Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  ‘The Zion Churches have always had female pastors, maybe you should join those,’ says Thandi as we drive on Leabua Jonathan Highway towards Maseru.

  It is true that the African Independent Churches, collectively known as the Zion Churches, have always had female clergy. In fact, most of them are led by female bishops and archbishops, and indeed were founded by women. Occasionally there may be a male prophet who gains universal fame, but most of the revered prophets in these denominations are women. This does not come as a surprise to me because even before Christianity was introduced to my people, when they still adhered to African traditional religions, most of their spiritual leaders were women. In the courts of our kings and queens the chief advisers were diviners – or amagqirha, inyanga, izanuse, izangoma, as they were variously known – who were not only healers of ailing bodies but also served a spiritual function. Most of these traditional healers were women.

  ‘I agree,’ I say. ‘Religious patriarchy was brought to these shores by our erstwhile colonial masters.’

  Then we talk about other things. Just reminiscing on how life used to be when we still lived in Lesotho, and how we think that since we tasted other lifestyles we wouldn’t be able to survive in Mafeteng. The place looks dull, like a once-bright floral dress that has run out of colour.

  Then somewhere between Morija and Maseru I slow down and drive to the side of the road. I park the car under a tree next to the remains of a building that have been fenced in by sagging strands of barbed wire.

  ‘This was our Jerusalema,’ I announce grandly.

  ‘What happened to our Jerusalema?’ asks Gugu. ‘How did it come to this?’

  Yes, our Jerusalema is in ruins. At least the tree is still there, although it looks emaciated and forlorn.

  WE NAMED IT JERUSALEMA because of its architecture. The white building was in the style of buildings we had seen in illustrations of biblical stories. It was a church of one of the African Independent Churches – the Zion Churches. It looks so ghostly now, but it used to be teeming with life when in 1989 Gugu and I adopted it for our little trysts. Not the church itself, but the tree just outside the yard.

  I first saw Gugu Nkosi at a braai party at Tom Lynn’s house. Tom was the lovable head of the English Department at the National University of Lesotho who was famous for his drunkenness. He occasionally organised parties at his house where he invited staff and students to eat barbecued meat and drink wine and beer. He was very popular in the department because the people said that although he was from the United Kingdom he did not have the snootiness of the British. Gugu was one of the students who attended. I didn’t pay any particular attention to her that day, though I did notice that she did not touch any of the alcohol whereas her friends were getting quite tipsy and therefore quite loud.

  I saw her again a few months later when she enrolled in my African Poetry class. She was one of a group of students from South Africa in my class. I learnt that she was from Soweto and that her sister Smangele had been in my earlier classes. I had not left a favourable impression on her sister because she thought I was a hard taskmaster who gave students a lot of work and demanded more rigorous scholarship than they were used to from other lecturers. Gugu, therefore, must have taken my class with trepidation. But she had no choice because it was a required course. She told me later that to her surprise she enjoyed the class and gained skills in the analysis of poetry that she used when she became a high school literature teacher in Swaziland. What I remember about her in that class was that as a speaker of isiZulu she became very useful when we studied poetry from the South African workers’ movement. Three of the favourite poets were Nise Malange, Mi Hlatshwayo and Alfred Qabula, the trade union stalwarts who were based in Natal. They composed and performed poetry on issues affecting the workers. Although we studied this oral poetry in English translation, it was necessary for the students to hear how it sounded in its original isiZulu. I would ask Gugu to read it for us and we all looked forward to the scintillating cadence of her isiZulu accent.

  I got to know that Gugu was from Armitage Road in Orlando West, a township I knew very well. Her home was a street away from Vilakazi Street where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu had their houses – reputed to be the only street in the world with two Nobel Peace Prize laureates. When I lived with the Mandela family, however, it was long before they moved to Orlando West. After they moved from Orlando East my family visited them at Vilakazi Street, never knowing that only a street away was the home of the woman who was to be my mate.

  I gradually became friends with Gugu and two of her fellow classmates, Xoliswa Vumazonke, who was from the Eastern Cape, and Gugu Mkhonta, who was from Swaziland. I often took them for long drives in my theatre company’s Volkswagen Kombi. Once I took them to Mafeteng to introduce them to my mother. She was happy to meet them. When we left she gave me provisions of steamed bread which she knew I liked very much and Gugu teased me that I was ‘mama’s boy’. I liked her ribbing; it gave her company a very homely quality. Unfortunately my father was busy in court. I would have loved it if my friends had met him. It would have made Xoliswa’s day because she was a PAC supporter and knew of him as the founding spirit of that organisation. That’s how PAC adherents referred to him – the founding spirit – as if he was already dead and people communed with him through prayers or ancestral rituals.

  After the visit we went to relax at Hotel Mafeteng and had mixed grills and a few drinks. The women were teetotallers so none of our drinks was alcoholic. This was the kind of company that inspired sobriety in me. I was finding Gugu increasingly intoxicating the more I spent time with her, even though at this point it was always in the company of her girlfriends who had become my friends as well.

  But Adele did not find anything amusing about my association with Gugu. She heard stories that I was spending a lot of time with her; she and her group of friends were often seen in my Kombi in Maseru at Mothamo House where my company, the Screenwriters Institute, had its offices and production studios. She also heard that I had taken this bevy of beauties to a concert I organised and promoted at the Airport Hotel for the American hard bop and soul jazz organist, Rhoda Scott. I was hosting Ms Scott through the auspices of the American Cultural Center.

  Adele confronted me about Gugu and I told her Gugu and I were only friends. This was true only to a point because even though at that moment we were strictly not lovers it was obvious to me, and hopefully to Gugu, that the friendship was gradually assuming a much more romantic tenor.

  ‘I forbid you to see her again,’ said Adele.

  ‘Oh, no, you can’t forbid me,’ I said. ‘You have your own friends too and I don’t forbid you to see them.’

  I should have added that those friends included the Molapo young man who seemingly had not given up hope that he would win her back. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to rub it in.

  ‘What do you see in this Gugu anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘She makes me laugh.’

  She gave me a puzzled look.

  ‘Why do you want to laugh?’

  Why indeed? I couldn’t provide her with an answer. But still I knew that I needed Gugu and I desperately needed to laugh. As it turned out the feelings were mutual – between me and Gugu – although it took me some time to realise that.

  I did not have much time to dwell on the pickle in which I had put myself with women. There were other pressing demands. Not only was I running the Screenwriters Institute in Maseru which was producing video and radio programmes and comic books on health and community development issues, I was a UNICEF Consultant on Social Mobilisation. My focus was on child survival and development and I travelled to many African countries attending meetings and conferences and holding workshops on how to use various media to promote the cause. During these trips I was also in search of theatre, particularly the traditional pre-colonial performance modes that were extant in various African cultures. I was also observing theatre-for-development practices in other parts of t
he world.

  My work with UNICEF took me to Zimbabwe to participate in the International Symposium of Writers, Artists and Intellectuals for Child Survival and Development in Frontline States and Southern Africa – dubbed the Harare Symposium. The Symposium was attended by one hundred and forty delegates from twenty countries. Its objective was to mobilise African and international writers, artists and intellectuals for child survival and development, and to focus international attention on the plight of children in the Frontline States of Southern Africa. The frontline states were those countries that were directly affected by apartheid policies either because they shared borders with South Africa or they hosted the liberation movements. For instance, Tanzania was a frontline state even though it did not share any border with South Africa. Zimbabwe, of course, was in the frontline in many ways. It hosted the liberation movements and had emerged only eight years earlier from a liberation struggle of its own that we still regarded with awe for its bravery and achievements. It also shared a border with South Africa that was often violated by raids of apartheid’s covert forces into the heart of Harare.

  Besides me, the delegation from Lesotho was composed of Prince Mohato – who later became the present King Letsie III – and Fine Maema, his private secretary.

  One of my greatest joys at the Harare Symposium was meeting some of my compatriots who had been strewn all over the world by exile. These included Miriam Makeba, our songbird also known as Mama Africa, and Oliver Tambo, the president of the ANC. I sat with Mr Tambo at the Sheraton Hotel auditorium where he talked to me about my father as we watched a ballet company of children brought from Mozambique by Graça Machel perform Swan Lake. It struck me that the ANC leaders continued to hold my father in high esteem even though he had left the organisation. Mr Tambo told me that he continued to be in contact with my father and often asked for his counsel and had even once asked him to write him a speech. I didn’t know about all this and was surprised that my father had never spoken about it.

  ‘Pass my greetings to AP of Old,’ he said when we parted after the show.

  Graça Machel, who was Minister of Education in Mozambique at the time, introduced a number of children who testified to the delegates gathered at the Sheraton on how they had been turned into soldiers by the MNR. The MNR (Mozambique National Resistance, also known as RENAMO) was the political organisation that was fighting to overthrow the FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) government in Mozambique. It was created by the Rhodesian intelligence during the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe. It was led by a man called Alphonse (Afonso) Dhlakama and was heavily supported both financially and in terms of manpower by the South African government.

  I remember in particular twelve-year-old Isaac, who told the gathering how the MNR bandits raided his village in a remote part of Mozambique, captured him and trained him as a soldier. In the many battles that he fought against the government forces he killed two FRELIMO soldiers. He was such a brave fighter that he became a commander of a unit that raided villages, looting food stores, burning down houses, raping women and killing everyone in sight after the deed. He led quite a few massacres of innocent civilians. He told us that all the time he was yearning to escape. One day an opportunity availed itself; he killed two MNR soldiers and escaped and handed himself over to government forces. He was undergoing rehabilitation at one of the centres established by the Mozambican government for child soldiers.

  Isaac was just one of the former child soldiers from Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe who gave testimonies of their harrowing experiences to the delegates.

  The delegates included writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, actress Cicely Tyson, playwright George Wolfe, musician Manu Dibango, New Amsterdam news editor Wilbert Tatum, anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak, French first lady Danielle Mitterrand, academic and theatre practitioner Chris Kamlongera, singer Harry Belafonte, who was also UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and the president of the Swedish Committee for UNICEF, Lisbet Palme, the widow of slain Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.

  Robert Mugabe hosted us at the State House for a banquet and a cocktail party. His wife Sally was as gracious as ever. Mugabe himself struck me as a very down-to-earth and humble man. I remember that when I walked with him down the steps at the Sheraton to an outdoor event – traditional dancing in the grounds of the hotel – ordinary people approached him. He clapped his hands in humility in the Shona manner of greeting. I was highly impressed by Mugabe and his wife Sally who attended to us at their official residence as if we were old friends.

  Towards the end of the Harare Symposium we elected a Pan African Planning Committee and Advisory Council on Child Survival and Development, which included people like Graça Machel, Chinua Achebe, Sally Mugabe, Miriam Makeba, Ali Mazrui and the exhilarating Mozambican artist Malangatana. I was elected to chair the literature sub-committee that resolved to establish a magazine for children whose content would be produced by the children themselves in their own languages with translations in English, Portuguese and French. We also resolved to publish an anthology of stories, poems and plays to be edited by George Wolfe, Botswana poet Barolong Seboni, and me. Its royalties would go to UNICEF for the rehabilitation of the child soldiers.

  I must add that none of these resolutions was implemented; it all came down to distance between the implementers and lack of funds. But long after the Symposium I continued corresponding with Graça Machel and she sent me photographs of dancers that I published in my newsletter, MTT Report. This was after I had told her that to me a dancer is a god or, better still, a goddess.

  On my return to Lesotho I wrote an article for a news magazine called Southern Star. At the end of my article I made the following observation:

  Finally, I must state that in many respects the Symposium was a great success, and in the four days a lot was achieved particularly in focusing international attention on the plight of children. However, something did leave a bitter taste in the mouths of some of the delegates (I was really talking about my mouth and Chris Kamlongera’s mouth). The Symposium was a successful media event, graced by ‘stars’ of all types. It was a celebrity showcase. We enjoyed ourselves in all that gloss, glamour and glitter. We sipped champagne and ate caviar. We attended nightly cocktail parties. All in the name of the starving children of Africa.

  All the time I was in Harare stuffing myself at Robert Mugabe’s State House banquets on behalf of the hungry children of Africa, I caught myself thinking more and more of Gugu and how I would have had an even greater time had she been with me. It was the laughter that we shared that I missed. I resolved that as soon as I got back to Roma I would take her out to spend quality time alone with her away from the rest of the world.

  My first outing with her, without her girlfriends, was a long drive up steep and winding roads to the Oxbow Skiing Lodge in the Maluti Mountains of Lesotho. I rented a comfortable chalet for us. Although there were all types of skis for rental we did not venture on to the snowy slopes. We spent a couple of days there, sitting by log fires or out on the rocks admiring the imposing mountains and the gorges and rivers that we could see in the distance. And of course we made love for the first time.

  After this trip we had a few dates, mostly to my hometown of Mafeteng, because I had to see my mother and my kids quite often. We stayed at Hotel Mafeteng. My mother liked her very much and would ask after her on those occasions when I visited by myself.

  I took her out to the Lesotho Sun, a luxury hotel on a hilltop in Maseru, for her twenty-first birthday. We had dinner from their wide-ranging buffet. I gave her a present of African-themed jewellery and a West African style dress specially designed by Ntate Jabbie, a West African man who lived in Maseru. Ntate Jabbie designed and made all my Afro-shirts and was Bintu Jabbie’s father, another beautiful woman who became my friend when we both worked for the Department of Information and Broadcasting. Bintu was the one who introduced me to her father in the first place, which resulted in my unique style. The brown dress he made for Gugu’s b
irthday was especially elegant with its ornate embroidery.

  Adele got to hear of the birthday present from some of the gossips at Roma and she drove from Maseru to the university to confront Gugu. She threatened Gugu with violence if she did not hand over the dress and jewellery. Gugu, of course, had no intention of risking life or limb for material objects, however sentimentally valuable they might have been. She meekly handed the gifts over to the bigger and more aggressive woman. I was very embarrassed when Adele returned from Roma and showed me the items she had confiscated from Gugu.

  That evening Adele phoned Josephine, Gugu’s mother in Soweto, and told her that her daughter had stolen her husband. I don’t know how she got Josephine’s number. But she had her mysterious ways of investigating things and finding information. I could not vouch for this, but I suspected that her strong Youth League and ruling party connections had something to do with it.

  Next time Gugu went home for a short holiday she was in big trouble with her mother. She was only twenty-one but was already stealing other women’s husbands. As if that was not bad enough, the woman whose husband she had stolen was related to her; Adele’s mother was from the Nhlapho family, which was also Josephine’s family. This meant that, according to Josephine, Gugu was practically Adele’s sister. It became obvious to Gugu that Adele must have had a long conversation with her mother. Josephine yelled at her so much that she didn’t even have the chance to explain that Adele had lied about my being her husband.