Silent Minaret

by Shukri, Ishtiyaq

  “One day, a feisty little ant, Pietie, decided that enough was enough, so he called a mass meeting to rally the ants into opposition.

  “He jumped onto an ant heap and made a fiery speech about David and Goliath and strong chains with weak links. When he finished, the ants cheered and shouted, ‘Viva Pietie! Viva Pietie!’

  “And then they heard the rumble of the elephants approaching...

  “The ants scattered to hide behind ant heaps and trees.

  “Only Pietie stood his ground. When the leader of the elephants stepped forward flapping his ears angrily, Pietie started marching towards him.

  ‘Go Pietie, go!’ the other ants shouted. ‘Go Pietie, go!’

  “When Pietie got to the elephant’s foot, he jumped up and started climbing up the elephants front leg.

  “The ants were beside themselves: ‘Go Pietie go! Go Pietie go!’ they chanted.

  “Pietie marched up and up and up. ‘Go Pietie, go. Go, Pietie go!’

  “When Pietie got to the elephant’s neck he stopped to consider his next move. He turned to look to the ants for advice.

  “You know what the ants shouted?

  They shake their heads.

  “Choke him, Pietie! Pietie, choke him!”

  “Isn’t this just lovely?” Sophie sighed when they had caught their breath and wiped away their tears of hilarity.

  133 On 19 August, thousands of people set off to defy ‘whites only’ beaches at Strand and Bloubergstrand in a high-profile act of “beach apartheid defiance’. Some groups were shot at with birdshot, others were sjambokked. There were multiple public protests in the following weeks. On 23 August church leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, were teargassed on a march in Guguletu, and a week later 170 women were arrested while kneeling during a women’s mass march in town. In a climax of the defiance campaign, thousands of protestors participated in a three-pronged march to Parliament on 2 September. The march was dispersed with batons and a water canon loaded with purple dye, and more than 500 people were arrested. Altogether, over 1 000 people were arrested during these activities.

  Then they drove to a club that played Richard’s favourite music: Duran Duran, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Sting. They danced in a circle, showering Kagiso with visible displays of liberal affection, and screeched with delight when the DJ played ‘Englishman in New York’. Kagiso glanced at his watch.

  Election day, 6 September 1989

  134 Election day itself saw an explosion of resistance and police repression in which at least 23 people were killed and hundreds injured. Statements were received regarding the following fatalities: Ms Liziwe Masokanye (23), Stellenbosch [CT00829]; Mr Patrick Muller (13), Bellville South [CT00322]; Mr Joseph Michael Makoma (25), Kalksteenfontein [CT00300]; Mr Leonard Rass (13), Kleinvlei [CT00637]; Mr Pedro Page (18), Grassy Park [CT00416]; Mr Ricardo Levy (11), Kalksteenfontein [CT00313]; Ms Yvette Otto (16), pregnant [CT00300]; Ms Elsie Chemfene [CT008605]; Mr Thembinkosi Tekana, Khayelitsha [CT01535] and Mr Lubalo Mtirara (20), Khayelitsha [CT00217].

  When the song finished, Kagiso stepped out of the circle.

  “You can’t go yet, Kaggy!”

  “I’m going to check on Issa.”

  “No, Kaggy. I refuse to let you go.” She threw her arms around him.

  When she stepped back, he smiled. “Really, I should go and say hello.”

  “But it’s your birthday. He should come to you. Besides, how will you get there at this time of night?”

  “I’ll get a taxi from Mowbray.”

  “At this time of night! Are you mad?”

  Kagiso starts to move around the crowd of bright young things, slapping shoulders, saying thank you.

  “Richard will drive you, won’t you Richard?”

  Richard doesn’t respond.

  “Really, that’s not necessary.”

  “No. It’s decided. We’ll all go.”

  135 The public horror at the extent of the violence reached into sectors of the western Cape not previously drawn into oppositional activity. This sense of outrage culminated in one of the largest mass marches ever seen in the Western Cape on 13 September, the so-called ‘Peace March’. The march, led by a range of religious, community and political leaders including the mayor and members of the city council, brought Cape Town to a standstill.

  They chase down the N2 bound for UWC: smoke, music and laughter.

  “Isn’t this an adventure? I’ve never been to UWC. I can’t wait to tell the others about it tomorrow! Is Issa still such a hunk? I haven’t seen him since we left school.”

  Richard turns up the music. Somebody passes around another joint. Kagiso declines.

  The river of blood has run its course. Kagiso traces its red route on the tiny monitor in front of him with a slender finger, 9 074km from London, across France and the Mediterranean, then over Algeria / Chad / Niger / DRC / Angola / Botswana / South Africa.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have started our descent for Johannesburg InternationalAirport. In preparation for the landing, please make sure that your seats are in the upright position and your seatbelts fastened, that your tray tables are folded away and that your hand luggage has been safely stowed.”

  136 Simultaneously, a senior policeman ‘broke ranks’ and publicly criticised the actions of the police. Lieutenant Gregory Rockman described police action in his area, Mitchell’s Plain, as “brutal”, saying that the riot squad had “stormed the kids like wild dogs. You can see the killer instinct in their eyes”. The SAP was forced to initiate an inquiry into the behaviour of the Riot Squad in these incidents as well as the election night violence.

  “Thank you very much,” Kagiso says when Richard stops the car outside Issa’s hostel. He squeezes through a knot of legs and limbs on the back seat and opens the door.

  “Who is Ruth First?” somebody asks.

  “She was Joe Slovo’s wife,” Kagiso replies.

  “Didn’t know he was married.”

  “She’s dead. Killed. Blown apart by a letter bomb in Mozambique.”

  “Oh. What a morbid name to give a residence.”

  Kagiso shuts the door.

  “Wait! I want to say hello to Izzy. Wait for me, Kaggy! Come Richy.”

  Richard follows, exasperated.

  Kagiso knocks nervously on Issa’s door. Sophie taps her toes. “Ooohh!”

  “Yes?” a voice calls from inside the room.

  “It’s Kagiso.”

  “Who?”

  “Kagiso.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Is Issa there?”

  Returning to the report, Kagiso reads the date; Sunday 23rd July, the day after his 18th birthday, the day after Issa broke his leg... The words on the page add to his growing sense of unease and he wants to shrink away from the emerging realisation.

  Four limpet mine attacks in the Peninsula were planned for the evening of Sunday 23 July 1989 as part of an anti-election bombing campaign by MK. Magistrate’s courts were targeted as they were to be used for election nominations the following day. Mines exploded at a police station in Mitchells Plain and at Somerset West magistrate’s court. At the Bellville magistrate’s court security forces intervened to prevent the blast.

  Issa steps out into the corridor through a door which closes behind him.

  “Ooohh, such a long time, Izzy!” Sophie shouts, before throwing her arms around him. “So nice to see you again. And even more handsome now.” She turns to Richard. “Say hello, Richy.”

  Richard nods awkwardly: “Shamsuddin.”

  Issa reciprocates: McKenna, and then turns to Kagiso. Hey. Happy Birthday you. He taps him on the back.

  Kagiso beams. “Thank you.”

  Issa starts leading them down the corridor, away from his room. Sorry I couldn’t make it. You have a good time?

  “Yes. Very nice.”

  Sophie squeezes herself between the two of them. “We missed you, Izzy. You should have come. We had such fun, didn’t we Kaggy?”r />
  Kagiso nods.

  “We went to Rhodes Mem and then the Hard Rock in Sea Point and then – Oops!” She stumbles on the first step of the staircase.

  Issa, who has been watching with attentive disinterest, reaches out to stop her fall but loses his own footing and is unable to counterbalance her drunken flailing.

  Sophie lands astride Issa at the bottom of the stairs. “Ooohh, Izzy,” she says sitting up, her head in a spin, “Is this a dream or am I really -” Richard pulls her off Issa. “Oh, Richy,” she exclaims, dangling loosely off his shoulder, “you’re such a spoilsport.”

  Kagiso bends down to pick Issa up.

  But Issa stops him. I think, he groans, straining to look at his twisted leg. I think my leg is broken.

  Fuck!

  “Ek sê my bra, it’s kak timing for sure, ek sê,” Issa’s friend says, shaking his hand reassuringly when the paramedics load him into the back of the ambulance, “but Mr B will go with them.”

  I told you. Issa protested, banging his hand on the stretcher. I don’t trust that guy.

  “Who, Mr B?”

  His friend sucks his teeth. “Don’t you stress about Mr B. He’s ntszaa, ek sê.”

  You tell them to watch out for him.

  “Shap.”

  And tell them I’ll see them soon, for sure.

  Kagiso squeezed into the back of the ambulance and crouched apologetically next to Issa. The paramedics shut the doors and the ambulance drove away.

  “Issa, I’m sorry.”

  Sorry. Issa snorted. You’re sorry? You have no idea how – Anyway, what the fuck were you doing bringing those stupid fucking naaiers to my room?

  Kagiso tried to explain but Issa turned his head to look away.

  His leg was badly broken. Struggling against the anaesthetic, he muttered the two names which tonight have woken Kagiso from his somewhere and nowhere, black velvet sleep.

  The fourth mine, intended for the Athlone magistrate’s court, detonated behind public toilets opposite the court. The bodies of MK operatives and youth activists Ms Coline Williams (22) and Mr Robert Waterwich of the Ashley Kriel unit were found at the scene.

  Kagiso feels trapped. His palms leave a wet smudge when he rubs them on his trousers. Nausea starts to turn his stomach.

  Subsequent inquests found that they had died as a result of an explosion. While initial impressions suggested that the operation had simply gone awry, a number of questions have remained concerning the circumstances of their deaths. Suspicions existed that the explosives had been ‘zero timed’ for immediate detonation.

  The steward won’t allow him to go to the toilet. “Sir, we’re coming in to land.”

  In desperation, Kagiso grabs the bag from the seat pocket in front him as the aircraft strikes the runway with an unnerving high-speed jolt.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Johannesburg International Airport. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. We trust that you’ve enjoyed your flight with us. On behalf of the captain and all the crew, we wish you a pleasant stay and look forward to seeing you again in the future. Thank you for flying South African Airways and goodbye.”

  ‘The summer is over, Theresa’

  LIKE STATELESS MOMENTS, summer, in the end, never lingers either. Huddled in her armchair, Frances hears the stacking and the carrying away of furniture from the beer garden, the taking down of floral hanging baskets, the shutting and the locking of the garden gate. She finds herself humming that autumnal tune which it feels like only she still remembers: ‘The summer is over, Theresa.’

  One day, while stooping to turn on the gas fire, she looses her balance: crack, snap, crash. When she eventually comes round, she does not know how long she’s been lying there in the numbing cold. She bangs on the floor but perhaps her banging is too feeble, perhaps the music downstairs too loud. Whatever it is, her new neighbour does not respond. Exhausted, she gives up. What else to do now, Frances, but lie and wait?

  Suddenly, she is gripped by fear: Wait – but for whom, Frances? Then she starts to hear sounds, little taunting sounds: bumps on the roof, taps on the window, scratches on the door. And she starts to see things: the porcelain doll on the mantelpiece – it grimaced, she is sure. On the carpet, depressions, like footprints in sand, except more like claws, pace, slowly, up and down. Sometimes they come to stand by her head and she can feel the air change and a putrid smell descend and wrap itself around her, like a shroud. Sometimes the depressions move over to her armchair and she can hear the chair creak, and see the cushions sink in. She reaches slowly into her pocket but her pocket is empty. Then her armchair creaks and again the claws cross the room and come to stand by her head. And then she hears the words, but not in her ears, in her nose, she smells their meaning in her nose, in the putrid smell when it descends: They’re on your smoking table. Frances closes her eyes. There are no on-holiday relatives. I lie and wait, for nobody...

  One dark afternoon, she confides in the young lady from Church who has been visiting her regularly since her fall. She can only manage a slow murmur now and her visitor has to lean over her to hear her. “In this envelope,” she gestures limply towards her bedside table, “are the details of his star.”

  The young woman nods, turning her head slightly to read the careful, old-fashioned writing on the envelope:

  To:

  Professor V Kumar

  Frances stares into a faraway place beyond the ceiling: “I wrote my will across the sky in stars.” Her sunken eyes turn slowly in their sockets. “Can you please send it recorded delivery?”

  “Of course,” her companion smiles, reassuringly.

  Frances nods in gratitude. “The money is in the little pot beside.”

  Father Jerome arrives with his portable altar in the middle of the night. Frances watches him unpack the last rites from his bag, then drape a purple stole around his neck. She squeezes the young lady’s hand beckoningly: “I want this with me, like this,” she requests, then clutches the red satin pouch and folds her hands across her chest.

  “Behold the angel said:

  O Mary! God hath chosen thee

  And purified thee – chosen thee

  Above the women of all nations.

  And she conceived of the Holy Spirit

  Hail Mary,

  Full of grace,

  The Lord is with thee

  Blessed art thou amongst women

  And blessed is the fruit of thy womb,

  Jesus.”

  Katinka’s Text Message

  WHEN SHE HAS BEEN THERE A WHILE, Katinka writes to Kagiso.

  Katinka Du Plessis

  Subject: Elke liewe dag

  Date: Friday August 6 2004

  From: katinka@thewall.com

  To: kagiso@mayoyo.net

  ... And I’ve never felt as many emotions in one day, as I have here. Every night I try to count them, but I always fall asleep before I’m through. Sunrise over these ancient hills is simply breathtaking. Crushing too; nothing here is simple.

  Because I live in the shadow of The Wall, I have to get up early and walk far if I want to see it; even sunrise is denied, and the beauty of daybreak is filled with the promise of further oppression.

  But spirits lift like the mist and throughout the day there is the infectious joy of the children and in everybody a willingness to laugh. Remember the irony of the townships? How they were also the happiest places you could visit? Have you heard this one?

  A young man in Jenin finds a lamp in the ruins at Ground Zero. He takes the lamp to his cramped room in his in-laws’ house. When he is eventually alone, he rubs the lamp. A grumpy genie appears:

  “What do you want?” the genie barks.

  The man is surprised. This is not how a genie is supposed to behave. But he continues with his request all the same. “Please, genie,” he begs. “First, I would like a flat for my wife and my children. Then,” he takes a deep breath before rattling off the rest of his wishes, “I would lik
e – ”

  “Stop just there,” the genie interrupts. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  The man shakes his head. “But you’re a genie!” He exclaims.

  “Now listen here,” the genie says, irritated. “If I could find a flat in Jenin, or anywhere else on the West bank, do you really think I would be living in this poxy lamp?”

  I’ve been reminded of why I became a teacher – to teach, not fill out forms. I have rediscovered the joy of the classroom. I earn very little, but the strength of mind, the will to succeed in kids who have to travel for hours around The Wall to get to school (and who can draw helicopter gun-ships with their eyes closed) makes me rich.

  The small things: the comfort in routine, the distress when, at a whim, it is disrupted. The calm solitude of a walk in the hills, the nostalgic melancholy in a landscape in parts indistinguishable from the Karoo.

  Death is everywhere; every day an anniversary, every day a future one assured. Despair is a sitting tenant.

  Last month our neighbour went into labour while waiting at a checkpoint. Still, the soldiers wouldn’t let her through. The baby, a girl, died with her mother by the roadside.

  The crime? To go into labour in a queue.

  The punishment? Death.

  I teach the dead woman’s daughter. She’s ten. The hot chill when I found a picture of Wafa Idris in her exercise book the other day.

  The joy of a new life. My sister-in-law had a baby girl last week. They’ve named her Kulsoum, after our neighbour; the dead in the living, the old in the new, the past in the present.

  The present in the future? Most probably. The sinking feeling that today will be like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today. There is a refugee camp four stories high. It’s not allowed to expand outward, so it rises into the sky: four stories, four generations, four decades.

  The phenomenal hospitality. The humility that comes with being made the guest of honour at a meal where the family can barely afford to feed themselves. Poor here (tap your pocket). Rich here (tap your heart). How often the converse is true in England.