by Vincent Gray
of the Suikerbosrand. Sweeping past the small town of Heidelberg they drove into night. Now before them, cloaked in darkness, lay the icy steppes of the vast Highveld plains. The small rural towns of Villiers, Warden and Harrismith marked their passage to Van Reenen’s pass where the Highveld plains came to an abrupt end at the foot of the great escarpment which was contiguous with the majestic Drakensberg Mountains which also represented the only surviving geological remnants of the ancient Gondwanaland. The rest of Gondwanaland had been eroded away. Because of the fuel saving restrictions the convoy of Kombis stayed within the speed limit of 80 km per hour on the quiet traffic-free open stretch of highway.
After Harrismith they began the long winding ascent up and over the mountainous escarpment. Breaking through the layer of cloud cover that had blanketed the Highveld plains the billions upon billions of stars, visible only to viewers in the Southern Hemisphere, which now filled the night sky blazed brightly above as the temperatures plummeted way below zero. All five Kombis had now also run out of fuel and without any engine power the wedding convoy coasted slowly and silently down the dip to the garage which stood at the edge of the highway close to the little town of Van Reenen. The five Kombis came to an empty hollow tank halt at the garage petrol pumps. Under the bright star lit night sky the surrounding landscape coated in a thick brittle layer of crystalline frost took on the appearance of a pristine phosphorescent white wonderland. The four other drivers got out of their vehicles and gathered in a group. Trevor joined them in the freezing cold outside. Following the fall of the Shah of Iran the supplies of crude oil to South Africa from Iran had been suddenly cut and with the imposition of the international anti-apartheid oil embargo the supply of crude oil to South Africa had become even more severely constrained. Because of the fuel crisis all garage trading hours in South Africa were now restricted to the period from 7.00 am to 7.00 pm. Wrapped in layers of blankets the single petrol attendant was fast asleep behind the glass doors of the filling station’s office. After discussing all their options it was decided they would wake up the petrol attendant by knocking loudly on the glass door and persuade him with the inducement of a tempting bribe to switch on the petrol pumps and allow them to fill up the Kombi tanks. Of course the petrol attendant did not take kindly to be woken up in the early hours of the morning. Reluctantly he got up but no amount of pleading and begging nor could the inducement of a bribe persuade him to switch on the petrol pumps and allow them to fill their tanks. It was two-o-clock in the morning and they now had to face the prospect of a freezing cold five hour wait before they could fill the tanks and continue with the journey.
The temperature had fallen to -5oC. Everyone in spite of being wrapped up in blankets were now shivering with cold in the Kombis. In Trevor’s Kombi everyone was sitting huddled close together under blankets. For a while before eventually being overcome with sleep the teenagers in Trevor’s Kombi entertained themselves by singing the lyrics that they were listening to on the tape recorder. Unable to fall sleep himself because of the freezing cold Trevor listened to their singing. They started singing Hey Jude. In the end the singing ceased as one by one they fell into a fitful sleep.
At six-o-clock the cold woke Trevor up. He had fallen asleep under a blanket while slumped uncomfortably behind the steering wheel. The windows of all the Kombi had become iced up. To relieve the stiffness in his legs he got out of the Kombi and started doing some stretching exercises. With the stiffness in legs and body gone he ran on the spot for a while to get the blood flowing and to warm up. The passing of the next hour which would bring the time to 7.00 am felt like an eternity.
Shortly after sunrise they descended down the escarpment into the rocky hilly open savannah countryside of Natal. In the west the Drakensburg Mountains were covered in a mantle of snow. With full tanks and empty stomachs rumbling with the pangs of hunger brought on by the cold they pressed on without stopping, leaving behind Ladysmith, Colenso, and Estcourt, they soon passed the small town of Mooi River, entering the Natal midlands, where Trevor had grown up. After the village of Howick they descended down the steep winding road flanked by forests of giant blue gum trees until they reached the bottom of the sleepy hollow where Pietermaritzburg nestled languidly amongst its Victorian facades and monuments in a state of colonial oblivion. Filling up with petrol in Pietermaritzburg the convoy continued its descent into the evergreen valley of a thousand hills. Once in Durban the convoy headed northwards to Umhlanga and then took the road into Phoenix where they were welcomed by a mild pleasant subtropical day and just a few kilometres away as the gulls would fly the rolling swells of the vast Indian Ocean crushed onto the white beaches that lined the shores of the coastal city of Durban.
III
Finally in Phoenix, when a petite winsome young Indian woman opened the door; he was immediately taken aback by her angelic appearance. Overcome with an embarrassing attack of awkward shyness he became momentarily mute. At first glance she looked deceptively thin almost emaciated, yet the light fabric of the long white flowing dress covering her lithe physique did not hid the subtle contours of an exquisitely shapely figure. She was twenty years old, but looked much younger than her age. Her friendly youthful face was strikingly attractive. She had sensual lips, a refined aristocratic aquiline nose, high cheek bones and large black doe-eyes which made her appear not a year older than a sixteen year old school girl.
She was just as surprised see who he was, so out of place in her neighbourhood. Just yesterday she had written the last of her mid-year examinations and now the first day of her university winter student holidays had begun. Behind him she also saw the white Kombi parked at the gate of their small garden. In his hand he was carrying a suitcase.
Now he was not sure whether he was at the right address. He had just finished driving around Phoenix, dropping off his passengers from Lenasia at the various addresses. He had driven through the pot holed streets of this alien neighbourhood. Streets lined with low cost economic housing consisting of rows and rows of semi-detached two-story flats with asbestos roofs that had originally been painted in various pastel shades of blue, purple, lilac, yellow and green. The paint work had long since faded into washed out lighter shades of their former colours. He had also driven on winding dirt roads through localities within Phoenix where ramshackle corrugated iron structures had been erected on steep slopes between lush stands of dense vegetation that were filled with birds, monkeys and reptiles, creatures adapted to the climes of the subtropics. At one of these sprawling ramshackle corrugated iron shacks he had eaten a lunch of curried lamb and rice. It was from this address that he was given the directions to the home of Ahmad Abdullah Suleiman where he was informed he would be staying for the next three days while in Phoenix. At short notice the Suleiman’s had graciously volunteered to provide food and accommodation for the plant breeder.
The flatland neighbourhood where the Suleiman family lived looked like the derelict gangland ‘projects’ that he had seen in America movies.
And there was no ways that Faeeza Suleiman could have guessed that the stranger standing at the front door was going to be a guest in their home for the next three days. She was the only sibling still living with her parents. Her sister and two brothers had become married and had moved out of the parental home some time ago.
It was also the case that nothing any longer could surprise Faeeza Suleiman, especially given the fact that a Pentecostal revival was burning its way through the shack lands and high density low-cost housing estates of Phoenix, and it was burning with a contagion which exceeded the ferocity of the Spanish flu epidemic. Now Faeeza also knew that in Phoenix the prevailing circumstances were ripe for the occurrence of any unimaginable kind of eventuality, yes every unimaginable kind of eventuality, because anything could happen at any moment in Phoenix, and the unexpected had become the norm or the expected.
She had just finished reading Mel Tari’s book, Like a Mighty Wind, where a similar Christian revival had already taken place in the Ind
onesian island of Timor, and now an eccentric American missionary who had worked in Timor was also preaching in a huge white marquee that had been erected in an open patch of veld in Phoenix, just down the road from her home, a mere ten minutes walking distance from where she lived.
Her whole life had been turned upside down; she had now learnt not to take anything at face value. For all she knew the man standing at the front door of her home could be a missionary, a prophet, an evangelist or even an angel. It was not even two years ago that a lanky Zulu man with a beaming face, dressed in a shining black suit, starched white shirt and a bright floral tie had stood knocking at their front door. It was Faeeza who had opened the door. Her mother who had been struck down with multiple sclerosis was sitting in their small dim lounge with a blanket over her knees. In his hand the tall Zulu man held a large black Bible which he waved about as he spoke. He announced that God had sent him to pray for her mother.
“Who is there?” Her mother called out anxiously.
“It is me Pastor Dumisani Maduma from the Free
