“Dance for us,” her grandchildren yell, just as the woman, elderly and spritely, rises to her feet, a smile lighting up her face.

Her eyes survey the congregation sharing her cramped living room, her smile becoming a tease at the corners of her mouth. She can feel the unwavering warmth of three generations of her family, their joy spilling over in peals of laughter, the gratitude radiating from their shared fellowship.

A chuckle escapes her lips, as her ears register the sensuous rhythm of the highlife music oozing from an old speaker tucked into a corner of the room.

Amidst a chorus of encouraging cheers, her eyes momentarily sweep across the meagre expanse of the room, before resting on a gallery of framed photos perched on the wall opposite. The photos are a testament to enduring memories: Grandpa, long gone from this world, young and stern-looking in his crisp military uniform. A grainy and mottled black-and-white wedding photo. Children in graduation gowns, their smiles radiant and proud. A frame of a young woman in her twenties, removed from the rest and hanging slightly askew on the wall. The woman in the photo is wearing a dazzling, sequined dress, her hair a rich afro. She is caught in mid-twist, the smile on her face radiant and uninhibited as she regards a circle of admirers staring and clapping, their faces alight with admiration.

“Granny, show us how you did it,” a voice calls from the gaggle, huddled and giggling with anticipation.

The woman starts a slow, gentle sway; her eyes fixed on the photo of the younger version of herself. She bends her head slightly and delicately flutters her hands, as the music arrests all her senses. For an instant, she glances at her grandchildren, sitting cross-legged on a patterned rug, staring up at her, eyes brimming with mirth. She makes a face just as the movement of her body eases into perfect synch with the languid rhythm of the music.

Then, the trumpet in the song soars, and a change instantly comes over her. Her eyes, previously twinkling, lose their lustre. Her gaze becomes fixed, and her body, as if jolted by a lightning bolt, begins a contorted motion, urgent at first, and then frenzied. Her feet, encased in comfortable shoes, start to beat a complex, staccato rhythm, completely at odds with the pace of the music. Her arms lose their grace and start to make a fierce, slicing motion.

She has gone there.

The air is different there – thick with cigarette smoke, a melange of perfume, an acrid hint of sweat and excitement. The music is a living, pulsating thing – strident; a guitar-driven rhythm swirling around the space, rooting her audience in a state of hypnosis while moving through her body and achieving a oneness with it. Her audience is cheering and clapping, their admiration palpable, warming on her skin. She feels supremely beautiful and filled with the indestructibility of youth.

Suddenly, there is a shift. A disturbance in the ambience. An altered intonation in the strum of the guitar? No, it is not from the guitar. It is from outside. It is a sound that does not belong in the realm of music, laughter, and bonhomie. It is the shattering of glass and the thud of a boot on the door, kicking it open. Bottles are crashed to the floor, and a voice, harsh and guttural barks orders indecipherable in the maelstrom of the moment.

The woman’s gaze quickly shifts to her audience. What do they make of all of this? She witnesses their smiles slip before her very eyes. Their faces register confusion, then fear, then a terrifying, collective anger. Their clapping stops, and their admiring cries morph to become jeers and hateful words. A paper cup still wet with beer hits her head, and its contents dribble down her face. A spoon glances off her arm. Plates shatter at her feet.

However, she would not stop dancing. She cannot stop. Her body is moving with a rhythm turbocharged by terror, and her mouth and throat feel parched.

And through it all, another sound rises, superseding the chaos. It is a chorus of anguish, initially faint, before becoming a crescendo that swallows the world. There are scattered cries of pain, men’s urgent shouts, a woman’s thin wail that would not stop. The sound is of a people broken, a community under siege. Its desolation is profound, and its devastation, all-consuming.

 

Abruptly, the woman’s frenetic movements cease and her arms fall to her sides. She is trembling, tears streaking the powdered wrinkles on her face. She stares at her family, and they stare back, frozen by the seismic shock wave of what they just witnessed. Her eyes drift to the floor and she smiles weakly. Then, she lifts her eyes to the photo of the version of herself; young, joyous, and forever trapped in a moment before the world fell apart. She opens her mouth to speak but the words do not come. For how can she explain to her family that the past sometimes visits, bringing with it music rendered in the rhythm of soul-wrenching memories?