The Madonna of Excelsior

by Zakes Mda

  “Give this to your mother,” he would say in Sesotho. “And be careful, boy, don’t lose that envelope.”

  Viliki would run like the wind all the way to Mahlatswetsa Location and proudly give the envelope to his mother.

  Viliki and Niki were living a wonderfully comfortable life, what with Pule’s relentless remittances! And the few coins Niki earned once in a while when Madam Cornelia sent for her to look after Tjaart when the regular nanny had not turned up—attending her grandmother’s funeral for the tenth time. Occasions that Tjaart relished because for him there was never going to be anyone who could take Niki’s place. Occasions that Niki relished because they kept her in touch with Madam Cornelia. If only to give Madam a self-satisfied smirk. And to rejoice in Madam’s blissful ignorance.

  The romps on the hay deteriorated into moans. Moans relayed from one pair to another. Simultaneous moans. A barnful of moans. And howls of enjoyable pain. The baby cried. But no one paid attention. The baby bawled and bawled. The Brahmins outside went berserk. With their big ears, they had very keen hearing and were sensitive to strange noises. The Brahmin bulls bellowed and raised dust. No one paid any attention to them. A cacophony of moans, howls, baby cries and the deep bellowing of the bulls.

  In the middle of it all, Niki suddenly felt the weight of a chilling ball of iron somewhere between her stomach and her lungs. It was not Stephanus Cronje’s heavy body on hers. It was the weight of a memory that was determined to come between her and ecstasy. She had filed the fact that she had missed her times in some dark compartment of her mind. Now it was forcing itself back in the cacophony. More than a month had passed without her visiting the moon. To add to her woes, most mornings she was nauseous. And had a strong desire to eat damp soil.

  She wondered what Stephanus Cronje would say when she told him. And what murder Pule would commit when he got to know of it.

  She pushed Stephanus Cronje with both her hands, and shoved him away from her body. Just when his was getting hard and rigid.

  He watered the hay.

  BIG EYES IN THE SKY

  AMAN IN blue pants, blue shirt and red beret stands on the black roof of a skewed house one blue night. He lifts his arms to the heavens in a supplication that is reminiscent of the five women in their prime. The roof almost caves in from his weight. Wide-eyed heads appear in the blue and white and yellow sky. Milky-white eyes with pitch-black pupils staring at the man. Penetrating the house with their amazed gaze. Disembodied heads like twinkling stars in the blue night. White cosmos grows wild around the house.

  Bright eyes in the sky see everything. They see a newly-born baby wrapped in white linen. An intrusive star of Bethlehem has sneaked in through one of the two skewed windows and shines on the baby’s body. It fills the room with light and yellowness. Two humans kneel on either side of the sleeping baby, hands clasped in prayer. One is a man in a blue suit and blue beret. The other is a woman in a blue nun’s habit. The big star of Bethlehem suspends itself above her buttocks.

  It had not been easy for Niki, although this was a second childbearing. The water had broken. The contractions had flooded her body. Fewer and fewer minutes apart. It should have been smoother. But the baby had other ideas. It gave the village midwives its back, and remained stuck in the passage of life. The Vaselined hand of a midwife forced its way into the channel, trying to turn the baby, so that its head should come to the fore instead. A hundred razor-blades were cutting the very depth of Niki’s being. Making incisions that bled profusely and throbbed with a pain that she believed would be etched in her memory forever. She moaned and wailed. The midwives softly admonished her: a true woman accepted her lot with bravado. A true woman hid her pain inside her chest and presented an unflinching face to the world. It was a disgrace for any woman to yell like that at the agony of bringing a new life to the world. Even more shameful in a second confinement.

  She was tired of pushing. Yet they egged her on. They cajoled and threatened. They mocked and ridiculed. They burnt herbs near the bed, and filled the room with incense. Until the baby turned around. After many hours. After one whole day and one whole night. Just when she thought she was giving up on her life and the baby’s, the baby’s head mercifully erupted like red molten lava onto the midwives’ exhausted hands.

  Big eyes in the sky saw Niki’s relief. The midwives heard her sigh and joined with their own unison of sighs. The struggle was over. The baby uttered one good yelp. They cut the umbilical cord and clamped the piece that hung from the baby’s stomach with a clothes peg. Niki fell into a deep sleep, while the midwives buried the placenta in the ash heap at the back of the shack.

  She owed her body a dream-free slumber.

  When she woke up, they showed her a beautiful baby girl. A flood of love overwhelmed her. She wanted to hold her tightly against her breasts. And to protect her fiercely against anyone who would dare question her reason for existing. The midwives said the baby looked like a porcelain doll. They jokingly called her Popi, another word for “doll”. And that became her name.

  When we finally got to see Popi, we were not in the least taken aback that she looked almost like a white woman’s baby. The midwives who attended to Niki were not astonished either. Of late they had been helping quite a few black women from Mahlatswetsa Location and the neighbouring farms, who had been giving birth to almost white babies. Or to “coloured” babies, as they were called. As if they were polychromatic. Or as if everyone else in Mahlatswetsa was transparent. Some barn women were already cuddling their own coloured offspring, while others’ stomachs were expanding by the day. It was a bursting of forbidden sluices that we were all talking about in Excelsior.

  After the baby had been cleaned and wrapped in a soft white blanket, she slept peacefully in her mother’s arms. The baby was obviously exhausted after the long struggle. The midwives snickered and whispered among themselves that she shared features with Tjaart Cronje. She had Tjaart’s eyes. She had Tjaart’s fingers. She had Tjaart’s ears. She had Tjaart’s nose. She had Tjaart’s rosy cheeks.

  Niki heard every word, for she was not asleep after all. She had just closed her eyes, enjoying the softness of the baby’s body against hers, careful not to hold her too tightly against her breast, lest she squeezed all life out of her tiny body. She wondered how the midwives had suddenly gained such great expertise on the shape of Tjaart’s body parts. Her child had nothing of Tjaart’s, she convinced herself. The midwives were seeing what they wanted to see. Their ill-gotten knowledge of barn escapades made them reinvent her beautiful baby in the image of Tjaart Cronje.

  The image of Tjaart Cronje began to haunt her restful state. It transformed itself into a daymare. Tjaart Cronje. All of seven years old, yet his crush on Niki had persisted. Exacerbated by her naked body that continued to loom large upon the floor scale of his imagination. Exacerbated even more by her big round belly.

  Madam Cornelia had continued to use her services as Tjaart’s part-time nanny until the very last month of her pregnancy. Part-time in name only, for her services were demanded almost daily, as the boy wanted only Niki, and none of the regular nannies employed to look after him.

  It was an unspoken covenant of mutual enjoyment. Tjaart enjoyed caressing her protruding stomach that stretched her maternity dress to its very limits. And laughing at the violent kicks of the baby. Niki secretly enjoyed the calming effect of the little hand. Madam Cornelia meanwhile enjoyed teasing her about “her people” who were always having children in spite of the overpopulation of the world.

  “You people never know when to stop,” she would observe. “You must ask your husband to take you to the hospital to close you up.”

  She obviously had forgotten that this was only going to be Niki’s second child.

  Madam Cornelia’s greatest concern was for Tjaart. Who was going to look after Tjaart when the time came for Niki to give birth? And after that, how was she going to look after a new baby and Tjaart at the same time?

  PULE HAD NOT returne
d to Excelsior for almost a year. When he came back, he found a coloured baby in his house. In Welkom, he had heard rumours of his wife’s pregnancy. He had written to Niki, trying to find out the truth of the persistent stories. But she had not responded. He had then stopped sending her money, after warning her that if she did not come up with a reasonable explanation concerning her alleged condition, he would stop wasting his hard-earned cash on her. The money that was enabling her to gallivant around was dripping with his sweat, he added. He was indeed true to his word. Hence Niki’s willingness to act as Tjaart’s nanny, even when she was very heavy with child. She needed the cash.

  The fact that there were other families in the location who had coloured children did not lessen the grief that Pule felt to the marrow of his bones.

  “Who is the father of this child?” he wanted to know.

  Niki dared not reveal Stephanus Cronje’s name, in case Pule did something silly. Like going to confront him at his Excelsior Slaghuis, where the man would be sure to gun Pule down. Stephanus Cronje was well known for drawing his gun at the slightest provocation. Like when a customer from Mahlatswetsa Location was foolish enough to complain that a piece of meat just purchased had a distinct stink of putrefaction. Madam Cornelia would say she had already rung the money in the till. There was no way of getting the money out once it was already in the till. If the customer insisted that he wanted a refund, Stephanus Cronje would whip out his gun and ask the customer to disappear from his sight. Sane customers never argued with guns.

  Niki wondered how Stephanus Cronje was going to receive the news of Popi’s birth. She had not seen him since the day she told him of her missed periods, her morning sickness and her cravings for damp soil and sunflower seeds. It was very clear to Niki that he was avoiding her.

  “I have asked you a question,” said Pule calmly.

  “I have already sinned, Father of Viliki,” wept Niki. “I will understand if you never want to have anything to do with me again.”

  WE SAW Pule exiling himself into a world of silence. Those who worked with him in the mines of Welkom said the silence continued even there. So did the heavy drinking. We pointed fingers at Niki. How could she do this to a man who had shown so much responsibility towards his family? Other women could make excuses that their husbands had deserted their families after falling for the wily women of the big cities of gold—Welkom and Johannesburg. But Pule was well known throughout Mahlatswetsa for his devotion to his wife and son. We knew that even when he spent long periods without coming home, he never forgot to send Niki and Viliki money and beautiful clothes.

  Mmampe, who was carrying a load in her womb herself as a result of the barn escapades, had an answer.

  “What can we do?” she asked resignedly, “White men have always loved us. They say we are more beautiful than their own wives. We are more devastating in the blankets.”

  Oh, the burden of being loved! Of being devastating!

  The news of Popi’s arrival reached Johannes Smit, who bitterly boasted to Stephanus Cronje, “Even if you scored a bull’s-eye, I had Niki first. Before any other man.”

  But Stephanus Cronje was in no mood to rejoice over any bull’s-eye. Or to engage in puerile contests. He was busy plotting ways to stop the news from reaching Cornelia’s ears.

  A TRULY COLOURED BABY

  HIS PURPLE SHOES look like a ballerina’s dance slippers. The broad brim of his purple hat covers his eyes. His face is downcast, as if he is contemplating the burnt sienna ground. His khaki pants are bulging at the pockets. One hand is in his pocket and another is holding a white umbrella. He is using the closed umbrella as a walking stick. His shoulders are raised high. His elbow-length purple sleeves hang loosely from his khaki waistcoat. The ground has streaks of green. White cosmos surround him.

  The Man with the Umbrella walked hesitandy towards Niki’s shack. Black piglets grunting around the corrugated-iron shack and speckled hens pecking at unseen morsels scattered in different directions at his approach. He used his umbrella to knock at the open corrugated-iron door.

  Niki in a white doek, yellow blouse and black skirt sat on the bed, Popi nestling in her arms, a pacifier in her mouth. Although it was very hot under the low corrugated-iron roof, the baby’s head was in a woollen cap. Only her round face could be seen.

  “I thought I should warn you,” said the Man with the Umbrella, “they are searching all over the district. From house to house. They follow every rumour.”

  He was talking of the police. They had uncovered twelve light-skinned children who they claimed had mixed blood. They were already in jail with their black-skinned mothers. There was a doctor too. All the way from Bloemfontein. His work was to take blood tests and to confirm that the blood was indeed mixed.

  Niki wondered how it was possible for the doctor to tell if the blood was mixed or not. Mixed with what? Was it not all red?

  “They will come for you too,” said the Man with the Umbrella. “Take your baby away. Go hide in Thaba Nchu. Or better still, in Lesotho. I have heard that in Lesotho they don’t mind when the child’s blood is mixed. They are ruled by a black prime minister there. You must have relatives in Lesotho.”

  It was difficult for Niki to take this whole matter seriously. Especially as the news came from a stranger with a white umbrella and funny shoes.

  Thaba Nchu would give her no succour. The arm of the law was long enough to reach there. She would not exile herself to Lesotho either. She had never been there in her life. She knew that, like most Mahlatswetsa Location people, she had distant relatives in that country. But surely she could not just pack up and go. In any case, the one who had been wronged by her actions had forgiven her. Pule had said so in his letter: he had forgiven her because it was not for him to judge. Yes, he had not come back to Excelsior for eight months—not since he left the day after Niki’s refusal to name the father of her coloured child. But after a few months’ silence, which he spent digesting what had befallen him, he had explicitly written that he forgave her. He had become a mzalwane—a born-again Christian. We observed with mirth that Niki’s infidelity had had a commendable by-product. It had driven him into the comforting arms of salvation.

  If the one who had been wronged had forgiven her, what business was it of the police? Why would the government not forgive her as well?

  She was still not totally convinced of any imminent danger when the Man with the Umbrella pointed his funny shoes towards the door and left to warn others.

  Niki carried Popi on her back, wrapped in a red and blue tartan shawl, and briskly walked to Mmampe’s shack three streets away. Mmampe’s ageing mother sat forlornly on the mud stoep in front of the door. She expressed her surprise at seeing Niki walking the free earth of Mahlatswetsa. Her own daughter and her lightskinned granddaughter were in jail. The police had come for them in the middle of the night. Three police vans in all. Each with five heavily-armed Afrikaner policemen. They kicked the door down and shone torches in the eyes of a startled Mmampe and her mother. Mercifully, they gave Mmampe the opportunity to put a dress on over her nightie, before they frogmarched her into the street with the bawling baby in her arms. They bundled Mmampe and the baby into the back of a van, ignoring the old lady’s pleas that they leave the baby with her. There were already other women and babies in the van. They drove away in a triumphal convoy.

  “Maria!” cried Niki. “I must warn Maria.”

  “Maria and her baby boy were picked up the night before,” said Mmampe’s mother.

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

  She did not wait for an answer. She scurried back to her shack. Like a field-mouse sensing a rainstorm.

  She retrieved the brazier from the back of the shack where it had been gathering summer rust, waiting for its winter tasks of warming the house and cooking the food. She carefully placed dry grass and twigs at its base. She piled dry cow-dung on the twigs and ignited the dry grass.

  While the fire was burning outside, she pumped the Primu
s stove and boiled a little water in a kettle. She poured the water into a blue enamel washing basin, placed it on a grass mat and knelt next it, holding Popi’s head over the steamy water. The baby cried as her mother worked up a rich lather of Lifebuoy Soap on her head. Her hair slid between Niki’s fingers like green algae filaments. The top of the head was pulsating like a wild heartbeat. With a Minora razor blade, she shaved her daughter’s little head clean. No stranger would know that the hair that belonged on that bald head was not black and matted. Not nappy. Not frizzy.

  But Popi was still pink. They would see that she was of mixed blood.

  Niki took the smoking brazier into the shack and placed it on the floor. She held a naked Popi above the fire, smoking the pinkness out of her. Both heat and smoke would surely brown her and no one would say she was a light-skinned child again. The baby whooped, then yelled, as the heat of the brazier roasted her little body and the smoke stung her eyes and nostrils. Cow-dung smoke is gentle in reasonable doses. But this was an overdose. There was so much that it made even Niki’s eyes stream. She assured the baby that it was for her own good. She sang a lullaby as she swung her over the fire. Rocking her from side to side. Turning her round and round so that she would be browned on all sides. Evenly.

  FOR FIVE DAYS, they did not come for Niki. The nights became too long to bear, for they were unaccompanied by sleep. Days were tiresome and teary, for she spent them hovering over a smoky brazier, browning her little girl. Singing lullabies and hoping the baby would get used to the heat and would stop crying so. Singing lullabies until the baby became red instead of brown. Until the baby’s skin began to peel from her chest right up to her neck. Until the baby became truly coloured, with red and blue blotches all over.