LINDA SAKAZI THWALA'S WORD

The Crying Mona Lisa - Short Story

By

Linda Sakazi Thwala


“Where there is love there is life.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Section 1

“Die, die, die.” Lamented the goblins. As it had commenced two years ago, the goblins were back and Lisa knew she was not safe anymore but, not only that, this time she will not be able to stop them at all. The night had been with a horrible monsoon, the wind had been howling since the early hours of the afternoon. It had no show of relenting, as the clock registered twelve o’clock midnight.

In the outskirts of Alexandra, Lisa had just climbed into bed, in her dingy little shack as she witnessed movements of bobbling red eyed dark shadows, maliciously commencing their attack on her. Her body froze with mortification as she recalled the façade of these vicious monsters and their lisped oration that had haunted her for two years which, are back now as her reality with a regent force. She glanced towards the door and saw that five of the monsters had already entered. Struggling in horror, Lisa gazed around as the goblins overwhelmed her, “I’m dead. God I’m dead!” mumbled Lisa.

She watched, unable to act as the goblins mutated in front of her. The most gruesome-looking, maybe their leader, kicked Lisa on the face. Myopic at her attackers, Lisa watched as the goblins like hungry dogs lacerated her. She felt the pain circum her body and she screamed, “Help! Help!” Then…, she rose only to discover it was a dream. She looked at the clock which read five-thirty. With her right hand in the murk of her apartment shack. She touched her face only to learn that a pool of sweat was running down her pillow. She got up to shove the curtains open and the summer matitunal greeted her with a glow of the rising sun, “Thank God,” Lisa sighted, “It was only a dream.”

Maneuvering around to face her bed, with a thought of cuddling in her loved white sheets, crossing her mind, as the wind was still persistently rummaging against her unstable confines. Lisa discarded the idea and turned to face her electronic powered Kettle which was ironically powered by borrowed electricity with a strangely borrowed cable. Mama Zondi told her that the electricity was strangely borrowed from the nearby governmentally built house in the township. Since Lisa was a ‘mtaswagae’ and only landed in this foreign country, Alexandra about six months ago, she was given a leeway regarding service payments. Mama Zondi said to her one evening, “Here my daughter, here in Gauteng, lee ways are no lee ways at all and I know that man in that house, one of these days. He’ll come and collect.” Mama Zondi said those words disappearing into the squalor hallways of the Shanty Town.

Lisa moved swiftly towards her borrowed powered Kettle switching it on and stood scrutinizing the hiss of the serpentine steam as her impulsive thoughts reminded her of the appointment she made with the Sangoma. She rushed through her clothing, picking out an attire that will suite the weather. Leaning under her self-made bed, Lisa pulled out a washbasin, then as quickly as she could rub the dirt of the night off her svelte body and hastily dumping the water between her shack door and her vociferous neighbour, Sibongile. Thanking the lord that Sibongile did not see her. Turning hurriedly she locked her shack with a large chain, and then swerved spiraling through the passageway, not noticing Mama Zondi calling after her.
“Lisa! Lisa! What’s wrong with this child?” questioned Mama Zondi as Lisa vanished out off site.
“Oh this child, you’ll never know what goes on inside her head.” moaned Mama Zondi.

Section 2

The Sangoma stood up as soon as she could visualize the slender spectrum that was headed straight to her. Trying to get a clear view of who it is, the Sangoma purge her spiritual awakening by lamenting to the ancestors through a song that called on them to be her guide through and through, “We Tonga lami ngiphelezele Tonga lami, We Tonga lami ngiphelezele Tonga lami……….”

“Makhosi, makhosi!” cried Lisa as she entered the gate.
“In the name of Makazi state your visit!” darted the squeaking voice of the Sangoma.
“It’s me Babe Makazi!”
“You. Oh it’s you!” glancing at Lisa in a nonchalant manner.
“Aw Babe! Don’t you remember me, only from yesterday?”
“I do my child only there is a presence that envelopes you, like a little baby in her mother’s womb.” Turning to face as if to really see what inside her.
“Sizokhuleka e’Makhosini!” Lisa gesturing towards the little hut that stands only a few feet away.
“With what my child?”
“Don’t worry about money Babe.”
“Only yesterday, you come here without any and today…”
“I have this Babe.” Lisa displaying the crimped notes that she managed to hustle from her regular clients. The eyes of the Sangoma lit up unperturbed by the greed that chimed in her heart.
“Oh daughter of the land. Step into my hut!”

In the candle lit hut they both descended. Inside the Sangoma instructed Lisa to take off her shoes and place herself on the long time withered goat skin. The Sangoma reached for purging medicine, igniting it up to appease her Gods, chanting a few words in greeting to them. Without warning. She slashed medicated-water on her on Lisa’s body.
“Out, out you evil spirit!”
Lisa jumped in reaction to the coldness of the water. Pleasing the Sangoma in her performance.
“My Lord. Forgive me Lord!” pleaded Lisa.
“They are out. They are out!” said the Sangoma in delight.

The Sangoma fetched her bones, which are a blend of manmade artifacts and animal fossils. She threw them on the floor, scrutinized them for a while. Nodding and pointing silently to the symbolic perceptive apparition foretold by the bones. Groaning to herself as though some inward voice that Lisa is incoherent to, was conversing with her and then raising her head she began her wordy onslaught.

The Sangoma told of Lisa’s longing for emancipation from the abusive hands of a man she thought was her father. In her early teens. Not physical abusive, but sexual abusive. Left alone with him in those cold winter nights, her mother toiling dreary night shifts at the hospital. All those lonely days crying for her mother’s eyes to see the torment inside her. The man she thought was her father, touching her in places she never knew existed and,
“Yes all those nights and all the men in your life my child. All the men in your life, that use you” announced the Sangoma.
“Vuma!”
“Siyavuma!” Lisa shouted.
“You see my child the ancestors love you so dearly, they show me your life.”
“Vuma!”
“Siyavuma, siyavuma babe!” replied Lisa.
“You road is full of thorns child of the ancestors!” pointed out the Sangoma
“Vuma!”
“Siyavuma!” shouted Lisa in the mist of her red tearful eyes.

The Sangoma persuade her wordy onslaught. Painting a poignant canvas of immutable poverty that is to immense her untamable life time. The words resurrecting from the airy lungs of the Sangoma, foretelling tales of apparitions of longing for that one man to love and adore for eternity. A man to pacify her soul in the miasma of her lonely nights. A man she will never find unless……
“You go and Twasa my child. Child of the ancestors.” proclaimed the Sangoma with an ebullient voice as though she was a child herself.
“You must go and Twasa my child.” reverberated the Sangoma.
“But why me Babe. Why me?” enquired Lisa, her eyes in the pool of tears.
“Don’t cry my child. Please my child, don’t cry. This is not a bad thing my child, it is a symbol of wealth.”
“But Babe. How long will this last, how long. This poverty, this hardship my people have bestowed upon me?” moaned Lisa under her flowing tears.
“This means wealth my child. Great wealth that no other will ever see.” the Sangoma persuaded.

“But I don’t have money to undergo Ukutwasa Babe.”
“Now hold on my child, money is no great deal, there are other things that one can do to attain the cows needed for this process.” pleaded the Sangoma.
“What Babe?” queried Lisa, “I have been toiling all my natural life Babe. Trying to get somewhere Babe and now these news.” sighted Lisa, her voice quavering in her desperation to contain her tears.
“Hush my child.”
“I can’t do this Babe Sakazi, I can’t.”
“Listen my child……..”
“I don’t care what you say, I just can’t.”

Lisa stood up and like a bullet in the chamber shot through the door leaving the Sangoma kneeling to her bones. The Sangoma in her despondency to what she has done rushed after her, shouting in the process, “Wait my child. Wait!” Lisa hastened her feet, with the thoughts of death jolting in her being. Without turning to face the pursuing beseeching voice of the Sangoma, Lisa was out of sight.

Section 3

Lisa’s thoughts rampaged against the emotional thoughtless tidal words of the Sangoma trying to find a corner in her heart and mind to make them right. Right in the way to soothe her soul, words that will not damage her essence. How can she? When all her life had been nothing but miles. Miles and miles of trying to find deliverance, peace. A place to hide herself. To hide from all these monstrous animals in her untameable life. How can she? When all has been drained from her by these opportunists that surround her. This beloved daughter of the ancestors, who was told by her mother to always smile, even in hardship, always smile, “Don’t let people see your torment,” her mother blindingly instructed, “For those that do, will use it against you my daughter.” So that is what she did. She heeded the words of a woman who couldn’t see her torment, she smiled as thought she was the Crying Mona Lisa………

She smiled hiding the tears
That tore her heart with spears
Her conceptions not yet articulate
At thirteen her menstruation late
Her baby like groans destitution
In the raping blade of deception
At the very place called home
Abused under the loving dome
Molestation denied in the paedophile dark
Forbidden to play in the observant park
Her face with unpromising smiles
As her eyes with tears of piles
Look deep in the parental hands
That refused protection that mends

She smiled

In the streets of Johannesburg
Where she had to beg....

“Lisa!” shouted Sibongile from a distance, “Hey Lisa!” breaking through Lisa’s ambling rummaging thoughts, in the hope of finding a solution to her untameable problems which have cast a shadow of darkness in her untameable life.

“What does she want now?” though Lisa.
“Lisa, Lisa!” persisted Sibongile, rushing towards Lisa.
“What do you want ntombi?” questioned Lisa, “I’m in a hurry, I don’t have time for poker.”
“Did you hear ntombi?” queried Sibongile.
“What S’bongile ntombi?” in alarm to the though of hearing the juicy grapevine.
“Bra Peace is dead and everyone says it was the three words.”
“What. Bra Peace is what?”
“Dead, ntombi.”
“Amagama amathathu?”
“Yes ntombi and Mama Zondi says it now makes sense, everything does, because she saw them, Bra Peace and his wife leaving with their belongings at the dead of night, ntombi.”
“No ntombi, don’t tell lies.”
“Yebo ntombi, your Bra Peace is dead and I think you should…..”
“What S’bongile. What are you trying to say? Are you…..”

Sibongile’s eyes told it all, the shame. The things people had to say about Lisa behind her back. The shame of Mama Zondi’s piercing words when she heard of the death of the man that paid congeal visits to her homely shack every Friday nights. And what about the others who came night in, night out, shame. How people hint at how quickly her weight has gone, “Only yesterday.., she was this fat.’ some would say it straight in her face, “Look at her now.”

Lisa read the book that was written in Sibongile’s eyes and without saying a word that will reveal her feelings, ran in the direction of her shack. The gaze of every person she passed, striping her very being to the core. The words of the Sangoma infuriating her soul. The eyes, the men, could it be? Throwing the door behind her, she flew her fragile body on top of her solacing self-made bed. Tears flooding the white sheets she always beloved., “Take me away Lord, take me away please!”

Section 4

When the tears had flowed like the Nile through the golden scorching desert, Lisa closed her eyes and slept. She slept through the afternoon dreaming of Bra Peace. The only man that showed an interest to her, not just a manor interest but a formidable concern that drew inextinguishable flames of attraction, sexual sweet passionate flames whenever their bodies met. The flames would envelope them as though they were a single entity in entire universe. She dreamt of his eyes, his tall masculine body and his mind, his brilliant scholarly mind. What an intelligent man Bra Peace was. She groaned and moaned in her sleep, getting up once to drink a cup of water, then like a zombie climbed back into her beloved self-made bed and dreamily drifting away into the euphoric serenading land of dreams. She dreamt he was with her not the others, but him.

Although Bra Peace knew of the others, he couldn’t understand the reason why Lisa would let these other men into her bed. She always told him of the reasons and the need for money, but like a jealous bull he would point his thorny eyes at her. Telling her he will look after her as his second wife. Lisa always loathed the fact that he had a wife but not just any wife. A wife he loved dearly. The fact that she will be second did not resonate with her completely, which ultimately gave her the edge in their quarrels. When at times she would shove him out, drank to the knees, and demanded he went home to his dear loving wife which of cause he would do without reprisal.
“Bra Peace, my loving Peace.” she moaned in her sleep.

She awoke the next morning with the radio blasting in her ears as Rude Boy Paul; a DJ for a local radio station was announcing the next performer, who was about to praise the listeners with a poetic verse, in his Word-of-Mouth poetry session. Remembering how much she loved poetry. How she use to do childish performances at school and how her teachers would encourage her. Telling her she should keep it up because she was a star. She curled in her bed and opened her ears…..

“I am going to perform a poem called; A KILLER IN A RAMPAGE.” announced the vivacious performer.
“Alright go ahead, bless us.” said Rude Boy Paul.

Lisa braced herself as he began, “A KILLER IN A RAMPAGE”

A killer in a rampage
That which takes away age
And lives humanity in rage

A killer in a rampage
A thug in the night
That flows in sexual melodies with a might
With a tongue that translate notions of love
White in the dark angels called, love....


The studio erupted with praises and joyful congratulations to the performer, however Lisa’s spirit was disheartened by the thought that she could be the woman described in the poem. She could be H.I.V positive, maybe she already knew the answer to her own questions. The radio bellowed over her thoughts and with disgust, she switch it off.

Section 5

The idea of leaving her shack had by now vaporized with the arrival of Mama Zondi at her doorstep, dropping news that some of the men that where her clients, have vowed to struggle her if they laid eyes on her. Mama Zondi promised to look after her and bring her food once in a while only if she promised to lay low for a while. Lisa kept that promise and whenever men arrived on the doorstep enquiring about her, Mama Zondi would keep her end of the bargain by chasing them away or simply letting them know that Lisa was long gone, back to Transkei, her motherland.

Lisa sat in her quite putrid shack longing for emancipation. Longing to walk the soggy, polluted streets of Alexandra, longing to smell the stanched breeze that forms part of this place, this neighborhood. Crying silently, she prayed, she sang, she pleaded and opened her own collection of poetry that she wrote in hope to someday stand in front of a large crowd and deliver her reading. Placing the book on her lap, she read aloud…

The night shall bear
The revolution of man
With the heated four plays of nakedness
In red blankets of seething happiness
Their erect dreams a pandemic of ignorance
In the minds of orphans without no chance
Where the pot will rest empty in hunger
Slashing affected veins as a pang of a dagger
Childish eyes lost in a disorderly world, of a beggar
In climaxes of men and women contaminated
'What about me, mama?"
“Daddy, whose going to play soccer with me?”

It marches in the night
Taking away from good relation
Placed in graves without no mention
Where they will tell of stress that killed him
And why she lost the weight that pleased him
In white gowns of clemency
Which others in lust did fancy
Compatriots looking down in shame
Knowing of the pain that did tame
For he spoke of his prospects in bars
And others went to steal, not to be behind bars
However took the death penalty of life
When his spouse was but deaf
“He is my husband and men have needs.”
But, who shall need her?

Rioting in the night
When the government did deny the conspiracy
That the beast was not called by the virus
Stern like a dog that jerk the shackle
In the struggle of all races
Red like the Ferrari that races
Revealing of dangers that faces us
In the ribbon that warns and alert us
“Take up arm citizens!”

The casualties lie in the night
When the enemy is but invisible
Rampaging in missiles of departure
Putting all in perils of torture
“Our weapon for now is the condom.”
“Condom female. Condom male. No compromise!”
And the revolution shall be won

Lisa dropped the book on the floor and silently cried. What has she done in this world to deserve such a painful exit. Where are the ancestors that the Sangoma spoke of, the ancestors of wealth. Where are they? The man that promised to salvage her from this dirty untameable life, Bra Peace the love of her life, “ The end has come,” she thought. Picking up the book and placing it on the table. Lisa stood up and walked out of her shack.

“Lisa, Lisa. What’s wrong with this child. Lisa!” cried Mama Zondi after Lisa as she walked out of her shack without as so much breathing a word to her. Lisa’s feet lifted her with a purpose in her motion. Every step and every foot print. Inhaling and exhaling, her breath urging her on. With the sun gazing at her on its way to reach its eminent dusk. The sanctimonious birds taking flight to her ambles, then with the some vigor that alerted them of the strange beings in their path, flew back and continued with their ground pecking mission. A strange being in a strange land, paying no notice of them, these birds in this strange inhabitable land.

“Tame me, Lord,” thought Lisa, “Please tame me.” In this country of unatameable life. Lisa’s tears scorched the earth as the she neared her destination, then suddenly, as though she were a deranged individual spoke aloud.

“I will sing a departing song
In memory of journeys long
A peregrination of joyfulness
In the narratives of microcosms
To fulfil the volcanic ascents within
In the svelte prettiness of life, lean
With the songs of pious festivity
In the lucidity of vitalized poverty
In a place of dark nihilistic facades
Where the maimed existence fades
In the hypnotic songs of religion
Fetishes of a ravaged mind’s region
In the pronouncement of seduction
Love me oh Lord, love me.”

Lisa never saw it coming, as everything in her life, all the events that took place, events that seized her untamable life, off guard. It came like a bolt of lighting; it came to tame her, lifting her air-borne, with one of her shoes unmoved in the ground, taming her untamable life. Death tamed her, just as she was about to cross the street and seek solace in the Soul City Clinic, her untouched body laying there, in the dirt, in the eyes of curious strangers, stopping and taking a peep on their way home.

“A government truck hit her,” announced one of the audience members, “The one over there, full of blood,” pointing towards the blood stained vehicle.
“How, why, when?” lamented a young gentleman.
“Nkosi yami. Tixo!” shouted an elderly woman.
“It is her!” exclaimed another from a car window, “The one who infected Bra Peace!”
“Oh, poor daughter!” said another.
“Why, how, when.., here?” repeated the young man.

Lisa. Pretty Lisa, daughter of the land, child of the ancestors, rise up my child. The world has wiped your ever flowing tears. Rise up daughter of the ancestors, let your spirit soar into the celestial plains of heaven. Into the land of our fore-fathers, rise up and wipe your tears of this untamable life, Lisa. Rest in peace daughter of the land.

THE END

The Crying Mona Lisa Written by Linda Sakazi Thwala 2007