by Niq Mhlongo
“This must be your nephew, Loyiso, that you have been telling us about,” said the man in the navy suit, looking first at my aunt and then at me.
“Yes, it’s him.”
“Kunjani, Loyiso. My name is Scelo Gola,” he said, shaking my hand. “Your aunt has been telling us good things about you, and how you’ve been protecting my brother from the kids who tease him at the park.”
I looked at the homeless man and then at the man in the navy suit, searching for signs of resemblance. It was the first time I had looked at the homeless man up close. He had bony ridges beneath his cheeks and eyebrows, and long black-edged fingernails that he used to open tiny sores on his neck. As my aunt talked, he scratched the sores repeatedly until they bled. His breath steamed jerkily into the cold air, and his chest whistled as if he was sucking in air through a straw. He looked me up and down as if trying to remember me.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Life will harass you, mfowethu,” said Scelo Gola. “Just two years ago, my brother here was a very rich man. He was a millionaire. He worked as a medical doctor at Edenvale Hospital for about thirty-three years. The first thing he did with his pension money was to remarry his wife. He was rewarded handsomely with around two million rand.”
“What?”
“Believe me, it’s true. His name is Tumelo Gola. Through him I’ve come to learn that, in life, opportunity doesn’t knock twice.”
He looked at the homeless man. “About twenty-five years ago my brother here paid four thousand rands’ worth of lobolo for his wife. After he was given his pension, he felt it important to remarry his wife with more money to show his love and appreciation.”
Sergeant Mashaba looked as confused as I was. Only my aunt seemed to understand everything. I watched Tumelo as he plucked a dry blade of grass from the ground near the rear leg of the camp chair. He brought it close to his nose and smelt it. Then he felt its edge with his finger before throwing it to the ground and wiping his hands on his greasy trouser leg.
“Very romantic, isn’t it?” said Scelo, to no one in particular. “My brother here organised people to restart the lobolo negotiations. I was part of that delegation that went to his wife’s people to ask how much they would charge my brother if he were to remarry their daughter.”
“And how long ago was that?” asked Sergeant Mashaba.
“About three years ago, after he got his lump sum.”
“That’s so recent.”
“I was totally against the whole thing. I mean, it’s a total waste of money, if you ask me. He should have invested it wisely. But his wife’s family was just as eager to share his money. They settled at a hundred thousand. They hadn’t expected such an amount of money. It was a great windfall for them. These were old people who knew nothing much about money, or rather the value of money. They had initially charged him forty thousand rand. But my brother here insisted that it was too little. He ended up giving them a hundred and ten thousand in cash. Imagine such a waste.”
The homeless man started scratching himself again. It seemed like, all of a sudden, fleas were biting his buttocks, his stomach, his chest and his neck. He fumbled through his greasy jacket, squashing fleas. Then he blew his nose into the palm of his hand and wiped it on my camp chair.
“What a . . .” Sergeant Mashaba seemed doubtful as she pointed at the homeless man. “Are you still talking about this same man?”
“Of course I am. Then he made another very wrong investment by joining the Triple M investment scheme. He lost about a million all at once. When the government closed down Triple M my brother also lost his wife, his house, his children and his mind.”
My eyes were now on the homeless man’s feet. They were covered with scars. Now and then flies buzzed softly in his face.
“He is right,” said a woman who had come with Scelo. “He was very rich. He even had a domestic worker and a gardener. He drove expensive cars. Also, he renovated his house and made it a double-storey.”
The homeless man continued to plough his nails into his flesh, with that half-yawning grin on his face. It was just like a dog scratching itself with its hind leg. For a few stunned moments, he looked at the hole left in the ground when he shifted the camp chair. He filled the hole with soil using his fingers and stamped it into place with the palm of his hand. A rat careered past the rubbish bin. The homeless man bent forward and plucked a small plant from the lawn. The rat ran away. The man smelt the plant avidly, pressing its roots against his top lip.
Sergeant Mashaba and her colleague left. The man in the suit looked embarrassed by what his brother was doing, as he tried to catch a passing cockroach with his fingers.
“We would like him to wash before we drive off with him,” said Scelo. “I hope you don’t mind, Loyiso, because your aunt suggested it.”
“Not at all,” I said without meaning it.
“Let me boil the water so long,” my aunt said.
We left my aunt and Scelo’s companion with Tumelo while we went to Maponya Mall to buy food, toiletries and clothes for him. As we joined Hekroodt Street, Scelo looked at the park and shook his head. I was thinking about the homeless man, how his failures had destroyed him, making him the target of children’s pranks and a nuisance to people. He had lost everything and had no hope any more. I still had hope for my future, but that meant I could still be disappointed. In a way, I envied Tumelo his hopelessness.
“We had sent Tumelo to a home for the mentally challenged in Boksburg,” said Scelo as he tried to avoid a pothole near the Meadowlands magistrate’s court. “You see, after he lost everything, that’s when his aimless wandering began. We only realised his madness when he started wearing women’s clothes. Some of the clothes he stole from washing lines there at Barcelona Township in Daveyton, where he lived. He would wear women’s dresses and jeans. We’ve been looking all over for him since he ran away from the mental hospital about a year ago.”
“How did you find him? Did the police phone you? He has been here for some time.”
“Thanks to social media. A person shot a video of him walking and talking to the tree and the kids at the park. That video went viral. We went to the park, but my brother wasn’t there at the time, so we went to the nearest police station. Thanks to your aunt’s description of Tumelo’s habits, the police were able to locate him in one of the other streets he frequents. That’s how we found out where he was.”
I remembered the kids who had gathered around the man while Phiwe and I were washing the cars.
“I’ve heard that you’re looking for a job.” There was a look of satisfaction on the man’s face. “I may have something for you.”
“Yes, sir, I’m looking for a job. Thank you for the offer.”
“We’re originally from Daveyton, but I have businesses in and around Pretoria.” The tone of the man’s voice conveyed success. “Call me on Monday and I’ll see what I can do for you. I also own a filling station in Germiston.”
“I’m very thankful, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Thanks to you and your aunt for going to the police station and reporting my brother. That shows ubuntu. It helped us when we went there. You know, destiny favours only those who have a comeback plan,” he said. “I advised my brother to make good investments, but when money is involved, no one listens.”
“My aunt tried to give him food, but he would not take it.”
“I understand. More often it is difficult to reason with a man whose hunger is not only for food in his stomach but also for his mind and soul. My brother has known wealth, hunger and loss beyond every other person I know. Everything he wore was custom-made, except for his socks and underwear.”
When we came back with the clothes, food and toiletries, the homeless man lay there on my chair, daydreaming. One leg was folded, and the other stretched out towards a heap of crumpled rags held together with a wire. He was looking at the weak red sun that was disap
pearing from the sky. Around it was a dim red circle that gave a little light to the coming dusk. Indeed, winter was already here.
ROPED IN
Oupa Eastwood has reported the same incident more than ten times at different police stations. At the Langlaagte police station alone he has reported the matter six times. At the Orlando and Brixton police stations he has made the same statement about four times. This is over a period of twenty years. Time and again he has testified in an affidavit that he has seen people attempting to commit suicide at the big hole near his home in Riverlea. The police don’t believe him any more. They think that, at eighty-six, Oupa is losing it. This is after the police have been three times to the place he referred to; on each occasion Oupa Eastwood failed to find the bodies, or even the rope he believed the victims used.
However, an enquiry was made by the police at the local Riverlea Hardware. The owner, an Indian man called Mr Govender, had confirmed that rope was the item bought most in the store, followed by torches. He even told the police that most buyers were from the nearby informal settlement of Zamimpilo, or Harare.
Zamimpilo was a true rainbow settlement, full of Zimbabweans, Malawians, Basotho from the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, Mozambicans and a few South Africans. When asked why he thought rope was the most popular item in the settlement, Mr Govender could only guess. He told the police that he thought it was used for washing line.
The police interviewed people from Zamimpilo about the mysterious uses of rope by the inhabitants. Some used rope for makeshift wardrobes inside their tiny shacks. Since many people didn’t have space for a proper wardrobe, they preferred a rope on which to hang their clothes. One Mozambican woman told the police that she used a rope to divide her shack into a kitchen and bedroom. When they entered her shack, they saw an old curtain and a blanket draped over the rope. A man on the street told them that he was a motor mechanic and used rope to tow broken-down cars to his workshop for repair. A Zimbabwean man said rope was used by kids as a toy. Since there was no park for recreation in this settlement of about two thousand people, the kids often played skip with a rope in the dusty streets. The man even showed them the tree where kids tied a rope to a branch to use as a swing. There were a few people who were concerned that criminals used rope to trip up their victims and then rob them of their goods in the night. Most of the victims were unsuspecting drunks. To others, rope was good for tying up dangerous dogs so that they didn’t go about biting people randomly. A few years back there had been a case of a German shepherd that was owned by a Mozambican national. The dog bit a child badly on the leg. Most South Africans in the settlement told the police that rope was an important item for the majority of foreigners. Apparently, these people used rope to tie their goods safely onto the transport van when they went home each year. A woman whose shack had burnt down in June said that rope was important during the fires that often happen in the informal settlement. She said one could save a few valuable goods in this way, but she didn’t explain how.
Oupa Eastwood’s rope story was the most intriguing one. He had been living in Riverlea almost all his life and said the high unemployment rate in the informal settlement was enough to drive anyone to suicide. According to his account, he had seen several young men carrying rope and trying to end their lives by the thick bush next to the tall bluegum trees by the mine dump. He said this happened in the early hours of the morning, around five, or at dusk.
“Listen here, china,” Oupa Eastwood said to the constable behind the counter. “I may look old to you, but I’m still young and energetic. Every morning at five I hike over the mine dump, rain or shine, just to keep myself fit. I’ve been doing this for the past fifty-three years. That’s why I have stayed so fit and healthy.”
“I believe you,” the constable said as he looked at the affidavit Oupa Eastwood had just completed. “Hang on, why did you sign as Oosthuizen? Didn’t you say your name was Eastwood?”
Oupa Eastwood shrugged his shoulders irritably. “I prefer Eastwood, but Oosthuizen is what’s on my ID. See?” Oupa’s English was fluent, but he knew there was still a thick Afrikaans accent. He tried his best to roll his r’s thickly to give the halting quality of an Englishman. He hated speaking Afrikaans. Around here, people knew him as Mr Eastwood, especially people from the informal settlement who didn’t know how to speak or pronounce Afrikaans. He simply told them that he was Oupa Eastwood.
After looking at his ID, the constable stamped the affidavit. “I will make sure we investigate the matter.”
“I don’t trust you. I’ve reported the matter about fifteen times, and the police don’t investigate. My house has been broken into five times by the unemployed people here at Harare. This ANC government is not giving these people jobs. Things were better off during apartheid, because everyone had a job. The country was not invaded by these foreigners like is happening now.”
Oupa Eastwood’s voice squeaked when he was angry. When he spoke, his small pointed lips moved as though he was sucking a breast. He had large ears and long teeth. From afar he looked almost white, but according to South African race classification he was coloured. To most black people, he passed as a white person. Because of this, he was disappointed with the apartheid government for classifying him as coloured. Even if you put a pencil in his receding hair it would not get stuck, proving he was white. But somehow the apartheid government felt he was neither black nor white when, in 1955, they sent him to live in Riverlea – an area designated for coloureds. Oupa Eastwood had hated the National Party and Afrikaans ever since.
The next morning, at about six, Oupa Eastwood was walking again, as was his routine, along the foot of the mine dump that most Sowetans mistake for a mountain. He followed the steep slope, from the top of which he could see as far as Soweto. The grass drooped with the weight of the heavy dew that had fallen in the night. Through the branches of the bluegum tree to the east, he could see the ripe tint of the coming day. He sat down against the tree, closed his eyes and soaked up the weak morning sun. He thought about the dream he had had the previous night. He had dreamt of the body of a young Zimbabwean man called Kuda. He knew him from the informal settlement; they had become friends. In this dream, Kuda’s shoulders were swaying from the slow swing of the rope choking his neck, and his eyes were bulging in their sockets.
The last time that Oupa Eastwood had seen Kuda, he was carrying a rope. That was about two or three weeks ago. Oupa Eastwood had been to the man’s shack a number of times since then and found it locked for two days. He was sure the young man would never return – just like others Oupa Eastwood had seen carrying a rope in the past. What made matters worse was that Kuda’s shack was now occupied by another young man from Zimbabwe called Tawanda. At first Tawanda had claimed that Kuda had gone to Zimbabwe for a few days. He didn’t look Oupa Eastwood in the eye when he said this, so he was sure the young man was lying to him. The eyes never lie, he thought, as he lit his cigarette and started smoking with short little puffs, his eyes half shut. Something was not right. He had seen Kuda talking to a white man in a blue Ford bakkie, he recalled as grains of sand, harder than steel, pricked through his shorts and stung his skin.
What was going on, he thought, as he looked at the settlement from the mine dump. The yellowing morning light was beginning to put a golden colour above the shacks. There was a scent of damp leaves in the air. He spat on the yellowish mine dust and watched the gob of saliva roll towards the grass. Working his cheeks again for more saliva, he spat a second time and watched the gob pick up yellow dust until it looked like a little pill. His eyes followed a giant V of birds up in the sky as they flew past him towards the N1 freeway. As he looked in the direction of Harare, he saw dark, wispy smoke issuing from the shacks into the clear morning air. He looked up at the vault of the sky. The mine shaft across the N1 and other mine dumps towards Soweto looked like prehistoric giants to him.
He got up and strolled away. A white man driving a blue Ford had given Kuda some money – he is almo
st certain that is what he saw. Or had he been dreaming? Didn’t he hear the white man say to the young man, “See you next week?” He knew for sure that he had seen the white man unloading groceries at Kuda’s shack. Oupa Eastwood had been drinking next door when that happened. In the transparent plastic bags he had definitely seen rolls of toilet paper, several loaves of bread, canned food, bags of sugar, packets of tea and coffee, a dozen two-litre bottles of Coke, cans of beer, cartons of cigarettes and other items. That was a nice white man indeed. But inside one plastic bag was also a rope.
Just before he reached the bottom of the mine dump, Oupa Eastwood stopped and took his comb from his long grey socks and a small mirror from his back pocket. He ran the comb through his hair while looking at himself in the mirror. He saw nothing wrong with his hair. It was not woolly like that of black people. Why the racist Afrikaner government had classified him as coloured still puzzled him. “Bloody Afrikaners!” He swore to himself loudly. They owed him big time. He hated all those years of living in the coloured township. He should have been rich by now, living in great suburbs like Benoni or Krugersdorp, he thought. Just because his father was coloured didn’t mean he was also coloured. After all, his mother came from Viljandi in Estonia, and she was white and Jewish. She was one of the miraculous survivors of the Holocaust. She just happened to marry a mixed-race person, his father, Mr Oosthuizen. For that matter, Grandfather, Mr Oosthuizen senior’s father, was also a white Afrikaner farmer from the Orange Free State who happened to sleep with his domestic worker. That was not Oupa Eastwood’s fault. And he was not coloured. Bloody Afrikaners and their apartheid!
The days dawned, rose and sank into yesterdays without the police doing anything about Kuda’s disappearance or the rope mystery. To Oupa Eastwood this was becoming unacceptable. As the sun rose and became hot, the signs of decay were perceptible all over the Harare settlement. It had rained the previous night and Oupa Eastwood was on his way to his drinking place next to Kuda’s shack. Maybe he would finally solve the rope mystery on his own. He was used to the bad smell of the settlement. As he walked, his nose adjusted easily to the penetrating stink of the chemical toilets. Crossing the road that separated the settlement and the township, he almost stepped in a mound of day-old human excrement lying on the path. The sight was so sickening that Oupa Eastwood closed his eyes for a few seconds. Sticky squelching mud filled his shoes as he trudged along the path. His shoes became shapeless blobs of mud.