The Water Man's Daughter (16 page)

“But we just saw a house with a tap inside. When she runs out of water, she can buy credits for extra.”

“Not everyone has that kind of money. If you can’t pay, you get a standing tap and no chance to buy extra water.”

“So it’s a financial management thing? Like cutting people off so they can’t build up debt?”

“No.” Nomsulwa can’t stop herself. “It’s a making money thing, like why spend the money bringing taps into this woman’s house if she’s never going to pay.”

Claire frowns, looks at Nomsulwa as though she were a stranger.

“Hey, we should keep walking.” Nomsulwa tries to lighten her tone. Claire stands with her back to Nomsulwa, staring at the tap.

“It’s overflowing. Shouldn’t you let the people who live here know?”

Before Nomsulwa has a chance to move Claire back onto the road, a very old woman shuffles out from behind the house. She doesn’t look up at the white girl hanging off her fence.

“Your bucket is full.”

The woman doesn’t acknowledge Claire.

“Translate for me, Nomsulwa. Tell her her bucket is full.”

“Ngiyaxolisa, Mama,” Nomsulwa almost whispers.
Sorry, Mama
.

The old woman stops at the tap, turns it off, and looks up at the two strangers in front of her.

“Thank you, ma’am.” The old woman drops the phrase at Claire’s feet. Lifts the bucket and shuffles back towards the house.

“My cousin and I work with women to lobby the company for more water. We march and hold protests, but we
also work within the township to distribute water from areas with free access to those parts of Phiri and the surrounding neighbourhoods that are already on the pay system.”

“Look, how much free water does each house get?”

“Six thousand litres.”

“See, that’s a lot. The water company charges the heaviest users to subsidize the infrastructure improvements. How else are you supposed to improve things when you have a bankrupt government?”

Nomsulwa almost loses her patience. “You alone use over a thousand litres a month just flushing the toilet. For us, the allotment only ever lasts two weeks. The rest of the time we borrow, steal, wait, and hope the end of the month comes quickly. Sometimes people here walk to the edge of town where the rainwater collects in the gullies next to the highway. They get some water from there.”

“That’s impossible,” Claire answers matter-of-factly. “My father’s company provides clean water, it doesn’t cut it off. That doesn’t make sense, even for a business. It loses them customers.”

“Who cares about customers who can’t pay?” Nomsulwa says under her breath, and Claire either doesn’t hear her or chooses to walk quietly rather than argue in the middle of the street.

At the next houses without a tap in front Nomsulwa stops and whistles from the gate. A very young boy runs out and skids to a stop.

“Ja, Simphiwe, can I see your water meter?”

The boy runs back into his house.

A woman only a little older than Claire follows Simphiwe back out.

“Sawubona, Nomsulwa! Unjani?” she calls.

“Ngialright.” Nomsulwa falls back a little as she answers, playing up the casual nature of her response. “Ngisacela ukubona iwater meter?”

“Sure, fine.” The woman smiles at Claire. “Hello,” she says. Her accent is almost British, different from the English of the older women Claire has met in the township. “Are you visiting?”

“Yes, from Canada.”

“I love Canada. We had a student here once from a place called … um … Calgan?”

“Calgary?” Claire hazards a guess. She is being polite, but her expression is tight and Nomsulwa can tell that she is not happy about their unfinished argument.

“Yebo! That’s it, you’ve got it. Are you from there too?”

“No, I’m from a city on the other side of the country. Toronto.”

“Toronto.” The woman rolls the
r
and the last
t
explodes into the
o
.

“Come on in. Simphiwe will show you that damn meter. It’s full today. Well, you know, the beginning of the month. I have to keep washing out back.”

“Ngiyabonga, sisi.”
Thank you
.

Simphiwe skips as he leads the two women to the metal grate beside the house. Nomsulwa makes sure Claire is
following before she leaves the road and enters the yard. When they reach the spot, Simphiwe stoops and opens the lid. Inside is an innocuous-looking white box. It has a rudimentary computer panel, the same as a calculator, and a small Amanzi logo on the side of the casing. The numbers are hard to read in the sun and, even when Nomsulwa cups her hand over the top of the box, the numbers seem to dance in the shadows, changing from 8s to 3s to 7s with each slight tilt of Nomsulwa’s fingers.

“Simphiwe, you got the key?”

Simphiwe jumps up and runs inside. He comes out moments later with a metal stick.

“This is how you fill the meter. The computer adds money to this key and the box reads your credit when you place the round head in this hole. Here, try it.”

Claire clumsily fits the key into the meter and then quickly takes it out. She hands it back to Nomsulwa.

“For most families around here, this meter runs their life. They check the box every day. They scramble for pennies to pay the water man. Still, the meters run out so quickly –”

“It’s not my father’s company that shuts off the water. It’s the government, their system is so inefficient. They had to hire my father to come here and help them reorganize water delivery methods.”

“Before Amanzi took over the water was provided free all year round. The cutoffs came with the private company. I help people distribute the water so that they can survive even when their taps have been turned off. We’re working
now on a campaign to raise the free water limit. There’s a lawyer from the city, a white woman, who is going to help us bring our case to court.”

“You’re going to sue my father’s company?” Claire gets up and backs away.

Nomsulwa stops talking then and stands up too. She pushes her hand on Simphiwe’s shoulders, smiling before gently sending him towards his house. Then she heads for the road.

Claire hangs back, not following right away. When she does speak, she yells from behind, “My dad was
fixing
the infrastructure. His job was getting more water to the township in a more efficient way. He doesn’t – didn’t … cut off water.” Claire waits for Nomsulwa to acknowledge her.

Nomsulwa smiles weakly back and puts out her hand. “We are suing the government, trying to up the free water allotment. Come on, let’s keep walking.”

Claire stops for a second. Nomsulwa will apologize if that is what is required to keep Claire walking beside her. But she hopes she can get away with this, a smile, a gesture, a chance to avoid the topic of water altogether. She knows she is not entitled to take this part of Claire’s father away from her, but she wants so badly to share the truth with Claire. There is a part of her that wants the triumph of making the water man’s daughter see what they have done to her township.

Claire walks forward. They let the confrontation fall behind them. When she is in step with Nomsulwa she says
quietly, “I’m sorry I yelled. I know that my father hadn’t done everything he wanted to do here, that the water wasn’t running properly and the system was inefficient. He needed help from people like you who are willing to fight the government for more money, more investment in township infrastructure. That was his passion.”

Nomsulwa doesn’t respond. She sees Claire’s hopefulness, the same look of reverence that she had for Alvin.

“What you do is incredible. It’s exactly the kind of thing he would have loved.” Claire stops speaking.

Nomsulwa knows that her job is to deliver Claire safely to the hotel, to smile and nod and give in to the white girl beside her. She hopes for the strength to do it. She thinks about Claire brave and defiant in the police station waiting room, about her small and fragile in her arms after the meeting with the Commissioner. Those two thoughts keep her from saying anything more.

Less than a block away there is a group of young kids playing cricket with a board and a tennis ball. Three sticks are stuck at crazy angles into the hard road to make a wicket. The tallest boy winds up for a pitch and the batter cracks it. Claire breaks from Nomsulwa and runs after the ball. She catches it on the second bounce, teetering on the edge of road and scraggly grass.

The kids crack up, doubled over and pointing.

“Bheka umlungu!” the batter screams. Claire just stands there triumphantly, allowing the joke to go on while she decides where to throw the ball.

“Do you know how to play?” Nomsulwa yells over the racket.

“Play what?”

“Cricket!” Nomsulwa is laughing now too.

“Oh … no. I thought it was baseball.” Claire looks a little crestfallen, but smiles nonetheless.

A little girl, stuck way back where few balls go, comes up to Nomsulwa.

“What is she saying, Mama?” she asks.

“She wants to play, Sana.”

The girl thinks for a moment. Then she runs to the pitcher and whispers something in his ear. The tall boy is gentle and bends down while the girl speaks. He looks back at Claire and nods to the girl.

“They say you can play if you want,” Nomsulwa explains. She catches Claire staring at the small girl.

“Only if you do.”

“Fine.” Nomsulwa claps her hands in a great show and sends the fielders into fits of mirth. Claire gives Nomsulwa a real smile. Nomsulwa watches her ready herself for the next play.

They field for a good half hour before Nomsulwa hears the mamas begin to call their children inside.

“Let’s go, Claire. We should head back to the car.”

“Okay, you.” Claire runs up and playfully punches Nomsulwa’s shoulder. Then she slides her arm into Nomsulwa’s. “That was so much fun! Kids at home never get to play in the streets like that. There are cars and old women worried about their flower gardens.”

“Yeah, there’s definitely space around here.”

“Is that what you used to do as a kid? Were you a cricket star then, too?”

Nomsulwa wants to answer yes. She wants to build up Claire’s image of her, innocent child with a cricket bat. Instead of lying, she stays silent.

The street clears out quickly. Dusk in the township paints the sky a million shades of red and purple. Claire stands with her back to Nomsulwa and stares. Nomsulwa moves to be beside her and exhales audibly.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

Claire doesn’t answer, just stands lightly touching the side of Nomsulwa’s body. Nomsulwa can’t move, aware of every place their arms touch.

“I need to see where they found him.” Claire puts distance between them.

“There’s nothing there but a sand yard.”

“So you’ve seen it?”

“The whole township has.”

“Take me there. Captain Afrika told me I shouldn’t try to go there without you.”

“She told you not to bother going there at all.”

“You promised you would take me.”

“Quickly. We’ll go quickly. In the car. It’s safer that way.” Nomsulwa regrets giving in the moment it is out of her mouth. It is getting dark. They should have left the township already. Zembe is going to kill her if she finds out.

“Great.” Claire walks ahead quickly and arrives at the car before Nomsulwa.

On the short drive neither of them speaks. They pull up to two houses side by side. Hidden between them, and set back from the street, is a yard. Laundry lines hang over the dust. Corners of white sheets trail in the wind, picking up an orange coating from the ground. The waning sunlight streams through the fabric, patterns the surface of the sheets, and then splits into glinting pieces around the yard. Nomsulwa gets out; she walks to where the mosaic hits her feet. She dips her toe into the sunlight, then motions for Claire to step through the hanging laundry. An older woman shuffles up behind Claire before she has a chance to move.

“Hey, you. What do you want?” Her accent is thick and she scowls fiercely.

Nomsulwa steps between them. “Ungakhathazeki, Mama, angeke sithathe isikhathi eside.”

The woman continues to speak English. “Who is this?”

“The daughter of the man they found here.”

“Oh, wena? For real? Very bad thing that, very bad.”

Nomsulwa nods.

“Okay.” The last word is said in a singsong.
Ooo kayyy
. The woman tuts and presses Claire’s hand into her enormous chest. Claire stands awkwardly, letting herself be tugged forward.

“My child. So sorry for your loss.” She turns around and moves away from the sun into her house. She tuts to herself
as she leaves, half whistling condolences even once she is well inside.

“This is it?” Claire is speaking very softly now.

“Under these lines. Right about here.” Nomsulwa goes to stand in between the two largest sheets.

Claire doesn’t move. The ground has been swept in many different directions. Large tracks, like brush strokes, cross each other in the orange. There is no crime scene outline, no tape to mark the spot.

Claire walks to where Nomsulwa motioned. Her shoes leave clear prints. She sits down – more of a collapse, really – then lies on the ground. The orange dust sprinkles lightly over her as she presses her whole body onto the warmth of the sand. She lies there for a full five minutes, eyes closed.

Nomsulwa stands back with her arms crossed, trying to not look at the still body at her feet. She waits for an eternity. She studies the dusty yard under the yellowed washing, dirty sheets blowing out their musty odour, houses falling on either side. She can’t look at the ground so she looks everywhere else until small sounds from the sand catch her attention.

Claire is crying. Her tears run down her cheeks, collect in the maze of her ears, and then drop down. Orange clumps form. Darker than the dry ground, they make a pattern that mixes with the sun’s mosaic and creates a golden spotted halo constantly moving around her head. Nomsulwa helps Claire off the ground and into the car. She tries to dust her
off before sitting her down, but the dust is stubborn. It will not leave Claire’s delicate skin and hair.

Claire wipes her eyes. She sits with her feet hanging out of the open door and fiddles with her thumbs in her lap. Nomsulwa doesn’t dare disturb her. She sits in the driver’s seat, waiting for some indication that they can begin the drive home. The argument from the day has disappeared. So has the water company, the township, there is only the girl in front of her and the pain she is so obviously feeling. Nomsulwa wants to take it away.