevin had come to dump her. The so-called gentleman sugar coated it so it would be easy on a girl who has been with him for almost eight years. The fact was he was leaving her for a 14-year-old – the very age that he started dating her when she was new in middle school. Kattey was in so much shock. He kissed her goodbye and left. She fell to the floor and wanted to cry but nothing came out. She could not even breathe. She could go through anything in life if he was always there. How was she going to face the world? How was she going to live? She went to her bedroom and tried to go through his words in her head. Could it be that she was dreaming? She bit her lips and fell asleep. When she woke up, her aunt from Joburg had come to visit. Kattey tried to remain as calm as possible and tried her best not to show her grief. She greeted her aunt and sat a bit with her family. Suddenly she felt strange. She asked to be excused so she could go take a bath. She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

As she tried to run the bath water, she felt she could not breathe. Her chest got tighter and it felt like a big truck was resting on her chest. She got scared and as the tears were streaming down her face, she screamed for help. Her dad came rushing in and found her struggling to breathe.

"Does anyone in the family have a history of heart disorder?" the doctor asked Kattey's father as she was lying on the bed with an oxygen mask. Her father was shocked and told the doctor that he did not recall anyone in the family banana tree who suffered from a heart disorder related disease. After she was treated, she was taken home. She had had an anxiety or panic attack of some sort. Clearly that was the hardest traumatic issue she had had to endure. The guy that she had dated all her short life, her pillar of strength, had left her. It hurt so bad that she suffered a mini... Lord knew it hurt like hell. She comforted her soul by reminding herself that she would be leaving soon. At least she would be gone and the media in her small town wouldn't have the pleasure of practicing low-class journalism on her.

Her folks wanted her to go and do travel and tourism at some college. That was okay! The problem was they did not have money to take her there. Very funny. She thought it was a big joke but when it was February of the following year and she was still at home, that's when she realised the problem was bigger than the Statue of Liberty. So? It kicked in that she was to stay home and do nothing and hope her folks would run into a genie in a bottle who would turn papers into cash. Hell no! Time was not on her side. The world was waiting for her. The media was dying to hear from her as a rapper. It made sense. She begged her parents to let her go to Jozi. Her mother threw a drama scene and warned her about pregnancy and killing diseases of sexually transmitted crap.

Through her sweet father, she finally gave in and Kattey flew to Jozi, the city that never slept. Her little brother and sister were staying in a flat in Hillbrow. They were schooling there somewhere and she joined them and refused to go home. Everything fascinated her... the buildings, the people, the robots, the night life, the language, the food. It was a brand new place where one's dreams could turn into a pot of gold. While her siblings went to school, she met a couple of girls and they started hanging out. The Zulu language killed her. It totally fascinated her as she thought it was more of a gangster lingo than a natural South African language. Back home where she came from, they only spoke Setswana and English. She was so excited, she even fantasised about dating a Zulu dude... Vusi, Mandla, S'fiso... She couldn't wait to experience life outside her pan home town where everything that happened in the pan stayed in the pan.

Fabulous, she was now rolling with the times as she had her first alcoholic drink at the age of 19. Kattey had managed to keep it real back at school when her peers indulged in alcohol and she stayed sober as a judge. Or could it be that she drank from a cup of love that was her focus on Kevin? Yeah, it was happening. She was just over 19 and could get into a night club. She met a Xhosa girl there and they became friends. Her name was Xoliswa and she had been in Jozi longer than her and knew a couple of people who mattered in making Kattey's dream become a reality. Kattey could almost feel the limelight tearing her soon-to-be satin skin. Her new friend Xoliswa was then going out with some very famous muso who was a brother to another famous person and so the beat went on like that.

One day her ears got the opportunity to hear that some music master was having auditions. She was invited to audition by Xoliswa's boyfriend and the rest was history. She auditioned and blew the judges away with her (Setswana motswako) (a term used to describe rapping in Setswana). It was a done deal, clean cut, no strings attached set-up. Kattey was in. The dreaming stopped and reality kicked in. She was a number from Mafikeng, Mzansi way! No more pinching her skin to see if it was real – she was one of the very bold and the beautiful of South Africa. Seeing the famous Boom Shaka group was like a dream that could never come true, but she did. That was just the beginning; she actually made friends with a lot of music stars of those times when a revolution of kwaito erupted in the early 90s. The bubble gum music that had bathed her childhood was fading and kwaito was hitting SA.

As for her family who had tried so hard to stop her in her tracks... they were now very proud of her, but not in a true sense. It was now "my daughter this and that" and back home, her schoolmates rolled out the red carpet for her whenever they came to perform shows at the small town. She was not a celebrity wannabe: She was even signing autographs. The real deal was that she was going to cut her own album soon but she ended up being used for petty stuff that really wasted her time. She was not in a hurry though but stayed in that company, enjoying the benefits of being seen with the best of the music industry. It was a fact that 999 was one of the leading music stables competing with many others. She was happy to be travelling and was part of the new music revolution that came with the new South Africa.

Hanging out with the guys was what she liked most. Yeah, she was cool, like she was in some American movie playing some rough neck chick character. Her dating pattern crossed her Setswana boundary, and sometimes she would go out with gangsters who gave her beatings. Everything in Johannesburg was so different from back home. Being beaten by a guy symbolised love. She didn't know how that was figured out but that's how it went down. When Kattey saw herself in a mirror, she struggled to find the girl that she was when she got off the taxi from Mafikeng. Crying over spilt milk was not a thing she was going to roll her head in; she had become a different person due to the environment. She knew how to fight; she knew how to play dirty. The innocent fragile person that was once in her body had died. She changed her name and she was now called Crazy K by her crew. She even mastered the art of dating many guys at once. Crazy K was learning and, in a short space, became a teacher to the newcomers from home. Her life was in her hands and nothing was going to stop her. As for the money, she lived for today. The holy book said, "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough troubles of its own." She cared even less for the future. She was young and did not see herself getting older any microsecond from then. The streets of Hillbrow were not getting friendlier, nor warmer and accommodating. It was a 'dog-eat-dog' world. It was a food chain of some sort – if you don't eat, you'll get eaten. That was the basic principle of that city.

The question would be: Did she miss the comfort of her home? She missed her father but there was nothing much she could do about that. She had chosen her path and it had nothing to do with what her father prayed for. Kattey often wondered what had happened to the fragile shy girl that she was when her mother took her to school on her first day of sub A. At that time, she was only five years old, and life was simple and uncomplicated.

Many things happened to her, and around her. "Your tears are not made of blood." This was a statement that was made by one of her boyfriends after she had been beaten to a pulp. It was okay, she had to snap out of her childhood beliefs and get on the reality train. There in that dark city, love had nothing to do with romance, passion and being in love. Love danced with violence, and the sooner she got that into her head, the better she'd cope. It was pointless. She was a mess, and drinking alcohol on a daily basis was the order of the day. There was no time to relax. If you had no job, then the least you could do for yourself was to make yourself as beautiful as you possibly could and go clubbing.

She had grown to know the streets by heart. Some streets were worse than others, but not even one street offered safety or peace. They called it the concrete jungle and it was so fitting. Her brother nearly died from stress when one day he had to buy Kattey's life from a guy who posed as someone who had rescued her from a gang. He was actually the one who had wanted to gang rape her with his friends but by the Lord's grace, he drove her back to her place and demanded money from her brother for saving her. On finding out this shocking news, her dad drove to Hillbrow to take her home but Kattey played the tune better than him and beat him at his game, taking the next ticket out of town.

When she knew that he had gone back home, she went back and did what she did best: Roamed the streets with a panther's eye looking for prey. She was looking for a better life; there was no way she was going to go home with egg on her face and her tail between her legs. Even though it was dark and there was no sign of sunshine, her candle always shone deep inside her. She would often stare out of her flat from the seventh floor and, as the rain drops would slide down the window pane, she would think of her room back home, and the comfort of knowing her next meal would be provided for.

Nothing could be undone. Kattey could not mend her relationship with her parents. She missed them when the going got tough. She could be like the prodigal child and return home, but nothing indicated to her that she could do so. To her, it was not as simple as everyone, especially members of her family, thought it would be. In her family she had the label of the black sheep, but she couldn't care less as she had always been the monkey. She was sure her parents disowned her at some point during her adventurous road. She did not care. She was young and free and there was no prayer that could reach her at that time. She was in the devil's playground.

Life was like a roller-coaster at times in the dating world. She dated a guy from another music group. She was not sure of what love was anymore but she felt something strong for him and their relationship was more of a friendship than actual dating. They were together all the time. Mandla was Zulu and did not understand a word of Setswana and Kattey's little grip of Zulu was almost non-existent. They were like bread and butter. One evening, he left Kattey's place to go to his flat and Kattey decided to follow him so they could go clubbing as usual. It was a terrible weather and the clouds were all dark and grey, rolling with thunder and lighting. She took a chance and decided to go to Yeoville irrespective of the bad weather. When she got to Berea, almost near to her destination, she saw a dark street and a small car parked beside the road. She thought nothing creepy of that and decided it was okay for her to cross the small street to the other side where there were lights. Just as she was about to pass the car, the door opened and she was grabbed and pulled inside. She tried to scream but was hit with something over her head and she blacked out.

Her body was shivering from the cold and rain drops were dripping softly down her face as she lay on the pavement. She tried to move her body but it was sore and she realised that she was half naked. She slowly woke up and found her pants and underwear next to her. She was shocked and dared to think of what had happened to her. She slowly started to examine her body and realised that she had been raped again, and this time by a stranger or strangers. Her head was still aching and she sat there motionless. Kattey could not help but cry and she did not have the energy to pull herself from the horrific scene.

There were no traces of people around as she gathered all her strength, got dressed and made her way to the other side. She did not have a clue as to how long she had been lying there. Her spirit left her body and she, the monkey and her spirit walked together to her boyfriend's flat. When she got there, she knocked but they did not hear her as the television set was making a lot of noise. She opened the door and as she made her way in, she saw a couple of guys in the sitting room watching a movie. She greeted them by raising her hand and went to the balcony. She happened to notice that her boyfriend was not in the group. Crying uncontrollably, she started contemplating the idea of jumping off to end the misery once and for all. Her boyfriend's dance partner Zamane came to her while she was on the balcony having a conversation with death, and called the others to come and see her. Her clothes were full of blood and she did not even realise that her face was bruised. She tried to explain what had happened but she just couldn't. Mandla's friend wanted to storm out and go find the culprits but it was pointless as Kattey remembered nothing of what had happened between the knock-out blow to her head and when she woke up.

Was she in the same situation as she was years ago, when she was worried and scared to death of telling her boyfriend about her being raped? Could this be history repeating itself? She loved Mandla, she did not want him to leave her and mother luck was surely not going to be on her side twice. She was convinced that her boyfriend was going to leave her. She was okay. She was going to leave the world too – it was a given. There are so many ways to kill a cat, so many ways to end her life. Done deal, clean cut! When her boyfriend came back from the club, he was told about the drama and shame of what had happened to her. It was dished out in a way that made him very angry. Like her first love Kevin, he broke into tears of anger. But what was the point of being angry at an empty tin of beer? Again crying over spilt milk; useless situation. This time she did not have the burden of explaining what had happened to her as it seemed obvious. Zamane had already taken it upon his shoulders to spill the beans.

When they got to Kattey's flat, he decided to run a bath for her, putting rough salt in before bathing her. The rough salt must have been some Zulu cleansing ritual or something like that. Kattey was as still as one of the nights in Tajewo's trips to the sacred mountain. Her mind could not come back to earth; she trembled even though the water was hot. As he continued to wash her body, she wanted to take a stone and scrub the shame away but there was no way that was going to happen. Her thoughts drifted to that day in the sickbay, after the young soldier had messed up her life. Now it had happened again, but this time was worse than the first time. Kattey was a mess second time around. The love of her life assured her that he was not going to leave her and that he would hang around because he loved her. A promise made, she found a place on his chest and felt his heartbeat. She wandered off into a world of safety that in real life did not exist. There was no way Kattey was going to report that to the police.

That "I'll never leave you" song lasted for a week and he saw her for the dirty girl that she was and dropped her. Again she was saying she was hurt. It was hard for her to come to terms with Mandla leaving her. He was so different; he was from Soweto and was a very gifted young man who lived for dancing. Kattey could not handle the rejection well as she threw herself at him in a hotel in East London where they had gone to perform at the same show. He picked her up like a doll and took her to her room. He wanted nothing to do with her. How she struggled to deal with the rejection! The pain was worse than when Kevin had dumped her. She decided that killing herself would not bring her less joy than hurting all the men that she would come across. It was hatred that restored its place in her heart; a very big place and made a comfortable home there. She took the whole story and put it in a dark private room and sent the key to hell. A sense of denial stepped in: She was not raped, he did not leave her, and it was a bad dream. She was okay! A bitter and greater monster was reborn in her. With all this, she became beautiful outside and the evil monkey got to be locked up inside.

She took a deep breath and started a new life. Her man got a new floosy who shared him with a bunch of groupies... Who cared? She did not give a continental, but for many years Kevin and Mandla's betrayals hung over her everywhere she went. She wished them a painful death and put a curse on them.

Years later, Kattey stumbled across a rich man much older than her, who was very sweet and loving. He took her from poverty from waitressing and made her a queen of his castle in Sunning Hill, in upmarket Joburg. She had been staying with this man for a couple of months as a princess and while she was idling in the comfort of her beautiful bedroom, stumbled on a newspaper. There across the front page was a picture of her former boyfriend Mandla and it was reported that he had died of a sickness of some sort. Huh... She always knew that he had a problem of aching bones and joints but never saw him as a person who would suddenly die, although she wanted him to after what he had done to her. It did not matter that she had not seen him in years but the time they spent together meant the world to her. His sweetness was no longer going to be seen or heard of by the world. His graceful and bubbly personality now lay cold beneath the ground. The smile that brightened her world at some point was now a spirit. She had forgiven him for betraying her. She allowed herself to cry for him. She felt better and wished him farewell.

She remembered seeing him rubbing ointment on his whole body which at times would be very sore with extremely high temperatures, but it didn't ring any warning bells. Thinking back, she thought of one particular night when she could not sleep as he was moaning and groaning from pain. She slipped back into time and thought of how she would be sleeping on his chest, when he would tell her that he was not going to live for a long time. When she read the newspaper, she realised how he prophesised his own death. It was amazing how strongly he felt about dying. He was even specific about the time. She broke into tears and sank her head into her soft pillow and felt a huge piece of his existence leaving her body. That's how s'thandwa sami (her love) left her earth. That's how her path with Mandla ended, him dying as he predicted he would.

* * * *

Kattey's career of doing her own album was not happening as quickly as she was promised it would. She found herself having a lot of time on her hands and the shows became very scarce. At this time, she had run out of money but this fact would not see her packing her bags and going back home.

It was not easy for any of the girls and boys Kattey lived with to ever consider going back to their respective homes in different parts of the country. She saw most of her friends being involved in very abusive relationships and all they could do at times was compete about how many times they were beaten in one weekend. Violence was just a part of their lives in Johannesburg and to them, it was as normal a life as any. As she had not been working for months, she landed herself in more hot water by dating another guy called Mpho who made her body a regular punching bag. He told her that he would stop their relationship when he wanted to, not on Kattey's account. She slept with him out of fear and felt trapped in a violent act which became a vicious cycle of betrayal to her. Every now and again, she would remember her times back home and wondered how it would be to just pack and take a taxi home. Things had gotten so bad between her and her mother that she knew in her heart that she had pushed her so far that nothing could ever mend their relationship. Her relationship with her mother was never that great but it had been something. She felt so alone and lost and prayed that one day she would have the courage to own up to all her mistakes, swallow her pride and go apologise to her parents.

She was busy with her usual music business and still refused to go home. Her parents heard all kinds of stories about her life in Hillbrow but there was nothing they could do. Nothing was going to bring her home. She was hungry for success despite all the stumbles that she encountered. While she was dancing on stage one day, she realised that her tummy had a funny thing in it. She thought it was from eating a lot, but then realised that this thing was not going anywhere, even if she did not eat anything.

Kattey did not know what to make of the sudden ball in her tummy that moved around a lot. She thought she hadn't been sick in a while so this time the sickness had come in a different format. Her thinking was that she was bewitched and maybe she had a stone or snake or something moving in her stomach. She called her mother to come to Joburg to try and get her a sangoma to get rid of the thing in her tummy. Mama Rejoice was humble enough to try and reach out to her long-lost daughter and would be the one who would come to Joburg, but mostly to see her siblings who were still living there. When Kattey told her about the mysterious little ball in her tummy, she came and they went home together to try to sort the thing out. It was always Kattey's wish not to go home and when they got there, she made it clear that she was not there to stay and would go back as soon as they had figured out what was in her stomach. It was December and she had plans to record her music album the following year. Her mom accompanied her to the doctor and what was said there blew her world apart. To her surprise, the wise doctor told them that she was pregnant. Questions that had no answers ran up and down her head. Pregnancies were not for people like her. She had not skipped her period once. The condom broke once, she thought. How? Why? When? Thoughts in her head didn't change the fact that she was pregnant! When she thought of the father of the... Of him, she could not believe it.

She did not want her life to be like that: She was to be married and have a husband then kids, but not like this. Her career? Her parents? People? Holy Mary, mother of Jesus. It finally hit her. She was now officially recorded as a statistic. Young black females who got pregnant due to this or that... How could that be? She couldn't be a mother to anybody. Motherhood was not her thing. She went back to the car with a lot of confusion and anger, embarrassment, shock and a host of other negative emotions.

She was going to kill herself before any baby could pop out of her tummy. Her poor dad! Of all the things she had done to him, this was the worst. She was killing him with disappointment. She never imagined anything of this nature happening to her. Her mind went blank and she could not calculate what was going to happen next.

She couldn't really hide a pregnancy, especially from her dad who was a nurse. She begged her mother not to tell her father when they got back home. Her dad took a look at the pills that the doctor had given her and added one and one together. She was plain stupid. How could she ever think she could get away with that? Her dad told her that he knew she was pregnant and he was okay about it. Her mom climbed on top of Carlton Centre and shared a verse or two, and tortured her every chance she got. She had disappointed her badly and had disappointed herself too, but they accepted her preggy deal and made peace with the coming baby.

That was not what she wanted. They were to feel embarrassed and force her to have an abortion before people could figure it out. They went on and on about the new coming baby. What baby? She was not going to have a baby. She was going back to Jozi to clench a music deal. So after a lot of effort, she finally convinced her parents to grant her permission to have an abortion. It was legal after all. They did not want that naturally as they were proud Christians, but Kattey felt it was her life and she could decide if she wanted to have the abortion or not. She went to the doctor and he did it. The procedure was said to be very painful but she thought it was worth going through as she wanted nothing to do with motherhood. She was not ready and hated the baby that was growing in her stomach. She resented it so much and could not even allow herself to wonder if it was a boy or a girl.

She went through with it, but could not sleep because her conscience was getting the better of her. She was relieved and was ready to start a new life with a clearer vision. No more cheap condoms and stupid boyfriends. As for the Bruce Lee of a boyfriend, she was glad she was not going to have his baby. It was a close call, and she was pleased that Mpho was out of her life after he disappeared as soon as he got word about a baby coming. Kattey had a lovely Christmas with her family but a month later something was still moving in her tummy. Oh God, what now? She had not slept with anyone. She had been at home the whole Christmas, staying indoors and not wanting to see anyone while she was healing.

One afternoon she started having pains in her abdomen and she was taken to hospital.

When she got there, she was told she was six months pregnant and was now in labour. Labour! What? Baby? Me? Pregnancy? When? How? What witchcraft was that? She had had an abortion for crying out loud. The baby had not died. Jesus, the one was aborted and the other had stayed behind! Shock sent her right into that labour room where she had a baby four days later. The baby weighed 1,100 kilogrammes. It didn't matter. She was defeated by forces way beyond her control. She had a baby boy, who looked more like a little puppy; the smallest baby she had ever seen in her life. She was no doctor but quite clearly it was created by God that pregnancies were meant to be for nine months, not six months. She sighed in her hospital bed and settled with the thought that only this miracle could happen to her. Where bad luck was concerned, anything could happen to her. She was born with a curse; again it was that evil monkey's doing. She was numb, shocked, and speechless. Kattey, the star to be, had given birth to a tiny baby boy whose body was inserted with little tubes from everywhere you looked. He looked like a rat's baby; his skin was very light and she could almost see all his organs. She was now a mother, no tricks, no jokes!

She wanted to take the baby and go home, but no, it was not going to go down like that. Her son was extremely premature and she was to stay with him in that hell hole until he reached two kilogrammes. Flip! No medical aid, no freedom, you stay with your baby in the hospital. Free food, and lessons on how to feed this type of baby. She realised that her life was over and she wondered how she was going to cope with motherhood, and her jail sentence in that hospital. In her head, that was the end of her singing career. She thought she could escape her body for a couple of days. She was just lying there.

She didn't even want to see or hear the baby. She wanted to kill it. Why did it decide to stay? She did not eat or sleep for a couple of days. Whoever plans people's lives had big problems with her. How did she get forced into motherhood like that? It was wrong. She had no motherhood bone in her being. Her grandmother was very happy as she loved her beyond all her stupid mistakes. When it came to her grandmother and grandfather, Kattey could never do wrong in their eyes. Grandma Jenny was the only one who could reach the little girl inside her. She visited her a lot in jail (hospital). Kattey so wanted to make peace with having a baby with a guy who she hated so much. It was hard. She cursed her life, hoping that God would feel sorry for her and let her die in her sleep. There was a television and she had made friends with the other ladies who were in hospital with her. She always saw the culprit that gave her a son on TV and she knew that he did not care about her or the baby. He was busy with other girls and enjoying the fame like Kattey once had. He had cut her stardom short and given her a motherhood award that she had never thought of nor least expected.

She stayed in the hospital for four very long months. She had a lot of time to herself and, therefore, thought about her life and what she wanted to do when she got home. She was angry at the baby but she prayed to God to give her peace. With very little entertainment in that jail resembling hospital, she had no choice and started attending Bible services as this was the only thing she could hold on to. Her so-called friends were gone. She was all alone. True then: When days are dark, friends are non-existent. That was the darkest time of her then sorry life. Her baby tried so hard to inject a spark of goodness in her but it failed most of the times. Like her mother, she blamed her failure on him.

To this day, the baby has never given up on her and she has thanked God for his willpower. The doctors told her over and over again how her son was not going to make it to the next day but he shocked the world of science and staggered to find his place in this world of the living, one hour at a time. Everything that she thought was valuable to her disappeared, and the Lord was with her. She knew God was there and he had a plan for her. After months of spiritual interventions in the chapel, she was proud to say she slowly accepted her baby after serious wars with evil spirits, and she thanked the Lord for the one remaining baby. Only she could have a complicated pregnancy with the one baby dying and the other remaining. She asked an old German doctor, who was interested in the intriguing birth, how possible her baby's existence was, and she said only 1% of such pregnancies happen in the world. The old lady said it was called the mystery of the disappearing twin.

Kattey was now starting to recollect the events of her life and wondered if she could have been sent to earth for a purpose greater than her bad luck ordeals. In religious terms, it would mean that it was a miracle that she had killed her one baby and the other had remained. God had to forgive her for that, hence her ongoing trips to the hospital chapel. Scientifically, she would not know how to explain that, but it did not matter. She was a killer only because she did not know that God could forgive her but was waiting for her to forgive herself. This simply meant she should believe that there was no record of her as a murderer in the eyes of the most high. A prostitute was to be stoned and Jesus saved her, so she believed God did not keep an 'A' list of sinners. We are born of a sinful nature, but it's up to us to erase this curse brought upon men centuries ago, by going down on one's knees and asking God to forgive us. Kattey learned that God does not keep a bank account where he deposits sins of human beings.

My Seed

It's unknown to me, but known by Him.

When I was a seed, He knew that I would in years to come have a seed, meant to be, meant to stay.

The winds of the dark world blew, death called my name softly and the two forces fought for my soul, one pulling more than the other.

The wise had a plan, the owner had an end. Which one would it be? That would save my humanity. Complete yet shattered like glass, was a life I lived.

The wise gave me two, as a measure of a rope,

The owner took one, and I was left with one.

It crawled and strived for a place among the living.

The wise was watching with diamond eyes, an expectant maiden.

Who in time would like to know her master?

As a loving soul, that gave me a rope in the form of a baby.

One day, two and three he stayed, rejection bullied me like a hungry lion.

Was I moulded like clay? To have a shape of an imagination.

I was no perfect cup, of a drink offered to kings.

I was no sun that shone on a fertile land.

Nor the rain, that had deserted the land.

I was a poor, tortured, tormented soul that deserved nothing but a blazing fire. A seed I was given, a blessing upon my head.

My master loved me, He kept me, He planned my life, and He gave me hope.

I was given tears of dignity, pains of labour that bore my serenity,

Erased my scars, restored my shame.

The wise had a plan and my owner had an end.

They fought for

my soul, my owner won the battle and the seed in me was planted.

My son, my life, a new rope that saved me.

#  Seven  
Motherhood

The day when her baby reached 2kg, her life sentence in that hell hole of a hospital was over. Kattey was free! She walked slowly to the car, admiring everything like a prisoner who had just been released after years of imprisonment. Jail was not a cool place to be. In all senses, she thought of that hospital as an identical resemblance of prison. At some point, she had tried to escape and her mother had tracked her down and found her still wearing her jail clothes, trying to make her way to freedom. Kattey took her baby and they joined the rest of the world after four months of isolation, unstable emotions raging from anger to impatience, and boxing fights between her and her mother. She could not understand why she had so much anger at her mother because clearly as much as they did not have the best mother and daughter relationship, she was not the one who had made her pregnant.

During this time, Kattey's father had resigned from the army a couple of months back and gotten his service package and pension fund money. This elevated the family's financial status for a while as new furniture and a van were bought, and they got lots and lots of clothing. Her father had tried so much to get another job in nursing but struggled and ended up getting a job in a small mine a bit far from where they stayed. He came to visit Kattey at the hospital but she was saddened to see that her father's slavery at that mine was evident in his face. This was hard for Kattey to swallow as she was sure that he was the best father in the world. Her father was a very humble man who put prayer in his daily activities and did not possess any streak of laziness or hopelessness. He had positive eyes in every situation, no matter how dark or gloomy it seemed. When he had come to visit her one day, her heart sank when she saw how the environment in the mine had taken her father's handsome face away. His skin had dark blemishes on the cheeks, his hands had hard sports where naturally her father's hands were, like hers, soft, small and fair.

The released prisoner was almost a qualified doctor and she could help any woman give birth, even those who had complications. During all those months she was in her maternity cell, she learned how babies got born and all the medical terms that were used in the delivery room. She knew the names of different instruments that were used. She would dream with fascination of going to a foreign country and posing as a midwife, making money and coming back to her own country. If only anyone could just recognise her forced acquired knowledge and give her a midwife certificate.

It was the happiest moment of her life to finally rest her head on her bed and feel the soft fresh-smelling pillow case. Her mother had prepared her room to accommodate the baby. It was a new beginning for her. Kamosa... her beautiful son's name, meaning 'by the grace of God' he lived. Her son was a symbol of a new beginning. She put her life and all its dirt in a closet and threw away the key.

Being a mother was not "pap en vleis" (porridge and meat) like she thought. Her little prince slept during the day and woke up at night. It made sense. She was a dancer and being up at night was part of her life as an artist, and she slept during the day. Kamo would scream the whole night like a goat going to be slaughtered for an ancestral thanksgiving ceremony. Her mother would leave her to face the music. She made it clear that it was Kattey's baby and she had to raise it like she raised her, with no one's help. So it was a never-ending road and when the going got tough, she landed right in the middle of postnatal depression.

She could not enjoy a natural night of peaceful sleep; the baby was performing like some famous heavy metal band artist. Her little soldier could be described as hell on earth. Kattey could not understand why he cried so much. Sometimes when she looked at him, it seemed he was crying from pain coming from his stomach as his face would turn red with little purple and green veins sticking out, whilst his body curled like a millipede. It was a frustrating life for a mother, and she was now beginning to understand what her mother had gone through when she had her at a young age and had to raise her by herself, while also being expected to be a good wife and take care of her in-laws.

She sometimes felt sorry for her mother and tried hard to understand when she did not have time for her and her baby. To her it was as simple as that. She wanted Kattey to go to school so she could have a better life than the one she had lived but Kattey had singlehandedly messed it up. Mama Rejoice was now enjoying her life; she would go to parties and leave her to be a mother. Kattey would sometimes be depressed and put all the failures of her life on her poor baby's tiny shoulders. Her mom was now behaving like a teenager and leaving Kattey to deal with her own motherhood issues.

Kattey really thought she was going to give up motherhood responsibilities and be allowed to look for a job, as there was no money for her to even entertain the thought of going to university to further her studies. She was now a mother and mothers stayed home and took care of their kids. Her baby grew very fast. Her little sister had grown also. Kattey had never really taken an interest in her. She was sweet and humble and was forever studying, something that Kattey had never done. To her, she was like those boring students way back in her high school years. She never got to know her closely. At this time, she was in boarding school and she would come back during the school holidays and often helped her with the baby. She loved her and appreciated her for being there. Her brother was there also but he was too busy trying to figure out his own life, his adolescent stage beating him up with confusion. He occasionally came home with a blue eye or two, and she guessed that was part of growing up in a man's world.

One day Kattey had a huge fight with her mother who gave her the boot and she went to live with her grandmother. She had no one to blame but herself. Mama Rejoice had made it very clear that when Kattey fell pregnant and had a baby, she was not going to be there to save her. Kattey really thought that it was a big joke and the little innocent body of Kamo would soften her Egyptian heart. How could anyone be so cruel? If it was for her to learn a lesson, then she was going to make sure she never had another baby. Grandma Jenny spoiled her and she was happy living there even though she missed her mother's home sometimes. After a year or so, she got a job at home as a waitress in their local casino hotel, where her grandma had worked as a house-keeping manager and her grandfather as the hotel's head chef years before they retired. Mama Rejoice and her sisters had worked there too and now Kattey also got into the food and beverage industry. Not the most glamorous of jobs but as they say, beggars can't be choosers. In this case, her poor senior certificate results landed her in a job that came with a lot of humiliation, disgrace and sore feet.

It was not how she wanted her life to be but she had a baby and needed cash. She worked there for a while and hated that job. Kattey had wanted to be something in life, not to serve rich people alcohol so they would feel sorry for her and give her pride-diminishing coins. She was supposed to be served drinks like them and give some girl a tip one day. She would think about that while she had stolen moments in their changing room, while experiencing burning feet and hot burning tears that would make her cheap make-up drip mercilessly on her white school shirt that now served as a uniform for her low-class job. She knew that this job was not what she was going to settle for and she planned and saved money so she could go back to Johannesburg. She hated her new life and made a promise to run and leave her mother, grandma, baby and all.

#  Eight  
Abduction

Who would have thought that after having a baby, Kattey's dream of making it as a music star would die with the new era of motherhood. Her body was still intact and she had been dreaming about going back to Johannesburg to try to finish what she wanted to do. The fact that she had a baby made her want to succeed more, as recording her album would ensure financial security if she used her money wisely. It was going to be very difficult for her because her parents were never ever going to let her go back or pay her accommodation while she tried to have a last attempt as a music star.

Nobody saw it coming but Kattey left her stupid job as a waitress and left town again. A few months after getting out of the hospital, she saw herself leaving her home and was right back in the middle of a life that she never thought she would go back to. She struggled a bit to reconnect with her friends as most of them had moved or even gone back home. Then she landed herself a new boyfriend as that was the only means of being taken care of – that was a norm during those times.

Her new thug of a boyfriend was a DJ and hopped around from one night club to another, with Kattey behind him like a dog's tail all the time. Kattey had made plans to go and party at a friend's house one night and did not want to go with him on his club-to-club music spree. They all knew him as a DJ, but one that always accompanied serious, popular DJs as his profile was not that good. He was very handsome and extremely skinny. She was stuck with the guy since she made him leave his wife and kid for her. Kattey had no intention of having a real long-lasting 'I'll die for you' relationship as her thug boyfriend expected them to have. That particular night that she, for some reason, did not wish to leave with him. They went with some of his punks to a new club called Dazzle. It was somewhere in Midrand. She could never figure the distance out. It was an old house that was somehow converted into a club. It had wooden floors and it was in a big yard full of trees. The inside of the place was dim with disco lights that were always going round and round, making one dizzy. He was having fun playing his records as he was sure that he was the hottest DJ to hit planet earth but he bore the living lights out of her and she decided to get some air.

She took a walk to some nearby trees next to a block of cars that were parked there. She wished the night would pass quickly so she could go back home to their small room that they rented. She missed the city as this place gave her the creeps and reminded her of a scene in one of Freddy Kruger's killing sprees with his sharp metal nails. She got tired of standing and sat down on the ground. Kattey started playing with the soft sand and it felt cold on her fingers, and she was glad she had found something to do to get her mind off things. A few minutes later, a hand covered her mouth and her whole body was lifted. In a flash she was thrown into the boot of a car. The whole thing happened fast as she heard the doors of the car closing as it sped off into the night with her kicking and screaming inside the car's trunk. For a moment, she wished someone would scream 'CUT' so the action scene would stop and they'd all take five, as they say in the filming of movies. The sad truth was that she was being kidnapped and there was nothing anybody could do to save her from her fate. The very dark boot stank. She screamed and realised that no one was going to hear her cries, and then started shaking uncontrollably with fear of what was to become of her during this ordeal.

In her head she was going to be one of the sad tragic stories that were always printed in newspapers: 'Prostitute found dead in Vaal River'. She meant that this was what she thought the headlines of the newspaper would look like. Kattey's mind ran wildly with thoughts of how she was going to meet her Creator. Scary thoughts of who was in the car and what they were going to do with her, made her heart want to skip beats. Lord knows she did not see herself dying. It was a short life but she was sure there would be something wonderful that her family would remember her by. What? What could that possibly be? All she ever gave them was grief and heartache. She almost heard the famous Boys to Men song of the end of the road of a troublesome girl who lived recklessly. So that was it for her... she was going to die. With that in mind, panic set in and she started to shake uncontrollably again.

'Ngwana o o sa reetseng molao wa batsadi o tla reetsa wa manong'.' Yep, the mighty proverb that governs the lives of Batswana (children who do not listen to their parents will be destroyed by their wrongdoings). It was all going to come true. She was going to die like a dog in some shacks or bushes somewhere, slain or thrown in a river. The road to her death was very long. The car was not stopping and she heard no sounds of cars or people anywhere close by. If it was time for her to see that God existed, it was that time. Surely she did not wish to die, but she was also sure that her capturers were not going through all this trouble to keep her in a beautiful castle for her to be a princess of some far-away land. Kattey wanted nothing more than for God to never forsake her by leaving her when she got killed. She wanted Him to give her strength so she could be strong and face death without fear. It was her dying wish that she wanted Him to forgive her for being her parent's worst nightmare.

Forgiveness was a major part of the teachings in the holy book. Surely she could be forgiven; her concern was now for her after-death life. All she wanted was to go to heaven with as little pain as possible. In the darkness of the moving car's trunk, she found it appropriate to search for God and wished that He was with her in the boot of that speeding car. This long journey to hell was not coming to its destination and seemed like a trip to some faraway dark place. Her mind stopped racing, her body stopped shacking, her lips stopped dancing, her tears dried up from her eyes and cheeks and she became very calm, feeling a sense of warmth descending on her body.

The fear was gone; it was shocking how calm and still she was. 'He will not forsake you.' That's a promise God made to His children, and at that moment she knew that she was not going to die. It was not yet her time. He had a purpose for her life and surely this was an experience that she was meant to go through. The car slowed down and then it stopped. She heard the doors of the car opening and then the boot was opened. A very dark, tall, ugly looking man put a knife to her throat and warned her to keep her mouth shut or else... Kattey was already quiet and he explained that he was going to take her out of the boot so she could ride with them inside the car. She was amazingly calm and nodded her head to show that she was in agreement with his proposal. When she was let out, Kattey noticed a big green road sign that read Kempton Park and Thembisa. They were alongside a highway and she was pushed into the car. There was another gorilla sitting at the back and two monkeys sitting in the front. They looked at her in the rear view mirror and looked very content with their catch.

Their smiles indicated joy and happiness at their achievement. The one gorilla had sores around his mouth and he came out of his fantasy world and gave her a very romantic kiss. He could not wait until he could have his way with her. The soul mate on the other side could also not resist and started touching and painfully brushing her thighs. They thought they were going to rape her but she maintained a defiant spirit, and promised herself that the disgusting kiss would be the only thing that they would do to her. Prayer danced on her lips and from the bottom of her heart. In this regard, she had a conversation with God about the situation that she was in and that there was no way in hell these devil disciples were going to touch her. The grace and mercy of God came to her and she believed and said, "Amen".

The car sped off into the road and finally turned to the sign that read Thembisa. As they were driving around, warnings of instant death were thrown at her if she tried to let anyone know of her situation. They pulled over at what looked like a tavern, and she was instructed to behave like she was one of the monkey's girlfriend. Having no choice, she agreed and they went in to have a couple of beers before they jetted her off to the place of death. They seemed like the popular gangster groupies as she could tell from how the people greeted them, that they were feared. They went in and when she was asked if she wanted anything to drink, she said she was fine. Every now and again, she was ordered to behave normally, smile and play the role of a happy girlfriend to the gorilla that had freaky sores around his mouth. She was seated on a crate of beer and they ordered beers and started drinking. The one guy was becoming annoyed with the decision to drink as he wanted to go to their mysterious place so they could have a feast with her body. He kept on telling them that they should hurry up and leave but the other gorillas wanted nothing more than to enjoy their beers a little while longer. He was so furious that he left.

Kattey asked her owner if she could go to the toilet to relieve herself and he told her to go with a death warning to keep her mind busy while she was there. The toilet was outside and as she slowly walked, she was observing closely to see if there was a slight chance of escaping. When she got to the toilet, she told a lady about her kidnapping and that she was going to be gang raped but the lady only wished her good luck. The drunken maiden was also sweet enough to tell Kattey that she should enjoy it so it would not be such a bad thing. Now that was the craziest thing she had ever heard and she could not believe what this drunken aunty was telling her. Her knees went weak with this woman's lack of touch with reality. Kattey sat on the dirty toilet seat and wanted to do nothing more than throw herself in it rather than to have the gorillas touch her body one more time.

On her way back, she decided to run to the house in the yard and explain her misfortune, thinking she would be rescued from the hell that she was in. She opened the door and saw a very big fat mama and she threw herself at her feet. At this point, Kattey was crying uncontrollably and it took her a couple of moments for the shebeen queen to understand her drama. She told Kattey how afraid she was of those men and how they would destroy her business if she betrayed them by helping her. On this note, she wanted to faint with disbelief. She could not believe the behaviour of the people living in that community. Were they real? Was Thembisa in a planet that was not on the earth that I have grown up in? Were there no police or a system of some sort that protected people? Were the laws that ruled their country not applicable to this place?

More confusion brewed in her and she was so in shock at what this mama said, who even suggested she go back to her capturers with the hope that they let her loose. Kattey was even made aware that they could keep her for months if they wanted to. Upon receiving this extra information, she knew then that if that was the case, her only way out of this mess was to kill herself rather than be raped over and over again. She did not know how her life was going to be after this as she was already a mess, trying to deal with the rape that had occurred when she was young as well as that of the previous year.

In a rushed moment, she saw the front door and ran to it to see if she could escape to the streets and run as fast as her short legs could carry her.

They monkey clan was already looking for her and when one of them saw her pushing through the small gate, he quickly jumped and ran after her. She ran a few paces and fear brought her to the ground. When she hit the cold ground, she felt a hard kick to her stomach. He was kicking her like a soccer ball. He then grabbed her by her dreadlocks and took her to the others who were swearing and cursing at her for making such a stupid move. The one guy was so angry that he spat on her and poor Kattey wanted to vomit. She thought of her bedroom back home and tears streamed down her face. Kattey was hurt and too weak to do anything. She was like a Christmas sheep and felt helpless. Hot blood rushed out of her private parts; her monthly period had come and was encouraged by the kicks that Ronaldo was scoring on her tummy and lower abdomen.

There was no other way out it seemed. Katter gave in and accepted her fate as she realised there was no way she could ever get out of this horrific nightmare. Oh, how she wished it was, but when one guy slapped her hard across her face, she realised how awake she was. Then while she was in the car waiting for them to swift her off to lala land, they started having an argument about something. She did not think much about that but it got so serious that they started insulting each other. The driver got in the car and left his soul buddies swearing at him. She could not say she was happy that she only had to deal with one gorilla but was grateful and amazed about what had just happened. What was he going to do to her? Kattey felt like Tajewo when the spirit of the humming blue bird had come to rescue him. He kept on looking at her in the rear view mirror as if he was not sure what he wanted to do with her.

"Joburg is very far from here and I want R500 if you want me to take you back to where you stay!" With the sound of those words, she could not believe what this man was telling her. It was not the nicest thing to hear as she did not have that kind of money, but she could not tell him that as he threatened to take her back to his soul buddies for a midnight snack.

She told him she could organise the money when they got to Hillbrow. He then took out a gun and explained how a bullet was going to grace her head to glory if there was a small chance of him not getting the cash. Now that was like jumping from a fire to volcanic lava. They drove for a good hour or so as his car had been sort of self-made and had a limited speed, even though he tried so much to impress her with his driving techniques. When Kattey finally saw the lights of her hood alive and in one piece, she gave God all the glory. He asked her the street names and in no time, the car was parked in front of the flat. She wanted to jump out but the thought of the bullet going through her head and leaving her brains to spread on the pavement like some cream, made her stay glued to the seat.

He came up with the master plan of how they were going to pass the security guards without them noticing that he was holding a gun to the side of her ribs. Close to her heart like her future husband. One mistake and she was going to die like an unfortunate chicken that was trying to cross the road. Kattey was not as concerned about passing the security but about the fact that there was no R500 in their flat. She wondered if her boyfriend was home. The two bravely passed the reception area with the guy covering her for dear life as the gun pressed hard on her side. The guy had wiped traces of blood from her face, and the bruises on her face were not far off from the ones that she would often have anyway on entering her flat on most weekends. The security guards found it normal for girls to go around with blue eye marks on their faces, especially during weekends. She was so afraid and was shaking like a break dancer mastering one of the electric moves. She went to the third floor first to check on a rich friend of hers. In Kattey's heart, she knew she was her only hope. Kattey told her friend that she owed the guy money and he needed it urgently.

Neo realised how afraid and close to tears Kattey was, but said, "Sorry dear, I'm broke" She was not, she was never broke. Oh, she could not believe her ears and eyes. Neo was being nasty as she saw her smiling to herself. Fat cow! She hated her, and swore if she made it through this somehow, she was going to make her pay for that. Kattey was going to ask her gangster boyfriend to have her shot. Where on earth was her stupid boyfriend at that time? She could not think of him but she knew that if he had been there, he would have shot this idiot before he could say R500. They then proceeded to the seventh floor to their flat. They knocked and there was no answer.

The man was now angry and told her that he was going to take her back to the beautiful township of Thembisa so they could sort her out. Kattey was not going to have that happen; she was going to scream at the reception area. She thought she would rather be shot and make newspaper headlines than go back to that township of insanity. They went down in the elevator and she could not believe her eyes when she saw her brother with all his friends. Kattey pulled herself from that man and threw herself at her brother who was drunk and thought it was just Kattey with one of her Jonnies! Kgothatso thought wrong this time and Kattey wanted to tell him everything but her voice disappeared for a good lengthy time which should have given him the signal that something was wrong.

The man stepped in and told her brother that he had rescued her from people who were trying to rape her. She was just crying so much and everyone thought she was too shocked and needed to be put in bed with her madness. He kindly requested that he be given money for petrol so he could go back to his humble beginnings. Her brother and his friends searched their pockets and gave the man R100 for his kindness. A couple of days later, she related her fairy-tale story to Kgothatso who gave her the whole 'I told you so' song that went platinum in a short space of time. She did not know what had happened for her life to have been saved like that but it was another obstacle in her journey of life, another chance that could have made her quit her pursuit of being a superstar. However, even this horrific ordeal was not enough to make her change her life.

#  Nine  
Death Blows

Through these ups and downs that Kattey went through, her mother had really gotten tired of her. That did not bother Kattey because she knew that her grandmother adored both her and her son, and she was at peace raising her child for her. Her little boy was growing up like a normal child but without his mother's love and affection. It did not even bother Kattey that Mpho was not interested in their son after the drama of having her baby and losing another. Kattey made peace with it and felt it would not be a sin to live without a husband or a father figure for her son. Most girls she knew were also raising children alone and it was a very normal practice.

Johannesburg had now become her home and her family had accepted that and only relied on prayers to touch her so she would one day come home for good. She had new friends coming in and out of her life while she moved constantly from one side of town to another.

It was just another Saturday like the rest of them. It might have been so, but a lot was going on that day. She was numb from pain. She did not believe it. She went to the public phone and called him, and it kept of sending her to voice mail. She did that for a couple of weeks until it sank in. He was dead. He had left her.

He lived to see a smile on Kattey's face, and even paid for it if he had to. She was so spoiled and grew fond of his credit card – in fact she loved it. He was the sweetest man ever. She had actually snatched the man that left her from a friend of hers. Chantel used the brother, and... well Kattey thought she could treat him better with the fake love and respect he deserved.

He was going to leave his wife and kids for her. It sounded like wishful thinking but it was true. Kattey had great love for the old Volkswagen car and she wanted to see herself driving one before she could start owning one of the modern cars of today. Modise had gone to some car dealership a couple of weeks before and he had kissed her forehead and paid for a black one. He requested the sales guy to remove its top cover and turn it into a convertible with a cream white velvet cover. He was to take his time to make sure that the end product pleased his queen. Everything was planned for their new lives together. They had even gone to look for a town house that she was going to enjoy as the future Mrs X. It was just a matter of time until her new life was to unfold.

There was only one thing that separated them from this luxury life that she saw herself living in her head. She would wake up and take a bath and go shopping, do her nails, her hair and join her future husband in a fancy restaurant for dinner. On that Thursday, Kattey packed up her bags and went to her home town to wait for him to come on Saturday. They would then both leave on Sunday to spend some time in Sun City before they jetted off back to Jozi to discuss her lobola (bride price), his divorce and her high class white wedding.

When Kattey got home, she gathered all her friends and bought them lots of food and booze. Yes, she had lots of money to spend and she did it with such flair and elegance. She was the rich man's diamond and her spending his money made him blush with happiness.

She had so much fun with her friends and she got so drunk that day as she wanted time to pass by quickly so it could be Saturday so her man would come. She had noticed that it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon and he had not called her even once. That was strange and she called him a few times, only to hear his voice telling her to leave a message and that he would call back. She was furious and she swore she was going to make him pay. She had fun fantasising about the expensive shoes that he was going to get for her in an act of being sorry for misbehaving like that. It had been a whole 48 hours and he had not responded to any of her calls.

She did not even think of death or an accident or anything like that. She figured he must have gotten drunk and lost his phone and that he would soon call her and things would be back to normal. At around six o'clock on Monday evening, her mother received a strange call. One of her flatmates in Jozi called and told her mother the most horrible news ever, she saw her face go blue with horror. Her mother pretended to be calm as she struggled to tell her that her future husband to be had burned to death in a tragic car accident on his way back from some funeral. Kattey did not cry and looked at her mother like she had gone mad or something. She refused to hear what she was saying. Surely she was mad. There was no way God could do that to her, her one and only chance of marriage that could improve her life since she had failed miserably at becoming a superstar.

She took a glass and poured herself some wine and went to her bedroom to fantasise more about the vacation to Sun City. She did not even entertain the story and kept on calling her man's number until she fell asleep. Her mother was very worried about her behaviour. Kattey had blocked reality from her mind, and the thought of her being poor again was just too devastating to deal with. She was bewitched. Her friends from Joburg called her and tried to comfort her, and she thought they were crazy and needed help. Seven days later, she was still dialling her boyfriend's phone numbers and he did not respond.

Her mom's friend suggested that Kattey be referred to see a doctor to help her to deal with the news. When she got there, the doctor asked her a few questions about how she felt about the whole thing and she hated her for even thinking that the stupid rumour was true. She got upset and left her so she could discuss her madness with her mother. Mama Rejoice got a prescription from the doctor and they went home that Friday afternoon. When they got home, she invited her friends again for a drinking session and later that night they were going to go out while she was waiting for her man to come back so they could... Kattey had collapsed with a bottle of wine in her hands and had been out since then. Wow! He was really dead!

For the first time, it started to sink in. She felt the emptiness in her heart and a great sense of loss crept in. It was a Saturday morning and somewhere out there people were crying as his body was being buried... ashes to ashes and dust to dust. She could not even be there as she was the cheating slut in people's eyes. No one could be in her shoes and feel the pain that she was going through. He had loved her, she had made him happy and now she could not even lay his body to rest. Kattey was full of anger. Her boyfriend, like all the others she'd had, had betrayed her. Or was she being punished for trying to steal someone else's husband?

Modise had told her a sad story. He told her that he had married his cousin because it was arranged by their parents. It was not like he had a choice in who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Strict cultural constraints kept him a slave in his own marriage. His heart had never found happiness until they found each other. Nobody could ever understand what they had shared. It is written in the good book that one shall reap what one sows. That she was not to have happiness in her life was evidence to prove that. She did not have a clue as to how she was going to move on with her life. She refused to stay home and took her bags and hit the Jozi streets once more. She was now an adult; her parents allowed her to go as she wished, as her life was in her hands. They tried their best to keep her at home but they realised she had a passion for a better life and nothing or no one was going to tell her otherwise. She was not even sure what she wanted anymore. Her grandmother was willingly raising her son and never wanted a cent from her. Kattey loved her little boy; one would not understand that he was the reason she had to go out into the world and seek a better future. Her childhood friends were not seen around as they had gone to universities and ventured into their various careers. Some got married, some got jobs and some who remained at home, just got wasted by unemployment and drinking too much alcohol. She did not want a life like that. She knew something better was out there; she just needed to dig deep and find it.

She was numb from emotional pain and found her peace by visiting the magic pot of alcohol. She drank in the morning, afternoon and at night. There was not a single day that went by without her having an intervention with all types of bottles. It was okay for her to be like that. When the pain came, she drank more, and when she could not sleep at night thinking of him and missing him, she smoked and drank. It went on and on. As for men trying to ask her out, she'd want to vomit with anger. There was no way she was going to let another man steal her messed up heart. She was sure that her dreams had gone sour, and she could not see how her life was going to change. Her soul was always searching for love and peace. She could not understand her need to be loved all the time which always landed her in sorrow. All these were questions she never got the answers for. Her other friends who went to church would recommend that she went with them to church so she would have ever-lasting peace and love from God. She would swear that the only thing they wanted to do was separate her from her beloved alcohol. She was not ready to be a saint and would never even consider it, even if death stared her in the face. Her heart now belonged to the alcohol factory, or at least she thought it did until she bumped into him on the staircase of the worn-out flat that she lived in.

He was very handsome, had dimples and the most amazing smile. He apologised for bumping into her and his voice blew her to pieces. He told her his name and Kattey tried so hard to tell him hers but her voice got trapped somewhere between her throat and her tongue. He noticed the embarrassment and saved her by telling her that she had beautiful eyes. Beautiful eyes. She had been drinking for a good solid couple of months without a break and her eyes had black circles, and she looked like she had been in a boxing ring for quite some time. There was no way her eyes could have looked beautiful. Men! This boy in particular needed a good pair of spectacles to enhance the dying lens of his eyes. They exchanged numbers, he hugged her and then they parted ways.

He called her later that day and she invited her fish to a frying pan so she and her friends could test his wallet. He was as good as sold and he was hers to keep. He was very romantic and made her forget about her widow status sooner than she had expected. She figured who cared because as far as love was concerned, she was done. Go with the flow... she had lost track of her many encounters with love and didn't think she knew what it meant but that was no longer an issue. She actually laughed as she thought of that.

His English sounded like that of some African-American punk. Kattey swore he was lying to her and did not want to excite her by telling her that he was from the States. Her soul buddies were very envious of her Romeo and she thanked God for making a plan for her. This was better than the relationship she had before. He soon moved in with her and she could not have made a better decision in a million years. He was four years younger than her but she wanted to have his children and be his wife. He called her all sorts of romantic names and made her feel like the only girl on this cruel planet earth. He sang Boys to Men songs to her and there was a particular song called 'Dreams' that he liked very much. The song was about how these two lovers would meet in each other's dreams. Her drinking continued as now she had someone who paid for the bill and she could drink all the alcohol she wanted in the world. Every once in a while she would sit outside on the dirty balcony of the flat they occupied with a group of girls, and try to think of where her life was headed. She saw no rosy picture or bright future, but just plain darkness that always followed her around. The voices that she heard from the universe pronounced that she was going to live a meaningless life and that no one would ever remember her. That always pained her, and she would silently send out a prayer while she smoked her cigarette, hoping that God was listening to her.

A couple of weeks later, after Zolani's funeral, she fully understood the song and found it amazing how he had played it over and over again, hours before his killer or killers put a bullet in his chest. She had just arrived home from a night shift at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre where she had gotten a job as a waitress, and found the flat full as usual, with guys and girls as drunk as the famous Chinese martial arts technique of the Drunken Master style. When she came in, he kissed her and held her close, then took her to the sound system where he played the Dreams song and sang it to her. She had never seen him like that and she could not help but notice the glowing light surrounding him. He looked different and for a moment, she felt a sense of fear in her and a cold feeling that she could not understand. He was extremely happy and could not stop telling everyone how much he loved Kattey and would marry her someday soon. He took some coins, kissed her and went downstairs.

He made his way out of the flat to go and buy some loose cigarettes, promising to come back to dance with her. She could hear him as he went down the stairs, singing at the top of his voice, "Meet me in my dreams, tonight." She lay on their bed thinking how happy she was and how God had restored happiness in her body and soul after Modise's sudden death and months of pain and drinking. She did not even realise that a good 30 minutes had passed and he was still not back yet. As she was sitting up, wondering where he could be, a door flung open and matron Zaza fell to the floor and wanted to know where Zolani was. They were shocked by her behaviour and the minute she was told that he had gone out to buy cigarettes, she fell to the ground and screamed, crying, "No, Jesus, no." Kattey knew then that something had gone wrong and she ran out, flew down the staircase and rushed to look for him at the street corner.

The police were everywhere. People had gathered in small groups and there was red tape surrounding a body lying on the dirty street. Things were moving very slowly and she felt like she was in a movie, because what she saw was a scene that would make you cry in the cinema. The blue lights were flashing and mixing with the dark colour of the night. It took her some time to get to the body that was lying in front of her eyes. She was scared to look but she had to. She saw his sneakers and knew that it was him.

Her mouth flung open, and tears of fear and shock started streaming down her broken face. She tried to throw herself on top of his body but the policemen grabbed her and forced her to stay back with the rest of the crowd. She had lost her mind and was now face to face with insanity. Kattey was kicking and screaming, calling out his name and begging him to look at her. He was not moving; there was not even a trace of blood on his grey T-shirt.

She was helpless and hopeless. After an hour or so, the ambulance finally came and then they started working on him. She decided to stop crying and call on God to help him for her. She made promises to God, begging to let him live. She must have been deep in prayer when she saw the paramedics nodding their heads, a sign of hopelessness. Why did such things happen to her? Was there a lesson that she was supposed to learn? Did God hate her that much?

She called Zolani and he slowly turned his head her way. He gave her the most beautiful smile, and his dimples had been stuck in her mind until this very moment. He winked his eye and she saw his lips moving to say, "I love you." He raised his hand a few centimetres from the ground and waved goodbye. The glow that was surrounding him that night made him more handsome than he had ever been. On that note, with that beautiful picture he closed the chapter of his life, ended Kattey's temporary happiness certificate and abandoned her. Zolani died like a dog on a dirty street pavement.

How many times could her heart be broken? They cut all their efforts from his body. She hoped and wished it was just a mistake or one of her unholy dreams but when they took out a black plastic bag to cover his body, she fell down flat on the dirty pavement and cursed the devil, rebuking God for forsaking her. She knew she was never ever going to be the same again. She was a wounded animal with enough anger to destroy Iraq, Iran and right along with their enemy the mighty United States of America. Now what was her purpose in life? Was she that much of a sinner? She wished she could get answers. As she was sitting there, she figured God must be trying to get her close to Him by making her lose everything that made her happy or that was close to her shattered heart.

A curse of death befriended her. She was bad luck and killed men. Many of her friends made bad jokes and warned men to stay away from her.

A traditional healer told her she had a white liver. What on flipping earth was that? She said it was a spirit in a young woman that made men who came in contact with the cursed woman die. So all the pain she had gone through had one explanation.... A curse?

#  Ten  
New dreams

Kattey was determined to see herself living in the fancy parts of Johannesburg. Like most girls who were from other parts of South Africa and failed to make a name for themselves through the music industry, the acting industry was the easiest thing to target rich men and hope for a wedding ring that would change their lives for the better. She was introduced to a new way of living when she met a short young man who was quite a bit older than her. She felt her life of suffering would end and she could see herself wearing a diamond ring that would secure her newfound future. He had money and she was well taken care of in every way. Prince charming always recommended that she consider going to university as he would pay for her studies. How could he want that for her when all she wanted to be was in another world? When she closed her eyes to sleep, she would see herself on stage performing in crazy custom-made clothes.

Sadly, the wild animal in her was not happy with her new life and was always fighting to come out. Little voices started talking to her from deep within her heart, and dreams of being a star attacked her viciously at night. 'Crazy K', her stage name, wanted to come back although she felt she was too mature and old to consider going back to wanting to be a star. She did not want to go back to Hillbrow but that dark city called her with a loud voice. She could not resist any longer for she left her prince charming and went to squat in a dump flat with a bunch of girls in Hillbrow. She went to live with queen Zaza, the woman who had played a mother role to her in Johannesburg.

Her mothering technique differed to that of Mama Rejoice. Zaza's flat 407 was a place where young girls from everywhere who had rejection stories, downloaded them. She would meet them in taverns and night clubs and give them a home. All they had to do was to make sure they paid their share of the rent money. Kattey decided to leave her peaceful and stunning home in Sunning Hill for a godforsaken commune; she was now awakened by gun shots, screaming girls, drunken men, and call girls fighting for customers in Hillbrow streets.

That's where she belonged so she betrayed and turned her back on the man who gave her all – a man who saw all her pain and darkness but loved her anyway. Kattey never ever felt worthy of being loved because of the dirty life she had lived. Her heart was now as hard as stone and she continuously felt a deep sense of emptiness. At first she was forever looking for love, care and acceptance but at this point, after living a life she thought she had always wanted, she realised that what she was looking for was locked up deep in her soul and only God would rescue her. She remembered how she would spend hours and hours telling Kagiso stories and he would listen with such interest, offering her nothing but love and support. She left him; she broke his heart because of a voice that tormented her to go looking for something. She could not really pinpoint what it was that made her sleepless. Her spirit was restless and broken.

Kattey somehow enjoyed inflicting pain on those who got close to her. In a way, a good life was, according to her, a mistake and did not feel normal to her. Poverty, pain and suffering felt so natural for her; it fitted her well, like her very own skin.

She hooked up with some girls who taught her survival skills and she became the master of the streets. She knew how to empty a man's wallet in a blink of an eye; she mastered seduction. Kattey became Delilah – she knew how to dance and she used that to seduce the living hell out of men. She could now afford to pay rent, buy food, clothes and whatever she wanted. She could not sleep at night though as a new set of dreams found a place in her mind. They were stronger than the ones to become a star; those were dreams of being a good mother to her son and being a top businesswoman someday. Most of all, she wanted to show her family that a black sheep could turn into a rose amongst thorns. She was determined to turn her life around and it was not as easy as this sentence.

A few years passed by and she was still living with her mentors and pushing life's limits as usual. She was used as bate for men who had money and one day she was introduced to a man who later fathered her other son. It did not take her long to get this man to get rid of his girlfriend who just had a baby. Two weeks later, Kattey moved into this man's flat. He had money and that was all she needed as the love thing no longer existed. When they started going out, she had the most beautiful African body if you know what that meant. Her man's brother was a kingpin in the taxi industry and Ernest was managing his taxi empire for him. Her soul sisters back at the flat were quite happy about the fortunes that she was flashing in front of them. She was so sure she was going to stay longer, or even get married because where there was that kind of money, there could be a commitment. She expressed her thoughts out loud whenever she would visit her friends who were still stuck in the congested flat.

It was not easy at first, as she literally had to steal him from her best friend Sebabatso which obviously hurt her, considering their friendship, but Kattey couldn't care less about how she felt as she had accepted herself as the queen of deception by that time. She could take a man from a woman with the blink of an eye. That was then one of her many golden talents. There was a time when a group of girls formed an anti-Kattey group and hunted her down for taking their men and beat her up to a pulp. Her body was amazing, an hour glass that most men just couldn't resist. Some men left their women, only to be dumped by Kattey weeks later. Some cried like babies, some beat her up and some even had cowboy confrontations with guns pointed at each other while Kattey would be in the middle of the loaded guns like cheese in between two slices of bread.

She really thought things through when she moved in with Ernest. She never even pictured that moving in would be the biggest mistake of her life. Ernest was very quiet and loved laughing a lot. When Kattey had settled in, everything was going as smooth as she hoped, with money being thrown at her every day. She was so at peace and did not even want to go and visit her friends anymore. All this made her believe she was getting ready for marriage and would be a wife soon. Ernest started changing and became like Moses from the story in the Bible, and gave her 10 commandments that would ensure safety to her humanly body. He proudly pronounced her as his property and she was shocked to hear that they were going to be separated by death, his or hers, but he would never have anything of the likes of Kattey leaving him. He wanted a baby so he could have her as part of his life forever. The first golden rule was to stay in the house and never see her friends again. They were dirty and he was trying to convert her into a woman soon to be his wife. He would leave in the morning at four o'clock and come back late at night while she was left to rot in the flat. That was the nature of his work because he worked in the taxi industry. In all this, Kattey could not believe the kind of life or trouble she had gotten herself into. She did not know how she was going to leave this guy after having spent most of his money on clothes, her friends and fancy furniture she had made him buy for his flat.

It was at that point that the relationship really seemed like a marriage. While she was still in a uncertain mode of what she was going to do, she had two miscarriages and he was nice enough to tell her that her friends were giving her stuff to drink during the day because she did not want to be a mother and instead she wanted to get back to the life that she was living under her matron Zaza. He was right. Kattey wanted nothing more than to leave him and go back to Zaza and beg for forgiveness for leaving, and get her bed back. She missed the night life, she missed smoking, the clubs and the freedom of doing things in her own time, as and when she pleased.

She missed Zaza so much; she had taken her in like her own sister or daughter if you could call it that. She had fed her, protected her, and gone out of her way to provide medical care when Kattey was sick. Kattey loved Zaza and she loved her too. She was older than her but she never coached her, allowing her to make her own mistakes most of the time. The locking of the door was the order of the day in Ernest's flat. She was now in prison for another crime of self-prosecution and she could not blame anybody but herself.

He later went with her to her family and he gave them the picture that he was Romeo and did nothing but love and take good care of her. He also flashed money around her family and they figured he was husband material. He bought them groceries, and bought Kamo clothes. He was sweet and rather handsome, like a lion in a sheep skin. The picture that Ernest gave Kattey's family was that of an answer that they had always been hoping for, someone who would tame Kattey by making her a married woman. In no time when they returned back to Hillbrow, Kattey became pregnant. Again, it was one of the worst times of her life. She was to go to the hospital every Monday because her uterus was too shady to carry a baby. The women who were categorised under this high-risk pregnancy cluster attended sessions every Monday, and Kattey was comforted by the fact that she was not alone carrying this burden. Many women walked the same road and in this process, she made some friends and started looking forward to her trip to the hospital to see her friends in distress. It was better than being left in the flat alone.

Her boyfriend was now broke because some deal that had been feeding him with money in the taxi industry, had collapsed. Riches to rags... that was where she was, and to think she was very pregnant made it a disaster. Kattey's now broke husband-to-be and the father of her coming baby took out all his frustrations on her. He then got some low-class job so he could provide for Kattey and the unborn baby. He was a man with pride who would never ask anyone for help, landing Kattey to be abused by her hungry unborn baby who aggressively kicked her tummy when there was no food to feed the two of them.

Living under those conditions, sent her packing and she left and went to her parents' house to give birth to her second baby. Mama Rejoice could not believe how she had for years struggled with Kattey's unstable life but despite all that, she could not send her away when she came home to give birth to her second baby. It was very difficult for her but she felt she should just try to be a mother and help her daughter. After giving birth to her son, who was also born prematurely at 28 weeks, Ernest then demanded that she come back to Joburg because he wanted the baby to grow up under his roof, or rather the rented shack of a place where they laid their heads at night. She never thought she could end up with two kids who had different fathers for that matter. She had big dreams. This was not her life; it did not belong to her. It must have been that sneaky kgabo bad luck spirit that had twisted her destiny.

Her body went into an expanding mode and she became the next best thing next to a washing machine. The baby was crying all night and she did not know what to do anymore as the father had left her in the flat for three days. She remembered the days when she used to be carefree and travelled all over South Africa, dancing her heart out. For her to end up like this was enough to make her take all the pills that were in the house and push them down her throat. She prayed to the Lord to accept her soul as she kissed her baby goodnight and prepared herself to meet with her Creator. She wanted to kill herself and leave Gosiame right there in their bed. The life that she was living in that flat was nowhere near the life she had wanted for herself. She knew she was a bad person but the punishment set out for her was unbearable.

A couple of hours later when she was in a deep sleep, she heard her late great-grandmother telling her to wake up and calm the screaming baby. Kattey woke up, ran to the bathroom and vomited all the pills out. When she was finished, she realised what she wanted to do and she picked up her little baby, who had been unattended the whole time when his mother had passed out, and held him for comfort. There was money in the flat and in the morning she took her baby and went to the taxi rank and got the nearest taxi to Mafikeng, in spite of the death threats that were thrown at her by her Ernest who was going to marry her one way or the other. She just wanted to go home and couldn't care less about the death threats.

He would polish his gun and demonstrate how he would hire people to kill her and anything moving that related to her. He would come in the middle of the night and open her legs with his gun. When all this happened, she would do what she did when she was raped years ago: She would leave her body and watch as he enjoyed himself with her body while her baby was playing innocently next to them. The constant beatings made her want to commit suicide.

She used to go to Ernest's parents' home in a small village in Limpopo. They loved her, or pretended to, and had accepted her as their soon to be daughter-in-law. Her in-laws were very deep rooted in culture and she was shocked to learn that in their tradition and culture, it was okay for a man to do funny tricks with other women. Ernest would leave her and her children in the yard so she could stay with his mother and grandmother while he played superstar in the village. That was hard for her as she came from a liberated family. A man was the head of the family and she had to be a neck if she was to be good wife material. She prayed to God to help her get out of the mess that she had put herself in due to carelessness and stupidity and her eagerness to get out of poverty.

When she was still at home and her baby was a little over three months old, she got a phone call that she should come to Johannesburg for an interview. She was over the moon as she had applied for a job many months ago; a decent job to become a secretary. She could not sleep that night, thinking of how her life would change and she would provide for her children and prove to her family that her life had changed.

She had to be at that recruitment agency on Thursday. When she called her boyfriend to tell him that she was coming but he did not answer his mobile phone, she just went without him giving her the approval. She slept at her auntie's house and she prepared her for the interview as she had never been to one before. For some reason, Kattey was not feeling well in the morning of the interview and wanted nothing more than to sleep and wait for her boyfriend whom she had not seen for a while. How does one long to be with a person who treats you like dirt and has no respect for you? It did not make sense.

There was a lady who shared the flat with them; she and Kattey were rocking in the same boat of being abused women. Their men worked shady jobs and would come and make them soccer balls when they came home from wherever, after gallivanting with girls around town. Her friend Candy took it upon herself to let her in on the big secret that her man Ernest had been staying with some girl in the flat after Kattey went home. She could not believe it but she later found used condoms next to their bed and that led her straight into a state of devastation. He was all things but he loved her and would never do such a thing to her. One of her famous statements that made her justify all wrongdoings by her male counterpart. Well that was just a dream but the truth of the matter was that he was a man and cheating was just a part of their daily activities of life.

She knew she had unmercifully taken men from other women before and for the first time, she got to be at the receiving end of the cruelty and got to taste a bit of her own medicine. She could not swallow that. He was the father of her son and had also taken full responsibility of her first son, Kamo. Ernest was very fond of Kamo and would not let his frustrations be seen by the boy. He treated him like his very own flesh and blood and as far as Kamo was concerned, Ernest was the only father he knew. It was just a cruel circle. What went around surely came around. She felt so betrayed and spat on the floor with disgust and hate. She called on her ancestors to take care of him who had hurt her so. She called him and wanted to know if the used condoms or the ones that she had found earlier belonged to him. Kattey begged him to tell her the truth but hoped that the truth would come out in her favour. Lord knows that a dagger was pierced through her heart when he said it was true and he would come home to explain and make her feel better.

When she dropped the phone, she thought she was going to die. She wanted to leave her body so she could escape the pain but for some reason the switching trick was nowhere to be found and she had to deal with it. All sorts of things ran through her head. She searched his jackets for money and the little bit that she found was enough to buy her a litre of whisky and a pack of cigarettes. She drank half of the bottle.

Alcohol made her think that the whole situation could be her lucky break from her master and from the terrible mess of a relationship in which she was stuck. She smoked the whole pack of cigarettes and when the smoke went up out of her mouth, chunks of pain disappeared from her heart. She then had the courage to go to her former mentors for the first time after a couple of messy years. Zaza was there as always and so were the rest of the cheerleaders who welcomed her tale with open arms. That was what she needed to be a free agent. She had two kids now but she would be free to fix her life. She had it all figured out. She would get a job and take care of her kids. The plan was drafted to the last detail. It was good to be in the presence of her old friends, and at some point they were no more friends but her very own family. The plan was that she would leave him as he was the one who had wronged her, which led her to try and earn her place in her crew. She was excited by the mere taste of freedom that was due to her. The moment of truth came when her aunt came to her flat to help her pack and take her bags to her place. Ernest had come on a Friday and had agreed and approved her departure on that basis. He tried to apologise but she was now sick and could not speak to utter a word. Her aunt was doing most of the talking as Kattey had tonsillitis and her throat was so swollen and blocked that she could hardly speak.

She left him and that was the most beautiful day of her life. She was free and he was going to send her money to support her boys and she would start her life from scratch as usual. There had been too many downfalls for her that she had lost count. She hoped and prayed that there would never be another downfall for as long as her good legs could carry her. She was going to make it, show the world what she was really made of. Now if that was a song it would have sold platinum. She left her man on a juicy hot Saturday and she made her way to her aunt's house. It was the beginning of a new day.

On the Tuesday after she left Erny, she got so sick that her aunt phoned him to come and take her to the hospital. She did not have a choice in the matter and could not utter a word because her throat was swollen and she was desperate to go to the doctor to relieve her from pain. While she was waiting for him to come, she got a call from the paramedics. They were reporting a terrible accident and described the victims as very own father of her baby was in the accident scene. They informed her that the other guy in the minibus was flown to the nearest hospital or died it was not clear to her. Kattey was cold with shock. She froze, not knowing how to respond to the information that was just forced into her ears. For some reason, her voice instantly came back and she could make calls to report the sad news to his family and his lap dogs. She did not feel any pain and her tonsillitis disappeared into thin air. Her aunt came back from work and she took Kattey and her kids and went back to Ernest's flat where his family had come to pray for him.

She did not want to go back, not even in those circumstances. His parents came and she was requested to be a good girlfriend and support Ernest in his darkest hour. They all had to go to the hospital to see him. The picture that she saw was never ever going to leave her mind as she could not recognise him. He was badly hurt. She thought of what was going to happen to her son. She was not working and she spent the next few days praying for him to recover as there was no one who was going to help her raise her kids when or if he died. She then got so depressed and at some point, lost hope. It was on the seventh day after the tragedy that the nurse phoned her and told her that he had died in the early hours of that morning.

She dropped the phone and sat on the bed, not crying as she was numb; she did not know what or how to feel. She just got dressed and she, Ernest's mother and his younger sister made their way to the hospital so they could make arrangements for his body to go home to the small village in Limpopo. He was gone. In spite of all the things that went on in their lives, she ended up loving him, and he was gone too soon. She felt sorry for her baby boy; he was to grow up without his father. She thought of her first born son Kamo who loved Ernest like his father; throughout his abuse to Kattey, he always had a soft spot for her son. He could never find any fault in him. To her, that was the reason she had stayed because he was more of a father than Kamo's useless father could have ever been.

She suddenly realised that she had two sons, and was a mother and had to think like one. She made a decision on that day that her kids would grow up like all the other kids who had two parents. She did not know where to go, or what direction she was going to take, but she was going to the top of the mountain and nothing or no one was going to stand in her way. She was blessed with motherhood and that was the best natural gift a woman could ever have. She had new sets of dreams in her head. Rest in peace my love and thank you for the man you left behind. That was the end of an abusive relationship and a possibility of a new life.

#  Eleven  
The dark horse

After the funeral, there was not much she had as her own as Ernest's family came and took most of the things because they were not married at the time of his death. She had nothing and took her baby home and asked her mother to keep the baby for her while she tried to look for a job. Her grandma was now late as she had passed on during the same year that her little Gosiame was born. That was the worst year of Kattey's life and losing her beloved grandma Jenny could not have come at a worse time. She had to deal with so much and both Kamo and Gosiame were now staying with her mother and the rest of her family. She went back to their old flat and she rented only one room where she would pay rent for one person while she looked for a job.

There was something about him. He was very dark, tall and skinny. He had been staying in that place for almost three months or so but she had never seen his teeth. He lived a very strange life. What made her record his movements was way beyond her comprehension. She was very scared of him, yet he fascinated her with his quiet and intriguing nature. She was not clued up about satanic personalities but he symbolised the devil's very own son. Kattey often imagined him killing a person in a cruel manner and then having fried fish and chips as if he had just stepped out of church. This one time Kattey irritated her friend by wanting to know his name. She could not believe what she was hearing and gave her a look that told her to find out his name for herself. This young man was a no go area. There were girls of all types staying in their flat and none of them dared to befriend him.

As the months went by, she learned that his name was Morena. She heard him talking to someone on the phone one day and to her surprise, he spoke Sesotho. Kattey was with him in the lift and she saw him giving a very faint smile which was the coldest and most heartless fake gesture she had ever witnessed. She was terrified and could not help but shake like a leaf in his midst. The elevator door opened for her to go out; he looked straight into her eyes and her heart wanted to stop when he said, "Hello". Her mouth could not move and she just sped out of the lift and ran from the scene. She could not sleep for days, playing the "hello" tape in her head over and over until she fell asleep.

Lighting a cigarette and watching taxis through the window, she thought of how stupid it was for her to be attracted to this Sesotho-speaking animal. She did not know what on earth possessed her but she knew that the kgabo spirit that forever landed her in trouble no matter how straight and clean a life she wanted to live, had its own agenda. For some unknown reason, she felt sorry for him. He surely looked like a beast and the way he always looked upset, made Kattey very sad. She wondered if he had grown up like her; if he had parents, or if he had a puppy or a younger sibling who had taken the tender love of his parents away from him. In all this investigation going on inside her, Kattey felt they had a lot in common; the difference between them was that she was pretending to be happy and normal while he made it a point that people saw what he was feeling. He was true to himself and didn't care what anybody thought about the absence of his emotions. He reminded her of an old movie from her childhood called "Die Man Die Ster". He looked like Robbo Cop in her eyes and on that note, she made it her mission to make him fall in love with her. That was exciting and crazy but, hey, that's what made her tick. She was and had always been ruled out as the queen of insanity. The cap fitted her well and she was glad to wear it. Kattey and danger were inseparable.

Weeks went by and in her head, she believed herself to be stalking the charming prince from hell. Kattey had no idea where she got the notion that there was lots of love and compassion trapped inside his soul that needed a special person to extract it. She concluded that she had the exact special skills it took to turn the devil into a lamb that had died for the world centuries ago.

Kattey and her friends had been doing their usual stuff that Friday. There had been exciting discussions on how they were going to go out that night to their usual joint in Yeoville. She loved that place; it was to her, their very own Jamaica. The smell of weed (holy herb)... you name it. They called it so many biblical names, and some worshipped it. Most of these glorifying rasta rebels were always in a mood when they spoke of this herb. She had only been introduced to it that year and she, like everyone else, wanted to fit in the new rasta generation, with her dreadlocks making it hard for her to resist the temptation of being one of Silasi's empire. That's what they were called. The preaching's of the rasta religion went deep into her soul but she never did grasp the part about only eating vegetables and turning a blind eye to the wonderful world of the animals that were provided by the Most High for their consumption. There was no way she was going to go 'Ire and Jah bless vegetarians'. Absolutely not. She was a honey badger slash monkey so no green grass was going to enter her system without being accompanied by meat. There was no way in hell that she was going to be a vegetarian. Not in this lifetime. The songs were great, the lessons were phenomenal. She loved the way they used to greet each other and one thing that she chose to engrave in her heart about the rasta religion was 'respect'. Now if you had asked her, she would have sworn that was the time when she fell in love with the late legend Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Winston Rodney, Buju Banton, Shaba Ranks, Lucky Dube and many more. She loved ragga and reggae music.

She had heard about 16 June 1976 when the students in Soweto protested against the then South African apartheid government, but to be honest if she would have been born by then she would have been one of those who hid under the bed and prayed to God to save her family members who were out on the streets protesting at that time. Surely she could not be judged because she was not a freedom fighter. People can't all be the Nelson Mandela's of this world and she was all for literature and music to educate and uplift the standard of humanity, 'striving for a better life' type of girl. She was lucky that she had grown up in what was called the homelands and they were never exposed to politics and saving fellow country mates from the apartheid regime. In their small town, there was peace and harmony and hardly any report on crime or heavy engagements with police to fight for some liberation that was due.

On that Friday, her mind was buzzing about meeting new musicians and dancing the night away. The girls started taking long baths but she dipped in and out of the bath tub as she had no time for make-up and girl's stuff. One would think that she'd have cocktail drinks because she was a mother but the fact was, Kattey was a beer girl, and no motherhood was going to separate her from that.

Picaso did not even come close to the way her friends would sculpture themselves with make-up and when all was set and done, they would look like black Mona Lisa's right before her very eyes. She impatiently urged them to finish the behind-the-scenes process so they could get going. It was almost nine o'clock and the thought of her soberness made her very uncomfortable. They finally hit the lift and Kattey acted like a true gentleman and opened the elevator door for a group of girls. When they got downstairs, she searched for her wallet and realised that she had left it in her room. She told them to wait for her as she quickly ran to the lift to go and get it. She was almost breathless when she jumped in and saw him.

Morena looked at her as the lift slowly went up. With her head looking at her feet, she kept quiet and when it was her turn to go out, he grabbed her and put his hand over her mouth. She tried to forcefully detach herself from him like a headless chicken but he held her tight. She tried to bite his hand but he was just too strong for her. They went to the seventeenth floor where the security guys stayed. He held her with one of his strong arms and opened the door of a tiny room with another. He threw her on some funny looking bed and took out a gun and ordered her to shut it before he spread her belongings around the small dark room. He was shaking but was under control after a few minutes or so. Fear again sent her spirit to fly from the room as her physical body was flung on top of the bed and she dared to think the obvious. He is going to rape me. What else? She froze and before he could touch her, she escaped from her body and sat on a chair in the other corner to see what he was going to do to her. He slowly took off his shirt and made his way to her. She was by this time motionless as he looked at her and gently touched her face. Her eyes were streaming with tears but there was no sound coming out except for the heavy breathing of fear. He wiped away the tears, and gave her a soft warm kiss on her right cheek. Crazy K looked into his eyes and wanted to see the soul of the monster who had kidnapped her; she wanted him to see her pain.

"Please don't hurt me." She managed to get the words out as he was gently kissing her neck. When he heard this, his face changed and she saw shock like she had never seen before.

"I love you, I did not know how to approach you, or tell you, and I... won't hurt you, nor sleep with you by force. I just want you to know that I love you." Tears were now rolling from his face, and her spiritual being was now very confused.

She watched him as he safely put away the gun and promised to never hurt her. She could not respond to this.

"Please spend the night with me?" When she tried to explain how her friends were going to be worried about her, he put his arms around her and softly asked her to keep quiet. She did not know what to make of that but she knew that she did not want to be there. The night was still young and she felt she could see him tomorrow so they could talk about this. Stealing her like that was not really a gentleman's way of telling a girl that you liked her or loved her. Kattey just thought of how crazy the guy really was and regretted ever fantasising about wanting to make him fall in love with her. She gave little prayers in her heart to let the universe know that she did not mean any of the things she wished for and that she wanted to be released from the situation and go and reunite with her friends.

"Can I go please?" she insisted. He suddenly threw her on the bed and told her that he had tried to show her that he loved her and she did not want to listen. The kgabo had done it! She should have played along as he now crept into another character that did not believe in small talk or the Lord's mercy. It took him no time to jump for his gun and order her to undress herself before he offered her royalty treatment of being undressed. She cried and before she knew it, he was on top of her. Her mind went blank from shame and shock and travelled to a place of safety...

When he was done, he dressed her and demanded that she spend the night. She shifted to the one side of the bed and he wrapped his arms around her, told her that he loved her and kissed her good night. She did not want to think of what had just happened. The switching of Morena's personalities made her submit herself to him out of fear of him snapping and doing Lord knows what to her. So she wept silently and slept. When she woke up in the morning, it was raining and he had woken up before her and made her coffee. She thought he was crazy. He kissed her and offered her the cup. The only thing she could think of was how she was ever going to leave that room.

"How did you sleep moratuwa? (My love in Sesotho)" Mora what? He really was insane. After what he did to her, he still had the nerve to think they were the world's highest rated in-love couple. She just wanted to go.

"So, what are you going to do? Are you going to report me to the police? This is how it will sound like, 'He raped me and I slept at his place and he made me breakfast in the morning.'"

He laughed and said, "That's if the docket will ever exist. I am not good with girls. If only you would have tried to understand me then I wouldn't have...."

She was sitting on the bed and was beginning to cry. He came and knelt down before her and again wiped away her tears, held her close to his chest and they were in each other's arms for a while. When she had stopped crying, he walked to the window and told her to open the door and go. It was just too confusing for her. She did not know if it was a trick that could trigger his other side when she tried to leave but nonetheless, she decided to take a risk and walk towards the door. She slowly opened the door, she looked outside and it was like she had been in that room most of her life. She stood still, took a deep breath and wondered. What am I going to tell my friends? She could not work out some story to cover her sudden disappearance. Were they going to believe her? Was he going to kill her if she told anyone? Was she going to be able to deal with what happened the previous night? It was her fault; he must have sensed her curiosity about him every time they met. Was it that obvious? No police official would believe her.

Kattey was sure she must have been standing there for a solid 10 years and did not realise that he had come to the door. He took her hand, gave her a pet kiss and whispered the words, "I love you, please don't leave me" in her ear. Kattey raised her head and looked at him. How could she? How could she turn her back on him? It was wrong. Where did she get the nerve to think of this beast who raped her as a puppy that was stoned by stupid boys for the fun of it? She felt sorry for him; her heart broke. Kattey closed the door and clung to his chest for some sort of comfort. They spent the next 48 hours in his room. He did not force her this time, nor pointed his gun at her. She wanted to be with him, and they found solace in each other. She stayed by her own choice. It was far better than having to be punished at the police station if she had left and tried to open a case. Morena was right – no one in their right mind was going to believe her. Police had no time for a prostitution story gone wrong, as that's what it was going to sound like. She wrapped it up by staying with her dark horse, and figured in a way she might have brought that upon herself. She lived by the sword and, therefore, had to suffer under the sword.

Kattey got to know him and was content to say everything that she had suspected about his childhood was true and she believed him. The love she once read about was possible as she now knew of the love that possessed Heathcliff and Catherine. Kattey and Morena were in a different boat while other people were in the Titanic. She was in no position to be able to explain that. She did not have a clue as to how the human body worked, nor would she be judged by the masses for what she felt. She was sure that she spoke for those who were in the same church as her, but she figured there was no way something like this could happen to her. It was sick and twisted how one could fall for their rapist. Her endless longing for love got her in trouble.

"You know it. You never told a soul but if you are too embarrassed to let it slip out then let me assure you, it happens to the best of us." She thought of how she would stand in front of women one day and urge them to release the dark deep secrets that they had carried for years. Women from all walks of life go through all kinds of suffering, with her experiences being a little more overwhelming than others. A good example of her statement would be that of this psychotic event that she had just experienced.

Morena was wearing a face mask, and he was with his accomplices. They forced their way into the flat that was converted into an office, a small security company that was operating from a flat in Braamfontein. There was a lady who was cleaning the place, and Kattey was seated at her desk as secretary. They had guns. They pushed the poor lady to the ground and she screamed, and they kicked her until she suddenly went silent. He did not want his friends to hit her so he went for her and slapped her hard across her face, and the blow was so fierce that she fell from her chair and bled through her nose. It had to look real. They gagged them and started emptying the place. He loved her. She was very upset and felt it was not part of the plan for him to hit her that hard. They had had a meeting on the roof of the flat to discuss the plan to the last detail. They had played music and danced at the thought of the money that they we were going to share after the robbery.

When Morena and his crew left, the police came and she shook from fake fear and hysteria, mastering the acting lessons she had received from Arts Centre years ago. She gave the police the statement. It all blended in so well as she looked like she had been hit by a train from some war-torn African country, which was in full speed to get its commuters to no man's land for a breath of silence and peace from gun shots pouring from psychotic rebels. When she got home (his room), she found him counting the money from the stuff they had looted from her workplace. She could not look at him and just burst into tears. He stood up and wanted to see her badly bruised face. He held her close, and she needed no explanation but felt safe in his arms. She felt that it was okay and that he had saved her from kicks that could have come from his partners in crime. He spent the next few days nursing and spoiling her. If she had to die in one of their adventures, then she would die with content and a smile on her face. She would die for him, with him. Morena was a glorified kgabo with criminal intelligence. Like Kattey, he had a couple of spirits living in him. He was nurtured by a love stone that always shone through his gangster portrait.

They did lots of those: Her seducing rich men and leading them to car hijackings and many demonic crimes that would make one's skin crawl with disgust. She was one of them. With time, Kattey became a hardened criminal, with Morena protecting her involvement in their well-calculated operations. She knew and had accepted her destiny – jail or death – but either way she did not give a lollipop. She cared nothing about her life, her family, her future. It was just a waste. In her mind, she wanted nothing more than to correct the mistake that had occurred many years ago when a little monkey in a human form entered the world. Something there had gone terribly wrong. She was tired of always fighting between her monkey spirit and that of a human. Whatever power that had created her and sent her to earth must be ready to welcome her back. That was the ultimate plan of her life.

Time went by and her love for the inventor of her new career as a gangster faded. She wanted out. He saw her changing and refusing to accept her key performance indicators (KPIs). He warned her and promised her death in capital letters. That did not work because she was not scared of guns or any other threat that he threw at her. She was too ashamed to pray as she had no idea where to start. Kattey wanted a normal life, or a way to heaven. When she knelt down to pray, she could not even begin to say, "Our Father". She'd cry, curse, smoke and drink whisky. There was no way God was going to forgive her. She had read of a scripture in the holy book that spoke about a man who went out of his way to destroy God's children and how he was then saved and instructed by God to work for Him. She was a Saul and so much wanted to be Paul and live a godly life, but thought that existed in days of miracles and not in her lifetime.

She was tired and fantasised about the day her body would be found crushed on the pavement. It was the only way out. Kattey was going to drink lots of whisky and let her body drop from their boardroom, the roof top. Yes, it was going to end soon and she had lots of fruitful conversations with the devil. He showed her peace and a place where there was no pain. Kattey believed and was not scared as she schemed and planned her own exit. It became more of an obsession. The day that she was going to do it came and she was ready. Kamo and Gosiame were better off without her anyway. Mama Rejoice was right about her, and always had been. Kattey was useless, an embarrassment who disgraced her, a futureless prostitute who occupied breathing space in the world, a nobody. Tears of defeat wet her clothes. It was time to go, and the monkey spirit of bad luck that had always tormented her life had won. She wondered about the home that awaited her – heaven or hell. She could not establish which one it would be but her instincts told her she belonged right next to the devil. If he knew the truth of her devilish life, then he would surely agree that he was better off. She loved Kamosa and Gosiame with all her heart and had tried all funny deeds, thinking she would hit it rich someday and go back home to be a good mother that they deserved. The truth was that she had no chance in the real world.

She bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and a packet of cigarettes on the day she was going to end her misery. She went to her friends and checked them out, but they did not know that her plan was actually to say goodbye. When they had all gone to school, she took her medicine to her gangster boyfriend's room, put everything on top of a table and looked for a shot glass for her whisky. Jack Daniels, now that was like going out in style. Who wanted to die smelling of cheap beer? She laughed a little at the thought of her body splashed on the ground, smelling of cheap booze. That my dear friend, was the funniest thing that could happen to a gangster girl.

She could not be worried about a headache when she was going to be dead in a few minutes. The headache was so strong that she felt dizzy and fell on top of the bed. She had a glass in her hand and she closed her eyes a little, giving them a gentle rub. Her head was on the pillow and her mind wandered. There was a very dark forest and she was guided by a dim light that was making its way through shrubs and trees, and Kattey was walking bare feet. There was an old woman next to her and she was wearing a brown sesweswe (a traditional dress worn by Tswana women). She was holding her hand and when she looked at her, she realised she was blind. She tried to pull her hand away from hers but, damn, she was strong. She looked like she was over 100 years old but she was no push over. The old blind woman and Kattey walked and walked until they came to the end of the forest. Before their eyes lay plain fields and the grass looked very green, still wet as she felt the glittering dew, cold on her feet. There was a great river that passed a few metres from where they stood.

The old woman let go of her and explained that they had to cross the river to the other side. She must have missed her daily snuff as there was no way she was going to get herself in that river. That was just plain suicide. Hey, Kattey could not even swim to save herself or any other person who was close to her. She wanted to tell her to go to the nearest Shell garage and get some soda but as she opened her mouth, words could not come out. Great, she was on mute and the old lady was blind, and how she knew that there was a river in front of them beat the hell out of her. This combination was going to end the road for both of them.

They were now walking towards the water and by the look of things, they were going in as she felt the cold water on her feet and knew she had no choice. This was definitely one of those Nightmare on Elm Street scenarios, where Freddy Kruger was in charge and the chances of one waking up were zero. At this point, half her body was in the water and the old woman was almost covered with water. She was actually very short; she then grabbed her hand and they went in deeper. She wanted to close her eyes but she couldn't. She knew that it was going to be the end of her when her whole existence was under but to her surprise, she could breathe properly even when she felt she was way under the fearsome river. They walked until they got to a cave-like place that looked more like a palace. It was very beautiful. The old woman showed her to the other end of the cave where she saw figures around the fire. They looked like very old people dressed in white clothes.

The fire was very bright and when she was ordered to come closer and sit, she was gripped by fear. What was she doing there, who were those people, what business did they have with her? Surely it was confirmation that she was a bad person and the day had come for her to answer for her sins. She knew that she had lived a life of sin from the time she burned her younger sister, and the time she hit her brother on his head with a brick. All those times, she slept with men for money, breaking people's marriages, engaging in fraud, robbing and hurting people with her dark horse. And still counting. She knew her fate and felt no priest could stand before her and tell her about the holy book as it was always with her as she read it out of personal interest. Sinners were going to burn in hell with their master. Revelations speaks of the process of going to hell and how the beast with seven heads will come down to claim them, the non-believers. The last time she checked, she still had to pour herself a glass of whisky and have a smoke before she made a leap of faith down to the pavement from the rooftop. Was she dead already? Was she not punctual and an 'attention to detail' kind of girl? How the hell did she miss her own death? She had fallen on top of the small squeaky bed and now she was seated in front of a great fire being summoned by a panel of judges or whatever or whoever they were.

Was she to remember the faces of these old people? She could not recognise any of them but there was one old woman who looked like her Mma Mokgethi whom she vividly remembered from the four-roomed house they had lived in years ago when she was pure and innocent. She almost wanted to jump up and run to her. Kattey remembered her; she used to sit with her on her lap while her mother would be doing all the work in her house. She glowed with such serenity, no doubt to her that she was gone. She was in human form a very dark coloured lady, but now her skin made that of a new born baby, seem like a big joke. She looked so beautiful. As for the rest of her peers, she had no idea of who they were. What was the deal with the traditional bones, beads and calabashes that were at the members' feet? Her kidnapper had joined her friends and Kattey was now put on the spot as if she was going to be interviewed. She was good at interviews, but wondered about the purpose of this adventure.

Tajewo knew where he was going, so it would be fair if she could be filled in on that too. It's a good thing her muteness was still in place so there was no way she was going to entice them with answers. One guy with a very long beard portrayed himself as the leader. He had a seditse in his hand, made of a stick and a horse's tail. Wow, listen to her, she hoped that's what it was made of. Pointing it at her, he said, "*%ki<8$#@!" Exactly her point! He could have been speaking Spanish for all she knew. Kattey could not figure out if that needed a response but she opened her mouth and she shouted her name out loud. The managing director of this organisation looked very angry and she repeated her name, after which he nodded his head. The calabash in front of her started to overflow with what looked like boiling milk and Mma Mokgethi instructed her to drink the white stuff from the calabash. She did not want to drink but the look she got from her freaky elders made her believe that negotiating not drinking would not be the best move at that point, so she lifted it with both hands, opened her mouth and drank. When she had taken a big gulp she put it down and waited. The magic potion was tasteless; clearly there was no need to mess her face like that. The bones were gathered and pushed between her legs. Moments later, a young man came from the other far end of the cave with a basket full of twigs, funny looking potatoes, seeds, roots and small tree branches. A fruit and vegetable collection was also put before her. There was another calabash in the fire and the contents looked red. She prayed it was not blood that she would be ordered to drink.

She was given a look that instructed her to drink from the calabash with red contents. She could not describe the horrible taste. Meat was brought in by the waiter and she ate. What is the purpose of this whole ordeal? She had problems in her life but being underfed was never one of them. This confusion can't be about her eating habits. Her belly was almost like a woman ready to give birth when she heard the sounds of drums. The drum beat made her dizzy and she was sure that she was going to pass out in a few seconds. Kattey heard sounds and voices in her head and she couldn't take it anymore and was then dancing, pounding and chanting with every beat of the drum. When it stopped, she fell in front of the fire and right there, she saw her dead body on the pavement.

Her friends were screaming in horror, people were saying all sorts of things, the police were talking to each other, some cow who was drunk called her the B word. She saw herself leaving her body and being taken by black figures who were tearing her body to pieces. She was screaming her lungs out but they did not stop. They dragged her to a place and she saw many people screaming – some she knew when they were alive while others were complete strangers. Kattey had died and her soul was going to hell. She raised her head from the burning fire and went to her great-grandmother's knees.

"I do not want to die, please give me a second chance, I will change, I will..."

"Boela morago setlogolwana sa bo rra Moloko, roka mesese yame o fepe le dikgogo tsame, morero wa gago o mogolo ko lefatsheng."(Go back my descendant of the Moloko family, sew my dresses, and feed my chickens as you have yet a greater purpose in the world.)

She jumped and screamed, and the glass fell from her hand. Kattey was wet from the sweat on her face. Her heart was beating faster than the American speed trains that railed under the earth. Her bottle of whisky was still there, her cigarette packet still unopened. She was very scared, and ran to the open space of the rooftop, and looked down at the pavement where her body could have been lying. She took a deep breath of fresh air. Her body went weak; she fell to the ground and cried her heart out. The dream saved her. My life was a mess, but somebody or some force way beyond life intervened. She was saved, saved again and again. Her life mattered to somebody or something. She was loved. With this new discovery, she took money from her dark horse's room, packed her bags and went to Park Station.

"Which one is the taxi to Mafikeng?"

"Woza sisi, sheshisa se nga gu shiyi, ngena gu le E20 e blue" (Hurry up so we don't leave you behind, get into the blue E2O minibus). Nothing ever sounded as joyful as what the Zulu-speaking man said to her. She was going home, and the next time she came to Joburg she would be a new person. Those who knew her past would fall to the ground from surprise of how well she had mended Mma Mokgethi's dresses, fed her chickens and dealt as best as she could with the discovery of her purpose and the journey to her destination and, most importantly, her calling to heal herself. She was still not sure what her purpose was but she knew her saints or ancestors would guide her.

Her purpose in life was not a question to be answered by human kind, or even something that was known by her, but a secret of God which she may or may not live to know. All she knew was that she was not born by accident, or to increase statistics in the human population, or born to live her life in vain. Kattey realised that whatever darkness you're in, with troubles that always follow you, or hopelessness that overwhelms you, she was a living testimony that God has a purpose for everyone. The arrow that the monkey was born with, is the arrow that lives in all of us. Great lessons of hardship and suffering are the only ways that you can reap the fruits of faith. Be strong and give the arrow the ability to guide you until you reach your destination. These were the thoughts going through Kattey's mind as the blue E20 made its way back to her home. She had so many trips back home but this one was going to be a trip of maturity, responsibility and mostly owning up to her motherhood role that she had been running away from.

#  Twelve  
Going up

Her home was the same and not much had changed. Her siblings were advanced in their studies and her little sister had made it to university. Kattey had always known that she was going to make something out of her life. All she ever did was study, study and study. They would have family problems here and there but throughout all that her little sister would just drown her head in books. Kattey was ever so proud of her and she was her mother's pride and joy. Her brother was also at some college doing something... she could care less about who was doing what because she was not educated and felt it was too late for her to even try to attempt to go back to school. Her school-leaving results would not even allow her to go anywhere. No college or university in its right standing would embarrass itself by enrolling her. She had no one to blame but herself.

She had two options. She could stay home and give herself to the community and be tortured with her failure, or she could go back to Hillbrow with a new vision and try her luck one more time. If she stayed, her parents made it clear that she would not receive even a single cent from them. She thought of herself staying at home and waiting for her mother to get paid so she could get a little money. It was such a horrible scene. She had survived on the streets and she could do it again, and with these words she decided to leave once more. She was so busy looking for jobs in restaurants that she did not realise that she was now a size 32. She had lost so much weight from worrying about her children's future, the shock of her late boyfriend cheating on her, the sudden loss of him dying and leaving her alone, poor as a church mouse, and trying to recover from her criminal activities. She was happy to see that her old beautiful figure was back. That was what she needed at that time. She had never really thought of how that affected her, or the life of crime that she had been involved in with her dark horse. She was forever looking over her shoulders, so afraid of being found by Morena or her crew. A good dose of self-confidence was perfect for a broken woman. God must have felt her pain and she was lucky to get jobs as a waitress, hopping from one restaurant to another. She really hated waitressing and remembered how she had made a promise to herself that she would never ever accept it as a job, but because she had no post-graduate certificate to assist her to get a better job, she had no choice but to be stuck there in that slavery industry.

Some of the jobs that Kattey would get were unbearable and she was determined to get work in an office even though she did not know how that was going to unfold. She made new friends, especially with the guys who were responsible for managing big bars. How she loved popping in for a chat and a drink to go along with that. One place she worked at was all glitz and glamour with beautiful people of their country coming to watch shows. It was just sometimes not cool when she had to serve her former music soul buddies drinks, wearing an apron. Some were cruel and arrogant, though some were nice and sympathetic. She hated that and she swore she would show them what a girl with dreams was capable of.

One of the reasons that she thought she had bad luck was because Ernest's family refused to cleanse her after the funeral because they said it was not a part of their culture to do so. She did not have money to pay the traditional doctor so she went to one of the traditional churches where she was bathed and smoked through rituals to cleanse her dirty spirit. She received lots of prayers and mother luck came flying her way. She lay low for a while as she was busy attending church and then when the time was right, she left church as she could not deal with the rules of the church at her age. She used to be a waitress at many corporate functions and, therefore, had networked with Jozi's finest. She hoped one of these rich people would give her a big break and recommend her for a better job. She had seen how looking for rich men had landed her in problems. One of her guests who was very fond of her requested her to come and see her in her office with her curriculum vitae (CV). She did not sleep from excitement and anxiety. The morning came and she made her way to Braamfontein, and that was where the good life began. She was so neatly dressed for the occasion. Indeed, the lady was waiting for her and she was offered a cup of coffee. For a while, her mind lost track of where she was and she imagined herself sitting in front of a computer, wearing a business suit, speaking the most sophisticated of the English language. She was seeing herself in a boardroom full of people speaking of 'projections, budget, the financial market and a bit of foreign currency' with a pinch of a complicated joke that only educated people could laugh at. She was suddenly awakened from her dream and was led to the educated lady's office.

The lady wanted to know more about Kattey and her academic background, of which she did not remember anything other than her standard 10, full stop. Kattey told her about her short career as a dancer and a rapper wannabe. That was not really what she wanted to hear so, to cut the matter short, she politely made her aware that her senior certificate would do for this kind of a job. When she told her that the company's tea lady was on maternity and she could fill in for her, Kattey cried her heart out with joy. The lady could not understand what the big deal was as making tea for employees was not the most glamorous job ever. She did not understand that Kattey was seeing her big break into the corporate world.

When she went to work every morning, she told all who knew her how she had her own office and a computer with the coolest screen ever. Of course, she was telling the truth, as the small stuffy kitchen was now going to be her office and all the computers were hers in her dreams, so to speak. She was worried as time was moving very fast and her opportunity to teach herself how to operate the computer was getting slimmer and slimmer. For days she could not sleep. She went to the library to get books and she would spend hours and hours studying and making notes. It felt so good and her vision of where she wanted to be got clearer and clearer. She requested one lady to help her put her theory of computers into practice. She offered Kattey her lunch hour and she put her heart and soul into this learning.

She then registered with an agency and they lined up interviews for her and up to this day, there has not been one interview that she failed. The trick was that she had studied speech and drama in a sports and cultural institution back home in her schooling days and she was taught to act. Furthermore, she naturally had dramatic skills. The stories she would tell to friends and relatives would make you swear that she was there when the events happened. Some were true and some false, but false in a good way. She could slip in and out of characters and was the type of person who could sell ice to an Eskimo. Looking back, she knew she had been a master of deception and crook of all crooks.

Her agency booked her for an interview to be a personal assistant for some fancy-titled lady in one of the departments for the City of Joburg. She had never been an office type. The agency lady painted Kattey's future and it rolled out like a red carpet in front of her eyes. She was sold when Kattey concluded her interview, sitting at the other end of the boardroom table. This false crossing of the Nile River by an imaginary boat landed Kattey in her own office, but she later realised she had to take orders from some woman, her boss, who was more of a cow than a human being. She never thought the office had so many rules that she could not handle, it was very different to her waitressing job.

Kattey was now earning a lot of money compared to the peanuts that she used to get as a waitress. She was happy and her dream was slowly but surely becoming a reality. She was to stay with Mina Moo for six months but one of her characters in her body popped out by mistake and she told her to take her job and kindly shove it where the sun did not have a chance of ever shining. She walked out of the building and she went straight to the nearest bar and got a drink or two. She did not worry about where she would get her next job as it was almost weekend and she prepared herself for a freaky time. She had no rent problems, she had clothes, food and everything that she had ever struggled with in the past. She was happy to also have rich people's problems.

When Monday came, she had no job and felt she could have stayed with Cruella but being jobless felt better than seeing that woman's face again. She went to see her agent and she forced her to get her interviews, knowing she would take it from there. She wanted to take a knife and stab her agent for wanting her to go and apologise to her former boss. There was no way she would go back because her boss really treated her so badly and she could not take it anymore. She got another job and two more, here and there, and she never stopped studying when she was not too drunk or too sick from abdominal pains. The one thing that had made her job easier was that she had done typing as a subject at school. It was the only subject she was good at, the only subject she would pass with flying colours. Little did she know that her typing ability would come in handy in the shaping of her new life.

Mother destiny or her ancestors guided her to one of the highest offices in Jozi. It was like a dream but pinching herself once in a while made her realise that it was indeed reality. She could do all programmes and went up from a 'nobody miss tea come this way' to a part time assistant of that department. She was now rolling as she did not come at a cheap price. She rubbed shoulders with the crème de la crème of Jozi. She was on top of her game. She was now Alpha and Omega; no one could tell her about her past because that was locked in a safe and she had thrown away the key. She finally made herself comfortable in a very pleasant department that had a bar and very fancy furniture. The agency sent her there for two weeks but she got lucky and stayed there for a year and was promised to get employed permanently. The money was so good, like nothing she could ever have imagined.

Her life was going to fall into place and she would eventually bring her kids, buy a big house and a fancy car that would represent the new her. The people at her new workplace liked her so much and she hated to think that the reason why they renewed her contract was simply because she was a born comedian, one of the many talents that she had. Everybody believed in her and went out of their way to teach her everything that she wanted to know. She had them eating out of the palm of her hand. She felt they were her other family as they had more than a working relationship. They cared about her, taught her very serious stuff like events management, a bit of auditing, accounting systems and even shredding of important department documents. Who would be happy to be taught how to shred? To Kattey, there was no room to underestimate anything that was foreign to her mind. Her brain was like that of a child: She learned everything and wanted to excel in everything that was thrown at her.

She was a shark and could swim with the best of them. Her friends in Hillbrow were there and, at some point, they kicked her out of the organisation and declared her a snob. Her life was now different from theirs by choice and hard work, with a blend of determination. It was true that she had changed; she hated the smell of taverns with smoke, stinking men, dirty ladies and toilets that could send one to hospitals with sexually transmitted diseases. She had stopped drinking mangolongolo (750ml quart of beer) and any beer that had a brown bottle. She could not even stomach the Mozambique Karapao fish that used to rescue her from the hands of hunger. She was picky when it came to food or places where she wanted to party at. Yes, she did that. That was the life that she had always wanted and she owed nobody an explanation for how she had turned her life around.

She was released from the times when she was busy working in a night club and stayed in there the whole night to clean after drunken people. She was paid R50 per night and only worked for three nights a week. Youngsters puked and did all sorts of wicked things in the toilets, and she was just there waiting to clean up so the place could look and smell like roses. That was her worst job ever and that was the experience that made her want to fight and climb the ladder of success. In her own terms, success would mean having her children with her, getting the best education money could buy and being respected by people, not forgetting the fancy car.

The most important thing was settling the score with her family whom she had hurt over the years. Her younger sister was not an inch like her. She was an angel. She was focused and had grown and struggled by herself to go to university. Kattey loved her so much as she was the only one who believed in her, even when she did not even believe in herself. She had not been happy with Kattey's life but to her, she was her sister and not even once had she ever tried to judge her. She used to send her money when she was hustling; she bought her kids clothes whenever she could. This was a person that Kattey had tormented as a little girl. How she wished she could reverse the hands of time and make it all right by her. She shared her pocket money with her in a way. She owed her the world and wanted to be the sister that she deserved one day. Kattey saw her once or twice in a year. One year, Kattey was shocked to find out that her little sister had completed her degree in marketing and was then a junior marketing manager at some huge company in Durban. Kattey was so proud of her and thanked the Lord for saving her. She did not want her to go through an inch of her dark life. She thought there was a reason why she had her sons: They were sent to mend her broken heart and change her life.

They were sent with love to save her, to heal her, to fill her empty life with joy, to delete the pain that had covered her heart and soul. She had played with death every single day of her life. She was not afraid of dying; she was seduced by death. Death made a lot of sense to her. There were times where she couldn't sleep because of nightmares of her rapists; there were days when her spirit would not rest. There were days where she hungered for peace. She did not know the purpose of her existence. She was a waste to humanity. When it was time for her to go to the devil, her kids brought her back. They did not care about her gory past – they did not judge her, they understood her, and they loved her. For her to abandon them and take the easy way out was not an option anymore. She had always wondered what people would say about her at her funeral. She did not care much about that anymore. Rather, she cared about the future of her boys. They stopped her from jumping off a building, slitting her wrists with a sharp razor, even from taking drugs at times. She was a mess but she was proud to say she had never touched any drugs. Kattey did not believe God existed, because why would her life be like that? She was full of hatred and that was the most painful emotion ever. She loved her children and they were one of the few good things that were truly hers.

The good thing now was that she had money to go to doctors. She was very concerned about the severe pains that often attacked her. She could not believe it when she lay in the doctor's surgery and she was told that she had a huge growth in her uterus and the option she had was to remove it by having a partial hysterectomy. She hated how she was always sick and bled for weeks. The stupid uterus messed with her social life. It was not difficult to make the decision. She did not see herself getting married to some dude who would want her to give him children so she kindly requested the doctors to remove the cause of pain in her body. On being admitted at the Johannesburg hospital, she realised that she was the youngest woman in the ward. In actual fact, it was not easy to convince the doctor that she was certain that she wanted to have her uterus removed as they were concerned about her age.

She did not understand how mothers could be so cruel to themselves. She was talking on her cell phone, telling everyone that she had been admitted to have her womb removed. The women, who were admitted in the ward with her, came up to her bed and warned her to never ever utter any word about this terrible thing that was going to happen to her. The story was that it was an embarrassment for an African woman to have her womb removed. One would be treated like an outcast once the news got out. She was advised to keep it a secret, even from the very guy who was to marry her in the future. She was shocked when she realised that the husbands of the women who were in her ward were lied to about what their wives were admitted for. They knew of something of the removal of growths and nothing of the actual removal of the uterus. The fears amongst the women were that their men were not going to love and treat them as women anymore; their communities would ill treat them and call them funny names. They told her all sorts of rejection stories and she felt sorrow and pity for them. She thought HIV/AIDS was the only problem that their country was faced with in terms of how to care for and treat people who were affected and infected by this disease. The women felt that the same stigma that was attached to HIV/AIDS was more or less the same as having their uterus removed.

To her, this shame also deserved attention. In fact, she felt this needed to be addressed so women would not be ashamed to talk about a hysterectomy or issues relating to that. If she wanted a good and healthy life, she was to keep this a secret and never tell a soul, especially a man who showed interest in her. The trick was to lie to one's husband and make him believe that he was the one who had a problem of impotence. It would make sense as she had two children and that would be proof that she could give birth and had no problem with fertility. She did not know what this meant for women in general, but to her, that was the most idiotic thing that she would have to do in her life. If she was to be given the opportunity someday, she would make it her priority to sort this out once and for all. This was a matter that needed as much attention as any other medical problem in their communities and society at large. When she was done with the shame of her life, she went back to her rented house in Naturena. Her mother and sister came to see her as she was struggling to recover, which took more than six weeks. In a short space of time, Kattey had done well for herself and rented a house and brought her boys to come and live with her. She also had a helper who assisted her to take care of her children while she was at work. The poor lady often had to go beyond her duties and assist her when she was sick and could not even get out of bed.

She was worried about losing her job so she went back to work two weeks earlier than she was supposed to. She was still on a contract and she saw herself losing her job if her contract was not renewed for some reason or another. It really did not matter much to her because it was December and she felt she would go home and give herself a chance to fully recover and then return to harass her agent to find her another job.

When she got home, she went into a deep depression; she had hit rock bottom again and she did not know how she was going to recover her place in the workforce. Her spirit was weak. She just wanted to close her eyes and never wake up. She had faith in herself but she was tired – tired of fighting to be alive while her spirit was broken. To top it off, she got a call from the police in Joburg telling her that tsotsis (urban criminals) had broken into her house and taken everything including her children's toys. That finished her off; the trouble of having to hire a van to fetch her furniture was painfully removed from her shoulders. She had nothing and was back to square one. If there was ever a time for her to want to join her great-grandmother, it was at that particular time in her life. She dragged herself to her great-grandmother's grave and wept until she had no tears left, then eventually gathered her strength and went home. She was not sure how she was going to get through this setback but she knew she had to do something or else her children would suffer and she could not let that happen.

# Thirteen  
Setbacks

Grandma Jenny had warmly praised Kattey's first baby. She was her favourite and she was as perfect as a wedding cake in her eyes. She loved her grandmother with all her heart and wanted her to be proud of her someday. Her grandmother was not the type who would roll down and die. She had not seen her dying any time soon. When she was at her so-called in-laws' village a couple of years before Erney died, she got a phone call on a Friday morning that her grandmother had died on that same day. She did not know how to respond to the news. She was so shocked and angry at her for betraying her like that. She had spoken to her earlier during the week, and she wanted to bring her new baby to her so she could raise him too. Now she was dead. Kattey had not realised the impact that her death was going to have on her. She was like her own mother. Fear had gripped her spine and she could not even begin to see how life was going to be without Grandma Jenny, and poor Kamo who loved her as she was the only love he had ever known. She had no idea what was going to happen to him as there was no way she could shift the responsibility of her son to her grandfather. All these thoughts of how her grandmother had died, what she had meant to her and how she was always there to help her pick up pieces of her messed up life, really broke her heart in times like these. She was at her lowest and nothing could ever make her accept the death of her beloved grandmother. When she had been sitting and working in an office a few months back, she'd had no clue she would ever be in a situation where she would have to start over again and go look for a job, a place to stay and, even worse, leave her children at home once more. She was really getting the hang of being a full-time mother and now the setback was going to create an emptiness that she had worked so hard to fill.

She remembered how she had travelled to Grandma Jenny's house and as she entered the yard, she had immediately felt the sense of sadness that roamed around. She was gone. The arrangements for her funeral were made and as she did not have money or anything she could help with, she was ignored and felt Grandma Jenny's absence before her body could lie comfortably in her final resting place. The day came and all her relatives were there. Kattey was so hurt and thought nothing could ever hurt her that much. When her mother and cousins cried their lungs out from pain, she just stood there holding her baby and Kamo's hand. Poor Kamo was so confused and did not know what was happening. According to her calculations, she was expected to cry out loud more than everyone who was present. She wanted to cry so much but not even a tear drop fell from her face. She did not cry. She was so angry and took that terrible day and buried it deep in her soul with the rest of the ugly things that hurt and had happened in her life.

When she found herself in situations and realised that she could not go to her and talk to her that was when the crying happened. Why did she leave so soon? Two days after the funeral, she had to go to Grandma Jenny's house and take her son so he could, after seven years, come and live with her mother and the rest of her family. She was not sure how that was going to work out.

Her son was almost seven. He did not know what had happened to the woman who had raised him from as far back as he could remember. Kattey was so hurt when her son would take a bath and wear his best clothes then go wait at the gate, telling them that his grandmother was coming back that afternoon. It was as though her poor son had died with her granny. He was just a zombie and nothing or no one was ever going to take the pain away. He was later taken to see a child psychologist for treatment as he was not doing well at school and cried most nights. When they prayed at night, he would ask God to bring his grandma back. To this day, Kattey also finds herself crying at night and wishing she would be there when she wakes up. Then she would have times when she wanted to end her life and would always want to do it quickly so she would be reunited with her. She sometimes felt she would do anything to be with her, even if it meant ending her very life.

When the festive season was over and she felt she had energy, she asked her mother for R100 and made her way to the big city. She was hoping that would be her final attempt to get a better life for herself and her sons. She promised that if she failed, she would throw in the towel and stay with her mom at home until God rescued her in His own time. She went to her old friends and they took her in without a hassle. Once again, Kattey planned to get a good job and get out of the flat as quickly as possible; she had no intention of playing with the devil. She had made copies of her CV and she would wake up early to go job hunting. Her friends would mock her and advise her to give up and focus on the true life that was meant for women like them, but they did not realise that she was not that person anymore and the difference between her and them was that she had a dream and nothing was going to stop her from achieving her goals. She refused to give in. In a period of two weeks, she managed to get a job in one of the major banks. The money was not good but she could pay for her children's school fees. She later moved out of Zaza's flat and the crew was not happy about that. She knew that she was not going to fall and go back to them again as they were never again going to rescue her. This time it had to be different. There was no going back ever.

She moved in with her new colleagues from the bank and finance was the order of the day. It was in the bank that she learned everything she possibly could to feed her hunger for knowledge and she soon left them for another job. She stole education from different companies. To her, jobs were now like school. She learned certain skills and she used them to get a better job. She was now a thief of skills and job hopping was her new game, just like how she used to steal books years back when she was a little kgabo. Life was a little bit better and she could see things looking up. She had new friends who were younger than her, and for some reason she could not cope with their schedule. She never thought she would spend Friday nights by herself while the world was dancing to the tunes of Yeoville.

It was another place alright. There were lots of different people from all walks of life. She could stomach all of them except for the Nigerians. A few of her friends were dating them and she always gave them the third degree about these heartless people. She had never witnessed them doing all the bad things for which they were infamous but she hated them with a passion. How South African women could even begin to have real feelings for these people made no sense to her. She could not stand it; even when she was still at the bank they would try their luck with her and she would send them straight to the devil. There was no way in hell she could picture herself holding hands with them or even exchanging a smile. They were all to be killed or loaded on a big truck and sent back to their country, wherever that was. Her head was buried in a dustbin one Saturday morning as she was vomiting her stomach out from drinking too much the previous night, when she heard a voice of a Nigerian man offering to help her in the situation in which she had put herself. She tried to tell him to leave her alone but she was too weak from all the vomiting. She was trying to make her way to a friend's house where she had left her handbag.

Kattey was going to walk there because she did not have money for a taxi. The dark huge man who looked so concerned about her ill health ignored all her attempts to make him go away. He just stood there and asked if he could perhaps carry her back to her place. What? Hell would have to freeze over before I would let that criminal touch me. Carry who? Crazy! The thought of him carrying her in the light of the shining sun sent her into an almost insane state. Her hatred for these people could not allow her to see him as a human being, but only as a monster that was trying to put his hooks into her so she could sell drugs for him. If she had a gun she would have sent his soul to its final resting place. When she could hardly move due to her sick state, the big man waited for her to come to her senses and she finally accepted his plea to help her. He took her hand and they walked to the taxi where he also paid her taxi fare. She was more worried by the thought of being seen with him. To top it all off, she gave him her telephone numbers but this was purely out of guilt. She was going to ignore his calls until he gave up.

Later that afternoon, Okeke called Kattey and wanted to know if there was anything he could do for her. She thanked him and kindly told him to take a hike. She could not really understand him as he spoke very loudly. He called a hundred times a day to ask if Kattey would come to his place for dinner. She always refused, dropped the phone in his ear but surely business was business and he would make himself a fool so she could submit to selling drugs for him. That was all that she could think of.

Her mind wandered and she saw herself being arrested at some airport overseas. She hated him more and decided to have dinner with him so she could get him off her back. She took a bath one evening and painfully made her way to the killer's house. They were staying in the same flats and he stayed one floor below Katteys'. In no time, she was standing at his door where he welcomed her and she just wanted to smack the smile off with her tiny hands. She saw herself as David and he was Goliath. If he were to do something bad to her, she would just curl up and die from fright. She wanted to turn and run away but it was just too late. He led her through the house and right up to his bedroom.

She had lots of funny pictures about his place painted in her head but there was not even one picture from what she saw. The room was very clean and warm. There was a heater next to the TV set and a very cosy looking couch. She thought of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, when the wolf had gobbled the grandmother and wore her clothes so it could eat her as well. All was planned for her big disappearance. The room also had a romance theme to it, and he was crazy if he thought she would for a second fall in love with him. There was no way in hell that was going to happen. He was Joseph the dreamer but it was sad for him as his dreams had not even the slightest chance of ever coming true.

When he asked her to sit on his bed, she refused and opted for the couch. Something stupid secured her protection from that decision she made. She felt safer on the couch. Her eyes were very busy looking for a sharp object that she could save her life with when the opportunity presented itself. He brought her a glass of red wine and she surely thought he was going to drug her and finish her off. After the second glass of wine, she now saw this man for the first time as another human being. He was rather shy and very soft-hearted. When she had stopped hating him for a second, she could hear him clearly and she responded to all the questions that he was asking her.

She hated to admit this but she was enjoying the evening and she did not know what to make of that. The foreign man offered her food and she ate and lived to see another day. No poison like she thought. They listened to music and when she got sleepy, she asked him to let her leave. He agreed and sent her off with a box of pizza and a sealed bottle of wine, topped off with a very intense hug.

Two months later, Kattey was at Okeke's house and wanted nothing more than to be in his arms. Yep! That was how Saul became Paul. She was grateful for being given the opportunity to erase the painful emotion of hate that occupied a big place in her heart for other African brothers and sisters. She had spent years hating people simply because they were different. She could not forgive herself for ever thinking she was better than other people because she came from a far better country than them. Of all her cranky ups and downs in life, she realised that these few months she had spent with this man had restored some good in her existence. There was a huge element of respect that she had learned from Okeke and she wished that her fellow South African brothers had that quality.

Kattey now knew how it felt to be a queen. No one had ever worshiped the ground that she walked on, nor seen her as the princess she had always been. It took a foreigner to make her love herself more and to make her love the rest of the world too. To all my friends who found love and happiness in foreigners, please accept my apology for ever giving you grief about that. God created man and woman in His own image and who are we to question that?

She bitterly wept as she wiped tears of regret for hating people who shared the same colour of skin as hers.

When Kattey got a decent job in another province, she had to leave Okeke. They were physically separated by distance but she was honoured to say their friendship was one that she would cherish even up to this very moment. He made her forget about her quest to date and break men's hearts until the day she left for heaven. She was open to go beyond her own country and visit her other brothers and sisters.

She Stands

My spirit wandered at night, exchanging painful conversations with the moon

Digging the cold ground, cursing the still winds, searching the bare land for quietness.

Many moons away, a woman child was conceived.

Unknown was the purpose of her existence,

It mattered not for she was born and she was meant to stand. Betrayed by childhood she stands, abused and abandoned by love she stands,

Shattered and battered by severe ignorance of the system she stands, scorned by stupidity from fools she stands, beaten by lack of education she stands.

For she is a woman child and she will stand.

After so many hurricanes she stands, storms blowing poverty at her she stands, troubled by evil she stands, autumn leaves befriending her she stands, World War III passing unmercifully through her.

As my tongue makes movements for your ears to hear, by my ancestors who lie cold beneath the African soil, I am proud to say,

"She is a woman child and she will stand."

Warm or cold she will stand.

She is like no other, her skin makes that of a crocodile look like fur, her firm bones make Kilimanjaro shake with fear, her feet stick to the ground like a tattoo on a biker's shoulder, her head cool and her eyes clear like crystal spring water.

I am saying she is a woman child and she will stand.

When my mother before me, and her mother before her, and their mothers before them, beat the drums, she stood and by the powers allowed by my ancestors she stood and will forever stand.

Her labour brought her seeds which produced her harvest, meant to multiply her tree so she could stand.

She stands like Sarah Bartman, fights like Winnie Mandela, sings like Miriam Makeba, dances like Brenda Fassie, and to all the women children in the world, I give this to you for you will stand

Like Kentse yo kentseng, and with this

As a gift to my grandmother, family, and my beloved sons, I will always stand!

#  Fourteen  
Victory

'She Stands', the poem, made her sound like she was some kind of a hero. Well, that's what she thought. She wished it was that simple but she was still alive with the pain still there. The emptiness is like an empty tin of Black Label beer that gets you so drunk that you turn to think all your troubles were with the Lord Almighty. The reality would be that when you wake up with a banging headache, the loneliness is worse than what you felt before you had your first sip. How do you overcome this one? How do you get rid of that voice that accompanied your mind with thoughts of the next world? How do you resist the constant wish to join the spirit world? How do you say no to the seductive voice of death that calls you every minute of your breathless life? She wished she stood as firmly as her poem expressed her to be.

After getting a permanent job, Kattey thought her life would be perfect – that the sorrows and the heaviness of steel iron that befriended her heart and depressed her shoulders would disappear into thin air. Boy, was she so wrong. She thought her cruel journey was over but that was just a portion of a terrible slice of cake that she found herself a part of.

She went for an interview, wearing her old brown dress which she had worn during her former encounter with a thug months ago. She woke up at four o'clock that morning and went to the taxi rank in Park Station.

She was not nervous like she had been years ago when she went for her first interview. She wanted a job in Rustenburg, another province that was much closer to her home town. She was going to be closer to home, closer to her beloved sons. It was a dream that she was going to turn into reality. She did not have the requirements that were needed for the job, but she proclaimed the job in her heart and made a deal with the Almighty.

There was no way in hell that she was not going to be selected for the job. When she got into the taxi, she told the driver where she was going and gave him a piece of paper with the address of the place. He was nice and all friendly, even offering to drop her off at the gate. The interview was scheduled for nine o'clock and she got there a quarter of an hour earlier. When she saw the place, she knew she was meant to work there. She entered the building and told the security personnel of her interview, and they told her to wait. To her surprise, a guy who she went to school with came out of the lift and took her to a waiting room.

He was one of those guys at school who went out of their way to make the teachers weak with funny jokes. She entertained him a bit with a few stories of her mysterious life in Joburg and he was sold. The few minutes that she spent with him gave her a brief insight of who was who and who did what in the company. She became a bit relaxed and easy; she knew in her heart that the job was hers. While she was waiting, another candidate crazed the waiting room with her 'I am educated' presence. Kattey looked at her with disgust as she ran her certificates in a cat walk sequence before her eyes.

"Did you make copies?" she asked.

"Of what?" Kattey wanted to know.

"Your academic certificates!"

No you stupid idiot. She wanted to spit at her but she grinned and politely said, "No." The skinny girl wanted to chat and check if Kattey was a match but she gave her a million dollar weapon of silence. One more word from her and Kattey would come out and make her taste the sound of Hillbrow on a freaky Friday night. She noticed her warning and kept her little trap shut. Skinny Lulu was called in and Kattey was shocked to see her out in a period of less than 15 minutes. She went to the bathroom and knelt down in front of the toilet seat and gave God a piece of her mind about what she wanted. She was not asking God but telling him that the job was hers and she instructed Him to take her hand and go with her inside the interview room.

She will never forget the spirit that was with her when she entered the room. She had it under control. Calm and collected, Kattey was ready to give them the goods. It was a fact, skinny Lulu was blonde and her certificates were to remove the shame from her face. What a waste! Thousands of rands gone down the drain. She was an airhead. The smooth cat was called in and she summoned one of her street kid characters who would stop at nothing to get a better life away from the streets to join her in the hot grill. When she left that room, it was a done deal, clean job, and 'no mess left behind' kind of a party. She was good – she was not blessed with a magic tongue for nothing.

She came back after seven days to claim her new job. She had no doubt in her heart. God had shifted mountains before her to overcome her fears. That was her proof of what Jah was capable of when you truly seek Him. She was happy to be near her kids. She went home every weekend. She loved her new job even though she was a temp. She told Jesus of her intentions and He paved her way. Her new boss was a very strong academic: Miss no-push-over. She envied her as she was strong and everything that she'd ever wanted to be. Kattey stepped herself up and gave Mrs Nthabeleng Morwa her brains with all the knowledge and skills she'd acquired. She still had her challenges but she overcame each and every one of them. Nthabeleng was, in a way, just like her. She worked in a very hard position and many people who worked under her often brought nonsensical matters to her which she always handled with flair and elegance. Kattey had mixed feelings about her; she was like some women back in Joburg who had made her life hell at work all in the name of tough love. She gave her so much work, and sometimes Kattey would think she was secretly trying to kill or fire her. The confusing part was how she could separate business from pleasure: She would break her heart in the meeting they had each morning and 30 minutes later have tea with her and tell her all about her life, family and kids. Kattey saw Nthabeleng as her role model but she would often feel an element of hatred for her. She felt she was so hard-core and often felt she left her feminine side at home.

It was hard, sometimes very hard, and she wanted to give up but she did not. She wanted to buy a house and a car and live a normal life that she had worked so hard for.

Nthabeleng listened to her when she would break down and talk about her mother who was at home with her kids, demanding money every chance she got. It was not easy for her being in a new town and she had few people to call when loneliness struck her.

Her kids were all that mattered to her. She eventually made new friends. A year later, she had settled in and even moved out of her cousin's apartment and moved into a house which she shared with some other dudes. It was not the rosiest place to which you could invite friends over but her small room was like a place of peace. She owned each and every piece of it and she was proud. As much as she hated being a personal assistant as she knew it deleted her life of fame and put pride in her family's honour, it paid the bills and restored her children's faith in her.

It wasn't long before she started being sick again. She had no idea what could have been the problem as she had had her uterus removed. She asked Nthabeleng to give her a few days off so she could go home to see a doctor to have tests done to find out the cause of the horrible pains. She was just tired and thought she could not afford to have any operation performed on her body but that's exactly what she got. The doctor discovered she had another fibroid that had developed on her right fallopian tube and they had to remove it by open surgery. Kattey could not believe how that could have happened but she just went ahead with the operation so as to relieve herself from the pain that made her life a living hell. When she was at home recovering, her family was supportive as always. Her boys were there and embraced her in every way possible.

Her family's love and support carried her through. She did not know how they coped with her but she learned to understand that her mother really loved her. It's true then that you do not choose your family; they would not have chosen a selfish and troublesome person like her. That's what they meant by unconditional love.

She went to work two months later. Thinking of her life often made her wonder about what her purpose was in the entire long twisted road. The only thing that made sense to her was that she was indeed a baby that was born looking like a monkey and her life was as complicated as the jungle.

The objective in her life's action plan was to try to live a decent life. Surely it will not be that easy, cutting down on soul buddies, booze and giving up the war against men which is causing me more harm than the people I am supposed to be hurting. It's not worth it anymore. She had three scars on her belly and they were not the ones that would encourage her to confidently go out of your way to look for men. She gave up. She was no Naomi Campbell. She always had hairstyles that would make her stand out from the rest. They were meant to hide the shame of what her mother always drummed into her head. "You are ugly." There words always rang in her head and made her feel ugly both inside and outside. She so wished her granny would have stayed a bit longer to see how Kattey had turned her life around.

The painful truth was Kattey still had very low self-esteem. She had lost her self-confidence for a while in the music industry and when she had her first baby she lost it again and never got it back. Not a very nice thing to say or admit to herself, but that's what she needed to accept. The little girl in her that was always trying to grab her split attention was always hidden by her Grace Jones looks. Could she say she was suffering from acute Attention Deficit Disorder? It could have been possible that she was sending out messages of 'abuse me' to men as that was what many abused women do without actually opening their mouths. Bad luck? One can't have a string of abusive relationships and say 'I am bewitched'. Bees are automatically associated with honey and pigs with dirt. How does one do it? How do you get to be in the world for nearly 33 years and struggle to get even one night of peaceful sleep? The self-diagnosis was painful but the time to face the music had arrived and it was time to let it out and let it go.

What would she miss most if she had to die someday? This was a question asked by her friend one day back in Hillbrow. She thought hard and answered that she would die if all the tobacco factories were destroyed and burned. She had always smoked and used cigarettes as a painkiller as she knew at any given time, they would make any situation seem better or go away. It was her happy pill. At the back of her mind, she knew that at some point, she was going to have to quit but felt it was not going to be any time soon.

She drank each night and took pills when she didn't have alcohol, and she would then wrap that up with a smoking session. She could never have a 24-hour day without one of these partners in crime. She often thought how sad it was that the world was full of people like her – addicts who thought they were actually not victims of substance abuse. She needed help, not to stop her addictions because she was proud to say she had the ability to stop at any time. She needed help to combat the poison that made her feel empty.

South Africa has facilities in place to help all who were freaky like her. One had to know and admit that one needed help or whatever help that was made available would not serve the purpose intended. She was no Superwoman to say she was going to stop typing and go to the nearest social welfare centre and claim her overdue sessions with a shrink. Easy on Kattey now. She was not ready to confront the guy who raped her years ago, not ready to remember the ones who stole her body in Hillbrow, or the beatings that she had gotten from her many boyfriends. She lit a cigarette to erase the pain, accept the disappointments and shame that she shot her parents with, and the love that she poured and showered on Mr Wrongs, daring not to cry but rather drinking a shot when they played Jack and left her.

The will to fight life and fall over and over again without any trace of success, was daunting. The pain of her leaving her kids with her mom, and retreating to a cold empty cave night in and night out, was plaguing her. The financial problems that made her life hell and justified her explanation to her kids that she couldn't get them this and that, were tired excuses.

The steel suit that she wore each and every morning when she went to work, had clear cracks.

She longed for real love and that love could only come from within. She was drinking as her heart was pounding with the pain of missing her kids but there was no way she was going to cry! Alcohol had always played a tune of comfort. She did not have what it took to deal with all the stuff. Call her a coward, but she would sleep and wake up to face new battles.

It was amazing how people who knew her thought that she was the most carefree person in the world. There was never a dull moment where this girl was concerned. She made people forget about their problems; she made their faces wet from tears of joy and laughter. Some told her they looked forward to going to work so she could brighten up their days. Yes! Maybe there was a reason she was saved from situations. It was not much but she appreciated the fact that she had a positive impact on people's lives. She just wished someone or something could do that for her. She never wanted anything much more than one moment of peace. She sobbed when she wondered why on earth she had been allowed to come into the world. This breakdown wrapped up her life from the time she was in her mother's arms in the clinic to 33 years later.

Kattey's mental state was suffering from multiple personality disorder. She was not sure if it was called psychosis or something like that. The constant switching of personalities every day really took a lot out of her. Of all the costumes that she wore, the most painful to wear was that of her very own nature. She had taken the costume and hidden it far away in a place that would not be easy for her to have access. She tried so hard to go and fetch it and wear it but it was just too heavy.

She did not want to put pressure on herself to get rid of all her gory stuff. She would continue with her cruel journey but now she wanted to write a little something for her beloved sons as her heart bled out to them on a cold and wet Sunday afternoon when she took pen and paper and poured out her soul. Victory to her did not mean the blue Cleo car she bought and drove home one Friday afternoon, or the respect she earned at her workplace, or the beautiful town house she rented in an upper-class part of town. Victory was the pride she restored in her mother, the relationship she mended with her father and siblings, the smiles and wellbeing of her children. As for her soul being restored, it was not going to be as easy as wrapping up her journey. It was yet an amazing discovery that the arrow of her life would take her to. Her life was not a story of 'from rags to riches' but of hopelessness and inner strength.

#  Fifteen  
I am there

I have never been to a desert, but I have seen and read about it. It is a place where grazing animals can't survive; a place where water is like precious stones. A place where the sun burns and destroys, the wind blowing fiercely like sharp razors. All the same, it was created by God for a reason.

I have never seen a volcano, but I have read and was told about it. Its lava boils and when cold turns into a hard rock, that makes up beautiful mountains. No life can survive the anger of its overflowing river. All the same, it is created by God for a reason.

I have never laid my eyes on snow, nor touched it with my bare hands. I know it's white and as soft as the fur of a new born puppy. It's not the snow that makes it cold but the wind that blows. All the same, it is created by God for a reason.

I have never been near waterfalls, but I wish to see them. I've heard of their glittering beauty, the smell of fresh air, the sea shell sounds that they make. The beautiful whiteness that glows in the sun as you are standing close by. All the same, I say they are created by God for a reason.

I am not there when you come back from school. I heard you look dirty and want nothing more than to eat and sleep. I am not there when you want me to tuck you in and kiss you goodnight but I do that in my cave and no soul can see me. I feel your pain when I hug you as I feel the same. All the same, it was planned by God for a reason.

I have never been with you for a year. I heard the challenges of a boy who beat you up at school, and when your forehead bled from a stone that was thrown at you. I was told you were angry and cried for me. I was in my cave but nobody saw me as I cleaned your wound, took you to a clinic and held you close in my arms. All the same, it was planned by God for a reason.

Your chest was blocked and you were taken to the hospital. You were scared and the needles hurt you. You cried for me and wanted me to hold your hands like the mother of a little boy who slept next to you. I came two days later. I cared, I cried and wanted to break free from my cave and fly to you but I could not. I was next to your bed side, I held your tiny hand, and sang you a song, like the mother of a little boy who slept next to you. I was there but nobody saw me. All the same, it was in your journey and planned by God for a reason.

I was told you were brave when you were circumcised. You were strong and did not entertain the pain. Here and there you hurt yourself when playing and wished I was there. I tried to make my way to you as fast as I could. My cave would not let me out so I escaped and came two days later. I was there, and kissed your forehead to make you feel better. Nobody saw me but I was there. All the same, it was planned by God for a reason.

I do not know if I will ever live with you in the same house for the remaining part of your lives. I know it will be a blessing and the best thing ever. For as long as I am in my cave, I would like you to know this. I might not be there with you in person, but you should know that for as long as the sun rises in the east, I will never leave your side. I might not be seen or heard but you will feel my warmth as you feel the rising of the sun warming your skin.

It does not have to make sense to humans but it is planned by God for a reason, my sons. I will be freed from my cave some day and I will be there like I always have been.

I am the sun and will shine on you from the depth of my cave.

All the same, it is planned by God for a reason and He knows I am there as He is always there for all his children.

With all my love beneath the cave,

Mommy Kattey.

