by Elsa Joubert
Poppie licked the black stickiness from her fingers and her tongue, flat as a ladle, cleaned out the palm of her hand. It tasted sweet and sharply bitter and discoloured her tongue. She stuck out her tongue to show Mosie how black it was.
These are the memories that are still with Poppie, of her infancy with ouma Hannie at Upington.
3
Mama was working in De Aar for our keep, and ouma worked sleep-in with white people in Upington to help earn money for us. So Plank and Mosie went to live with kleinma Hessie and kleinpa Ruben at Putsonderwater, and Hoedjie and I lived there too, but with grootma Martha and grootpa Fanie who worked on the railway. We lived in the location close to the railyard. Early in the morning the oompies went off on a trolley to a far place on the railway line where they worked. We liked it so much when grootpa came home because he left us a chunk of bread in his billie can. It was a small blue pail with a lid in which he took magou and bread to eat at work. We would watch from the small koppie to see the railway trolley coming home along the line, then we raced to meet him, on account of the chunk of bread that we knew he had saved for us. That was good.
At the end of the month we used to go along with him to old Birge’s shop, and watch him buy a bag of mealie meal, a bag of unsifted meal, sugar, coffee and roll-tobacco, because grootma Martha liked chewing tobacco and grootpa smoked a pipe. We’d load the bags on a wheelbarrow, and grootpa would give us sugarstick sweets. Grootpa Fanie was a true Xhosa, his clan name was Mkantini, but he could speak Afrikaans and he was fonder of us than kleinpa Ruben was.
But kleinma Hessie was always laughing and we liked her a lot. I remember when I was very small, at Putsonderwater, the sun darkening in the middle of the day. Then kleinma gave me a dark piece of glass from a broken bottle and said: Look through the glass, Poppie, don’t look at the sun with your eyes. Then the sun shrank till it looked like a half moon.
Poppie and her brothers went to school with grootma Martha’s children. They crossed the railway line and walked a little way along the koppie to the church house. They walked single file along the chalky road, kicking at the dust which covered their legs with a fine layer of chalk. Mosie was the one who tired first, he dragged his feet to school. Plank capered alongside the track.
The teacher, Meester Riet, came to school on his bicycle, cycling along till his wheels bogged down in the sand and he lost balance. Then he would push the bike to the shady side of the church house and fasten the safety chain to the wheel. He knew that Plank had an eye on it and Would steal a ride if he could. Even if he got caned for it.
Ag, there was such a pretty thing I saw at the school, says Poppie. I thought it was a plaything, that old-fashioned frame with the beads, it was so pretty. Then I saw the schoolmaster pick up a ruler and flick the beads. He told us: Count while I flick, one... two... three. Green and blue and white and red beads, bigger ones; and on the lower rung smaller beads. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
She sat on the floor and when the bigger children were busy writing on the slates on their laps, and she could hear the slate-pencils grating, he brought this beaded plaything over to her. His ruler was flicking the beads to this side, then to that.
Count as I flick, he told Poppie.
She was shy and her voice scarcely a whisper, then Meester Riet lifted her chin with his ruler, and said: Louder. And, as she had heard Plank recite at home, she chanted One ... two ... three ...
Plank ran to meet grootpa coming with his billie can from the railroad trolley. The sun was drooping, the white chalky soil tinted yellow, black shadows creeping out from under the low bushes like lizards, and the long black shadows stretching from the foot of the electric poles made the poles look like men toppling. The veld had lost its bleak, barren look, glowing in the yellow light of the late afternoon, before night comes.
Plank called from far off to grootpa: Poppie is the cleverest one, Poppie can recite a verse.
They waited for her to catch up with them. She clutched grootpa’s coat-tail to make him stop.
Come on, say your verse, said Plank.
Softly, but more clearly than at school, her eyes cast down, Poppie said:
Klaas Vakie kom so sag soos ’n dief,
Hy kom by die skoorsteen in
Hy raak aan kindjie se ogies
Terwyl hy saggies sing...
which means the old oompie sandman comes down the chimney and sends the little child to sleep.
Kleinma Hessie had been recited to earlier that afternoon and she gave Poppie gifts – a rag with which to wipe her slate, a small bottle to hold the water. Grootma Martha’s life was too sparse to own such extras.
Poppie’s slate was a broken one. The toddlers were given the broken slates. When they lost their pencils, they made slate pencils from bits of broken slate. But although it was broken, the slate was framed in wood, and Plank had written her name on the wooden frame. She carried the slate very carefully, to prevent the loose pieces from shifting in the frame. She never ran to school, because when she ran she could hear the pieces moving up and down in the frame and then her heart contracted from fear that the pieces should break into smaller fragments. So she walked slowly and did not join the other children when they jumped over ditches and hillocks on the way to school.
We crossed the railway line – those days they weren’t so strict – we knew the trains, the freight trains carrying coal, the eleven down, the ten up. We didn’t know what those names meant, eleven down and ten up and mail train, but we knew when to expect the trains. They were mostly goods trains. We liked to watch the goods trains shunt, quite close to our house; we liked to watch the shunters jumping down to change the points, noticing who jumped well and who ran well and who jumped back the fastest. When the shunters jumped back into the moving truck it was terribly beautiful. Plank and Hoedjie and Mosie and my grootma’s children used to point to the man and say: It’s me that one that jumps so well. They always fought to choose the man who jumped the best and to claim: I’m that one.
I remember standing behind the house one day when the trains were shunting quite close by, and the man in the coal truck saw me standing there and he pushed out his teeth at me. It was the first time I had seen false teeth, and I ran away. I got such a fright seeing the teeth come out of his mouth.
This is what remains in my memory of Putsonderwater, the trucks and the cattle and sheep being shunted by.
We liked to gather coals along the railway line. The older children carried bags and the little ones carried tins, and if you saw a big piece of coal, too big to carry yourself, you called one of the bigger ones to put it in his bag, but you stayed with your find and you walked home with it and you watched grootma take it from the bag and you watched it burning.
Grootma Martha was sitting against the wall, on the sunny side of the house. She sat flat on the ground, her legs stretched out in front of her. Next to her was her sewing, needle and thread and rags. She was patching grootpa’s khaki pants.
Kleinma Hessie called her: Come, sisi Martha, come inside.
Grootma picked up her sewing and gave it to kleinma to hold. She shook the dust from the hessian bag on which she was sitting, folded it and took back her sewing before going inside and closing the door.
Your brother-in-law has given his notice to the railways, sisi, said kleinma. He’s joining the Ethiopian Church. He’s putting on the collar.
Kleinpa Ruben and kleinma Hessie and grootpa Fanie and grootma Martha were church-going people like ouma Hannie. They were African Methodists, peaceful folk, who didn’t drink. They went to church in the white building against the koppie where the children were given schooling, where Meester Riet was the teacher. And the preacher.
Meester Riet is a Sotho who has forgotten his tongue, kleinpa Ruben used to say: When the Basters and the Bushmen come to church, he preaches in three tongues, Sotho, Xhosa and Afrikaans.
Kleinpa Ruben could not speak Afrikaans, and he scolded the children when they spoke it. Don’t speak
that tongue, I am a Xhosa, he’d say.
That’s why he did not like Meester Riet.
The Ethiopian Church stands for the cause of the Xhosa, more so than Meester Riet, said kleinma Hessie. They think much of the bloodline. They want your brother-in-law to take the collar.
Grootma Martha was a silent woman. She had no worldly goods, but she had eight children. Hessie was childless. She pitied Hessie who had so much but was so poor, and she felt it deeply that Hessie did not open her heart to her, did not tell her how deeply she grieved because she had no child. If buti Ruben became a preacher, Hessie would work in the church, and be called a juffrou which means teacher. Perhaps it was better so, it would comfort her in her childlessness.
Grootma Martha took down cups from the cupboard. I’ll pour us some coffee. Ma will feel it if you leave the Methodist Church.
Ma can keep her Methodists, said Hessie.
Kleinpa Ruben went to Upington to be clothed as an Ethiopian preacher. Kleinma became a juffrou and wore special clothes for church, a skirt and long black blouse and a blue collar that looked like a bib. She sewed a piece of brown hide to her head-dress.
Kleinpa Ruben held the church meetings in his house, he preached all night long and they sang hymns. Mosie sang in the choir, he wore a long white cloak and led the procession to the house. All night long kleinpa preached and kleinma preached and Mosie in his little white cloak sang until he collapsed into sleep.
Hessie’s singing is wearing her out, said grootma Martha, she is as thin as a rake, and I never hear her laughing any more.
And still she did not bear a child.
4
Ouma Hannie tired of her work in Upington and arrived at Putsonderwa ter.
Bring Lena’s children, she told Martha and Hessie, I want them back.
Martha gave Hoedjie and Poppie back to ouma Hannie and kleinma Hessie brought Plank, but she begged: Leave Mosie with me, I have no child in the house. Ouma Hannie had quarrelled with kleinpa Ruben when he joined the Ethiopian Church, but she took pity on her daughter’s childlessness and said: Keep him with you.
They went to the station in a donkey cart. It was the first time Poppie had ridden in one, and sitting on the seat she was level with the trucks of the goods train. The donkey cart trotted along the track next to the railway line and she could see the heads of the sheep through the bars of the trucks and the little horns peeping through the wool. When the train ground to a halt, the donkey trotted past it and Poppie turned her head aside to avoid the stoker catching sight of her.
Kleinma Hessie came to the station to see them off, she brought the children some sugarstick sweets. The smaller children fought each other for the sweets, but the bigger ones pretended not to see, they stuck their hands in their pockets and hitched up their trousers as they had seen their pas do, and they watched the line to see if their train was coming.
It was a long wait. The children clambered into the compartment and out again, and Mosie was shown the inside. It was the old-fashioned kind of compartment with no aisle but the door leading straight on to the platform. Plank leaned out of the window, the sugarstick stuck into his mouth. He clung to the window-frame as the train started moving. And when he shouted goodbye to Mosie he lost the sugarstick. It fell from his mouth.
When ouma left Upin on let the house and the tenants gave the money to her neighbours. But oompie Pengi caused trouble. He’d collect the money from the neighbours (because it’s my ma’s money, he said) and use it to buy drink.
This time he used the money to buy a new guitar.
Plank’s fingers knew music, as oompie Pengi’s did, and when they got home, oompie Pengi said: My old guitar, that’s yours now, Plankie.
The old guitar was made from a long narrow syrup tin, and strung with thin wire.
The house is like a pigsty, said ouma Hannie, do I always have to work my hands to the bone when I come home?
Oompie Pengi hung the cord of the new guitar round his neck. With the palm of his hand he stroked the strings lovingly.
Poppie moved nearer, quietly following oompie Pengi and Plank to his room. It had a different smell to ouma’s room. The big red ants crawled up the clay wall, and burrowed tiny tunnels along it. Ouma would strike at the wall with the side of her hand, then blow away the crumbling clay.
Oompie Pengi took down the old tin guitar from the hook on the wall, and handed it to Plank who plucked at the strings. Oompie Pengi’s feet heard the beat, he discarded the new guitar, giving it to Poppie to hold. His body came to life, his arms, outstretched like wings, moved up and down like a bird in flight, his legs jerked from the knees downwards, the heels dragging and the toes tapping out the beat. His dancing raised the dust from the dry dung-smeared floor. Bars of afternoon light were streaming through crevices in the reed roof. Small insects, trapped in the light, seemed to be struggling to free themselves, but could not escape.
Plank felt the beat of the music taking hold of him too, his body started moving to the rhythm of the guitar. The feeling spread from his fingers, the gut of the strings became fire burning right down into his belly. He groaned, slow groans emerging from his mouth, capturing the beat, like a song that hurt.
Oompie Pengi took life easily, says Poppie, he was good fun. One couldn’t be mad at him, even if he took the rent and spent it all. If ouma scolded, he joked back at her and then he had us all laughing, and that was that. Buti Plank took after Pengi, but buti Hoedjie was quieter by nature, he hated us to tease him, he lost his temper, but not old Plank, not him, as long as he had his music, he didn’t mind the teasing.
Hoedjie didn’t join his brother in Pengi’s room. He went to the backyard where the outside fire had died down. He kicked at the dead ash, and talked to no one.
Come, come, we are tired out. Ouma Hannie scolded the two who were making music and keeping Poppie standing like a pillar holding the new guitar in her arms.
Come, come, get done with it. Put down the guitar on your oompie’s bed, Poppietjie, and draw your ouma some water.
Ouma heard the cackling of her hens.
I feel like eating chicken’s meat, she said. Tomorrow, Pengi, you must cut the red one’s throat.
Poppie was a big girl now. When she finished her homework, she helped ouma. She ran errands to the location shop. If Ben Mansana’s daughter Emily went along, they were even allowed to go as far as old Solly’s shop. Emily’s father was a Xhosa, and he owned a cafe in the location, but her ma was a Bushman, with a big bum and a flat yellow face with wide flat nostrils.
Poppie’s other friends were Miriam and Nomsolono, both Xhosa girls. When they finished helping ouma they sat on the low wall in front of the house, where it was cool, and plaited each other’s hair. It takes a long time to plait the short frizzy hair; the Basters have longer hair that they can plait and tie up with cotton rags. Sometimes the bigger girls showed them how to use black cotton to part the frizzy hair and to plait the spanspek or sweet melon pattern with the little plaits lying neatly in rows on the skull. Poppie and Miriam couldn’t manage it on their own, their fingers were stupid, they plaited untidy little ends that stuck out like horns.
Fetch us your ouma’s church stockings, Poppie, the big girls urged her, then we’ll plait your hair ever so beautifully.
Ouma wore stretch stockings which, cut into strips, would have a grip on the short hair.
Don’t give them the stockings, said Miriam, your ouma will kill you.
On Saturdays we liked to go to the cattle and goat kraals just outside the town to pick up dung and fill the tins and old dishes ouma gave us. Outside the kraals we could gather as much dung as we liked, but some people were strict and didn’t allow us to go inside the kraals. We like to smear the floors of our house. If the floors are rough and uneven, we mix the dung with black clay, because the clay binds the dung, then we spread it thick over the floor, smoothing the broken parts. We make patterns in the wet dung, down on our knees with the palms of our hands, drawing wide circles with great
sweeps away from our bodies and back again. We Xhosa people call these patterns indima or hand spoor. The Basters are not so fond of their dung-smeared floors as we are, they’ll use a broom to spread the dung. We Xhosa people would never do that.
But oompie Pengi did not heed the hand spoor on the newly-smeared floor; he stumbled through the house, dragging his feet through the wet dung. He sat on his bed and we heard the strings of his guitar, which he plucked so sadly, so sadly.
Ouma prodded at the fire underneath the three-legged pot. To the dying ashes she added the dry dung that we had gathered, breaking kindling, and bending low to puff.
We didn’t complain that oompie Pengi had spoilt our patterns on the wet dung-smeared floor.
Your oompie Pengi is grieving, ouma had told us before. He is grieving for Sonny Boy. Sonny Boy was the child oompie Pengi had by a mixed-blood woman who left him a long time ago and settled in Draghoender. Those days your oompie Pengi danced so well, said ouma, even better than he dances now. He travelled to far places and learned the different steps. But that was bef
Smearing the floors with dung, that was our job every Saturday, afterwards we could play. Or we could go watch the witchdoctors and listen to their drumming.
One by one the doctors came from their homes, from this street one, from that another. Miriam and Nomsolono called me softly, beckoning with their hands, so that ouma could not hear us. They’re going down that way to old sisi Makone’s house. The house had been cleared of furniture and a great deal of beer brewed.
Old sisi’s children were scalding the paraffin tins on the open fire earlier this week, said Nomsolono, and the wind scattered the ash near to where we were playing.
