by Zakes Mda
Neo liked to push Zukile in his stroller to the Pizza Hut in Jorissen Street where we stuffed ourselves on the buffet. Young university women would stop and exchange some baby-talk with Zukile and congratulate the father on having such a cute baby and for being such a doting father. And of course in this case the father was none other than Neo. The two looked very much alike so it was quite logical to see them as father and son. Neo did not correct them. I guess it was fine with him to use his little brother to attract the attention of the ladies.
I was Visiting Professor at the School of the Dramatic Art, which was headed by a very pleasant and helpful man, Fred Hagemann. I taught Theatre in Education and African Theatre. Wits University was still largely white and only a small number of my students were black in the broader sense that includes the Indians and the Coloureds. Some of the white kids had an attitude towards black lecturers and were quite resistant to learning anything from them. One young white lady made it her business never to pay attention when I was teaching. Instead she held conversations with any white student in her vicinity. I called her to order in class and made it clear that I would not tolerate her distracting behaviour. I was pleasantly surprised when she came to my office to apologise. She told me that she had never had any contact with blacks before, except for her maid, the washerwoman and the gardener. She never knew that there were blacks who were intelligent, had university degrees and actually taught at universities, let alone at a white university like Wits.
Although her apology was adding insult to injury, I accepted it. She was obviously brought up in some cocoon in the northern suburbs. She had a lot to learn about her country and her compatriots; it was only a few months after the first democratic elections.
When the time came for me to vacate the university house Maishe Maponya drove me around in his car helping me find accommodation. He took me to Ponte City after I had seen an advertisement about some apartments there. With fifty-five floors and a hollow core throughout its entire height, Ponte is the tallest residential building in Africa, and at one time in the southern hemisphere. But immediately I saw all the dodgy characters that were walking in and out of the building, some milling about in the reception area, I told Maishe this would not be a place to bring up a child. A lot of them looked like prostitutes and their pimps, and later I learnt that my observations were indeed correct. I don’t know why Maishe hadn’t advised me against the place if he knew its reputation.
Through the classifieds in The Star I finally found a beautiful furnished three-bedroom townhouse in Westdene, a suburb that bordered Melville and Triomf – as old Sophiatown had been named by the apartheid government. Maishe helped us move there. I set up a desk in my bedroom and began working on the finishing touches of She Plays with the Darkness. I sent the manuscript to my mother for her final feedback. As soon as I completed this novel I started writing a novella for youth, Melville 67. Melville 67 was the bus that I took every day to the university and back. My story was mostly set in the bus and my characters were based on the people I observed every day travelling to and from work.
That bus was our main link with the outside world. Neo and Thandi told me many stories about what happened in it on their way to and from the FUBA Academy in Newtown. Thandi was blossoming into a lovely young lady and I hoped that the course in acting she had chosen would help take her out of her extreme shyness. I was very proud of her and thought my mother had done a wonderful job bringing up her and her brothers. She became my friend, and I enjoyed her company and her humour.
I took her with me when I was invited to the launch of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. The event was held at the mansion of an Afrikaner multimillionaire in Sandton. Thandi and I sat at the edge of the stage, just in front of the ANC elders. I was able to introduce Thandi to both Mandela and Walter Sisulu. They were happy to meet AP’s granddaughter. Sisulu was more interested in finding out how my mother was and what she was doing. But Barbara Masekela would have none of that. She was in charge of the proceedings and was as strict as a headmistress. She told us all, including the elders, that we were disrupting the proceedings. We all shut up.
One day I received an unannounced visitor at home. His name was Albert Nemukula and he was the owner and managing director of Vivlia Publishers. He told me how he had established his publishing house a few years before. He used to work for Juta, a highly respected academic and legal publishing house. He used to deliver royalty cheques to Afrikaner authors who had written school textbooks and was astounded by the large amounts these writers were earning. One day he delivered a one million rand cheque to a certain Meneer van Schalkwyk who had written a textbook that was prescribed nationally by the then Department of Bantu Education. He asked himself: if this one author is making so much per year from this one book, how much more did the publishing house make? There and then he decided to start his own publishing house. He identified gaps in the market and recruited writers. While he was going about his work for Juta he was also running his publishing house from the boot of his car. That’s how Vivlia Publishing was born.
When Albert Nemukula came to see me about submitting any manuscript I might have, Vivlia Publishers was a well-established and respected company. I was impressed by his resourcefulness and by the fact that his was a black-owned company that he started himself from scratch. He was not given equity in a well-established multinational on a platter by some white capitalists in return for political favours, as was the case in most of the Black Economic Empowerment deals one heard about. I agreed immediately to give him the manuscript of She Plays with the Darkness. He told me he was going to have a race with Oxford University Press and release the novel before they could publish Ways of Dying. That’s why the two novels came out in the same year, in 1995, with my second novel coming out before my first novel.
When I completed Melville 67 I gave it to him as well.
My return to South Africa received tremendous publicity in the media. The Sunday Times carried the headline: The Legend Comes Home to Play. Yet I had hoped I would sneak into the country and quietly go about my work! The theatre establishments in Johannesburg, under the leadership of Walter Chakela who was the chief executive officer of the Windybrow Theatre, decided to hold a festival of my plays. The Windybrow produced two of my plays: You Fool How Can the Sky Fall, which I had written in Vermont during the times of domestic turmoil, and We Shall Sing for the Fatherland. What I found particularly sentimental about the latter was that it was directed by Kefuoe Molapo, the son of my late Maseru friend, Clemoski. You Fool was a world premiere and was directed by Peter Se-Puma. The Johannesburg Civic Theatre produced The Nun’s Romantic Story directed by my friend Jerry Mofokeng, with music composed by Tu Nokwe. The Market Theatre produced a revival of The Hill, directed by Philiswa Biko. The Wits University Theatre produced Dead End directed by Jojo Mei. Even a city that was hundreds of kilometres away got into the spirit of the festival: the North West Arts Council in Mmabatho produced The Dying Screams of the Moon, directed by Siphiwe Khumalo.
My work was getting wall-to-wall reviews and write-ups in the press.
About two weeks later I went to the Civic Theatre and demanded that they close their production of The Nun’s Romantic Story. Although Jerry and Tu had worked so hard to come up with a wonderful production of the play, I felt that the management had not done anything to publicise the play, with the result that it was performing to empty houses. They had not given my play the same kind of treatment that they gave the overseas productions that were their main focus. They were taken aback because they had never met a playwright who demanded the cancellation of his own play. But they complied. It was only later that I regretted my rashness. I had put actors, including the greatly talented Yael Farber who was playing the lead with such touching delicacy and gracefulness, out of work. I had thought only of myself and my reputation, which was rather selfish of me.
I found that all of a sudden I was in great demand in Johannesburg; people of all sorts wanted a piec
e of me. I was so naive that I did not see through those who were merely using me for their own ends. For instance, a group of white women commissioned me to write a play that would be used on the gold mines to educate miners on issues of safety. They promised me a substantial amount for the script. They had successfully pitched the project to the mine bosses but the final approval would only come if the trade union liked it as well.
I went to the gold mines of Welkom in the Free State with three of the women where they had a meeting with members of the National Union of Mineworkers. I was introduced to these unionists as the author. I became uneasy when the women kept referring to me as if I was the face of the project, or indeed had a key role in initiating and running it. The unionists had never heard of me, of course, but it was good enough for them that there was black participation in the project.
The women got the contract, but two days or so after we returned from Welkom I received a letter from them. They were dropping me from the project because they realised that they could actually write the play themselves; it was not the kind of play that needed my refined and internationally acclaimed playwriting skills. I had wasted my time going with them to the Free State and attending a long dreary meeting, and those who know me will tell you how much I hate meetings. I had not yet signed any contract with the women because I had relied on their good faith. It was my loss.
But, you know, I am a bit dim-witted because I never learn. The same thing happened again with a company called Blue Moon, which was then white-owned and operated. Choreographer Robyn Orlin and I were engaged to create a production for the relaunch of Drum Magazine. I realised too late that I was their black front, so as to qualify for the black empowerment contract. I attended the initial meetings, giving a semblance of black participation and as soon as Blue Moon clinched the deal and signed the contract with the company that published Drum Magazine they told me that Robyn Orlin would rather go it alone.
I didn’t want to pursue the matter further in any of these cases; it was far below my dignity to do so. I put it down to experience. I would be smarter next time. I was in the cut-throat world of Johannesburg where there was no such thing as good faith or a gentleman’s agreement.
I was strolling around the Market Theatre one day when I came across Barney Simon, the director who was revered by every theatre practitioner in South Africa. He was one of the founders of the Market Theatre and continued to work there as an artistic director.
I decided out of the blue to pounce on him.
‘Hey Barney,’ I said, ‘I want to know why you guys don’t produce plays by black playwrights here at the Market.’
‘We’ve produced your plays,’ he said, chuckling a bit at my impudence.
‘Yeah, but I’m not the only black playwright in South Africa, am I?’
I had not realised that Aubrey Moalosi, an actor who had been my student many years before when I taught mathematics at Hlotse Secondary School in Lesotho, was following me and overheard my attack on poor Barney.
‘That’s telling them, Bra Zakes,’ he said.
‘Find me the black playwrights and I’ll produce them,’ said Barney and left.
Where the heck do I find black playwrights? I remembered Dukuza ka Macu with whom I worked in Lesotho. I respected and loved his work but I didn’t know where he was. The last time I saw him he was shacking up with some white woman in one of the southern suburbs and they were both totally sloshed. The Black Consciousness stalwarts Matsemela Manaka and Maishe Maponya were not producing new work. Maishe was focusing on academic life and Matsemela had shifted his focus to painting. His had invited me to his house in Diepkloof once and it was like a gallery. Later he opened his own gallery at Southgate Shopping Mall.
Well, if we can’t get any established playwrights maybe we can create some.
That was the beginning of my long relationship with the Market Theatre.
Soon after the death of Barney Simon, actor and managing trustee of the Market Theatre, John Kani, employed me as a dramaturge and writer-in-residence, fulfilling Barney’s wishes. I accepted a nominal monthly retainer for my services. Although I was a member of the artistic team that decided on the theatre’s programme, my main interest was in the development of new writers for the stage. I held regular workshops at the Market Theatre Laboratory, and both aspiring and established writers attended them.
On Zukile’s second birthday I drove to Lesotho and took him to see Adele’s parents in Leribe. I had a long meeting with her father, Ntate Thesele, outlining the problems I had with her and informing him of my intention to divorce. He didn’t talk me out of it, although I had hoped for his intervention, but told me that whatever happened between us I would always be part of his family since I was the father of his grandson.
I then drove to Mohale’s Hoek to see Willie. I had written to him about my problems and he had not responded. Even now he was not of much help. All he said was: ‘Maybe you guys should live separately for a while. Things will work themselves out.’
In Mafeteng, my mother was glad to see Zukile. She praised me for taking care of him so well. I told her I wouldn’t have managed without the help of my two older kids, Neo and Thandi. She recommended a neighbourhood woman who would be a good nanny. She was sad that I had not been able to find Sonwabo. I promised that I would not give up.
The next day I drove back home with the nanny.
Back in Johannesburg I was writing prolifically for newspapers, commenting on current political, cultural and media issues. My articles were being published in City Press, Sunday Independent and Sunday Times. I was treading on people’s toes and making enemies. Philip van Niekerk, the editor of the Mail & Guardian, employed me as a regular contributor to his newspaper. I wrote articles ranging from the conflicts within the ANC in a small Free State town to the marginalisation of qualified blacks in government and parastatal jobs in favour of political pals in the crony capitalism and patronage system that was beginning to take root in South Africa. I wrote on crime: why it was prevalent and how it could be reduced; and on how and why the penal system should be reformed. These articles created a lot of debate and I featured as a guest on radio and television talk shows.
I was also writing academic articles and getting published in such journals as Theatre and Performance in Africa published by Bayreuth University in Germany; Theater, published by Yale University; and the Journal of Southern African Studies.
At about this time Wits University Press also published my collection of plays titled And the Girls in Their Sunday Dresses: Four Works. Besides the title play, the book contained Joys of War, Banned and The Final Dance. The last was a cine-poem that was never produced and Banned was a radio play that I wrote for the BBC which had been broadcast the previous year.
At the end of the academic year Wits University was very keen to convert my visiting professorship into a permanent position but I had tasted the life outside academia and it was much sweeter. I was able to earn a decent living writing, which meant that I could work at home and spend more time with Zukile. Vivlia Publishers were giving me more work as well. I was reviewing novels that had been submitted to them and editing those they had selected for publication. With all this independent work that I could do lying in my bed, I turned Wits down even after Professor Willy Malegapuru Makgoba, the new deputy vice-chancellor and the first black to hold such a high position at that university, held an urgent meeting with me in his office begging me to stay because there were very few senior black academics at the university. I was sorry to let Willy down because I liked him very much, but I needed the freedom. As a full professor I would have no choice but to be on all sorts of committees and be part of the activism for the transformation of the university to an institution that reflected the values of the new democratic South Africa. All I wanted was to create. This was becoming a very productive period for me. There were so many stories to tell and so little time.
Philip van Niekerk, in his capacity as a film producer, commissioned m
e to tell one of those stories. He and Mark Newman of Phakathi Films had devised a new television series titled Saints, Sinners and Settlers in which such historical figures as King Dingane of the Zulus, Dutch colonist Jan van Riebeeck, apartheid founder and former prime minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd and many others were being tried in a contemporary courtroom for their historical crimes. I was commissioned to write an episode on the prophetess Nongqawuse who would be tried for making false prophecies that resulted in the death of thousands of amaXhosa. This mass suicide enabled the British to finally subjugate the amaXhosa people once and for all.
The prophecy was that the ancestors would come back from the dead bringing with them new cattle and new crops, provided the amaXhosa people killed all their existing cattle – which were ailing with lung disease in any case – and destroyed all their crops in the fields and silos. Some people believed the prophecies and killed their cattle, but there were those who doubted them. They refused to kill their cattle and destroy their crops. There was great conflict between the believers and the unbelievers. If the unbelievers did not obey the prophecies, the believers believed, the prophecies would not be fulfilled. The believers therefore tried to force the unbelievers to kill their cattle, and when they didn’t the believers invaded their kraals at night and did it for them.
The appointed day came and passed without the fulfilment of the prophecies. Many amaXhosa people died as a result of the famine that followed.
Like every Xhosa person, I knew this story quite well. In Lesotho I was even blamed for being Nongqawuse’s child by ethnic chauvinists. But I didn’t know many of the historical details that I read in Jeff Peires’s book, The Dead Will Arise, which I was given by Phil. The author himself was appointed my consultant by the producers and I learnt a lot from him about that period. They also arranged that I drive to Qolorha-by-Sea in the Eastern Cape and visit the area where Nongqawuse lived with her uncle. That was where she was supposed to have seen some visions and a number of miracles took place on the banks the Gxarha River – a river named for my mother’s people, the Cwerha Gxarha clan, descendants of the Khoikhoi.