The Colour of Gold (2 page)

For almost an
hour Isaiah stood at the side of the tarred road before a truck
carrying a cargo of live chickens pulled off the road in response
to Isaiah’s raised finger. He hurried to the driver’s side of the
cab.

“I’m going to
Durban!” Isaiah shouted above the roar from the truck’s engine.

“Get in!” the
driver shouted back and pointed to the passenger’s side of the
cab.

The trip to
Durban was uneventful but it was almost three in the morning by the
time the truck reached the main railway station. Isaiah shook hands
with the truck driver and jumped down onto the concrete pavement.
The huge vehicle roared away, leaving Isaiah to the silence of the
sleeping city. He looked around at the desolate streets and shops.
His stomach growled in protest at the lack of food. Isaiah
grimaced. He would have to wait until morning to get something to
eat. He walked to a small alley between two buildings, slung his
blanket over his shoulders, sat down on the ground with his back to
the wall and wearily waited for the morning. Soon he was fast
asleep.

As Isaiah
drifted into sleep, well to the South of the city, a small family
of three was waking up.

***

Bala Desai, his
wife Fatima and their 5 year old daughter Salona, lived in one of
six squalid, one-bedroom apartments that made up a dilapidated, old
building in the area of Durban allocated by the government for
Indian citizens to live in and named Chatsworth. The government
wanted each non-white race group in the country to live in their
own designated areas and the people living in these areas were
issued with identity documents or “passbooks” that allowed them to
live and work only in the areas where they were registered. People
found outside their designated areas without special written
permission were arrested and jailed, often without a fair trial.
Chatsworth was one of the residential suburbs in the city of Durban
where its Indian population was forced to live.

The apartment
consisted of a small, dark living area with a small wooden table
and three steel kitchen chairs and two torn and badly worn lounge
chairs, a single bedroom with a large steel-framed bed and a broken
wooden wardrobe, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen with a single
cupboard and an old, electric stove. The only toilet serving the
building was in the small backyard of the premises. The building
itself was badly in need of repair but, as the landlord received
very little income from his investment, he was content to leave the
building to rot in the humid climate. Rats, cockroaches and flies
infested the building and rotting garbage littered the backyard and
the two lanes that ran on either side of the property. The walls
were grey and scarred and the rusted tin roof leaked incessantly.
The tarred road in front of the building was badly pot-holed and,
because very few people in the area could afford transport of any
kind, the City Council never considered it worthwhile repairing.
Papers, empty plastic shopping bags, stones and other rubbish
littered the area. As many of the inhabitants couldn’t afford
electricity, a depressing pall of grey smoke from the thousands of
coal and wood fires that were used for cooking and heating
continually hung over the suburb like a symbol of doom.

Bala’s
ancestors had come to South Africa in 1886 as part of the program
in which indentured workers from India and other Hindu countries
were brought into the country to work mainly in the sugarcane
fields of the coastal province of Natal. These indentured workers
were contractually bound to work for their British employers for
five years and then return to their home countries or, if they
worked a further five years, choose to receive a small portion of
land on which they could live and work and become second class
citizens of South Africa.

Unfortunately,
while Bala’s grandfather was working his second five-year contract,
the government withdrew the free land offer to indentured workers
and he had no alternative but to continue working for his
farmer-master for the rest of his life. Bala’s father however, was
not prepared to work as a farm labourer, and left the farm as soon
as he could to seek work in the city of Durban, taking his wife and
only son with him. For the rest of his life he worked at the Durban
Indian market carrying crates of vegetables and other produce from
the delivery trucks to the selling area and from there, to the
trucks of the merchants who had bought the produce. His meagre wage
enabled him to rent a small apartment for his family in Chatsworth,
fourteen kilometres to the South and from which he left in the
mornings at three o’clock and returned in the evenings at about
six.

Bala’s father’s
determination to see that his only child experienced a better life
than that of a labourer saw him encourage the child to study and
learn a trade that would always be in demand, thus ensuring him of
a secure future. There were not many work opportunities available
to young Indian boys in the early sixties and the only work that
Bala could get was with an old Indian tailor who had a small shop
in the commercial suburb of Berea. Every morning, well before dawn,
the little boy left the sordid apartment in Chatsworth and walked
through the dark, dank streets to the little shop where the old man
taught him to make and repair clothes.

When Bala’s
parents were killed in a train accident while travelling to
Pietermaritzburg to visit friends, the devastated young boy, then
aged fifteen, continued to live in the dirty little abode by
himself until, three years later, he met and married Fatima, a
young Indian girl who worked as a clerk in a large department store
in Berea and who also walked to and from work at the same time as
Bala. Eighteen months later, their daughter Salona was born.

Life was hard
for the little Indian family and the future always bleak. There
were no opportunities to improve their lives and they lived from
day to day with little hope of a better life. The only joy in
Bala’s and Fatima’s lives was their little girl, Salona. Both
parents were determined to provide their daughter with a better
life than they were experiencing.

Bala was a
small man with thick, black hair parted on the left, large ears, a
large nose and thick lips. He had a particularly short neck which
gave him the appearance of continually hunching his shoulders as if
against a cold draft or an expected blow from behind. He always
dressed neatly in his only thin, light-grey suit, white shirt and
dark blue tie. His black leather shoes were cracked and had holes
in the soles.

Because if his
difficult upbringing, Bala was hesitant by nature, especially when
away from his work environment. He felt inferior to white people
and people who were taller than he was. But Bala loved his wife and
daughter dearly and his love for them often enabled to overcome his
inferiority complex and speak up boldly when he had to defend
them.

Three weeks
previously Bala had received a letter from a firm of attorneys in
Johannesburg informing him that his uncle, Rajesh Dinat, had been
killed in a motorcar accident and, according to his will, had left
his small tailoring business as well as his tiny, tin house in the
suburb of Pageview, to his nephew Bala Desai. The firm urged Bala
to relocate to Johannesburg as soon as possible and take up the
reigns of the business as the present clientele needed to be
attended to and the expenses such as the shop’s rental and the
municipal rates and taxes needed to be paid.

Bala had been
terrified when he received the letter and his first thought was to
reject his inheritance. But then it dawned on him that this was a
chance of a lifetime and if he grasped it he could improve the
lives of himself and the two people that he loved so much. Fatima
had also been frightened of the unknown difficulties but she
realised that she would have to face up to moving to Johannesburg
and support her loving husband. She clutched Bala’s arm for support
and assurance as he told her of his determination to take this
opportunity and improve their lives. Together they began to make
their plans, using each other’s presence to keep up their
confidence.

The old tailor
was saddened to hear that his hardworking, young assistant was
leaving him but he saw the opportunity that had been given to the
young man and so, he wished him well, knowing that situations like
this tended to help his people in their fight to overcome the
atrocities that the apartheid government had forced upon them.

After obtaining
the required permits from the Department of Internal Affairs that
allowed him and his family to move to Johannesburg and giving the
landlord the necessary notice, Bala went to the Durban railway
station and purchased the necessary tickets to travel to
Johannesburg by bus. The cost severely depleted his meagre savings
and he worried about how he would support his family in their new
environment until the shop produced some income. Uncle Rajesh had
obviously not been able to save much of the money that he had
derived from his enterprise and Bala had no idea of what debts the
old man may have accumulated and that he would be held liable
for.

“Are we ready
to go?” Bala asked as he closed and locked the big, leather
suitcase that contained all their worldly possessions.

“Yes.” Fatima
replied, her large, brown eyes wide and frightened. She pulled her
thin, short frame upright in a determined effort to rid herself of
her fear and trepidation. She resolved there and then to do
everything that was humanly possible to help and support her dear
husband in this frightening endeavour that they were embarking
on.

Fatima was
dressed in one of her two traditional Indian full-length pale blue
dresses and a dark blue shawl covered her long, black hair. As Bala
picked up the heavy suitcase she plucked at the sleeve of her dress
with her slim fingers, her thick lips pursed into a straight line.
As was her custom, Fatima was barefoot.

Fatima picked
up Salona and rested her on her hip, her arm holding the little
girl close to her. The child was also dressed in a traditional
Indian dress and like her mother, barefoot. Her dark brown eyes
were wide with consternation.

"Why are we
leaving home?” she asked holding her head to one side and raising
her eyebrows. Fatima stroked her short, black hair.

“We’re going to
live in Johannesburg, my love.” Fatima said. “I’ve explained
everything to you before. Father is going to take over his uncle’s
shop that has been given to him. It means a whole new life for
us.”

The little girl
nodded her head but Bala could see that she didn’t understand what
was happening.

“Don’t worry,
my sweet little thing.” he said with a reassuring smile. “We are
all three going into a new adventure together and it is going to be
so exciting! So, let’s get started!”

The little
family left the building, Bala locking the door and tossing the key
through one of the broken windowpanes. It clattered onto the old,
wooden floor. He smiled at Fatima and Salona bravely and picked up
the suitcase.

“Let’s be on
our way.” he said.

The three
people moved onto the dark street and walked towards the city
centre. The city was quiet with only the distant swish of cars
travelling along the nearby freeway and the occasional blare of a
ship’s foghorn to tell them that there were others who were also
awake. Salona watched their shadows lengthen in front of them as
they passed under the streetlights and gently fade away only to
reappear as they passed under the next light. The family stopped
repeatedly so that Bala could rest the hand that was carrying the
suitcase and also for Fatima to rest. When she could, Salona walked
next to her mother holding her hand for reassurance and carrying
her rag doll. As they neared the city centre the traffic on the
roads increased and the sky in the east changed from black to a
pasty orange and then to a pale blue as the sun appeared above the
horizon. More and more people appeared, all hurrying to their
destinations and taking no notice of the scruffy Indian family
walking wearily along the pavement. Eventually they arrived at the
huge, face brick railway station. It was half past eight.

“We’ve made
good time.” Bala said looking at the clock above the station
entrance. “We’ve got half an hour to wait before the bus leaves.
Would you like something to drink?"

"We'll just
have a drink of water from the fountain over there.” Fatima
replied. “Once we’re on the bus we can have some of the food and
cold tea that I’ve brought with us.”

Bala nodded and
after they had slaked their thirst they walked to the bus departure
area. The huge dark red vehicle stood silently beneath the curved
roof of the depot as people of all description milled around.
Luggage was being packed onto the roof of the bus and into the
storage compartments in the sides. Neither Bala, Fatima or Salona
noticed the dusty, black man with his colourful blanket draped over
his shoulders standing nearby and anxiously eating a chunk of white
bread and washing it down with an orange cold drink.

“We’ll take our
suitcase on the bus with us.” Bala told the porter who was
supervising the loading of the luggage. “It’s got our food for the
journey in it.”

The old, black
man nodded.

***

“Thanks, we’ll
leave tomorrow.” Bogdan said. “Goodbye.”

The tall slim
Yugoslav, his black hair brushed straight back from his forehead,
put down the receiver. He wore a white open-neck shirt, black
slacks and black slip-on shoes. He fiddled with his heavy black
moustache and then scratched his thin straight nose. His thin lips
twitched into a faint smile as he walked to the kitchen of the
furnished apartment that he and his wife, Julia, were renting on a
monthly basis. She glanced at him from the stove where she was
standing preparing their lunch.