– she sulks and breeds and nurses her clutch. She reins in her young – and reigns over them. Sibilla at least set her granddaughter free and breached this cloying enclosure. Will Naila survive? Will she flee too far? What course will this shift set adrift?
Thandiwe
1994
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Over the past year, Thandiwe had developed an internal clock for when the seat-belt sign would go off. As the plane’s steep climb slowly tilted forward and evened out, she counted.
Tick. Tick. DING.
‘Welcome,’ the captain’s voice smacked and crumpled over the intercom. Thandi unclicked her belt and got up from the folding cabin seat, which flipped up with an irritable thunk. She smoothed down her striped skirt, pulled back the edge of the pleated curtains and peeked out at today’s flock. Some passengers had already dozed off from the heat and vibration of lift-off. Two businessmen were laughing – they would want a whisky or a G&T soon. The rest patiently awaited their feeding.
The captain signed off and the other stewardess, Brenda, unclicked herself from her folding seat on the far side of the kitchenette. She stood and picked up the intercom receiver to make the service welcome announcement, her voice sashaying like a teenager’s. As soon as Brenda hung up, she and Thandi began rotating around each other, preparing the meal service. Their movements suggested efficiency – they had been working the HRE–LUN route together for months – but not ease. Rumour had it that Zambia Airways wasn’t doing too well and was starting to fire people. Brenda had been with the airline too long, Thandi not long enough, and it was still unclear whether fresh or seasoned meat was preferable.
The same question could apply to lunch, Thandi thought as she pulled up a corner of the red striped foil over a tiffin of stew and sniffed.
‘Cooked to kill the germs and the taste!’ said Ghostfriend Brenda.
Thandi chuckled. She often had entire conversations with this imagined version of her co-worker – Brenda as she had been before so many years as a stewardess had chewed up her beauty and her patience. Ghostfriend Brenda was lovely and kind and quick to laugh.
‘What’s so facking funny?’ muttered real Brenda as she kicked absently at the brake of the beverage cart and missed. ‘Shit!’ she seethed, rubbing her stubbed toe. Then she cast a sour look at Thandi and disappeared backward through the pleated curtains, pulling the cart after her.
Thandi sighed, then winced as a cramp clenched her stomach. She was on her MP and Brenda was too – their work schedule had synced their bodies, which were apparently indifferent to their mutual dislike. Thandi hated having her period on flights: on her feet for hours, timing her visits to the lav to avoid the rush forty-five minutes after meals (stomachs syncing up just as wombs do), all the while bleeding sporadically into the thick pad, its adhesive ripping her pantyhose or sticking to her pubic hair. Worst of all, even though Brenda was in the same situation, there was no commiseration to be had.
Thandi preferred it when they were not sunk in this animal condition, when they were both cool and mechanical, attaching only as needed, like the metal parts of a seat belt. It felt safer. Last year, a Zambian Air Force plane had crashed in Gabon, killing the entire football team, and Thandi felt more jittery than usual. She looked out of the porthole of the B-737 at the placid blue beyond. In a few hours, she would be in her hotel room, freshly showered, in a soft robe, on her back. She took a breath, undid the brake on the food cart, and pushed it through the curtains.
She rolled it down to First Class, where Brenda was waiting with the beverage cart, her smile as shiny and fixed as her manicure. Once their carts made contact, they caboosed up the aisle again towards the kitchenette, Thandi stepping back, Brenda forward. Their chanted refrains made an overlapping song – ‘The chicken or the beef?’ ‘Would you like a drink?’ – the stutter of shifting trays adding percussion, the glasses tinkling deliriously.
The passengers were obedient until row 23.
‘The chicken or the beef?’ Thandi asked a young man in 23C.
He paused. ‘Is that all there is?’
‘To life?’ Thandi responded, surprising herself. Something about the way he’d said it – the tone of his voice or his smile – had made his question sound philosophical.
‘To eat,’ he laughed. He was handsome: broad shoulders, dark