The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena

by Elsa Joubert

They sang to her. Plank and Hoedjie and Mosie and Poppie and Hessie and Lena and Lena’s young children and the neighbours who had joined them and the woman from Calvinia and her sisters of the church.

  Three days later she died.

  But I am still going to build our house, said buti Plank after the funeral. I am not moving in with sisi and her man. Poppie can look after us, me and Hoedjie and Mosie.

  Mama gave in to them, because Plank’s plot was right next to hers and she could keep an eye on Poppie.

  We don’t live together under one roof in peace, Plank said. My ma’s man is, how shall I put it? our opposition. He is against us and we are against him.

  15

  Buti Plank was working on the trawlers and sometimes he stayed away for as long as three months. He worked the stretch to Lüderitzbucht and back, and there he found the girl he wanted to marry. He went with other trawlermen to her father’s house because her father was also a fisherman; there were four sisters, but he liked the middle one.

  When she got pregnant he came back to mama. Where are my father’s people? I must send them to talk to the girl’s family. I want to marry her.

  At Lüderitzbucht was a man who carried the clan name Mbele. He had been at the wedding of mama and Machine Matati.

  Go and see him, said mama to Plank. He’ll be your spokesman.

  So it came about that Plank paid his damage money and his lobola at the same time, and married the girl and brought her to Lamberts Bay. Her name was Eugenia and she belonged to the Catholic Church. Mama gave her the in-law name of Nonkosi.

  But mama was not satisfied with Nonkosi. She’s too lazy, mama said, she lolls around all day. Mama watched from her house next door.

  My God, Nonkosi, you’re no fucking good, move your arse, shouted Plank when he came in from work and the food was not ready. Nonkosi, if I’d known what a fucking no-good you are, I wouldn’t have married you, I would have married your mother or your sister.

  But Nonkosi wasn’t angry at him, she just laughed. When he wanted to hit her, she moved out of his way.

  Poppie and Hoedjie and Mosie were fond of her. She was a friendly girl and she talked to us and the house wasn’t quiet and empty any more when we came home.

  And we didn’t go to sleep-we’d stay awake if we saw that buti Plank had drunk too much wine. Friday evenings we looked after Nonkosi. Hoedjie and Mosie and I slept in the front room, and buti Plank and Nonkosi in the back room, and we kept awake till we were sure that buti Plank was asleep. If Nonkosi gave a single cry, we were there to help her. Then we would stop buti Plank from hitting her. So he never got a chance really to hit her. If we stopped him, he listened to us. He was always very gentle with us.

  A white nurse came to help her and the child was born in the house. Buti Plank was drunk but she didn’t mind so very much. Not long after the child was born she went back to her people in Lüderitzbucht. But she never told them about the hitting. Roman Catholic people don’t get on with Methodists, that was all she said.

  We never saw Nonkosi or the child again, says Poppie.

  16

  You must give some thought to getting married, Poppie, Nonkosi had said. Poppie was past her fifteenth year and fully developed.

  Ag, it’s just the old men that come courting Poppie, said kleinma Hessie. Life on the road with kleinpa Ruben had been too much for Hessie; she had joined her family in Lamberts Bay to work in the fish factory.

  Poppie pulls up her nose at her boy friends, said Mama.

  Does mama want me to say yes to these old men who ask for me? asked Poppie.

  Mama did not see eye to eye with Poppie about her suitors.

  One morning early I’d gone to gather cow-dung near the white people’s kraals, to smear our floors. As I was picking up the dung – it was still quite dark – I heard someone greet me: Molo, which means, Morning.

  I got a fright and, looking up, saw it was an old man in a long overcoat. They called him Mahamba ngenyawo which means someone who goes barefoot. He asked me: How is it going with you, and I answered: It goes well.

  He said: Poppie, I have come here to talk with you, because I want to ask your parents to marry you.

  He was an ugly old man, with an ugly long face, a pitch-black old man, a Zionist with bands of wool round his neck and round his foot. I looked him up and down. But I said nothing and went on gathering the dung.

  He said: Don’t you hear what I am saying to you?

  Then I said: What is oom saying to me?

  He said: I want to come and ask for you, to marry you.

  I got cross, but I didn’t want to show him that I was cross, as old men have a way of just grabbing you. I took my tin and put it on my head and went home. When I got home, I told my ma nothing, but I went to Meisie and told her the whole story. We laughed so much. Afterwards the old man sent people to my people to ask for my hand.

  But my people said: We have no child in the house.

  When they say that it means that they don’t accept him.

  Later on we were very naughty. Meisie and the other girls and I started laughing and teasing the old man whenever we saw him on the streets.

  Then my ma scolded Meisie and me. You must stop it now, he is a grown-up person, and he tells me he doesn’t know what he did wrong to come and ask for your hand. It’s no joking matter.

  After that it was another old man. Old Bey. This old Bey had been staying with another auntie whose name was Nongono. She already had grown-up children and I was much younger than them. But he left the auntie and came to ask to marry me.

  My ma had sent me to the shop one day. I walked by myself – I don’t know where Meisie was that day. I was walking along the road and this old uncle comes along and he says: Molo, Poppie, and I say: Molo. He asks: How are you, and I say: Fine, thank you. But he doesn’t stop and he says: I have come to talk to you, I want to ask your people to marry you. I looked him up and down, at his cheeks. He was of the Baca tribe that mark their boys’ cheeks with cuts while they are still very young. I looked at his cheeks and I said nothing and walked on.

  The old man sent kinsmen to my ma’s kinsmen to ask for me. They promised him that he could have me, but I was fed up. I talked to my kleinma Hessie and complained: I don’t want that old man. He is too ugly, with those marks on his cheeks. He’s too old for me.

  Kleinma took me away for a holiday to Upington.

  It was in December and she had something up her sleeve, because they were all set on getting me married.

  She knew a young man who came from Boegoeberg, a Mister Malgas. Before we left, she had written to this young man’s people to arrange a meeting. She told me about it on the train. He’s such a good young man, she said, and a church-goer and a good worker.

  In Upington she pointed him out to me when we were walking in the street, but I didn’t like him at all. I wouldn’t answer when he spoke to me.

  Kleinma was angry at me. You have no manners, she said.

  I don’t care, I said. I thought kleinma helped me to get out of marrying the old man at Lamberts Bay, but now she wanted to marry me off to another man I didn’t like either. We stayed in Upington until February and then we came back to Lamberts Bay. There it came about that I met the man I married.

  17

  At first I really didn’t like him much, says Poppie, because he came from Herschel in the Ciskei and I wasn’t used to the people who came from the land, as we said. His oldest brother, Witbooi, lived close to us with his wife Muriel, and he came from Herschel to visit his brother. He got a job at the factory as boilerman.

  I saw him in the factory, but I never spoke to him.

  Come walk with me to buti Witbooi’s house, Poppie, said Nikiwe. She came from Herschel too, and worked next to me in the factory.

  His younger brother is visiting him, said Nikiwe. Ulitye is his Xhosa name, but they call him Stone, and the coloured people say ou Klip which is Afrikaans for Stone.

  I don’t feel like it, I said. I’m not used to
the people that come from the land.

  But on Sunday after church Nikiwe and I were walking together and they followed us; she started talking to them and joked with me. At first I didn’t take any notice of him, but then he started writing me notes. He gave them to his brother’s girl child to give to me, on the sly. I was then sixteen years old.

  Dear Poppie, Ndiyaphila. It goes well with me. I hope it goes well with you too. I have had my eye on you for a long time. I ask you nicely, please answer this letter. Ndiyathanda. From Stone.

  I didn’t answer his letter. Nikiwe came to plead with me. Please, won’t you send a word to Stone? Won’t you come to the beach with us this afternoon?

  So we went walking along the sea. The butis would wait at the comer of the road, and follow the girls, but when we got to the beach every boy walked with his girl. Then we came back in the late afternoon before sunset, before it was time to light the lamps. Ag, we only held hands, and we were very careful of our parents. We didn’t let our parents get to know about the boy friend, we kept it secret. If they were to find out, we’d be given a hiding. I wrote my notes at bedtime and sent them to him with my little stepsister. If later the children told tales about you, you denied everything they said.

  We grew used to one another.

  He wrote to me: Dear darling, it goes well with me, I hope it goes well with you too. Why didn’t you meet me yesterday? I waited at the roadside till six o’clock, from half past two. I waited and waited and now I am cross with you. Will you come Sunday next week? Stone.

  Then I wrote back to him: Dear buti Stone, it goes well with me, I hope it goes well with you. I couldn’t come to meet you because of the wind, then we had visitors after church and I had to work till late afternoon, there was no chance to get away, ngothando, with love from Poppie.

  His clan name was Mqwati and he spoke real Xhosa. He couldn’t speak Afrikaans because he grew up in the Ciskei and worked on contract on the sugar plantations in Natal and then went to that place where they dig for lime, it’s called Taungs, and at Prieska he worked on the asbestos mines, but there they spoke Fanagalo, which is a mixture of all the languages. From talking to him my Xhosa got much better. And he learned to speak Afrikaans at Lamberts Bay.

  He was quite short, only slightly taller than I, with a trim little body, short hair like mine and a light complexion, lighter than mine. He was a neat man, and dressed smartly. Those days men liked to wear grey flannel trousers and striped double breasted suits. On Sundays he always wore a suit.

  He was quiet by nature and not as lively as the other boys. We grew very fond of each other. As we were walking on the beach he would say: I want to marry you, but then I laughed at him, because I didn’t think of marrying at all yet. When we were together and he kept talking of marrying me I wouldn’t listen to him. I was still very childish. Then he would become cross with me. I was only sixteen, he was twenty-four.

  One morning Meisie and I and my two brothers were standing in front of our house, singing. It was early Sunday morning. We stood outside combing our hair before going to church, combing and singing. Meisie knew all our Xhosa hymns. We stood at our front door and I could see his buti Witbooi’ and two other men coming down the road towards our house. Meisie and I got a fright and ran inside because we knew at once what these strange men were coming for.

  They stood outside, waiting to speak to someone. Only Mosie was there and he couldn’t speak Xhosa, but he could follow it. They asked him: Where are the grown-ups?

  The grown-ups are in that house, he said, pointing to mama’s house.

  Go and call them.

  He called: Sisi!

  When my ma came outside she had a fright too, because she didn’t expect to see these strangers.

  But come inside, she said, and took them to her front room.

  I don’t know what they talked, because I wasn’t there. I made tea and served them, it was early, about nine o’clock that morning. I became very cross, because there was nobody I could talk to. Meisie wasn’t on my side at all, she knew I didn’t want this thing to come about.

  Then my ma called me inside and kleinma Hessie asked me: Do you know this man, this Stone of whom they are speaking?

  I don’t know him, I said.

  You are lying to me, you know him, said my mother.

  But I kept on saying I don’t know him. I was angry and they were angry as well. They said: How’s it now, you don’t know the man and we see you walking together; every day when you go to the shops he joins up with you.

  I went outside and I wept because they said: You are going to marry this man. You wouldn’t have the other one, now you are going to take this one.

  I don’t want the man.

  You’re going to show us, you’re getting married to the man, this walking out thing is something of the past now.

  It was a very troubled time because I didn’t even dream that I was going to marry him, I thought it was just a game and then he was serious. I didn’t think he’d send kinsmen to ask for me, because we never talked it out. If a man likes you, he sends his kinsmen, he doesn’t consider whether you want him or not, he sends them to ask for you. Those days we were very stupid.

  Then my mother sent for my father’s people of the clan name Mbele, who also lived in Lamberts Bay, because so it is in the Xhosa custom: if your son goes to the bush, you send for his father’s kinsmen, and if your daughter gets married, even if your mother is living with another man, she must send for her own father’s kinsmen.

  You must come back later, my ma said to the strange men. First I must send word to the child’s kinsmen.

  Then they had to talk out the lobola business. Two men from my father’s side came, and the stepfather was present, but he had to keep quiet, he could only listen. They came back again on a Sunday to my ma’s house.

  Everybody, also Meisie and Katrina and Nikiwe, was very glad that the man sent to ask for me to get married. So I didn’t know how to get out of it, he was my first boy friend, I was still very childish.

  He paid more than a hundred pounds for me. He worked and saved up and his elder brothers helped him. If a family is of one mind on something, they help each other.

  He didn’t pay everything at once, he would bring twenty pounds at one time, then thirty, till he had paid all that was demanded by the kinsmen, only then could he get married.

  We didn’t really know the people from Kaffirland, Mosie explains, but we got used to them. Because when we didn’t know their Xhosa names, we gave them Afrikaans nicknames. Stone’s friend’s cheeks were marked in the tribal way with long downward scars, so we called him Snoek, which is a barracuda fish. We said: The snoek bit him in the face. The straight tall one we called Stokkiestyf, which means something like stiff as a yardstick, and a very black one we called Metjiesbek which means match-mouth. Stone we called Doodgooi, because of his thick pair of lips. Doodgooi means heavy and lumpy. At first we were dissatisfied that our little sister should marry a man from Kaffirland. We had heard of the hardships there, but when they became fond of one another, we couldn’t stand in their way. We didn’t know the place where he came from, we had only heard about this place called Kaffirland.

  18

  Stone took a year to pay off the lobola.

  Sunday afternoons they walked to the sea and sat on the rocks and watched the waves break. He was very quiet as they sat watching the waves, but she was content, she brought him the shells and pretty things from the pools. They walked to the cafe at Malkop Bay and bought ice creams. Poppie gave her mama all the money she earned at the factory, but now she asked to keep some for herself and bought new clothes. Those days we wore flared skirts and check dresses, it was the New Look. And we always liked to plait our hair and to walk bareheaded.

  Lena started buying Poppie’s trousseau: clothes, pots, kitchenware, blankets, sheets. The lobola money paid in installments didn’t cover her expenses. Poppie’s earnings were added and her brothers gave her money as well. Mama badly wanted
to buy Poppie a kitchen dresser and a table for a wedding present. It was customary for the husband to buy the bed.

  Stone brought her a signet ring and the engagement was celebrated. Lena slaughtered a sheep and served ginger beer and cake and tea to the visitors. Shortly afterwards the signet ring broke.

  Lena bought a second-hand long white wedding dress and a veil from a white woman in town for ten pounds. She went by weekend bus to Graafwater and from there by train to Cape Town to buy blue voile in a shop in Salt River for the second dress. A coloured woman in the Gebou location made the dress, a long dress like the wedding dress with a blue doek coming to a point in the neck.

  Four months after the engagement they were married. It was a Wednesday to allow the minister to come from Cape Town, because at that time their church had no regular minister. The wedding lasted two days and the people stayed away from work to come to the feast.

  First we had the business of the choirs, says Poppie. The man’s kinsmen sing in the church and then the girl’s kinsmen. The day when the banns are called the choirs start practising, three weeks before the wedding. On the wedding day, when the bridegroom steps up to sign his name, his choir starts singing. And when I step up to sign, my choir sings. And they sing a special hymn when the minister signs. After the church service the choirs sing and dance at the church door and everyone claps hands and dances, and they won’t allow the bride to get into a car. Unfortunately on my wedding day it started to rain, so there had to be a car for the white dress.

  Buti Plank was Poppie’s bestman and Nofgali, a Xhosa girl, was her chief bridesmaid. There were two small girls with long lace dresses walking behind her. Stone also had a bestman and bridesmaid.

  The first day the wedding feast was held at Lena’s house. The people walked there in the rain. They stood in groups outside the house under their umbrellas. Lena had slaughtered an ox and it was roasted outside. Beer and brandy and bread and porridge were served with the meat. Stone and Poppie sat on chairs in Lena’s sitting room, together with the bridesmaids and bestmen, and the guests passed in and out of the house the whole day long. Later on the sun came out and the umbrellas were put away, but when it started raining again later that evening nobody minded because they had been warmed by the beer and brandy.