The unentered room
Lerato Maleke | Friday October 10, 2014 17:29
It has haunted me for years. I cannot sleep nor rest alone in this room. Night and day is the same; light and darkness are also the same. I cannot even spend more than five minutes in that room alone. I avoid cleaning it and my mother does so once in a while when she visits.
The unentered room is situated about three metres from the main house in my late grandmother’s yard who built a two-roomed structure – including that room – when she settled in Tlagadi more than 20 years ago.
Years later, granny built the main house with three rooms, a sitting room, kitchen and a bathroom which is situated in front of the old two-roomed house. If the new main house had not been built and the yard had only consisted of the old two-room with that unentered room, I would have long left granny’s homestead.
That room has haunted me since 2009.
Every time I enter it, I remember my uncle’s lifeless body hanging from a rafter in a corner by the door. He was 40 at the time when I discovered him there.
It was a Friday in August 2009 when I visited granny’s house in Tlagadi. At the time I was staying with my son Lefika at my mother’s house in Boseja ward, but was on vacation.
I was in my final year doing a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. On that fateful day I went to a hair salon early in the morning to plait my hair, as I was to return to Limpopo the same day.
From the salon, I went to bid my uncle, who stayed in the two-roomed structure, farewell, unaware of the grisly sight I would find.
As I entered the yard, I started calling him by his nickname “Two Pack! Two Pack!” There was no answer. I knocked at the main house and there was still no response. I then proceeded to the two-roomed house at the back and there was still no answer.
I then found a window in his room opened and looked inside whereupon I espied him in the corner of the house. I called again “Two Pack! Why are you hiding in the corner,” I asked.
All of a sudden I realised why he could not answer. He had hung himself. I did not have the energy to knock down the door as all my strength abandoned me. Instead, I recall running outside the yard screaming for help and collapsing into a heap somewhere in the yard. The police arrived and I accompanied them to the hospital where my uncle was certified dead.
Looking back, I realise he must have used the couch and the wardrobe to tie a cord around the rafter. This would have been an easy task, as the unentered room does not have a ceiling.
He left nothing at all to indicate what was troubling him. The only item out of place was a large jug full of water that he must have been drinking prior to his suicide.
From that day, whenever I close my eyes, I can see the green jacket that he was wearing with his dark brown trousers and his bare feet. I am unable to stop remembering the grisly details that my eyes caught in the mental snapshot I took through the open window.
Whenever I am home alone, I lock the door of the unentered room and totally avoid entering it at night. That room will remain unentered as much as the image of my uncle will remain engrained in my mind.