Charmer was 15. He
bunked afternoon class and ran to Setsing Shopping Centre. He knew the trouble
which awaited him the following day at school. He emerged, armed with the love
card and a necklace. When he reached the village, he searched everywhere. The
girl was nowhere to be found. There were no cellphones in 1995.
As the day’s
red-and-white fanfare gave way to evening, and the moon was emerging from the mountain
top, he abandoned the search. To put the mind off things, he joined a band of
boys who were chatting noisily about soccer. Jokes were also about why they did
not have their hands full serenading their sweethearts on a big day like this
one. ‘I am focusing on my books,’ some of them reasoned, much to the amusement
of those who knew the real reasons. A bunch of chickens!
The girl appeared,
in the dimming embrace of twilight. Where was she coming from? Next to her was
a guy. She looked like she’d hide if she could, worried that the fight was going
to break out. Her companion looked unbothered.
He strode with that
famous “pantsula” gait. His right hand held onto the left arm, behind him. A
white spotty labeled ‘dickies’ covered his visibly big head. Golf shirt gave
semblance of decency to his rather protruding chest. Khaki pants, also with
Dickies label, clung around his small waist. A pair of white All Star completed
the intimidating dress sense. His whole being boasted agility. He smelled of okapie
deftness.
The invisible knife
cut through the heart of the guy who’d been searching for his sweetheart. The
writing was on the wall. Sweetheart; her shame; the remorse, filled the
moon-lit space. She and the prancing Pantsula walked past, in loud silence.
Chickens dispersed.
Nobody said a word, save for two chickens who cleared their throats nervously. Shattered,
embarrassed and angry, Charmer took to running homeward.
‘I threw the presents
in the toilet,’ he told me several days later. He had lost appetite. The
squabbles of Hilda Letsoalo and Ntsiki Lukhele, over Archie Moroka, and New
Horizon, disgusted him. ‘I didn’t understand why they were fighting? There is
no love in this world!’ he said. So he went to sleep.
When the new day
came, he broke up with her. She cried like a toddler whose doll had been
confiscated by a rude puppy. ‘It was odd. It was
as if she wanted to explain something to me but she couldn’t. But that was it,’
he concluded. I asked him: What if Pantsula was forcing her into a relationship
and she was afraid of refusing his advances? ‘I don’t know what to think; I
don’t care,’ he exclaimed.
That was the first
and the last time Charmer ever tried rolling with the hype of Valentine’s Day.
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