It was through the unrelenting efforts of C10 that The Organisation knew (months after Emil had promised the head of Golide Gumede to the public) that Golide Gumede, born Livingstone Stanley Tikiti, had a sister, Minenhle Tikiti, who lived on the Beauford Farm and Estate. And that is how Mordechai’s and Minenhle’s destinies became intertwined.
Minenhle Tikiti was picked up and processed by The Organisation on December 24, 1978. But even though C10 was at his most persuasive – in a dark room, working and walking stealthily, attacking her from all sides, alternating gentle words with brute force, coming at her with a lit cigarette, a wielded knife, a heel of a boot, burning, cutting and crushing, secure in the knowledge that she could not see his face – Minenhle never gave up her brother. Nor did she give herself up, unlike most people, who usually offered up something (usually rather quickly) during their encounter with C10 – a name, a story (true or false), a long-held dignity, an ingrained sense of self. Minenhle gave up nothing.
After days of torture, it was Mordechai who, in the exchange, gave up something – his desire to die. He had found in Minenhle Tikiti a new purpose in life. He had finally found something – someone – to have an allegiance to.
He would dedicate the rest of his life to undoing the pain he had caused her.
It took Mordechai years to prepare himself for Minenhle. He left his job at The Organisation (which was easy since Emil Coetzee had been greatly disappointed by his failure) and took a job at the National Archives repairing and restoring books and manuscripts – mending spines and fixing tears with great gentleness and care. He even changed his voice, making it more sing-songy. It was only when he was certain that she would not recognise him that he re-entered Minenhle Tikiti’s life and never left it. Mordechai arrived at the Beauford Farm and Estate on a MacKenzie bus one unassuming Wednesday afternoon and departed two weeks later with Minenhle. They climbed aboard the MacKenzie bus and, as Mordechai paid the bus conductor, Minenhle looked up at the sky and marvelled at its independent blueness.
The MacKenzie bus that Minenhle and Mordechai took in 1983 was the very same bus Thandi Hadebe had taken on the day she escaped from the Beauford Farm and Estate in 1974.
Thandi Hadebe was born on the Beauford Farm and Estate. Her father was the Beauford School’s messenger boy and caretaker, a job that allowed her family to live a comfortable life – their housing was provided and they received substantial monthly rations. Both her parents were very Christian and very proper. They raised their daughter to stand out and be an example.
Thandi had known all her life that she was beautiful because almost everyone who saw her said so. At first she did not think much of her own beauty; she took it for granted. But as she grew older, she realised that her beauty afforded her a certain kind of ease, a certain kind of power. She never had to struggle. She made friends easily. Teachers tended to favour her. She got special attention and eventually she stopped trying to prove herself: she stopped trying to be anything more than what people saw.
And then, in Thandi’s sixteenth year, Minenhle Tikiti entered her life as her Domestic Science teacher. Minenhle was not charmed by Thandi; she was not taken with her beauty. She pushed Thandi to have greater ambition in life than just being a pretty face. Thandi suspected that Minenhle, who had no beauty to speak of, was secretly jealous of her, and so she did not take Minenhle seriously … until the day the sojas came to Beauford Farm and Estate.
The sojas entered Minenhle’s class while it was in session. The girls were busy making pretty dresses. One of the sojas asked the girls to strip naked and put on their pretty dresses. Because it was a preposterous thing to say, and because he sounded as though he was merely joking, most of the girls giggled. The soja made his request again, his tone more serious this time. The girls who giggled this time did so nervously and uncertainly. The soja made his request yet again and, to do away with any confusion on the girls’ part, he shot two bullets from his pistol into the ceiling. The girls, trembling, stripped naked and put on their half-made pretty dresses. Some of them cried silent tears. Then the soja asked Minenhle to choose who was the prettiest of them all.
For the first time in her life, Thandi did not want to be the prettiest girl … she did not want to be pretty at all. Her eyes pleaded with Minenhle, but Minenhle still did the unthinkable – she pointed a stubby finger towards Thandi. And when the soja took Thandi away, kicking and screaming, Thandi believed she saw a look of satisfaction on Minenhle’s face. It was a look that she would never forget nor forgive.
The soja paraded Thandi in front of the whole school, calling her all manner of filth. When he led her to the toilets and they entered one of the pit latrines, Thandi thought for sure that he was going to rape her. She tried to prepare herself for the humiliation and violation, but instead he ordered her to jump into the pit latrine. He left her to drown in its putrid foulness. Now Thandi was sure that she would die. But she did not. Somehow she managed to tread the murky mire and keep her head above it. She desperately wanted to die, but, to her dismay and consternation, she kept on surviving until, after what seemed like days, but was in reality a little over two hours, her father pulled her out.
Thandi did not feel like she had been saved.
Her mother prepared basin after basin of scalding water and bar after bar of harsh soap for her, but Thandi could not feel clean. From then on she took to bathing multiple times a day. She became obsessed with dirt. She began to find the omnipresent dust of the compound oppressive. Whenever she was not cleaning herself, she was cleaning her surroundings. But one thing that she could not scrub clean was the air surrounding her, which had been contaminated by the putrescence of the pit latrine. The smell followed her everywhere.
Understandably, Thandi became desperate for a fresh start.
A fresh start came in the form of Elizabeth Nyoni, who one day descended in a cloud of dust on the Beauford Farm and Estate carrying a golden egg. She had travelled to a place she had only heard about, a place in which there was no one to take care of her and her egg, because she was certain that this place was where she was going to do the best living of her life. She was such a foreign concept on the Beauford Farm and Estate that Thandi could not help but be drawn to her. Elizabeth was the most singular thing Thandi had ever seen: her blonde hair, her colourful clothes, her genuine self-confidence and self-esteem, her determination and drive, her believing herself to be a country-and-western singer, all showed that she marched to the beat of her own drum. In just being herself, Elizabeth presented Thandi with many possibilities.
For her part, Elizabeth took to the prettiest Thandi and one day looked at the girl and simply said: ‘You are so pretty. Have you ever thought of being a model?’ Thandi, who did not know what a model was, could not say that she had. Elizabeth reached for a magazine, flipped through its pages and pointed at a woman with ruby lips and pencilled-in eyebrows who was looking into the distance as though it held a future in which she was not particularly interested. It was the model’s nonchalance and detachment that Thandi found attractive … alluring. The model seemed removed from it all … above it … un-touchable. ‘If you go to the city, I am sure you could make a living as a model.’
The city – the place where no one would know or remember what had happened to her. The city – the place where she could start a new, unblemished, unbesmirched chapter of her life. The city – the place where she, with ruby lips and pencilled-in eyebrows, could look into the distance as though it held a future in which she was not particularly interested. Thandi boarded the MacKenzie bus the very next day and headed for the city, determined never to look back.
It was in the city that, wearing a pink carnation in her hair, she danced in the rain and heard a young man sing ‘Don’t let me down’.
Perhaps the knowledge of what had happened to Minenhle at the hands of C10 gave Thandi some satisfaction, but this cannot be known with certainty. After Thandi left the Beauford Farm and Estate, she returned to it only once, during the
war years, to deliver and leave behind a baby boy, Marcus Malcolm Martin. She only offered one word to explain her action: America.
Marcus grew up in the care of his strictly Christian grandparents with one spiritual striving – to find something in his young life that would give him a sense of belonging. He found this something, a few days after his fourth birthday, in the form of a colourful woman who carried a baby on her back and sang songs of love.
‘You treat her like an egg. I don’t believe her feet have ever touched the ground. You carry her everywhere.’ Jestina Nxumalo – MaNxumalo to Marcus – said this in a neutral tone as she leaned against one of the fence posts, her left arm akimbo and a sliver of elephant grass in her mouth. Her eyes on their target and the most spectacular thing that young Marcus had seen in his entire life: Elizabeth Nyoni.
She was hanging her washing on a clothesline and had a baby – well, not really a baby any more – strapped on her back not too tightly, but very securely, and she was humming a delightful tune. She was dressed in all the colours of the rainbow – the ‘ladies’ whip’ his people called it – as if she had reached into the sky and retrieved each colour with a gentle tug. And she had hair like no one else he had ever seen – long, straight, flowy, and, best of all, golden. Sometimes, Marcus knew, she assembled it all on top of her head so that it resembled a beehive. Sometimes she let it flow freely and dance gently in the breeze.
Marcus had been watching them for a very long time – he did not know how long because he had not learned how to count or tell time yet, but he knew it was a very long time. He was fascinated by these beautiful creatures. He had come to sit by the fence and watch this colourful woman hum through the day with her not-quite baby on her back often enough to pique Jestina’s curiosity.
‘And why shouldn’t I treat her like an egg? She was a golden egg for the five years I carried her. She was a golden egg until the third of September, 1978, when she hatched. Just because you see her like this in the flesh does not mean that she is not still a golden egg,’ Elizabeth said and then continued to hum her tune.
Jestina laughed a long and loud mirthless laugh. ‘Elizabeth, the things you say!’ She brought her laughter to an end. ‘You are like a peacock. Proud.’
‘And why shouldn’t I be like a peacock? Pride and all – when all that is mine is beauty.’
‘And vain too,’ Jestina said clapping her hands together, indicating that she was giving up and was washing her hands of Elizabeth. ‘Pride and vanity are sins, Elizabeth.’
‘Envy is an ugly thing too, Jestina.’
Jestina made a sound of mock disgust deep in the back of her throat.
‘Anyway, I’m here about the boy.’
Elizabeth made her way to the fence. The not-quite baby cocked her head to the side and examined him with such scrutiny that Marcus felt self-conscious for the first time in his young life.
‘Thandi’s boy. He is a thing of beauty.’
‘My eyes are not for beauty to see,’ Jestina replied with a shrug.
‘What’s your name?’ Elizabeth asked, addressing him directly for the first time.
Marcus was too embarrassed to look at her directly, so he mumbled to the yellowish-grey silty soil and scratch of grass he was sitting on. ‘Marcus Malcolm Martin Masuku.’
Elizabeth laughed heartily – a sound that came from deep inside her belly, genuine, free laughter. He had never heard anything like it. He felt his mouth spreading into a smile – ready to laugh.
‘So you’re going to be a revolutionary when you grow up?’
He had no idea what she was talking about. His smile became uncertain.
‘I think he wants to be friends with your precious egg,’ Jestina said, coming to his rescue.
‘You want to be friends with my Imogen?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded, even though the thought had never occurred to him. He would have been happy to just sit by the fence, watch the beautiful creatures and wish that he belonged to them.
‘Genie, you want to be friends with Marcus Malcolm Martin Masuku?’
The little girl on her back neither nodded nor shook her head. She just looked at him.
‘Well, Marcus Malcolm Martin Masuku, you can be friends with my Genie here if you promise me one thing. Can you promise me one thing?’
Marcus squinted the sunlight out of his eyes and nodded.
‘What do you want him to promise? Not to break your egg?’ Jestina asked.
‘Promise me that you will not become a politician … promise me you will become a real revolutionary instead.’
Since Marcus had no idea what she was talking about, it was very easy for him to nod his head, yes.
‘I need to hear you say the words.’
‘I pomise,’ Marcus said, beginning to feel that this was a very important moment in his life. He stood up. He had seen his grandfather do this – offer his hand to another person. It seemed the occasion called for such a gesture. He stood on his tiptoes and strained to reach his hand over the fence and offer it to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, laughing that belly laugh of hers, shook his hand.
She untangled the girl from her back and gently placed her on the ground. Little Imogen – Genie – was also embraced by the colours of the ladies’ whip. Unsteady on her feet, she fluttered and braced herself by placing her hands on the fence.
Jestina clapped her hands. ‘Finally her feet touch the ground,’ she exclaimed before ululating.
Elizabeth ignored her. ‘I am trusting you with my most precious and cherished possession, Marcus Malcolm Martin Masuku. You will take good care of her.’
This time it was Elizabeth who extended her hand. They shook the promise into existence.
Suddenly, a friend. Genie pointed at Marcus and made a delighted sound. There was a look of recognition in her eyes. She reached through the fence and grabbed hold of his hand. All she could utter were sounds – twitters really. She was yet to be gifted with language, but he understood her perfectly.
A gust of wind, carrying dust and billowing empty plastic bags, came their way. The wind lifted the colours of the rainbow. Genie fluttered. Marcus held her hand fast, afraid she would fly away. Unfazed by the wind, Genie giggled and continued twittering. She had so much to tell him. And he had all the time to listen. But the wind kept getting stronger and stronger until he had no choice but to let go of her hand.
After all the things that the Beauford Farm and Estate had witnessed and experienced in its recent history, the friendship that blossomed between Marcus and Genie was a much-needed balm.
MARCUS & GENIE
By the time Marcus and Genie were old enough to understand the world around them, the recent war seemed but a distant memory, for life on the Beauford Farm and Estate had taken great pains to become blissful again. Perhaps it was because their country was newly independent – and a country’s independence is infectious and tends to permeate everything – or perhaps it was because both of them were too young to remember the particular horrors the civil war had visited upon the compound. Whatever the reason, Marcus and Genie both developed a strong sense of adventure and soon grew tired of the monotonous greyish-yellow of the compound. They were eager to explore the world outside, and because the farthest thing their eyes could see were the distant hills that looked like a hazy blue something on the horizon, they wanted to personally touch that hazy blue something.
If they had been able to tell the passing of time they would have known that it took close to six months to convince Elizabeth, who remembered only too well the horrors of the civil war, to let them walk out of the compound and down the long dusty road that seemed to stretch on for ever only to lose itself in the distant hills. They never realised that she let them go only because she knew they could not go far.
And so it came to pass that on a clear day in December, Marcus and Genie left the compound for the first time in their lives. It never occurred to either Marcus or Genie as they set off down the dusty road armed only with a b
roken umbrella, a half-eaten packet of Lemon Creams and a bottle of water that they could actually climb the hills. From the stories they heard at night around the compound fire, they knew that what lived on the other side of the hills was terrifyingly wicked and relentlessly evil. They also knew from the around-the-fire stories that the hills themselves were innocent and that therefore there was absolutely nothing wrong with touching them and feeling their reassuring permanence.
Since they could see the hills, they thought it would not take long to reach them. They probably had not walked as far as they thought – Genie with Penelope (her handmade rag doll, whose dark brown skin and colourful dress her mother had made from scraps left over from material she used to make dresses for herself and Genie) tied on her back and secured there by a towel that was knotted around her waist, carrying a broken umbrella above their heads as Marcus drove his wire car along the dusty road, one trouser pocket stuffed with the Lemon Creams and the other containing the water bottle – when their dusty legs grew tired. As their determination to reach the distant hills rapidly waned, they were more than happy to discover to the left of them a field of yellow that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Sunflowers.
They had never been told that such a thing of beauty existed. Without hesitation, Genie ran giggling into the field, never stopping to think that it could contain anything harmful or dangerous. Marcus hesitated. He left his wire car on the side of the road in full view of any passers-by, just in case he and Genie got lost in there – disappeared in a sea of yellow, never to be found again. If anyone came to find them, they would know exactly where to look, and, if the two of them were never found again, at least people would know exactly what had happened. Marcus was a cautious but not particularly morbid child. He just knew from all the stories told around the compound fire that not all stories had a happy ending and that horrible things sometimes happened to people, especially curious children who ventured too far away from home.
The Theory of Flight Page 3