Untitled by Kgebetli Moele Read Free Book Online Page A

fathers. They were the ones she hadn’t used protection with, or, at least, that’s what she told me long afterwards.
    Although Pheladi aborted many of her worshippers with that first abortion – her body had changed somehow – there were still those who were interested, and they helped to make sure that her road to recovery was not that lonely and sad.
    In reality this was her second abortion. She confessed to me that with the first one she had realised that she might be pregnant after just a day, so she took some pills and washed the pregnancy away. For a long time I believed that this was a myth, but then Lebo told me the same thing – that the backstreet abortion doctors can give you some pills that work so beautifully that you won’t even miss your period. The backstreet abortion doctors were here long before abortion became legal in this country and legalisation has not done them any harm, they are still operating.
    Four months and two weeks before her fifteenth birthday, Pheladi was back in the backstreets again. This time she was further along than before and once again she had no idea who the father was – some of the candidates were family men with daughters older than her.
    Her dear mother had by this time given up completely.
    Four month and nine days after her fifteenth birthday, Pheladi gave birth to what was supposed to be her fourth child, a baby boy, Thabang. With this her life as a celebrity came to an abrupt end – she was suddenly a mother, with motherly responsibilities. The relationship between her and her mother began to mend and although one cannot say that they are the best of friends, they are happy.
    The bees are still attracted to the Pheladicon – she has recovered from the abortions and bearing a child. She is still out of line but these days she is more discreet about everything.
    Lawfully what happened to Pheladi was rape. I was told that somewhere in our law there is something called statutory rape. Looked it up in the dictionary and it said: Statutory rape by US law is the offence of having sex with a minor .
    So statutory rape is a US law. I think that it is only effective in the US. We are in Africa and though our lawmakers copied the law it is only relevant in law books and not in social reality.

Lebo
    The thing that I have observed is that when a girl is put in this position, she learns to love it and somehow take pride in it, like a prisoner serving a life sentence. Prison life just becomes his life, it is not prison any more. Lebo is that girl. She is in this position and loving it all.
    Lebo is the girl that sometimes I wish to be. Chocolate skin colour, big eyes, long hair, a forehead big enough to make her beautiful. She has a very small mouth, but when she smiles the world comes to a full stop.
    Her father is a powerhouse, in my community’s slang a “gas”, pronounced in Afrikaans. He does not take shit from anybody and will settle a dispute with his fists if he has to. I cannot say that he is not a nice person – he is – but he likes things the way he wants them and Lebo understands this very well.
    Lebo can extract however much money she wants from her father, he will always give it gladly, but come results day he is not expecting anything less than a C+. Less than an E means violence.
    Between seventeen thirty and eighteen hundred every day Lebo has to be home. She has never slept out, unless her father was not there and she was very sure where he was and when he would be coming back. A girl learns the behaviours and routines of those she is living with; she understands the potholes that there are. Pheladi would go out even when her father was home – her parents knew when she was out all night – but Lebo could never do that.
    Lebo is afraid of getting on the wrong side of her father and if there is one thing that she wishes, it is never to make him angry. Gas thinks that his daughter is still a virgin, which is