The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga Read Free Book Online

as she wipes her tears. When Olive sits back down, a moment passes before the drug trend is broken. I guess this brings a little relief. This part of our talks, the HIV section, is usually when Ruan, Cissie and I start with our orders. We assign one person to take down notes, and whoever’s chosen for the duty has to catalog the stage of the disease in each member. You note an infected spouse, distinguishing symptoms and patterns of remission. Then all three of us work out a treatment plan before we sell it to them.
    Today, I signal to my friends that I’ll volunteer for the job. It might take my thoughts off Bhut’ Vuyo. Relieved, Ruan and Cissie nod and lean back in their chairs. Ta Lloyd takes up his turn to speak next.
    I don’t really know what to say about Ta Lloyd, either. I’ve heard members say he’s the oldest guy in our group, but no one knows that for sure. We’ve all had trouble believing him. When I first joined here at Wynberg, Linette told me his story was make-believe. Ta Lloyd told them he got sick on the job as a paramedic. This was in the mid-nineties. He says they gave him an emergency van to pay him off. Today, he’s seated just two chairs from me. When he gets up, he says there’s a man who’s giving his wife a cure. I turn around and catch Ruan looking up from his cellphone. Paying the two of us no mind, Ta Lloyd continues with his story.
    This cure, he says, it’s a reality.
    That’s the word he uses.
    We listen to him like we’re supposed to, and on her side of the circle, Mary starts to furrow her brow. In her role as our counsel leader, Mary’s duties include making sure all our meetings remain civil and well informed. Sometimes she’ll intervene when the misinformation piles too high. In this way, you could say she takes the role of rearranging our history. Playing the part of proofreader, Mary fixes us wherever she finds us mistaken, adding her own revisions to the stories we use to explain ourselves to the world. Today, she chooses to remain quiet, however, and like the rest of us, she waits for Ta Lloyd to finish telling us his part.
    I reach into my pocket for my phone. Then I start taking down my notes.
    It’s strange, I know, he says, but look, I swear to you. This man came to Site C not two months ago. He’s a medical doctor.
    He pauses for a moment before pointing a finger at Neil.
    He’s a white man, too, Neil, just like you.
    On either side of him, some of the members bow their heads and stifle their laughter. Then Ta Lloyd widens his grin, but the math teacher swats him away.
    Jesus, Lloyd, Neil says, would you get on with it?
    Our oldest member does.
    I guess I thought I saw my father the first time I saw Ta Lloyd. Imagine a squat guy who’s just crested his mid-fifties. He has a receding hairline, a salt-and-pepper beard, and he stays in good shape for his age and for the type of place we’re in. He’s sturdy from what the hospital pays for him to take down his throat each morning, and he drives a Ford Transit with a cracked ceiling, hauling kids to school and back in Site C. His wife, whose positive status they’ve decided to keep a secret, concealed from both her family and her colleagues, works a till at the Pick n Pay in St George’s Mall. She rings up groceries, like I once had to do myself.
    Ta Lloyd continues to describe his new doctor. He’s opened up a hostel at Site C, he says. It’s a place with board and decent facilities.
    That’s where we’ve sent Nandipha, he says. That doctor? He told my wife to stop working one week ago. Remember when I told you last month that Nandi had another fainting spell? Well, it happened again.
    Ta Lloyd rubs a palm over his mouth, and on my left, Cissie inches her chair forward, and so do Ruan and I. The thing about these fainting spells is that they’ve come up before. The three of us, exchanging glances like we’re doing now?