“Can anyone here speak any San languages?” asks Don, kicking off his lecture with a question. I notice that, like most Westerners, Don talks of San and Bushmen and Khoi as if they’re all the same, different words for one people. Even though the history books tell us there are important differences, even in the New South Africa, people have forgotten what those are. That’s true even for someone like Don.
There is much shaking of heads.
“Jirre, fok nee,” grunts Buks.
Sometimes it is better to say nothing in Don’s lectures.
“Oom Buks, come here please, I want you to be a volunteer,” says Don. “Now you are tough so this will hurt you a little, but it will not harm you so don’t hit me, okay?”
We laugh and Oom Buks smiles and nods, but to me Buks looks a little worried. Don stands beside him and suddenly pinches Buks’ arm below the bicep where his muscle is a bit flabby.
“Eina!” winces Oom Buks. “Jou moer.” We all laugh and Don lets him go.
“Thank you, Oom Buks. ‘Eina’ is a San word, just as is ‘AiKhona’. I suspect that all of us speak a little more San and have more San in our blood and in our cultures than we care to admit. Now I would like to read you something written by a San man named Dia!kwain.”
Don clears his throat and waits until there is complete silence before he begins.
My father used to sing that the string had broken,
the string he used to hear…
that was why things were different now,
for things continue to be unpleasant to me,
I do not hear the ringing sound in the sky I used to hear,
I feel that the string has really broken,
leaving me.
So when I sleep I do not feel the thing that used to vibrate
in me as I lay asleep.
Remember, I used to be a poet so this poem makes a big impression on me.
In prison – in this horrible concrete and steel place designed to keep us in, with no real soil under our feet, with no family, no women, no children, no trees or animals – all of us, I think, feel that something in our life is missing or has been broken. The idea of a broken string reminds me of that thing a cat does when it is content and satisfied; it makes that noise in its throat, prrrrrrrrr, prrrrrr.
“For the Bushmen, before their hunting and foraging grounds were taken from them,” says Don, “the string was not broken and this connection they had to the world and to nature was sacred, like a religious feeling of being connected to all things, to the wind, the sand, the rocks, the plants, the past, the deceased, the spirits, the future, to everything. But then comes an invasion, first about 2000 years ago, of Khoi farmers and cattle herders, and then comes another invasion, a pale tribe from over the sea who have guns and who can ride horses.”
Don tells us about how this poem, called ‘The Broken String’, became known to us. There were two students of African languages, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, who, beginning in 1870, managed to persuade the governor of the Breakwater Prison in Cape Town to release prisoners to them to teach them the language of the Bushmen. Their project took them fourteen years but by the end they had produced a collection of handwritten books totalling over 12 000 pages.
‘The Broken String’ is just one of the ‘poems’ composed by Dia!kwain. Maybe it wasn’t a poem but just part of a longer story and the way he spoke.
Here is another one told by a man called //Kabbo.
I came from that place,
I came here,
I came from my place,
when I was eating a springbok,
we were in the jail.
We put our legs into the stocks.
We came to roll stones at Victoria while we worked at the road.
We carry the stones on our breasts, we rolled great stones.
We again worked the ground.
We carried earth.
We poured down the earth,
we pushed it back.
Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd lived in a suburb of Cape Town called Mowbray. Many Bushmen – mostly relatives of the prisoners loaned by the prison to Bleek and Lloyd, and also including children – arrived at their home. Some built domed shelters made from the branches of trees in Bleek’s garden. Don tells us that the Bushmen were having their land taken forcibly from them and they were being hunted both by the Khoi as well as the Dutch and their servants. Bleek’s home and garden in Mowbray was one of the few places in South Africa where they could be safe. Don tells us that entire Bushman families were hunted like animals and that, so as not to waste bullets, the arms of the San men, women and children were tied and they were driven off cliffs. He also told us about how boers made tobacco pouches made of San women’s breasts, how children were dragged from their mothers’ arms to have their heads smashed on the stones, how San shepherds were tied to the wagons and beaten to death, how Bushmen heads were sometimes taken as trophies, stuffed and mounted, and that their skins were collected and sold on auction in Europe along with the skins of wild animals. For me the real shocker was to hear that live Bushmen were captured and taken to Europe to be displayed as part of exhibitions or freak shows.
Dunno what Sanza and Don were talking about. All I know is I still haven’t been called by the Number. Nor has it been explained to me why my group has been shut down. The talk about the BBC programme carries on every day and then there’s word that there will be another episode by the same Allan Little. This time focusing more on the gangs outside the prison. Every day the Numbers study the TV section of the Cape Times, which comes to the library, looking for news of Episode Two. Don tells me that every day Wes is there in the library bugging him, asking if the Times has arrived and then reading the TV section carefully as if it holds the clues to save the world.
Wes, who has been given the job of checking the newspaper every day, spots this, tears out the page, and brings it to me at a run. He hands me a piece of newspaper neatly torn off from the rest of the page.
Thursday, 23 September, A Place Called Home, first in a 13-part series based on the South African bestseller detective thriller, Finding Mr Madini, a story about a homeless boy Sipho Madini living in a drain in Johannesburg who joins a writing group and then goes missing.
Shit, I didn’t even know Jonathan had brought that project to a close, never mind a ‘bestselling’ book and a film series for TV! Maybe that was why he was trying to contact me when I was in Sun City – but, no, that would have been too early. They could only have finished the book in the last few months.
“How did you know this was me?” I ask Wes.
“The Numbers network is better than you think,” he answers. “It goes across all prisons in South Africa. They already knew you were the guy who was good with the knife in Sun City and the information on the poster came with your record and reputation. That you go under different names, Mike and Sipho, didn’t worry them too much, cos almost everyone here has more than one name. But now they also know that you have written a famous book. For some reason, they now interested and also a little worried about you…”
I have been summoned to Cell 29B, the place used for Big Three inter-gang meetings, neither the territory of the 28s, 27s or 26s. In the centre is a ‘courtyard’, but really it is four bunk beds curtained off to make a private space, which feels like an office or courtroom.
Here I find the three heavily tattooed men I saw standing together at Don’s second lecture and who have kept on coming, more often than not saying little but always listening, checking things out. The only one I vaguely know is Benny, and the Xhosa-looking guy I have heard he is Sizwe or is it Mandla? Their power kind of drips off them. Maybe it is their natural authority. Or their striking appearance, with all the tattoos coming out their collars, up their necks and onto their faces. Compared to their skins, mine feels very plain. The short one who seems to hold the most authority speaks first. I dunno if it’s because of Don’s lectures, but when I look at them it’s as if I can read their racial hi
story like an open book.
The one whose name I don’t know looks almost Chinese. He has Malay, almost oriental eyes, but with much darker skin, straight hair, a lean chiselled face, high cheekbones and a tattoo of the numeral 28 on his neck extending right up to his ear. He has a face that can intimidate. I have seen him around. He always has his lieutenants around him. Once I saw him with a proper snarl on his face holding another prisoner up against the wall, twisting this guy’s arm high up behind his back. I was amazed that arm didn’t snap. This is the same guy who nearly killed one of his own gang members for being a traitor.
He speaks first. “I am Pieter Hendriks,” he begins. “I am the highest-ranking 28 in this prison; the same for Mandla here, who is the 27 general, and Benny who is the leader of the 26s.”
The 27s’ leader, Mandla, is very dark-skinned and huge, more like a Xhosa than a coloured. Very tall, with the body of a rugby player but with more grace. However, you always feel his eyes on you. I’ve heard he’s an intellectual in spite of his hunky looks.
And the third, the 26 general, Benny – the one I feel I know the most – is tiny, standing just five-foot-three, but lithe and sinewy. He looks like a more modern Bushman, very muscular and fit and good-looking. I sense an unspoken tension between Benny and Pieter but maybe it’s just me who is tense.
The page of the newspaper with my name on it, plus a tattered copy of Jonathan’s poster, gets shoved at me.
“Wat is dit?” demands Pieter. “Wie is djy? Who are you? Michael MacLean or Sipho Madini? And wie is Sipho Madini? As djy my fokken kak stories vertel sal djy jammer wees.”
I shrug. There is nothing more to say, so I tell the truth.
“I am Sipho Madini. I was part of a writing project in Jo’burg with that guy Jonathan before I was arrested, this is no secret. I used the name MacLean when I was arrested because I didn’t want a criminal record against my real name. I told all of this to the guys in the writing group I tried to start up here and that you guys are doing your best to shut down. I didn’t even know the book they talk about in the newspaper had been published. I kind of thought that Jonathan would maybe make it happen, but not this quick – it’s only been eight months – never mind that a TV series has been or is being made. Let’s watch it and see… Maybe it’s nothing to do with me,” I say lamely, before they reluctantly let me go.
The programme’s on Wednesday night, just the day after tomorrow, so there’s not long to wait and in between we have Don’s next lecture.
Yesterday was Don’s fourth lecture. He was wearing a khaki shirt but also a cap that made him look like a real professor, or a trade unionist or something. The prison authorities cannot stop us from wearing caps because Muslims are allowed to wear their skull caps to cover their heads and there is no real way to draw the line.
Don’s lecture was about slavery and we learned that in the early days of the Cape Colony slaves were imported from the east coast of Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Ceylon, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. The average Cape slaveholder owned six slaves, but some rich families owned a small army of them.
I also learned that if you owned a slave, you owned her children too and that children conceived by a female slave became her owner’s property from the moment they were born. Slave women were encouraged to have babies as each new infant added to the master’s wealth. But this one takes the cake – one rich woman in Cape Town had a large farm where she practised stock farming and slave breeding!
Then Don read us a whole lot of advertisements advertising slaves for sale, just like they were cattle or second-hand goods; slave traders and slave owners often selling slave children separate from their parents or splitting up brothers and sisters.
Slaves were a good investment. You could even mortgage them. And if you died, you could leave your slaves to your children or whoever in your will. You could also hire slaves out to other people by the month.
The last part of his lecture was about how slaves were punished. People saw this as a form of entertainment and would gather to watch slaves not only whipped but also burnt with branding irons while they were being whipped. These were ‘minor’ punishments for ‘lesser offences’, Don told us. If a slave killed his master, he hoped he would be hanged. More often he got the rack, in which his body was slowly stretched until it was torn apart.
Don ended his lecture by telling us that in 1805 the British took over the Cape Colony and from then on the British authorities tried to improve the lot of slaves and to limit the power of their masters. It became illegal, for example, to flog a female slave, and a limit was placed on the number of strokes or lashings a male slave could receive. Then in 1834, slavery itself was abolished and no one was allowed to keep any slaves at all.
It feels like we have become a regular movie club. All that’s missing is the popcorn. This time I am watching it with Pieter, Benny and Mandla in a cell that is not my own. It’s cold so they’re all are under their blankets staring at the TV bolted to the ceiling. I have to sit on the cold floor.
The news and then a few ads, then comes this Jo’burg pennywhistle jive, the title A Place Called Home scrolls across the screen and then this young boy comes on in a short red-brown leather jacket just like mine, rapping this poem. My fokken poem about eating pigeon meat.
TIPS dub dub
TO SURVIVE dub dub
ON
THE
STREET dub dub
July tip 1: You need a place to sleep,
not just anywhere in winter.
You don’t want to be like one of those glue-
sniffing boys who live with their heads
in their walking blankets.
And you don’t want to mess around
with the security guys,
they
are an unreasonable lot,
they cannot see the
difference
between a criminal and a
cross-eyed baboon.
Some of them suffer from
Rodney King syndrome.
Tip 2: Location
is of utmost importance.
City Centre or close to
it is most preferable.
There garbage cans have
a variety
to offer.
Fruits and vegetables
the vendors have left
after
a day’s work.
If you are afraid
of becoming
a vegetarian,
there is
a lot of
meat.
Pigeons.
Is a pity
Most malundas
are
not
into
it.
My very poem from Homeless Talk, I think it was July 1998.
This boy not only uses my words, but kind of rap-dub-jives them, looking ever so ragged and trendy in his short leather jacket.
“That meant to be you, MacLean?” asks Pieter. “You really write those songs? You are like a natural sabela, ek sê.” I know Sabela is the secret language of the Number, a blend of Afrikaans and Zulu, also of Dutch and Portugeuse and some slave languages. But more than that I cannot say.
Pieter seems to be enjoying this and has got, like, more friendly.
Then they show where this character sleeps – and it’s not my drain in Braamfontein, it’s a much deeper pipe drain you can stand in, but it makes the point that I live in a drain. And then there is a shot of him in the writing group but, can you believe it, they have made Jonathan into a darkie! This is a big shocker for me, turning Jonathan into a black Journalism lecturer who has an affair with one of his students. And it’s a surprise, too, that Valentine is from Liberia not Cameroon, but I must say the thing hangs together quite well.
At the end, Mandla asks me lots of questions, about my life, about the group, about Jonathan, about whether I got money from the book and film.
Of course I didn’t. I didn’t even know about the book and the film. I s
uspect the TV series is just staying a step ahead and every episode is shot just the week before it appears on TV. Eventually I’m told I can go and that they will be in touch, which comes as no big surprise.
Well after the showing of the TV soapie with me in it, there was nothing to do except wait for the madotas to come back to me. A bit of fame can’t hurt, I hoped. I expected to hear something fast but it took some time. Luckily, there was this to pass the time…
The first day I saw Margareth is the first day that women warders got introduced into the prison system at Piketberg Prison. Up till now there have been no women staff, only one or two, like that large lady who works in the admission block reception and the social worker.
But now they came in wholesale, like an invasion from another planet, each one being escorted by two or three male warders. Eleven in total, looking fresh out of college. The first time I saw them was because of the commotion outside in the courtyard. Whistles and ululations. We were all in the cell, Major sewing and telling us a story. He put down his needle and trouser. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw. Nine out of the eleven were beautiful and the other two you could make do with. I picked out the one we would come to know as Dudu immediately as the most to my taste. Those bedroom eyes and her wagtail walk. And then there’s Margareth. At that time I never knew her first name, of course, only her surname, which was there on a gold brooch on her breast, ‘Sersant Adriaanse’. Yellow complexion like the richest honey, Afro copper-brown hair, rounded chin, small breasts, standing like a horse on full gallop, body tapering to the most beautiful hips you ever did see. And a good three inches taller than me. I’ve always liked my women tall so I noticed this right away.
Major nodded for us to re-enter our cell and pretend we were not interested in them, so we did and after a few minutes they entered flanked by two male warders on each side. They hardly greeted us, these male warders just showing the ladies the drill and showing off, hitting the poles of the bunks to teach them how to wake us up and to hit at the grilles on the roof to see if it sounds hollow or someone is hiding up there.
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