The Madonna of Excelsior (7 page)

Now he had a stall at the Hennie de Wet Park where he sold his Excelsior Fine Cherry Liqueur. Another cause for snide remarks from the chauvinists of Ficksburg. How could Excelsior have a cherry liqueur when they did not grow any cherries? Shouldn't they be talking of a sunflower liqueur instead—if there could ever be such a thing?

Johannes Smit couldn't be bothered. Envy, that's all it was. They couldn't make as fine a cherry liqueur as his, so they opted for rubbishing him and his district, he concluded.

He sat at a vantage place where he could see all the parades go by. Next to his stall was one that sold biltong. This was Stephanus Cronje's biltong, also made with tender loving care at his Excelsior Slaghuis. Unlike the hands-on Johannes Smit, Stephanus Cronje did not man the stall himself. While he went from stall to stall sampling the pleasures of the festival in the form of cherry crumble, cherry pudding, koeksusters, braaiwors and brandy—with the likes of off-duty Sergeant Klein-Jan Lombard, Groot-Jan Lombard and the Reverend François Bornman—Niki looked after the stall. Niki in her pink overall and grass conical Basotho hat to protect her from the November sun.

She sat at a wooden table on which a variety of biltong and dry wors was displayed. Under a big red garden umbrella. Johannes Smit sat at a wooden table on which cherry liqueur bottles were displayed. Under a big blue and white garden umbrella. Each pretending the other one did not exist. Each fussing over customers who wanted to taste the potent liqueur or to chew the spiced biltong.

Not many people were buying at that moment. Everyone was more interested in the procession of floats led by the colourful team of donkey and boy. It was followed by a tractor pulling a trailer with bales of hay, on which a number of Afrikaner children
sat singing Afrikaans songs. The next float was also pulled by a tractor. It comprised a big red polythene cherry in a polythene bowl with all the colours of the rainbow in their proper order. All eyes were fixed on this float. On top of the cherry sat the Cherry Queen and her two princesses. The Cherry Queen was a twenty-one-year-old sashed blonde, chosen the previous night at the Andrew Marquard Hall by the mayors of Ficksburg and the surrounding cherry towns of Clocolan and Fouriesburg. The Cherry Queen was smiling and waving to her subjects. She was followed by a procession of polychromatic floats on tractor-trailers and lorries, like shapeless cakes in a confectionery. These were sponsored by local firms and cultural bodies, and sported the names of the sponsors prominently.

Johannes Smit had been at the Andrew Marquard Hall when the Administrator of the Orange Free State had crowned the Cherry Queen the previous night. He had been one of the boisterous whistlers rooting for her amid stiff competition from the beautiful Afrikaner girls of the region. The mayors had a good eye for beauty, choosing her from a bevy of twenty. He had been one of those who applauded loudly and wolf-whistled when the girl was handed her prize of vouchers for a two-week holiday trip to Durban and fifty rands pocket-money. Occasionally he had taken a swig from his flask of Klipdrift brandy. By the time Esme Euv-rard and her Spanish Troupe were entertaining the guests, he was already sloshed. He saw dimly that on the stage, radio personality Frans Jooste was compering. His head was spinning as people all around him laughed at Jooste's jokes.

Of course, Niki was seeing the Cherry Queen for the first time. She would not have been allowed into the Andrew Marquard Hall even if she had wanted to attend the pageant. The hall—named after the first principal of the volkskool—belonged only to the volk. And to those visitors whose bodies were blessed enough to have melanin levels that were as low as those of the volk.

Niki had no desire to attend the events at the Andrew Marquard Hall. She was happy with the street parades. With the local
high school band and smartly-uniformed drum majorettes that passed a few steps ahead of the donkey. With the Afrikaner school children in fancy dress and comic outfits. With the whole festive atmosphere. With the Gape Coon Carnival on the very first day of the festival on Thursday. That had been funny!

She heard that it was the first time these banjo-strumming minstrels from Cape Town had performed in the Orange Free State. The satin-clad minstrels carried with pride the derogatory name they had inherited from American performers—Negroes, as they called them then—who had visited the Cape in the 1800s. The Cape Coons revelled in the coon image and cherished it. Their faces were painted black with exaggerated white lips. Or white with exaggerated black lips. They wore white panama hats and suits of shimmering red and white. Yellow and white. Purple and white. Matching umbrellas. They were strumming
Daar Kom die Alibama
—singing about the ship that their slave ancestors thought was coming to save them, only to witness it sink in the stormy seas.

The antics of the Cape Coons had made her laugh so much that she had forgotten her concern for Viliki. She had left him with her friend, Mmampe, for the duration of the festival. She knew he would be safe, even though she had never before left him with neighbours for so many days. The entertainment had even enabled her to shelve her constant thoughts about Pule. Her deep longing for him. The emptiness that his long absence caused. The fact that even on those rare occasions when he came home, he was drifting more and more into the murky moods of her dead father. The control. The drinking. The jealousy. Niki should not be seen walking on the same side of the street as a man. But Pule had his beauty as well. He never stopped supporting his family.

After the procession of floats had left the park for the streets, Johannes Smit—his head pounding from last night's drums—turned to Niki. For the first time in the three days of the festival. “Give me a stick of biltong,” he said without looking at her. “How much is it?”

Niki told him. He bought a stick.

Silence again.

Then out of the blue he asked, “Where are you going to sleep tonight?”

“Where I always sleep.”

“And where is that?”

“What is it to you?”

“I want to visit you.”

“Don't you ever give up? I don't want you! I don't want to have anything to do with you!” said Niki vehemently.

“You seem to forget that you are my sleeping partner,” said Johannes Smit with a dirty smirk on his face. “Me and you, we go a long way back. To our days in the sunflower fields. Surely you cannot forget that you ate my money. I gave you enough chance to get rid of your wildness. Tonight is the night.”

Niki did not respond. She feared that Hairy Buttocks would find out that she was sleeping in a primary school classroom in the black township of Marallaneng where all the out-of-town servants slept, and he would go there and carry out his threat.

When Stephanus Cronje finally showed up late that afternoon, Niki told him that she wanted to get on a bus and go back to Excelsior. After all, tomorrow was the last day of the festival. Everybody would be packing up.

“And who will pack up when you are gone?” asked Stephanus Cronje.

“Ask her what she is running away from,” said Johannes Smit.

“He has threatened to come and get me at night,” cried Niki.

Stephanus Cronje turned red.

“What for?” he asked. “Why?”

“She is my padkos—my provision for the road,” said Johannes Smit boastfully.

“Is that true, Niki? Is it true?” asked Stephanus Cronje. He was highly agitated.

Once more, Niki took refuge in silence. She busied herself by packing the biltong into a box. Then she took it to her boss's bakkie, which was parked a few metres away. Stephanus Cronje
folded up the umbrella and the table and loaded them into the bakkie. Then he barked at Niki to get into the bakkie.

“I am going to get her when we return to Excelsior,” said Johannes Smit as Stephanus Cronje drove away with his prize. Then he packed his cherry liqueur into boxes and loaded them into his bakkie. He walked to the far end of the Hennie de Wet Park to while away time watching the dogs from the Kroonstad prison warders' training school as their brown-uniformed handlers put them through their paces. They were demonstrating how they tracked down and attacked criminals. He found no pleasure in their sniffing around, following the trails of hidden objects. Even the music of the tartans of the Bloemfontein Caledonian Pipe Band, which accompanied the Highland and country dances, did not soothe his troubled soul.

Meanwhile Stephanus Cronje was driving around the streets of Ficksburg aimlessly, with Niki by his side. His brow and nose were glistening with tiny drops of sweat. He was hyperventilating. All the while he was asking, “Is it true, Niki? Did you do things with that Johannes Smit?”

Niki had no intention of answering this question.

“Dammit, Niki,” he said frantically, “it is me you should be doing things with, not that Johannes Smit.”

Niki just smiled. Stephanus Cronje knew that she was ready and willing. He became brave.

Night had fallen when he drove to a fallow field on the outskirts of town. And on the grass that grew at its borders, she peeled off her pink overall. The same overall she had peeled off on that afternoon of shame. While Johannes Smit was seething at the Cherry Ball, sickened by the aura of excitement and romance that permeated the Town Hall, all dressed-up in a tuxedo without a dance partner, Stephanus Cronje was relieving Niki of her undergarments. While Johannes Smit watched enviously as Adam de Vries and Lizette executed a clinical waltz, followed by the two Lombards, each partnered by the young blood of Ficksburg, Stephanus Cronje and Niki were rolling on the grass.

He was deep inside her. Under the stars. She looked into his eyes in the light of the moon. She did not see Stephanus Cronje, owner of Excelsior Slaghuis. She did not see a boss or a lover. She saw Madam Cornelia's husband. And he was inside her. She was gobbling up Madam Cornelia's husband, with the emphasis on
Madam
. And she had him entirely in her power. Chewing him to pieces. She felt him inside her, pumping in and out. Raising a sweat. Squealing like a pig being slaughtered. Heaving like a dying pig.

Ag, shame. Madam Cornelia's husband. She who had the power of life and death over her. He became a whimpering fool on top of her, babbling insanities that she could not make out. Then there was the final long scream, “Eina-naaa!” A dog's howl at the moon. And two sharp jerks. It was all over. His body had vomited inside hers.

He was in control again. He had the power of life and death.

T
HE ONE
in front has big feet. Big brown feet with grey toenails. Five toes on each foot. An occasional departure from the trinity's norm. Feet and toes! She wears a grey knee-length dress and a grey beret. Her sad face is black and her eyes are cast down to the red ground. Her gaunt posture hides the fact that she is a leader. She leads four women in their prime. A woman in a red blanket and red slippers. A grey crocheted hat on a brown head. She has bedroom eyes, and she walks sideways. Her feet point in the direction from which she comes.

She is followed by the one who has thin legs. Grey legs without feet. The only one carrying a baby. There is a softness about her. Soft yellow blanket. Soft grey baby wrapped in a soft yellow blanket. The baby wears a soft grey woollen cap and the mother a soft grey beret. The mother is not really carrying the baby. The baby stands on the palm of her hand. The brown woman behind her holds out her open hand so that it can support the weight of the baby. The brown woman's bare feet point to where she is going. Forwards. She has only three toes. The last woman faces sideways, giving us her back. Giving us her bare heels. Her grey dress has
a matching broad figure-belt. She wears a grey doek. Her black face is turned to the other women. She is looking in the direction they are all going. Her hands are raised to the heavens as if in supplication.

Five women sneaked into the barn. Five supplicants walking into a wanton temple. When they left their homes, they were going to collect cow-dung in the veld. And everyone knew that. Cow-dung in the fields and not in a big barn built of corrugated-iron sheets. There was no cow-dung in the barn. But here they were, walking gingerly on the hay that carpeted the floor. Bales of hay were stacked in one corner. Some were scattered around on the floor. Creating little havens of joy. Five men sat on some of the bales. Five men in khaki shorts or grey wash ‘n' wear pants. Five men drinking Johannes Smit's cherry liqueur. Two bottles from the ten that were not sold at the festival. Johannes Smit, threatening to burst out of his grey safari suit. Johannes Smit, proudly serving the dark liquid in beer and coffee mugs. He was the host. This was his barn on his farm. His territory. The four men and five women were his guests.

He had made elaborate arrangements for this gathering of the partakers of stolen delicacies—to the extent that he had neglected some of his crucial duties. He had, for instance, left his cows at the mercy of summer pastures. Even though he knew that cows needed to be fed green-coloured legume hay in order to maintain high milk yields. Even though he was aware that cows start preparing for their next lactation as soon as they are dried off. The gathering in the barn was more important than dry cows. More important than his docile Brahmin cattle, three of which were loitering outside the barn, collecting strands of hay with their tongues and dispatching them to their stomachs.