by Elsa Joubert
I didn’t have many friends. One can’t really get used to the East London people because they feel: What are the Cape people coming to live here for? They always had something bad to say about us. They called us the Amalawu which means Bushmen. My children couldn’t speak Afrikaans as well as we could when we were children at Upington, because in Nyanga they didn’t hear it so much, but they could understand it. And they spoke it to the people of De Aar and Beaufort West and Mossel Bay and Richmond who were also resettled in Mdantsane. So we were called the Bushmen. Some didn’t say it to your face but behind your back. They said their children wouldn’t have a place to live, because the Cape people were being given all the houses. And it wasn’t easy to ask someone to mend something for you, or to put on a door, because you had no one of your own. Ag ja, they were not bad people, but you didn’t feel at home with them, so you kept to yourself and your children. The children got on well, they all went to school together and the East London children wanted to hear about Cape Town, but the adults were different.
The church was a long way away, two bus trips. My house was in NU 7 and the church was in NU 1. I couldn’t go every Sunday. The children told me when the minister held services in the school for the people living too far to go to NU 1. They also came to tell me when other Cape children arrived, then I’d go and see if I knew them.
Nomvula said that Roksie had come from Cape Town and was in her class, so I went and found her carrying in stuff and I greeted the people of my stepfather’s Mbatane clan. Roksie was the daughter of a coloured woman and a Mbatane, we called him Monday. But I didn’t know the woman sitting in the house. Sister, she’s your sisi, this one, she’s Mbele, said Monday to me.
Later I found out that he had left the coloured woman in the Cape and brought this Mbele along, she was his second wife. But he brought his children too. They lived near to us. Cape people stick together.
My best friend was sisi Emily who lived in NU 3. She came to see me shortly after I arrived. She was a widow put out of Cape Town, but her daughters had passes for Cape Town, her son and grandchildren too. So it was with the passes, one gets a pass, the other doesn’t. So she was living alone in Mdantsane. She knew old Makhulu, who had written to her that I was coming.
The old people who were resettled had a hard time in that place. You struggled to get a car to take the sick people to the doctor. The doctor refused to come because of the bad road. The old people couldn’t walk so far, uphill and downhill. Many died.
In NU 3 four houses were joined for a clinic. We took two buses to get there, first to Highway and then further. We had to get up at five o’clock in the morning to get there in time; they only took the cards from one to eighty, and if you arrived after seven it was too late. At the hospital in East London you had to be there before six o’clock. They also had numbers and if the numbers had all been given out, it was no use.
We bought our groceries at O.K. or Ackermans, and took the bus back, and the last bit we walked carrying the plastic bags and the boxes on our heads. It is fourteen miles from Mdantsane to East London. There were no street lamps, only posts. The lights came later. A few months after we arrived, the tractors started levelling the ground, and cleaned up the stones and pieces of cement blocking the yard. Then we could start to garden and plant mealies.
Poppie had brought her sewing machine along but material was too expensive in East London. She wrote to mama: Here I pay too much, can’t mama get me stuff from the tip?
Although she’d never been herself, Poppie knew all about the tip, about people coming from as far as Worcester and Paarl, to get off-cuts and other stuff at the city’s rubbish dump. It was too dangerous for her. How many children had not been killed dashing in front of the huge tip lorries to grab the stuff, getting under the wheels when the tractors were levelling the rubbish? But the skollie children went, fighting over pieces of material, reels of cotton, zips, buttons. They say one woman even found a new sewing machine on the dump, but she was waiting for it. A man she knew had put the machine with the rubbish he was sorting at the factory. The women who didn’t work and the skollie children fought to get at the stuff and to fill their plastic bags.
Can’t mama send me tip off-cuts, Poppie wrote. She meant mama to buy them from the skollie children. But mama took Jakkie and Katie and Baby and herself went to get the stuff on the dump. A man from Cape Town brought a baleful on his bakkie, bundled together and bound tightly with wire. As Poppie unpacked it the children sat watching, except Bonsile. He wandered around the streets at night, and Poppie couldn’t stop him. So she made clothes for the children from the off-cuts, then used what was left to make children’s suits, skippers, pants, girl’s dresses, and sold them to make money.
She began to get around more.
Many kinds of people lived in Mdantsane, Poppie explains.
One day I went to Mamtshawa’s house and there I saw a man, and I said to myself: This man looks a lot like buti Monkies. His real name was Mongezi but the coloured people called him Monkies. He got a surprise when I asked him: Aren’t you buti Monkies?
From where do you know me? he asked.
I know you from Lamberts Bay.
He was in too great a hurry to talk, but I asked him: Where is Stafie, your wife?
Stafie is in Stompneus Bay.
Stafie is a coloured woman, they had many children, when I left Lamberts Bay they were still together. And now as he left, Mamtshawa told me: I know this man, I see him walking up and down, he’s a mailer.
For whom does he mail?
He carries drink to the shebeen queens, wine and Jabulani beer, one queen gives him fifty cents, the other gives the same.
This surprised me, because he’d been a trawlerman in Lamberts Bay and had a lot of money. He used to play the guitar in the Apostolic church. Now he was a mailer, which is a low job, he looked quite different, not much body to him and with tattered clothes.
I remember a Xhosa woman came to search for him in Lamberts Bay: I’m your mother, she said, you are my little boy that left me when you were small, but he answered: I don’t know this auntie, it’s not my mother, my mother died long ago. The auntie’s nose looked just like Monkie’s nose and it was bad the way he killed her words.
We thought he did so because he had taken a coloured wife and Stafie looked down on the Xhosa people and couldn’t speak Xhosa, and because he had fear in his heart that he would be sent from Lamberts Bay. I thought it was his mother’s tears that had brought him to this state. I told Mamtshawa about the mother whose words he’d killed. He got a fright when he saw I recognised him, he said: I’ll be back soon. But I never saw him again.
Poppie regularly heard from Cape Town and tata-ka-Bonsile sent them money. He never missed a fortnight, twenty or thirty rand a time. The postman brought the money and she had to sign for the registered letter.
Only for the postman and for the office where she paid her rent did she have to show her pass. Because here in Mdantsane no one asked for it, and no one was run in for not having one.
And when the Umgqkomo lorry came down the road, no one ran away. Only the boys who were playing dice along the road or on the empty plots gently dropped the knives they were carrying into the tall grass, so that the police who searched their bodies could find nothing.
We picked up plenty of knives in the long grass, says Poppie.
As the location filled up and all kinds of people were thrown together and life became rough, it was so dangerous that people were being shot at inside their houses and forced to throw money out of the windows. These skollies were children who’d left school after Standard Four and Five, and could find no jobs.
50
Poppie had been in Mdantsane for a year when mama wrote to her: Your husband has experienced a hard thing – his buti Spannerboy was knocked down by a car.
I was sitting in my house one Sunday afternoon, she wrote, when a man knocked and told me: A relative of yours has been run over in the big street. Baby, Jakkie and I
then ran after this man, in the direction of Guguletu and from a distance we could see the people standing around him. When I got there I tried to speak to him, but he was mumbling and talking like a man who has lost his mind. So they took him to hospital where he stayed for three weeks. And then he started getting the fits. A doctor sent your husband to a lawyer for his brother, and the lawyer is now working on the case that your buti Spannerboy may get some money for the accident. They operated on his head, but it is as if he has become a little blind, and because of the fits he cannot work any longer.
Poppie also received a letter from tata-ka-Bonsile: My buti’s wife is returning to Herschel, but my buti has to remain here for news about the insurance. My buti’s wife will come by East London, and it is in my heart that she takes Nomvula with her to the land. My father and mother are getting old and they would like to have a grown child with them to care for them.
The letter was a shock to Poppie. I came to Kaffirland to this place with schools for my children’s sake. Must all this trouble now be in vain?
I am not for it that the child should be sent to your father and mother, she replied in a letter to tata-ka-Bonsile. Things on the land are too rough. It is too raw there. That’s why I came to this city place. I won’t allow them to have a hard time on the land. They must get their schooling first.
The time she herself had spent on the land came back to her, the games she used to play with her little sister-in-law, the fires outside, the shadows when the sun disappeared behind the mountain but you could still see the sunshine on the hills opposite.
I don’t want to let her go, sisi, she told Emily. I’ve had enough trouble in my life. I wish to give my children a better life. My children were born in Cape Town, they are not used to the land.
But Emily was not with her in this matter. The sisi is old, Poppie thought, the sisi herself wants one of her grand children with her here in Mdantsane, but her children in Cape Town don’t send a granddaughter to her. Why should I send my child away?
But tata-ka-Bonsile’s letter had disturbed her peace of mind. Sisi Constance who is returning to the land is fat and strong, she told herself. She must see to the old people. And for her part she decided to take better care of sisi Emily. She sent her daughters regularly to help their sisi Emily with the small jobs in and about the house.
She did not hear from tata-ka-Bonsile, whether he agreed with her in this matter. She waited with anxiety for Constance to arrive, fearing Constance would tell her: I am taking Nomvula to the land. Then she would have to let her go.
Towards the end of the year bad storms struck Mdantsane. It rained for seven days on end, day and night. The children went to school in the rain and came home dripping wet. On the seventh day the wind and thunder became very fierce and two corrugated iron sheets were torn from the roof of the house. Poppie and the children were very frightened because they did not know such storms. They left the house to spend the night in Mamatola’s house behind them. When they went outside they sank to their knees in the mud.
The next morning everything was quiet, the storm had passed. Bonsile went to the council to report the broken roof and the council had all the damaged houses fixed, but it took a long time to mend the roads and bridges.
Buti Mosie wrote to Poppie: We heard the news on the wireless, and we thought your house had toppled over on to you. My brother-in-law was so worried he became very sick. He came from work and he couldn’t talk. His friends came to call me to come, they were trying this witchdoctor business on him, but I said: Come, let’s take him and rush him to the doctor. So while we were sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, he started undoing his shoelaces and making with his hands like somebody working with money and counting out change, all the while saying: Yes sir, yes sir, how much, sir? So we asked the receptionist to take the man through to the surgery right away. We then told the doctor: Look, we think this man has lost his mind like, as they call this kind of thing. ‘Cause why he received a letter from East London about his wife’s house which was broken above her head by the storms, and then the nerves went all over him because of this thing. The doctor examined him and said: Yes, it’s a nervous breakdown. He was an Indian doctor. He gave him an injection and pills, and then we could go. Halfway home I could see him starting to look here and there, all around us, and when we reached the house he looked about and said: Molo, brother-in-law, as if it was the first time that day that he saw me. He went to bed and when he woke up he was all right.
Mama wrote as well: Things are all right now with my son-in-law. Mamdungwana is looking after him. Buti Spannerboy is living with Makhulu now, because the buti’s wife went back to Kaffirland last month.
When Poppie received the letter it was the month’s end. So sisi Constance did not come by way of East London to fetch Nomvula. Ag, in spite of the news of tata-ka-Bonsile’s sickness, the heaviness is lifted from my mind, Poppie thought. I can carry on with my life again without the fear that Nomvula will be taken from school and sent to the land.
She wrote to tata-ka-Bonsile: Don’t be heavy in your heart about us. The council fixed up the damage to the house. We did not get hurt in the storm. The thing that must come first in your mind must be your own health.
During this time the St Francis Anglican Church was built in NU 8 and Poppie could go more regularly to church again. Bonsile did not like church and Thandi even less. It was only Nomvula and Fezi and Kindjie who liked going with Poppie to the house of the Lord.
51
After two years had passed tata-ka-Bonsile sent word that he was going to the land to do the ritual ceremony for his two elder brothers that had passed by, buti Witbooi and buti Damon. They had been dead for ten years and it worried his father that the goats had not been slaughtered for them.
On the way to Herschel, he wrote, I will visit you in East London.
Poppie did not tell the younger children that their father was coming. She took only Bonsile with her to the station. They waited at the far end of the station in the open veld where they had got off the train when they came to this place. It was the first time in a long while that she and Bonsile were alone together. For the occasion she bought him a pair of long pants and a green skipper. He had the build of his father, only he was more thickset, like herself. He had passed his seventeenth year, he was no longer the child he had been when they left Cape Town.
You have been a good help to me here in the new place, Bonsile, she told him while they waited. Your father will be satisfied.
He was not a child of many words. He did not answer her.
They watched the railway track filling in the distance, and they heard the noise as the train approached. Some way further up the line from where they were standing, tata-ka-Bonsile got off and waited. He was wearing the same clothes he wore the day he said goodbye to them in Cape Town. But the clothes seemed too large for him. He turned around before he stepped down and took the parcels and suitcases someone handed down to him, as if he had no strength. Bonsile got on to the steps of the carriage and took the luggage out of his hands. They knew that he had been ill that day after he heard about the storm in East London.
Poppie approached him. Tata-ka-Bonsile turned around to face her.
Molo, he said.
Molo, she said extending her hand. Although it was a warm day, his hand lay cold within hers.
She took some of his luggage and put it on to her head. Bonsile carried another suitcase and walked ahead of them, then came tata-ka-Bonsile, with Poppie following behind. They started walking even before the train had pulled out.
It is quite a long way before we get to the place where the buses are, Poppie said.
It is well.
He was satisfied with the house. He was glad to see the furniture again. He touched the table and the dresser that he knew so well.
Are you living well at the place where you are now? Poppie asked.
They treat me well.
Mamdungwana writes that you visit her.
&nbs
p; She also treats me well.
And how is it with mama and buti Plank and buti Hoedjie?
They used to live here and there, but then they moved in again with old Makhulu, in our house. She looks after them well.
Buti Spannerboy?
He is still waiting for his money.
And buti Mosie?
He waited for two years, and then he got his own house.
Mama had written to her telling about it, and she was glad about buti Mosie and Rhoda who were expecting another child. But a bitterness had crept into her heart now that her husband was with her.
Everybody is all right. Everybody has houses. And us? I who have to stay so far away with strangers. Everybody is getting along without me.
But tata-ka-Bonsile was satisfied with the house. While she was preparing food she showed him the mealies she had planted. It was now a year since the bulldozers cleared the area all round the house and they could start gardening. Tata-ka-Bonsile touched the soft beard of the com. He parted the leaves around the cob and pressed with his thumb against the kernels. When you can’t any longer press milk from the kernels with your fingers, the mealies are ready for picking.
This is a good stand of mealies, he said. Nonkosinathi, these mealies are ready for picking, can you cook us some?
She felt ashamed of the weeds between the rows of mealies. In the country it is the women who have to hoe in the fields. I am on the go all the time she said, I cannot see to everything.
I can also work now that I am here, tata-ka-Bonsile said.
When Nomvula and Thandi came home from school, she sent them to fetch Kindjie at a neighbour’s place where she had left her. Kindjie was very shy with her father, but after a while she followed him everywhere. The children watched him all the time, afraid that he might leave again.
