The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga Read Free Book Online Page A

That’s from the time I fell on my face from one. We listen as Ta Lloyd explains.
    It’s not easy, I know, he says. It’s not an easy thing to believe. Even in Khayelitsha, not many of us believe.
    The rest of us nod.
    This doctor, Ta Lloyd says. He told me I shouldn’t give Nandi any more ARVs. I swear. He said if I stopped giving Nandipha my pills, he would help us.
    I look up and find Mary glowering at him. Like most professionals, she doesn’t believe Ta Lloyd should be sharing his prescription with his wife—it’s the way most professionals think about the pills. Still, the way Ta Lloyd’s story unfolds, the hospital’s penance didn’t extend to cover his wife’s illness. Mary continues to stare at him while he speaks. The rest of us know where this is headed.
    I close my eyes and wait for my blood to drum my pulse into my ears, a sound I’ve always found reassuring. Sometimes, I like to imagine I can hear my illness spinning inside my arteries, that it’s rinsing itself and thinning out.
    I hear Mary’s voice again.
    Lloyd, she says, I think that’s enough, don’t you? We’ve had our fill.
    It doesn’t usually take her this long.
    I want you to stop this, she says, and listen to me carefully, okay? What we’re here for is to lighten each other’s burdens, not to spread lies from crackpots. I hope you take Nandipha out of that hostel, too. You’re putting your wife at a very big risk with this nonsense.
    Her cheeks draw in as she pushes herself up from her chair. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it’s easy to tell when she’s upset.
    I mean, if money’s the problem here, she says, then why don’t you just come upstairs with me after the session? We can easily look up a treatment plan for Nandipha. Of course, she should be present, but time and time again you’ve refused to bring her to our meetings, haven’t you? You think it’s good that she hides her status from medical professionals.
    Ta Lloyd starts to nod.
    For Pete’s sake, Mary says, don’t just agree with me. You need to stop spreading this nonsense and putting your family in danger. There’s no cure for HIV, but as you can see for yourself, it’s a condition anyone can live with.
    She turns around to confirm this with the rest of us, and we nod, doing our part like we’re meant to. When I look over, I find Ta Lloyd doing the same.
    Yes, Mary, he says.
    Right, that’s enough then, she says. You can sit back down now. She starts scanning the room for the next volunteer.
    Please remember, the rest of you, she tells us, we’re here to help each other heal.
    When no one volunteers, Mary starts flipping through the attendance roster, ticking off our names.
    Let’s have one more speaker, shall we? Then we can break for coffee and biscuits.
    Relieved, we do as we’re told. Ta Lloyd sits back down and I watch his face going slack from his forehead down to his jaw. When the fluorescents flicker twice over our circle, I look up. Then I wonder about all the other people mending their lives on the floors above us. I remember once seeing a woman there who had what I have, compounded with acute tuberculosis. Her salivary glands had blown out as wide as the cheeks of a Bubble Eye goldfish, and she was there to dispute the window-period of her illness, a complication which had rendered her results indeterminate. When the nurses ignored her complaints, she turned around and laughed at them with such exuberant bitterness, the rest of us couldn’t help but look up from our laps. Swiveling on her heel, the woman hurled her objections at the waiting room, next, condemning each of us for our silence.
    This is what I think of now as we sit in our circle. Cissie places her hand on my knee again, and when she does it this time, the table holding our coffee begins to tremble.
    I guess I don’t know where to lead us next. My uncle is a