Langa’s Truth

Langa’s wife saw the text from another woman before he could put his phone away:

I miss you sugar. When can I see you again?

“Who’s sending you a message like this?” his wife asked.

Langa got up and tossed the chair into the table. “I will do what I want in this house, do you hear me?”

His little girl Thami, aged three, and baby boy Thithi, aged one-and-half months, screamed.

“Tata, you are scaring the children! I only asked you who sent you this dirty text on your phone! Are you cheating on me, tata?”

“Wena Sindiswa, you think you can question me when I see you smile so much with these men in the neighbourhood?”

“You can lie to yourself all you want. But the whole of Gugulethu knows you are the one playing with our marriage.”

“Sindiswa! Sindiswa!” Langa waved a finger at his wife.

“People see, tata.”

Langa stormed out of the house before his wife could say anything further. “Who does she think she is? Me, I am Langa, me,” he said, marching outside and clicking his tongue.

A few minutes later he walked into a shebeen. The men he usually drank with called him, but he ignored them and ordered a bottle of beer. He took a swig and watched two younger ladies strutting by. He took another swig, watching the behinds of other ladies as they walked past him.

Sindiswa was a good woman, Langa knew that. But ever since they had got married, people put them on a pedestal. Sometimes he wished he was one of the young men who came to him for advice. They could have his life and he could have theirs. What did they think he knew?

Langa bobbed his head while lost in his thoughts as the music in the shebeen slowly brought his mind back to the present. He took another swig of his beer. A curvy young woman walked into the shebeen. When she spotted him, she smiled. Through the crowd, Langa recognised his mistress and smiled back.

Langa and Noni had met at one of the seedy clubs of Cape Town in Long Street. Langa would be there on Friday nights with his ring off, having lied to Sindiswa that he had a pile of work he wanted to finish. Noni looked exactly Sindiswa’s age but more free, not bound to society’s expectations. Fun. She had been dancing with her friends while checking him out as he drank at the bar. When he winked at her, she strutted over to him, her hips swaying in the short glittering-silver dress. Her shape reminded him of a fruit, a pear. Noni gave him a brief lap dance, her perfume smelling too sweet.

“Does the wife not do it for you? Don’t think I didn’t see you taking off your ring!” Noni had whispered in his ear as he leaned in thinking she was about to kiss him.

Langa had laughed out the embarrassment, asking her to be his only. “Come on, be my fruit?” he had said, and from then on Langa had continued with his double life.

“Sugar, you came,” Noni said, planting a red-painted kiss on his lips.

“Of course, my fruit. Oh, you look so sexy for Daddy, come here.” Langa wrapped his arms around Noni’s waist and kissed her neck.

Noni put up her hand to get the bartender’s attention.

“No, you are coming with me today. I’m taking you to my house.” Langa put some notes on the counter for his beer and took Noni’s hand.

“To your house, Daddy? What about your wife?” Noni dragged along excitedly.

“Don’t worry about her, my fruit. She is nothing.” Langa frowned. His eyes kept straight ahead as he led his mistress in long strides.

When a neighbour (one of the older ladies that liked to praise him and his wife) greeted him with an angry tone, he kept quiet. He pretended not to see and clicked his tongue when some other neighbours shifted their curtains. He nodded his head once when some of his unmarried age-mates hollered at him.

Continue reading on https://live.fundza.mobi/