The Colour of Gold (21 page)

"Okay. I'll
meet him when he's ready." Bogdan said. "As long as we can trust
him and there's money to be made."

***

"I think that
I've found someone who can supply us with the parts that we need to
make the pipe bombs." Isaiah said to Shadow as they stood under a
large blue gum tree in the buffer zone between Johannesburg and
Soweto. "He's a white man who works as a buyer on the mine and I've
been told that he's on the take, buying and selling stolen goods
and arranging for illegal things to be delivered to his
clients."

"Can we trust
him?" Shadow asked.

"Yes." Isaiah
said. "And the reason I say that is because he's having a sexual
affair with a black woman friend of mine while his wife's overseas.
I borrowed a camera from one of the men in my compound and took a
few days off from work and took these photographs. I was amazed at
how open the two were despite the fact that what they are doing is
against the law and could land them in jail. They don't even bother
to close the curtains of the bedroom. Here. Have a look at these.
If we show him these his trust will be assured."

Isaiah handed
Shadow a wad of black and white prints. He studied them one by
one.

"These are very
good." he said. "Their faces are clearly recognisable. How did you
get them without being seen?"

"As I said, I
took a few days off work and watched the house and those next to
it. There are thick hedges between the houses so the neighbours
weren't likely to see me if I approached the house." Isaiah said.
"Then I borrowed some garden tools from the garden maintenance
department and pretended to be working in the guy's garden. When I
was sure that nobody could see me I went to the window and
carefully looked in. The curtains were wide open and I could
clearly see the two having sex on the bed. I quickly took as many
pictures as I could and left. To my surprise they came out much
clearer than I thought they would."

"Have you got
the film?" Shadow asked.

"Yes. I've get
it here with me." Isaiah said. "I think that you should keep it
though. It'll be safer in your shack."

"Yes. That's a
good idea." Shadow said. "When you meet the whitey and show him the
photographs, make sure that you tell him that the film's with
someone else just in case he wants to get violent. What's the guy's
name?"

"Bogdan
Vodnik." Isaiah replied.

***

Bala Desai
showed Fatima the official notification that had he'd found slipped
under the front door when they arrived home from the shop at the
Oriental Plaza earlier. It informed them of their forced removal to
Lenasia, thirty five kilometres south of Johannesburg in four weeks
time.

"I don't know
what we're going to do." Bala said as they sat at the kitchen
table. They had eaten their supper and Salona had gone to bed.
"Even though most of our customers have remained loyal to us the
income that we're getting only just pays the shop's rent and our
living expenses. We just cannot afford to travel seventy kilometres
to work and back every day."

"We came to
Johannesburg with such high hopes and the government is destroying
them all." Fatima said. "Sometimes I wish that we'd stayed in
Durban. At least you had a steady job there."

Bala
nodded.

"Yes." he said.
"When we arrived here and I saw this house and the shop I thought
that uncle Rajesh had left us a wonderful opportunity. Now it looks
like it will destroy us."

"If only the
shop's rental wasn't so high." Fatima said. "Or there were more
shoppers. The ready-made clothes that we're offering are selling
well in other stores in the city because there are lots of shoppers
there."

"Yes." Bala
said. "The shop is just too big for our needs. There is too much
wasted space. Unfortunately there's nothing smaller. Misses Dadoo
is trying her best to help but her job is to make the Centre as
profitable as possible and it's beyond her responsibilities to
lower the rents. She has to enforce the leases. If she doesn't,
she'll lose her job."

"And then the
government will hire a white official who doesn't care about our
problems at all." Fatima said.

"Misses Dadoo
tells me that there is a group of Indian businessmen who want to
take over the Oriental Plaza from the government." Bala said. "But
even if the government agrees, it will take years for them to
improve the situation and by that time it will be too late to help
us."

Bala and Fatima
sat in silence, too frustrated to speak. The obstacles that the
government had forced on them seemed insurmountable. Eventually
Fatima spoke.

"How will we
get from Lenasia to work and back?" she asked. "We are only just
making ends meet now. The extra expense will kill us."

"Most of the
people that I've spoken to that have already moved to Lenasia have
arranged car pools but as we don't own a car we can't participate."
Bala said. "We'll have to travel by train. A taxi would be far too
expensive. Lenasia is thirty kilometres from here. The other thing
is that Salona is due to start school shortly and the government
has decreed that Indian students may only go to school in their own
areas. There's no way that Salona can travel to Lenasia every day
on her own."

"Yes." Fatima
said, nodding. "Just another way to force us to go to Lenasia."

Bala and Fatima
sat in silence, too frustrated at their helplessness to speak. The
obstacles that the government was forcing on them seemed
insurmountable.

Instinctively
Bala wanted to fight back, despite the impossible odds stacked
against him but as he sat in the silent kitchen reason began to
prevail. He realised that he had to consider the two people in his
life that he loved so dearly; Fatima and Salona, both of whom were
totally dependent on him. If anything happened to him, they would
be totally lost.

As if she had
read his thoughts, Fatima placed her hand gently on Bala's arm.

"Bala, my
dearest." she said, her eyes filled with worry. "I want you to
promise me something. No matter what the government forces us to
do, please don't try to fight it. The government is too big and
powerful. Salona and I both love you dearly and we wouldn't be able
to face the future without you. Will you promise me that you won't
do anything that would take you away from us?"

Bala sat in
silence, staring at the table top in front of him. He felt the
anger and hatred that he had for the white government and its
supporters slowly dissipate. He felt an inner strength well up
within him. He would succeed, he told himself, regardless of what
the government threw at them. He was better than they were and he
would show them that they couldn't beat him. He would overcome the
obstacles that they forced on him and he would do it peacefully. He
put his hand on Fatima's.

"I promise you,
my dearest." he said, looking into his wife's loving eyes. "We will
succeed in spite of what the whites are doing to us and we'll do it
without confrontation. We are better than them and we'll prove
it."

Bala saw the
relief in Fatima's eyes.

"On Saturday
after we've closed the shop we'll take a train to Lenasia and look
at what's in store for us when we move. Then we'll start making
plans to adjust to what faces us. Fear of the unknown is a
debilitating thing. Until we know what we have to overcome there's
very little that we can do."

***

Bala, Fatima
and Salona walked through the gateway in the security fence that
surrounded the Lenz station. They stared, appalled, at the scene
that confronted them. Rows of orange painted army barracks faced
onto dusty streets and beyond these depressing buildings hundreds
of tin shanties stretched out over the flat, treeless
neighbourhood. There were also rows of unfinished little brick
houses known as "two-room houses" that consisted of two bedrooms, a
kitchen and a living area. These little houses were the
"government" RPD houses that were being built for the Indians who
were to be forcibly moved from the so-called "white" areas where
they had lived for generations. Very few of these houses had yet
been completed and those Indians who had already been moved were
being accommodated in the army barracks of what used to be the Lenz
Military Base.

The area, now
known as Lenasia, had originally belonged to a farmer by the name
of Mister Lenz and when he sold the farm to the government it had
been turned into a military base. Finally the Nationalist
government had rezoned the land under the Group Areas Act for the
habitation of Indians and named the suburb "Lenasia".

"Are we coming
to live here?" Salona asked, her face filled with worry.

"Yes, my
dearest." Fatima said. "But it's not as bad as it looks. It will
take us some time to settle in but once that's done we'll be very
happy here."

Bala could see
that Salona wasn't convinced.

"Once all the
houses have been built it will be just like a real town." he said.
"We will just have to be patient. They are also building a brand
new school. Won't it be exciting to go to a brand new school?"

"I suppose so."
Salona said.

"Anyway, let's
go and look around." Bala said. "The more we know about Lenasia the
easier it will be to adjust."

Bala led his
family along one of the dusty roads. The poverty and degradation
was depressing but he kept on reminding himself that things could
only get better. What they were now seeing was probably Lenasia at
its worse.

Bala stopped
and addressed a man sitting on the doorstep of one of the
barracks.

"Excuse me,
sir." he said. "We're going to be coming to live here shortly. At
the moment we're living in Pageview but the government will be
moving us in four weeks time. What can we expect when we get
here?"

"If you haven't
bought a property on freehold land and built your own house you'll
be settled in one of these barracks." the man said. "They're single
rooms with a small kitchen but they're only supposed to be used
temporarily. Once the government completes the RDP houses you'll be
allocated one. They've got two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living
area. After that, if you can arrange financing or are wealthy
enough, you can buy freehold land and build your own house. At the
moment the government is far behind schedule with the construction
of the two room houses but I imagine that when they're completed
thing won't be as bad as they look now."

Bala thanked
the man and the trio continued along the road. They reached one of
the almost-completed two-room houses. The structure was built of
large grey cinder blocks with a sloping asbestos roof. Inside were
two small bedrooms on either side of the front door, a tiny
kitchen, a bathroom and another small room that Bala assumed was
the living room. An outside toilet stood forlornly in the small
backyard. The workmanship appeared to be shoddy and the taps and
other fitting were cheap-looking.

"Well, it's no
smaller than our house in Pageview." Bala said, trying to be
optimistic. "And, as that man said, once all the houses have been
completed and the roads tarred it will look a lot better than it
does now."

Bala and Fatima
couldn't help feeling depressed as they walked away from the little
house. They ventured further into the vast estate. They found the
beginnings of a small shopping centre and further on they came to
an already completed and functional school, although there were as
yet no sports fields or other facilities. They stopped to speak to
the occupants of an already-completed "two-room" house.

"The houses
aren't too bad." the man said. "I suppose it depends on what you
were living in before. We lived in a small house in lower Pageview
that was made of corrugated iron sheeting so this house is much
better. My only complaint is that we're now living amongst
strangers. All my life I've lived amongst people that I knew and
cared about but now all my neighbours are strangers. Although we
will get to know each other eventually, the adjustment is quite
traumatic."

"What about the
facilities like water and electricity?" Fatima asked.

"At the moment
there are constant interruptions." the man's wife said." This is
because of the ongoing construction in the area. Every time the
engineers have to test a new installation the water or the
electricity goes off."

"What about the
future of Lenasia?" Bala asked. "Is it going to work?"

The man
shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows?" he
said. "The fact is that we really have no option. It has to work.
But it's up us to make it successful. The government won't do
anything more than what they have to. The problem is time. How long
will it take for Lenasia to become an established suburb? I hope
it'll be during my lifetime."

"What about the
shops?" Bala asked. "We saw a small shopping centre being built and
a few other small individual shops."

"Shops have
been allocated to those who have applied." the man said. "But the
government is focusing on the houses and only once they've been
completed will the shops be built. But there are quite a few shops
here. Mainly small shops selling groceries that belong to people
who can't afford to travel to Jo'burg every day. The big shopping
chains will only come in later once Lenasia is established. What
we're doing is trying to visualise all these houses with nice
gardens, tarred roads, streetlights and lots of people. If you can
do that the future looks much better."

"Yes." Bala
said. "I suppose that's the way to look at the whole thing. It's
going to take time but in the end it will probably be a great
success."

***

Bala and Fatima
travelled back to their house in silence, each trying to come to
terms with what faced them. Salons stood at the train's window,
staring at the vast metropolis of Soweto as it drifted past the
speeding train. They walked from the Braamfontein to their Pageview
home and Fatima made supper. Once the meal had been eaten and
Salona was tucked up in bed Bala and Fatima sat down at the kitchen
table to discuss the afternoon's venture.