The Madonna of Excelsior (5 page)

It was like that every Sunday.

Today Niki was going to another church, the one in town. A distance of twenty minutes at an easy pace. Fifteen minutes if she didn't have someone slowing her down. The Reverend François Bornman's beautiful church built of sandstone and roofed with black slate. Everyone said it was shaped like hands in prayer, but Niki did not see any of that. Often she had tried to work out how exactly the strange architecture translated into hands in anything, let alone prayer.

She got there just as the final bell was tolling. She was right on time for the service. Worshippers in colourful floral dresses and grey suits were scurrying into the church. Some betrayed the fact that they were first-time visitors by pausing to read the inscription on a marble panel next to the door:
Tot Eer van God is hierdie steen gelê dew Ds J.G. Strydom, Jehova Shamma, Die Woning van God, Ezfich 48–35B
. In honour of God, this stone was laid by J.G. Strydom—the Lion of the North who was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1954 to 1958, and made certain that he did not make equal what God had not made equal. He who confirmed to his people:
As a Calvinist people we Afrikaners have, in accordance with our faith in the Word of God, developed a policy condemning all equality and mongrelisation between
White and Black. God's Word teaches us, after all, that He willed into being separate nations, colours and languages
. The house of God.

Niki and Viliki stood outside the gate where they would remain for the rest of the service. It was the nagmaal service, so named after the days when Afrikaners trekked from their distant farms into the towns every few months to attend the evening service in which rites of the Last Supper—the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine—were revisited. Niki was able to catch waves of what was going on inside the church, and she became part of it. She joined the Afrikaners in singing about God's amazing grace that was also very sweet. The red amaryllis—belladonna lilies indigenous to this part of the world—attested to this grace. And so did the clean paved surroundings, sanctified by the organ that backed the angelic voices. The amaryllis bowed their heads along the knee-high wrought-iron fence that surrounded the church. Niki and Viliki bowed their heads too. They stood up when it was time for standing up. They sat when it was time for sitting. She listened attentively to the Reverend Bornman's booming sermon. She was uplifted by St Paul's letter to the Corinthians:
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing
. Praise the Lord that the door had been mercifully left open so that her ears could feast on His Word!

Thus she became part of the Great Fellowship.

All this solemnity bored Viliki. He broke away from the holy rites. While Niki sang the Afrikaans hymns, he clambered on the sandstone column near the gate, and traced with his forefinger the names engraved on the marble panel. Under the heading:
Eeufees Ossewatrek 22 Oct. 1938
was a list of the names of the distinguished citizens of Excelsior who had participated in the wonderful commemoration of the centenary of the Great Trek. They were among a group of Afrikaners who re-enacted the great event of 1838 by trekking from Cape Town into the interior of South Africa with ox-wagons. Viliki's reading skills were not advanced enough to decipher some of the prominent surnames in the district.

Niki sat, stood and bowed her head—as the ceremony demanded
—through the Bible readings and the paeans and the sharing of bread and wine. In spirit she devoured the body of Christ and imbibed His blood. She listened to the announcements and sang the final hymn.

Then the church's hands opened up, and spilled a flood of rejuvenated worshippers onto the fulfilled paving. Niki could see the Reverend François Bornman shaking hands with his flock, who were obviously congratulating him on an inspiring sermon. The Reverend Bornman in his shimmering black suit and snow-white tie. There was Johannes Smit in an ill-fitting brown suit cracking a joke with the doddering farmer, Groot-Jan Lombard. Smit did not seem to be aware that his beer belly had grown bigger and that he therefore needed clothes a few sizes larger. Niki was glad that he no longer bothered her. Maybe he had found someone else to be obsessed with. There was Sergeant Klein-Jan Lombard and his wife, Liezl, shaking hands with the Reverend. There was Adam de Vries and his wife, Lizette, walking out of the gate to their house, which was just behind the church.

Adam de Vries always had a kind word for everyone. As he passed Niki, he smiled and asked, “Did you enjoy the service?”

“It was good, my baas,” responded Niki.

There was Stephanus Cronje, his wife, Cornelia, and their son Tjaart. Seven-year-old Tjaart looked like a grown-up in a navy blue suit, white shirt and grey tie. He saw Niki and Viliki at the gate, and ran to join them.

“So, what are we going to do?” he asked.

“I don't know,” said Niki. “You'll think of something.”

“I know!” said Tjaart excitedly. “You can carry me on your back.”

“No, I will not do that.”

“Come on, Niki! Horsey-horsey!”

“Never!”

The boy sulked. Viliki wondered why his mother had lost interest in Tjaart's horsey-horsey game and why she never played it with her own son.

After shaking hands with the Reverend, and with a few friends, Stephanus Cronje and Cornelia went to the gate.

“It was a beautiful service, wasn't it?” said Stephanus Cronje.

“It was very beautiful,” said Niki.

“We are grateful you agreed to look after Tjaart even though it's a Sunday,” said Madam Cornelia.

“We'll make it worth your while,” added Stephanus Cronje.

They walked to their Chevrolet across the street and drove away to a volkskongres—a people's congress—which was going to be addressed by a cabinet minister in the neighbouring town of Clo-colan.

P
ULE SAT
on the bed motionlessly, staring at the door. Like a wild cat waiting to pounce on its prey. His head almost touched the roof because the bed had been raised with big paint cans filled with soil to make it more imposing than it really was. And to create enough room under it for the two suitcases that were full of clothes and bedlinen. The double bed with a velveteen-covered headboard dominated the room, making a green “kitchen scheme” table with three chairs cower at one corner, and a small pine cupboard with plates, pots and utensils crouch at another.

Even as Niki entered, leaving the boys to play outside, she was apologising for being late. Three o'clock and he had not eaten lunch yet. She had had to go to the church in town because her employers wanted her to look after their son, she explained. She had had to go to Stephanus Cronje's house first to feed Tjaart and to make him change his church clothes. She was supposed to look after the boy at his home. But she just had to come back because she knew that her husband would be hungry too.

He did not respond. He just sat there and expanded like a bullfrog. Niki imagined him exploding into smithereens. And her picking up the pieces. A different kind of an explosion to the one that happened whenever their bodies were bound together. She was getting used to a sulky Pule. They had been married for over four
years now, and he came home from the mines of Welkom every long weekend. He had gradually lost his humour. His face had become harder and colder with every visit. After being drained by gold, he brought back to Excelsior a body that had gone dry of smiles.

“I'll fry you eggs quickly,” said Niki.

Still he did not speak.

She pumped the Primus stove and fried him two eggs in an old pan that was twisted and wobbly. She served him the eggs with four slices of bread on a china plate. The white Sunday plate with blue pagodas and blue boats and blue pagoda-trees and blue dragons. Weekday plates were enamel plates. With great deliberation and ceremony he stood up from the bed, went to the “kitchen scheme” table, took the plate of food and smashed it on the floor. Eggs and bits of china spattered all over the cow-dung floor.

“It is Sunday today,” he shouted. “Every working man in South Africa is eating meat and rice for lunch. And even beetroot. What happened to the meat I brought from Welkom? You are not even ashamed to serve me this rubbish on a Sunday plate! Why am I not eating meat like all decent human beings?”

“I thought you would be too hungry to wait for meat,” pleaded Niki.

“For whom were you planning to cook that meat when I am gone back to Welkom tomorrow? For your boyfriends?”

She did not answer. Instead she reached for a broom and tried to sweep up the mess on the floor.

“Ja, so it is true! You are hoarding my meat for your boyfriends!”

Niki was getting irritated. She had always been faithful to Pule. Now he was assigning motives again. That was the major problem in their marriage. Whenever she did something he did not like, however innocently, he assigned a motive for her actions. And however much she denied his accusations, the assigned motive would stick. It would be the gospel truth as far as he was concerned.
He never tried to find out from her the reasons for her actions. He knew exactly why she did whatever she did. And the motives he concocted were always sinister. She was always plotting some evil. Anthills became mountains when one was always suspicious of the motivations of the other. Shadows of bushes in the moonlight became assassins.

Only six months ago, he had promised that he would never do it again.

Six months ago she had come home late from work. Stephanus Cronje's unpaid overtime. Pule decided there and then that she was late because she had been sleeping with white men. “Stories are told of black maids who sleep with their white masters,” he said. “You must be one of them.”

She pleaded her innocence. She tried to hold him in her arms to assure him that she would never do such a thing. But he violently pushed her away and slapped her, shouting, “Get away from me! You smell of white men!”

She was Johannes Smit in Pule's eyes. She saw the uncontrollable yellowness of the sunflower fields. There was the overwhelming smell of Johannes Smit in the shack. Tears swelled in her eyes as she packed her clothes and Viliki's into a plastic bag. She then left with her son to live with relatives in Thaba Nchu.

Pule remained stewing in misery. He really loved Niki and he missed her. He went back to the mines of Welkom. And then returned to an empty shack. He sent his relatives to Thaba Nchu to plead with Niki to come back. He made endless promises and undertakings that he would never hit her again.

Niki finally decided to go back to her husband. Till death do us part. There was no one at home. She had her own key. Deep in the night he came home singing spiritedly. A drunken female voice accompanied his song. A woman he had picked up at some shebeen as his provision for the night. Take-aways. One-night stress-relief. Balm to a hurting soul. He opened the door without wondering why he had left it unlocked. He struck a match and lit the candle. He uttered one sharp curse. Niki was sitting at the
“kitchen scheme” table. Viliki was dozing on the bed. He was up in no time.

“I am leaving you, Pule, and this time it is going to be forever,” cried Niki.

“Please, Niki, don't go,” Pule pleaded. “There is nothing between this woman and me. I don't even know her name.”

“But you were going to sleep with her, weren't you? On my bed too!”

“You scoundrel you!” the other woman shouted at Pule. “You didn't tell me you had a letekatse—a whore—waiting for you at home!”

Niki grabbed Viliki's hand and made to go. Pule closed the door with his huge frame and begged her not to go. The other woman, sensing victory, added her own view that she should indeed go.

“I'll stay only if you hit your girlfriend,” Niki finally said.

Both Pule and the other woman looked at Niki in astonishment.

“Come on, beat her up,” Niki demanded.

“Beat her up? But she has not done anything.”

“I had not done anything either when you slapped me,” said Niki calmly.

“I can't just beat her up, Niki,” protested Pule.

“You just try to beat me up, you'll see the eyes of a worm,” threatened the other woman. She was nevertheless reversing towards the door.

Pule slapped her twice. She ran out screaming that people were trying to kill her for nothing. She stood outside, a safe distance from the shack, and hurled insults at the couple, for all the neighbourhood to hear. She was emphatic that it was Pule's loss, because not even in his dreams would he ever taste what she had been going to give him. When it seemed no one was paying her any attention, she finally walked away, still yelling things about their private parts that would render the innocent deaf.

Pule had on that night promised he would stop blaming her for things she knew nothing about. And so she and Viliki had stayed.

But Pule did not keep his promise. Here he was again assigning motives.

“Now you tell me that I have boyfriends. Did you give them to me?” asked Niki in a sarcastic tone.

Viliki led Tjaart into the house, enticed by the prospect of war.

“They are going to fight,” said Viliki to Tjaart.

“Who is going to win?” asked Tjaart, looking forward to a good boxing match.

“Papa is going to win. Then we'll leave him and go to Thaba Nchu where we'll stay in a real house and not a shack,” said Viliki, looking forward to another long journey.

He felt very important. Very superior. After all, he allowed the big white boy to share his mother. The big white boy could boast about his bicycle, which he promised to let Viliki ride when he grew older. He too had something to boast about: his mother. When he grew older, he would ride Tjaart's bicycle while Tjaart rode his mother. And now here was another thing to feel superior about: he was going to entertain Tjaart to the spectacle of a fight between his parents.