Searching for Simphiwe: And Other Stories

By Sifiso Mzobe

Detectives in pursuit of criminals, a brother desperate to find his wunga-addicted sibling, a search for abducted girls, a quest to be reunited with a long-lost lover – these are just some of the searches that form the basis of the stories in this collection. On a more metaphysical level there are characters seeking some form of faith or purpose. Entertaining tales that keep the reader enthralled with tension and suspense, while reflecting the realities of contemporary South Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kwela
• Release date: Apr 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9780795709968

Sifiso Mzobe

Sifiso Mzobe was born in Umlazi Township, Durban, where he also went to school. After attending St Francis College, he studied Journalism at Damelin Business Campus in Durban. He is also the author of the multi-award winning Young Blood.

Book preview

Sifiso Mzobe

SEARCHING

for

SIMPHIWE

Short Stories

KWELA BOOKS

Dedicated to the sweet and loving memory

of my grandfather, Thandokwakhe Francis Mzobe.

Traveller, preacher, storyteller and gentleman.

Lady Justice

Messages on Detective Zandile Cele’s cellphone come in thick and fast. The incoming message alert is Toni Braxton’s ‘Un-break My Heart’ – her favourite song. But today is month-end, 31 December, and Toni Braxton’s voice means just one thing: another debit order has gone off Zandile’s account. She switches the phone to silent and calls her colleague Detective Gloria Ngcobo.

‘My friend, how’s it going at your crime scene?’

‘I’m almost done,’ says Gloria. ‘Nothing too bad, just a break-in with some things stolen. The owners were visiting family, not here, so no deaths or injuries. How are you?’

‘These debit orders, my friend,’ says Zandile, her voice sinking.

Gloria exhales pure stress. ‘They have taken so much, I don’t know where to go for help in January.’

‘Ke Dezemba has ruined us! Getting paid early in the last month is never a good thing. A tiny bonus doesn’t help when you have family to entertain and feed, and presents to buy. Now the debits are here, and I have almost nothing left,’ says Zandile. ‘I mean, we hardly get through a normal month with the pathetic salaries we earn, and December is the worst. I haven’t bought groceries yet, or paid for water and electricity. Same for the DStv, imagine a month without good TV.’

‘You can say that again. I won’t have money for school stationery for my boy and nieces. My mom has called already asking for money.’

‘I really don’t know what to do. I can’t ask my sister for another loan, I owe her too much as it is,’ says Zandile.

‘I am seriously thinking of pawning my gold chain,’ says Gloria.

‘You know, there is another option …’ Zandile lets her words hang in the air for a moment. ‘Have you called Primo?’

‘I have, but he is giving me excuses.’

‘How can he?’ Zandile barks into the phone. ‘Did you lean on him?’

‘I did my best. He won’t budge.’

‘Let’s go see him right now. He needs to pay up because we saved him from definite jail time. Let’s meet at my house in ten minutes.’

Zandile presses the accelerator pedal of the police van. She arrives at her house at the same time as Gloria, as if choreographed. Gloria jumps from her van into Zandile’s. They head to Primo’s house.

‘So, how do we play this?’ says Gloria when they park outside the Umlazi township four-room.

‘We’ll speak to him in the only language he understands.’ Zandile is steeling herself for the confrontation. ‘We’ll just arrest him.’

When they’d raided the twenty-one-year-old drug dealer’s house six months earlier, Zandile, Gloria and two constables could not believe the riches they found. His neighbours had complained of a chemical smell coming from the yard. The police discovered a drug lab at the back of the house.

Behind the high walls surrounding the property they also found all sorts of excess: a TV spanning wall to wall, ostrich-skin sofas, a cappuccino maker, authentic Persian rugs, sleigh beds, a kitchen fit for a mansion. And R67 000 in cash inside an ice-cream container in the fridge. The drug trade was good to Primo.

He made a deal to pay the police monthly for a year for his freedom but honoured this deal for only three months.

Guns drawn, Zandile and Gloria approach the high walls around Primo’s house.

Zandile calls the two constables who were at the original raid. ‘We are at Primo’s, meet us here in twenty minutes.’

The gate is locked. Zandile and Gloria stand by the gate and listen. Faint music comes from the back of the house.

‘Let’s attract his attention to the gate,’ Gloria suggests. ‘When he opens, we jump on him.’

Zandile lets out a loud whistle.

A dog starts barking. That must be Primo’s humongous pit bull. During the original raid, the beast attacked a constable and bit off a chunk of his calf muscle.

But the dog is not coming to the gate, which means he must be tied up.

Zandile whistles again. An eardrum-piercing whistle. Nothing. No movement.

‘I’m going over the wall,’ Zandile says. Gloria boosts her onto the top of the wall. Then Zandile pulls Gloria up. They jump off the other side and creep across the yard.

Gloria draws out her tazer to guard against an attack from the pit bull, just in case.

They inch ahead to the back of the house. The pit bull is locked in a cage. It gives a belligerent growl. Zandile and Gloria hasten their pace, moving past a brand-new C Class Mercedes Benz. It looks newly washed, a bucket of soapy water next to it. It is from this beautiful piece of German automotive machinery that the music comes.

In the shade next to the drug lab at the back of the house they find Primo and another man passed out on camping chairs.

Gloria and Zandile tiptoe around them and check inside the drug lab. There’s no-one inside.

‘Primo, police! Hands up! Primo, wake up!’ Zandile shouts.

Primo’s companion wakes up startled and falls off his chair.

‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ says Gloria, placing her knee on his back and handcuffs on his wrists.

Primo remains asleep, too deep in the blackout. Zandile grabs the bucket of cold water next to the car and pours it on his face. Primo is so far gone he just opens his bloodshot eyes and stares at Zandile like he’s coming back from someplace far away. Zandile handcuffs him and leads him inside the lab.

‘We haven’t heard from you in a long time, Primo. How have things been?’ Zandile mocks him.

‘Things are not going well, my sisters. Business is slow these …’ Primo pauses, his train of thought suddenly lost.

‘Shut your mouth, Primo! We are tired of your nonsense,’ Zandile shoves him towards a couch. Primo falls headfirst on the floor next to the couch.

The detectives search the drug lab. In the first drawer of a cabinet they find drugs that are not yet packaged – white powder in small heaps on a mirror, and plastic coin bags. In the next drawer they find cash – neatly stacked R100 notes. Zandile quickly counts it. R19 000.

Primo is still coming down off his high. He keeps dozing off. He has no idea how serious the situation is.

‘Business is not good these days, huh?’ Zandile shouts at him.

‘No. It is not,’ Primo mumbles.

‘Well, you should not be in business at all. Seems you have not been true to your word. Remember what we told you last time?’

‘Yes, yes, I remember. You said not to sell drugs in this section. And I have stopped, I swear.’

‘Lies, Primo. That is your problem.’

‘True, sisi, I have not sold a gram here.’

‘Lies. You supply all over Umlazi. Little birds tell us. The very same birds that you supply. It is for this reason that we are arresting you. All the evidence is here,’ Zandile points to the white powder.

Backup arrives. The two constables take both Primo and the other man to the back of the police van.

‘Please, please, sisi, let’s work something out,’ Primo pleads.

‘We can’t deal with you, Primo. You have already not kept your word. Trust is a fickle thing,’ says Zandile.

‘I know, sisi, I have not been –’

Zandile slams the van door shut and says to the two constables, ‘Get what you can from him. He is a cash cow.’ The van drives off.

‘This should help with January’s expenses,’ Zandile hands Gloria half of the bounty from Primo’s drawer when they get to her house.

‘True, my friend. Thank you so much,’ says Gloria. ‘Let me be off. I have to buy electricity before mine runs out. And get meat for the braai today. Where will you celebrate New Year’s Eve?’

‘With my sister in Ballito. We will talk later, friend. Bye.’

Zandile is stashing her share of the dirty money – relieved and light of spirit – when the station commander calls.

‘Another girl has gone missing,’ says Station Commander Ncube, his voice heavy with worry.

Zandile draws in her breath as he gives her the location. She had investigated the disappearance of two other girls in that area when she first became a detective. A spaza-shop owner stood trial for murder when human body parts were found in his establishment. DNA confirmed that they belonged to the missing girls. But he was not convicted. It could not be proven that he had killed them. He claimed not to know that the parts were hidden in his shop and blamed it on a cousin with a criminal record who had disappeared into thin air. The owner even had a cleansing ceremony to rid the shop of his cousin’s dark arts. But Zandile knows he is guilty. She just knows it. And now he might have found another victim.

Station Commander Ncube is giving her details and sending her to the girl’s family, but she knows where she must go instead: to Mthunzi’s shop.

She puts her siren on and races there.

Mthunzi is serving a customer when she grabs him by the front of his T-shirt and slams his face down on the counter. While he is stunned by the unexpected attack, she jumps over the counter and into his shop.

The woman Mthunzi had been serving shrieks and runs away.

He tries to fend Zandile off, but she grasps his wrist and hooks a handcuff around it, clicking it shut. Then she twists his arm behind his back and grabs the other wrist, securing both his hands behind his back.

Grabbing the back of his neck, she shoves his face into the counter. A blind rage has come over her.

‘You filthy dog, where is she? Where is the girl?’

‘What are you talking about? You’re mad!’ Mthunzi says through lips crushed against the wooden surface.

She pulls his head back and slams him into the counter again. He screams.

‘Nandi, the girl who went missing yesterday afternoon, where is she? Are you keeping her somewhere? Have you killed her? I know you killed those other girls, you piece of shit.’

‘I was acquitted.’ Was that a smirk she heard in his voice?

‘You make me sick!’ She hits his face once more, causing his nose to bleed.

Then she frogmarches the still-dazed Mthunzi to the waiting van; pushes him in the back and locks the door. She searches every nook and cranny of the spaza shop, fearful of what she might find. She saw the bloody body parts found in Mthunzi’s shop last time. She still has nightmares about those severed hands and feet, the torsos of young teenage girls. But she doesn’t find anything now and she doesn’t know if that is better or worse.

Station Commander Ncube is not pleased when Zandile shows up with the bleeding Mthunzi. She is not allowed to interview Mthunzi as Ncube doesn’t trust her to keep her anger in check.

‘He has an airtight alibi,’ the commander tells her when he emerges from the interview room.

‘What?’

‘He was buying goods from a supplier and was there the whole afternoon, during the time that Nandi disappeared. We phoned the supplier and he confirmed.’

Zandile is shocked. It doesn’t make sense.

Ncube goes on: ‘The circumstances in the two cases are also different. The other girls were seventeen and fifteen years old. Nandi is eight. The other girls disappeared at night, Nandi during the day. I don’t think this is our man.’

Zandile puts her head in her hands. She was so sure.

‘Detective Cele, if you do something like this again, I’m going to have to suspend you,’ Ncube warns. ‘They’re coming down hard on police brutality.’

‘He deserves it!’ Zandile snaps her head up. ‘Even if he isn’t involved in this abduction, he must have known about those body parts. I can’t believe he wasn’t convicted. Where’s the justice in that? Women and children are being murdered and no-one is paying for it.’

The commander sighs. ‘Look, it’s been a long year. Your shift’s over. You should get out of here.’

Zandile takes out the money she confiscated from Primo. She rubs the notes between her fingers, feels the texture. She stops at the China Mall and with a few of the notes she buys fireworks. Then she heads to her sister’s house in Ballito. Her children are staying there for the holidays while Zandile works during the whole of the festive season.

She lights the fireworks and holds her son and daughter as they watch the display of light and sound. The children squeal with joy. Zandile squeezes them so tightly that they start to protest. She thinks of Nandi’s parents and what they must be going through, not knowing where their daughter is. She does not drink a drop of alcohol because she is due back at work by six in the morning.

Later that night, she watches her children sleeping. Here, now, all is as it should be. All is well.

She goes to bed, but it is hours before she finally falls asleep. In a dream, her legendary ancestor, the great Zulu warrior Mmeli, appears to her and assures her that she will find the missing girl. Next to Mmeli stands a girl but Zandile cannot see her face. She tries to focus but both Mmeli and the child disappear. Intuition tells Zandile that the girl is now next to her. She wants to reach out a hand.

‘Please come get us,’ the girl whispers.

Zandile jolts awake. Her cellphone shows it is 4:12 am. She knows she will not be able to sleep again. Might as well get up and get to work.

Searching for Simphiwe

The knock on our kitchen door did not scream of urgency, but I suspected it had something to do with my brother, Simphiwe. I shared a room with him: my fifteen-year-old, troublemaker of a brother. In a descent too fast – only three months – he went from being a child of great promise to an out-and-out lost one. I curse the day he started smoking wunga. That poison turned him into a neighbourhood thief.

I fought for his honour when the very first allegations of him stealing clothes from washing lines surfaced, only to find he really was the thief. I slapped him when he stole and sold my cellphone. I lost control, and decked him, when he pinched cash from Ma’s purse. Then I had to recoup our household appliances from the wunga merchant – all sold to him by Simphiwe.

‘Khulekani, someone’s here for you,’ Ma called out.

I didn’t answer. I had just noticed that next to my flip-flops, the box with my new sneakers was empty. I imagined the foul things, in dirty places, that Simphiwe was stepping on with my new sneakers; saw visions of him high after he sold them for a wunga hit.

Before he became a wunga boy, we shared some of my older T-shirts. When Ma forced us to go to church, I let him choose from my smarter clothes. But Simphiwe stopped loving himself after he inhaled that first drag of wunga. His side of the room became untidy, his bed never made.

‘Simphiwe needs a klap,’ I said to the mirror, before finally responding to my mother’s call.

I walked out to see scrawny Boy Boy, another wunga slave, waiting outside the front door.

‘I was just checking on Simphiwe,’ he told me. ‘I heard he was in a fight at the wunga spot. Is he here?’ Boy Boy couldn’t look me straight in the eye. He scratched the back of his head, arms and shoulders – tell-tale signs that he yearned for a wunga hit.

‘You know I don’t entertain his nonsense. It has nothing to do with me. It’s his life, not mine. He is not here.’

I was going to close the door, but he went on.

‘I thought, as his older brother, you should know about the fight,’ he said, his scratching growing vigorous.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked.

‘I need a hit. Do you have R5, Khulekani? Please, I want to buy bread.’

‘You just told me you need a hit, Boy Boy.’

He got my drift, understood he was not going to get a cent out of me. I fumed at Simphiwe’s latest stunt, my vanished sneakers, and the dead gaze in Boy Boy’s eyes. It all added to the hangover I already had. I wanted to complain to Ma but when I opened the door to her bedroom, I found she had gone back to sleep. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was still only six in the morning.

I drank water and napped the hangover off, waking up to a silhouette at my door an hour later. It was Ma.

‘You know I’ve never dreamed of your father since he passed, but I just saw him now in my dreams. He told me Simphiwe is in trouble.’

‘Simphiwe does this every weekend. He’ll be back. Besides, Ma, I have tests this week. I need to study.’ During the week I crashed with friends on campus since Simphiwe’s antics were not good for my studying, but over weekends I had to come back home to Ma and the troublemaker. Luckily I was still on course to finish my Tourism diploma on time.

‘Shut up and listen to me.’ Pools of tears filled Ma’s eyes and she went on: ‘Your father said Simphiwe is in trouble and you must look for him. And that is exactly what you are going to do.’

‘Okay, okay, Ma!’ I was alarmed by what Ma had said, and how she said it – her voice stern, before she broke down in tears. I left the house to show her I was going to do as she asked, so that she could calm down. I was worried about the state she was in, but not about Simphiwe. He had been going AWOL over weekends regularly, so to me it really was just more of the same.

The change in my little brother’s life had happened at high speed. It was painful to witness: the lies, the stealing, the shame he brought to the family. My dad, especially, must be turning in his grave.

I tore open a new airtime voucher and thought angrily of my sneakers – brand new and two sizes too big for Simphiwe. It took me a