‘This is not the time or the place for anger and recriminations,’ he said, stumbling on the word and perhaps inwardly cursing his speechwriter, ‘but we will find those who put him in this coffin. The police have arrested a Mozambican man. But such a terrible thing was not done by one simple man.’
At this point he gazed down from the raised platform that had been built for the occasion and gave a plausible impression of a man who would struggle to find the composure necessary to complete his eulogy.
‘We will find those who directed this terrible crime – not because Lesedi was a Motlantshe, not because his family helped to free South Africa. No, we will … we will find these underground terrorists who did this because he was a child of the new South Africa and every child is precious. They are our future.’
Josiah Motlantshe led the cheers. It was his turn next. He dabbed at his cheeks as he told the mourners how Lesedi had been a son, a friend and colleague all rolled into one and what a gaping hole there would be in his life from now on. His wife, Priscilla, stared at him, her face rigid, devoid of any emotion. Motlantshe ended by asking if anyone in the congregation wanted to add anything.
Maki stood up, the apparent spontaneity of the invitation spoiled by the alacrity with which she strode to the platform and the typewritten piece of paper she unfolded on her way there. She said she spoke for all of Lesedi’s many friends who would remember him as a man who would stop at nothing to help someone less fortunate than himself. She told them of the time when the two of them – just the two of them – had been travelling in a rural area and come across a family by the roadside with an elderly woman lying on a mat. They were waiting for a bus to take the woman to hospital in the next big town.
‘That was an hour’s drive from where we were at the time,’ she said.
Lesedi had had no hesitation in bundling the four villagers into his car and driving them to the provincial capital.
‘He asked me to sit at the back so the old man could have his rightful place in the front seat. That was the kind of man Lesedi was,’ she said. ‘I will treasure the time I had with him and will for ever wonder what might have been.’
The press pack, cordoned off to one side at the front of the church, could barely contain itself. This was pure gold. The cameras flashed so continuously, you couldn’t distinguish one burst of white light from another.
The priest took up a position just behind the coffin and waited for quiet. He gave the final blessing. He said Lesedi would be buried right there in Soweto where he belonged and that the family had requested, politely, that the interment should be private, just for the two hundred or so people who had received invitations to attend. He broke into Zulu when he said that afterwards refreshments would be served in the tent outside, and that Josiah Motlantshe had insisted that everyone was invited. There was a reverberating rumble of approval from the crowd outside, which could be heard inside Regina Mundi.
All eyes were on the pall-bearers as they performed the most challenging part of their task, lifting the coffin from the bier and on to their shoulders again. That done they began the sedate walk back down the aisle, accompanied by the choir singing the mournful and moving ‘Senzenina’, the old anti-apartheid protest song, now given a new meaning, a new currency, in this new South Africa.
Kagiso let the others in his pew out but stayed where he was. After the joy of his instant recognition at seeing Lindi, he was now overcome by awkwardness, like a plantation worker in front of the white madam. His hands plunged deep into his trouser pockets, he shuffled down and across the aisle, saying, ‘Hey! It’s great to see you.’ He’d barely taken a couple of steps before Lindi was there in front of him.
‘Is that it?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. With an abandon that was normally alien to her, Lindi reached up to Kagiso and hugged him. It was only when she realised that his arms were still hanging limply by his sides that she pulled away.
‘Look at me! I’m all over you like a rash. I’m sorry.’
‘Ah! No, it’s me. I just wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s been so long and …’ His voice trailed off.
‘And what?’
‘Well, we were just kids.’
‘And we were like family!’ As the words came out she felt the chill shadow of doubt pass over her. Perhaps it had all been an elaborate one-sided fantasy, this idea that the Seatons’ generosity all those years earlier had amounted to anything more than the rich giving alms to the poor.
Kagiso didn’t just see the anxiety, he remembered it, and now he understood it. He saw again the girl who’d edged her way around his friendship with Ralph. He saw the crumpling power of rejection on a face that only moments earlier had been a beaming picture of warmth and friendship.
‘Let’s just do that again,’ he said. ‘I’m such a domkop! First on the phone last night and now acting like some uptight white man.’ He held both Lindi’s hands and pulled her in. ‘Welcome back.’
They started walking towards the entrance, hardly able to hear each other amid the clang and clatter of the temporary stage being dismantled. It was a relief to be outside.
Just ahead of them, Kagiso saw Jake Willemse. In the second or two that it took him to decide whether or not he wanted to acknowledge the minister the other man caught his eye. There was nothing for it, they were going to have to talk. Willemse excused himself from the couple he was chatting with and came over to where Kagiso and Lindi were standing.
‘So, it’s my old friend Kagiso Rapabane,’ he said.
‘Minister, it’s good to see you again.’
‘How long is it since you left us to fight for the little man? Must be a couple of years.’
‘Almost exactly. You have a good memory, Minister.’
‘Eh! Man! What’s with the minister stuff? We’re not in Pretoria now. Call me Jake.’
‘Yes, okay, Jake – this is a very good friend of mine. Lindi Seaton.’
Willemse held his hand out. ‘One of his comrades in the good fight?’
‘Actually, I’ve just arrived from London – though I was born here. I’m visiting family friends, you know, the usual stuff.’
‘And what do you do when you’re not seeing family and friends?’
An inevitable question for which, much to her regret now, Lindi hadn’t really prepared. She wanted to make her answer sound as bland as possible. ‘I work for South Trust, a not-for-profit—’
Willemse interrupted: ‘I’m quite aware of South Trust. Well, I’m sure you’ll find we don’t need any of your help here. Kagiso, I hope you have told your friend that this isn’t the old South Africa she left behind.’ He was looking straight at Lindi when he said this. Then he turned to Kagiso. ‘My people tell me you’ve become quite a thorn in their side since you changed your mind about the project. Quite a turnaround from the keen young policy man I used to know.’
‘Well, yes, I have been concerned about some of the land transactions that are being—’
‘Look, why don’t you let me worry about that, eh? I’m sure you have enough on your plate organising your little cooperative. How about actually teaching them to grow more food? That would help, not this nonsense about who owns what piece of land.’ He looked around. ‘Now, I must get going – I must join the Motlantshes.’
His handshakes were perfunctory.
‘And you, young lady, we take a dim view of foreigners meddling in our affairs. I suggest you enjoy the abundant wonders of our beautiful country and then go home – I’m sure there are plenty of people who need your charity there. Goodbye.’
Willemse started walking away but stopped and turned round. ‘By the way, Kagiso, I didn’t know you were so close to Lesedi.’
‘I’m not – I mean I wasn’t. Our paths crossed a couple of times, that’s all.’
‘That’s not what I heard. I gather you got on like …’ and he turned to Lindi at this point ‘… how do you British say it? Like a house on fire. You had quite a chat, I’m told.’
&
nbsp; ‘I’m not sure who told you that.’
‘You know me, Kagiso. I like to keep myself informed. I suppose he told you about our wonderful plans for Mpumalanga?’
Kagiso stepped round the question as deftly as he could. ‘I think Lesedi was more interested in listening to what the people had to say.’
‘Ah! Of course, the people. Yes, we mustn’t forget about them, especially since they’ve got such a young, intelligent man like you looking after them. And did you tell Lesedi about your – what did you call them? Your concerns?’
‘He didn’t need me to tell him anything. Our clients are quite capable of speaking for themselves.’
‘So they’re clients, are they? Excellent, excellent. I hear you were probably the last person to see him alive – apart from whoever killed him, of course. Come to think of it, it can’t have been very long after you met him.’
And with that, he walked off again.
Jake Willemse’s big idea – the one that had made him a favourite with business and appeared to have put him on a fast track to the top of the political ladder – was that the ruling party had been obsessed by land ownership, clinging to the idea like a badge of honour, instead of concentrating on what actually happened on the land. He’d given a speech a couple of months into his tenure in which he had questioned the policy. It had provoked quite a stir.
‘Hanging on to the land is like hanging on to your virginity. What’s the point?’
His audience of international bankers, mostly men, had lapped it up. He’d gone on in similar vein, mocking those who still thought grazing a few cattle on a small patch of land, or growing enough to feed the family, was a worthy goal for a modern agricultural policy. ‘That is what we were doing four hundred years ago – and look what happened.’
Willemse had reminded his audience that the wealth of the city they were in – Johannesburg – had been built on what was in the land: gold. ‘That was fine for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,’ he said, ‘but here, now, in the twenty-first century the land itself is precious. Land is the new gold! And we are blessed with more than we need. To be worried about little bits of paper that transfer small parcels of land from a white man to a black woman, or from the rich to the poor, is yesterday’s politics. You don’t create wealth by passing the land between ourselves. Imagine if we had dug the gold up and just shared it out among us. No, you create wealth by realising its full potential – and that means getting in foreign investment.’
He’d come close to committing sacrilege when he’d derided those politicians who went back to their rural home, put on traditional garb, joined in ceremonial dances and delivered a speech about the pleasures of a bucolic life. He didn’t mention any names but everyone knew who he was talking about – a former president who still wielded considerable influence.
‘It’s all right for them. They get into their air-conditioned limos and head back to the city. And when they get there do you think they sit down to a plate of pap and meat, like their friends and relatives in the rural areas?’ He’d left the question hanging, the rhetorical device more telling than anything else he might have said.
The speech had elicited a standing ovation. Overnight Willemse had become a darling of the international lecture circuit, that group of men and women who move from the sanitised first-class cabin of a plane to the carpeted splendour of a five-star luxury hotel without really having to touch the ground. Here was a man who was willing to think the unthinkable, to speak out against tired old dogmas. Within days, the director of the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland had been in touch to offer him an open-ended invitation to deliver a speech at a future meeting. Jake Willemse, it seemed, could do no wrong.
Lindi let him walk out of earshot. ‘What an unspeakable little shit he is!’
‘Oh! He’s that, all right. He’s also one of the most powerful men in the country with some even more powerful friends.’
‘And what was he trying to imply? I mean about Lesedi being killed right after you saw him.’
‘It’s rubbish. He thinks he can frighten me.’
‘Frighten you, how?’
‘They’re trying to pin this thing on somebody.’ Kagiso waved his hand towards the church. ‘Anybody.’
‘But you? Hang on, let me get this straight. From what Maude said you work for a charity, right?’
‘Right.’
‘I looked it up, Soil of Africa. It campaigns for land reform.’
‘Right,’ he replied abruptly.
‘Christ! Kagiso! I’m not reading out a checklist.’
‘What do you want to know? You’ve seen the website. We campaign for land reform, not the kind that people like Willemse want. We oppose foreign ownership, we oppose our own corporations squeezing out the people who actually live on the land, and we find lawyers to defend people forced off what they thought was their land. Last time I looked, it didn’t say anything about murdering people.’
‘For God’s sake! It’s not me who’s accusing you. I’m just trying to get my head around what Willemse was getting at.’
‘I told you. He’s trying to frighten me and people like me.’
Lindi took a deep breath. ‘We’re not really getting anywhere, are we? It’s me. I still haven’t recovered from the flight. All right, what were you doing with Lesedi?’
‘He was interested in some of the work I’m doing in Malelane and he came to see me.’
‘And what’s all this about your making a turnaround?’
‘It’s a long story. First things first: let’s get something to drink. I think we should take up Josiah Motlantshe’s offer and have some of his refreshments,’ said Kagiso.
‘I thought we might go back into town. I’ve got an appointment at Wits later. Anyway, it looks pretty hectic in there. Have you got time?’
‘Not really. I’ve got a lift back to Malelane later this afternoon, and a couple of things I have to sort out before that. Look, you wait here and I’ll go and get us some tea or something.’
‘It could take you a while,’ she said.
‘Watch me! Just head for the shade where all those drivers are standing around and I’ll come and find you. I’ll be back now-now,’ he said, the old familiarity returning, a sweet memory reawakened.
Lindi watched him as he walked away. He had an easy, loping gait. He approached the uniformed marshal who was controlling the flow of people into the entrance of the massive canvas marquee. He was a good twenty metres or so from where she was but even from that distance she could sense how comfortable he was around these people, and they with him. The marshal took Kagiso by the hand towards the front of the queue. Kagiso said something to the people there, turning to look at her. They all laughed and let him in.
Once Kagiso was inside they reverted to their earlier demeanour, the nervous look of those who stand in line – fearing that nothing will be left when they get to the front. Their apprehension was not helped by the sight of those who emerged from the exit at the other side of the marquee. Lindi saw them falling about with laughter, their cheeks bulging with food, cradling an assortment of cakes, buns and cans of fizzy drinks in their arms.
Kagiso came back the way he’d gone in, the marshal making the way clear for him again. He was carrying a couple of takeaway cups with their caps on and a paper plate with some snacks. ‘I guessed you wouldn’t want sugar in your tea,’ he said.
‘You guessed right. And what, may I ask, did you say to them to make them all look at me?’
‘Oh, I just told them that the white madam over there was not coping with the heat and was in danger of fainting.’
‘You did, did you?’
‘But what got the laughs was the guy speaking Zulu, who said something like, “Bloody typical, they’ve been here for hundreds of years and they’re still not used to the sun.”’
‘I’m glad you all had a good laugh at my expense.’ She prodded him in the ribs.
‘Hey! I’ll spill my tea. Anyway, it did the trick
. So where do we start?’
Kagiso leaned down, brushed away some twigs on the grass and stretched out on the ground, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked relaxed, a man at ease with himself, quite a contrast from the tetchy awkwardness of just a few minutes earlier.
Lindi sat down next to him.
‘So what’s this “turnaround” that Willemse was talking about?’
‘Oh! It’s all a bit ridiculous, really. I suppose I was what you’d call a rising star in the ministry. I used to work for him, did a fair amount of the research on which his new policy was based.’
‘What was that?’
‘Basically he said arguments about taking over land were so old-school. He argued that whether you owned land or not was irrelevant. The question was, were you getting enough from it – either pay and conditions or output? Pretty much what he just said.’
‘All very rational.’
‘That’s what I used to think, too.’
‘I can feel a “but” coming.’
‘But that’s not really what’s happening on the ground.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I was sent down to Mpumalanga to show the policy could work. You know, bring workers and owners together, set up farm councils, profit-share schemes, land-lease programmes. You name it, I could try it. The only rule was – don’t get bogged down in arguments about ownership.’
‘And it’s not happening?’
‘Well, it did for a few months – we had some fantastic results. And then the farmers – most of them are still white – started going off the idea. I found they were selling the land to government, exactly what Willemse said he wasn’t interested in.’
‘Did you complain?’
‘Well, not directly to him, but to his office.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘They sent me a very polite letter, which basically told me to keep my nose out of it.’
‘Which is more or less what Willemse just said to you today.’
The Burning Land Page 12