Broken vows

Chapter two

---"What does Nomafu want?"

No one had asked me that since Nqobi died. Everyone was telling me what to do. Cry here. Sit there. Marry there.

What did I want?

I wanted to wake up and for this to be a nightmare. I wanted Nqobi to be snoring next to me, complaining that I stole the blanket.

But he wasn't.

I wiped my face with my sleeve. My mother-in-law was still holding me.

"If I go home now," I whispered, "what will they say about me in Jozini? They will say I killed him. They will say I am cursed. My mother... my mother will have to return the cows. And she has nothing."

Mama didn't say anything. Because it was true.

I looked out the window again. Sifiso was still there, his back to us, smoke going up into the dark sky.

"Tell them..." My voice cracked. "Tell them I will stay. As a Gumede. But not as his wife. Not like that. I will stay in this room. My room. Nqobi's room. And he... he stays in his own room."

My mother-in-law closed her eyes. Relief and pain at the same time.

"Are you sure, ngane yami?"

I nodded, tears falling again. "I have nowhere else to go, Mama. Nqobi brought me here. Let me stay where he left me. Even if it's just in this house, with his smell still on the pillows."

She hugged me tight. So tight I could smell the curry on her dress.

"Ngizokhuluma nabo. I'll talk to them."

She stood up and left. I heard her sandals down the passage.

A few minutes later, the dining room went quiet.

Then footsteps. Heavy ones. Coming to my bedroom.

Not my mother-in-law's soft steps.

Sifiso's.

He knocked once. And opened the door before I said come in.

He stood in the doorway, looking at me on the floor.

"They said you agreed," he said. His voice was low. Rough.

I didn't look at him. "I agreed to stay in this house. Not to be your wife."

He was quiet for a long time. Then he walked in and picked up my chair that I had knocked over. He set it upright.

"Good," he said. "Because I don't want a wife either, Nomafu. I lost my brother today. The last thing I want is to touch my brother's wife."

His words should have made me feel better. But they made me cry harder.

He crouched down, not too close.

"But from tomorrow, to the outside world, you are my wife. So they don't talk. So they don't say my brother's wife was chased away like a dog. Inside this house... you are still just Nqobi's Makoti. I won't touch you. I swear on him."

He held out his hand. Not to pull me up romantically. Just to help me from the cold floor.

Outside, a taxi hooted. The funeral was over. The real life was starting.

His hand was rough. Calloused. Not like Nqobi's. Nqobi's hands were soft from driving, always with that cheap lotion smell.

Sifiso pulled me up, but quickly let go, like my skin burned him.

"Go wash your face," he said quietly. "The uncles are still here. They want to hear it from you. That you agree."

I wiped my face with my hands. My eyes were swollen.

"And if I say no in front of them?"

He looked at me, really looked at me for the first time since the graveyard.

"Then I will tell them you said no. And I will put you on the first taxi to Jozini myself. I give you my word."

For a second, he wasn't the older brother who must fill in the shoes. He was just a man who also lost someone today.

I nodded and walked past him to the small basin. The water was cold. I splashed it on my face.

In the dining room, they were all waiting. My father-in-law, Malume Themba, Mama, Zanele peeping from the kitchen.

Malume Themba cleared his throat. "So, Makoti?"

My voice was so small. "I will stay. As a Gumede. In Nqobi's house... in his room. I will respect the family. But..."

I looked at Sifiso standing by the door, arms crossed.

"But inside this house, I am still Nqobi's wife. Not... not yet..."

The silence was heavy. Then my father-in-law nodded slowly.

"That is fair. That is respect. Ukungena does not mean you must forget my son tomorrow. It means you are protected. For now, that is enough."

Mama exhaled like she had been holding her breath the whole day.

Malume Themba wasn't happy, but he nodded. "Sifiso?"

Sifiso spoke without looking at me. "She stays in the main bedroom. I stay in the rondavel at the back. No one will say anything. Outside, she is my wife. Inside... she is my brother's widow. Until she decides otherwise."

Until she decides otherwise.

*THAT NIGHT - THE FIRST NIGHT AS "HIS WIFE"*

The house was finally quiet. Everyone left. Only the smell of cooked meat and floor polish remained.

I was in my bedroom — our bedroom — lying on Nqobi's side of the bed, hugging his t-shirt. It still smelled like him.

There was a soft knock on the window. Not the door. The window.

I jumped up. It was Sifiso. He was outside in the dark, holding a plate.

"I... you didn't eat," he said through the glass. He looked awkward, holding the plate like a schoolboy. "Mama made you eat."

He left the plate on the windowsill. Curry and rice and a piece of chicken.

Then he walked back to the small rondavel at the back, where the light was on. Alone.

I sat on the floor and ate with my hands, tears falling into the rice. Because for the first time since Nqobi died, someone had noticed I hadn't eaten.

---

*Next morning will be hell, Nomafu.*

The neighbors will come for the cleansing ceremony. The women in church uniforms will call you "MaSifiso" for the first time.

And Sifiso's ex-wife? The one from Durban? She just heard the news that Sifiso has taken a new wife.

She is coming back tomorrow.

Next morning

Mama said I should clear my mind. Keep busy. Keep my hands busy so my heart doesn't run too much.

"Nomafu, take the broom. Sweep the yard. The ancestors like a clean yard."

So I was sweeping. Barefoot in the dust. Wearing Mama's old doek, Nqobi's oversized t-shirt like a dress. No makeup, eyes still swollen from crying for three days straight.

The yard was big and dusty, chickens running around. I was just sweeping, sweeping, trying not to think.

Then the gate clanged.

A big taxi from Durban stopped. Not the local Dlamini taxi. A long-distance one.

She stepped out.

High heels. In our dusty yard. Tight blue jeans. Red lipstick so bright you could see it from far. Long braids with gold beads shaking. And behind her — two children, a boy around 7, a girl around 5, and a big red suitcase.

I knew her before she even spoke. From the photos Mama hid in the kitchen drawer.

Thandi. Sifiso's ex-wife. The one who left three years ago.

Zanele had told me yesterday in a whisper: "She lives in Durban now with another man. She left Sifiso with nothing."

She looked at me from my dusty feet up to my messy doek. Slowly. Like I was dirt.

"You must be the new wife," she said loud. Loud enough for Ma Dlamini next door who was fetching water to stop and listen. She laughed. "Yoh, news travels fast hey? Nqobi is not even cold in the grave and Sifiso already found himself a new chicken for the kraal?"

My hand froze on the broom. I couldn't speak.

Zanele ran out from the kitchen, eyes big. "Ma Thandi?"

Thandi ignored her. She walked straight to me, her heels sinking in the dust, and stood too close. I could smell her strong sweet perfume.

"Where is Sifiso? Where is MY husband?"

I swallowed. My throat was dry like the dust I was sweeping.

"He... he is at the kraal..."

"YOUR husband?" She turned to her kids and laughed again. "Did you hear that children? This girl says MY husband is at the kraal."

Then a voice behind me. Low. Angry. Hard.

"Thandi."

Sifiso.

He was standing at the back door of the rondavel. Work shirt off, just a vest, hands dirty from fixing something. Sweat on his forehead.

He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"What are you doing here?"

Thandi's whole face changed. Just like that. From angry to soft. Crying now.

"Sifiso... baby... I heard about Nqobi... yoh, I'm so sorry... I heard you took a new wife and I thought... you need me. The kids need their father. I left everything in Durban and came back for us. For our family."

She walked to him, hands out to touch his chest.

Sifiso stepped back. One clear step away from her.

"Don't."

Then he walked. Past her. Straight to me.

He didn't stand in front of me. He stood beside me. And in front of Thandi, in front of Zanele, in front of Ma Dlamini and the two church ladies passing by with buckets on their heads — everyone now staring — he put his hand gently on my lower back.

His hand was warm. Even through Nqobi's t-shirt.

And he said it. Loud and clear so the whole yard could hear.

*"This is my beautiful wife."*

Not Nqobi's widow. Not my brother's widow.

*"This is my beautiful wife."*

My breath stopped. I looked up at him, my eyes wide. His face was stone serious, no smile, but his eyes looked down at me and whispered, _Trust me. Play along._

Thandi's mouth fell open. Her red lipstick shaking.

"Your BEAUTIFUL wife?" she shouted, her soft voice gone. "This one? This child? This little girl sweeping dust in a dead man's t-shirt with no shoes? Me! I was your beautiful wife! For eight years I was your beautiful wife! You left me? You left me to marry THIS?"

Sifiso didn't move his hand from my back.

"This is my beautiful wife, Thandi," he repeated, slower, harder. "And you will respect her in my yard. You will respect her in front of my children."

He leaned down, just a little, so only I could hear.

"Go inside, my beautiful wife. Go inside. I've got this."

My beautiful wife.

The last time someone called me that, it was Nqobi. The morning of the accident. He kissed my forehead and said, "Stay beautiful, my beautiful wife."

And now his brother was saying it. Using the same words to shield me from the cold.

My eyes filled with tears, but I turned and ran inside. I didn't close the door. I stood behind the curtain, heart pounding so loud I thought they could hear it outside, listening to Sifiso defend his... beautiful wife.