by Zakes Mda
‘She is not my woman. She is my homegirl.’
The women burst out laughing again. Toloki wonders what is funny about being Noria’s homeboy.
He learns that the women are preparing food for a community meeting that will take place later that afternoon. Some of the leaders of the political movement will be coming to discuss the problems of the residents. One major problem is that of security. From time to time, the settlement has been invaded by the migrants from the hostels, and by soldiers from Battalion 77, who are specially recruited and trained in dirty tricks. This battalion, which includes foreign mercenaries from a destabilised neighbouring country, is particularly vicious, and slaughters mercilessly because it is composed of foreign mercenaries.
The women prepare to put the cabbage in a big three-legged pot. Noria asks Toloki to help with the water. He is shown three plastic containers and a wheelbarrow. He pushes the whole load to a communal tap a few streets away. He stands patiently in a long queue of children and women who have also come to draw water. When his turn comes, he fills the containers with water, loads them on the wheelbarrow, and pushes it back to the school. Although he is still embarrassed at being the only man working with women, he feels happy knowing that he has been of assistance to Noria. He is doing all this for Noria, and not for anyone else, nor for anything else.
Noria pours the water into the pot, under which a wood fire is already burning. Then she puts the finely cut cabbage, together with a lot of beef stock and curry powder, into the pot. She uses very little salt, since beef stock already has salt in it. As the cabbage boils, some young men and women bring chairs and a small table from different neighbouring shacks. All the time they continue to sing songs of freedom, as they arrange the chairs for the meeting. More people gather. Most of them are women, but there are also a few men. Toloki feels more comfortable when the men arrive.
After an hour or so, a big black Mercedes Benz followed by several other smaller cars drives into the school yard. Women ululate and men shout slogans. The Young Tigers form a guard of honour, as the leaders walk from their cars, and are seated on the chairs. Noria whispers to Toloki that the man who arrived in the big black car and his wife are both members of the national executive of the political movement. The others are various branch and local committee members.
The meeting begins. The leaders listen to the grievances of the people, and long debates ensue. There is a squabble among some members of the street committee, and the leaders are asked to solve it. Not knowing the internal politics of the settlement, Toloki cannot make sense of what the argument is about. It sounds quite petty to him – something about committee members who have usurped the powers of others, and about misuse of funds. Toloki notices that the people who are most active in the affairs of the settlement are the women. Not only do they do all the work, but they play leadership roles. At this meeting, they present the most practical ideas to solve the various problems. The few male residents who are present relish making high-flown speeches that display eloquence, but are short on practical solutions.
After the street committee squabble has been solved the next item on the agenda is the preparations for a big demonstration that will take place in the city next week. There is going to be a stayaway from work for the whole of that week. The people are beginning the new year with a strong statement to the government that it is high time that they took the negotiations for freedom seriously. The position of the people is stated clearly by ’Malehlohonolo when she addresses the meeting.
‘While our leaders are talking with the government to put things right, the government is busy killing us with its Battalion 77, and its vigilantes. What kind of negotiations are these where on one hand they talk of peace and freedom, and on the other, they kill us dead?’
After each speech, the Young Tigers lead the people in song and dance. They chant praises of the political leaders who have suffered years of imprisonment and exile, fighting for the freedom of their people. They also chant strong condemnation of those they refer to as sell-outs.
‘Death to the sell-outs! Down with the sell-outs!’
Other speakers address the problem of the tribal chief and his followers from the hostels. They say that the tribal chief has delusions that he can destroy the common goal of the people. But the people are united, and shall fight to the bitter end for their liberation.
After these stirring speeches, a committee of five is elected to organise the stayaway in the settlement. Noria is one of those who are elected. They will go from house to house, explaining to people why they should not go to work.
After the meeting, food is served on paper plates. The leaders are served on enamel plates. During the meal, they call Noria to join them at their table, as they want to speak with her privately. Noria, however, is in awe of these great people, and does not sit down. She stands respectfully in front of the high-powered couple. They express their heartfelt sorrow at the death of her son. They say it was a regrettable mistake. But they warn Noria very strongly that she must not speak to anyone about it, especially the newspaper people, because this would take the struggle for freedom a step backwards. She must remember that her son was not completely innocent in this whole matter.
‘We are very happy that you have been elected onto the stay-away committee. This shows that we, as a movement, have nothing against you personally. We love you as one of our own. Whoever burnt down your shack did a very cruel thing. We don’t agree with it at all. We absolutely condemn it, in fact.’
The bejewelled woman smiles benevolently at her. Noria listens silently, and then walks away without saying a word. She feels that there is nothing she can say, because the leaders are talking at her, and are not actually discussing the death of her son with her at all. Their apology is made privately, and not at the public meeting, as the local street committee had promised, and is accompanied by a rider about her son’s guilt. This fills her with anger.
Everyone is happy that the meeting has been such a great success. Everyone except Noria, who feels betrayed. However, she joins in the song and dance that follows the meal, and no one knows of the heavy sadness that occupies her heart.
The leaders drive away, and the men remain behind to blame the women for disgracing the whole settlement community in front of the honourable leadership of the movement. As the women clear the tables, the men reprove them in utter disgust.
‘How can you serve bread and cabbage to our important leaders?’
‘What did you want us to serve them?’
‘Proper food that befits our leaders. Were you too lazy to cook meat, and potatoes, and rice, and to make salads?’
‘We are poor people. We can only give them what we ourselves eat. They must see our poverty. We cannot pretend to them that we are meat and rice people, when in fact our daily supper is pap and water. As a matter of fact, we gave them a treat. We don’t normally eat bread.’
‘You talk just like women. Our disgrace will be told in all the communities around the country. We will never live down this shame.’
‘Perhaps if you were here, you could have given us money, and also helped us cook your meat and potatoes.’
As Toloki and Noria walk back to their home, they call at each shack along the way, and Noria tells those who live there about the stayaway. Most people agree that it is a necessary step, and say that they will observe it. Some shacks are empty because the owners are still singing and dancing in the school yard. One or two others ask her if the movement will feed their children when they lose their jobs. Noria patiently explains that if people all act together, they will not lose their jobs. The employers cannot sack every worker in the land.
Toloki notices that in every shack they visit, the women are never still. They are always doing something with their hands. They are cooking. They are sewing. They are outside scolding the children. They are at the tap drawing water. They are washing clothes. They are sweeping the floor in their shacks, and the ground outside. They are closing holes
in the shacks with cardboard and plastic. They are loudly joking with their neighbours while they hang washing on the line. Or they are fighting with the neighbours about children who have beaten up their own children. They are preparing to go to the taxi rank to catch taxis to the city, where they will work in the kitchens of their madams. They are always on the move. They are always on the go.
Men, on the other hand, tend to cloud their heads with pettiness and vain pride. They sit all day and dispense wide-ranging philosophies on how things should be. With great authority in their voices, they come up with wise theories on how to put the world right. Then at night they demand to be given food, as if the food just walked into the house on its own. When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.
Toloki hesitantly mentions these observations to Noria. He attributes his keen sense of observation to the fact that he has not lived with other human beings for many years. He therefore sees things with a fresh eye. Some of the things he sees are things he would otherwise have taken for granted, if he had been part of the community in which they happened. Like other men he would assume that it was normal for things to be like this, for surely this is how they were meant to be from day one of creation. Noria listens to these ideas with astonishment.
Toloki wonders further why it is that the people who do all the work at the settlement are women, yet all the national and regional leaders he saw at the meeting were men – except, of course, for the bejewelled wife of the Mercedes Benz leader, who is also an elected leader in her own right.
‘You are right, Toloki. And I hear that it is not only here where the situation is as you describe. All over the country, in what the politicians call grassroot communities, women take the lead. But very few women ever reach the executive level. Or even the regional or branch committee levels. I don’t know why it is like this, Toloki.’
‘You know what I think, Noria? From what I have seen today, I believe the salvation of the settlement lies in the hands of women.’
‘You amaze me every day, Toloki. You come with things I don’t expect. Yes, when we were growing up, women had no names. They were called Mother of Toloki or Mother of Noria. But here women are leaders of the people.’
Again they find themselves holding hands as they walk towards their shack. But now they are not embarrassed, and they do not pull away. They make a strikingly lovely picture against the sunset: she of the poppy-seed beauty, and he of the complexion that is yellow like the ochre of the village. She of the willowy stature in a red and white polka-dot dress, he of the squat and stocky body in khaki pants and shirt. Their grotesquely tall shadows accentuate the disparity in their heights. They trudge the ground with their cracked feet in the same tired rhythm. Toloki decided that since Noria had no shoes, he was not going to wear any shoes either.
They walk into the shack.
‘Did you have enough to eat at the meeting?’
‘I am fine, Noria. The way you women cooked that cabbage, it tasted just like meat.’
‘Perhaps we should take a walk in the garden before we sleep. It is beautiful to walk among the flowers with you, Toloki.’
‘Yes, let us walk in the garden.’
However, they do not walk in the garden. They stare at the pictures on the wall, but are unable to evoke the enchantment. They concentrate very hard, without success. Noria bursts out crying, and apologises to Toloki. She says it is all her fault. Her mind is full of too many things that are not pleasant. Toloki is certain that these are the first real tears he has seen from Noria. At the funeral on Christmas Day she did break down into sobs, but he did not see her tears. There were too many people around her. But now, with his own hands, he is wiping her tears away. He is overwhelmed by sadness, and his own eyes fill with tears as well.
‘Don’t worry, Noria. We’ll surely walk in the garden tomorrow.’
‘It is not that, Toloki. I know that as long as you are here, you will transport us to the garden, and we shall be happy again. It is just that I feel so betrayed!’
She tells him that the local street committee had promised her that the leaders would publicly make a statement at the meeting, apologising for the death of her son, and reprimanding those who were responsible for it. Instead, they called her privately, and added insult to injury by saying that her child, who was only five years old, was not completely blameless.
‘Who killed your son, Noria?’
‘The Young Tigers.’
‘And they burnt down your shack?’
‘No one knows who burnt my shack down. It must be the same people who killed my son. Maybe to intimidate me . . . to keep me quiet . . . or to silence me forever.’
‘Keep you quiet? Is it a secret then, that the Young Tigers are responsible? Don’t the people know?’
Noria explains that the people know very well. The whole country knows. At least, those people who read newspapers since the story was featured prominently, with all the gory pictures. The kind of silence that everyone is demanding from her is that she should not condemn the perpetrators in any public forum, as this would give ammunition to the enemy. Now she sees that what they really want is that she, like the rest of the community, should accept her child’s guilt, and take it that he received what he deserved. If she keeps quiet, the whole scandal will quietly die, and no one will point fingers and say, ‘You see, they say they are fighting for freedom, yet they are no different from the tribal chief and his followers. They commit atrocities as well.’
Noria, however, refuses to be silenced, and tells Toloki that she will fight to the end to see that justice is done. She has kept quiet all these days because she believed that when the national leaders came, they would address the matter openly and with fairness, instead of sweeping it under the carpet.
‘They have treated you like this, yet you continue to work for them.’
‘I am not working for them, but for my people.’
‘I don’t read newspapers, so I do not know how your son died. But I am prepared to fight with you, Noria.’
Vutha’s second death. It all started with the last massacre experienced by the residents of the settlement. Perhaps we should say that it actually began with his involvement in what we call the struggle. At the age of five, Vutha was already a veteran of many political demonstrations. He was an expert at dancing the freedom dance, and at chanting the names of the leaders who must be revered, and of the sell-outs who must be destroyed. He could recite the Liberation Code and the Declaration of the People’s Rights. Of course, he did not understand a single word, since it was all in English. He mispronounced most of the words, too. He also knew all the songs. Even when he was playing with mud in the streets, or with wire cars with the other children, he could be heard singing about freedom, and about the heroic deeds of the armed wing of the people’s movement. He, of course, was not displaying any particular precociousness in this regard. All the children of the settlement, even those younger than Vutha, were (and still are) well-versed in these matters.
Noria was very proud of her son’s political involvement. She also was very active in demonstrations. She and her friend, ’Malehlohonolo, never missed a single demonstration. Even though ’Malehlohonolo was a washerwoman in the city, she would arrange her schedule around demonstrations and other political activities in the settlement. For her, the struggle came first.
When ’Malehlohonolo went to work in the city, she left her four-year-old daughter, Danisa, with Noria. Danisa played together with Vutha in the mud. They built mud houses, in which they baked mud pies.
They sang freedom songs, and danced the freedom dance. Sometimes Vutha, who was a year older than Danisa, would bully and slap her. She would cry and go to report to Auntie Noria. Auntie Noria would be angry with Vutha, and she would spank him.
‘Vutha, you don’t know how to play with other children. I’ll beat you until your buttocks are sour.’
After the s
panking, Vutha would run away crying. He would then throw stones at the shack, while singing a freedom song with the message that his mother was a sell-out who should be destroyed along with the tribal chief. Noria would then chase after him. He knew from experience that he could not outrun his mother. She would catch him and spank him again. At first he would fight back, and bite his mother, while yelling for the whole world to hear that his mother was killing him. But when Noria did not stop, he would beg for forgiveness, and promise that he would never do it again, that he would be a good boy. Danisa would also be screaming at the same time, ‘Auntie Noria! Please forgive The Second, I know he won’t beat me up again’. She would try to bite Noria’s hand in order to save Vutha.
‘The Second is my brother! Please don’t kill him, Auntie Noria!’
After a few minutes they would all forget about the incident, and would be happily singing again. Noria would give them the sugared soft porridge that ’Malehlohonolo left for them in the morning when she went to work.
Although Noria was proud that her son was a political activist, she worried whenever there were demonstrations. Vutha was always in the forefront of the stone throwers. Soldiers and police sometimes came in armoured vehicles to confront the demonstrators. Vutha and his comrades would throw stones at the armoured vehicles. The soldiers, challenged by the full might of deadly five-year-olds armed with arsenals of stones, would open fire. In many cases, children died in these clashes. Noria always warned her son about fighting wars with the soldiers. It was one thing to demonstrate and sing freedom songs and dance the freedom dance. But to face soldiers who were armed with machine guns was much too dangerous. She didn’t want to lose her son for the second time, and she told him so.
‘But mama, I am a cadre. I am a freedom fighter.’
‘It is a good thing to be a cadre, my child. But when the soldiers come, you must not be in the front. Let the older boys, the Young Tigers, be in the frontline.’