The Madonna of Excelsior (20 page)

“But how can the blacks share power with the white man in our own country?” asked Tjaart Cronje. “What does a black person know about power? All he knows is how to burn down schools. Look what is happening in their location here in Excelsior. They have forced out the Bantu councillors. The location is now ungovernable.”

Tjaart Cronje was talking about the recent events in Mahlat-swetsa Location. Viliki had led the community in demonstrations against the Bantu Council, a National Party government-created structure through which the Afrikaners of Excelsior governed the township by proxy through people like Sekatle. Sekatle had in fact been the chairman of the Bantu Council, and therefore the mayor of Mahlatswetsa Location. Until he was frogmarched from the council office to his house, where the people of the Movement instructed him to retire from public life. They had threatened to burn his trading store, his lorry and his new BMW 3 Series car if he refused to disband his illegitimate council. The council members, many of them schoolteachers and traders like Sekatle, did not wait to be told twice. They had resigned en masse for fear of their lives and property.

“Ungovernable?” asked Adam de Vries incredulously. “The location will never be ungovernable. I have been made the Administrator of the location and I have restored order there.”

He knew black people very well, he assured his admiring listeners. Traces of doubt still showed in Tjaart Cronje's face. As a little boy, Adam de Vries said, he had played with black children on the farm. He had eaten papa and morogo in their huts. Tjaart Cronje
recalled that he had done the same at Niki's home. Although he had shared papa and morogo with Viliki, he did not see this as something he could boast about in public. It was nothing to be proud of.

As a student, he had studied anthropology, Adam de Vries continued, adding more to his insights into the black man's way of thinking and doing things. Not all black people were bad. There were good black people like Sekatle. And there were bad ones like Viliki. The majority of black people were good people. When the elections came after the negotiations for a new constitution, black people would never vote for communists and terrorists. They would choose moderate people like Sekatle.

“You see, Tjaart,” said Cornelia sweetly, “everything has been taken care of. Oom Adam knows what he is talking about. Leave everything to the elders.”

Tjaart smiled cynically. That smile! It reminded Cornelia of her late husband. How much this boy had grown to look like his father! Poor Stephanus. She silently cursed the woman who had led him to his demise. She wondered what had happened to Niki. The traitor who had seduced her husband. She blamed her for everything. Niki had never set foot in the butchery since his death. But Cornelia had occasionally spotted Niki's coloured brat. She hated the bastard for being a smoother, delicate and more beautiful version of Tjaart.

W
E CALL IT
a flute. It is not really a flute. It is a penny-whistle. A metal relative of the recorder. And it is unusual for a girl to play it. But the coloured girl is blowing birdlike twitters on it. Boesman producing melodies with only three fingers of her left hand. The penny-whistle has six holes. Her three fingers commute dextrously across all the holes. Commute between deep mellow notes and shrill piccolo-like notes. Her other hand, the right hand, holds a brown begging bowl. Porcelain begging bowl with a few coins rattling in it. In rhythm to the tune. Musical bowl. Percussive porcelain.

She is sullen like the weather. Yet her tune is as bright as the fireflies of a deep night. Boesman girl with red hair parted in the middle. Light-coloured girl with a clown's sad face. The broadest of strokes. Deep black strokes like the night. She wears a green dress that is much too big for her. Her mother's dress that hangs loosely to her ankles. Big high-heel shoes. Her mother's black shoes. A gift from a happy madam.

The antics of the street busker would have made Popi laugh, if she were the type that laughed in public. Everyone who watched the busker laughed. Her deadpan expression that turned to sadness
when she let down her guard. Her dress that looked like it was hanging loosely on a pole. Her little feet that kept on jumping out of her shoes as she attempted what she thought was a clownish jig. All these left the spectators in stitches. But Popi's face stayed knitted in depressed lines, as if she was having a particularly difficult time releasing her bowels. She hated the penny-whistler for being gaunt and musical and funny and coloured. She hated her for calling attention to her colouredness, which in turn would call attention to Popi's own colouredness.

She had learnt ways of not calling attention to her colouredness. Her main weapon was the doek. She wore colourful doeks that hid her straight almost-blonde hair. Mammoth doeks that she rolled in many layers on her head, until they looked like Sikh turbans. Doeks that diverted the eyes of the curious from her blue eyes to the glorious top of her head. Another weapon were her slacks. Slacks that hid her hairy legs. Although in respectable places, such as the church, she had to revert to a dress. Or to the black skirt of the Methodists. White long-sleeved blouse. Red bib. White hat.

Popi sneaked away from the entertained crowd. She crossed the street and walked into Volkskas—the bank that the Afrikaners had established to pull fellow Afrikaners from the depths of poverty when the English practised their own version of apartheid against the Afrikaners. A bank that took its services deep into the harshest platteland where the English conglomerates dreaded to tread. Popi was going to cash an uncrossed cheque drawn in Viliki's favour. She couldn't make out who the drawer was.

Where do you get the money, Viliki, that comes in the form of a cheque? Is it from the underground to which you dedicate your life? No, the underground does not exist anymore. Everything is now above the ground. In the light of day. Transparency is the word that guides us. In the light of day. Everything is above ground. Almost everything. There are, of course, secret Movement matters. This is the money to do Movement work, Popi. And to pay my expenses when I travel all over the place organising workers on the farms. For the Movement. Now, stop asking foolish questions and run to the bank before it closes
.

So, now you support Afrikaner banks, Viliki? Didn't you say that one day when you had money to put in the bank, you would rather keep it under your mattress than bank it at Volkskas? That was yesterday, Popi. Today it is a different world. We are reaching a settlement with the Afrikaners. Next year we have a general election. April next year. We shall be liberated and we shall be one people with the Afrikaners. That's what the Movement stands for. One South African nation. Now run to the bank and shut up with your politics. I am the politician in this house
.

There was a long queue at the bank. The strange thing was that there was only one queue. Not two, as was the case not so long ago: a slow long queue for blacks and a quick short one for whites. One queue, now, for all the colours of the rainbow. Another strange thing was that the white customers did not join the one queue. They walked straight to the teller, who would immediately stop serving the black customer to attend to the white one.

It was the same when Tjaart Cronje entered. He went straight to the head of the queue.

We looked at the burly Tjaart and we looked at the tall and slim Popi. We saw what we had always whispered. They looked as if they had hatched from the same egg. Popi was just a darker version of Tjaart. We also noted that Tjaart did not see himself in Popi. And Popi did not see herself in Tjaart.

Tjaart Cronje did not see Popi at all. Just a row of faces that were not white, but were now permitted to share the same queue with white people. But Popi did see Tjaart Cronje. And was filled with hatred towards him. Popi's hatred always bubbled close to the surface, ready to erupt at the slightest provocation. She hated Tjaart Cronje for having such a tight grip on Niki's affection. The affection that should be Popi's alone. Hers and Viliki's. Yet some of it spilled over to Tjaart Cronje. Just because she had once been his nanny. And it was such a wasted love, because he was not even aware of its existence.

Anyway, what made Tjaart Cronje think he could just walk to the head of the queue and get service when she had been waiting in line for almost twenty minutes? Was it because he was Tjaart
Cronje
? And she was just Popi? Well, she had news for him. She was Popi
Pule
. She too had a surname, even though the familiarity that bred contempt meant that all and sundry just called her Popi. And Niki just Niki. And Viliki just Viliki. But they were born and bred by people too. They were Niki Pule. Viliki Pule. Popi Pule. And Tjaart Cronje had better remember that. Tjaart had better remember that.

Popi Pule. Stealer of surnames from cuckolded men!

She was fuming inside while she displayed an indifferent outside.

Jacomina Bornman, now Jacomina Cronje, rushed in, breathing as though she had been running. She whispered something to Tjaart Cronje. Obviously not the sweet nothings of newly-weds, for Tjaart left her to complete the banking transaction while he shot out of Volkskas Bank.

Jacomina took forever to finish whatever she was doing with the teller, which included exchanging snippets of gossip. When she turned to leave, she saw Popi. She looked at her for a long time, until Popi feared that she might have read her evil thoughts. Jacomina slowly broke into a smile as a glimmer of recognition dawned on her.

“Dumela,” she greeted in Sesotho. Like all Afrikaners who grew up in Excelsior, she spoke fluent Sesotho. Like almost all Afrikaner natives of the eastern Free State.

“Dumela,” responded Popi without any enthusiasm.

“I remember you,” said Jacomina. “You used to sit outside our garden parties with your mother. Why, you have grown into such a big beautiful girl.”

Popi took exception to being remembered by her. But she did not say anything. These people had no business knowing her. Why should this Jacomina continue to hoard memories of her back when she used to hang around garden parties with Niki? That must have been eighteen years ago. She had only been five then. What twisted god had cursed this Jacomina with such a cruel
streak of memory? She, Popi, did not remember this Jacomina from the garden party days. She must have been one of the big white girls who used to pinch her cheeks before they gave her a sweet or a cookie.

“What happened to your mother? Is she still alive?” asked Jacomina innocently.

“What would make her dead?” asked Popi, taking further offence that this Jacomina should dare to associate Niki with death.

“Don't be rude, girl,” said Jacomina. “I am being nice to you. It's just that I no longer see her at any of our garden parties.”

As if you had invited her!

She was being nice. Like the
coochi coochi coo
women in the bus. Her memory of their niceness was as vivid as if it were yesterday. Nice. Would people ever stop this foolish notion of being nice to her? Didn't they know that she was a boesman? No one had any right to be nice to a boesman. Didn't they know that?

Popi walked home with Viliki's money hidden in her bra. At the junction where the dirt road to Mahlatswetsa Location joined the four-lane tarred road that became the only street of the town, she saw a sea of people coming her way. They were trotting and toyi-toying like prancing horses, and chanting slogans. Popi remembered that Viliki had mentioned something about Solomon Mahlangu Day. May 1993. They were celebrating Solomon Mahlangu, a young hero from Viliki's Movement who was hanged by the Boers during the Wars of Liberation. The people were using this day to demand the release of all political prisoners.

All political prisoners, Viliki? There are no political prisoners in Excelsior. How can you demand that the Boers of Excelsior release all political prisoners? Excelsior is part of South Africa, Popi. There are still political prisoners in South Africa. Even though we will have our first general elections next year. There are still political prisoners in the jails of this country. We are taking a memorandum to the police station demanding that all political prisoners in South Africa be released forthwith!

Before the demonstrating crowd could reach her—or before she
could reach the demonstrating crowd—a platoon of policemen approached from the direction of the town. Policemen in police vans. Police reservists in their private bakkies. A convoy of them. They passed Niki as she walked towards the crowd. She saw that the policemen were led by Captain Klein-Jan Lombard. The police reservists were under the command of Tjaart Cronje. So that was where he was rushing! Among the reservists was Johannes Smit.

The platoon stopped in front of the crowd and Captain Klein-Jan Lombard instructed it to disperse and go back peacefully to Mahlatswetsa Location. Viliki, who was at the head of the crowd, shouted that the crowd would not disperse. The crowd was marching to the police station to hand in a memorandum. The people of Mahlatswetsa were demanding the release of political prisoners.