The Burning Land

by George Alagiah

  Kagiso found the ‘received calls’ list on his phone and selected the most recent one. Lindi answered almost immediately. ‘It’s Kagiso. I’m sorry about earlier,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right. Typical of me to think you’d remember all these years later.’

  ‘No, no, you actually sound the same.’

  ‘I’m not sure how I should take that. Can we meet?’

  ‘I’m only in Jo’burg for a night. I live in Malelane these days – that’s in—’

  ‘I know where it is. Maude’s told me all about how you live in the bush now.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a bit sore about my move. Look, I’m going to a funeral tomorrow. It’s for—’

  ‘Lesedi Motlantshe. I know. It’s partly why I’m here.’

  ‘For the funeral?’

  ‘Not exactly. It’s a long story. Shall we try to meet there and then arrange something?’

  ‘Okay, that sounds good.’

  ‘I bet I spot you before you spot me.’

  ‘You’re on. Have you changed a lot?’

  ‘I certainly hope so. Oh! By the way, I think you should call Maude. None of my business but I promised her I’d ask.’

  ‘I’m going there now. Do you know where it’s happening and so on?’

  ‘I’ve sort of hooked up with the BBC and they’re covering it.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were into journalism now.’ Kagiso sounded surprised.

  ‘I’m not. Look, all will be revealed tomorrow. See you. Can’t wait.’

  Once outside, it took Sharmi less than ten minutes to walk to her car. That was careless, using her Beetle to get to the meeting. She got in, slammed the door and closed her eyes. It was like bringing down the shutters, trying to block the pathways to the place her mind wanted to go. Those few seconds, back there in the room just before she left … she knew she’d missed a chance. There’d been a moment of … of what? A connection, like a couple of synapses brushing up against each other, then drifting apart. A fleeting, yet perceptible, sense that they might have been thinking in the same way, together, at the same time. They hadn’t just been left in the room on their own for a minute or two, they had shared it, occupied it, not as two separate individuals who find themselves near each other, but as two people open to each other. She should have grabbed the opportunity. That was what she was feeling now. But the moment had gone, and as she thought about the next few days, Sharmi knew she might have lost the chance for good.

  ‘Burn bridges … no mistakes … It’s each to his or her own,’ Kagiso had said. Is this how it would end, being hunted down one by one?

  She opened her eyes, took a deep breath and turned on the ignition. It was dark. Sharmi knew she had to get rid of the car. She pulled away from the pavement and headed for Yeoville, an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg that sat on a ridge overlooking the city. Yeoville was almost as old as the city itself, established in the 1890s as a lofty refuge from the dirty, chaotic and sometimes violent gold-mining town that was growing out of the veld below. Like much of the area around it, Yeoville had been through a familiar cycle of nineteenth-century gentility, fifties edgy chic and late-twentieth-century urban decay. Now it was a melting pot of African sounds and customs, a home for traders and traffickers alike. There was always talk of a renaissance and a few brave souls, like the trekkers of old, were taking a bet on its gentrification and moving in, not least because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else in the city. But for the most part it was what it was – a place where no one asked any questions because the answers were never that simple. Sharmi knew it was the kind of place she needed now.

  It was a short drive from Hillbrow, across Joe Slovo Drive, then to Raleigh Street, the backbone of the area. Sharmi drove around for more than half an hour, down one back street and then another, before pulling up outside a mechanic’s shop, locked up for the night. She looked around the car’s interior, part sentimental, part caution. A pile of newspapers, a half-empty bottle of water, a Nando’s takeaway bag. She opened the door and shut it again. She reached for the Nando’s bag, pulled out the receipt and scoured it.

  ‘Shit!’ It had the address of the fast-food outlet on the N12 going east to Nelspruit, the provincial capital of Mpumalanga.

  If you’ve left tracks get rid of them.

  Sharmi screwed up the receipt and chucked it into her bag. She got out of the car, left the key in the ignition and the door slightly ajar, then walked away. No one noticed her, still less cared.

  10

  The police helicopter clattered in a winter-blue sky, circling above Regina Mundi church in Soweto. Its rotor blades chopped the air with all the finesse of a carpet beater. In the old days its appearance in the sky would have sown resentment among the famously resilient people below; now they looked up with an indifference that spoke volumes for the transformation that had taken place in the country. There was a far more interesting spectacle on the ground. This old church of protest, its perimeter wall and grounds hurriedly spruced up for the occasion, was the focus of a national event. From the air, the long line of shiny limousines being marshalled around it by the police looked like a brash silver and black necklace placed inappropriately around the shoulders of an ageing and much-loved aunt.

  Josiah Motlantshe had chosen Regina Mundi for the funeral of his son, Lesedi, even before he had returned to Johannesburg. It was a theatrical choice in keeping with the smoke-and-mirrors world in which South Africa’s new elite continued to claim a fellowship with the thousands who had longed for freedom, even if the gap between them and the rest of the country was now every bit as wide as it had been between blacks and whites. They fooled no one except, perhaps, themselves.

  As each VIP party arrived outside the main gate, a minder jumped out and held open the back door of a limousine. Its occupants eased themselves out in the practised way of those who’ve long ago done away with the need to open their own doors, buttoning a jacket or adjusting a shawl in one fluid movement. Dark sunglasses were de rigueur, as if to suggest that underneath their eyes were puffy with grief.

  A former head of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, now a major shareholder in an Indian-owned hotel chain, stuck his fist into the air, but only briefly, reminding himself that the days when funerals inevitably turned into political rallies were fading. This was a new world. There were carefully subdued greetings between mourners, the usual raucous exchanges replaced by mutually reinforced expressions of sadness: the Motlantshes’ loss was their loss too. The provincial premier lingered rather longer outside the gate than was necessary, studiously alert to the whereabouts of several camera crews that were darting, like pollinating bees, from one group to another. He had wanted to be there when the presidential party arrived (hence the full-on security in the air and on the ground) but was ushered in by one of the officials.

  The British high commissioner climbed out of his car with what seemed to be a look of apology, perhaps for arriving in what was now a rather aged Jaguar (even this, one of the plum jobs in the gift of the foreign secretary, had not escaped the swingeing budget cuts back home). He wore his black tie long, with the fat end tucked into the top of his trousers, as if he’d been somewhat absent-minded the last time he’d used the lavatory. His wife, giving every impression that she would rather be back in an Islington café, marched resolutely towards the church doors but then had to wait, stranded in limbo, while her husband pretended to recognise the man talking to him.

  The crowd, five or six deep, looked on. The people at the back peered through rows of beanies and baseball caps that constantly shifted one way and then the other. Headgear that had been put on in the cool light of dawn offered a different kind of protection now that the sun was getting higher. As the temperature warmed, the musty smell of morning breath and clothes soaked in paraffin smoke gave way to an altogether more pungent odour.

  There was an air of expectancy, but it was the kind of anticipation you might expect in the minutes before a rock concert, not
the solemnity you would associate with a funeral. What was unfolding in front of them was a soap opera, not a wake. They knew many of the characters, household names whose lives were played out in the glossy pages of tabloid magazines and Friday-night talk shows. The VIPs were there to exhibit their collective grief, but what the people of Soweto noticed, what they assumed, was how much easier it must be to carry the burden of sadness when it was cushioned by wealth and status.

  Teenage girls elbowed each other, gawking at a young woman, not much older than they were, recognising her instantly from a photo feature on Lesedi’s last birthday in Destiny magazine. The article had recounted how the party had been held at her interior-design studio (a gift from her father) in a recently reclaimed and refurbished warehouse on Main Street in Johannesburg. They remembered all the details, how Maki (that was her name) had organised the lavish event as a surprise. The magazine had described her simply as a ‘friend’ of Lesedi, but the girls of Soweto strained their eyes, looking carefully for any signs indicating a deeper relationship with him. Their brothers looked at Maki too, dreaming of a day when they might escort a fragrant pale-skinned woman like her. If there was any resentment among the crowd, nobody spoke of it. In truth, they took vicarious pride in this display of black wealth, ignorant of or unconcerned by how it had been achieved, clinging to the idea that it might, one day, be within their grasp too. It was like going to the cinema, being transported for a few hours into another world, suspending their disbelief.

  Inside Regina Mundi, the painted cement floor on which tired old canvas shoes had once left their dusty imprint now echoed to the sound of Italian stilettos. The first twenty or so rows of hard wooden pews, darkened by generations of greasy handprints, had been reserved for VIPs, the white printed place names making each bench look like a piano keyboard. There was a strict seating plan, proximity to the front two rows denoting favoured status with the Motlantshe family, who were due to arrive with the hearse from their Houghton home.

  There was a sickly aroma in the church, a mix of the scent from the huge bouquets of lilies placed at the end of every pew and the assortment of perfumes worn by guests. It made Lindi Seaton feel mildly queasy. She had planned to head for Mpumalanga that day, the day after her arrival in South Africa, but had delayed her trip to have a meeting with a researcher at the Forced Migration Unit at Wits University. In the meantime Comfort, at the BBC office, had suggested she attend the funeral.

  ‘It will give you some idea of just how important the family is and why there’s so much anger at Lesedi’s death,’ Comfort had said. ‘I’m sending a crew down there so you can go with them. I’m sure you can stand at the back of the press area.’

  The BBC team had set off early, to beat the security-check queues, and Lindi had had an hour or so to spare before even the first people started to arrive for the midday funeral service. To kill time, she had taken a walk.

  The streets were lined with bungalows, each sitting in its own plot. As she walked along the dusty kerbs, Lindi had realised she could see into the front compounds, which distinguished them from the homes in the rich northern suburbs, where the walls were designed to hide wealth, if not necessarily disguise it. Here there was nothing to feel guilty about. Those who’d managed to get a foothold in the area, Rockville, were proud of what they had achieved. Here, progress up the social ladder was something to proclaim, even flaunt. In the white suburbs to the north it was different. There, the high walls were designed to conceal the legacy of easy entitlement that apartheid had conferred on its white beneficiaries.

  Lindi had walked to the bottom of the street, until she came to one of the ubiquitous spaza shops, the roadside stalls that sold everything from soap to salt. This one, painted a gaudy purple, had once been a freight container. Who knows where it had been before coming to rest here in Soweto? She’d asked for a carton of orange juice but was told there was none in stock.

  ‘But I’ve got a nice cool Coke,’ the man behind the counter said, smiling at her from behind an array of plastic sauce bottles, their sides criss-crossed with a glutinous trail of their contents. Lindi settled for a can of Liquifruit that claimed to be free of additives and crammed full of goodness. The shopkeeper wiped the can with a frayed and stained cloth, which he had just been using to clean the counter. Lindi held the can well below the counter and surreptitiously wiped the top with a pinch of her dress.

  ‘Will there be a lot of people here for the funeral?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, many, many. A lot of people are feeling sad for that family. That Lesedi was going to be a good man, a big man.’

  ‘I heard he was murdered.’ She had learned the lesson of the taxi journey and was determined to keep her observations as neutral as possible.

  ‘Yes, those Mozambicans killed him. There are too many in Mpumalanga. That’s where they killed him.’

  ‘Well, I hope they catch the killer,’ she said, sorting through the unfamiliar ten-rand notes.

  ‘Oh, they will catch him. They have already arrested one. But they will not stop. They are going to catch all of them and send them back to Maputo.’

  Walking back towards Regina Mundi, Lindi replayed the shopkeeper’s words in her mind: ‘send them back to Maputo’. How many times, in how many different countries and in how many different languages had those words, ‘send them back’, been used? And how many people around the world had heard them and been terrified by what they meant? Those three words robbed them of their identities as individuals, as families and neighbours, even as friends. Them, not us. Them over there. Search them. Catch them. Arrest them. Deport them. Kill them. That was all it took: shift a people from the column marked ‘us’ to the one marked ‘them’ and everything became possible, justifiable. She found those words, spoken by the avuncular figure of the smiling, seemingly gentle shopkeeper, as chilling as anything she had read in Anton’s frenetic messages or the tickertape headlines on the news channels.

  11

  Word went round that the Motlantshes were down the road but had been forced to wait because the presidential cavalcade was late. The hearse and several other cars had been seen parked down a side-street. Someone in the congregation leaned forward and whispered into the ear of a friend that the president had probably thought there was time for ‘a quick one’ before leaving the official mansion – and he wasn’t talking about the leader’s drinking habits. They were still sniggering when there was a collective rustle of starched fabric as, starting from the back of the church, each row of the congregation rose to its feet.

  The president looked from side to side as he moved forward, acknowledging those he recognised. Those accorded the honour of a presidential nod visibly glowed in the aftermath, like disciples touched by the Holy Spirit. They looked down their row just to make sure that others had noticed their favoured status. The first lady, her hold on the title only as secure as the libidinous exploits of her husband would allow, was so heavily made-up that she seemed to be wearing a mask. Rumour had it that a bottle of gin a day left her with a morning-after puffiness to rival that of a journeyman boxer emerging from the ring – though there were some who said her husband was not averse to handing out his own face-changing pugilistic jabs from time to time. The country was divided between those who felt sorry, even embarrassed, for her, and those who said she was so addicted to status that she would put up with almost anything to cling to the privilege bestowed on her because she had once caught the wandering eye of a man on his way to the top.

  When the couple had been shown to their velvet-backed seats – the benches were deemed too plebeian, not to say uncomfortable for the presidential arse – the gospel choir started up. The singers’ velvet cloaks were vintage Harlem. They belted out hymns, even a Nina Simone number, said to be Lesedi’s favourite, swaying so that their gowns gently floated this way and that in a delayed mimic of the singers’ motions.

  Lindi, seated at the very back, watched the pall-bearers enter the church, the coffin apparently floating between t
hem. It was an elaborate affair. The hardwood coffin, with inset panels of the kind you might find in an old-fashioned London club, clinging to its heyday, was studded with fussy brass fittings, all curlicues and twists. The combination looked preposterous in this most simple place of worship, as did the pall-bearers. Their heavy morning coats made no allowance for the rising heat of a crowded church. The strain of carrying the coffin showed at first in the little beads of sweat on their foreheads, which quickly became a steady stream that moved from temple to chin, before disappearing into the soon-soaked, dull-white collars of their shirts. From her seat on the back row, Lindi watched the deliberate progress of the cortège as it passed her and moved on.

  With each choreographed step up the aisle, the last pair of bearers revealed another pew on the opposite side of the church. They were about a third of the way when Lindi realised she was no longer looking at the funeral procession but at a single figure in the congregation. From where she was standing, all she could see was the back of the man’s shoulder, his left ear and a partial profile. But she knew who he was, even before her brain had had time to digest the information. As he turned towards the coffin, Lindi recognised Kagiso and she only just resisted the urge to call out. She stared at him, willing him to turn. When he did, and they caught each other’s eye, she felt an intimacy that belied the years they had been apart.

  From that moment on the service seemed to take for ever.

  The priest had to speak. His theme was fathers and sons and he only just managed to stop short of making the divine comparison. The president couldn’t be left out. Another microphone was switched on so his words could be heard from the speakers outside the church. Lesedi was like a son to him, he said. He had watched him grow up.