It started with that, loneliness, being the only person in the world, in a grey world, because clouds blew up and it rained all day. A wet, grey world smelling musty. It was the scent of damp paper; windblown, yellowing newspapers, and soggy cardboard and scraps. The forever afterwards mournful smell of damp paper. In a life that was only a few hours old, they, the gang, were the only memory, the only people, and he waited longingly for their return.

At the same time he learnt the lesson of his body, the lesson of hunger. Crying, or sadness, or sitting still meant hunger, and even when the only other alternative was bread and water, the alternative was still life. He hungered this way through the day, his stomach shrinking to a hard knot he held in his hand.

Petah gave him a second chance that evening when they returned and found him waiting at his pipe. ‘We’ll give you bread,’ he said, ‘if you come tomorrow.’

He took the bread and the chance.

‘Where’s Simon?’ he asked. No one answered. He was to learn that lesson also. The lesson about questions that had no meaning.

So he went out with them the next day and scavenged. That same day an Indian chased him away from his shop door, shouting and calling him a tsotsi. When they went back to the river that night, they started again, trying names on him: Sam, Willie, and now Simon, until he stopped them.

‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Tsotsi.’

They crowded around him, laughing, and slapping him on the back.

‘Tsotsi!’ they cried, trying it out. He nodded his head.

He learnt all the lessons, he learnt them well. He never stopped learning, it seemed. Because after the river gang— broken up one night by a police raid—came other gangs of older boys, and harder, harsher lessons, and that simple lesson of keeping his body alive another day. He learned to watch for the weakness of sympathy or compassion for others weaker than yourself, like discovering how never to feel the pain you inflicted. He had no use for memories. Anyway, he had none.

10

Tsotsi opened his eyes and listened to the knocking on his door. Instinctively, but for no other reason than having awoken, he put his hand under his pillow to find his knife. Before he found it, another thought crossed his mind and he sat up on his elbows and looked down to the foot of the bed. The baby was still there, and apparently asleep.

The knocking had stopped, but now came again. Tsotsi shook his head. He must have fallen asleep, some time in the night his tiredness must have caught up with him and he had fallen asleep. No, it was in the morning. He remembered going out once to piss and hearing cocks crowing and noticing that the sky was pale. How long had he slept? He looked at the window and listened. Bright light and casual noise. Early morning.