Winnie Mandela

by Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob

  Winnie didn’t know that there were people of different colour until Makhulu drew her attention to the fact with her stories of their appetite for money, and for the land and cattle of the Pondo. Winnie was left with the impression that a bad person and a white person were one and the same thing for Makhulu, who had embarked on a silent boycott of the commodities introduced by the whites, cautioning that they were a trap to separate black people from their money. There was no furniture in her huts but grass mats and small stools made from rough wattle, and nothing on the floors but cow dung, which was kept shining clean.

  She made one exception: a blanket to wear around her shoulders in winter.

  Columbus and Gertrude saw to it that their children were kept on the straight and narrow. They went to church regularly, with all the children in tow and dressed in their Sunday best. Afterwards, they would visit neighbours and anyone in need of assistance. Winnie found the church services unintelligible and boring, but Sunday school less so, in all probability because it held the appeal of prizes for the best pupils – a challenge she could relate to.

  Notwithstanding the fact that her young life was complicated by conflicting ways and perplexing family relationships, Winnie was generally carefree and happy. The Madikizela children had strict routines, and both before and after school they had to perform certain chores, but there was plenty of time to play as well. Like all the children in the district they ran barefoot until they reached their teens, and even after Winnie realised that her attempts to be a surrogate son had failed to win her mother’s esteem, she preferred the company and games of the boys. She wore shorts, rode cows and horses bareback, fought with sticks and played with the boys. The other girls fussed over their dolls and competed to see whose mother could produce the best dolls’ clothes, but this didn’t interest Winnie in the least. The highlight of the year was Christmas, and Columbus spared no effort to make it a special occasion, buying new clothes for everyone and toys for the children. On Christmas Day, presents were exchanged in an atmosphere of great excitement, and an ox was slaughtered to add to the festivity.

  As in all families, there were fights and arguments between the siblings, and Winnie, because she was tougher than the other girls, frequently emerged victorious – which often resulted in an unpleasant encounter with Gertrude, who firmly believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. Winnie was by no means always the guilty party in these altercations, but she was most often on the receiving end of Gertrude’s stick. When the sisters quarrelled, Gertrude inevitably assumed that the boisterous Winnie was the culprit, and usually restored order by giving her a few stinging slaps. The others soon cottoned on and complained loudly to Gertrude when they were at the losing end, knowing that she would almost certainly punish Winnie.

  Once, after being provoked by her younger sister, Princess, Winnie made a knuckleduster by knocking a nail through a baking powder tin. As the dispute continued, she triumphantly brought her secret weapon into the fray. Unfortunately for Winnie, her strategy was flawed: she aimed for her sister’s upper arm, but Princess dodged, and the nail struck her on the cheek, penetrating the skin and causing the wound to bleed profusely, as facial injuries do. She was crying, rubbing the blood and tears all over her face. Winnie was horrified – and dreaded the consequences. It looked far worse than it was, but Princess still had to be taken to Dr Thompson in Bizana for stitches. Back home, Gertrude gave Winnie a beating that she never forgot.

  Winnie would never have accused her mother of loving her less than her brother and sisters, but she knew Gertrude was unfair, and sometimes, after undeserved punishment, she would sob with frustration and heartache. Occasionally, her father would set aside his characteristic aloofness to intervene and console her. He never touched his children in affection or in anger, but showing compassion for Winnie’s distress laid the foundation of the close relationship they later developed. Winnie also basked in the attention of her uncle, Lamginya, who had declared her his favourite niece. He was a bus driver, and there was great excitement when he piled all the children into his bus and took them for a ride. Unlike their parents, he openly showed affection for the children, played with them and cuddled them.

  When Winnie was six, she was enrolled at her father’s school. She loved it from the start, was a good and eager pupil and excelled at her studies. Her father was pleased with her academic progress, and she flourished under his encouragement and support. Three years later, the Education Department transferred Columbus to eMbongweni. This meant that the family had to move, and Columbus sold the farm. Their new home was not far from the Great Place at Komkhulu, and all the pupils at the new school, along with all the residents of the village, were Madikizelas, members of the extended family created by Chief Mazingi, his twenty-nine wives and dozens of children. According to tradition, sons settled with their wives at the family home, and when a kraal became too large, a new one would be formed. The Madikizelas inhabited six of the twenty-six settlements in the Bizana district, and until she went to boarding school at the age of twelve, Winnie had no idea that there were people with surnames other than her own.

  Life was different in eMbongweni. Without the farm as back-up, the family’s standard of living deteriorated, their home was reduced to three rondavels, the number of cattle diminished and there were no longer farm labourers to help with the work. Columbus ploughed the land himself, helped by the children. The fact that Winnie was only nine years old made no difference. She was strong enough to work and had less homework than the older children, so she was up at dawn to help her father in the fields, and after breakfast they set off for school together. In the afternoons she led the oxen for Columbus as he ploughed, and helped him hoe. It was hard work for a little girl, but she never complained because she was developing a new relationship with her father, a closeness and comfortable collaboration that compensated for the lack of intimacy with her mother. She cherished the serenity and reassurance of their time together. ‘We hardly spoke, but his gentle presence gave me support. It was as if God walked with me.’2

  Columbus spared no effort to provide his family with a decent standard of living. He harvested honey from beehives he had set up in the forest, which Gertrude boiled and bottled, and they raised chicks and sold eggs. This provided another level of excitement – and education – for Winnie and her siblings. She and her sister Nonalithi took it in turn to monitor the temperature in the incubation room, and when it rose above a certain level they would run and fetch Columbus to adjust the settings.

  Columbus was an intelligent man with a wide range of interests. Passionate about his people’s history, he took great care to ensure that all his pupils learned about their heritage from the Pondo perspective. Sometimes he gathered all the children in the shade of a large tree, and told them of the events that had shaped the country and its people. He told them how fearless Xhosa warriors armed only with spears had fought against the guns and bullets of the white settlers to defend their land in the nine Xhosa wars – which their textbooks called the ‘Kaffir Wars’ – and explained that the black leaders who were portrayed as primitive savages in the history books had, in fact, been cunning strategists and courageous fighters. At times he would be so overcome with emotion while describing the prejudice and unfairness, he would have to leave the room to regain his composure. Winnie never forgot those lessons.

  Columbus owned an impressive library of books ranging from Aesop’s Fables and other fiction to encyclopaedias and reference works, and Winnie read them all. She loved reading and was always top of her class. At school she was quiet and submissive, and some classmates thought she was shy, but in her free time she was still a tomboy, full of fun and always laughing, fighting the boys at the drop of a hat. Her older sister, Nancy, was her shadow, and blindly followed Winnie into mischief. Winnie was indisputably the leader, increasingly showing her strong will and laying down the law, but she was also a compassionate child, quick to show concern and kindness. When some of her classmates ha
d to stop going to school because their parents couldn’t afford the fees, Winnie was extremely upset. Columbus and Gertrude had constantly taught their children the importance of education if they wanted to get anywhere in life. Winnie badgered Columbus until he paid the outstanding fees from his own small salary, and the children could return to class. Another time, when Winnie found out that a girl she knew was staying away from school because she had nothing to wear, she gave the child one of her own dresses. Columbus rewarded her selflessness by buying her a new dress – and another for the needy girl.

  Winnie also benefited from her father’s position as a tribal councillor. Columbus kept his family and other residents of eMbongweni in touch with the outside world through his frequent visits to Umtata for sessions of the Bunga. They also received regular updates on the progress of World War II whenever he went to Umtata or into Bizana on horseback. The children listened wide-eyed to tales of the terror wrought by the Nazis, the enormous battles in Europe and the bombings, though they could not imagine what any of this was like. Even in their remote corner of the country, they experienced the effects of the war. Many of the young men had joined the army, only to find that they were not allowed to carry guns. Nevertheless, they proudly showed off their smart uniforms when they came home on leave before sailing for Egypt. Some would not return – killed, ironically, while on active service, but unarmed. As the war dragged on, there were shortages of foodstuffs that everyone had always taken for granted, such as sugar, of which there sometimes was none for weeks on end. Even soap became scarce, a real calamity in Winnie’s home where cleanliness was paramount. Gertrude immediately put the children to work collecting a herb from the hillsides, which she used to make a traditional soap called inqubebe.

  Because there was no public transport, the children rarely visited Bizana. When they did go, it was on foot, with the entire family walking for a day and a night. It was an exhausting journey, and the children had to force themselves to keep going till they arrived, bone tired, at Granny’s home at Ndunge, a kilometre outside Bizana. Ironically these visits, the highlight of their lives, were also the only times the children felt deprived, as they feasted their eyes on the unbelievable array of goods in the general dealers’ stores: soft, colourful blankets, large rolls of cloth, sweets, clothes and dozens of other things that their parents could not afford to buy. Fortunately, as soon as they were back at home, these luxuries were forgotten.

  Life was good for the Madikizelas. They were not wealthy, but they had enough of everything, and they were part of a close-knit community and a supportive and caring family. The children were secure in the knowledge that their parents, although strict, had their best interests at heart; Winnie was happy at school and enjoyed the untroubled life of a rural child. But her contentment was about to be shattered by a string of tragic events that started when her eldest sister, Vuyelwa, came home from boarding school with tuberculosis. With Vuyelwa’s illness, Gertrude’s prayers became more frequent and more intense. She begged God to make Vuyelwa well, but her daughter’s condition steadily deteriorated, and with no treatment available for the disease and little information on how to deal with it, her chances of survival were slim.

  Gertrude’s desperate prayers were to no avail, and Vuyelwa died one Sunday after the family returned from church. Her passing severely shook Winnie’s belief in her mother’s God, who, it appeared, had paid no heed to Gertrude’s desperate and frequent prayers.

  Unbeknown to all of them, Gertrude – who never recovered from the shock of her daughter’s death – was also ill. She had probably contracted tuberculosis during the long months of nursing Vuyelwa, and another pregnancy also took its toll, though it produced the youngest son Gertrude had longed for. As her health deteriorated, Winnie and Nancy took it in turns to stay home from school and nurse their mother, watching helplessly as she withered away.

  Finally, during her illness, Gertrude reached out to Winnie, often calling her to sit beside the bed with the baby. Her eyes were sunken, dim and exhausted, and it seemed to Winnie that her mother was watching her and the baby in her arms as if she were already in another world. Sometimes, Gertrude would stretch out her hand to stroke the baby, but even that exhausted her. She told Winnie to lead a good, decent and honest life, and Winnie listened intently, memorising every precious word. Young as she was, she understood that this time with Gertrude was a treasure to be cherished. It didn’t matter that she didn’t understand all of Gertrude’s instructions, she was simply happy to be finally forging a bond with her mother.

  Gertrude’s illness turned Columbus into a walking ghost. He sat with her for hours, then locked himself up with a pile of exercise books and worked until late at night. He retreated into his anguish, barely speaking to the children, and they thought he was avoiding them.

  Vivid and painful images of Gertrude’s dying did nothing to restore Winnie’s faith. ‘As I watched her lips move and her tear-drenched face, I hated that God who didn’t respond to her and who instead came for her when she was breastfeeding a three-month baby boy – my brother Thanduxolo.’3

  Still a child herself, Winnie had to prepare the wailing baby’s bottles and try to comfort him, spending hours at night rocking and cuddling him, and trying to lull him to sleep with sugared water.

  When Gertrude’s last moments drew near, the elders gathered round her bed, and Winnie and Nancy sought refuge in another rondavel, clinging to one another in fear. Just before dawn, a bone-piercing shriek cut through their sleep, and their older sister Irene burst through the door, sobbing.

  In keeping with tribal custom, relatives came from near and far, the outer walls of the Madikizela home were painted with black ochre and the windows smeared with white. Black funeral dresses were made for the children on their mother’s sewing machine, and their heads were shaved. Bewildered and weeping much of the time, they could do nothing but watch the preparations for their mother’s funeral. The whole district turned out for the occasion, and Winnie had never seen so many people. The church was too small and the service had to be held outdoors. All the children sat beside the coffin, which was draped in black. On it lay Gertrude’s church uniform, folded as neatly as if she had done it herself. The girls were crying bitterly, and Winnie thought their sorrow would never end. After the service the coffin was carried to the Madikizela family cemetery at the far end of Makhulu’s garden, where all the graves were marked with simple white crosses. Winnie, shivering with dread, clung to Nancy, unable to watch as the casket containing her mother’s body was lowered into the ground.

  Two oxen and a number of sheep were slaughtered to feed the mourners. In a strangely hushed atmosphere, the family elders sat near the cattle kraal, heads bowed, while the women huddled and whispered on the grass.

  Relatives came to assist Columbus with the care of the children and to help with the baby. They meant well, but had no idea how to run Gertrude’s well-ordered home, and soon the household was chaotic. Columbus, stricken by his loss, didn’t notice for a while, but as soon as he recovered from the initial grief and realised what a state his home and family were in, he immediately took action. It was almost unheard of for a Pondo father to bring up his own children, but he informed the family that this was his intention, and sent all the well-meaning relatives back to their own homes. The children took responsibility for tasks their mother had trained them to perform, and gradually Gertrude’s orderly household was restored.

  But their lives were changed forever. Nancy went to live with an aunt, Irene, and her brother Christopher returned to boarding school. Winnie remained at home with her younger siblings, the baby and her father. Columbus’s sister had come to live with them to take care of the household, but Winnie still had to care for the baby.

  If there was one positive consequence of the tragedy, it was that Columbus inevitably grew closer to his children. Winnie washed his clothes in the river and continued to help him with the farming. Acknowledging her support, he would bring her the Farmer’s
Weekly to read when there were articles relevant to their activities. When he had to go to Umtata for meetings of the Bunga, she missed him terribly. The other children would never entirely lose their awe of their father, but Winnie confided in him and turned to him for advice on everything. Columbus depended on her a great deal as well. With her older sisters away at school, Winnie assumed many of her mother’s duties. The baby cried constantly and she tried her best to comfort him, fed him his bottle, rocked him to sleep and even took him and her youngest sister, Princess, along when she did her chores in the fields, carrying one on her back and the other in her arms.

  Her days filled with adult responsibilities and chores, Winnie had little time to grieve for her mother. But at night, Gertrude’s death haunted her in dreams and nightmares.

  2

  For whites only

  THE NEWS THAT World War II had ended was brought to eMbongweni by a truck driver, who told the Madikizelas that there were big celebrations in the streets and town hall at Bizana. The children begged Columbus for permission to go and join in the merriment, and when he agreed they clambered onto the back of the truck, laughing and chattering with excitement.

  But eMbongweni was sheltered from the realities of life in South Africa. To their shock and disappointment, they found the town hall doors barred, and were told the celebrations were for whites only. For Winnie, being shut out was like a physical blow to her stomach, but the children could do nothing except peer through the windows at the celebrations within. White children and their parents, wearing their Sunday best, were eating and drinking, celebrating to the music of a band. Uneasy about the black children looking longingly through the windows, some of the whites threw fruit and sweets onto the ground outside, and the children scurried to pick the treats up from the dirt.