A gathering of bald men

CALEB ZUNGU was forty-three years old, married to Nothando for thirteen years with two girl children, Busi and Khwezi, aged eight and fourteen respectively. He owned a house in Norwood, a car and two dogs of dubious pedigree. He was an insurance salesman for Allied Life, where he had worked for five years. He was overdrawn at the bank and hoped for an act of God, perhaps the death of a long-lost uncle who would leave him a handsome inheritance. Nothando had graduated from Kelly Girl to full-time employment in the Human Resources Department of TransStar, a transport company. The girls were on school holidays, it being April, and the dogs, which he addressed in imperatives such as 'Voetsek]' or 'Come here, boys,' depending on his mood, were content with life.

On this late April Monday, Caleb woke up, took a shower, brushed his teeth and dressed. He cut a dashing if formidable picture in his navy-blue, pin-striped suit, a white shirt, a red tie and black shoes. He drank his coffee quickly and went back to the bathroom. Nothando almost dropped her coffee mug when she heard a shriek coming from the bathroom. Thinking that her husband might be suffering a stroke (it had decimated two male members in Caleb's family), she spilled her coffee in her rush to see what was the matter.

She found Caleb, his head bent, gingerly feeling a bald spot the size of an old one rand coin which had, it seemed, developed overnight, on the crown of his head. Standing behind him as he lamented his loss of hair before the unflattering mirror, Nothando felt a pang of tenderness mixed with disappointment. Why were men such babies? She managed to coax him out of his dark mood, telling him that baldness was an attestation of virility, and that he looked very handsome and distinguished. Nothando resisted the temptation to kiss him on his pate, but firmly steered him to his car--a second-hand, shocking pink Renault he had never got round to repainting--with encouraging words. Standing on the doorway and giving him the obligatory goodbye wave, which he didn't reciprocate, she knew that Caleb was deeply troubled; he hadn't even taken along his mobile phone.

While in the midst...