The Madonna of Excelsior

by Zakes Mda

  The elders of the church bowed their heads and praised the Lord for His magnanimity.

  AN OUTBREAK OF

  MISCEGENATION

  THE ELDERS of the church were right. The devil was on the loose in the Free State platteland. Grabbing upstanding volk by their genitalia and dragging them along a path strewn with the body parts of black women. Parts that had an existence independent of the women attached to them. Parts that were capable of sending even the most devout citizen into bouts of frenzied lust.

  But wily as Lucifer might be, he was not going to succeed in his designs to consign the volk to eternal damnation. God always looked after His own.

  These sins of our mothers happened in front of our eyes. Hence some of us became blind. And have remained so to this day. Those sins that we did not see with our own eyes, or that we did not hear about in places where we gathered to celebrate our lives, we read about in The Friend newspaper. Reports of wholesale miscegenation in the Free State platteland abounded. Tlotlo le wele makgwabane, the people said. A free-for-all. Open season. A feast of miscegenation.

  The Friend, 7 January 1971:

  The first three of a number of persons who will be charged in the Regional Court, Bloemfontein, for offences under the Immorality Act appeared in court yesterday.

  Anna Tsomela, a 36-year-old African woman with a lightskinned, fair-haired baby of three months in her arms who, she said, was the child of the White man arrested with her, was found guilty under the Act and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years.

  Constable Johannes David Grisel, of S.A. Police, Reddersburg, gave evidence of how the light delivery van in which she was travelling with a White man of Bloemfontein, Petrus François Smit, was trailed by him and how they were arrested on a lonely farm road near Reddersburg.

  He said that as a result of information received, he followed the van when it left Reddersburg at about 7 p.m. on 1 October last year. About 16 km from Reddersburg on the road to Bloemfontein the vehicle turned off into a farm road leading to the farm Mierfontein. Constable Grisel was joined by another policeman working with him and they pursued the light delivery van with their police vehicle.

  When the light delivery van left Reddersburg, Tsomela was sitting in the back of the vehicle and the White man was driving. When they stopped the van both were sitting in the front and the baby, obviously of mixed blood, was with them. Tsomela’s breasts were bared and her dress was pulled up high. He arrested the couple.

  Dr B.J.B. Faul, district surgeon at Reddersburg, said that he examined the child in court in October last year at the request of the police. It was obviously of mixed blood and if Tsomela, who was an African woman, was the mother, the father must have been a White man.

  In her statement to the magistrate Tsomela said she started to work for the White man and his family on a farm near Virginia some years ago. After some time the man’s wife moved to Bloemfontein and she had to look after him on the farm. After they had been staying there alone for about two years, he started giving her some of the gin he drank and later they became intimate.

  About a year ago she became pregnant. The White man then moved to Bloemfontein and, because there was no accommodation for her in the city, he took her to her sister in Wepener. From there she went to Lesotho where the baby was born and then she returned to her father who was in Reddersburg.

  The White man obtained her address by writing to her sister and then also wrote to her. On 1 October he arrived there and told her that he had brought her something. He took her in his light delivery van to a spot on the farm road to Mierfontein where he stopped to show her what he had brought her. There were groceries, bread and meat which he showed her, but before he could show her everything the police arrived.

  In her statement Tsomela also said that she had no complaints against the White man. He at least provided for his child. Her other four children she had to bring up on her own.

  The magistrate said that Tsomela should realise the seriousness of her offence. She had been committing immorality with a White man over a long period and there had been miscegenation, which it was the purpose of the Act to prevent. The serious light in which the offence was seen by the legislature was indicated by the fact that the maximum sentence provided was seven years’ imprisonment.

  In view of the fact that she had made a clean breast of everything, that she had no previous convictions and that she was now saddled with the burden of another child to provide for, the magistrate said her sentence of nine months would be suspended for three years, however, on condition that she was not during that period found guilty of a similar offence and that she did not leave the Republic of South Africa before 15 February when she would be required to appear in court to give evidence against Petrus François Smit.

  The Friend, 7 January 1971:

  In another court a young White man, Johannes J. Oosthuizen (26), of 9 Goddard Street, Bloemfontein, appeared together with a 16-year-old African woman before Mr P. Geldenbuys. No evidence was led and they were remanded until 16 February. Oosthuizen is on bail of R50. Bail of R50 was also allowed for the African girl, but has not yet been provided.

  The Friend, 23 January 1971:

  A mother of three sat quietly with an arm around her young son outside the Bloemfontein Regional Court while a magistrate, Mr A.W. van Zyl, was told how her husband had put his hand under the dress of a 19-year-old African school teacher and then offered her R5 if she consented to have relations with him.

  A 33-year-old former traffic inspector, Barend Jacobus Nolan, formerly of Rouxville, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment suspended for three years after he was found guilty of attempting to contravene the Immorality Act.

  According to the evidence led by the key witness, Cecilia Mapeta, of the farm Valbankspoort in the Rouxville district, on the evening of 4 November she heard a car approaching the hut in which she stayed.

  She went out to meet the car, which was driven by Nolan. He called to her and told her to tell the pupils she taught not to play in the road. He then told her to get into his car and he would take her to a gate which he wanted closed.

  She climbed into the front of the car with him but when they arrived at the gate, he did not stop. Nolan suggested to her that they should have a love affair. She refused him.

  They carried on driving until they came to a grove of bluegum trees some 13 km out of Rouxville on the Aliwal North road. Nolan parked the car under the trees, switched off the lights and again suggested to her that they have an affair.

  For the second time she refused him. He grabbed her arm and twisted it. She started crying and he hit her. Nolan undid the shorts he was wearing and made an indecent suggestion to her. He also put his hand up her dress. After she pushed him away and told him to stop it, he offered her R5 to have intercourse with him.

  While they were arguing, a car’s lights appeared and Nolan pushed her off the seat to the floor of the motor car. The car drew up about 12 yards behind Nolan’s parked car and a European man climbed out.

  She said that while lying on the floor of the car she heard a man ask Nolan what he was doing there. Nolan replied, “Ou Piet . . .”, she did not hear the rest. Suddenly the car was started and reversed for about six yards. Miss Mapeta jumped out of the car and ran away.

  Const. P.W.A. Nel, of the South African Police, said in evidence that on 4 November, acting on information he had received, he drove in his private car to the spot where Nolan was parked.

  He approached the car which, so far as he could see, contained only one person. He recognised Nolan as the person in the car. When he asked Nolan what he was doing there, Nolan replied: “Leave me alone, I have a strange girlfriend with me.”

  Nolan reversed the car and he (Nel) saw an African woman jump out and run away. He arrested Nolan and took him back to the police station.

  In a statement to a local magistrate in Rouxville, Nolan submitted that on the night concerned, he and his wife had argued. He left hi
s home and went to a local hotel where he had been drinking the same afternoon.

  The next thing he could remember was that he was being arrested by the police.

  It was the Golden Age of Immorality in the Free State. Immorality was a pastime. It had always been popular even before laws were enacted in Parliament to curb it. It became a pastime the very first day explorers’ ships weighed anchor at the Cape Peninsula centuries ago, and saw the yellow body parts of Khoikhoi women. But what we were seeing during this Golden Age was like a plague. In various platteland towns Afrikaner magistrates were sitting at their benches, listening to salacious details, and concealing painful erections under their black magisterial gowns. Afrikaners prosecuting fellow Afrikaners with cannibalistic zeal. Afrikaners sending fellow Afrikaners to serve terms of imprisonment. All because of black body parts.

  Young Afrikaner boys were eager to taste what their fathers were eating on the sly. They went out on hunting expeditions for what they called swart poes. In the fields. In the veld. In the byways of one-street towns. In the farm villages. And in the kitchens of their very homes, where maids and nannies cooked them their dinners.

  The Friend, 17 November 1970:

  The son of an Excelsior farmer has been arrested on charges under the Immorality Act. He is to appear with an African woman in the Excelsior Magistrate’s Court shortly. He has been released in the custody of his parents.

  Within the current month 14 White men in the Free State have appeared before the courts on charges of contravening the Immorality Act.

  While miscegenation and immorality were doing the rounds, and the law was saving the Afrikaner man from himself, the trinity was creating nuns in flowing blue habits. Nuns in a procession. Their child-like brown faces peeping through head-veils that flow almost to the ground. Hiding their feet. Five nuns that only live in the continuing present. Their world has nothing to do with the outside world of miscegenation. Yet each one of them is carrying a baby. Babies with slanting eyes. Babies that look grey at first glance, but have the colours of the rainbow if you look hard enough. (God promises us through the rainbow that He will never destroy the world again.) Babies wrapped in blue shawls. Only their round heads are showing. The first three nuns are looking ahead. The fourth nun is looking back at the fifth nun. Looking down at her. The fifth nun is the shortest of them all. She looks like a child. Her face has the innocence of a child. She is the only one who does not understand why they are carrying the babies and where they are taking them. She is with child. Yet she does not understand how it happens that her stomach reaches any destination before she does.

  The nuns’ bodies reflect white light on the wall. These second selves follow the nuns like ghosts in a blue night.

  THE KAMIKAZE OF THE GEESE

  GEESE DIVE DOWN from the sky in a sacrificial kamikaze. The sky is overcast with dark purple clouds. A promise of rain. The ground is green. A man in a yellow ochre miner’s helmet, yellow face, brown suit and black boots carries a dead goose on his shoulder. A gift from the heavens.

  Another gift from the heavens: Dr Percy Yutar, Attorney-General of the Free State, made the astounding decision that all charges against the Excelsior 19 were to be withdrawn. Word got to Excelsior just minutes before the trial could resume. All the accused were in the dock. Except for the Reverend François Bornman, who was recovering nicely at the Universitas Hospital. Adam de Vries had just addressed the court to the effect that the female accused would have legal representation. The surprised Karel Bezuidenhout, presiding magistrate, had just responded that in that case, the accused would have to be tried separately. There would be delays in the trial. Judgement would have to be passed individually on each of the accused according to the merits of the individual cases.

  Mr Christiaan Calitz, the prosecutor, was jolted by the Attorney-General’s sudden decision. Even as he stood up to announce that he had received an urgent communication from Dr Percy Yutar, his hands were shaking.

  “The charges have been withdrawn because in the view of the Attorney-General it is clear that state witnesses are no longer willing to give evidence in the trial,” said Christiaan Calitz.

  His face did not hide the fact that he was not pleased with the decision. He believed that he had a strong case, which did not depend only on the evidence of the state witnesses. There were, for instance, the babies. Those babies did not make themselves. The doctor from Bloemfontein had conducted his tests, which proved conclusively that the fathers were white. His evidence would have assured the prosecution a sweet victory. The prosecutor would have got his convictions. But, of course, there was nothing that he could do. The Attorney-General’s word was final.

  After the magistrate announced formally that the accused had no case to answer, there was an explosion of joy in the dock. The women couldn’t wait to burst out of the confines of the courtroom, to breathe the fresh air of freedom.

  The sun was hiding behind dark clouds. But it did not matter. Freedom was freedom, even under a black sky.

  Adam de Vries’s face was beaming with pride as he walked out of the courtroom. The newspaper reporters and television cameramen saw him, and proceeded to surround him. They expressed their surprise at the withdrawal of the charges. He retorted that he was not in the least surprised. He had known right from the beginning that his clients were innocent. The black women had been bribed to frame the poor men. But he could not—or would not—say who had bribed them. It was a good thing that the women had come to their senses, and decided they were not going to give evidence against his clients. It would have been fabricated evidence in any case, as his clients had never set eyes on these women until the trial.

  “I speak here not only as the lawyer for the accused, but also as the mayor of Excelsior,” he added. “The people of this town are very relieved at the outcome. They believed from the start in the innocence of the people who were charged. We are a very happy community. The case has caused tension, but not as much as the press said it did. We did not like the bad publicity brought to our town by this case. People of all races in the town get on well together and live in complete harmony. Now we can go back to being just a little town as we always have been.”

  Maria led the women in an impromptu dance for the benefit of the cameras. Friends and relatives joined the jig of victory. Mmampe was shouting above the din that the photographers should pay if they wanted to take photographs.

  “There is nothing for mahala,” she was saying.

  “Yes, they must pay,” agreed Maria. “We need the money. We’ll be jobless for the rest of our lives.”

  “Jobless for the rest of your lives? Why?” asked a reporter.

  “What white woman will employ us after this case?” asked Mmampe. “They will think we are after their husbands.”

  “Prospective employers will recognise us from the pictures in your newspapers,” said another woman.

  “We fear that even in your Johannesburg, people will see us as the bad women of Excelsior,” added Susanna.

  We jeered and cheered. The women were both heroes and villains to various sections of the crowd.

  We mocked Maria: “Hello, Mrs Lombard.”

  We taunted Mmampe: “Hello, Mrs Smit.”

  We leered at Niki: “Hello, Mrs Cronje.”

  We called each one of the women by the name of the lover with whom she had been charged. Sometimes a section of the crowd would name the wrong man for a particular woman. Another section of the crowd would proffer a correction. Then an argument would ensue among the various members of the crowd as to who the right partner for the woman really was.

  We cheered and jeered even louder when Johannes Smit and Groot-Jan Lombard emerged from the courtroom. They tried to skulk away to their cars in the parking lot. But they could not escape the vigilant reporters. The men did not stop to be interviewed. They answered the questions as they walked on, with the reporters following them like hunting dogs on a chase. Except for the fact that the quarry was not running. Groot-Jan L
ombard was too old and tired to run. And Johannes walked close beside him in solidarity.

  “Mr Lombard,” shouted one hack, “how do you feel?”

  “Very good!” responded Groot-Jan Lombard, doddering on.

  ‘And how do you feel about the Immorality Act?”

  “I must speak as a party man,” said Groot-Jan Lombard. “My party introduced the laws. People who commit immorality should be prosecuted.”

  “Yes,” added Johannes Smit, “if someone is caught in the act of committing immorality, there is a good reason for prosecuting him. What sticks in the gullet is that allegations are often made against innocent people, who then have to suffer.”

  More people in the street joined the song and dance. Out-of-towners from the farms who had no idea what the celebration was about, and did not care. A song is a song, and a dance is a dance.

  Niki—with Popi strapped in a shawl on her back—did not participate in all this jubilation. She was exhausted and just wanted to get away to the quietness of her shack. Maybe Pule would be there, waiting for her. Freedom planted daydreams in her head. Pule. He was becoming a fading memory. And Viliki. She had to see Viliki. She had missed him for almost a month. She had missed Pule, too. But that, she had convinced herself, was a hopeless longing that might never be fulfilled. Viliki was now the only man in her life. Unless Pule showed through his actions that he really meant it when he had claimed before her arrest that he forgave her because only God could judge. Viliki. She knew that he was all right. Mmampe’s mother, who had never missed a day in court, reported that he was fine. He had eventually stopped asking after her. They had told him that his mother had gone to Lesotho to buy “nice things” for him.