by Elsa Joubert
We followed the sound of the drums. Standing a little distance away from old Makone’s house, we watched the people coming down the street. They were dressed in white robes, their faces smeared with white clay, the old man carried a kierie in his hand, the younger one a sambok which he switched at the dust on the road. The men mock-fought with their kieries.
When the grown-ups were inside the house, we moved closer, pushing in throuh the drums and the handclapping. When the isangoma, the chief of the witchdoctors, entered the room, the sound died down. She prayed. The people started singing church hymns, the singing stilled their mind to the work. We liked the singing, too.
The isangoma was an old mama, she wore beads round her waist, arms and neck, and a hat made of skin, with strings of beads tied to it. She held a switch in one hand and a small stick in the other. Her face was shiny with sweat, she threw back her head, her legs started trembling and she fell down on her knees. But when the people started thumping their feet, she got up and danced in the centre of the group, with her eyes closed and her hands stretched out in front of her.
The men with the kieries shoved Poppie and Miriam and Nomsolono aside. Get out, they said. This is no place for you. You’ll get hurt.
Outside in the backyard the son of old sisi Makone was tending the fire. He knew his mother was a witchdoctor, but he didn’t mind.
Because of the dancing, he told Poppie, I get a lot of meat to eat and beer to drink.
When Poppie got home, she told oompie Pengi, the buti of old sisi Makone is building a big fire. The medicine people are dancing.
Ouma Hannie heard what Poppie was saying, but pretended not to.
She lifted the flat-iron from the fire, wiped it with a rag, and spat on it. The spittle spluttered off the hot surface. Ouma was ironing her white bib and white doek. She wore her church uniform on Sundays and to special services – a black skirt and red overblouse with white bib and doek. Thursday afternoons she wore the uniform to the women’s prayer meeting. Ouma was a faithful church-goer and did not approve of the dances of the amagqira, the witchdoctor people.
Ouma’s Methodist church was a whitewashed brick building and her preacher was Mr Tshangela. His wife was the juffrou of the Sunday school. But the children in the location knew of many other churches: the Lutheran Church, the Ethiopian Church, the Anglican Church, the Dutch Reformed, the Baptists.
Mr Tshangela preached in Xhosa and a lay preacher translated what he said into Afrikaans every Sunday, and on some Sundays a third man repeated his words into Sotho. On those days the church service went on till one o’clock in the afternoon.
The Afrikaans-speaking people brought their Afrikaans hymn books and the Xhosa people sang in Xhosa, and when they came down the steps at one o’clock they were still singing, they formed groups and carried on singing. They couldn’t stop singing. They strolled down the streets, still singing, walking slowly, forming new groups and starting afresh.
Ouma Hannie joined a group. She loved the singing, it brought a deep satisfaction. When they passed old Makone’s house, she did not mind any more that Poppie had told oompie Pengi about the amagqira’s dancing. She had made peace with the fact that oompie Pengi stayed away all night at Makone’s house, that he came home drunk, that he left again in the early morning to drink the last dregs of the beer.
Once the witchdoctor people too, were church-going, ouma told Poppie without anger as they passed Makone’s house. But their dreams destroyed them, and they were forced to leave the church. They were told in their dreams to become amagqira, to learn the amagqira’s dances and songs.
Like kleinma Hessie when she left our church? asks Poppie...
My God, ma, shouted Pengi, in Uideritzbucht sisi Mieta is wearing the skin of the black devil on her hat, and sisi Hessie is wearing the skin of the brown devil in Putsonderwater. ..
He had swept ouma’s cups and saucers and plates on to the dung-smeared floor. They crashed into small pieces, and the table staggered after them. Oompie Pengi was drunk, but the crash brought him back to his senses. He was sitting at table and ouma was sitting up straight on her goatskins on the floor. Poppie and Plank and Hoedjie pulled the blankets over their heads, because they knew the rages of oompie Pengi when he was drunk.
But oompie Pengi was ashamed when he saw the broken cups and he said to ouma: I’ll build the fire myself, a huge fire, a fire as big as the whole of hell, and then I’ll call mama’s children, the whole lot of them, I’ll fetch sisi Martha and sisi Mieta and sisi Hessie and buti Sam. I’ll walk right into the fire of hell and the others will follow me. But sisi Lena is mama’s sweetest child, she can stay behind with mama.
5
Nearly every month ouma Hannie went by train to her eldest son, oompie Sam, to fetch food for the family. Oompie Sam worked on the railways and lived in the Koegerabie location. He lived without a woman, in a shack made of two sheets of corrugated iron set up against one another. The shack became very hot because the sun beat down on it all day long. Oompie Sam slept on a wooden stretcher and, when they visited, ouma and Poppie slept on the ground.
Sometimes oompie Sam’s friends who worked on the railway sent word that a cow had been hit by a train, and that ouma could fetch some meat. Then Poppie stayed away from school and went with ouma. The train stopped in the veld at Koegerabie and ouma got down with difficulty because she was a great big fat woman. She delayed the train but at last she was down and she cou,ld stretch out her arms to take Poppie and her bag. The guard helped her to get down.
Usually the meat wasn’t so fresh when they got there, but once a cow was hit while they were staying with oompie Sam and he helped with the skinning and brought home the hind quarter. As Poppie watched, the meat started jerking, like a chicken whose neck has been chopped off with an axe.
She screamed: ouma, the cow is still alive.
Ouma laid her hand on the meat and said: It’s still warm, that’s why it is kicking so.
Oompie Sam gave most of his railway-rations to ouma Hannie: Mealie meal, boer meal and monkey-nuts. He was small and skinny and did not eat much himself. He drank, but not much. Every few weeks he came to ouma’s house, and had a few drinks with Pengi, but when Pengi started making trouble he’d walk away or go to bed, he’d never bother to fight.
Oompie Sam dressed well when he came to visit in Upington, he liked wearing a suit. Ouma thought: He’s wife-hunting, but if he was, he kept it hidden from her.
Both the brothers were neat on their persons, they liked their clean white shirts and neatly pressed trousers. In those days they liked wearing white canvas tennis shoes, so Saturday afternoons after work they sat in the sun in the backyard, cleaning their shoes. They scrubbed them with soap and water till they were soaking wet, then smeared them with whiting and set them to dry. When they were stiff with whiteness they put them on, and went courting in the location.
Oompie Pengi was the one to make the beer. And when he was tippled and oompie Sam had left him and gone courting, he’d call Plank and his friends together and tell them to sing. Then he’d tap, he’d tap dance while they sang, he’d teach them to tap, sing along with them the whole night through and play his guitar: Hitler kom van ver af, die boere skiet hom nerf-af, nader na die pale toe, which was an Afrikaans song left over from the war, and which means Hitler comes from far away, the Boers are shooting him to Hell and back. They’d sing together all night long.
Or he’d wake up ouma Hannie and say: I’ll show mama how the medicine people dance, and he’d grab a kierie, and jerk his body this way and that and hit his knees together and throw his head back and pretend to be in a trance. He was very light of heart, oompie Pengi, and he’d mimic them to make ouma Hannie smile.
Your oompie Sam has forsaken me, he’d tell Plank. Come and dance with your oompie Pengi. But when Plank preferred strumming his guitar, when his fingers would not let go of the strings, he’d scream: Can’t you hear me, you devil’s child? Have you lost your ears, or are they stuck up your arse?
Then oompie Pengi dropped his kierie. God, ma, if you call old Pieterse, I’ll knock him down. You can go call a white man to lock me up, but no Damara baboon will lay hand to me.
Ouma Hannie said: Ag, Pengi, why are you such a worry to me? When will you find peace for your soul?
Oompie Sam started courting a girl of mixed blood from Soutpan who was visiting her sister in Basterhoek, and when she left .for home he followed her to Soutpan.
Now, who would have thought it of buti Sam? asked oompie Pengi sadly. That bitch will be the end of him. She’ll make him see his arse.
This was the time when Poppie’s mama came from De Aar, where she was in service with white people, to have a rest in ouma’s house. She told ouma that the father of her children was no more. He had died in the war.
Other people in the location said: But the war is long since past, and Machine Matati is pushing a new bicycle down the streets of Mafeking. But Lena didn’t bother to listen to their stories.
He never looked after my children like a father should, she told ouma Hannie. I have no tears to weep for Machine Matati.
6
This was also the time when a letter came from kleinpa Ruben from Doringbaai, a fishing village on the west coast.
Dear mother, kleinpa Ruben wrote, it goes well with us, I hope it goes well with you. A body that has been stricken with illness is my wife’s. A body that needs help is my wife’s.
Kleinma Hessie had a hard life with kleinpa Ruben, Poppie says. The Bishop of the Ethiopians sent him from one place to another, and only at Calvinia was there a building for the church:In Doringbaai he built a corrugated iron church behind the barracks. In Nababeep the people lived in small round huts made of sacking. There were few converts and he couldn’t be dependent on them, he had to work by day, at a garage in Calvinia, on the railways in De Aar or in the fish factory in Doringbaai, and at night he led the services.
At Doringbaai kleinma Hessie became ill.
At Doringbaai she could tell mama how hard her life had been.
Because ouma Hannie got a fright when she received the letter, she forgot her distress that Hessie had left the Methodist Church, she called Pengi and Sam and Lena to her and said: It is my wish that Lena goes to Hessie to look after her. And whatever will become of my little Mosie?
They had had no word of Mosie for a very long time.
Poppie must go with Lena, said ouma.
And so it came about that only Plank and Hoedjie were left with ouma and oompie Pengi.
Lena and Poppie went by train, via Hutchinson, to Calvinia where the railway ended, then by bus over the Cold Bokkeveld Mountains.
I was so scared when the bus drove over the high mountain, says Poppie. They told me: We have to cross the Cold Bokkeveld Mountains to reach Klawer near the sea. I looked through the window, it seemed so far to go down, it looked so dry and dead down there, I felt we would fall down the mountain. As the bus took the comers of the pass, it swayed from side to side and I thought the back end of the bus would never catch up with the front and if it didn’t crash into the mountainside it would go over the edge. Where the road branched off the bus stopped and my mama and I clambered up the slope and sat behind a bush to relieve ourselves. The wind blew very cold against my buttocks, and my nose started running and my eyes watered.
When we reached Klawer, it was flat country and I was no longer scared.
The fish factory sent a lorry to fetch the people from Klawer and Lena and Poppie went along with the others. They sat on the back of the lorry with their suitcases and bedding that had been taken down from the roof of the bus. Their eyes watered, no longer from the mountain cold, but from the dust that rose in clouds from the dirt track on which they drove. They sat flat in the truck with their legs stretched out before them. Mama pulled Poppie away from the rim of the lorry and pressed her head deep into her lap to protect her from the dust. At times when the lorry went over a ridge her mother’s body was lifted completely off the floor, to sink back again as the lorry steadied itself. The driver stuck his hand through the window and waved at them to reassure them, but the passengers screamed at him: Hoi, hoi, slower, man, do you want to kill us?
At Doringbaai a child stood waiting for them. Poppie did not know who it was, till mama told the people getting down from the lorry: That’s my boy, that one over there.
And to Poppie she said: Ag now, don’t you know your brother, that’s Mosie, over there.
Then she recognised his face, but his body had changed, he was much taller than her. He carried their suitcases and mama hoisted the bedding on to her head. The road led up an incline and when they reached the top, she saw a stretch of water in front of her.
That’s the sea, said Mosie.
Why are the people sitting in the water, she asked, because she saw the rocks and the black sea-birds sitting on the rocks and she thought they were people.
He put down the cases and pointed. They’re birds, man, not people.
But Poppie was too stupid to understand. She thought they were people till she saw them flying away in a flock.
Kleinpa and kleinma stayed in the factory barracks, rows of rooms built of corrugated iron. The factory bosses gave some families two rooms, others three.
Kleinma’s bedroom wasn’t the way Poppie remembered it from Putsonderwater. There was scarcely any furniture in it, the bed’s mattress and springs rested on four wooden boxes and had gone slack so that it sagged to the middle and kleinma lay in a small heap in the middle of the bed underneath the grey blanket. Kleinma was thin and she seemed to have shrunk. She got out of bed when she saw her sister Lena, and in her nightdress, on her bare feet, the kopdoek awry, she came to her and flung her arms about her.
Ag, my little sister, she said,now I’ll get well again.
Mosie boiled water on the Primus stove and made them some tea.
I’ve left school, he told Poppie. I’m looking after mama now. I gather wood and I cook the food and I sweep the house. Mosie called kleinma Hessie mama because he had lived with her so long. Going around with kleinpa Ruben to do mission work for the Ethiopian Church had spoiled his schooling. He hadn’t been able to finish a single school year. Poppie already had more learning.
The factory manager sent for Lena when the fish catch increased. You can’t sit at home, he said, we need you because we can’t keep ahead.
I’m feeling better, said Hessie, I’ll get up to make your midday meal, Poppie can walk with Mosie to take your food.
They walked over the sand dunes to get to the factory, a wooden building on the water’s edge. Poppie wasn’t scared till she got inside. Then she started crying, the wooden floor was old, it wobbled as she walked, and through the cracks between the floor-boards she saw the dark water moving, reaching at her, being sucked back again. She screamed at Mosie: Take me away from this place. The water will get me.
Mama brought fish from the factory and when Poppie saw Mosie eating the fish, she ate some too, because she had never seen fish before.
But Lena didn’t get on well with her brother-in-law. When Hessie was well again, and when the people told her they paid more money at the fish factory at Lamberts Bay, she decided to leave.
I’ll let Mosie stay with you, she told Hessie, if you put him back to school. In the afternoons he can help you, but he must get some learning too.
7
Poppie and her mama went from Doringbaai to Lamberts Bay in the factory boat. But Poppie was scared to get into the fishing smack waiting in the shallow water to ferry them to the boat. The fishermen shouted at them: Hurry up. Lena gave the suitcases Mosie had carried to the beach to the fishermen, the roll of bedding they passed along by hand. She tucked up her dress and waded in. When she was seated in the smack, she held
out her hands to Poppie, but Poppie wouldn’t move.
One of the fishermen picked her up under the armpits and carried her out. She kicked and beat her hands against his face and her body writhed against his, but when she saw the water splashing his legs she clung to him, arms and legs clasped around his body, she wouldn’t let go even when the people in the smack tried to ease her in.
Mosie, she screamed, but the tears and water splashing her face dimmed her sight.
The waves caught the smack and lifted the prow and the little boat heaved and dipped and heaved and dipped. Poppie felt an illness as she had never felt before. She just said: Mama, and then Lena grabbed her and shoved her head over the side. The fishermen rowed to the bigger boat, eased the smack alongside, made it fast and told Lena: Step on the motor-car tyre hanging alongside. The sailors will grab your arms.
They pushed at her from behind, and others caught the tyre to keep it still, and others tried to ease the smack, and she stepped and reached out her arms.
Grab the woman, shouted the fishermen. They dragged her on board. They picked up Poppie and bodily handed her over.
On deck Lena crawled to her bundle of bedding, unfastened the blankets and drew them over her and Poppie. The fishermen brought buckets for their vomit and stood watching them and said: Now this is what you call being seasick, because Lena didn’t know what was happening to them. A fisherman fetched his flask of coffee from the engine room to give Lena something hot to drink, but she could not get it down. With every dip of the boat her stomach rose in her throat.
At first they could still see the coast, then it was water wherever they turned their eyes, they lost direction and didn’t know where they were being taken.
When they approached Lamberts Bay, the engine was cut and they drifted close to the jetty. Now Poppie was no longer afraid of the water rising and falling under the boards of the jetty, as she had been afraid in the factory of Doringbaai. Many people and children had come to watch the boat coming in. She moved her legs and stamped her feet on the jetty to get warm, and she felt: I’m better than the other children because I’ve come from far across the sea. I’m strong now.