by Elsa Joubert
The point is, said Mosie, a person can’t know much about what they want. The youngsters don’t talk to a person. No, they say our generation are the ones who gave the whites their chance to shove us around. Ja, they say, you are the ja-baas, the yes-men, so they don’t trust us no more. They say the whites tread on us.
Do I tread on you, Wili? Mr Green asked Mosie.
Times are not the same, boss, said Mosie. They are more advanced than us. What I take from you, boss, they won’t take. That now is what the truth is.
Another day Mr Green said: I can give your brother a job, Wilson. Tell him to come and see me. He can’t lie around doing nothing.
He’s not interested, boss, he wants to study, ja, he’s always got his briefcase and his papers near to him. He wants to be a preacher, but his school is closed down. But he says: Just wait, the school will open again. But I’m worried like, because you never know what is in his mind. They gave in, they say, ‘cause why, they’re ruled by the gun, but if you’re ruled by the gun, you’ll run. Ja, you’ll run, but you’ll get tired of running and, boy, then you’ll turn round. I’m not a youngster, but so what, I know what I feel, and I think this way, the youngsters they feel more than we, better or worse. Times have changed, boss, said Mosie. They make us feel it, ja.
It was during this time that they read in the newspapers that the pass books would be made away with and the blacks would be given travel documents.
Johnnie Drop-Eye told Mosie: Every time a new wrapping, but inside the same thing.
The way I figure it out, said Mosie, the travel documents will be stricter. You mustn’t belong to this country no more, no man, you’re from the other country now. That’s what’ll happen with the travel documents. You’re forced to have them to get the job. And they’ll force you to vote for someone. They say it’s so simple, but they can’t bluff me. When you’ve got the stamp, before you know where you are you’ll be in the homeland.
I have the same pain that my brother-in-law had in his stomach, a hand that pushes into my stomach, just like my brother-in-law told me. ‘Cause why, I can’t think. If I think this way, I knock bang against something, and if I think that way, bang it’s the same thing. I can’t get no solution.
Mr Green talked to him about his own son who was going to fight on the border. Mr Green is worried too, Mosie realised.
Boss, he said. Just give me what is my right, here in this place, and I won’t be frightened to go stand on the border together with your son. Give me a chance, just give me my rights like anybody else. Just let the Oubaas say: O.K. I give you your rights, and I’ll say: O.K. tomorrow I go to the border with a gun. Give me a gun and watch me kill the skellums that come in here. My pa fought in the last war and see where I still stand today.
The big daddy who’s in charge, he himself said: Unity makes strength, Mosie told Mr Green. Unity is like a bundle of wood, tied together. Now who comes to break up that bundle putting one stick here and one stick there, and then says we must be strong? No, man, that way my head can’t work.
79
Going home on Saturday afternoon, Poppie tells, I saw a great deal of people on the street, coming from church. When I got home I asked Rhoda: What’s happening, why are there so many people outside?
She said: We have all come from Mr Losa’s funeral.
I don’t know this Mr Losa, I answered, where does he live?
He’s a man that was arrested with this riot business and then he died of a stroke in the Tygerberg hospital, said Rhoda. So it was a big funeral because everyone was curious to know why he died while he was held.
But the people were angry because a notice was read in church that only the family might go to the graveyard.
And when we left church we saw the hearse and the family’s car drive away quickly to the churchyard.
But now the people refused to listen and kept on walking to the graveyard – it was the Roman graveyard close to the church – and all the time they sang and kept on walking and they followed the hearse by force, and while they were on the way to the graveyard the riot squad came and drove in amongst the people, but they did not stop, they walked on, singing, and made the black power salute on the riot cars.
But the crowd was too big, said Rhoda, so I came home.
Sunday morning in church I heard that a memorial service would be held that afternoon for all the people who had died in the riots, said Poppie. I had dinner with Mamdungwana and did not feel like going. I felt more like going to the prayer meeting at three o’clock. After the prayer meeting I went to buti Mosie’s house and there I saw Jakkie’s jacket lying on a chair.
And this? So where is the jacket’s boss then? I asked buti Mosie.
I think Jakkie has gone to mama’s house, said Rhoda.
Now why would his jacket be here?
On Tuesday mama phoned me at the work and said Jakkie had been arrested at the funeral service. He and forty others, with three ministers and an old ouma and young boys and women and their men.
Jakkie was the one to speak at the graves of those that had died.
He said: In our minds we must be together with those that died, we must remember them.
A woman screamed: Those of you that are still Comrades, put up your hands. The youngsters raised their hands.
They sang hymns and then the police vans came.
Some were taken to Heideveld, others to the Guguletu police station, but they were all let out on bail, fifty rand each.
I don’t know where the money came from, said mama, it’s not us who paid. They say some white people started a fund.
Jakkie and the others were tried in the Wynberg court and the bail money was kept as a fine. The Catholic father spoke up in court.
80
At the end of the year Poppie went on holiday to the Ciskei. For two years she had not seen her children. She took Kindjie with her and they first went to East London.
Bonsile was earning well. But I’m not going back to school yet, mama. Give me one more year, then I’ll have enough. I’ll be twenty-three years old. That’s time enough to go back to school.
Fezi was thirteen and had passed Standard Five. He was ·taller than Poppie. He turned his head away when he spoke to her, his voice was thick and it seemed that she was speaking to a strange child.
She cleaned the house and mended their clothes and cooked their food.
Majola’s wife told her: If you take a Ciskei citizenship card, you are allowed to buy the house in which you live.
I decided to take the card, Poppie said, because I had had enough of the trouble in Cape Town. The children could help me pay off the house when they finished their schooling.
I’ve made up my mind now, Poppie told Majola’s wife. Buy the house if it is to be bought. In 1971 the office said the house would cost eight hundred rand, then it belongs to you and you can build on if you like.
You don’t get the citizenship card at the pass office but at the X.D.C. which is now called the C.N.D.C. The man asked me where I was born and wrote down my house address and I had to sign a form. I had myself snapped for one rand twenty and he gave me a slip so that I could fetch my card.
When he paged through my pass book, he said: I don’t see one stamp on it that you’re a voter. So I said, no, I had a stamp on my old book, but since then I’ve had no chance to vote, I’ve been working.
Neither mama nor my brothers ever voted. But I decided to see which way the wind blew. I had to think of my children. My decision was to get a house for them, an ikaya, where they could live after I’ve passed by. So that they need not be on the road like I was.
And if for that I had to vote for Ciskei people, so I would vote.
After Poppie finished her business in East London, she took Kindjie with her to Herschel.
The bigger girls were more content now that they were at school. Bonsile sent money with her to pay for the new year’s school fees. It was more than eighty rand.
Nomvula told Poppie: The teachers ha
ve asked us to give the addresses of parents who don’t live in Herschel. We heard from a man who works at the magistrate’s office in Sterkspruit that children who are not registered in Herschel, but in the Ciskei, won’t be allowed in this school next year. They say Transkei will not pay for schooling for Ciskei children.
And now I have taken out my Ciskei papers in East London, thinks Poppie. A person can be sure of nothing. When one trouble is solved, the next one is on its heels.
She spoke to the schoolteacher. Don’t worry, he said, so many of the children’s parents live elsewhere, the school will be empty if we send them all away. Just see that you send their school fees in time. Then we’ll see what way the wind blows.
When will I have certainty? Poppie wondered as she boarded the train back to Cape Town. But you can’t sit and wait for the day you die, it’s now you have to do what you think best.
81
Sunday morning about twelve o’clock Poppie and Mamdungwana walked down the road from church. Poppie saw Baby coming towards her. She was running, but in the midday haze it seemed as if she was not getting any closer.
What is it, Baby? Poppie asked, shaking her by the arm.
They’ve come to fetch Jakkie, said Baby. You must come to mama.
Poppie’s blood ran cold, because she had been expecting this. Now it has come, she thought. But Jakkie had been caught before, three times. Why was it now that her blood must freeze like this?
Come, let’s hurry, she said to Baby.
I was getting dressed for church when Jakkie came into my room, Baby told her, but I said I wanted to finish dressing and he left. And while I was putting on my clothes the C.I.D. came in by the front door and the back door and asked my tata: Where’s your child? So mama said: For what do you want my child? But he pushed mama out of his way and said: You speak like a woman, shut up. They were black C.I.D.
He’s not here, said my tata, but the C.I.D. came into my room where I was dressing and looked under the bed and in the wardrobe.
They didn’t find him?
No sisi, they didn’t find him there.
Poppie and Baby and Mamdungwana arrived at the house. Mama was sitting at the table, the old man opposite her. Mama’s voice was quiet, the way it was after Pieta’s death, and Poppie saw a strange look in mama’s eyes.
We won’t see Jakkie no more, said mama. We’ll see him when he lies in his coffin.
The neighbours were in the room with mama, other people joined them, children filled the yard and pressed in at the kitchen door. They made a way for Poppie to enter, then they closed up again.
Speak, mama, said Poppie, but mama could not speak.
Oompie Tata, the neighbour who lived two houses away, told Poppie: They didn’t find Jakkie here, they searched door to door, and they found him in my house. I was working in my garden and I didn’t see him go into my house, so when the C.I.D. persons asked me, I said: No, there is no child in my house, but they went in to search. So they wanted to pull open the door of the wardrobe, but Jakkie pushed it open from inside and I saw him sitting in the wardrobe on his haunches with a revolver in his hand. I screamed at him, but he didn’t hear me. I heard the shot and the C.I.D. person clutched his stomach and fell down on the floor. Jakkie pushed me away from the door and so he’s gone.
Now while the C.I.D. man helped the other one, Jakkie got away.
I won’t see Jakkie in this life again, Poppie thought. The police will beat him to death if they find him, or they’ll shoot him down, because now he’s dangerous.
Mosie entered, the children had gone to call him.
Now what’s this, mama? From where does he get the revolver?
How must we know, Mosie, said mama, they don’t tell us nothing.
Poppie pictured Jakkie on the Flats, revolver in hand. The black police are angry when one of their men is shot, they’d throw the net wide, they’d find him.
He knows he won’t get away, Poppie said to Mosie, so that mama didn’t hear. He’ll kill himself with the revolver, or he’ll hang himself somewhere on the Flats.
Many people have been found who have hanged them selves on the Flats.
The ones who gave him the revolver will look after him, said Mosie, but that is no comfort to them, they know what it means. Leave the country and return to kill.
Jakkie, Poppie thought, my Baster-baby, what is this thing that has come to you?
She made tea. She gave mama some tea to drink. We must not grieve for Jakkie, she thought. That is behind us now. He chose his own path. But I grieve for mama’s sake. Pieta is dead, and bu ti Plank’s chest is so bad that he can no longer work, and buti Hoedjie is drunk and what he earns he gives to Muis. There’s only buti Mosie left to look after her. And the girl children. I must put Jakkie out of my thoughts, because if I think about him and grieve for him, I will take mama’s strength from her.
As she poured tea for mama and stirred in the sugar and gave her the mug, it seemed to Poppie that she felt the strength flowing from her to mama.
Drink, mama, she said, we already know what life is like. We take what comes our way and then we go on. But we don’t give up.
82
The black policeman recovered and was seen on the street again and that brought relief to the hearts of mama and Mosie and Poppie, but Jakkie was still missing.
A few weeks after Jakkie had gone, mama phoned Poppie. Plank is in the Groote Schuur, she said. He got sick yesterday, he seemed to get a stroke like, one side of his body is lame and his head doesn’t make sense.
I’ll go and visit him, mama.
She bought him ginger beer which he liked to drink because of its sharpness when he was cut off from his liquor.
It’s me, my buti, she told him at his bedside, can buti hear me? But he didn’t open his eyes because he was unconscious.
He doesn’t talk any more, the nurses told Poppie, but he can swear, ja. He swears at us when we bring him the bottle and says: I won’t pee in bed.
Two nights later he died.
It was a big funeral, with two motor cars and two busloads of people. Mama thought: Now that Plank is dead, Jakkie will come home but he did not come.
We were glad that Jakkie didn’t come to the funeral, says Poppie, because when we looked round from the funeral car, we saw two plain-clothes C.I.D. among the funeral-goers. They also expected to find Jakkie here.
Mama took Plank’s death quietly, just as she took Pieta’s death. We expected to see Jakkie’s corpse, she said, and now see, it’s the corpse of Plank.
But mama wasn’t mama any more, not like Poppie used to know her.
None of their family had seen Jakkie again. They heard people say: He was seen here, or he slept over there, this one gave him a rand for food, that one gave him clean clothes, but no one knew where he lived.
Jakkie is a man, Poppie told Mosie.. He can look after himself, he can leave by one door in the morning, and it’s only himself who knows where he’ll sleep the next night, but the one I pity is mama.
Then Jakkie turned up at mama’s house. It was late at night. Holding a lamp in her hand by the door, she saw that he had a girl with him and she was heavy.
I leave her with you, mama, said Jakkie. She’s my girl friend. I bring her to you, mama.
Later when Poppie heard the story from Mosie, she was angry. I suppose mama can’t help it that she’s stupid. How could she let them come into her house, she should have said: You don’t come into my house, you made your own trouble, you don’t bring it over my doorstep.
But mama couldn’t think fast enough. She wept when she saw how thin Jakkie was and she dished up some food for him. She said: You can sleep here tonight, and the stepfather didn’t go against her in this either. She gave the girl a jacket because she looked lost and cold and hungry too, and then she let her sleep behind Jakkie’s back on the mattress against the wall.
But mama didn’t sleep that night. All night she sat at the kitchen table in fear and she watched the dark slowly gro
wing less dark till the grey dawn broke. She sat in fear that the nylon would stop outside her door. She thought: There’s no way that Jakkie can get out of this. And now he’s stuck with a girl who’s pregnant as well.
When the street came out of the dark and the houses could be seen, mama was not tired any more, but she was angry with the girl.
Before it was fully light she collected all the food she had in the house and stuffed it all into a plastic bag. Then she woke Jakkie up and said: You must get out of my house, and take your girl friend. I’m not keeping her.
That’s where mama made her mistake, Poppie said to Mosie when she heard about it. She shouldn’t have let them in, but once they were over the doorstep she should have kept the girl, because it’s our custom.
Now Jakkie was in trouble two ways: first the shooting and then the girl whom he’d made pregnant but was turned away by his family.
My head thinks faster than mama’s head, Poppie says. I suppose she can’t help it that she’s a bit thick in the head. Because now she has chased the girl away, she’s got the girl’s whole family against us. That family has now become our enemy. They’re not going to let Jakkie come out of this thing alive. What’s more, the girl knows all Jakkie’s sleeping places and hide-outs.
Mosie agreed with Poppie. This thing of Jakkie rested heavily on him. Two, three times the C.I.D. had come to search his house, and during the day police vans went up and down the street outside. His nerves couldn’t take much more.
And even if I knew where Jakkie was, he said, a man can’t give away his own family like, I can’t tell, even if I did know. But I don’t know nothing. All I know is when a child tells me: He slept here last night, or another child says: No, he slept there. I never had his confidence like, and I didn’t want to have it.
The girl has got two C.I.D. in her family, said Johnnie Drop-Eye. And if they now feel they got insulted like by your family, now they’ll go tell everything.