Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  Another of my cartoons that had people talking was titled ‘Strange Bedfellows’. It illustrated the King of Lesotho wearing his big crown in bed with a man wearing pyjamas with the hammer and sickle symbol of the Communists, and another man with a stethoscope representing Seth Makotoko, a medical doctor who was also the leader of the Marematlou Freedom Party – the MFP. Here I was playing on the cliché that politics made for strange bedfellows. The MFP, which had been established to protect the interests of the chiefs against the commoners and was supported by the King, was in alliance with the Communist Party of Lesotho. I heard that people in taxis and in shebeens were remarking at my brilliant observation that the Communists were so unscrupulous that to advance their interests they were prepared to work hand in glove with monarchists. The BCP, on the other hand, was against the monarchy and would have preferred a republic, if they could have had their way. They shouted slogans and sang songs that marena ke linoa-mali, marena ke Marashia – royals are bloodsuckers, chiefs are Russian thugs.

  Marake Makhetha took a shine to me and I was quite often seen in his company. This, of course, increased my stature in the eyes of the other youths for I was much closer to the branch leadership. I was well versed in issues, thanks to my father’s round-table family conferences of yore and to my voracious reading of newspapers. I could engage in lengthy debates on Pan Africanism and why it was in the interests of Western powers to keep Africa from uniting.

  ‘You are right, son of Africa,’ Marake Makhetha would say. ‘The usual divide and rule tactics.’

  ‘But as Osagyefo says, the United States of Africa is inevitable,’ I said. ‘As peoples of the African continent we share a common history, a common interest and a common destiny.’

  We had taken to calling President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana Osagyefo, which means ‘Redeemer’ in his Twi language. He was the leading light of Pan Africanism and ardently supported the liberation of South Africa because, according to him, no African country would ever be truly free until every square inch of Africa was free.

  ‘Yes, son of Africa,’ said Marake Makhetha. ‘The CIA can kill Patrice Lumumba and any of our leaders, but in the end we’ll triumph.’

  Then he broke into a song: Mali a Lumumba rea a batla – We demand that the murderers of Lumumba pay for his blood. We all joined in the song whose melody was based on a popular Protestant hymn about Jesus’ blood, while we churned out the party organ from the Gestetner. These were the most exciting moments in my life; politics was giving me some validation of my worth. Older men like Marake Makhetha were taking my views seriously and engaging with me as an equal. People in the district were reading my cartoons and laughing at the folly of such politicians as Leabua Jonathan, Hendrik Verwoerd, Seth Makotoko, Mmaphosholi Molapo, John Vorster, Harold Wilson and many others whose shenanigans my pen was exposing to the world.

  Occasionally I thought of Keneiloe. If only she could see me now. This yearning for her presence, particularly for the purpose of witnessing my greatness, became even more searing when Ntsu Mokhehle, the president of the BCP, drove down from Maseru in one of the thirteen Land Rovers donated by Mao Tse-tung of the People’s Republic of China to hold a series of meetings in the southern districts. He was accompanied by Potlako Leballo, the secretary general and acting president of the PAC – the president, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, was at that time serving an indefinite term of imprisonment on Robben Island under a special law enacted by the apartheid parliament called the Sobukwe Clause. Leballo introduced me to Mokhehle, and from then on I accompanied the two leaders when they went to campaign in the Quthing district. Mokhehle’s driver, Blaizer, became my hero because he was always with the leaders and knew their secrets. He even knew their girlfriends in every port of call because he drove these venerable leaders to their trysts.

  The only reason Moetapele – the Leader, as Mokhehle was called – needed me in Quthing was to interpret for him when he addressed the isiXhosa-speaking Bathepu (plural of Mothepu) people who lived in that district and who stubbornly supported Chief Leabua Jonathan. Although Mokhehle was popular in the urban areas and his rallies were attended by thousands, in the villages of Quthing only small pockets came to listen to him, and for most it was out of curiosity to see the man who had called their honoured chiefs bloodsuckers and was described by the Catholic Church as the devil incarnate. In a village like Mjanyane there were more people who came from Maseru with Moetapele in other Land Rovers, including his bodyguards, than there were supporters of the BCP. Even if there were only forty or so people Mokhehle would make a fiery speech, which I would duly interpret with just as much fire. I often added my own sentiments that the Bathepu’s support of Leabua Jonathan was tantamount to treason because he was bent on selling Lesotho to the Boers. Some of them would yell back that Leabua gave them maize. ‘What can your leader give us?’

  ‘Moetapele will certainly not give you any maize because he is not buying your votes. But if you vote for him he will give you a better life,’ I said. ‘Popompo (we called Leabua Jonathan ‘Popompo’ because he was fat) will make you slaves of the Boers. Why do you think he is against our fight for the return of the lands of Lesotho that were conquered by the Boers? Do you know that the whole of the Free State belonged to Lesotho once? That is the Conquered Territory we are talking about. After independence next year, provided you vote for Ntsu Mokhehle, we’ll get our Conquered Territory back and your husbands and sons will not have to cross the border to work in the gold mines of the Free State. Those mines will be in Lesotho. They belong to Lesotho. Ea lla koto!’

  One or two people whose hearts had been won over would cheer, but the rest would jeer and boo. They were Leabua’s people and nothing could change that. Their chiefs had commanded them to vote for the BNP and the word of the chief was sacred. That was why we mockingly called them the people of Inkosi Ithethile – the Chief has Spoken. Their ignorance embarrassed me because at the end of the day they were my people.

  Potlako Leballo, who understood isiXhosa very well, was impressed with my performance. He kept whispering to Mokhehle what I was saying. These meetings had an informal air about them, unlike the rallies of tens of thousands that Mokhehle addressed at the Pitso Ground in Maseru.

  After the meeting, while Mokhehle and Leballo conferred with a gentleman who was their point man in Mjanyane, an old woman in the red-ochre skirts and black iqhiya turban of the Xhosa people came to me and in very serious tones said, ‘Your voice tells me that you are a Xhosa like us, my child. So, what are you doing with these Communists?’

  ‘These are freedom fighters, mother,’ I said. ‘They are the people who are fighting for our independence from the British without selling us to the Boers.’

  ‘If you say you want independence from the British, where are we going to get sugar? Where are we going to get paraffin? These people you are following like a blind bat are the children of Mao Tse-tung. Do you know that?’

  Blaizer, who had been standing next to me, guffawed and said, ‘There is no point of arguing with the Bathepu.’

  ‘What do you know of Mao Tse-tung, mother?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, she is a bad woman. Leabua was here last week and he told us all about her. She’s the kind of woman who would eat her own children. In her country she has enslaved everyone. If your Mokhehle wins the elections Mao will come here and enslave all of us. It is better to be under the Boers than to be under Mao.’

  Mao Tse-tung a woman? I joined Blaizer in his guffaws when I realised that of course to these peasants Mao would be a woman. Mao is Sesotho for ‘your mother’.

  I HAD HEARD OF Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, from Ntlabathi Mbuli, the Poqo cadre who helped me cross the river and was my father’s office clerk. He had moved to Maseru to work at the PAC headquarters where he edited The Africanist, the party organ. So, I was quite excited when I went there for the first time.

  The bus from Mohale’s Hoek took almost the whole day to get to Maseru – only a hundred and twelve kilometres away – be
cause it moved very slowly on the dirt road and stopped every few minutes to drop or pick up passengers. Halfway through the journey, at Mafeteng, it stopped for a very long time while passengers bought fat cakes and fried fish from the vendors who all surged to the windows as soon as the bus stopped. I didn’t know at the time that this dusty miserable-looking town would one day be my home.

  Having lived in Johannesburg once, Maseru didn’t quite impress me. The only tarred road was Kingsway, the main street. The tallest office building was Bonhomme House, which was only four storeys high. But opposite it was what could be the tallest building in the country: the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Victories, built of solid rock on sprawling grounds with paved pathways and numerous semicircular steps leading to its wide ornate wooden doors. Now, that was an impressive building with its steeples and spires that reached to the heavens. If God lived anywhere at all, it had to be in that cathedral.

  Potlako Leballo welcomed me at the PAC headquarters on the fourth floor of Bonhomme House. My friend Ntlabathi Mbuli was present, so were John Nyathi Pokela who later served some years at the Robben Island prison and on his release returned to exile where he became the president of the PAC. Also present was Sipho Shabalala, a highly intellectual cadre who later survived a bomb explosion that had been planted under his car in an assassination attempt.

  After giving me a lecture about ‘Service, Sacrifice and Suffering’ which was the PAC motto, and after a harangue about my father who he accused of ‘sitting on the fence’ since arriving in Lesotho, Potlako Leballo asked me to raise my hand and, in the presence of the three witnesses, swore me into the PAC. From then on I was a card-carrying member of the party, and not just a person who supported its ideals by virtue of being my father’s son.

  I enjoyed my brief stay in Maseru, especially hanging out at Sipho Shabalala’s house and listening to him analyse our struggle in a manner that was reminiscent of my father. I enjoyed meeting other PAC refugees and seeing how our movement was the dominant factor both in local politics and the South African liberation struggle. The ANC’s presence in Lesotho was very low-key at the time – represented by the likes of Joe Matthews and Robin Cranko, both of whom were attorneys practising in Maseru – which some of us mistook for the ANC’s universal weakness. On the other hand, our presence as the PAC and its military wing Poqo was quite robust; we strutted around bloviating and showing off, as if we owned the country. And this, by the way, was one of the major things that my father criticised about the PAC’s behaviour in Lesotho. He felt that they were being arrogant towards their hosts and were treating them with disdain and disrespect.

  The highlight of my visit to Maseru was the discovery of Maseru Café on Kingsway where Ntlabathi Mbuli and I had gone to buy South African newspapers – the Rand Daily Mail, the Sunday Times and The Star. There were some paperbacks on the shelves and this was my opportunity to buy James Hadley Chase’s latest potboiler, Tell It to the Birds, which would surely make me the man of the moment when I returned to Mohale’s Hoek. I was certain that not even Willie and Sabata, who between them had read every James Hadley Chase novel, had read this one since it had only been published a few months back. Oh, yes, at that point James Hadley Chase had crept into our lives and we had become obsessed with his leggy, smart and wily women who manipulated men and made them commit murder. We always knew who the killer was right from the beginning, but what sustained our interest was how the killer would be caught. So, we read and exchanged such titles as No Orchids for Miss Blandish, You Never Know with Women and When You Are Dead. Since we also liked Peter Cheyney’s hard-boiled fiction, I bought titles featuring his famous protagonists: Lemmy Caution, an FBI agent, and Slim Callaghan, a British private eye.

  We were about to walk out of Maseru Café when something very colourful and familiar attracted my attention. Comic books! My favourites were all there: Richie Rich, Spooky, Casper the Friendly Ghost and all the other Harvey Comics titles. And some DC Comics too. Alas! I didn’t have enough money to buy the shelf. Instead I had to make do with one Richie Rich and one Batman and Robin. I was going to read them over and over again when I got to Mohale’s Hoek. Ntlabathi Mbuli was astounded that I had not outgrown such stuff.

  ‘We are in the middle of a revolution and this is what you read?’ he asked.

  ‘How is it different from Jude the Obscure which you are always reading?’ I asked. ‘Hardy has nothing to do with the revolution either.’

  I was being flippant; he was reading Thomas Hardy for his University of London exams. He only chuckled as we left the shop.

  I was just happy that at least I knew now where comic books were sold in Lesotho.

  Back in Mohale’s Hoek I found that Willie and Sabata had a new hangout: a three-roomed red-brick house on a hill in the woods. This was Dlamini’s house. He was a puny balding man who worked as a teller at the Standard Bank and was one of the local activists of the BCP. I don’t know why I have forgotten his first name, even though I recall the full names of people who were less significant. I remember vaguely that it was something like Letsema or Leteba.

  Dlamini became like a big brother to all of us and we spent a lot of time at his place. We ate many a meal there, spent the evenings playing Crazy Eight and Casino Royale or discussing girls and politics. Marake Makhetha was a regular visitor and there would be a twinkle in his eye as he led us in freedom songs.

  At about this time a big conflict was brewing between the BCP and the Communist Party of Lesotho, led in Mohale’s Hoek by A S Makhele whose daughter Mphokho had taken my fancy – as usual, nothing came of it because I was afraid to approach her.

  The differences between the parties were as much about personalities as they were about ideology. The Communist Party received its financial and diplomatic support from the Soviet Union. But it was quite minuscule in Lesotho although its impact was large because of its resources. The BCP professed to be socialist as well, but in the Maoist vein. Their focus was on mobilising the peasants rather than the working class. There was, after all, no working class in Lesotho except for the small civil service, they argued. Lesotho was pretty much a pre-industrial, almost feudal, state with only one small factory in the whole country – a candle-making and petroleum jelly manufacturing outfit in a small village called Kolonyama. The major export was labour to the mines and farms of South Africa. But as soon as these workers returned to Lesotho they resumed their role as peasants.

  The conflict between the two parties, a proxy war between the People’s Republic of China and Russia (as we often called the Soviet Union), assumed such proportions that we had to arm ourselves. There were rumours of assassination squads who were roaming the streets of Mohale’s Hoek in the guise of respectable citizens ready to eliminate our leaders. People were suspicious of one another. And of their own shadows. Soon a trunk full of handguns was delivered to Dlamini’s house. It was a whole assortment of revolvers, derringers and seven-chambered pistols. We looked at them, eyes agog. There was another box full of assorted ammunition. I wondered how anyone would know which bullets belonged to which gun.

  These arms and ammunition were kept in a small room that was never locked. We had access to them, but strangely enough none of us boys stole any even though it was obvious that if we took some no one would be the wiser. I don’t think even Dlamini or Marake Makhetha ever counted them.

  For days on end the trunk just sat there and no one found any use for its contents. Until Tholoana Moshoeshoe came from the BCP headquarters in Maseru. She was a tall woman with a big afro and the long legs of a model. Her face was marred a bit by chubabas – the dark spots where the skin had been burnt by the hydroquinone of skin lightening creams. It was nevertheless a pretty face. I thought it would have been more beautiful if she smiled a bit. She seemed to be moping over something all the time.

  Tholoana Moshoeshoe spent most of her time in bed. We would arrive at the camp – we had taken to calling Dlamini’s house ‘the camp’ – at midday and she would be s
itting in her nightie reading a book, her long legs curled on the bed. We could only imagine what was happening between her and Dlamini at night when we were all gone back to our homes. We envied him the gift that the BCP headquarters had placed on his undeserving bed.

  ‘Do you think she will give us if we ask nicely?’ asked Sabata one day. By ‘give us’ of course he meant ‘allow us to have sex with her’. By that time Tholoana Moshoeshoe had been there for almost a month. It was December, schools were closed and our heads were full of nothing but mischief. And this included carnal desire for the much older woman who spent her life in bed. But we dared not approach her with a request for a bout of love-making even though there were only three of us in the house. That would have been disrespectful. So we did the next best thing; we covertly leered at her legs while browsing through Sabata’s catalogue of a Durban mail order company flogging love potions. Those days you could trust mail order houses in Durban to sell all sorts of snake-oil – ranging from Mahomedy’s who sold cheap clothes and trinkets with magical powers to apothecaries that boasted joint Indian and Zulu ownership, ‘tribes well-known for their strong muti (potions)’. We wondered which of the potions would be effective on Tholoana Moshoeshoe. Among those we found most attractive were zamlandela, a perfume that made girls follow you everywhere at the slightest whiff, or bhekaminangedwa, a root that you chewed which compelled girls to pay attention only to you and no one else, or perhaps velabahleke, a cream that you dabbed on your skin to make yourself so lovable that when you appeared girls laughed with joy. Alas, we had no money for any of these wonderful concoctions; otherwise we wouldn’t have hesitated to order them. If it were not for want of money, Tholoana Moshoeshoe would have been my first experience, if you don’t count what happened to me at KwaGcina with Nontonje.

  We were sitting at the table whispering and giggling about what we would do to Tholoana Moshoeshoe and all the other girls we fancied if we had the potions.