snippet of 2020 in johannesburg, vaseline.

The sun is peeking out from behind low clouds, watermelon-pink on the far horizon. There’s a long line of us here this morning even though I tried to be early. It’s bitterly cold and my skin is chapped. I pull a small tub out of my coat pocket. Vaseline. I love the smell of it. It smells like home, but not now-home, the home I used to have when my parents were alive. Every time I open the tub, I like to place it beneath my nose, just for a second, so that I can smell her again. My mother. Beautiful, tired, but always smiling. My mother. Putting on her work clothes after a morning bath, swift towelling off, and, last, but not least, Vaseline. It made her skin shine like a glossy apple, the kind of apple you only see in adverts on TV. Fresh, polished, vibrant. Full of life. But she wasn’t. Today I can’t lift the Vaseline to my nose though. I don’t have that luxury. I’m standing too close to too many people and I’m wearing my mask. It scratches my nose as if it knows that I want to smell the Vaseline. No big deal. I dab some Vaseline on my palm before closing the tub and then rub it along the runnels of parched skin. I remember you, Mama. There’s little solace in this world beyond my Vaseline, that smooth, slightly sticky petroleum jelly. Gogo is doing her best looking after me and my brothers, but without school, the days stretch on forever. The same cold, the same long walk to the water pump every day, peering out from the top of my homemade mask to see if everyone else is wearing theirs. There’s always some obnoxious man who’s not. Usually the same guy that likes to linger round the pump, smoking his contraband cigarettes. He can get you anything you want, I know. Even overseas brands. And now that liquor’s been banned again, his business is even better. Thembu told me she bought five litres of potent beer from him. I don’t trust this guy. I don’t drink a lot, but I know beer isn’t very potent. Whatever he’s selling, it’s not beer. ​ I get to the pump, finally, and fill my two big plastic bottles with water. I follow a slow-moving line of women carrying water on their heads and babies on their backs. I never learnt the trick. We used to have running water at home and now I’m too old to learn, too scared of spilling. Gogo teases me and says it’s because I’m scared of damaging my brain. Book-smart, not life-smart. It sounds bad when you put it like that, but I know Gogo is proud of me. She thinks I’ll go far. Like she hoped my mother would. ​ In the cold, I watch my laboured steps. I listen to the footsteps and chatter of others. I heard on the radio about the girl in Soweto who was raped on her way to get groceries. 14 years old. I don’t want to be that girl. My father gave me a pocket-knife when I turned 11 and the men on the construction site across the road started giving me looks. I have it with me, next to the Vaseline, just in case. Better to be prepared, Baba told me. ​ Baba. Baba with his woolly beard and too-loud laugh. Too-loud talking voice too. I used to hear him on the phone speaking to his family in Zim—shouting, as if to make up for the long distance. I wanted to tell him phones didn’t struggle with distance like that anymore. I never did. It was hard enough for him being an immigrant. People don’t like you when you’re different. His shop was looted and set on fire. We had to move. He got a new job in the mines. And Mama sent him off with a skaftien early every morning. ​ I get home and Gogo is scolding me for taking too long. She’s been waiting to heat the water. My brothers are complaining they’re hungry. I sigh and make them some mielie meal and tell them there’ll be tea soon. I want to offer them a rusk, but we don’t have any. ​ Cyril announced last night that I can’t go back to school, not for another four weeks. The Matrics can go back after one week, but not me. No one cares about Grade 11. I’m trying to study at home. I’ve read all the books for English and Zulu. I’ve been doing exercises from the Maths textbook. Thembu comes and works with me sometimes. I make her wear her mask and we sit outside on the grass, apart. Thembu thinks I’m crazy. I’ve had enough of these viruses though. The last time, there was so much anger and suffering. Mama screaming at Baba. How could this happen? I was too young. I didn’t understand. And then Mama couldn’t work anymore. She was too sick and tired and even the Vaseline couldn’t make her skin shine like it used to. And Baba, he was worse. Our house smelled like shit and death. ​ Gogo comes back from her bath. She laughs at me because I’m still wearing my mask. I take it off and feel the dryness of my lips. Gogo’s eyes are big and round, filled with all the hopes and dreams she never got to see. Your skin is dry. It’s too dry in winter. I open the tub and lift it beneath my nostrils. At least I can still smell. Pungent, unmistakable: Vaseline.