After Tears. Niq Mhlongo

said my uncle, barely concealing his delight. “When someone scolds you, the number to play is twenty-four.”

      He wrote down the number in his notebook in his deformed, semiliterate handwriting.

      “And then what happened?”

      “Well, she called me a pig and broke my cigarette into pieces.”

      “Aha! She called you a pig?” he asked, laughing. “Did she really say that?”

      “Yes, she did, in my dream, of course.”

      He nodded slowly in approval.

      “Okay, a pig is number eight. This is why I like you, Advo. Ever since you came back here from Cape Town I’m a lucky person.”

      I smiled while my uncle held forth on his favourite subject.

      “My dreams are always bad for this game, Advo,” he said. “I tell you, just a week before you came back I dreamt of my dog Verwoerd’s penis. I played thirty-six, because a penis is that number in fah-fee, and I lost all my money.”

      “Ha, ha, ha,” I laughed, “is that right?”

      My uncle smiled and slapped my back tenderly.

      “That’s the truth, my laaitie. Your dreams are real because you’re very educated.”

      My uncle was still scribbling some numbers on a piece of paper when a white four-wheel drive Toyota van passed stealthily along our street. Inside the bulletproof van were two Chinese guys wearing panama hats.

      The car stopped in the middle of the street next to maMfundisi’s house where the group of women had gathered. Uncle Nyawana immediately gave me a piece of paper with the numbers on it, as well as R48.

      “Look, Advo!” he said, spitting on the ground playfully. “If you come back before this saliva dries up, I’ll buy you four ngudus of Hansa Pilsner.”

      With my uncle’s promise on my mind I ran immediately towards maMfundisi’s house, passing some kids that were playing hopscotch on the street. At the gate of her house I gave maMfundisi the bet and watched as she approached the car. The window was rolled down and I saw a hand receiving four bags of money.

      When I got back to our house, my uncle was sitting on the beer crate and a woman was sitting on the lawn next to him.

      “The millennium is just around the corner,” the woman was saying to my uncle, “so I have come here to make peace with you. Priest Mthembu told us that those who sin by hating others are not going to see the Kingdom of God.”

      “Good! I forgive you,” said my uncle, as if he had been the wronged party, “and where is Mbuso?”

      “He’s at work. He finally got a job. But he’ll also come to make peace with you because it’s not a good thing to hate each other. He understands that it was a mistake that you and your friends beat him so badly.”

      They shook hands and the woman left. My uncle limped towards his room with his empty glass in his hand. He came back a few minutes later with the glass full of whisky.

      “What was that all about, Uncle? Is she your girlfriend?” I joked.

      “Girlfriend? Hell no, she’s too old for me, Advo. She’s the mother of that guy Mbuso, the one who was staying here until June.”

      “You mean that guy who was staying where Zero’s zozo is now? I heard that you knocked his teeth out after he failed to pay the rent in time?”

      “Exactly. The same guy who made us sleep in a prison cell for a week in winter. I tell you that if it was not for bra PP, who bribed the police officials with two straights of KWV brandy, we would still be in jail now. Money can really talk in this country, Advo. I’ve seen it.”

      “But why did you beat him up? You should have simply told him to leave.”

      “You don’t understand, Advo. It wasn’t that simple. You see that hosepipe in the toolbox behind the toilet?”

      “Yes. What about it?”

      “That guy came back in the evening, just after I’d told him to pack and go. I was out drinking at The White House with PP and Dilika, but when I came back at midnight my room was flooded. My bed, my clothes and everything was all wet. And, imagine, it was a very cold winter.”

      “How did you know that it was him?”

      “He was the only suspect, Advo. Who else could it have been, huh?”

      “Maybe it was one of your old grudges, Uncle. I mean, you have no evidence it was him?”

      “I knew it was him, Advo. He’d said during the day that he’d get me for throwing him out. The following morning I went to his home with PP and Dilika and we beat the shit out of him until he confessed.”

      I shook my head in disapproval, but I still wanted to hear more.

      “And that old man who came to the house yesterday and claimed it was his, who’s he?” I asked.

      “Oh, that happened when your grandfather, my father, was still working at the city council. That man, my taima, was a real tsotsi. Many people lost their houses because of him. You see here, opposite, the Jobe’s place, where we ask for ice cubes every day, neh?”

      “Yes, what about it?”

      “They got that house through my taima. Some old man and his wife used to live there and they had no children. When they died in ’91, my father organised that the house be registered to the Jobe family. I think he was screwing Jobe’s wife . . .”

      “So what’s going to happen about the old man’s claim?”

      “He can go to the city council to check if he wants, but there’s nothing he can do because the original title deed is still in our family’s name. You saw that, didn’t you, Advo?”

      I nodded.

      SEVEN

      Thursday, December 2

      At eight forty-five the following morning I was already inside a minibus taxi on my way to town. Mama had given me R30 for the journey, but I had specifically waited for Zero’s taxi as I didn’t want to pay the taxi fare to the city.

      “You’re dressed very smart, Advo,” said Zero, as I sat in the front seat next to him.

      “Thanks, man,” I replied, smiling at his compliment. I was wearing an expensive white Polo T-shirt, a black leather jacket, black suede Carvela shoes and a pair of grey, five-pocketed corduroy pants.

      Zero himself was wearing a black T-shirt with Tupac’s head printed on it, but the smell that came from his left armpit was an unusually cruel punishment. It was like a rat had decomposed somewhere under his arm and I’m sure I would have suffocated if it were not for the open window on my left. No wonder Mama had nicknamed him magez’epompini.

      “Are you going to work this late, Advo?” Zero asked. “PP would kill me if I arrived later than half past five in the morning.”

      “Yeah, I’ve got a meeting with a judge in town,” I lied.

      Just after the Chiawelo clinic, near Senaone, along the Old Potchefstroom Road, I saw a lovely lady pointing her finger to the sky. Her pink T-shirt clearly defined her upper body and she was wearing a pair of white jeans so tight that I don’t think she could have bent over to pick something off the ground without them tearing.

      Zero stopped the taxi for her to get in and as soon as she opened the door I smelled her strong perfume. It was as if she wore it to get rid of all the bad township smells. As she walked down the almost nonexistent aisle of the taxi with her head bent down to avoid banging it against the roof, her orange G-string was clearly visible.

      “Hello, Bunjubunju, my Venus, my goddess of sexual beauty and love,” said Zero with a voice that was spiked with desire.

      “Hi,