Journey to Jo'Burg

by Beverley Naidoo

  Naledi looked up and saw a young boy, her own age.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  He spoke in Tswana, their own language.

  “The white farmer could kill you if he sees you. Don’t you know he has a gun to shoot thieves?”

  “We’re not thieves. We’ve been walking all day and we’re very hungry. Please don’t call him,” Naledi pleaded.

  The boy looked more friendly now and asked where they came from.

  So they told him about Dineo and how they were going to Johannesburg. The boy whistled.

  “Phew. So far!”

  He paused.

  “Look. I know a place where you can sleep tonight and where the farmer won’t find you. Stay here and I’ll take you there when it’s dark.”

  Naledi and Tiro glanced at each other, still a little nervous.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe waiting here. The farmer has gone inside for his supper,” the boy reassured them. Then he grinned. “But if you eat oranges you must hide the peels well or there will be big trouble. We have to pick the fruit, but we’re not allowed to eat it.”

  He turned and ran off, calling softly, “See you later.”

  “Can we stay here for the night?” Tiro asked.

  Naledi wasn’t too sure if they should.

  “It can go badly if the farmer finds us. Remember what happened to Poleng’s brother?”

  When Poleng’s brother had been caught taking a mielie1, the poor boy had been whipped until he couldn’t stand up any more.

  Tiro bit his lip.

  “But we can leave early in the morning before the farmer is up, can’t we?”

  “Well … I expect we must sleep somewhere, or we’ll be too tired to walk tomorrow,” Naledi agreed slowly.

  So Tiro slipped through the barbed wire and together they picked some oranges. It seemed a bit safer now that it was getting darker. Four large oranges were enough for Naledi, but Tiro kept on picking and eating more.

  “You’ll be sick if you stuff yourself like that,” warned his sister.

  Still he took no notice, until suddenly he clutched his tummy.

  “Ooooh!” he groaned.

  Naledi just said, “What did I tell you? Come on, we must hide the peels.”

  With two sharp stones they began to dig a hole. Tiro made odd little grunts from the pain in his tummy, but he dug well even though the ground was hard and dry. After burying the peel and filling up the hole, they searched around for stones and dry leaves to cover over the freshly dug soil.

  They sat close together, shivering a little from the night chill. Naledi had begun to wonder if the boy really would return, when they heard the sound of soft running footsteps. The shape in the dark was that of the boy worker.

  “Come!” he beckoned, and began to lead the way through rows and rows of orange trees.

  They stumbled along, hardly able to see, but at last they came to a shed.

  “You’ll be warm with the sacks,” the boy said quietly as he let them in. Then, shyly, he took out a tin plate from under a sack. “I brought you a little pap2. I’m sorry but that’s all we get here most days.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Tiro and Naledi whispered.

  “Sala sentle,”3 said the boy as he slipped away in the dark.

  “Tsamaya sentle,”4 came the reply from the shed.

  Chapter Four

  RIDE ON A LORRY

  Tiro woke when he heard the rooster crow. The shed was already half light. He shook Naledi.

  “Get up! We must hurry!”

  As they crept out from the shed, they saw the farm buildings a little distance away, with thin smoke rising from the chimney.

  Silently they ran through the long grass towards the orange trees. Then through the orange trees, row after row, until there at last was the barbed wire.

  Finding the road again, they almost felt happy! The road was cool from the night and they sang as they walked.

  The sun rose higher. On they walked. The heat sank into them and they felt the sweat on their bodies. On they walked. Alone again, except for the odd flashing-by of a car or a truck.

  SCREECH! Tyres skidded and stopped.

  “Where are you two kids going?”

  The driver of the lorry stuck a friendly face out of the window.

  “To Johannesburg, Rra.”1

  “Are you crazy? That’s more than 250 kilometres away!”

  “We have to go,” Naledi said simply, and explained.

  “Well, well, that’s something!” the driver muttered. “It will take you about a week to walk that far and your granny will be very worried. I should take you back home, but I’m late today already.”

  He paused to think. “Do you know where your mother works?”

  Naledi nodded, pulling out the letter from her pocket.

  “All right then. Hop on the back and I’ll take you to Jo’burg. I’m taking the oranges there.”

  “Thank you, Rra!”

  The children laughed. They pulled themselves up on to the lorry, wedging themselves against the sacks of oranges. So they were really on their way! And it was their first time on a lorry too!

  The engine started up and the lorry was soon thundering along. Walking had been so quiet but travelling in a lorry was very noisy. The air which had been so hot and still before, now swept past their faces. The land which had stood still, now seemed to rush by.

  Thorn bushes, telegraph poles, wire fences, ploughed fields, cattle, rows of oranges, tall gum trees by a farm house … Almost as soon as they had seen something, it was gone.

  Little by little, Tiro began to lean further out over the side to feel the wind on his face. Naledi called.

  “Sit back or you’ll fall!” but her brother took no notice.

  Suddenly the lorry went over a bump and Tiro jerked forwards. Naledi grabbed him just in time.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” she shouted over the noise of the lorry.

  A little shaken, Tiro mumbled, “Sorry”, and settled back properly against the orange sacks. Together they watched the road stretching far out behind them.

  As the lorry sped on its way through the countryside, the children saw how the land was changing. Where they lived the land was almost flat, with few hills. Now for the first time, they were seeing proper mountains with steep rocks and crags. In some places it looked as if the road had been cut through the rock. Naledi was wondering how people could cut through rock, when Tiro asked her, “Where shall we find Mma in Jo’burg?”

  His sister took the letter from her pocket and stared at the words at the top of the page.

  “It’s a place called ‘Parktown’,” she read slowly.

  Tiro took the letter and studied the words too.

  Naledi began to think of their mother and how, when Mma visited them, her first remarks were always about how they must work hard at school. When they had asked Mma why she worked so far away from home, her reply had been, “How else can I find the money to send you to school?”

  But it was still very strange, thought Naledi.

  Once she had asked Mma, “Why can’t we live with you in the city? We could go to school there, couldn’t we?”

  Mma had seemed upset, but just said, “The white people who make the laws don’t allow it. That’s how it is.”

  But why not? Why not? thought Naledi.

  Chapter Five

  THE CITY OF GOLD

  The lorry jolted to a stop and the driver came round to the back.

  “OK?” he asked. “You can stretch your legs for a minute.

  He helped them down.

  “Your lorry is very fast,” Tiro said.

  “Yes! But it’s not my lorry. I only drive it for the baas.”1

  They didn’t stop for long because the driver had to get to Johannesburg and return the same day.

  “Look out for the mine dumps,” he told the children, as they climbed back up. “It’s the earth they dig up to get to the gold. Jo’burg is the cit
y of gold, so they say!” He gave a dry laugh.

  The children looked oddly at each other.

  “What’s the matter?” the driver asked.

  The children were silent for a moment. Then Naledi said quietly, “Our father worked in a mine and he got sick with the coughing sickness. He died there.”

  “Awu! Awu! That’s bad!” the driver shook his head.

  The children watched out for the mine dumps. When their father was alive he used to come home once a year. He would tell them about the great dark holes and passages under the earth.

  “But Rra, why do you go away for so long?” they remembered asking him.

  “To get money so you can eat, my children.”

  Nor could they forget his last visit. The terrible coughing in the night and Nono’s soft worried voice.

  Now these mountains of sand had taken their father for ever. Naledi put her arms round Tiro.

  The countryside disappeared and soon buildings seemed to follow buildings without end.

  “This must be Jo’burg!” exclaimed Naledi, as the lorry raced along a great wide road towards tall shapes which speared up into the sky. There was noise, smoke and a horrid smell coming from the traffic. So many cars, so many people!

  “How shall we find Mma?” Tiro whispered.

  “We’ll find her somehow,” Naledi comforted.

  The lorry began to slow down. The buildings now seemed to be crowding in on them. Naledi and Tiro sat tightly together, trying not to feel frightened.

  Finally the lorry shuddered to a complete stop and the driver came round to the back.

  “This is where I unload. I would like to take you safely to your mother, but my time here is too short. Wait here while I find the right bus for you.”

  “But we …” Tiro began, but the driver had already disappeared into the crowd. He was back soon.

  “There’s a bus stop just round the corner for Parktown. Come, I’ll show you.”

  “But we don’t have money for the bus, so we have to walk,” Tiro now managed to tell the driver.

  “What children! You’ve got a lot of guts, but you know nothing about Jo’burg. It’s dangerous! You can’t walk here on your own. Here, take this!”

  He pushed a few coins into Naledi’s hand and before the children had finished thanking him, he began to steer them through the crowd.

  At the bus stop he explained how they must say where they were going and ask where to get off the bus.

  “You don’t need to wait with us here, Rra. We’ll be all right now,” Naledi assured the driver.

  He didn’t seem happy about leaving them on their own, but Naledi insisted they could manage. It would be too bad if he got into trouble. The children thanked him again and they made their farewells, before he was swallowed up once more amongst the city people.

  Chapter Six

  A NEW FRIEND

  As they turned towards the road, there was a bus with the word ‘PARKTOWN’ in big letters on the front. It was slowing down a little way up the road and the doors were opening. Through the front windscreen they could see the driver was black.

  “Come on, Tiro!” called Naledi, pulling him by the arm. They were just about to jump aboard, when someone shouted at them in English, “What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid?”

  Startled, they looked up at the angry face of the bus driver and then at the bus again. White faces stared at them from inside as the bus moved off.

  Naledi and Tiro stood on the side of the road, shaken, holding hands tightly, when a voice behind them said, “Don’t let it bother you. That’s what they’re like. You’d better come out of the road.”

  A young woman put out her hand to bring them on to the pavement.

  “You must be strangers here if you don’t know about the buses. This stop has a white sign, but we have to wait by the black one over there.”

  She pointed to a small black metal signpost.

  “You must also look at the front of the bus for the small notice saying ‘Non-whites only’.”

  “I’m sorry. We forgot to look,” Naledi explained.

  “It’s not you who should be sorry!” said the young woman forcefully. “They should be sorry, those stupid people! Why shouldn’t we use any bus? When our buses are full, their buses are half empty. Don’t you be sorry!”

  The children glanced at each other. This person was different from their mother. Mma never spoke out like that.

  Naledi took out the letter and when the young woman looked at the address, she exclaimed, “But this is near where my mother works. I’m on my way to visit her today, so I can show you the place.”

  “Thank you, Mma,”1 the children smiled. Lucky again.

  “By the way, I’m Grace Mbatha. Now, who are you both, and where are you from? You speak Tswana the way my mother does. Maybe you live near my mother’s people.”

  So, once again, the children began their story.

  Luckily the bus wasn’t full when it arrived. Grace had warned them that in the rush hour you were almost squeezed to death. As the bus trundled along, stopping and starting with the traffic, there was a chance to stare out of the windows. Tiro thought the cyclists were very brave, riding in between all the cars. Naledi kept trying to see the tops of the tall buildings, twisting her neck round until it began to hurt.

  The bus now heaved its way up a steep hill and soon they were leaving the city buildings, seeing the sky again, as well as trees, grass lawns and flowers either side of the road. Behind the trees were big houses, such as they had never seen before. Grace smiled at the way the children were staring as if amazed.

  “Don’t you know the people in this place have a lot of money? My mother looks after two children in a very big house and there is another person just to cook and another person to look after the garden.”

  Naledi and Tiro listened with interest. Mma never liked to talk much to them about her work when she was at home, although once they had overheard Mma talking to Nono about the child whom she looked after. Mma had said “The little girl is very rude. She thinks I belong to her mother. You should hear how she can shout at me.”

  Naledi wanted to ask Grace to tell them some more, but she was still a little shy, and soon they had reached their stop.

  They stepped off the bus on to a wide pavement along a street lined with great leafy trees.

  “That’s the road where your mother works, at number twenty-five. My Mma works at number seventeen in the next road down there. Can you manage now?”

  The children nodded, and then Grace added, “If you need somewhere to stay tonight, you can come back with me to Soweto. I’m going home at six o’clock, OK?”

  Tiro and Naledi thanked Grace, although they were a little puzzled about needing somewhere to stay. After all, they would be with their mother now and they would be going home with her as quickly as possible, back to Dineo.

  As they turned to go down the road, they suddenly felt very excited – and anxious too. So much had been happening that they hadn’t been thinking all along of their little sister.

  “Please let her be all right,” now pounded in Naledi’s brain.

  Half-walking, half-running, they made for number twenty-five.

  Chapter Seven

  MMA

  There it stood, a great pink house with its own grass lawn and trees in front, even its own road leading up to the front door! The two children stopped at the wide iron gates, looking up to it. The gates were closed, with a notice on them: BEWARE OF THE DOG.

  “Are we allowed in?” Tiro whispered.

  “We must go in,” Naledi replied, opening the gate a little.

  Nervously they slipped in and slowly walked up the drive to the large front door. Before they dared to knock, they heard a fierce barking from inside which made them grip each other’s hands, ready to run back to the street. Then they heard a sharp voice inside call out, in English, “Joyce, see who it is!”

  The door opened …

  As Mma gasped, the
children flung themselves at her and she clasped them in her arms, hugging them. Tears welled up in her eyes as the children sobbed against her.

  “What is wrong? What is wrong?” Mma cried softly.

  “Who is it, Joyce?” came a brisk voice from behind. The dog was still barking.

  “Be quiet, Tiger!” ordered the brisk voice, and the barking stopped.

  Mma stifled her sobs.

  “Madam, these are my children.”

  “What are they doing here?” asked the white lady.

  “Madam, I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet.”

  “Dineo is very ill, Mma,” Naledi spoke between sobs. “Her fever won’t go away. Nono and Mmangwane don’t want to trouble you, but I told Tiro we must come and bring you home.”

  Mma gasped again and held her children more tightly.

  “Madam, my little girl is very sick. Can I go home to see her?”

  The Madam raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, Joyce, I can’t possibly let you go today. I need you tonight to stay in with Belinda. The Master and I are going to a very important dinner party …”

  She paused.

  “But I suppose you can go tomorrow.” “Thank you, Madam.”

  “I hope you realise how inconvenient this will be for me. If you are not back in a week, I shall just have to look for another maid, you understand?”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  The children couldn’t follow everything the Madam was saying in English, but her voice sounded annoyed, while Mma spoke so softly. Why does the white lady seem cross with Mma? It’s not Mma’s fault that Dineo is sick, Naledi thought.

  The children huddled close to Mma’s starched white apron. They hadn’t seen her in this strange servant’s uniform before.

  As Mma led the children through to the kitchen, they glanced across at open doors leading into other large rooms. A wide staircase also led upwards. Never had they imagined a house could be this size!

  In the kitchen Mma gave them a drink of water and some porridge she had cooked earlier. The kitchen seemed like a picture out of a magazine Mma had once brought home from the Madam. Their mother must have been busy cleaning that afternoon because glistening plates, of different sizes, cups and saucers and delicate glasses were neatly stacked close to a large empty cupboard.