The Madonna of Excelsior

by Zakes Mda

  This, of course, was a new development. The Pule Siblings/Pule Comrades no longer spoke with one voice in the council chamber. Their voices had separated into two. Distinct. Often shrill. They no longer confined their bitter disagreements to Niki’s shack or Viliki’s RDP house. They started by disagreeing publicly in the caucus of the Movement, then at its branch meetings and finally in the council chamber. These little tiffs embarrassed other council members of the Movement.

  Lizette de Vries and her National Party members agreed with Viliki’s hard line. Tjaart Cronje, on the other hand, rejoiced at what he saw as the failure of the “affirmative action people” to govern the town in a civilised manner. He repeated that he had known things would come to this. They were definitely going to mess up a town that had been run efficiently for so many generations. The founding fathers must be weeping in their graves.

  “This degeneration started three years ago when Popi Pule imposed English as the language of this chamber,” said Tjaart Cronje. “From then onwards I knew that things would go downhill.”

  The members of the council had heard this line of argument before. Tjaart Cronje always found a way of linking any issue that arose in the council to the marginalisation of the Afrikaans language.

  “Mr Cronje is out of order,” Viliki declared. “We are discussing the problem of the squatters here, which has nothing to do with his Anglo-Boer War.”

  “It is true that the Afrikaner is still fighting the Anglo-Boer War,” Popi said, laughing. “His problem with English is a problem with the English. He would have no problem if we said the proceedings in this chamber should be in Sesotho. Indeed, Tjaart Cronje has even said that the only two languages that people speak here are Afrikaans and Sesotho. He is prepared to accept Sesotho even though it is a black language and he hates black people!”

  Her three years in the council had taught her to analyse things in a manner that we had never thought possible.

  “I do not hate black people,” said Tjaart Cronje in a pained voice. “The chair must protect me from this woman’s vicious tongue.”

  “Ms Pule will have to withdraw those words,” said Viliki.

  “I withdraw them, Your Worship,” said Popi, with a silly smirk in her voice. “But the point has been made.”

  The council members of the Movement laughed and cheered.

  “You have to withdraw unconditionally, Ms Pule,” insisted Viliki.

  “I withdraw them unconditionally,” said Popi. “All I was trying to say is that when we say the proceedings must be in English, the Afrikaner feels that English is being promoted at the expense of his own language. He sees it as another victory of the English over his people in the ongoing Anglo-Boer War saga that has lasted for a hundred years. You cannot destroy the Anglo-Boer War mentality in the Afrikaner.”

  “I object!” yelled Lizette de Vries. “You cannot generalise about Afrikaners.”

  “Since when did she become an expert on the Afrikaners?” asked another council member of the National Party.

  “You are all out of order,” screamed a frustrated Viliki. “We resolved that matter three years ago. Today all our minutes are in English—broken as it is. A person is free to speak the language of his or her choice in the chamber. That is why Mr Cronje always speaks in Afrikaans and Ms Pule always addresses this chamber in Sesotho. Our constitution allows that. Why should we go back to that issue now? We are talking about the squatters.”

  “It is because Mr Cronje is still smarting over the fact that we write our minutes in English instead of Afrikaans,” said Popi, hoping that hers would be the last word on the matter.

  “In rotten English!” said Tjaart Cronje. His had to be the real last word.

  While the council was quibbling over irrelevancies, Sekatle had become the hero of the squatters. Not only did they sing his name, they danced it as well. In their chants he acquired the stature of the heroes of old: Moshoeshoe and Shaka. And of the stalwarts of the liberation struggle: the men and women who had languished in the prisons of South Africa and who had wandered in exile in foreign lands. Fighting for the very freedom now being denied to the Baipehi.

  Sekatle is our new Mandela! Sekatle is the Father of the Orphans! Sekatle is our new Oliver Tambo! Sekatle shall free us from the pangs of hunger!

  Viliki’s hard line began to soften. He told his comrades that he was prepared to compromise. He would find alternative land for the squatters if they vacated the land that had already been earmarked for RDP houses.

  Popi was happy at this change of attitude. She took it upon herself to go to the squatter camp to negotiate with the Baipehi to accept an alternative piece of ground.

  “We cannot leave this land,” a woman said. “We have paid for it.”

  “Paid for it?” wondered Popi. “But you just gave yourselves this land. It belongs to the government for the new houses. How can you claim to have paid for it?”

  “Oh, yes, we paid for it all right. Sekatle’s people collected the money from every one of us. They say it will make it possible for Sekatle to protect us from the likes of you.”

  “From the likes of me? I have been on your side all along.”

  “You are on the council, aren’t you? Sekatle says we can’t trust the town councillors any more. They are only looking after their own stomachs.”

  It dawned on Pop that Sekatle’s interest in the squatters had not been fired solely by his community spirit. His keen business eye had spotted yet another moneymaking scheme. She walked to Sekatle’s shop and confronted him. He denied ever sending people to collect money from the squatters and challenged her to dare remove the Baipehi even if alternative land was provided. They wanted the land they had taken occupation of, or nothing.

  “Do not alienate your allies, Abuti Sekatle,” pleaded Popi. “You know that in the council chamber I have supported the Baipehi. I have fought for them to be given land of their own which must have all the infrastructure.”

  “An ally who accuses me of stealing money from poor people is no ally at all. And please, there is the door. I am a very busy man.”

  Popi left the store fuming.

  Viliki was alarmed when she arrived at his house at night.

  “Is there something wrong with the old lady?” he asked. Although Niki was only fifty, he called her “the old lady”. And she indeed looked much older than her years. It was because her face had been eroded by the skin-lighteners of her youth.

  “There is nothing wrong with Niki,” said Popi. “Can’t I visit my brother without him getting suspicious?”

  THE NEXT DAY the council was taken aback when Popi moved that the Baipehi should be removed immediately. By force, if necessary. Lizette de Vries seconded the motion. There was a division in the chamber. Popi, the three members of the National Party and Tjaart Cronje voted for the motion. The four members of the Movement opposed it. And lost. Viliki gleefully announced that the services of a private company would be engaged to remove the squatters and their camp.

  The Baipehi were given one week to vacate the land. Under the revolutionary leadership of Sekatle, they stood their ground. The deadline was extended twice—by one week each time. Still they refused to move. Instead they cultivated their gardens to demonstrate that they were there permanently. Viliki seemed to be wavering.

  “You cannot show signs of weakening now, Viliki,” Popi egged him on. “No one will ever respect you again if you don’t take action against those arrogant Baipehi. Sekatle needs to know that you are the mayor, not him.”

  The following month, bulldozers came thundering down the dusty roads of Mahlatswetsa Location. Men in orange overalls descended upon the squatter camp and systematically uprooted the makeshift houses. They loaded the corrugated-iron and plastic sheets, the poles and cardboard, onto a truck. Those structures that were stubborn were flattened by the bulldozers. Men, women and children ran helter-skelter in the mushrooms of dust to salvage their precious belongings. Others pleaded with the men in orange overalls to be
merciful.

  “How can you do this to us?” they asked. “We are black people like you.”

  “It is not for us to be merciful,” said their foreman. “We are paid by your town council to remove this squatter camp. Go ask them for mercy. We are just doing our job.”

  Sekatle called an urgent branch meeting of the Movement. The Pule Comrades had gone too far. They had to be sanctioned. They had to be disciplined. Everyone was accusing the Movement-controlled council of resorting to the tactics of the past.

  “We had thought that bulldozers were history,” said Sekatle at the branch meeting. “Today we have seen what we used to see during the worst excesses of apartheid. We never thought we would see the day when a town council that was controlled by the Movement would vote with the Boers to drive away our people from their own land in their own country!”

  “We have no blood on our hands,” said the other four council members of the Movement. “We voted against the motion.”

  “Obviously Viliki and his sister think that they are bigger than the Movement,” said Sekatle. “They forget that in the same way that we made them what they are, we can unmake them.”

  WE LOOKED at these events with foreboding. We all accepted that a war had been declared against the Pule Comrades.

  THE MEMBERS of the Movement wanted to table the issue of the forced removals once more in the council chamber. But Viliki ruled that there was no point in discussing it. It would be a waste of time. There were other important matters on the agenda, such as the construction of the new library in Mahlatswetsa Location.

  “Does the mayor think that a library is more important than the lives of our people who have been treated worse than they used to be in the days of apartheid?” asked a councillor from the Movement.

  “We voted on the matter, Comrade,” said Viliki, “and this council passed a motion that the squatters should be removed. We gave them ample warning. The question of the library is very important.”

  “Indeed a library is important,” said Lizette de Vries. “The plans to build one in Mahlatswetsa have been there for a long time . . . from the time when my husband was the Administrator of the township. It is now time for action.”

  “The library we are talking about has nothing to do with your husband, Mrs de Vries,” said Popi sneeringly. “We are talking of the library that this Movement-led council plans to build for the people of Mahlatswetsa.”

  “I think even before you can talk of a library, you must get your people to pay for services,” said Tjaart Cronje. “The white citizens of Excelsior cannot afford to subsidise your people. Like everyone else, you must pay rates, you must pay for water, you must pay for sewerage.”

  Tjaart Cronje had raised a sore point. Almost every household in Mahlatswetsa Location was in arrears. Even the town councillors themselves. Except for the Pule Siblings who wanted to lead by example, and paid on time every month.

  “This culture of non-payment was cultivated by the Movement,” said Lizette de Vries. “Now that the Movement is in power, it must bear the consequences.”

  “It is true that when we were fighting for freedom, we encouraged people not to pay for services,” admitted Viliki. “It was part of the war for freedom. But unfortunately the culture of nonpayment set in. People got used to not paying. Now even though we are free, they refuse to pay.”

  “As a result, the town council has no money,” said a member of the National Party.

  “In the same way that they taught people not to pay, they must now teach them to pay,” said another.

  “Are we still talking about the library, Mr Chairperson?” asked Popi.

  “Of course we are,” screeched Tjaart Cronje. “People who don’t pay for services do not deserve a library. In any event, black people have other priorities. A library will be a white elephant. It’s like casting pearls before swine.”

  “You call my people swine?” said Popi.

  “Black people can’t read,” heckled Tjaart. “A library is a waste of resources.”

  “If there are no resources it is because you and your people stole them,” said Popi. “So now we are taking them back. If black people don’t read, then we are going to cultivate a new culture of reading.”

  “What do you know of culture when you can’t even shave your legs?” asked Tjaart Cronje, looking at Popi’s legs with disgust.

  “Tjaart!” admonished Lizette de Vries. “You can’t talk to a lady like that.”

  “She is no lady,” insisted Tjaart Cronje. “Ladies shave their legs. She doesn’t. She is therefore no lady.”

  There was utter silence. Tears swelled in Popi’s eyes.

  For the first time, the honourable members of the council could hear crowds of Baipehi dancing the toyi-toyi dance outside the Stadsaal. Viliki could distinctloudiney hear Sekatle’s voice leading the chants.

  The Mayor is a sellout! Hayi! Hayi! Hayi! Down with Viliki! Hayi! Hayi! Hayi!

  THE SELLER OF SONGS

  THE PENNY-WHISTLE. We still call it a flute. But the coloured girl has graduated from birdlike twitters to the gurgling sounds of river spirits. And her face has been tanned brown by the busker’s sun. Patchy brown. Her true yellow-coloured complexion peeps through in places. A tattered brown felt hat sits on her head, covering her forehead to the eyebrows. Hiding her golden-red locks. Her round eyes are wide and her brown pupils threaten to pop out and start bouncing on the brown ground to the rhythm of her melody. Her body is covered in a brown blanket. She kneels on the ground as the deep mellow notes and the shrill piccolo-like notes send shivers of prayer to those who are sleeping under it. Her fingers have learnt to close and open the six holes of the rusty metal instrument in the most dextrous manner, producing sounds that wriggle like water snakes in a warm current.

  Brownness envelops her. Thin-nibbed outlines of Indian ink give an ephemeral presence to the ghost that watches over her shoulder.

  We noticed that the Seller of Songs no longer spent her days busking outside the bank in town. She had decided that if customers did not come to her, she would take her music to their houses. She went from door to door playing her penny-whistle. Rich white people gave her a few coins, if only to get rid of her. When they got tired of her repeated visits, they shooed her away. Then she came to our houses in Mahlatswetsa Location. When she played outside your door, you opened and gave her some coins. She played a song or two, depending on how much you had paid her, and then moved on to the next house. Those of us who did not have money to waste on songs just clapped our hands and bade her goodbye. As she turned away from us, we would comment on how she was the spitting image of the Reverend François Bornman. And on how her eyes and ears looked exactly like those of Jacomina, the dominee’s daughter and wife of Tjaart Cronje. We were able to see these resemblances quite expertly because we knew that the Seller of Songs was Maria’s daughter. The Maria of the Excelsior 19. But of course the Seller of Songs was much younger. She was born several years post-Excelsior 19. Obviously Maria had continued with her escapades with white men. Could she—the temptress that she was—have continued spreading her body parts before the path of the dominee?

  SUNDAY MORNING. Viliki stayed in bed and enjoyed his fingers. He loved his fingers more than he could any woman. They took him to heaven, without his first having to die. And most importandy, without his sweat mingling with anyone else’s. His fingers could become any full-bodied figure he had fancied in the street during the day. Or in the gallery of the council chamber. In an instant they could turn into one of those half-naked sirens who graced the pages of Drum magazine.

  He heard the penny-whistle. He ignored it. He had not yet reached his heavenly destination. The melody persisted. He cursed. He put on his pants and quickly went to open the door. The Seller of Songs was standing on the red polished stoop, displaying a smile that would not be out of place in a toothpaste advertisement. She could pass for a waif in her brown felt hat, whose brim almost covered her eyes, and a brown threadbare blanket hanging
from her shoulders and covering her whole body down to the ankles. He smiled back.

  He had seen her busking in town. On the pavement in front of the bank. But he had never really paid her any particular attention. She was just one of the light-skinned girls walking the streets of Excelsior, as the former Minister of Justice, P.C. Pelser, once so apdy put it. Later Viliki had heard from Popi that she was the daughter of Maria, Niki’s erstwhile friend. Still he did not take any notice of her.

  But here she was, at the door of his RDP house, smiling his knees into jelly and his palms into a sweat.

  “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to play?” he asked.

  “I have already played,” she said impishly. “Three songs while you refused to open the door. You owe me.”

  “Come in,” he found himself saying.

  She went in. And never walked out again. At least not that day. Not that week.

  In the chamber of the council, it was announced that His Worship the Mayor of Excelsior was indisposed. But in the chamber of his RDP house, he was bathing in the sweat of the Seller of Songs. And in her blood. He had gently reprimanded her when she had said she would not let him swim in her filth, as it was her bad time of the month.

  “God cannot create filth,” he had said. “Babies come from this blood. Babies cannot come from filth.”

  And to prove that he meant what he said, he had touched it and let it slide between his fingers, even though she herself was disgusted by it.

  As SOON AS Popi entered the shack, Niki let her feel the chill of her wrath.

  “How can you not tell me when my child is sick?” Niki asked.

  “I didn’t know it was serious,” Popi defended herself.

  “He has been ill for one whole week and you didn’t know it was serious? I had to hear it from people in the street.”