Lives Between Walls

Mrs Mokoena did not touch the phone.

“Who?”

“Thabo.”

“Thabo Molefe?”

“Yes.”

Mrs Mokoena frowned.

“Did he send these sexual stories to you?”

“No.”

“Where did you receive them?”

“They’re on his blog.”

“Publicly?”

“Yes.”

“Does he use your name?”

“No, but it’s me.”

“How do you know?”

“He uses things I told him. Conversations we had. The office. The kitchenette. My relationship.”

Mrs Mokoena glanced toward the phone.

“And the sexual part?”

“He wrote about us.”

“Using your names?”

“No.”

“But it is recognisably you?”

“To me, yes.”

Mrs Mokoena leaned back.

The building seemed to lean back with her, like a painter admiring his art piece.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want him to stop.”

“All right.”

“And I want it recorded.”

Mrs Mokoena nodded slowly.

“We’ll speak to HR.”

Thabo was called in after lunch.

The HR officer arrived with a notebook and an expression that made the room feel like a disciplinary hearing before anyone had decided whether discipline was possible.

Nandi sat on one side of the table.

Thabo sat opposite her.

He did not look frightened.

He looked confused.

Mrs Mokoena began.

“Nandi has raised a concern regarding material on your personal blog.”

Thabo looked at Nandi.

“What concern?”

“She believes you have been writing about her.”

Thabo’s face became still.

“I write fiction.”

“She has provided screenshots of a story containing sexual content between two colleagues.”

“It doesn’t contain sexual content.”

The HR officer looked down at the printed pages.

“It contains a prolonged intimate scene.”

“It contains kissing.”

“And implied sexual activity.”

“Implied by the reader.”

Nandi stared at him.

Mrs Mokoena raised a hand.

“Thabo.”

“I’m sorry. But it is fiction.”

“You previously used a private conversation with Nandi in another story.”

“Yes.”

“And removed it after she complained.”

“She asked me to take it down.”

“Why?”

“Because she thought it was about her.”

“It was about me,” Nandi said.

Thabo finally looked at her.

“It was inspired by you.”

“Those are not different enough.”

“They are completely different.”

“You put me in your stories.”

“I put fragments of reality into my stories. Every writer does.”

“You wrote about kissing me in the boardroom.”

“I wrote about two fictional people kissing in a boardroom.”

“In our office.”

“I never named the office.”

“You described it.”

“I described an office.”

“The suspended ceiling. The glass walls. The basement parking.”

Thabo gave a small, disbelieving laugh.

“Those exist in thousands of buildings.”

The HR officer looked at Nandi.

“Has Thabo ever made sexual comments to you directly?”

Nandi hesitated.

“He teased me.”

“Sexually?”

“Not exactly.”

“Has he touched you?”

“No.”

“Propositioned you?”

“No.”

“Sent you the story?”

“No.”

“Asked you to read it?”

“No.”

Nandi felt the room slipping away from her.

“He knows I read his blog.”

Thabo shook his head.

“I know she found it. I didn’t even give her the address to it.”

“You know I read it.”

“I don’t know what you read unless you tell me.”

“You wrote it because you knew.”

“I wrote it because I write.”

Mrs Mokoena turned toward him.

“Did you base the female character on Nandi?”

Thabo paused.

“No.”

Nandi stared at him.

“Liar.”

“Nandi,” Mrs Mokoena said.

“He is lying.”

Thabo’s jaw tightened.

“The character is not her.”

“Then why did you ask me how the first story should end?”

“That was a joke.”

“And why did you say I could decide?”

“A joke.”

“And then you wrote us having sex.”

“We did not have sex in the story.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Hide behind technicalities.”

The HR officer closed the file.

“We need to keep this factual.”

“It is factual,” Nandi said. “He took private things I told him, put them online, and then wrote a sexual fantasy about me.”

Thabo looked at her for a long time.

Then he said quietly, “You’re the one who decided it was you.”

The sentence emptied the room.

It was over. The building had chosen a side, and it wasn’t Nandi’s.

Nandi looked at Mrs Mokoena.

“Do you hear that?”

Mrs Mokoena rubbed her forehead.

“Yes.”

“Then do something.”

“We are trying to establish whether workplace harassment has occurred.”

“It has.”

“Not how you feel about the story. What conduct occurred.”

“That is the conduct.”

The HR officer spoke carefully.

“Nandi, I understand why the material has distressed you. However, because it does not identify you, was not sent to you and does not appear to contain information that clearly identifies this workplace, it may be difficult to classify the publication itself as harassment under our internal policy.”

Nandi laughed.

It came out broken.

“So he can keep doing it?”

“No one is saying that.”

“That is exactly what you’re saying.”

Mrs Mokoena looked at Thabo.

“You will not use private conversations with colleagues as material going forward.”

Thabo nodded.

“And you will keep all interactions with Nandi strictly professional.”

“I already do.”

Nandi turned toward him.

“Except online.”

He looked away.

The matter was recorded as an interpersonal conflict.

No finding was made.

No disciplinary action followed.

The story remained on the blog.

After the meeting, Thabo stopped speaking to her.

Not dramatically.

He became faultlessly professional.

If he needed a document, he sent an email.

If they passed in the passage, he stepped aside.

If she entered the kitchenette, he left.

The building seemed ashamed of itself.

Its corridors widened between them. Doors remained open. The lift arrived quickly whenever they stood together, allowing one of them to escape.

For several weeks, Thabo posted nothing.

Nandi checked every day.

She told herself she was checking to ensure he had stopped.

That was reasonable.

Necessary.

Protective.

Then, one Friday evening, a new story appeared.