The Theory of Flight

by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

  The life of Mbongeni Masuku’s wife was, however, atypical. Eunice Masuku worked as a housemaid even though her husband had the highly respectable job of headmaster. Most middle-class wives were teachers, nurses or housewives: the vast majority were housewives. It was a mystery to most why Eunice Masuku worked at all.

  However, there were things about the Masukus that their neighbours could not have known by simply looking at the beautiful couple living in their semi-detached, four-roomed house with its well-tended garden and their Volkswagen parked under their eucalyptus tree. They could not have known that, in addition to being a detached husband and father who was infrequently physically abusive and an occasional drunk, Mbongeni Masuku was also a sadist who emotionally and mentally abused his wife. They could not have known that he refused to help his wife apply to nursing or teaching school; knowing full well that a husband’s approval and signature were required for both, he refused to sign her application forms. They could not have known that he intentionally left his wife with no ‘respectable’ option for employment. They could not have known that he refused to provide for his family with his salary. They could not have known that Mbongeni Masuku did all this because he strongly suspected that the child his wife presented as his son, Dingani, was not his child. They could not have known that, in addition to being an atypical middle-class wife who worked as a housemaid, Eunice Masuku (with all her trappings of middle-class respectability) had worked as a prostitute in a shebeen in South Africa, which was where she and Mbongeni had met. They could not have known that she was living a very different existence from the one Mbongeni Masuku had promised her when he, a recent graduate of Fort Hare University, had spoken to her so eloquently in the Queen’s English, which made her go weak at the knees. They could not have known that as she walked down the street, her head held high as her well-worn shoes gradually became caked in dust, she was, at that very moment, plotting her revenge. They could not have known that she had waited thirty-six months to exact that revenge – waited until her husband finished paying for the yellow Formica table and its four matching chairs that had become the pride of their kitchen. They could not have known that Mbongeni Masuku did not allow his wife and son to sit at the yellow Formica table. They could not have known that Eunice Masuku and Dingani Masuku ate every meal on the cold concrete floor of the kitchen.

  Or perhaps they knew all this and much more. You can never be sure with neighbours and onlookers as to what they know just by looking at you, and what they do not.

  Dingani, at nine years old, had no idea that his family was not quite like all the others. So on the morning he watched his mother stand by the living-room door and wave, almost regally, as his father drove away, with the sweetest smile on her lips, he had no idea that that was the last day that he would see his father.

  He watched as his mother stood by the door, no longer waving, no longer smiling, but listening to the sounds of the Volkswagen gradually grow fainter. Once she was satisfied that the car was a safe distance away, she closed the door and turned to him.

  ‘Go wash your face and put on your blue suit,’ she said, suddenly frantic and agitated. ‘And brush your teeth and comb your hair.’ She started unbuttoning her plain, baby-pink housemaid’s uniform. She stepped out of it. Underneath she was wearing a beautiful dress with large blue-violet flowers. Until that very moment he had no idea that his mother had such a pretty dress. He stood transfixed, watching her. She seemed to be transforming before his very eyes. She walked towards him, leaving her housemaid’s uniform on the floor – a careless gesture that was completely unlike her.

  ‘Don’t just stand there. You need to be quick about it,’ she said, breaking the spell. ‘Wash, brush, comb.’

  ‘Are we going somewhere?’ he asked as she grabbed his hand and led him to the bathroom.

  ‘Today is the day our lives change,’ she said, scrubbing his face with Lifebuoy soap and, for the first time, not seeming to care that the soap got in his eyes. ‘After today we will definitely be going places. The sky is the limit for us.’

  They walked out of the house and kept on walking for what felt like hours, his hand held firmly in his mother’s white-gloved hand. Dingani watched the blue-violet flowers dance on his mother’s body. He became thirsty and still they walked on. His legs grew tired and still they walked on. His eyes became heavy and still they walked on. His mother never slowed down her pace – not even when he slowed down as they approached Lobengula Street. He did not know much about the city, but he knew that Africans were not allowed, by law, to cross Lobengula Street (unless they worked in the city or the suburbs), or to walk on the pavements. He had often heard his father speak of this to his teacher friends as an ‘injustice’.

  His mother dragged him along. ‘It’s all right. This is how I go to work every day,’ she said over her shoulder.

  There was a lot to comprehend in the colonial city – the tall buildings, the careering cars, the multitudes of people. It was awe-inspiring: Dingani’s eyes had no choice but to betray the blue-violet flowers on his mother’s dress to observe all that was around him. His awe did not decrease when they left the chaos of the city and started walking down the more subdued avenues lined with the jacarandas, flamboyants and acacias of the suburbs. Dingani was grateful for the shade the beautiful trees provided. All was quiet here. The only thing that disturbed the peace was the bark of an overly protective dog. All was green. All was big. Big yards containing big bungalow-style houses. Dingani did not have to be told that this was where the good life was. It was so tranquil and peaceful … so very different from where he lived, where everywhere was dust and everything was noise, where people lived cheek by jowl, practically on top of each other. Before that day, Dingani had never aspired to anything. He now had an aspiration – to live here, in the suburbs, some day.

  They finally arrived at their destination. His mother rang the cowbell attached to the gate, and the gardener was suddenly in front of them in his faded blue overalls and black cap, slightly askew. ‘Hell—’ His greeting died halfway out of his mouth. He frowned. Hesitated.

  ‘Open the gate, Philemon,’ his mother said, with authority in her voice.

  Philemon seemed to have formed the appropriate response, but then he looked at Dingani, weighed up a few things and decided not to say anything.

  ‘Open the gate, Philemon,’ his mother repeated.

  Philemon looked her up and down and then sucked his teeth and spat. ‘Are you not knowing that today is a workday? Why are you dressing as if you are for church?’

  ‘Open the gate, Philemon,’ his mother repeated, her tone letting him know that he was trying her patience.

  ‘Is that not being Madam’s dress?’ Philemon asked, both fear and malevolence flashing in his eyes.

  ‘Madam gave it to me.’

  ‘Madam will not be liking this,’ Philemon said. ‘Madam will not be liking this at all.’

  ‘Who is at the gate, Philemon?’ a voice from within the yard said, making Philemon start.

  ‘It is being Eunice at the gate, madam.’

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there like the fool you are – let her in. She is already ten minutes late as it is. Honestly, every day is a new day for you people, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ Philemon said, as he quickly opened the gate. ‘Every day is being a new day for us, madam,’ he said, his tone switching uncertainly from jocular to serious, trying to gauge Madam’s mood.

  She went back into the house.

  ‘Is Mr Coetzee here?’ Dingani’s mother asked Philemon as she entered the yard.

  ‘Heh?’

  ‘I asked if Mr Coetzee is here.’

  ‘Eh. What are you wanting him for?’

  ‘That is my business, not yours.’

  Philemon made a sound of sheer contempt and disgust in the back of his throat. ‘If you were my wife—’

  ‘If you were my husband, I would have killed myself a long time ago.’

  Philemon laughed
mirthlessly. ‘Pride. Too much. That is being your problem, Eunice. Pride.’

  ‘Spineless. Too much. That is being your problem, Philemon. Spineless.’

  And that was the end of that conversation.

  They walked up a winding driveway that had cars parked along it – more cars surely than one man could know what to do with, Dingani thought – then past the veranda as they made their way towards the back of the house where the kitchen door, also known as the servants’ entrance, was located.

  ‘Eunice, is that you?’ a voice said, as his mother’s white-gloved hand was opening the top half of the kitchen door. ‘Just in time. You can help me with this—’ the voice said, and then suddenly stopped. ‘What on God’s green earth are you wearing?’

  ‘A dress, madam.’

  ‘I can bloody well see it’s a dress. It is a dress I gave you. How on earth do you intend to work in that dress?’

  ‘I do not intend to work.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I am not here to work, madam.’

  ‘I cannot believe this … Then why, pray tell, are you here?’

  ‘To see Mr Emil Coetzee.’

  The voice within did not respond.

  ‘I know he is here, madam. I heard you speaking on the phone to Mrs Simpson about his coming here today.’

  ‘Well. I never!’ Fear made the voice shrill. ‘The sheer effrontery. Always listening, always sneaking around, always snooping. One cannot have privacy in one’s home with you lot.’

  ‘Dear? Why all the commotion?’ a male voice said, in a poor attempt at a whisper. ‘I told you I need peace and quiet today. We are discussing some matters of great national importance,’

  ‘I know, dear, but Eunice here wants to see Emil Coetzee.’

  Silence.

  Then the male voice asked, ‘And how does Eunice happen to know that Emil Coetzee is here?’

  ‘Well … Well … Who knows with servants? They are resourceful. They have their ways, don’t they?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know—’

  ‘I heard Madam talking to Mrs Simpson on the phone,’ his mother said, not attempting to whisper.

  ‘I will thank you very much to not take part in a conversation that you are not a part of,’ the woman’s voice said, with venom.

  ‘And I will thank you very much, Agnes dear, not to discuss matters of national importance with Mrs Simpson. You know how important this meeting is to me. You know the strings I had to pull to get it to take place here. If your loose lips cost me my promotion …’ The male voice within trailed off ominously.

  ‘Is everything all right in there?’ another male voice said from within.

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course, Emil. Just some domestic trouble.’

  ‘He means trouble with our domestic,’ the woman’s voice corrected, sweetly.

  Dingani heard his mother clear her throat before saying, ‘Mr Coetzee, I would like to speak with you, sir.’

  There was a long silence.

  Dingani watched a bead of sweat form and then travel down his mother’s neck before disappearing into a blue-violet flower on her dress.

  ‘Mr Coetzee is a very, very important and busy man,’ the woman’s voice finally said.

  ‘I know Mr Coetzee is a very important man. That is why I need to speak to him.’

  ‘And how do you know that he is an important man?’ the woman’s voice asked, fear making her voice loud and shrill again.

  ‘Because I read the newspaper, madam.’

  Another silence which threatened to be long was cut short by Dingani’s mother when she said, ‘I know you are in charge of Domestic Affairs, Mr Coetzee. I believe you will find what I have to say very important.’

  ‘What is this about?’ the man, Emil Coetzee, said, finally coming to stand by the door. He was larger than life, filling the entire doorway with his presence. His barrel chest seemed to be filled with too much air. But the most impressive thing about him was the glasses he wore: dark, round discs that did not allow you to see his eyes and automatically made you more curious about him.

  ‘It is about my husband,’ Dingani’s mother said.

  Emil Coetzee chuckled, but the corners of his eyes did not crease in mirth. ‘I don’t handle those kind of “domestic affairs”,’ he said, but did not move away from the door. ‘So what’s the story here? You found your husband putting it good to some strumpet?’

  Dingani saw his mother raise her chin a little and pull down the skirt of her dress. Her eyes never left the dark discs on Emil Coetzee’s face. Dingani looked back at Emil Coetzee in time to see his head incline ever so imperceptibly. Emil Coetzee had looked at the top of his mother’s bosom. Dingani was sure of it.

  ‘My husband and his friends … They are plotting to overthrow the government. They should be charged with treason.’

  This time Emil Coetzee laughed – a real, rumbling and tumbling laugh.

  ‘My husband is Mbongeni Masuku,’ Dingani’s mother continued, undeterred. ‘And every fortnight he meets with the following men …’ As his mother recited a list of names, Emil Coetzee’s laughter slowly died.

  ‘They are plotting, you say?’

  ‘Yes, they are plotting to fight for independence. I have heard them.’

  ‘Why tell me this?’

  His mother did not respond to the question directly, instead she reached into her purse and pulled out a carefully folded piece of newspaper that she just as carefully unfolded and showed to Emil Coetzee. Dingani made out the word ‘Reward’ on the paper.

  ‘Hell hath no fury,’ Emil Coetzee said.

  And in that moment it was evident even to Dingani that his mother had won whatever was worth winning in this case.

  ‘My son wants to be a doctor some day,’ his mother said. This was news to Dingani. ‘I am here to make sure he becomes one.’

  Emil Coetzee’s black discs looked at Dingani’s mother for a long time.

  ‘I’ll see what can be done,’ Emil Coetzee said, as he turned to walk away, closing the top part of the kitchen door behind him.

  Dingani heard his mother take a deep, calming breath. It was shaky. She looked at him for the first time since they had arrived. ‘Your father disappointed me,’ was all she said by way of explanation, before taking his hand again and leading them away from the back door of the kitchen (the only entrance she and Philemon were allowed to use), away from the veranda, away from the cars that were too many for one man (one of which belonged to Emil Coetzee), away from Philemon watering the roses in the garden.

  ‘So. Are you getting to speak to Emil Coetzee?’ Philemon asked in a mocking tone while opening the gate.

  ‘Yes,’ Dingani’s mother said, as she walked away from her life of domestic service. Triumphantly.

  His father never made it home from school. The Organisation of Domestic Affairs picked him up and processed him. After a short trial in which he was found guilty of being an African nationalist, he was sent to prison to serve a life sentence for treason. Mbongeni Masuku died in prison a few years later and was buried by the state in an unmarked grave. His wife and son never visited him.

  For her part, his mother, as soon as she returned from her talk with Emil Coetzee, took her maid’s uniform and placed it in her small front yard, poured paraffin on it and set it on fire in front of her neighbours. She then went to Mpilo Hospital and, after explaining that her husband had been imprisoned and she had no other means of supporting herself and her son, filled out an application for the nursing school. On that day Dingani had felt a foreign emotion – fear of his mother. He determined resolutely to never disappoint her.

  When they sat at the yellow Formica table for the first time later that night, his mother ran her hand over the surface of the table. ‘The year 1965,’ she said. ‘This is the year that we became truly respectable. This is the year that we became somebody.’ She took a thoughtful sip of her tea and nodded resolutely. ‘Politics is not for us. Politics is too … messy … and spades are never
really spades.’

  It was only years later that Dingani was struck by how fearless his mother’s act had been. What had made her so certain that Emil Coetzee would do as she asked? What had made her so certain that her husband would never come back again? What had made her so certain that her neighbours, knowing what she had done, would carry on with their lives and let her carry on with hers as though they had no such knowledge? She had been so sure of herself, so sure she would succeed, so sure that she had done the right thing, that Dingani could not help but feel that such certainty meant that she had been right in doing what she did.

  Determined to never disappoint his mother, Dingani excelled in everything he did: school, sports, music. And his mother kept her promise, she built a respectable life for them. She became a State Registered Nurse; she put Dingani in the best school that an African child could attend; she erased all traces of Mbongeni Masuku from their lives – all save his yellow Formica table with four matching chairs. Through her hard work they became somebody.

  His mother made life so comfortable and respectable that for the next nine years of all Dingani had had to worry about was the name of his band. They were called the Wanderers. Or were they rather Wonderers? Were they seekers or were they thinkers? He and his bandmates Xolani and Jameson were for ever trying to decide and were never quite satisfied. It became something of an existential crisis, with Xolani opting for the Wanderers and Jameson opting for the Wonderers. There was a real danger of the band splitting up if the issue was not resolved. It was up to Dingani, who had come up with the name originally, to confirm the name of their band. The name had just come to him one day, but it had simply been an idea – something in his imagination that had manifested itself as sound and not image. He did not know if what he had thought of for a name was Wonderers or Wanderers. Not wishing to disappoint either, he came up with a compromise: The Wandering Wonderers. The band was happily known as The Wandering Wonderers until Jameson asked why they could not be known as The Wondering Wanderers and another debate ensued. When the band went to play at Stanley Hall in 1974, some of their posters read ‘The Wandering Wonderers’, while others read ‘The Wondering Wanderers’, others ‘The Wanderers’, and others ‘The Wonderers’. One poster even read ‘Dingani, Xolani and Jameson. Stanley Hall. December 31, 1974. New Year Bash! Be there!’ Whatever their name, the truth was that Dingani’s band was a very good band. Choosing not to be seduced by the politically conscious soul and reggae music of the era, the band paid tribute to 1950s and 1960s pop music and this they did so well that, despite their identity crisis, they were hugely popular.