by Elsa Joubert
8
The fisherman took her ma to the factory and she was promised work at once. They gave her two rooms in the barracks and the key. You can go now, they said, to get settled before you start work.
The wind was blowing hard and the sand was swept along the road in gusts and hurt their legs and got into their eyes and mouths. Poppie kept her eyes shut against the sand and clutched her mother’s dress and stumbled along after her. She dragged the suitcase her mother had given her to carry. Lena carried the bedding on her head and the other suitcase in her hand. The place was empty of men, because the boats were out, but one of the women shoved a young boy forward and said: Can’t you help the auntie carry her stuff?
The barracks were rooms built of corrugated iron, adjoining one another, set up in the sand with no separate gardens or backyards. The children crowded in the doorways to watch them pass. Lena pushed open the door to their room and they went inside. It was so dark that Poppie got scared and would not let go of her mother’s skirt, but Lena said: The room is dirty and blackened by smoke. Don’t worry, I’ll whitewash it.
She put down the suitcases and bedding, undid the straps and sorted their things. She used an old rag to start cleaning up and wipe the windowsills free of sand.
Ask the auntie next door to lend us a broom.
She gave Poppie a small saucepan she had brought along and said: Get us some water. Poppie went to the outside tap and the children of the barracks gathered around her and said: We’ll show you where to fetch wood. They took her over the sand dunes and she brought home her first load, carrying it on her head.
Then a neighbour brought them a fish: You can pay me later when you have started earning money.
After all the vomiting at sea Poppie was very hungry. Lena built a small fire behind the barracks room and they fried the fish. Poppie licked the bones clean but she wished for the bread she had eaten at kleinma’s.
Later in the afternoon when the boats came in the men returned from the harbour; some were drunk, some carried bottles of wine and as they walked they took a pull at the bottle. Lena watched them: This place is rough, she said to Poppie, but you can see there’s plenty of money around.
One of the children who helped her gather wood was the same age as Poppie and she was called Katrina. She spoke differently to the Basters at Upington, she slurred her r’s and said: Farrh away. The next day she took Poppie along with her to the Roman Catholic school. You must go, said Lena, any school is better than none.
Katrina had a light complexion and longish hair drawn back tightly behind the ears and plaited with rags into two stiff plaits. She walked with a loose gait, her knees jerking and her backside quivering. Her dress which was too long for her was tied up with a belt, and she wore two white bangles on her arm. She didn’t carry a slate to school, the children didn’t stand in a row as Poppie used to do, but went inside the church house and dipped their fingers in a small dish of water on the wall. Katrina showed Poppie how to dip her finger and to touch the wetness to her shoulders, her forehead and her stomach.
If you do it rrhong, you sin, Katrina told Poppie. She took her by the hand and pulled her inside and said: Look what I do, copy me, then you won’t do sin.
Poppie watched her bob in front of the statue of the lady set up on a table at the end of the room. Her face was like a doll’s face, with red spots on the cheeks, the white doek on her head wasn’t tied properly but the ends hung loosely on her shoulders.
She’s the Lorrhd’s ma, said Katrina.
Mister Jacobs taught them, the bigger ones and the smaller ones together in one room. Once a fortnight the Father came from Vredendal to bring new exercise books and new slate pencils and to listen to them reciting the Hail Mary in Afrikaans. They all slurred their r’s like Katrina: Wees gegrroet, Marrhya val genade, die Heerh is met u, geseën is u onderrh alle vrrhoue, geseën is die vrrhug van u liggaam, Jesus Heilige Marrhya, Moederrh van God. They liked to chant it while they played hopscotch games, balancing a pebble on their toes and jumping from square to square without dropping it.
They liked going to school because Mister Jacobs was a kind old man and was never angry at them.
Although they were church-goers, says Poppie – Catholic or Methodist or Anglican or Dutch Mission Church – the Xhosa people kept strictly to their own traditional Xhosa beliefs as well. And the most important of these beliefs is the abakwetha, or the man-making ritual.
I grew up with these customs. I took food to a young buti-when he was um-kwetha-he’s now living here at Nyanga, but he was a child then... That was shortly after I had arrived at Lamberts Bay. I went with his little sister, Nosokolo. They lived in the rooms next door to us, her mother was a packer in the factory and her father a fisherman. Three of the boys went together to do abakwetha. They go into the bush to do the ritual, and that is why we call it going to the bush for short. A coloured man went along with them, he was called Dickman, but he was half coloured, half Xhosa, as we say of the halfblood or mixed people; his real name was Mzwandile, and another boy, Freddie, went along as well.
Young girl-children take them their food, this is our custom. We walked far into the bush, carrying the dishes of food on our heads, mealies or porridge or meat and bread, and sour milk in a pail. The first eight days after the ritual they may only eat red mealies, nothing else. On the eighth day a goat is slaughtered and after that they can eat all kinds of food. And every day we took them something different. When we reached the secret place in the bush we were not allowed to enter. We shouted to tell them we had come. Then the men looking after the boys and teaching them would come and fetch the food from us. We liked taking the food because we were always given some of it to eat.
We were really very ignorant, we never knew what they did to the boys in the bush, that they cut the foreskin to make men of them. We just knew it was abakwetha. The boys’ heads were shaved and their faces smeared with white clay and they were led away from the location quite naked, with only their blankets covering them. We liked watching the older men dancing and mock-fighting with their kieries and singing all the time as they took the boys from their parents. Sometimes they really hit out at one another and we liked that. Lots of beer was made and the women danced and had a lot to say about it all.
And when the boys were brought home eventually, they had new blankets but only their eyes showed as the men crowded around them. It was great feasting when the boys came from the bush and we saw that all had survived.
Plank went to the bush from Lamberts Bay, after he and ouma had joined us there, and Hoedjie went from Cape Town, and Mosie went from George where kleinma Hessie was then staying. He always felt himself to be her child. And after Plank had been to the bush we who were younger no longer called him Plank, but buti Plank, to show respect. Buti not only means brother, it means someone older and more worthy than you.
Poppie and Nonsokolo reached the end of the track. Nonsokolo was carrying the dish of food on her head, Poppie had the pail of milk in her hand. They called out: Ma-kwedin! Ma-kwedin! Poppie shivered from cold; it was still very early, the sun had not yet risen. Ngqoziya! We hear you! came the answer from the bush. Ngqoziya! somebody was shouting, fiercely and cruelly. A man in a coat, kierie in his hand, appeared from amongst the bushes, he hit at the bushes with the kierie, clearing his way to them. He took the dish and the pail, and said: Wait here.
When he returned the empty dishes, they knew he had left them some food. They felt by the weight of the pail that some magou had been left as well. They started running along the track, making their way home. The sun had risen. They hid behind a rock and ate the food, chunks of bread dipped in the sour, runny porridge. They sucked the sour wetness off the bread, then dipped their hands in the pail, scooping up what was left, running their fingers along the sides of the pail and sucking up the sour magou.
Tonight myma is cooking samp and meat, said Nonsokolo.
When we were children we ate wild figs and sour figs that are fleshy and
dark brown, with pips, and other fruit growing wild in the veld, and bokhorings or goathorns that are wild runner beans clinging to the bushes.
We filled our pockets with the goathorns and munched as we walked.
We went to the beach and gathered shells from the rocks and filled our tins. Then we’d make fires along the beach and boil the shells. We liked watching the little bodies inside the shells cringing; they were alive still and as the heat reached them they shrank. We dug out their flesh with pins, and ate the black mussels and the flesh of round shells that crawl backwards like snails. Ag, but the flat kind of shell that clings to the rock surface, you have to be quick, touch him and he is clamped to the rock. We used knives to pry them loose, we’d watch and wait, and while they were still on the move we thrust in our knives.
We ate lots of crayfish. A child would come and say: They’re working crayfish at the factory, then we’d rush from school straight to the factory, to eat the legs. They only had use for the tails and they threw away the shells, they made guano from the shells. So we fetched the shells and legs. Ag, we enjoyed it, we were never chased away for eating the shells and the legs.
9
Shortly after we went to live at Lamberts Bay, Poppie tells, mama started living with the stepfather. I couldn’t stand him. His name is .Hendrik Stuurman, but they called him Hennie.
Mama had left Barrel’s factory to go to work at Jaffet’s factory and shortly after she started work, he came to work there too. He came from Nababeep in the north, in the copper mountains. We heard there was a strike at Nababeep, a clash between the Rhodesians and the Xhosas, quite a war, and he was one of the men who fled and came south to find work. Quite a number came to Lamberts Bay. He was born at Sweetwater near Lady Frere in the Ciskei, a real Xhosa, with his little finger chopped off at the joint according to the tradition.
He taunted Poppie, and later Plank and Hoedjie, when he was drunk: You grew up with the Hotnots – by them he meant the coloured people – you don’t know who you really are, if you’re Fingos or Xhosas. You’re Fingos, he would scream; the Fingos were of lower caste.
I never liked him, says Poppie. I called him oom. It angered him. Then I called him oom Mbatane, because his Xhosa name was Mbatane. Later on Plank called him buti, by way of respect, and I called him that as well. We never called him pa, not up to the present day.
He couldn’t stand it when I spoke Afrikaans to my ma. At that time I couldn’t speak Xhosa at all, only Afrikaans. I could understand Xhosa up to a point, but not speak it.
Later, when I was living in East London I dreamt that I offered my hand to my stepfather. Now I pray to the Lord that He will cleanse my heart from all ill-feeling towards him. But he caused too much suffering to my ma. I still can’t offer him my hand. He never beat her, but he was mean and jealous and false. Even when she fell ill he was too mean to buy medicine for her, it was up to me and my brothers to buy medicine or to give her money to see a doctor.
The truck from the Doringbaai factory brought kleinma Hessie and Mosie to Lamberts Bay, on their way to Upington to visit ouma Hannie.
She saw that Lena was heavy and that the man living with her in the barracks room had no liking for Poppie, or Poppie for him, and she said: If you give me money for the train ticket I’ll take Poppie back home with me.
Everywhere in the room stinking of tobacco and wine she saw the man’s belongings strewn about.
Shame on you, she said to Lena.
Lena wept.
10
Poppie and Mosie went with kleinma back to Upington. They travelled by train. Mama gave them enough money to buy cool drinks along the way and enough food to eat. There was bread left over when they reached Upington and Poppie stood at the chicken pen and called the chickens to eat the crumbs that she strewed on the ground. Mosie clambered on to the old wagon: I still remember the wagon, he said.
Plank had left school and was working as a bricklayer. He was fifteen years old. Poppie, sitting next to him at the fire, watching him break the firewood with his hands, felt like a stranger with Plank, thinking: Can these big rough hands be my brother’s?
Hoedjie works at the co-operation as a messenger boy, ouma told them, but I am not happy about it, he should be at school.
Hoedjie was thirteen years old and had only passed standard three. This was as far as Poppie had learnt.
Oompie Pengi is drinking too much, said ouma to kleinma Hessie. The devil is eating his heart.
Sisi Lena’s children must get out of the house, he shouted, it’s my house, this. He talked wildly, waving his arms about. I am selling this house. I want to get out of this location. You must go, he yelled at them.
Ouma Hannie put on her black skirt and red overblouse and white bib and doek and took Poppie and Mosie to the Methodist Church. The new preacher was Mr Manda, a short little man with a wrinkled face. He took Poppie’s hands in his and spoke to her in Afrikaans. He joked and laughed till his little eyes disappeared amongst the wrinkles. He took her to where the Sunday school class met in the corner and the children sat on their low benches.
Hasn’t Poppie grown to be a big girl now, he said. But the children were strangers to her.
When your oompie Pengi was a child, he ·was a churchgoer too, said ouma as they went home. When he cast away his church, the drink took hold of him. Kleinma Hessie sat at the table on a chair, but ouma sat on the floor and offered a prayer to the Lord. Oompie Pengi left his bedroom and joined them. But he was drunk and shouted: This is my home, this one. It is I who shall pray.
Oompie Pengi started praying, the words pouring from his mouth, but with the words came the swear words, the unholy thoughts from oompie Pengi’s stomach not his heart, and ouma wanted to stop his prayers. So ouma started to sing a hymn, but he would not allow her hymn. Ouma prayed to the Lord while Pengi was praying: Ag Lord, don’t listen to my child, she said. Close your ears to his words.
It was nearly dawn when Poppie, who had fallen asleep in ouma’s bed, heard kleinma calling ouma: Ma, ma, the house is on fire.
Ouma tried to rise, she pushed her hand against the wall to support her body and give strength to her arms, because her legs were troubling her and had become weak. When she was up she could see sparks flying overhead, coming over into their room from Pengi’s room, because the rooms had no ceilings.
Pengi’s room, made of reed and plastered with clay, was burning.
And Pengi, sober now, had fled, but looking back as he ran, he saw the fire was spreading to the rest of the house and that people from the adjoining houses had come to fight the fire. His fear grew and now he was afraid to leave, so he turned back to hide under the wagon in the yard.
The next morning ouma Hannie called the police to take Pengi away.
He wept and begged ouma: Forgive me, mama. My mama.
It is too late to weep, Pengi, ouma said to him.
Ouma went to court when Pengi’s case was heard and she watched him being led away to the cells, but he did not turn his head to look at her or at his sisi Hessie.
Ouma wouldn’t leave the courtroom, she stayed sitting on the bench for a long while after all the others, even the policeman, had gone. She prayed to the Lord: Look after Pengi.
Then she left for Lamberts Bay with Hessie and Lena’s children, and she never saw oompie Pengi again.
They travelled by train from Upington to De Aar and Hutchinson and from Calvinia by bus to Graafwater and from Graafwater to Lamberts Bay.
Mama was glad to see them, but she said: There’s no room for you to stay with me and the man.
Don’t let that bother you, sisi, said Plank. Plank was fifteen years old, a man now. I’m starting work on the boats. You watch, they’ll give me my own house in the factory barracks, then ouma and Hoedjie and Mosie and Poppie can live with me.
The coloured people’s location was called the Gebou or Building, but in the factory barracks the Xhosa people and the coloured people lived together.
Let it be so, said ouma.
She sent Hoedjie and Mosie to the Catholic school.
For Poppie there was no more schooling because she had to look after mama’s new baby who had been born while they were away. Mama went to work in the factory and brought the child to Poppie: Your ouma’s legs are plaguing her, she’s too old to look after a young red baby.
The child’s name was Veleli, but they called him Pieta, and after Pieta, Katie was born, and after Katie Eric, whom they called Jakkalsie, or Jakkie, which means little jackal. Poppie loved him as if he was her own baby.
From her ninth year Poppie took care of the children mama had by buti Mbatane, but she never stopped reading. She read all Mosie’s schoolbooks, and he taught her the songs he learned at school. She sang them as she went about her work, carrying a child on her back.
I wasted my time at the Catholic school, Mosie says later. I couldn’t get ahead, it was just play school. Then ouma sent us to the Dutch Reformed Mission school where the coloured children went. They put me back to Sub B, which is a baby class. But I was too clever for Sub B, so they pushed me on to Standard One, and I carried on till I reached Standard Five. Hoedjie only went as far as Standard Four.
And we just had to get Die fongspan, Poppie says. It was a children’s newspaper; we bought it every week at the shop. It was written in Afrikaans which was our language, ja. Hoedjie and Mosie and I read about the Pokkels, the twins that got up to so much mischief, and Tarzan and the stories of Jakkals en Wolf, which are stories of the Fox and the Wolf. There was a puzzle page and we took a pencil and joined up little dots according to numbers, and then could see the picture of a dog or a lion or an elephant taking shape. Ag, we liked that so much.
