Langa pulls away so that he can meet my eyes. “What if the wound festers?”
“It will not fester. Bring hot water.”
It takes ten minutes to get the water boiling on the coal stove and the boys tend to the cut. As Langa gently dabs at my skin with a cloth and Dumi is careful not to drip wax on me, I feel an overwhelming tenderness for these boys who are almost the exact same ages as my two sons at home.
Buyiswa cuts slices of bread and opens two tins of bully beef and passes the food around on scratched yellow tin plates. I am too nauseated to eat and give Andile my share, but he sets it aside and heads out into the night again to look for his wife.
Once the children are finished eating, they lie on their mattress on the floor, pulling their blankets up to their chins, and soon they are snoring. The boys have brought the smell of fire and conflict inside with them. They should have a bath to wash off the stink of the day, as should I, but it would take five trips to the communal tap that is half a kilometer away in order to pump enough water to fill the small zinc bathtub. Another hour would be spent heating the water up sufficiently for one of us to have a tepid bath. It is simply not viable.
Langa murmurs in his sleep and I worry what dreams the boys will have this night and all the nights to come. Children should never see what these children have seen: the darkness in men’s souls, the infinite capacity to hate.
I have spent the past forty hours searching for my daughter in every place I can think of, but it is like searching for a ghost. She has left nothing of herself behind, nothing at all except the many lies she told me over the past few months. It pains me to admit the extent of her deception, but I will be honest with myself even though my daughter did not believe me worthy of the truth.
I will try now for a few hours of sleep, and when I wake, I will wash my face and I will begin the search anew.
Thirteen
ROBIN
18 JUNE 1976
Boksburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Two days after my parents died—two days of constant chatter as Edith and I tread water—we made the only trip we’d ever make back to my childhood home.
A maroon-and-blue blanket lay on the floor in the lounge where Mabel had cast it aside, and the covers from my bed lay where I had thrown them. Footprints littered the hallway where the police had dragged dirt and misery into our lives.
Edith was watchful, alert to any sign that I wasn’t coping, but I was even more vigilant than she. If my parents could watch over me in places that they’d never been to, like the police station and Edith’s apartment, then they were definitely going to be present in their own home. I couldn’t risk dropping my guard for a second.
I wanted so badly to go into their room, to open their cupboards and inhale their particular scents, to lie on their bed while snuggled up to their pillows. I’d sought comfort in there so many times when nightmares woke me up and terror wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. If they could see me, maybe it wouldn’t be that difficult for them to make the leap to reach out and touch me.
I thought back to the night of their deaths when my mother had hugged me for the last time. If I’d known that was the last hug I’d ever get from her, I would have pulled her close and clung to her; I would have grafted myself to her skin so we could never be separated. As the memory of my careless rejection rose up to taunt me, my traitorous nose started to run—a precursor to tears—and I knew with absolute certainty that being in their room for longer than a moment or two would be too overwhelming. So I made a calculated decision.
I’m going to run as fast as I can and I’m going to get it.
I took my platform disco shoes off.
“I want to come with you,” Cat said, also reaching down to take her own shoes off.
“No, wait here for me.” I took a deep breath and headed for their bathroom, sprinting as fast as I could. My mother’s mascara was exactly where I knew it would be, on the counter where she’d left it. I snatched the pink-and-green tube up, not daring to exhale until I was out the door again.
Edith was making coffee in the kitchen and heard the commotion of my footfalls. “Robs? Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
I quickly shoved the mascara into my overall’s pocket, then thinking better of wearing my new outfit while packing, I took the overall as well as the borrowed T-shirt and jersey off, and got dressed in a pair of corduroys and a long-sleeved shirt instead. It felt good to have underwear on again. Once the mascara was transferred to my pocket, I was able to relax and allow my breath to slow before setting to work.
As I packed up suitcases and filled garbage bags with everything from flip-flops to the old shoeboxes that I’d kept my silkworms in, Edith chain-smoked and tried not to get in my way in the small room. Being there couldn’t have been easy for her, but she remained stoic throughout the visit. She hadn’t tried to break our pact again, and she hadn’t cried in front of me since those first few moments in the police station. She fixed a smile on her face and coated her words with a brittle cheer. I tried to do the same. The more hours that passed, the easier it became.
The bags piled up and Edith made multiple trips to her car, even making a big show of carting Cat’s possessions along with mine.
“This is the last thing,” I said, wheeling my bicycle around from its spot in the garage.
Edith, distracted, looked up from where she was wedging a bag into the backseat, and did a double take at the sight of it. “A bike?”
I nodded.
“But, Robs, the car is already chockablock. Where will we put it?”
I shrugged. “On the roof?” My dad always found space for everything. He said that’s what rope was invented for.
Edith scratched her head as she looked from the bike to the roof and back again. “Maybe with a normal car roof, but this one’s curved, see? It’ll fall off.”
I just stared at her. She didn’t expect me to leave my cruiser behind, did she?
“Also, Robs, the city streets aren’t the same as the suburbs. It’s not safe for you to ride that in Joburg. You’d get knocked over by a bus or something. Those guys drive like bats out of hell.”
My lip started to quiver.
“Okay, how about you put it away in the garage for now, and then we’ll make a plan to come and get it another time? When the car’s empty and we can fit it in?”
“You promise?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Okay.” I wheeled the bike back, gave it a quick kiss on the seat and whispered that I’d return soon and that it shouldn’t be afraid.
When we were ready to leave, Edith locked up using the spare key my mother had given her for emergencies, and I headed for Mabel’s room at Cat’s jabbering insistence.
“Maybe she came back and she’s hiding in there because she’s scared of the police,” Cat said.
I tried the door, but it was locked.
“She wouldn’t leave us. She just wouldn’t.”
I peered through the keyhole; there was no movement inside.
Cat still wouldn’t accept the proof of our abandonment and wanted to linger in case Mabel returned later, but I told her we had to go. We turned to walk to the car and saw a group of children gathered at our gate. They were shuffling around uncertainly, and I could make out most of the members of Die Boerseun Bende as well as Elsabe and Piet.
Piet was standing a few feet in front of them, holding something and looking important. He’d changed from his school uniform and was wearing dark gray knee-high socks and white takkies that had been scrubbed clean. It was an unusual sight as the Afrikaner children were almost always barefoot. His snow-white hair was wet and combed to the side as if he’d prepared for a formal visit.
Piet would normally just let himself into our garden so I was confused by his h
esitation, until I remembered that he only knew Edith by sight and probably wasn’t sure of the welcome he would receive. The Afrikaner culture was a curious mix of formality and affability, boorishness and courtesy. They could be as abrasive as sandpaper one minute and then blindside you with their gallantry and graciousness the next.
Edith spotted them a minute later and looked to me for guidance.
“It’s Piet. His dad works”—I stopped to correct myself—“worked with my dad.”
Edith nodded and held out her hand, which I took as we walked to the gate. The children stopped shuffling and stood to attention, looking to Piet to be their spokesman. Most of them hadn’t followed his lead with the shoes, and dust caked their feet and shins. Their eyes were lowered and I couldn’t read their expressions. None of them would meet my gaze.
Piet passed the Corningware dish he was holding to a boy behind him, reached down to pull up his socks and then turned to grab it back. “Hello, Tannie,” he addressed Edith, clasping the dish to his chest with one hand and reaching out the other for a formal handshake. Edith took his small hand and shook it.
Piet flushed and his large buck ears colored to a red so deep that it bordered on purple. “I are very pleased to meet Tannie. My name are Bekker, Petrus Bekker, and we stay over va road der.”
I knew Piet didn’t like speaking English and it was a touching gesture, his being prepared to embarrass himself as he mangled our language when he could have just saved face by using his mother tongue. His obvious struggle made me want to hug him and so I hugged myself instead.
Edith greeted him and introduced herself by her first name, not prefacing it with Tannie, or “Aunty.” It sent a murmur of surprise through the group behind Piet and he turned and shushed them. When the formalities with the adult were out of the way, Piet turned to me. He had startling dark blue eyes that were framed by long white lashes. The contrast was disconcerting.
“Hello, Robin.” He inserted an h sound into my name, dissecting it in the process. Rob Hin.
“Hello, Piet. What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the container.
“My ma did cook a stew for you,” he stammered, and then reached out to hand it to me over the fence. “Is blouwildebees meat, very lekker.”
I thanked him, holding the dish awkwardly. I had no idea what blouwildebees was, but figured it was some poor animal they’d killed on a hunting trip. Piet’s house was filled with trophies that proved their prowess as great hunters. Animal heads were mounted on all the walls in the lounge and dining room, and zebra and leopard skins were used as carpets. All those dead eyes following my every move gave me the creeps. They had two white bull terriers and I wondered if their heads would be joining the macabre mounted zoo one day.
Seemingly in a rush to deliver his message so he could leave, Piet said, “We is very sorry to hearded what happened. Wiff your ma and pa.” His expression was earnest and out of place on his freckled face. “They was good peoples and did not deserved to be killed by kaffirs.”
I’d once listened as Piet’s father expounded on the many reasons why you couldn’t trust a kaffir, the greatest one being something they’d done in the early 1800s. Apparently Dingane, the king of the Zulus, had invited the Boers and Piet Retief, the Voortrekker leader, to the Zulu royal kraal for a party to celebrate a treaty they had just signed. The Boers, in good faith and at the request of Dingane, had left their weapons behind. During the peak of the party, Dingane leapt up yelling, “Bambani abathakathi!” which was apparently Zulu for “Seize the whities” and all the Boers were then executed.
His speech had bewildered me at the time because it was delivered in front of their black maid, Saartjie, who nodded along agreeing with everything he said. Everyone knew, though, that Saartjie was entrusted with the care of their home and its contents whenever the Bekker family went on holiday to Durban. She’d also bragged to all the maids in the neighborhood how much more she was paid and how well the family looked after her. When I’d asked Piet about it later, he couldn’t understand my confusion. He’d simply shrugged and said, “Saartjie are not a kaffir. She are a part of da family.”
“Thank you for the stew,” Edith said. “It looks delicious. Please extend my thanks to your mother for the lovely gesture.”
“Ja, I will, Tannie. She say also vat she are sorry. Vey will be by va funeral and she are baking cakes for vat.” Seemingly satisfied that he’d fulfilled his duty, Piet reached out to shake her hand again. He then turned and, with the subtle flick of his head, commanded his posse to follow him.
The street was set up for one of their day/night cricket matches; the streetlights would act as their floodlights once darkness fell. A metal dustbin stood in the middle of the road in place of proper wickets, and a cricket bat rested against it waiting for a batsman. The mine dump rose up behind the tableau, absorbing the light so that it seemed to glow golden from within. Piet kicked off his shoes and, removing his socks, started to split the boys up into two teams. The girls filtered to sit under the trees where they would serve as rowdy spectators, calling out encouragement to their brothers and cousins, or boys that they secretly fancied. A wicketkeeper took his place behind the dustbin and Piet took up the bat, signaling to the opposing side’s bowler that he was ready for the first ball.
As the game began, I thought that if life was fair, Piet’s dad, Hennie, would’ve attended the party instead of my father, and his parents would be the ones who were dead instead of mine. But my parents had been right all along. Life wasn’t fair and it amazed me how everything was the same as it ever was. It was only my world that was unrecognizable.
Fourteen
BEAUTY
18 JUNE 1976
Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa
It has been two days since Soweto started burning and yet I do not know where Nomsa is or even if she is still alive.
It is after dark on Friday night and men from the community have gathered in Andile’s house to trade information. They have been careful not to attract attention and arrived one by one in ten-minute intervals. The police are nervous of gatherings and will not hesitate to arrest anyone they suspect of holding a meeting to conspire against the government.
Lindiwe and the children have gone out. I should have gone with them, but I am too weary for an evening spent making conversation with Lindiwe’s family in Meadowlands. It is not customary for a lone woman to be in a room full of men, but they overlook the intrusion because I am a visitor in my brother’s house and because my daughter is one of the missing.
Smoke uncurls from pipes wadded with tobacco and some of the men sip from bottles of beer they brought with them. There is a sour stench—stronger than sweat—that permeates everything; I am offered some of the sorghum beer but the smell of the umqombothi turns my stomach. The only light comes from the burning tips of cigarettes and the few candles I have lit out of the way of shuffling feet and gesturing arms.
“It is fitting that the next generation are the ones to rise up,” Odwa is saying in that singsong preaching way of his, “because it has all been for them.” He grew up with us in our village in the Transkei and always liked the sound of his own voice.
Andile’s neighbor, Madoda, agrees. “All these years of struggle have been so that our children can one day have a future in this country.”
“A future!”
“They deserve a future that is not sunken into a mine shaft or measured out in hours of hard labor.”
“Amen!”
“Viva freedom!” a few of the others call out.
I say to hell with their freedom if it means the spilling of the blood of my firstborn child. When Nomsa left the protection of our hut in the Transkei seven months ago, I did not want her to go. Nomsa, who was always so special from the day she was born, a gift bestowed by the ancestors. She, who survived the flooding of the river when even the cattle were swept away along with her beloved bro
ther, Mandla. She, who listened at the knees of the elders to the imbongi’s poetic words of our wars and our victories. Her eyes burned with the fire of vengeance and it scared me. I did not want her to fight the battles that needed fighting.
I wanted her to stay home with her brothers and me. I did not want her following in the footsteps of her father to Johannesburg, because I feared that, like him, the only way she would return was in a casket. I tried to keep her safe, but safety was always a prison to Nomsa. I spent my life trying to lock her inside, but she said I was locking her outside of the world. So I relented. I allowed her to come to this city to study so long as she promised she would not get involved in anything dangerous, but I should have known she was lying. The only thing a warrior cannot fight is her own fierce nature.
And now Soweto is under siege. The army patrols with tanks, fire has razed buildings to the ground and the stench of tear gas is a constant reminder of the war waged against us. Helicopters circle overhead; they are the army’s vultures searching for human carrion while violence flares like veld fires across the township.
“I have heard the security police are hunting the leaders of the uprising,” Odwa says.
“Let them root around in dark places like blind pigs, trying to sniff out the scent of our heroes. They will not find them.”
Odwa continues, oblivious of Madoda’s attempt to stop this kind of talk from taking place in front of me. “They say they are being dragged to secret locations where they are tortured and—”
Andile cuts him off and I am grateful. “There are rumors of those who are being protected, hidden away until they can be taken across the borders of Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola and Botswana and sent into exile.”
I hope with all of my heart that Nomsa is one of these people. If not, we will find her in the morgue.
“You should be proud.” Odwa turns to me. He adjusts his glasses and nods to emphasize what he is saying. “You should be very proud of Nomsa. The ripples of their actions here are being felt across the country.” His voice rises and falls as though he is delivering a sermon. “People are waking up and they are fighting back because of what our children have done.” He says “our children,” but Odwa is not a father, though I do not point this out to him.
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