The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena

by Elsa Joubert

  I looked after mama’s children until I was thirteen, because at thirteen the factory took children to work as cleaners.

  TWO

  Lamberts Bay

  11

  There were two kinds of jobs in the fish factory, says Poppie. Some were cleaners, others packers. The cleaners gutted the fish, scraped them, cut off the fins, head and tail and threw them into wire trays for the men to take away. The men washed them in cement dams filled with water, and threw them on to the packers’ tables. The packers put the fish into tins, a machine fixed the lids on, and then the tins were thrown into a big sieve pot on wheels ready for the steamer. The steamer could take four of the big iron trolley sieve pots at a time.

  At what time we started work? Now, that was just when the boats came in. The boats put out from about five o’clock or sunset. If the fish was very far out, they left earlier, at three in the afternoon. The quicker they got to the fish, the quicker they turned back and the sooner the factory whistle was blown. Even at three o’clock in the morning. Even at one o’clock. And then we had to get up and go. There were no electric lights in the location, we walked in the dark. When we were still living nearby in the barracks they called Pampoengat, it wasn’t so bad, but when they put us out of the barracks, that is when they moved out the Xhosa people, it was a long way to walk. Sometimes, when the fish was very plentiful, the whistle went at one o’clock, and we only got home eleven the next night, we worked without stopping from morning to night to morning again; no we didn’t stop at all.

  There were two factories, old Mr Barrel’s factory – our people called him old Umbombo because of his big nose, our people have the way of giving nicknames – and Mr Jaffet’s factory way beyond Malkop Bay. Him we called ou Mehlomane, which means four eyes, because he wore glasses. I worked as a cleaner at Barrel’s factory. We knew the difference between the two whistles, we knew whose whistle had gone. Mr Jaffet’s people knew when they had to start work and the others as well.

  You got paid according to your tray. You had a ticket pinned to the shoulder of your overall and you got a punch for every tray you filled. Those days it was one shilling a tray, and you could make up to two pounds a day in full season. But the packers earned the most, more than fourteen pounds a week.

  We liked working at night, though we got so tired, that when the whistle blew the second night as well, we certainly did not feel like going to work again. But there was no way out of it. I remember one time when everybody got really tired. It was the third day and there was no end to the fish. The boats were so full you could see the heaps showing. The fish got mushy in the boats; there was so much, we couldn’t keep ahead at the factory. They weren’t so clever with the cold storage yet. The foreman in the factory, old Marinus, saw the people were staying at home on the third and fourth day and he drove his lorry to the location to round us all up. Ag, but it was a fine time, because the shops were waiting and they knew people would have lots of money to spend. Things were cheap then and the money plentiful. We ate very well when the fish was in full season.

  At that time my best friends were Meisie and Ounooi and Katrina who later had a child by buti Plank but he didn’t pay damage money for the child because she wasn’t a Xhosa. She was a coloured girl. Meisie was also a coloured girl who came from Port Nolloth. We all worked at the factory.

  Lunchtimes we walked to the cafe to buy grapes or a peach or a banana or a bottle of cool drink to have with the bread we had brought from home. The big boys made up to us when we took shelter on the shop’s stoep against the wind, but we paid no attention to them. As we walked back to the factory we would put our arms round each other’s waists, lean back against the wind, and break into a little trot, because the wind pushed us along. But by three o’clock, the wind used to die down and the afternoons were quiet. At sunset there never was wind.

  12

  Sunday afternoons when our housework was done, we went to the beach. To the sandy beach or to Malkop Bay where we liked to play in the water between the rocks. Mosie dived into the sea from the high rocks and the boys caught small fishes with hook and line.

  Mama wouldn’t let us take the little ones to the beach for fear of the sea. But we could take them to the veld, Pieta and Katie and Jakkie. Jakkie was a lively child and Hoedjie’s friends especially liked him and took him everywhere with them. He looked like a little girl with a stocky little body and a round face. His hair was longish, more like a Baster child’s hair than a Xhosa.

  Hoedjie left school and became a waiter at the hotel. He wore a white cap and white jacket which he washed and starched himself, and black trousers and white shirt and a small black bow-tie. He was a quiet boy but the girls liked him a lot. Especially the coloured girls even though he had a very dark complexion. He had oompie Pengi’s high nose and his blackness.

  Buti Plank’s work on the boats was heavy. It was dangerous. The weather was treacherous at Lamberts Bay. One day it rained, the next day a terrible wind. The east wind came overland and when it blew you couldn’t see a thing in front of your eyes for the dust. And if it wasn’t wind or rain it was the mist, and the boats could not put out and lay waiting for the mist to lift. Then everything came to a standstill.

  But ag, it was so sad when the sea got rough and the boats were still out and we gathered to watch the boats struggling back to the harbour. It was so sad, standing on the breakwater, not being able to help. It was rough sea at the breakwater, many boats sank and the people were drowned.

  When the weather was really bad, the foreman gave us off, then we gathered and watched all the time. We would count the waves and after the sixth wave, when the sea quietens down, a boat would try to get through. When they managed it, we who were standing on the breakwater, clapped our hands and shouted.

  Meisie and Ounooi and Katrina and I liked to go shopping.

  The first shop from our location on the way to town was de Waal’s shop and butchery and further along was old Swarthoed’s. He was an old man with many children, but we only knew baas Hennie and Miss Baby. We liked his shop, we bought milk from the old missus and fresh bread which she baked. But my ma liked old Heunis’s shop as well.

  On Saturdays the fruit lorries came to the location. Tractors, lorries, wagons, anything on wheels brought watermelons and sour milk and buttermilk and fruit from the farms.

  Old Attie brought bundles of wood on his tractor, figtree wood that my ma was very partial to and bought from him for a shilling a bundle. All the white people came from the farms to sell their goods. Every Saturday the location was packed. Old Sarel’s stuff was the best, but expensive. He had the best plums and peaches. Old Missus Maria with her big bonnet sold milk and buttermilk and sour milk in drums. She was very fond of us. When we were moved from the barracks they followed us to the location to sell their goods.

  Ja, it was a fine place when the fish was in season and money was plentiful. When the merry-go-round came to the town we rode on the swings and the little horses. We could buy a ride for a sixpence. I only liked the swings. I didn’t like the big wheel which took you through the air upside down. And when the season was finished, well, the fine time was over.

  The friend I liked best was Meisie. She was tall and thin and very pretty with a light complexion and blue eyes and long black hair. She looked quite different from her mother, auntie Lena, who was a Bushman woman with a big bum and a short body and yellow skin. Meisie’s father was a white man who lived in Port Nolloth and sent word to her when he came to Lamberts Bay. Then he stayed in the Gebou location in another auntie’s house, auntie Poenas. But he didn’t sleep in her house, he slept outside in his motor car.

  When he sent word to her, she asked me: Come along with me, Poppie, I’m scared. He was sitting in an oldfashioned black Ford motor car, and she got in beside him and they sat talking. I was scared of the white oom too, but after a time Meisie didn’t mind him. The people said it was of longing for Meisie that the white oom came to Lamberts Bay.

  Xhosa men w
ere fond of Meisie. In the shop they called to her: Me-si. But auntie Lena was very strict with her and told her: You must never marry a Xhosa man because they always let you down. Auntie Lena had been living with Uncle James, a Xhosa man, in the Pampoengat location, but he left her and married a Xhosa girl in Cape Town.

  The coloured girls liked Xhosa men, but Xhosa girls never went with coloured men, it was against our belief.

  Ouma Hannie was strict with Poppie. She taught her to respect the traditions. Poppie walked along the beach with her friends. She dragged her feet through the shallow water, holding her dress bunched up between her legs. It was quiet down at the sea, the beach deserted. But Poppie was keeping an eye on the setting sun, watching the sunlight reflected on the water. She must be home before sunset. That was the custom of her people. Katrina and Meisie knew that it was so.

  If there is a daughter in the house, Poppie told them, an old woman cannot light the lamps. This is our custom. That’s why a Xhosa girl cannot stay away till sunset. She lights a lamp for every room, every day of the week, and she cooks the food. Ouma tells her what to cook and she cooks it. My brothers have nothing to do with the housework, it’s against our custom for the men to work with the food. Ouma is strict, too, about church-going. She sent to Upington for her removal papers. Sundays we put everything aside and go to the Methodist Church which is held in the barracks. This is what ouma taught us. It is our duty to go.

  Before ouma died, I was enrolled as a prayer meeting girl and clothed. I wore a white blouse and a black skirt with a black beret, black shoes and stockings and a red bib.

  13

  Ouma walked with great difficulty and had stopped visiting her friends or going to the shop. She sat in the sun with her darning, and as it grew hot, moved to the shade. A friend from Calvinia sat with her, they talked of Damara people they knew, and Griquas.

  Ouma had trouble with her legs, says Poppie. Tiny little water blisters appeared on her skin, old wounds from her varicose veins troubled her. The doctor gave her pills and told her to swallow them with lots of water. Ouma complained: Now for what must I drink so much water.

  Ouma is longing for oompie Pengi. She says: Hoedjie looks like Pengi, but Plank takes after him. Plank sings the way Pengi used to sing, he plays his guitar like his oompie. He has made lots of money on the boats but he still plays his oompie’s syrup-tin guitar.

  He has also started drinking, like his oompie Pengi. He brought liquor back into our house, says Poppie. It was the way of the fishermen to drink, having so much time on their hands, sitting around doing nothing, so they drink.

  Buti Plank had plenty of money and he moved them out of the barracks house and built a house close by of corrugated iron, next to auntie Lena’s house. Poppie liked living next to Meisie. In the evenings Poppie and Hoedjie and Mosie played card games with Meisie, catcards and snap. Buti Plank did not join them. Ag, stick your cards up your arse, he’d say, when he came home drunk.

  Friday nights buti Plank used to go out, he went down the street listening for the sound of guitar or gramophone and people dancing. He had many friends, and they opened their doors to him.

  Come and join us, Plank, the coloured girls called as he passed by. They were drinking too. Their bodies moved beneath their tightly fitting dresses. They took a pull at the bottle, their bodies were scented and their brown legs shiny with oil. It was mostly because of girls that Plank got into fights when he was drunk. Mosie and Poppie were the only ones that could calm him down.

  We were sitting at auntie Lena’s place, says Poppie, playing cards, then they called to us: God Almighty, old Plank has started a fight again, they said. Then we dropped the cards and ran to where we heard the noise and the shouting. Come, buti, we would say, and we’d take him by the arm. When we were with him the others were no longer scared, they’d help us lead him to the street.

  Go call old Zulu, they’d say. Old Zulu was a Nyasaman who worked on the same boat as Plank and who also had a way with him.

  Look, brother, look, your little sister has come to fetch you home, he would say.

  When he was really in a bad way, and his eyes cleared and he saw that he had been brought home, it used to come all over him again, and he’d struggle to free himself.

  Go to Hell, crawl up your bloody arses, he’d scream at Poppie and Mosie.

  But all the fighting exhausted him and he’d lie down on his bed.

  Bring the straps, said Hoedjie. We’ll strap him down till he falls asleep.

  Don’t strap me down, pleaded buti Plank, but he was too weak to stop them.

  Don’t strap him down, Hoedjie, pleaded Poppie and Mosie. We’ll guard him, we won’t go to sleep, we’ll sit beside him all night long.

  Ouma started talking to him: Come now, you must sleep. You must stop making this noise.

  Soon he would be snoring.

  That’s what started Hoedjie and myself going out at night, says Mosie. We fooled ouma. We’d say: We are going to the bioscope, then we’d start looking for Plank. The boys knew us. When they saw us coming, they didn’t touch Plank. They’d tell us, don’t worry, he’s safe.

  Then ouma would ask us: Where’s Maplank, and we’d tell her: At Shakana’s place.

  Is he wet? ouma would ask, which means drunk. No ouma, we’d say, not wet nor warm, but perhaps just a little bit so. But ouma kept asking: Has he got a wet tooth, which means is he drinking a lot, and we couldn’t lie to her any longer: Yes ouma, he has.

  Buti Mbatane, the stepfather, gave the advice to strap him down when he was drunk, and buti Plank never forgave him for it.

  When he wasn’t drinking, he was very gentle, says Mosie. But drunk nothing could hold him. He smashed everything up, he had a fire inside him. Once when he was fighting, the other man fetched a kierie. Buti Plank took it from him and broke it with his hands: Am I a snake that you have to hit at me with a stick? he asked him. I am not a snake. The other man couldn’t do anything. Buti Plank hit with his fists, he didn’t carry knife nor kierie.

  It’s because of your fighting, ouma said to Plank when he was sober, that I’m being thrown out like I’m a piece of dirt.

  It isn’t because of buti Plank, cried Poppie. She was sad that she must leave auntie Lena and Meisie and Katrina. But it was not because of buti Plank’s drinking.

  It’s because of your drunkenness and your fighting with the coloured whores, screamed ouma.

  It isn’t because of him, cried Poppie. Why are mama and buti Mbatane also being sent away? And why can auntie Girly and oom Kolie, who are drunk all the time, stay behind?

  We had to leave the barracks place, tells Poppie, they gave us ground outside the town. They built us something like a squatters’ camp and we had to go and live there. Only the coloured people could stay behind in the barracks, the Xhosas had to go and live separately. It was a new thing that the municipality started. It was when they wanted to separate us from the coloured people and let us live apart.

  I’ll build you a hell of a house, my little sister, buti Plank told Poppie. He bought new sheets of corrugated iron at the shop, and wooden posts to take along to the new quarters. Ouma took some money from underneath her church clothes in the wooden box and gave it to Plank to help buy the posts and the corrugated iron.

  She resigned herself to moving because the Methodist church which was nothing but a room in the iron barracks would also be taken down and a new asbestos church would be built in the new location.

  I’ll hire a lorry to move ouma to the new house, said Plank.

  They were given a plot next to Lena’s and that made ouma feel better. Perhaps your oompie Pengi can come and stay with us too, she told them.

  14

  But before she could let oompie Pengi know, and before their house was taken down for the move, ouma Hannie died.

  She became ill and lay down on her goatskins on the floor and did not get up again.

  It is too much for Poppie, said Lena, to work in the factory and to look after her brothe
rs and nurse her grandma. She’s not even fifteen years old.

  So Lena left her job at the factory and came to stay with her ma. For four weeks, while the poison from the sore place on ouma’s leg spread through her body, Lena looked after her, and then ouma’s mind started wandering. She talked about Pengi and Martha and Mieta and Sam and Hessie. Lena sent Hessie a message with the factory lorry to Doringbaai and Hessie came to Lamberts Bay to help look after ouma.

  Ouma was delirious. I’ve lost the button of my red church blouse, she was moaning, nobody will sew a button on for me. She lay with her eyes closed and her lower jaw trembled like someone wanting to cry. She lifted her arm from underneath the blankets and stretched out to them. Her hand trembling, she was pointing at the chest in which she kept her belongings, in which her church clothes lay neatly folded. My button has gone, she moaned, I have lost it. You must tell the juffrou to bring me a button from Cape Town.

  We’ll tell her, ouma, said Hessie, she’ll bring you a button.

  She was dreaming and her tongue moved in her mouth as if searching for moisture. Her arms gripped Lena and Hessie and she tried to raise herself. I see a high tree, she was saying, a tree without end, it is growing higher and higher to Heaven. The tree is bending down towards me, the branches are reaching down to me and they say: Your time is not long now.

  Her hands clung to Lena and Hessie. Although her body was emaciated, the grip in the hands was strong.

  They are telling me to tell you – and those standing . round her bed thought ouma was speaking of the angels – they are telling me I must tell Martha: A God-fearing woman does not chew tobacco.

  Sing to me. Sing, Guide me, 0 Thou great Jehovah, she begged when she had sunk back on to her goatskins. Her mouth was trembling, and her voice was so soft they had to bend over to hear what she was saying.