Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  I want to emphasise here that at the time this American man is accusing my country of treating women as chattels – and, please, I am not saying that women in South Africa have arrived where they should be; they still have a long way to go before we all live up to the values of our fine Constitution and banish our sexist and patriarchal attitudes – America ranks Number 31 in the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report whereas South Africa ranks Number 6. The only countries that are ahead of South Africa are Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. A small African country called Lesotho is ranked Number 10, twenty places above the United States. Now you tell me, who can preach to whom about gender equality?

  Rather than have his assertions tested in court Dr Terry Harvey quickly draws a follow-up report where he sings a different tune altogether and recommends that I should get custody because I care for the extramural activities of the children and Adele does not. But this shows you how some decisions that may affect the life and death of other human beings are made at the whim of ignorant officials. If I had not demanded that these silly assertions of Dr Harvey’s be tested in court I would have been metaphorically tarred and feathered as sexist on the basis of the jelled narrative.

  All this happens in 2006. It is a year that is really taking its toll on me because so many things are happening, and all of them may serve to alter the course of my life for better or for worse. I have learnt to live with Adele’s annoyances. She is using the kids as a tool to avenge herself for the decisions of the court that didn’t go her way. The kids spend one week of every month with her, and during that time she does not take them for their extramural activities. She knows that’s one thing that will rile me to madness. Zukile has karate and Zenzi has ice skating, karate and guitar lessons. Even when I offer to take them for their activities myself during what is supposed to be her parenting time, she refuses. I have to go to court many times to get court orders to compel her to do so. But her impunity prevails and Zenzi finally has to give up ice skating because she misses too many rehearsals and events and her instructors cannot tolerate that any more.

  In June, I take the kids to South Africa to renew their visas. I had lodged their applications with the American Embassy in Lesotho when I was there the previous December to see my mother. They kept the applications and said that the kids needed to appear in person for their applications to be considered. In Johannesburg we book at Judith Lodge in Emmarentia. The kids have their own comfortable bedrooms and we turn this trip into a holiday. The last time they were in Johannesburg was the year before when they had been abducted by their mother, and for the most part we were on the run from one hotel to another. They never got to enjoy Johannesburg. I get Thandi from her home in Springs and she stays with us to help me look after the kids and take them for their daily swim at Virgin Active near Cresta Centre.

  A few days later I borrow Gugu’s car and we all drive to Lesotho. At the American Embassy in Maseru I am happy that I know the desk clerk who serves us. ’Mabereng used to be Willie Mafoso’s girlfriend and they were so tight we all thought they would marry. Adele had already regarded her as a sister-in-law. Even after they broke up ’Mabereng and Adele continued to be buddies. The Embassy already has our applications and I have paid the necessary fees. She takes the children for an interview by the Consular Affairs staff and asks us to come next week to collect the passports with the visas stamped on them.

  I take the kids to see Adele’s relatives in Leribe and leave them there so that Adele’s sister, ’Mapolao, can take them to the village to see Adele’s parents. Gugu and I go to the Eastern Cape to see the Bee People. As usual we end up in Mafeteng to visit my mother. I find that she does not altogether remember me. Zwelakhe tells me that he plans to hold a very big party for her. I give him some money as my contribution towards the party.

  On the 10th of July we get the visas and drive back to Johannesburg. Our holiday in Johannesburg is almost over since we only budgeted for two weeks. We have been here for twelve days already, so in two days’ time we’ll be flying back. The kids are looking forward to spending the rest of the summer at the Athens Community Swimming Pool with their friends.

  The next day I get an email from Jed T Dornburg, the Vice-Consul at the US Embassy in Lesotho. It reads:

  The U.S. Embassy is cancelling the H4 visas of Zukile Mda and Zukiswa Zenzile Moroesi Mda issued 10 July 2006. The visas were cancelled due to lack of custody on the part of the parent present at the interview. The Embassy requires either consent, in writing or in person, by both parents, or proof of permanent sole custody, without visitation rights, by the parent applying. Should the situation change the Embassy will be happy to consider the applicants for visas.

  There is no way we can go back to America when the children’s visas have been withdrawn. It turns out that ’Mabereng alerted Adele that I was applying for visas for the children and Adele sent an urgent fax to the Embassy, which was later given to me by the American Consulate in Johannesburg. This letter informs you that I do not give permission to have my children’s visas renewed, she writes. She goes further to claim that I took the children out of South Africa despite the fact that she has custody of them. Already we have learned that Zakes has actually taken leave from Ohio University for the Fall quarter, 2007 and there is no guarantee that the children will be brought back to Athens, she adds. All this, of course, is patently false, she does not have custody, and I am not on leave but am returning with the kids to Athens to resume my job as a professor at the university there. She just wants to muddy the waters. But it is enough to have the visas withdrawn.

  I do not understand why she does not want the kids to get visas and return to America when both of us, their parents, live in America. Buzz Ball consults with her lawyer and both lawyers try to persuade her to change her mind. Both lawyers fail.

  While there is this flurry of correspondence between Buzz, Adele and even the Domestic Relations Court our time at Judith Lodge comes to an end. We have to move out. Thankfully, Gugu welcomes us at her townhouse. She looks after the kids while I fly to America to sort the matter out. Only the final decree of divorce will solve the problem, I tell my lawyer. A date is set for the divorce hearing, but Adele manages to have it postponed because she says she will be out of town. I have to return to Johannesburg empty-handed. The kids are beginning to get restless. Gugu and I take them to the skating rink at Northgate Mall and to the Gold Reef City amusement park to keep up the holiday spirit.

  On one such trip we go to the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto. We have parked the car just outside the museum. On the sidewalk vendors are selling all sorts of arts and crafts. We are just lazing around on the lawn eating amagwinya fat cakes and atchaar when suddenly we see Oprah Winfrey strolling towards us. She is with a girl in a green and yellow uniform. She is perhaps in her early to mid-teens and they are talking animatedly and laughing. Two gigantic African American guys are following them at a respectful distance. I reckon they are Ms Winfrey’s bodyguards. There is also a cameraman who is walking backwards in front of them filming them. I think it is just for the archives rather than for her programme because she is in a very informal grey tracksuit and is not wearing any make-up. Gayle King, Ms Winfrey’s friend, and another African American woman I do not recognise are standing next to us talking quite loudly and laughing.

  Zenzi is jumping up and down with excitement at seeing these celebrities so close she could touch them. Zukile is nonchalant. Nothing ever seems to move him. Gugu and I have never given a hoot about celebrities, otherwise we would have struck up a conversation with Gayle King and her friend. We are just happy that we have made the kids’ day bringing them to Soweto on this particular day when Ms Winfrey has decided to visit Soweto as well.

  ‘I wish I was that kid who is with Oprah,’ says Zenzi, looking at them longingly.

  ‘That kid is with Oprah because she is poor,’ I say. ‘So, you wish you were poor.’

  ‘Yes, just for today,’ she says.

>   A young vendor thinks he will corner Ms Winfrey to buy something. He comes with a wooden carving of a giraffe but before he can get to her the bodyguards shoo him away. He returns to the rest of the vendors disappointed. They laugh at him.

  One says, ‘We told you, those big ugly Negroes will not let you talk to her.’

  They still call African Americans Negroes in Soweto.

  Fancy coming to Soweto and meeting Oprah Winfrey! We never meet her in America. But here in South Africa Gugu and I have this tendency of bumping into her at the oddest of places. I remember one year we went to Kokstad to visit my magistrate brother. Kokstad is out of the way, more than eight hours from Johannesburg. We drove through the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands crossing rivers and valleys at such villages as Ixopo, made famous by Alan Paton, and ascending and descending some of the most hauntingly beautiful hills until we reached Kokstad in the evening. We didn’t want to bother my brother for accommodation at that time so we thought we would just book in at one of the two hotels. It was fully booked. So was the second one. Oprah Winfrey was in town and all the rooms had been taken by her entourage. All the restaurants were full also, and we couldn’t get any service.

  We had to go and sleep at my brother’s place.

  Despite the holiday spirit that we have managed to create, the kids must go back to school in the United States. Judge Alan Goldsberry of the Athens County Common Pleas Court, Domestic Relations Division, in his final attempt to get the children back to Athens, issues a court order granting me permanent sole custody of the children, without visitation rights to Adele. I am hoping that with this order the visas will be granted. After all, Mr Dornburg’s email to me states clearly that all he needs is proof of permanent sole custody without visitation rights. We drive to Lesotho again, our fourth trip to the American Embassy in Maseru. Once again the visa is denied. Mr Dornburg has moved the goalposts. Now he needs a decree of divorce. According to this apparatchik, a court order issued by a judge in his own country is not good enough for him. Once again, it turns out that Adele was warned by ’Mabereng about my next visit to the Embassy and she sent an urgent fax to Mr Dornburg. She instructs him to ignore Judge Goldsberry’s court order because it was made for visa purposes only. I am aware that this court order is being brought to the Embassy this week and I still refuse that my children should be given visas without my consent, she writes.

  In the three months that the children are stranded in South Africa I go to America three times to address this problem without any success. It is mid-August and school has started. It seems their mother doesn’t care whether they go to school or not. Zukile has responsibilities at the Athens Middle School where he is president of the students’ council. He also wants to participate in track and football and cannot be picked if he is not there. He is brooding now because it seems to him and to his sister that they will never be able to return to Athens.

  My friend Melanie Chait, who is a film-maker and also the founder and principal of a film-making school in Johannesburg, tries to find them a school in Johannesburg, even if it’s on a temporary basis. She knows of an American school in one of the suburbs which may accommodate them. The kids are totally against the idea because it implies that we are giving up on ever returning to America.

  Melanie has been trying to convince me not to return to America. In fact, she thinks I shouldn’t have gone there in the first place. We were trying to establish our own television station when I left in 2002. I had promised her then that I was just going for one year and would come back as soon as Adele was admitted for her PhD and was settled with her own funding. When I stayed on she occasionally wrote and reminded me of my undertaking. There were many projects that we needed to be doing together. I can see that now she thinks this is her opportunity to convince me to stay and just enrol the kids at one of the schools in Johannesburg.

  ‘Why go back to George Bush’s America?’ she asks.

  In fact, many of my friends in South Africa feel sorry for me for living in America, especially at this time in history when South Africa is free and presents its black elite with boundless opportunities, and when America is, according to them, ruled by the war-mongering Bush. The Bush factor is very big with them. ‘You’re going back to Bush’s America?’ they ask incredulously. They don’t understand that I don’t live in Bush’s America. I only see him on television as they do. I don’t live in the America they see in the media either. I live in Athens, Ohio, a small college town with a very progressive mindset. My children ride bikes in the peaceful streets with kids from Ghana, Iran, Russia, China, Jamaica, Venezuela and every conceivable country in the world. There I can be alone while surrounded by the world. After every few months I can return to South Africa and enjoy great South African theatre at the Market Theatre and other world-class venues in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town; and feast on some of the best cuisine in the world at restaurants in those cities. I can drive to the Eastern Cape and harvest honey with the Bee People. I can breathe the air of my ancestors on the pink mountain. Then, after a few weeks, I can return to the succour of my family in Athens, Ohio, where I can once more be alone.

  As for the boundless opportunities that they are talking about, you have seen already that they are not for me.

  Buzz Ball finally manages to get a firm date for the divorce hearing. I fly back to the United States, once more leaving the children with Gugu in Johannesburg. On August 25, 2006, the case comes for a final hearing before Judge Alan Goldsberry. My brother Sonwabo has come down from Columbus to lend some moral support. My former student Spree McDonald is my character witness. The only other witness is Dr Terry Harvey, the Guardian Ad Litem. He tells the judge under oath that in his opinion I am the better parent. He has made a number of house visits to me unannounced and every time he has found the house very neat and clean. He observed that I personally cook for the children and don’t feed them junk food. On some occasions he has come in the evening and found me helping them with the homework. Most importantly, I care very much about their extramural activities whereas their mother does not. Adele also presents her case through her attorney, Mr Walker. She wants custody of the children, all of the Weltevredenpark property (because, she insists, I have the Eastern Cape property) and half of all the royalties from my books.

  The divorce is granted on the same day, and the judge decides I should be the primary custodial parent. Adele is given visitation rights every other weekend and one full week each month. She will not get any royalties and will only get half of the Weltevredenpark property. I think the fact that she abducted the kids last year and stubbornly refused to sign her permission for them to get visas this year counted against her. You will remember that I never wanted custody in the first place. All I wanted was reasonable access to my kids. Because of her actions, she has lost custody and I am not ever going to let her have it again. It is not in the interests of the children to deprive them of their father, just as it is not in their interests to rob them of their mother.

  This time Adele signs the permission for visas because if she doesn’t the judge will revive that order where he took away all her visitation rights. If she doesn’t want her kids to return to the USA where she herself resides then she doesn’t want visitation rights.

  I fly back to Johannesburg with my freshly minted decree of divorce.

  The first thing I do after my arrival is to go to Gugu’s home to ask for her hand in marriage. Her parents, Josephine and Bra Phil, live in Piet Retief on the Swaziland border. The custom is that on such a mission I need to be accompanied by a male relative. I therefore ask Monwabisi to fly to Johannesburg so that we can drive to Piet Retief the next day. I will pay for his airfare. But he is not interested in being of assistance even though he tells me he is free that weekend, which doesn’t surprise me because we have never been there for each other. And that cuts both ways. I adopt George Menoe, a film-maker who was my partner when I still owned a production company, as my relative for the day and we drive to Piet Retief.
Gugu’s parents welcome the idea. I had already met her mother Josephine and was delighted to meet her father who is quite garrulous and jocular.

  On Monday, September 4, 2006, I marry Gugu at the Roodepoort Home Affairs office. My witness and best-lady is Nakedi Ribane. I can see that she is not impressed that I am getting married in my blue denim jeans and striped denim shirt. She was one of South Africa’s top models and is still very particular about dressing well. Gugu is in a dress made of the seshoeshoe traditional cloth, courtesy of the young designers of Stoned Cherrie. She doesn’t comment on my blue jeans. Her witness is her older sister, Pat Mphuthi. The only other people in the small wedding chapel are our kids – Gugu’s three kids, Nonkululeko, Simphiwe and Gcinile; and my two, Zukile and Zenzile. But I am also with two of my older kids, Neo and Thandi. Nakedi came with her daughter Letsatsi. Dini is the only one who is not here. After the ceremony, which lasts less than thirty minutes, we go for lunch at the Hard Rock Café in the Town Square in Weltevredenpark.

  Gugu is glowing. We are finally husband and wife. I don’t know if I am glowing too because I can’t see myself. But I know how I feel. Euphoric. It’s been a long road. I have the satisfaction of a man who has finally reached a destination.

  I remember that after my divorce from Mpho I immediately married Adele. I met an old friend, Khomo Mohapeloa, the mathematician and jazz musician I told you about earlier. He had heard of my divorce and congratulated me on it. He, too, was recently divorced, from a beautiful Swazi woman who was our local physician in Maseru.

  ‘Now we can live in freedom as bachelors,’ he said.

  ‘Not me, mate,’ I said. ‘I just got married again.’

  ‘Oh, man, you are a glutton for punishment,’ he said.

  He didn’t know that he was being prophetic. He was merely expressing his disappointment in me. Well, I have let the side down again today, but I am confident that this time there is no room for self-fulfilling prophecies.