The Madonna of Excelsior

by Zakes Mda

  “What happened, Niki?” asked Popi.

  “Who did this to you, mama?” asked Viliki.

  “Tjaart is going to be a soldier,” said Niki, as if to herself.

  “Tjaart Cronje? Does he have anything to do with this?” demanded Viliki.

  “They are going to kill Tjaart,” said Niki.

  “Who cares about Tjaart?” cried Popi. “What happened to you, Niki?”

  “You must be nice to Tjaart,” said Niki pleadingly. “Especially you, Popi. God would like you to be nice to Tjaart.”

  Popi did not understand why God would like her to be nice to Tjaart Cronje. She warmed water on the Primus stove and washed her mother’s wounds with Sunlight soap.

  RITES OF PASSAGE:

  VILIKI GOES SOLDIERING

  THIS is the earth-colour period. Browns and yellow ochres. Siennas: burnt and raw. Diffusing their warmth into the world. Burnt umbers. A yellow ochre man on a yellow ochre bicycle. Burnt umber face under a yellow ochre conical Basotho hat. Pedaling barefoot across the yellow ochre ground. Unusually thin outlines, almost buried by the yellow ochre. There is a dead bird on the front carrier of his bike. A red goose. Women accompany him on foot. Yellow ochre women with burnt umber faces walking on the yellow ochre earth in their yellow ochre slippers. Three women, each one with a burnt sienna goose on her head. One holding a closed burnt umber umbrella. They have left the dark-roofed yellow ochre houses a distance away, on the yellow ochre horizon. They carry their geese obligingly under a yellow ochre sky.

  They came all the way from Thaba Nchu with sacrificial poultry. Relatives of Niki’s. They came to celebrate Popi’s passage into the ranks of the Young Women’s Union of the Methodist Church. The vibrant songs of the Methodists had drawn her into their fold, away from her family’s Dutch Reformed Church in Afrika, the black version of the Reverend François Bornman’s Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk or NGK—the true Dutch Reformed Church of the Afrikaner people. The Methodists held lively vigils that had captivated Popi. She had, in turn, captivated the Methodists with her voice, which reverberated against the walls of the whitewashed red-roofed church every Sunday morning. When she sang, her listeners forgot that she was the despised boesman girl, and thanked God for lending her the voice of angels.

  She had learnt her scriptures well. And had passed the tests. Today she was wearing the young women’s uniform for the first time. A black skirt, a white blouse, a red bib and a white hat. She stood in front of the rose-bush proudly as well-wishers congratulated her. Women of the Mothers’ Union had invaded her home, to the discomfort of Niki. The front of her yard had turned colourful with their uniform of black skirts, red tops with white collars and white hats.

  Her children often made it impossible for her to keep to herself. Their activities occasionally brought unwelcome guests. But she was proud of Popi for graduating into the union. And was secretly pleased that the relatives from Thaba Nchu had used the occasion as an excuse to visit her, and to find out what was happening with her. It showed that they still cared. And that they had accepted Popi. Even though at first they had kept their distance from Niki. And had said that they would have nothing to do with a woman who had brought so much shame to their family. And when she had posed naked for the trinity, and they had heard rumours to that effect, her fate had been sealed. They had said the habit of stripping for white men had been so deeply imbedded in her that she was not even ashamed to display her nakedness within God’s own premises. This Catholic priest who painted women, they had wondered among themselves, why was he interested in Dutch Reformed and in Methodist women? If he was true to his calling, wouldn’t he be interested only in the nakedness of Roman Catholic women?

  The relatives from Thaba Nchu were extending a hand of reconciliation. The uncle with a bicycle and three aunts had walked all the way from Thaba Nchu, with their provisions of live birds. The uncle had walked because he could not cycle away and leave the women to walk alone.

  Now a big three-legged pot was steaming with the curried poultry they had brought to celebrate Popi’s passage. Another pot was steaming with beanless samp. Women of the Mothers’ Union were going to feast. So would Popi’s fellow graduands. And then everyone would go to their homes, and leave Niki in peace.

  The only sadness in Popi was that Viliki was not there to celebrate with her. He had bought her the uniform and left. He had this tendency to disappear for days on end. And no one knew where he was. No one but Popi, for after she had pestered him enough, he had confided in her about his activities. He had joined the guerrilla forces, those who were fighting to liberate South Africa from the oppression of the Boers. He was working for the underground political Movement.

  Popi wondered what a political Movement was doing under the ground, and how Viliki happened to get there. She imagined him digging tunnels like a mole. The underground he was talking about, he explained, was in Lesotho. He crossed the Caledon River every week to smuggle out young men and women who were going to join the forces of liberation. Young men and women who came from all over South Africa, and were directed to his conduit by cell leaders. He took them across the river where he introduced them to his contact in Maseru—the only guerrilla leader he met. From there, some of them would be smuggled out of the country for military training, after which they would be infiltrated back to cause havoc to the enemy.

  “Niki will kill you if she finds out this is what you do,” Popi had warned.

  “Of course she will never find out,” Viliki had said confidently. “You are too smart to tell her. You are too smart to tell anybody. Unless you want the police to come crawling all over the place.”

  “What about Sekatle? Doesn’t he know? Do you trust him?”

  “No, I don’t trust him,” Viliki had said. “That is why he does not know. That is why you don’t see me walking around with him any more. Sekatle has joined the system.”

  That meant that Sekatle was working for those Viliki was fighting against. And in Excelsior they were represented by Adam de Vries and his party machinery. Klein-Jan Lombard and his police outfit. Tjaart Cronje and his military apparatus. The Reverend François Bornman and his guardianship of the ultimate truth. Even Johannes Smit and his Brahmins and tracts of land that were as big as a small country. The more we saw Sekatle in the company of some of these people, the more his material situation seemed to change for the better. He even drove a bakkie. We never really understood how he could afford it just by taking photographs. Even Maria’s house transformed before our eyes from a corrugated-iron shack to a brick house. Suddenly she lived like a princess. And the good life trickled down to Mmampe. Undoubtedly it would have trickled down to Niki as well, if she had not decided to eschew the company of good friends with whom she had been through so much!

  Maria and Mmampe could not understand Niki’s attitude.

  “Whatever did we do to your mother?” asked Mmampe when she next saw Popi. “I hear that she had a feast and didn’t even invite us.”

  “It was not really a feast,” explained Popi. “It was just a small tea brought by the people of Thaba Nchu for the mothers of the church to celebrate my wearing the uniform of the Young Women’s Union.”

  “So, because we are not mothers of the church, you did not even think of us,” said Mmampe, laughing. And then jokingly she added, “We who looked after you when you were a baby in the cells of Winburg.”

  Popi did not know what she was talking about. She knew that she was a coloured girl because of some misdemeanour of her mother’s. But no one had ever told her about the case of the Excelsior 19, how she had spent a month in a police cell while her skin regained its complexion after she had been a truly coloured girl. Although she had no idea what Mmampe was talking about, she didn’t care to pursue the matter. Adults had a tendency to talk in riddles. It was their prerogative.

  VILIKI GAME HOME some nights, but gave himself to the wandering land before dawn. He was always restless. While Niki seemed oblivious to his comings and goings, and s
ometimes addressed him even when he was not there, Popi worried about him. One day they might come and pick him up.

  On the evenings when he was home, he sat with Popi by the brazier and roasted mielies. Popi cherished these moments. But she spoilt them by nagging him about absconding from school before completing matric in order to work for the Movement under the ground. To become a mole in the mountains of Lesotho. He responded that one day she would thank him for sacrificing his life for her and for the rest of South Africa.

  Popi wondered how it had all started. What made her brother want to risk his life for the rest of South Africa, and what had brought him to the point where he cared more for the rest of South Africa than for his own safety and that of his mother and sister? How was the seed first planted in him? By whom? And where was Sekatle when this deadly seed was first planted? How did Sekatle and Viliki come to take such different directions when they had been such close friends? Why was Sekatle’s choice of direction proving to be so lucrative while Viliki’s was full of nothing but suffering?

  Instead of answering her questions, Viliki taught Popi new songs that he had learnt in the mysterious underground. Many of these songs, he said, came from Zimbabwe. They were chimurenga songs. Songs of liberation. Zimbabwean guerrillas used to sing them when they were fighting for their liberation. They had since won it. And were ruled by a great leader who was going to take the country to great heights. Robert Mugabe. He would make Africa soar. It did not matter that the Movement had favoured another leader, Joshua Nkomo, who had been in a closer alliance with it. Robert Mugabe was the one who had been victorious in the elections. Robert Mugabe would do just as well. He too was a great African.

  Then he told her about other struggles in Africa. Struggles that were inspiring the youth. Frelimo in Mozambique. Swapo in Namibia. The Polisario Front in Western Sahara. To Popi, these stories acquired the stature of folktales in her imagination. The animal tales that Niki used to tell her when she was still Niki. When they used to travel to Thaba Nchu to immerse themselves in the colourful world of the trinity. Before Niki began to hide herself inside herself.

  Stories like folktales. Although folktales were better. They always had a happy ending. Viliki’s stories had no ending. Just people struggling under the ground. Struggling and struggling and struggling. And singing songs.

  She loved that part. She learnt all the songs and sang them in her honey-coated voice. Viliki warned her never to sing the songs in the presence of other people. But what if Popi forgot and burst out into a chimurenga song in public? That did not worry Viliki too much. The songs were in the Shona language. A language of Zimbabwe. No one would know what they were about.

  While Viliki was teaching Popi chimurenga songs, Tjaart was visiting his home in a blaze of glory. He was on a few days’ pass from the Tempe military base in Bloemfontein. Young boeremeisies called at the butchery and pretended to chat to Cornelia Cronje while eyeing Tjaart as he helped his mother at the meat grinder. Boeremeisies swooned and swooned. The deepest sighs were heard from the direction of Jacomina Bornman, the domi-nee’s daughter.

  The elders of the church, led by the Reverend François Bornman, his marble eye gleaming, made a point of meeting Tjaart Cronje after the service on Sunday. They commended him for doing his bit for his country. He was a good Afrikaner whose vision had been shaped by Afrikaans newspapers and the Bible. And both these publications carried gospel truths: one about the secular world that the Afrikaner was trying to shape for his children and the other about the Kingdom that the Afrikaner was striving to enter and occupy in the hereafter.

  “Remember always to obey the authorities,” said the Reverend François Bornman, “because their authority comes directly from God.”

  The Afrikaner was in the middle of a war, which he had to win at all costs. It was the duty of heroes like Tjaart Cronje and his comrades in arms to destroy all the communists and terrorists who were bent on destroying the way of life for which the forebears had fought against the native tribes and (most importantly) against the British. The Afrikaner was fighting to preserve the laws of God, which were codified in South Africa into the set of laws that comprised apartheid. Apartheid was therefore prescribed by the Bible. The future of this land to which God had led the Afrikaner of old, and the future of civilisation in Africa, were in the hands of young men like Tjaart Cronje.

  Adam de Vries agreed. He spoke on behalf of the ruling National Party to which God had granted the stewardship of the country. Young men like Tjaart Cronje should never be misled by impractical solutions such as those proffered by breakaway parties like the Herstigte Nasionale Party—to which scatterbrained Afrikaners like Johannes Smit belonged. The future of the country lay in the hands of Tjaart Cronje and his peers, under the leadership of the National Party. Young men must therefore vasbyt—hang in there—and defend their country from communists and terrorists.

  All the while Tjaart Cronje was standing to attention, listening intently to the town fathers. Pride swelling in his chest. His late father, Stephanus Cronje, would have shared that pride. In memory of the departed, he was going to defend this country with his life.

  BLESSINGS

  HIS SUBJECTS ARE ordinary folk doing ordinary things. Yet God radiates from them. As He radiates from the man sitting on a blue kitchen chair. Ovaleyed man wearing a red beret and a brown overall. He holds a big blue cross close to his chest. Big man in big black miners’ boots sitting against a whitewashed wall with light blue smudges. Thick black outlines make him and the chair appear very robust. His head is slightly bowed in prayer.

  After the prayer, Popi stood over the banana loaf cake on the “kitchen scheme” table. Tiny pink and blue candles burning on the brown cake. Four candles. They sang happy birthday to Niki. Forty years young. Yet she looked old and battered. Like a woman whose face had been exposed to many a thunderstorm. Floods had eroded it. And hydroquinone had caked it with scaly chubaba patches of black, purple and red. There was a slight suggestion of irritation in her eyes. All this unnecessary fuss!

  “I told you, I don’t want any of this,” she said.

  “Come on, Niki, don’t be a spoilsport,” said Popi.

  “Blow the candles,” commanded Viliki.

  “Ja, blow the candles,” agreed Pule weakly.

  She blew out the candles. Everyone applauded. Popi cut the cake. She passed the plate to Niki, who was sitting on the bed. She took a slice and sniffed it before she took a bite. Popi then passed the plate to Viliki and Pule, who were sitting on the chairs at the table. Each took a slice. They all sipped green cream-soda from enamel mugs.

  Popi stood in front of everyone and clapped her hands twice, calling for silence. She was radiant in her first ready-made dress. All her previous dresses had either been hand-me-downs or dresses sewn from cheap multicoloured calico by amateur dressmakers. Today she was wearing a dress that had been bought off the peg, from a real shop. A pink dress with tiny blue and yellow flowers. A knee-length dress that exposed her hairy legs. It had been brought by Pule from Welkom only the week before. He said he had looked at girls he knew to be Popi’s age in order to estimate her size. His estimation had not been far off the mark, for the dress fitted her as if she had been measured for it.

  Popi made a speech. She thanked God for the blessings of rain. It was a sign of good fortune. Its drops made her spinach in the backyard acquire a deep greenness and leaves that were rich and broad. Although rain muddied the unpaved streets of Mahlat-swetsa Location, it was the giver of life. And of bountiful blessings. Hence our ancestors said rain heals and destroys at the same time.

  She wished her mother a very long life. And thanked her for all she had done for her and for Viliki. Life had been kind to them, for rarely did they sleep with empty stomachs. All because Niki was the kind of mother who would sacrifice everything for her children. She was like a hen that protected its chicks under its short wings in the face of swooping hawks. Popi was now eighteen and Viliki was twenty-two, she reminded her mo
ther.

  “We are adults because of you,” she said, “and we vow that we’ll look after you, and we’ll always be there for you. Don’t we, Viliki?”

  “Of course we do, Popi,” replied Viliki.

  “And we won’t be leaving her alone for weeks on end,” she added. “Not so, Viliki? You vow you’ll stop gallivanting all over the place?”

  “You know I can’t make such a vow, Popi,” pleaded Viliki. “You know exactly why I can’t do such a thing.”

  “He is always away, this boy,” said Niki quietly. “He’s always away. They always take my children away. They are taking Tjaart away too.”

  People who worked in the kitchens of white people had brought it back to Mahlatswetsa Location that Tjaart Cronje was being transferred from the military base in the neighbouring Ladybrand district, where he had been fighting the terrorists who were infiltrating the Free State farms from Lesotho. The army was sending him to Johannesburg to fight the terrorist school children who had been petrol-bombing Soweto since 1976. After hearing this, Popi had cruelly said to Niki: “Did you hear that your Tjaart Cronje is being sent away to fight real wars in Suidwes and in Soweto?”

  The Suidwes part was her own invention, just to make the danger to Tjaart Cronje’s life even greater. Everyone knew that the Boers were dying in Suidwes, as they called Namibia. Niki had not responded at the time. It was as though she had not heard her. But now it was obvious that Tjaart Cronje’s imminent transfer to more dangerous war-zones had been eating at Niki all this time. Popi was angry with herself for having been so cruel to her mother. She could not help but hate Tjaart Cronje for having held Niki’s compassion to ransom for so many years—from the time she had been his nanny.

  “You know, Mother,” said Viliki patiently, “it is possible that this Tjaart Cronje you seem to care so much about does not even know that you exist.”