Child of the River

by Irma Joubert

  “Mr. Lourens?” said the magistrate.

  “Nothing further, Your Honor. The state closes the case for the prosecution,” said the prosecutor without getting up.

  “There will be a recess of fifteen minutes, whereafter the defense will state its case,” said the magistrate.

  “Miss Pérsomi, you are very smart,” said Mr. Ismail as the men stood in the passage, drinking cold tea from a bottle.

  Even Yusuf appeared more relaxed. “You’re doing well, Pérsomi,” he said. “I really don’t know where you get all those arguments from.”

  “The worst is still to come,” she warned. “Jakobus Lourens is experienced and shrewd. But fortunately the magistrate also has years of experience. We’ll have to see what happens.”

  Back in the courtroom, Pérsomi called Aletta Johanna Louw as the first witness for the defense. Lettie looked pale and there were fine beads of sweat on her nose. She adjusted her thick spectacles and hesitantly took her place on the witness stand.

  “Dr. Louw, how do you know the defendants?” Pérsomi began, smiling reassuringly.

  “I’ve known Mr. Ismail, Mr. Ravat, and Mr. Moosa all my life as storekeepers, just like everyone in town does. I’ve always regarded them as friendly, polite gentlemen, willing to help where they can. And . . . they are generous. They treat others with respect.”

  “And Dr. Yusuf Ismail?” asked Pérsomi.

  “Dr. Yusuf Ismail and I studied at the same university, Wits in Johannesburg. He completed his studies six years after me. I know he was a brilliant student.”

  “And have you ever worked with him professionally, here in town?”

  “I’ve assisted him during operations on several occasions, and he has done the same for me,” Lettie answered. She was speaking softly, looking only at Pérsomi.

  “And during the infantile paralysis epidemic four years ago?” Pérsomi asked gently.

  Lettie swallowed. It was hard to talk about it. “During the infant . . .” She licked her lips. “During the epidemic Yusuf was . . . an absolute tower of strength. He worked day and night, and . . . took over when I couldn’t carry on. As a colleague, I have the highest regard for him.”

  Pérsomi smiled encouragingly. “Dr. Louw,” she asked, “what do you think would be the consequences if Dr. Yusuf Ismail had to move his surgery from the town center to Modderkuil?”

  They had rehearsed the answer thoroughly. Lettie spoke a little louder than before. “I truly believe it would be a catastrophe, especially for his patients,” she said. “There is no transport to Modderkuil. The patients would have to walk.”

  “They could go to the district surgeon in town, or to the nonwhite hospital,” Pérsomi suggested.

  “The district surgeon is available for consultations three mornings a week,” said Lettie. “The rest of the time he deals with routine health matters. He can’t see even a quarter of the patients waiting in long lines out in the sun.”

  She had forgotten about Yusuf’s work at the nonwhite hospital, Pérsomi realized. “And how do you think Dr. Ismail’s work at the hospital would be affected if he had to relocate?” she asked.

  For a moment Lettie looked startled, but she soon composed herself. “He . . . Modderkuil and the township are at opposite ends of the town,” she replied. “If Dr. Ismail had to relocate, he’d be about eight miles from the nonwhite hospital. It’s a long way to travel there and back two or three times a day. In an emergency it could be the difference between life and death. And . . . Dr. Ismail does wonderful work at the hospital.”

  Pérsomi smiled. “That is all, Dr. Louw,” she said and sat down.

  Jakobus Lourens slowly got to his feet. There was an amused expression on his face. He stood looking at Lettie for a while. Sizing her up.

  “Doctor Louw,” he sneered. His body language was clear. Why don’t you and your lawyer friend go home—it’s the proper place for a woman, he seemed to be saying.

  “That’s right,” said Lettie uncertainly.

  “So, you say you know Dr. Yusuf Ismail personally?”

  “I know him professionally, yes.” Lettie licked her dry lips.

  “I see. You knew him at university?”

  “Not really. I was an intern when he was a first-year student. I lent him some of my books while he was studying.”

  “I see.” Jakobus Lourens seemed to be examining the papers in his hand. Then he raised his eyes and asked, “Are you aware that Dr. Yusuf Ismail was involved with Communist activities at the university?”

  Pérsomi got to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor! Speculation. It was never proved in a court of law that he was involved with Communist activities.”

  “Do you have any proof that Dr. Ismail was involved with such activities?” the magistrate asked Jakobus Lourens.

  “His close friend, Benny Sischy, was found guilty of distributing Communist propaganda, and sentenced,” Jakobus Lourens said somewhat brusquely. “It was mentioned in court that Yusuf Ismail participated in marches and demonstrations in favor of Communism and that he had close ties with the Reverend Michael Scott. We all know what that means, Your Honor.”

  “Was it proved in court?” the magistrate asked again.

  “There wasn’t sufficient evidence to find him guilty.”

  “Objection sustained,” the magistrate said tersely.

  Jakobus Lourens raised his bushy eyebrows. His expression clearly implied that everybody knew it was just a technical point.

  The seed had been planted.

  Jakobus Lourens turned back to Lettie. “Did you know, Dr. Louw, that this Dr. Yusuf Ismail, this Mohammedan of irreproachable character, while he was a student, was in a relationship with a white Jewish girl?”

  Pérsomi felt herself grow ice-cold. She knew Jakobus Lourens’s facts were seldom wrong.

  “Objection!” she said loudly.

  “I . . . didn’t know,” Lettie said, startled. Her eyes behind the thick lenses were as big as saucers.

  “Do you know that the relationship was so serious that her father, also a well-known medical doctor in Johannesburg, was forced to get a court order to keep Yusuf Ismail away from his daughter?” the prosecutor continued.

  Pérsomi jumped to her feet. “Your Honor, the prosecutor is completely out of order. The question is inappropriate and completely irrelevant to today’s proceedings!”

  But Jakobus Lourens ignored her. “Do you realize, Dr. Louw, that in the present dispensation he would have been charged under the Immorality Act?”

  “Your Honor, I strongly object,” Pérsomi said loudly. “The Immorality Act has absolutely nothing to do with this case. Dr. Louw was referring to Dr. Ismail’s work as a medical practitioner in this town. His student days and his private life are completely irrelevant. Her evidence solely concerns his professional services.”

  “It appears he’s willing to provide other services as well,” the prosecutor scoffed.

  Pérsomi heard someone snort behind her. Lettie visibly paled.

  “That, Your Honor, is a despicable insinuation,” Pérsomi said furiously. “I ask that you call the prosecutor to order. I demand that the remark be immediately withdrawn!”

  “Withdrawn,” said Jakobus Lourens with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “You will conduct yourself in a professional manner in my courtroom, Mr. Lourens, or I will rule you out of order. Is that clear?” said the magistrate.

  “It is clear, Your Honor,” said Jakobus Lourens, smiling serenely.

  Just before Pérsomi sat down she saw Mr. Ismail’s face. In a matter of minutes he seemed to have aged. His grandson, his pride and joy—a Communist? And even worse, his eldest grandson, bearer of the family name after his older brother had fallen on the battlefield, involved with a Jewish girl?

  The purple jacaranda blossoms lay in a thick carpet at their feet. The smell of the bruised flowers wafted up from under their sandals. Everyone was there: the heads of the families,
the younger men, the women with their children pressed against them. Only Yusuf Ismail was absent. He had stepped out the minute the court was adjourned for the lunch hour.

  The group was quiet. Dismayed. Even the children were quiet.

  The minutes ticked past.

  At last the clock in the church steeple struck two.

  “We have a very good chance,” Pérsomi said again before they went back inside.

  But based on his knowledge of the law and his experience, the magistrate decided differently.

  EIGHTEEN

  “HOW COULD THEY DO IT?” YUSUF ASKED LATER THAT SAME afternoon when they were alone in Pérsomi’s office, each holding a mug of tea. Though it wasn’t cold outside, they had wrapped their hands around the mugs in search of warmth.

  “I don’t know,” Pérsomi replied, “but they did. They’ve done it in the past, they’ll certainly do it again in the future.”

  Yusuf closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m going away, Pérsomi,” he said.

  She was gripped by a helpless grief. “To where? Joburg?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t stay in this country any longer. I’m leaving. I won’t raise my children here. I’m going somewhere else, to a better place. England, probably, or maybe Australia.”

  It was as she had feared. “And . . . your family, Yusuf?” she asked, dismayed.

  “My father is going to Pretoria. He decided a while ago that if the special permit wasn’t granted he would open a new store there. He has a cousin in Laudium and he thinks he can make a living there.”

  “And your grandfather?”

  “My grandparents are too old to move. They’re staying here.”

  “Alone?” she asked, dismayed.

  “The Ravats and the Moosas are staying. They’re going to try to make a living at Modderkuil,” Yusuf replied, “though most of their sons have also decided to move on.”

  “We can still appeal. And we can appoint an advocate who—”

  “We can’t appeal, Pérsomi. We simply don’t have the money.”

  She nodded quietly. Sadness filled her entire body.

  When he had finished his tea, he got up. “I’ll be on my way,” he said.

  At the door he turned. “In the end it wasn’t the town council or the government who hurt my grandfather today—more than he had ever been hurt before, including when my eldest brother died. It was me. I think that’s what saddens me most, Pérsomi.”

  Long after he was gone she remained in her chair, remembering that afternoon a lifetime ago, when two prospective students had cheerfully toasted each other with tea in tin mugs. “To us,” Yusuf had said. “To Counselor Pérsomi and Doctor Yusuf!”

  For two years the Indian stores stood abandoned, the houses huddled lifelessly around the shops. The alleys between the houses were deserted except for a few stray cats, and weeds flourished in the cracked surfaces of the narrow streets. Children no longer played outside, nor did women chat at the washing lines. At dusk no voices called out to one another, no delicious smells filled the air, no lights shone behind the windows of the dead houses and streets.

  On Fridays life returned to the sacred ground of the freshly painted mosque for an hour or two. Hollow footsteps echoed through the deserted streets, respectful male voices rose in a murmuring chant. Then silence fell again.

  When the town woke up on August 13, 1961, bulldozers were thundering down the streets. Children ran out to stand at garden gates, and housewives pushed white lace curtains aside to take a peek. Dogs barked at the terrifying yellow monsters in the streets.

  Pérsomi put on her tailored suit and fixed her hair in a chignon. Though the windows and doors were all tightly closed, the roar of the vehicles filled the townhouse.

  “The bulldozers are here. Aunt Duifie and I are going to watch,” said her ma.

  “Yes, Ma,” said Pérsomi.

  The noise followed her to work and into her office. The muted drone, the mounting revolutions of the engines, the dim noise of collapsing structures cut right through her, threatening to suffocate her.

  Brown dust sifted down on everything.

  She worked ceaselessly, but the noise ripped through everything, entered her being.

  “Maybe it would be better if you go and take a look, Pérsomi,” De Wet said at lunchtime. “Maybe it will make it real, bring some closure.”

  “I . . . don’t want to see it.”

  “I still think you should go.”

  But she went back to her office and closed the door behind her. Brown dust was beginning to coat the white walls of the office.

  Just after three she got up and left the building. She did not get into her car. She wasn’t planning to go anywhere. But the town center drew her like a magnet. She found herself hurrying down the street.

  She saw the commotion from a distance. The crowd of onlookers had dispersed, the buzz had died down, and the townspeople had gone to wash the dust from their clothing, their faces and hands. “It will take days to clean up our houses,” Pérsomi heard someone say.

  “And the town!” another agreed. “But it’s a good thing they’re cleaning up that slum.”

  Pérsomi slowed down. The face of the main street had changed. On one side the bakery and the butchery and the service station and the corner café remained. On the other side, she could see nothing but rubble where curved pillars and wide verandas and little stores full of magical wares had stood for decades.

  Heavy trucks were idling in the streets. Diggers pushed their arms deep into the rubble, scooping up broken bricks, pieces of plaster, and bent sheets of metal, then dumping them securely onto a waiting truck bed.

  When the load was full, the truck pulled away slowly and the next one took its place. The community’s life was carted away piece by piece to the garbage dump.

  The ache of grief filled Pérsomi.

  She crossed the street to where the rubble lay in piles. A rope prevented the public from coming any closer.

  From a distance she gazed at the skeletons of buildings, their roofs torn off, their windows broken. The bulldozers were still growling and roaring, digging and pushing, their gigantic jaws extended, uprooting and flattening everything in their way. A pink wall gave way, twisted windowframes bent like hairpins under the violence. Another wall, covered in blue-and-yellow wallpaper, remained stubbornly upright, a gaping tunnel through it like an open wound.

  After a while she discovered that Boelie was standing beside her. “I didn’t want to come,” she said, “but I had to.”

  “De Wet told me, yes,” he said and put his hand on her shoulder.

  They didn’t speak again. He stayed by her side.

  Finally, the five-room schoolhouse yielded under the wheels of the bulldozers and caterpillars. It was the last building to remain standing.

  Except the mosque.

  Brown dust stained the whitewashed wall around the church.

  Boelie stroked her hair and said, “Come, Pers, I’ll take you home.”

  NINETEEN

  ON JANUARY 10, 1968, JACOBUS JOHANNES FOUCHÉ WAS INAUGURATED as the second State President of the Republic of South Africa. In the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s government was wavering. The war in Vietnam was taking its toll. Robert Kennedy announced that he was planning to run as presidential candidate, in honor of his late brother.

  In March a massive gold embargo was launched against South Africa. The world wanted to force its biggest supplier of gold to abolish the apartheid policy.

  “This gold boycott could deal our economy a severe blow,” De Wet remarked at the dinner table on Sunday.

  “The Outspan boycott will hit you and me a lot harder, brother,” Boelie said. “People are protesting in the streets of London, Paris, and Madrid against South African oranges. Where are we going to find a market for our produce this year?”

  In April the foremost civil rights leader in America, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated. “This murder will have wide
repercussions,” De Wet said at teatime. And two months later, when Robert Kennedy met with the same fate, he said: “The year 1968 is going to be a watershed, worldwide.”

  Lientjie was invited to her first evening party. “I’m so excited, Pérsomi,” she said on Sunday. “We’re going to dance, and everything! I must wear the right clothes!”

  “Why don’t you wear the green dress your mom brought from England last time she was here on a visit?”

  “Pérsomi! I hate green, you know that. Besides, I hate that dress. My dad said he’d give me money for a new dress.”

  “Your dad spoils you,” Pérsomi said lazily from her deck chair.

  “My dad is super strict!” Lientjie protested. “Pérsomi, don’t fall asleep, I want to talk to you. Do you know why I’ve got to look nice?”

  Pérsomi gave a slow smile. “I won’t sleep, I promise. And I know why you want to look nice—for the new minister’s son.”

  Lientjie drew a sharp breath. “How did you know?”

  “I noticed the way the handsome young lad was looking at you this morning,” Pérsomi answered, enjoying the Sunday afternoon languor.

  Lientjie’s cheeks flamed. “He’s taller than me, did you see?” Lientjie chattered on. “Pérsomi, open your eyes. If you close your eyes, you’re going to fall asleep, I know. Pérsomi, will you come with me to look for a dress? You’re so chic, I want to look like you.”

  Pérsomi opened her eyes lazily and smiled at the girl. “I’d love to go with you. It would be nice.”

  “And I want to do something special with my hair.”

  “Your hair is special anyway.”

  “Yes, but . . . I want to cut my hair, wear it like my mom’s. She’s very pretty. Do you think we could cut my hair?”

  “You’ll have to discuss it with your dad.”