by Elsa Joubert
It was from mama and said: Your husband is very ill, expect money.
My fright grew, because I know when they say: Expect money, it means they have sent money for you to come home. I knew at once something had happened to him. Perhaps he was stabbed or run over, as things happen in the Cape. My fear was so great that I left the bread lying on the table and took the telegram and walked across the road to a neighbour who had people living in Cape Town too. Mr Majola.
Look what I got, I told him. Then I started weeping.
No, don’t weep, he said, no bad thing has happened. Your ma would not send the telegram direct to you.
My ma would not send it if he were just ill, I said. I feel that something bad has happened.
I sat with them, waiting. And my other neighbours joined us and Majola told them about the telegram. They knew what a telegram meant. But they comforted me: Don’t be afraid, nothing has happened, they said. They waited through the night with me. But no money or telegram came.
On Wednesday a man called Zikali arrived from Cape Town. He entered my gate and said: I’ve come from Cape Town with Majola’s relatives. Your husband is sick, he’s in hospital, your ma told me to bring you with me when I go back.
But I’m not going today, he said, and not tomorrow. I’m driving back on Friday.
I knew he was lying to me, and said: So if you are leaving on Friday, so I leave by train tomorrow.
It’s no use, he said, I’ll be in Cape Town before you get there.
It doesn’t matter, I’ll go by train.
I took the girls and Fezi and asked sisi Blaauw to take care of them. Bonsile could stay alone at home, I took Kindjie and went to the station to buy a single ticket to Cape Town for that night.
But as I stood in my bedroom another telegram came from my eldest sister-in-law in Johannesburg, asking: Where will Stone be buried?
They had sent word directly to her that her brother had died but to me they only said: Expect money, your husband is ill. But I had known in my heart that he was dead, that is why I would not wait until Friday to leave. I sat in the train and knew there was nothing more to be done, my husband was dead, and I must try to get back to Cape Town.
As I sat there waiting for the train to pull out, Zikali came to me: How can you leave by train, when your mama sent me to fetch you?
I’m not getting off, I have bought my ticket.
But the auntie in the compartment with me said: My child, this is a wrong thing you are doing. Get down for your children’s sake. This man can’t drive back alone to Cape Town with your children.
Zikali took my ticket and explained it to the station master and he returned the money.
I went back with him to my house and the neighbours came again and watched with me and prayed and sang.
They stayed with me till three o’clock in the morning, when Zikali fetched us. We sat through the night praying and singing and drinking tea, and when the car came they accompanied us to the car and stood there singing as we drove off.
We had no trouble on the way. Once he was stopped by traffic cops, I don’t know where it was, and was given a ticket. Close to De Dooms, I think it was. At Worcester his lights failed, it was an old car, he took a chance to travel so far in it, and we had to travel through the mountain pass without lights. But two white ladies in a Johannesburg registration car just ahead of us, I think they realised we were having trouble with the lights, because they stayed just ahead, lighting the way, till we got to Paarl. Then they drove off.
When we got close to the airport, at the bridge, his car stopped. He had no more petrol. It was about half past ten. But it was close enough for him to cross the bridge on foot and go to Section 4 to Mosie to get petrol. They ran back through the dark with the cans, the children and I waited in the car, it was a very dangerous spot, close to the coloured location, where the skollies roam at night. But what could we do but sit and wait?
Zikali drove to my mama’s house and picked her up, and took me to my own house where Makhulu was still living, and buti Plank and buti Hoedjie with her. My people said a prayer and then said: Poppie must get some rest.
Mama stayed with me all the time, and buti Spannerboy. It is our custom. If someone has died their people stay with them, they go to work but after work, they come back again, they sleep in your house, all the close family, till after the funeral. I saw the cut on buti Spannerboy’s head, and his eye was bleary, it had gone quite blind.
Saturday morning when the people heard I was back, they stormed the house, they were so glad I had come because buti Spannerboy had made arrangements for his buti to be buried in Herschel, but I said: No, I have come here to bury him, I can’t go back again to Herschel. Buti Spannerboy said: Your father-in-law wants him to be buried there, but I said, let my father-in-law come here to bury him. You brought me here from East London, I am not going back to Herschel.
We had a difference of opinion, because the land’s people like to take the corpse back to the land, but my own people and some of his kinsmen said: No, his home was here, his wife and children have come from East London to bury him here.
My husband’s clansmen arranged the funeral, my only duty was to go to Goodwood to get his papers and to the Tom Boydell Building in Cape Town for his unemployment fees. But his clansmen arranged the funeral and bought the coffin.
55
On Wednesday evening buti Plank came home from the boats. Is it with this trouble on me that I see you again, my buti, said Poppie.
But it was not for her to speak much. She must sit in the bedroom with her mama on the mattress on the floor. The furniture had been carried outside and put under plastic.
When Mamdungwana could, she left her house and joined them. Her other friends came when possible. Everybody helped, they gave a hand to ouma Makhulu who was cooking on the outside fire, they went to the shop to buy food, stamped mealies, potatoes and vegetables. Buti Mosie came to shave Poppie’s head, and the heads of her children and Stone’s relatives.
In the backyard the men slaughtered a goat.
A neighbour made the black dress for Poppie to wear to the funeral. And always the men were standing round the house and not leaving them alone, clansmen, old ones, grootmanne, men in groups, waiting round the house.
Friday night the wake was held.
The women sat on the mattresses in the bedroom with Poppie. She was tired from weeping, from talking, from the disagreement with the clansmen of Stone. But when Lindiwe arrived by train that afternoon the trouble had lifted from her. It was still the same little sister-in-law who had taught her to scoop up the water in the dongas and grind the mealies to flour. She shook hands with her. Malo, little sister.
Lindiwe started weeping. The women brought her food and tea.
Friday afternoon after work the men crowded out the front room. This furniture too had been carried out and benches brought in for the old men to sit on. The preacher read from the Bible, the old men joined in: Ewhe.
From the back room Poppie listened. She heard buti Plank’s voice join in the singing. He has known these hymns since childhood, Poppie thought, now his mouth is unused to them, his lips are struggling to get the feel of the words. Buti Hoedjie was singing too. Buti Mosie prayed. Right through the night the men kept up the singing. In the back room the women had become quiet, and it was not for Poppie to speak much. Off and on someone came from the front room to where the women were sitting and condoled with her. They shook hands. Then Poppie wiped her eyes with her handkerchief.
Where are the children sleeping? she asked once. With the neighbours, the women replied.
The singing was different to the all-night hymns in church. The voices were pressed together in the front room. They were singing for tata-ka-Bonsile who was dead. In the same room where she had told him four years ago: Now I cannot take it any longer, now I go.
But this time it was he that had gone.
In her handbag, pressed in under a corner of the mattress, she had put the teleg
ram which came to East London: Where will Stone be buried? She had also put there the note she received before leaving: Xoliswe’s son was born Monday, she was cut open for the birth.
She had told no one of the child. Not even Bonsile. Let them first bury tata-ka-Bonsile. Then she would gather her thoughts again and make further plans.
Slowly she started giving heed to the words of the hymns the men were singing. Silently she joined in, shaping the words with her lips, her body started to sway, where she was seated on the mattress, leaning against the wall. She moved from side to side.
Our sisi is coming to life again, Mamdungwana told mama.
Later on they helped her to go outside to the toilet. The men standing around made way for her, they stood back and mama cleared the path for her. The oil lamps didn’t give enough light, so candles had been lit as well. Some of the men who’d grown tired and others who were slightly drunk were lying flat on the backyard path. They were drawn to the wake by the hymns which they knew from childhood; even those who were somewhat drunk joined in the singing, and prayed.
Walking back from the toilet, Poppie saw that dawn was glimmering behind the houses.
What is the time? she asked mama.
Mama owned a watch. Almost five o’clock.
Inside the men were still singing. Those that had slept were refreshed, the spirit moved them. They talked about death, recited Bible verses and prayed for brother Nongena.
For tata-ka-Bonsile. Still Poppie could not believe that this noise and business and this being back in Cape Town was real. That she could see buti Hoedjie and buti Plank and buti Mosie again, but that she might not speak to them. She seemed to be dreaming. Dreaming? Then she remembered her own dream. Bonsile will not be an heir. The dream foreboded the death of his tata. Ag ja. This thought brought peace to her heart and she felt: So it had to be, it could have been no different.
The women brought her hot sweet tea and bread. She swallowed the tea but couldn’t get the bread down. Outside the men were sitting round the fire, they poked their sticks at the embers, setting alight small twigs with which to light their pipes. Buti Plank had joined them. She wanted to be with buti Plank. But it was not for her to be with the men. The women took her back to the inner room.
When the full day had dawned, the people who lived close by went home and the ones that had come from far were given water to wash, and they stood outside splashing their faces and rinsing their mouths. They spat out the water on to the plants.
Old Makhulu made a new fire. She poured coffee. Mamdungwana swept the house.
Still the people came, still the mournful singing was to be heard, its slow beat lamenting the dead man. Poppie tried to think about tata-ka-Bonsile, but she could not remember his face. What came to her more strongly was the suffering she had to bear, the troubles that had come to her while she was living in this house.
When the children started gathering in the street and the people came from their houses to join them, mama knew that the hearse had come.
It is the coffin, Poppie, she told Poppie who was now dressed in her black clothes, sitting in the room on the mattress.
The undertakers struggled to get the coffin through the small front door. Her brothers had prepared the benches on which the coffin must be laid. The women in the ‘inner room heard Mosie tell the undertakers: At half past one you must be back to fetch the coffin. They heard the wheels of the big black hearse turning on the dirt road, heard the gravel being crunched as it pulled off again. The children that had made room for it group together once more.
The hardest part lies ahead for you, Poppie, said mama. But he looked nice when he died, I was with him to the last.
No, it is well, mama. I want to see him.
The brothers and the men of the clan Mqwati opened the coffin in the front room, and only after they had seen the corpse were the women allowed in.
Poppie bent over the coffin. And the feeling of heavy grief left her as she saw the small, dark face, the sharp nose, the lips and mouth. Ag, dear Lord Jesus, she wants to say, is this you, tata-ka-Bonsile? Her fingertips touched his forehead, so cold. She touched his face, as if touching the face of a stranger, his cheeks, his mouth as if it belonged to a stranger. His cheeks were sunken, his face had become small and sharp.
The colour has turned, said mama, who was standing on the other side of the coffin. See how dark his temples are.
Bonsile had his turn with the men, now the girls came. They were weeping. Katie and Baby supported Nomvula and Thandi, Rhoda had picked up Kindjie for her to see her father.
The room filled. By twelve o’clock there were so many people that the preacher announced: We are going outside for the service. Bring the coffin out. They picked up the coffin and carried it out, bringing the benches on which to put it down.
In the street the cars that had come to drive the old people to the graveyard were waiting. Mamdungwana’s husband had brought his car, Mosie his. Friends had put their wreaths in the cars.
Because tata-ka-Bonsile of late was no church-goer, mama had explained to Poppie, we could not hold the service in the church, but the preachers are coming to the house, from the Holy Cross church and from my Methodist church as well.
When they had done praying and singing, the hearse fetched the coffin.
He would have been glad to be buried from his house, Poppie thought. And now clear to her mind came the image of tata-ka-Bonsile in his weakness, hammering away at the wooden boards inside the house. Bringing planks from the factory where he worked and helping Hoedjie and Mosie to build the house.
Slowly they followed the hearse. In their black clothes the children felt strange with her. To her too they seemed different, clad in clothes lent by neighbours. Bonsile walked with the men. He searched out Jakkie, mama had told her, but Jakkie was the only member of the family not allowed to attend the funeral. When his brother-in-law died he was doing the bush ritual, and had only just come back, he still had the red clay smeared on his face, and was not allowed to come near strangers. Poppie longed for Jakkie, my klonkie with the curly hair that I looked after in Lamberts Bay she thought. She started weeping. Bonsile was pretending to be grown-up, he kept at the heels of his oompie Plank and oompie Hoedjie and oompie Mosie.
The hearse took the turning to the graveyard. The people carrying wreaths shifted them from one hand to the other. The women moved closer to Poppie, dragging their feet through the sand. It was a Christian funeral, they were singing softly, they dragged the sound like their feet, their bodies swaying to the rhythm of the song.
The preacher had taken off his hat, but held it to shade his head. He had the Bible in his one hand, with the back of the other he wiped the sweat from his forehead. The children in their borrowed clothes went to the edge of the grave to peer inside. They were pushed back as the clods started falling.
Poppie and mama went home by car. Mama led Poppie to the dish of red mealies set out alongside the footpath, for her to take a handful and eat, she led her to the basin of water set out next to it for her to wash her hands and dry them on the towel. Then she and mama and the stepfather waited in the front room and the people returning from the graveyard washed and dried their hands, took the mealies and ate them. In the front garden, in the backyard, all over, there were dishes of mealies. Then they came to mama and Poppie and the stepfather waiting in the front room. One by one they shook hands and Poppie said: Thank you.
56
Saturday night the sisters-in-law slept with Poppie, but Sunday morning mama came to see her.
Tata-ka-Bonsile wrote that his stomach was still troubling him, mama, Poppie said. But he hadn’t taken to his bed. How did it come that he died?
You know about his stomach trouble, said mama. The doctor Lazarus in Langa thought he had an ulcer and gave him a letter to Groote Schuur hospital. But when he got to Groote Schuur they X-rayed him from all sides, but they couldn’t see it. Then he was sent to the Conradie hospital, but the doctor asked him: What is bot
hering you, I can see nothing in your stomach. He said it bothered him that he was living alone and his wife and his children were far away. Then the Conradie hospital told him: For that there is no medicine.
After that he went to an igqira, a herbalist, said mama, and the man gave him medicine they call ukugapa. When you have swallowed it, you fill your stomach with water, then they push a feather down your throat and you bring it all up. The man gave him the medicine and an enema. And as I hear the story, the medicine was too strong for him.
He went on a Sunday morning to the igqira, drank the stuff and stayed there all day. Many people stay in his yard. When they’ve taken the medicine and had the enema they must stay to go to the toilet. He got so weak there, he fell asleep in the yard. When he woke he was still weaker and the igqira sent him by car to the bachelor quarters where he lived. Johnnie, who lives with him, says the whole night long he had to get up and go to the toilet, and later on, Johnnie says, he was so weak he held on to the wall as he walked. Then Johnnie got up to help him, ja.
Early morning Johnnie called Makhulu and she called sisi Mamdungwana and the sisi came along to tell me. I tried to help him, I made Oxo and tried to get him to swallow it, because I could see he was very weak, and I sent Johnnie to fetch the real doctor, Dr Mantagisa. Very early, the sun wasn’t up yet, the doctor came and asked tata-ka-Bonsile: Have you taken Xhosa medicine?
He was very weak, but he said: Yes, I’ve taken some.
His stomach worked blood. He didn’t vomit, only worked down. The doctor was angry that he had taken the Xhosa medicine and gave him other stuff to drink and an injection. I am going home, he said, but if he gets worse, call me at once.
Tata-ka-Bonsile held my hand and said: Ag, it was a good thing I tried to do, it was not my death that I sought. And that was all.
I tried to get him to swallow some glucose water, I lifted him by the shoulders and tried to hold the spoon to his mouth, but by then the man had died.
