Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  The Sesotho oral tradition further taught me that in Lesotho Mhlontlo was named ’Mamalo and that he was lured back into the Eastern Cape by the white man who owned the store at Palmietfontein who promised him new blankets. That’s where he was arrested and taken for trial in Kingwilliamstown. According to Damane, he won that case in 1902. I hoped one day I would find the court records to see exactly how he happened to win a case that was supposed to be so watertight.

  Through the Sesotho praise poetry I felt that I was communing with Mhlontlo. This was quite disconcerting because as an atheist I didn’t believe in life after death. Yet here I was hearing his voice as Damane recited the poetry. In deep isiXhosa it wove itself in and out of Damane’s Sesotho rhythms. ‘Heed the ancestral voices,’ it said. I could feel that Mhlontlo, he who was given refuge in this very country where we found ourselves once more as refugees, walked with me and expected better of me.

  As soon as I walked out of Damane’s house I dismissed the thought as so much superstition and went to join my friends at some home-brew joint.

  And then Mr Dizzy came to town. And Khomo Mohapeloa. And Choks Masiloane. These were all Maseru bourgeois kids and they looked out of place in our dusty Mafeteng. Yes, city slickers did come to Hotel Mafeteng and its disco, but they always left the next day. There was nothing to stay for in Mafeteng. But here were these guys on an extended visit. They were spending a lot of time with Ben Maphathe. Occasionally I spent some time with them, but there seemed to be some gulf between us. Even with Mr Dizzy. It was obvious they were on some mission they didn’t want me to know about.

  A few days later I heard that they had all crossed the border and were on their way to Swaziland. So, that was what they were planning all along; to run away from home. I felt very bad that they had not invited me to be part of the scheme. I knew all these guys very well and counted them as friends and yet they didn’t even intimate to me that they were planning to run away. I doubt if I would have gone with them; I was too fearful of my father to be a runaway. Plus I didn’t have a passport because I was a refugee boy. But all I needed was to be asked. I felt betrayed, especially by Mr Dizzy. It was the same kind of feeling I experienced after Cousin Mlungisi and the Magengenene boys went for circumcision without me, while I remained a boy.

  It was cold comfort when reports filtered into the country that the runaways were penniless in Swaziland and had to beg in the streets for survival and Mr Dizzy was busking at some seedy places for scraps of food. I never got to know how true or false these reports were, but a few months later the runaways trickled back into the country. They looked quite miserable and didn’t want to discuss their experience with anyone.

  I was glad they had not invited me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE BEE PEOPLE ARE very happy to see the visitor from Africa. She is from Uganda, you see, and therefore to these rural folks she is from Africa – as if South Africa is not in Africa. It is the legacy of apartheid where South Africans were isolated from the rest of the continent and were taught by the propaganda machine that they were different and better-off than the hordes north of the Limpopo River who had to wallow in darkness sans the civilising effect of white power.

  ‘She looks just like us,’ says Nompendulo Mtlomelo, the secretary.

  ‘Of course she looks just like you. Why wouldn’t she look just like you?’ I ask.

  ‘I thought because she comes from Africa she would look like people from Africa.’

  I want to interpret this conversation for Goretti Kyomuhendo, hoping she will see the funny side of it, but I don’t see her in the small audience of beekeepers. She took a walk, I am told, among the rocks and the aloes on the mountain. I was hoping she would stay for the meeting, but I guess the beauty of the mountain was too much to resist. I know because I myself find the place awe-inspiring, especially because for miles around there are no human settlements; just the boulders and shrubs and brooks, and aloes, and birds, and lizards. And caves that used to be occupied by abaThwa people, as we called those who are referred to as the San today. And of course the bees.

  Sometimes, when I have steeled myself to drive up the steep and narrow dirt road to this place, I like to stand on a cliff and shout obscenities to the world and listen as they are echoed over and over in diminuendo and before the reverberations die out I shout once again, starting a new cycle of echoes.

  Goretti is a novelist from Uganda who is currently based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where she is studying for a master’s degree in creative writing. I am her external examiner, although at this point she is not aware of that. I first met her in Lille, France, where some African writers had gathered to examine ways they could address the Rwandan genocide in their writing. She had written a novel that touched on that subject. When I heard she was in Durban I invited her to my house in Johannesburg where she spent a few days and now Gugu and I have taken her on a six-hour drive through the Free State to the Eastern Cape to show her our rural development project. She is an activist herself in Uganda where she was one of the women who established Femrite, the publishing arm of the Uganda Women Writers’ Association. Perhaps after seeing our apiary she may be inspired to expand her activism beyond writers’ issues to other aspects of community development.

  ‘You should have told us that you are coming with a visitor,’ says ’Makamohelo Lebata, the chairperson. ‘What is she going to eat? We have not cooked anything.’

  ‘Are you telling me you folks only eat when there is a visitor?’ I ask.

  She is mystified by such a stupid question.

  ‘She’s going to eat what you eat,’ I try to explain myself. I tell her that when I lived on this very mountain with my grandmother there was always food left over in case a stranger came asking for directions. It was our obligation to feed him or her. And this was the practice of every family in the community. It was part of what is known as ubuntu – which literally means personhood. The word embodies the values of humaneness, generosity, humanity and compassion.

  ‘So you see, ’Makamohelo, don’t blame me for bringing a stranger without warning,’ I say. ‘Blame yourselves for doing away with such a beautiful custom.’

  I am only teasing them. Their beekeeping project gets so many visitors – mostly Europeans and Americans in long tour buses – and they cannot be expected to feed everyone who comes.

  The meeting proceeds and we discuss ways of expanding the project. It has always been my wish that they learn to harvest the bottom leaves of the aloes, which end up dying anyway, and then boil them in cauldrons to extract aloe vera. It would be a wonderful income-generating activity for the Bee People between harvests of honey, which take place only twice a year. But we need to get some experts who will make sure that the fumes from the boiling aloes would not have an adverse effect on the hives that dot the mountain. Another problem is that these aloes are a protected species; we would need to convince the government that our activities will not kill the plants. Perhaps if we ask the scientists from the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein to donate their services by making an authoritative study that will put the authorities at ease. We love the environment and want to protect it and are happy that we have a government that cares for it. The villagers too have a very strong conservation ethos.

  ‘What about the essential oils that we spoke about?’ asks Nompendulo.

  A guest once suggested that the Bee People could reap even greater benefits from their mountain if they harvested essential oils from the shrubs and bushes that grow on the mountain which are used in the manufacture of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

  ‘That is another thing we must get the scientists at the university to analyse for us. There are many possibilities on this mountain. But it is important that whatever we do, we should leave the mountain better than we found it, with more vegetation and wildlife.’

  After the meeting we look for Goretti and find her strolling alone on the gravel road. The Bee People drive us down the winding and rocky mount
ain road in their truck to my Uncle Press’s store where we had parked our car. We cross the Telle Bridge into Lesotho, and cruise through the Quthing and the Mohale’s Hoek districts. After about 80 kilometres or so we are in Mafeteng. We book in at Hotel Mafeteng and then go visit my mother at Zwelakhe’s house where she lives. Zwelakhe, you will remember, is the youngest of my brothers. He is an advocate of the High Court of Lesotho and the president of the Law Society.

  My mother at this stage spends all her days in the bedroom, disabled by arthritis and hypertension and even varicose veins. I introduce her to Goretti and they pass a few pleasantries. On our way back to the hotel Goretti exclaims: ‘Your mother speaks English!’

  I am surprised at her surprise.

  ‘If she spoke to you in isiXhosa you wouldn’t understand,’ I say.

  We have always been a multilingual family and I guess I took that situation for granted, as if all mothers the world over, even in the villages of Uganda, speak to their sons, daughters-in-law and visitors in English. It dawns on me that our language situation at home is an unusual one. Even as little kids we functioned in a variety of languages; when we spoke with our father it was almost always in English, with our mother it was predominantly in isiXhosa and when we spoke among ourselves as siblings it was in Sesotho. Our forebears were originally speakers of isiXhosa on both sides of the family – so you can see that mothers are keepers of the heritage.

  We spend the night at the hotel. It is now a far cry from the glorious Hotel Mafeteng of my youth which had shimmering bars of glass and mahogany and comfortable lounges with leather-covered sofas. It is now decrepit and the rooms have a permanent musty smell. In the morning there is no water for a bath or shower. The nightwatchman, an old man who has been nightwatchman here for the past thirty years, warms water in big watering cans on the kitchen stoves and brings it to us in the rooms.

  The room that I share with Gugu used to be Mpho Motloung’s room – the late owner of this place. It used to be where the socialites of Johannesburg, Mpho Motloung’s special guests, gathered for private parties. If you were invited to a party at Room Number 4 you knew that you had made it in life.

  I remember one night drinking at the bar until I was so sloshed that when I went to the restroom I blacked out on the toilet seat while doing my business. When I finally opened my eyes it was about 3 a.m. and the bar was closed. I was locked inside the building and everyone in the rooms upstairs was asleep. My first instinct was to jump over the counter and treat myself to a bottle of brandy. But common sense prevailed; I bumbled up the stairs to the rooms. Because it was dark I couldn’t tell which one was Number 4, so I listened at each door for Mpho Motloung’s famous snore. Indeed it did not let me down, it came like a roar and I knocked at the door. He woke up and without any fuss opened the main door for me. I staggered home singing at full volume as though I didn’t have a care in the world.

  When I tell the women this story at breakfast time Gugu says she is surprised I turned out so well after such rampant and unruly adolescence.

  ‘Turned out so well?’ I ask. ‘It is true then that love is blind? It makes you not see the scoundrel in me.’

  We decide to cross the border at the Maseru Bridge so that Goretti can see a bit of the capital city. We should have known better. This is the worst border post and Gugu has been a victim of the rudeness of immigration officials on the Lesotho side of the border from the days she was a student at the National University of Lesotho and had to cross here often on her way to and from her home in Soweto, Johannesburg. She remembers how the female customs and immigration officials – for it was mostly women who were discourteous, especially to other women – would refuse to serve black travellers if they did not speak Sesotho. The official would not even look at your passport if you answered in English and would say, ‘You will stand there until you learn to speak the language.’ Only after she had served a number of Sesotho-speaking customers would she take your passport, stamp it and throw it back at you.

  On this day we don’t get this kind of treatment and our passports are stamped without any incident. But, alas, we didn’t count on Goretti having problems on the South African side of the border. They refuse to let her into the country because they claim hers is not a multiple entry visa.

  She is fuming.

  ‘What is this African unity that you people talk about if you are giving people from other African countries such problems?’ she asks the officials.

  I am afraid that if she continues to argue with them they might not let her into the country. Finally they endorse her passport and she is able to enter South Africa.

  One thing I notice is that the South African police are polite and courteous even as they explain to Goretti the immigration laws about visas and the like. Very much unlike the Lesotho officials who are abrupt and pompous. Especially the border police. It never used to be like that. All this arrogance began in 1970. Lesotho police and other government officials used to be shining examples of civility.

  And then there was 1970. Different governments have come and gone in Lesotho, but none have been able to rein in the legacy of 1970.

  LESOTHO 1970. MR DIZZY’S dad wrote a much-touted book with that title. I never bothered to read it though, because I lived through that history.

  I had completed the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate in Division Three the previous year, getting credit in only three (English Language, Literature in English and, to my surprise, Latin) out of the seven subjects I sat for. I didn’t expect any better because I don’t remember ever studying. I’d gone to class, taken notes as the teacher taught, but never looked at them again. While my colleagues were burning the midnight oil I sat on my bed in the Cell and played the flute. I thought I was destined to be Unoka, the flautist from Things Fall Apart who did not live up to the expectations of his community and died a poor man.

  With that kind of result I certainly would not be going to university any time soon. Perhaps later I would write supplementary exams to improve my symbols. In the meantime I took a job at a night school that was owned and operated by Mr Mahamo, a primary school teacher at St Gerard Catholic School. He rented two classrooms from the poorer and dilapidated Lesotho Evangelical Church primary school and recruited those Mafeteng students who had failed their Junior Certificate to enrol for night classes in preparation for supplementary exams. I taught mathematics – yes, the very mathematics that gave me nightmares – and Ntlabathi Mbuli taught English. Mr Mahamo paid us four rands a month each.

  As you can see, Mr Mahamo was quite a resourceful man. As was his wife ’Makopano, who was also a primary school teacher at St Gerard. They ran a very successful shebeen at their house, and Ntlabathi and I drank there on credit. At the end of the month all our night school salary went into paying our brandy debt at Mr Mahamo’s shebeen. We were practically working for brandy, and would still owe Mr Mahamo some balance even after he had taken all our monthly salary. Fortunately, I was staying with my parents and didn’t want for food, clothing and shelter. Ntlabathi, on the other hand, survived on the monthly stipend that he received through the Lesotho Christian Council as a refugee. So he was also covered in so far as subsistence was concerned.

  The patrons of the shebeen were mostly policemen. Even the district commander of the paramilitary Police Mobile Unit Ntate Morolong, or Roll-Away as we called him because of his roly-poly figure, spent most evenings there. And then there was Mphahama, a very handsome and delicate-looking rookie whose khaki uniform was always well pressed with his boots shining like a black mirror. These were very sweet guys who carried old 303 rifles that were never fired in anger. The guns were used mostly to scare stock thieves into surrendering. That was the culture of Lesotho cops those days. They were disciplined and functioned within the confines of the law. Once in a while an overzealous cop would stray and torture a suspect to extract a confession. In all such cases the cops would find themselves in the dock charged with a criminal offence. My father defended an occasional pol
iceman who fell foul of the law in his attempts to get evidence. Lesotho cops were generally good-natured guys who were a terror only to cattle rustlers and pickpockets.

  That was why we were never uncomfortable drinking the nights away with those uniformed and armed gentlemen. Even those who were on patrol in their Land Rovers would occasionally pop in for a shot of brandy or a pint of beer and then dash out to protect the good people of Mafeteng from criminals. As a senior official I suppose Roll-Away worked only regular eight-thirty-to-four-thirty office hours. I came to this conclusion because he was at Mr Mahamo’s shebeen from five on the dot and would sit on his chair imbibing spirits till midnight. He was a very generous man and would not hesitate to share his brandy with us. Mphahama, on the other hand, was always the butt of our jokes because of his fine features. We teased him that he was as beautiful as a girl and that if he were to work in the gold mines of Welkom – where most Basotho men worked for months on end without coming back to their families – he would be some miner’s wife. Oh, yes, those days we delighted in homophobic jokes!

  The jokes got worse when we heard that he was going through a hard time at home, with a fishwife for a wife who occasionally gave him a beating. None of these rumours were confirmed, but that didn’t stop us from making snide remarks as soon as he entered and took a seat at our table. Roll-Away merely cast his fatherly eye over us and then paid more attention to his nip of brandy. I guess it would have been beneath him to make jokes about his subordinate.