The Water Man's Daughter (2 page)

N
OMSULWA CROUCHES NEXT TO A BENCH LINED WITH
men in tan work suits. Her thighs press against her calves and the sweat that gathers between them is uncomfortable. She squints, looking out over the neighbourhood she used to play in as a child. One hand wipes her carefully twisted hair out of her eyes. It is hot for fall, feeling more like the unbearable city summers when the township hides under metal roofs, trying to move as little as possible.

Mothers begrudge each step on their way to the store next to where Nomsulwa waits. Their children whinge and twist, dragged behind or strapped to broad backs. Nomsulwa looks for evidence of heat exhaustion among the crisp white shirts and shorts of the workmen across the street, but they keep moving at a steady pace. The coloured foreman – lighter-skinned than his employees – keeps his hands in his pockets, walking along the line of men, inspecting pulsing black forearms and straining black necks. They shovel like a single machine, and Nomsulwa understands why these men were plucked from township construction jobs and transferred to the big municipal water company. They are the best of the ragtag group that waits by Phiri’s central
station, hoping the company vans will drive them into Johannesburg for one good day’s work and enough money to last their families for the week.

Nomsulwa is not the only one watching them. Her cousin sits on his own corner a block and a half down and across the orange dirt road. She tries not to look at Mira, the way he lags against the bench pretending to watch for passing women and only gently glances in the direction of the workmen. No one must know what they are watching for. Nomsulwa doodles in the sand at her feet, committing to memory where the pipes attach, at what angle they enter the ground, and how many minutes it takes to dig the ditches they are housed in. She counts the parts – fourteen on this street. Fourteen large steel pipes to facilitate Phiri’s new water system.

Once the steel is laid the digging begins again, transferring the dirt from its neat piles back into the ground. Periodically, the men use a hose connected to a truck behind them and water the area, persuading the earth to congeal and pack each crevice of the ditch. There are eight layers: dirt, then water, then more dirt, until finally the sand is flat. Some of the men run the hose one last time and the others rest on their heels, mimicking Nomsulwa’s pose. Only now can she see their exhaustion, the way the sweat drips through their shirts and down their legs. The logo for the Amanzi water company on the front of each of their uniforms is crumpled, some completely obscured by yellow sand.

The foreman barks an order and the hose abruptly shuts off. There are rivers cascading through the newly laid earth, and, as the men begin to congregate around their truck, children materialize from doorways of the tenant housing complexes nearby and run to the muck. They play in the wet sand, using sticks to create patterns, while the workmen drink water on their break. The children get no more than five minutes before the foreman shoos them away, and a new contraption, wide and flat, is pushed across the wet ground so that the designs disappear and the dug up stretch matches the even height of the rest of its surface.

Nomsulwa checks her watch. It is four o’clock. The road will be dry and hardened before nightfall after all this sun. That will make it more difficult to dig into again.

She stands up. Her knees feel weak from the squatting but she doesn’t show it as she saunters from her post. She takes side streets back to her house. The plans are finalized. Today confirmed how many pipes they must remove to ensure that the water system will be delayed until the cold, wet weather makes it almost impossible to lay it in the ground again.

As Nomsulwa makes her way through her township she passes the colourful array of houses stuck together in the downtown core. Here, the materials used in building are mismatched and scrounged from construction sites in Johannesburg: eGoli, the City of Gold, the only place where wood, bricks, and corrugated metal can be purchased by the homeless for a reasonable price. Rarely do
all four walls match, and so the street gives the pleasant impression of a collage. Everything is bordered by the yellow-orange sand that covers the streets, coats the gardens in dust, and tracks up the front walks to the houses. Even the sky, obscured by swirling sand kicked up by the fall wind, takes on a yellow sheen.

As Nomsulwa gets closer to her own house in the new quarter of the township, the colours dull and become more uniform. Government-issued brick houses, sold at a profit to more affluent residents, line the streets here, and some of the road is paved. Front yards are more plentiful and a few television satellites jut out from the roofs.

Nomsulwa’s house has no dish, but her front yard is landscaped, unlike her neighbours’. She has proudly lined her section of the road with bright blue flowers and a larger second row of shrubs. White rocks, stolen from a lime quarry at night, accent the plants’ placement. Every spring, Nomsulwa spends her mornings re-soiling the flowered plot of land, and every fall she takes time in the evenings to plant new bulbs where empty spaces have appeared.

She enters her yard, picking up stray leaves from the stepping stones leading to the front door. This moment of the day is her favourite: the anticipation of the quiet, orderly house, the sun setting on her garden, the home she has made for herself, by herself. Her friends have married or tote children behind them, and she has created a different kind of family within the movement. But the part of her that needs something all her own has this house.

Once inside, Nomsulwa takes off her shoes, and her sock feet make no sound on the linoleum as she moves to the bathroom. She wipes herself down with a wet washcloth, knowing that the bath she can afford twice a week will be best used tomorrow. Then she crosses the hallway at the back of the house and falls into her bed. The layers of quilts, gifts from friends or sewn by her mother, sink with her weight and fold over her thighs and shoulders. She rests her head to the left and holds her wristwatch in front of her face, setting the alarm just in case. She can feel the sun’s heat seeping from her skin into the cool covers. A wind that rises with the late afternoon blows over her, moving the hairs around her face and brushing her lips dry so they feel stuck together. With purpose filling her up, she feels ageless. Not twenty-six but ancient, part of a thousand generations of women who have fought for their community. They have the wisdom of having something to protect. With all this feeling welling up in her, she lets her body rest to prepare for the work it must do tonight.

A bottle cracks outside and to Nomsulwa it sounds like footsteps. She opens her eyes and checks her watch. The alarm is set to sound in fifteen minutes. She sits up carefully, silently walks to the screen covered with metal bars, and peers through the darkness. The lit windows that illuminate like highway beacons in the evening are all off now. Doors that were open and busy with women and children relaxing at the end of the day are locked. Nomsulwa half
expects to hear a knock at her door, for uniformed men to appear out of the black night and bring her in to the station. She imagines the arrest so vividly, the outside acting like a projection screen for her fears. It is as if the empty house is strapping her hands behind her back and pushing her down the front walk.

Nomsulwa leaves, but only after she has made sure that the street is, in fact, deserted. The creak of a door across the street startles her for a second, the panic returning, but then she sees Mama Nominki, her husband and youngest daughter behind her. They nod at each other and walk in the same direction, being careful to keep a block’s distance between them. Nomsulwa leads, sure of the location. She tries not to look back too often. It is a futile effort to seem inconspicuous. No one but the men of the township venture out after dark, especially on a Sunday. Even in emergencies, families are bustled into locked cars away from the gangs that roam the streets.

This would be a dangerous adventure if Mira hadn’t made a deal with Kholizwe for protection from the Numbers gang for the night. They’ll have to give up the price of one pipe in exchange, allow the runners to sell it on the black market, but it means all the families will have safe passage to and from the dig site. Mira played on the Numbers’ hatred for the police and their sympathies for the Phiri Community Forum. He reminded Kholizwe how they had reconnected his girlfriend’s electricity box for free when the company switched it off.

“Do it again, then. She doesn’t have water, either,” he told him.

But the water boxes are more sophisticated, harder to open and rewire. Some are even built with anti-tamper devices that send out an alarm the minute the casing breaks. Digging the pipes up is the only way to ensure that the new pay system is not implemented throughout the township. As long as some neighbourhoods remain on the unlimited government-funded water supply, a relic of the Apartheid era, members of the
PCF
can transport clean water to those who have been shut off for the month.

Nomsulwa approaches the corner where she and Mira spent the afternoon and sees a small collection of people milling about. It looks so different at night: the sand settles, changes colour to reflect the evening, stops covering everything. The sky is no longer blue but deep black, and the lights from the city wash out any stars. Sounds separate themselves, each one distinct – a kicked tin, a sigh from an old man refusing to give in to stupor and head home.

Nomsulwa is one of the few women who own the night. She never scurried in when the sun went down like other girls, but stayed out, drank with the boys, ran with the boys, broke the same rules they broke and received the same scornful looks they received. Because of that, she has learned to love the township after everyone goes to sleep, when the drunks and the tsotsis take over. The rules change, but there is an order to the darkness that she appreciates. Though she is not a man and certainly not one of the
women who wear nothing and hang off their arms, she belongs more to this version of her community than to the sunny, bustling world full of families and old women tutting their disapproval.

When Nomsulwa arrives at the site where the pipes are buried, Mira quickly appears and walks towards her. He has a big smile on his face and his skinny body wriggles with excitement.

“Sesilungile!”
We’re ready!

“The Numbers are here?”

“They are stationed at the perimeter.”

“The families?”

“Most of them.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“She’s at home, taking care of the kid. And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“You’re right. Can a married woman even be a girlfriend?”

Mira feigns anger at her jibe. Nomsulwa ignores him.

“Okay, let’s begin, then. Set them up in a line. Make sure the shovels are evenly distributed. Keep the children near their mothers.”

The two of them split up and begin talking in hushed voices to the people in front of them. Nomsulwa maps the line of the pipes with a stick, making sure to point out the places where the pipes attach.

“That is where we must dig first.”

She chooses every other pipe to begin with, making sure enough damage is done even if the job takes longer
than planned. She is calm now, as she knew she would be, surrounded by people who need her direction. A few families have brought flashlights and she motions for them to be turned off. The largest one she takes for herself, to be sure that there is one light at hand if needed. Finally, Nomsulwa positions herself next to Mira in the centre of the line.

They have managed to get all of the volunteers standing in a perfect row, always moving, part of the same snakelike beast. The mothers and daughters check over their shoulders constantly, scooping hard earth with no sound, slipping the dirt into the piles beside them with the utmost care. The men and boys are more comfortable.

Mira digs into the ground and then lifts. He grunts, half in jest, with the weight of the shovel’s load. Then he elbows the man next to him and they begin to laugh.

“Mira, shhh!” Nomsulwa whacks his ear lightly.

“Ow!”

She whacks him again. “Thula thula bhuti. Amaphoyisa.”
Quiet, the police
.

He grimaces a little at her, but quiets down.

The earth gets heavier as they break the first layer. It is full of rocks and debris and the shovelling slows. Every movement is a strain and, while the ditch begins to grow, enthusiasm for the dig wanes. Nomsulwa can sense this, but can’t think of how to help. She is scared they won’t make it in time for morning. Though she would never tell Mira, she also fears that they have the wrong spot, that
the pipes were moved, that the water men knew the dig was coming. These doubts are Nomsulwa’s secret, and they become heavier with every heave of the shovel. She pretends complete confidence and smiles at the women who stand back, taking a minute’s break. She slaps Mira on the shoulder.

Headlights turn the corner to the left of the trench. The group freezes. Women cover their shovels with their dresses. Kids make little cries of alarm. Nomsulwa’s heart surges with adrenaline. How could the Numbers have let the car through without issuing a warning? The black Honda slows down near the group. Its wheels are lined with red rust, the tires seem deflated under the weight of the body. A hand is casually hanging out of the window, barely visible behind the headlights. It holds a rolled cigarette. The car stops in front of Mira and Nomsulwa. Alcohol and kwaito beats breathe out of the interior as the trio of boys inside whisper collectively, “Amandla.”
Power
.

“Awethu.”
To the People
, Nomsulwa returns.

The car rolls slowly, offering “Amandla” to each worker as it passes. The diggers respond, then return to their shovels. A boy at the end of the trench holds up his fist, small and lost in the night. He watches as the car drives away.

Nomsulwa takes a turn digging again and lets the physical labour quiet her. Women turn and scoop the ground, turn and scoop. Men smile to themselves. Children scrape with their fingers.