The Madonna of Excelsior (9 page)

The fact that there were other families in the location who had coloured children did not lessen the grief that Pule felt to the marrow of his bones.

“Who is the father of this child?” he wanted to know.

Niki dared not reveal Stephanus Cronje's name, in case Pule did
something silly. Like going to confront him at his Excelsior Slaghuis, where the man would be sure to gun Pule down. Stephanus Cronje was well known for drawing his gun at the slightest provocation. Like when a customer from Mahlatswetsa Location was foolish enough to complain that a piece of meat just purchased had a distinct stink of putrefaction. Madam Cornelia would say she had already rung the money in the till. There was no way of getting the money out once it was already in the till. If the customer insisted that he wanted a refund, Stephanus Cronje would whip out his gun and ask the customer to disappear from his sight. Sane customers never argued with guns.

Niki wondered how Stephanus Cronje was going to receive the news of Popi's birth. She had not seen him since the day she told him of her missed periods, her morning sickness and her cravings for damp soil and sunflower seeds. It was very clear to Niki that he was avoiding her.

“I have asked you a question,” said Pule calmly.

“I have already sinned, Father of Viliki,” wept Niki. “I will understand if you never want to have anything to do with me again.”

W
E SAW
Pule exiling himself into a world of silence. Those who worked with him in the mines of Welkom said the silence continued even there. So did the heavy drinking. We pointed fingers at Niki. How could she do this to a man who had shown so much responsibility towards his family? Other women could make excuses that their husbands had deserted their families after falling for the wily women of the big cities of gold—Welkom and Johannesburg. But Pule was well known throughout Mahlatswetsa for his devotion to his wife and son. We knew that even when he spent long periods without coming home, he never forgot to send Niki and Viliki money and beautiful clothes.

Mmampe, who was carrying a load in her womb herself as a result of the barn escapades, had an answer.

“What can we do?” she asked resignedly, “White men have always
loved us. They say we are more beautiful than their own wives. We are more devastating in the blankets.”

Oh, the burden of being loved! Of being devastating!

The news of Popi's arrival reached Johannes Smit, who bitterly boasted to Stephanus Cronje, “Even if you scored a bull's-eye, I had Niki first. Before any other man.”

But Stephanus Cronje was in no mood to rejoice over any bull's-eye. Or to engage in puerile contests. He was busy plotting ways to stop the news from reaching Cornelia's ears.

H
IS PURPLE SHOES
look like a ballerina's dance slippers. The broad brim of his purple hat covers his eyes. His face is downcast, as if he is contemplating the burnt sienna ground. His khaki pants are bulging at the pockets. One hand is in his pocket and another is holding a white umbrella. He is using the closed umbrella as a walking stick. His shoulders are raised high. His elbow-length purple sleeves hang loosely from his khaki waistcoat. The ground has streaks of green. White cosmos surround him.

The Man with the Umbrella walked hesitandy towards Niki's shack. Black piglets grunting around the corrugated-iron shack and speckled hens pecking at unseen morsels scattered in different directions at his approach. He used his umbrella to knock at the open corrugated-iron door.

Niki in a white doek, yellow blouse and black skirt sat on the bed, Popi nestling in her arms, a pacifier in her mouth. Although it was very hot under the low corrugated-iron roof, the baby's head was in a woollen cap. Only her round face could be seen.

“I thought I should warn you,” said the Man with the Umbrella,
“they are searching all over the district. From house to house. They follow every rumour.”

He was talking of the police. They had uncovered twelve light-skinned children who they claimed had mixed blood. They were already in jail with their black-skinned mothers. There was a doctor too. All the way from Bloemfontein. His work was to take blood tests and to confirm that the blood was indeed mixed.

Niki wondered how it was possible for the doctor to tell if the blood was mixed or not. Mixed with what? Was it not all red?

“They will come for you too,” said the Man with the Umbrella. “Take your baby away. Go hide in Thaba Nchu. Or better still, in Lesotho. I have heard that in Lesotho they don't mind when the child's blood is mixed. They are ruled by a black prime minister there. You must have relatives in Lesotho.”

It was difficult for Niki to take this whole matter seriously. Especially as the news came from a stranger with a white umbrella and funny shoes.

Thaba Nchu would give her no succour. The arm of the law was long enough to reach there. She would not exile herself to Lesotho either. She had never been there in her life. She knew that, like most Mahlatswetsa Location people, she had distant relatives in that country. But surely she could not just pack up and go. In any case, the one who had been wronged by her actions had forgiven her. Pule had said so in his letter: he had forgiven her because it was not for him to judge. Yes, he had not come back to Excelsior for eight months—not since he left the day after Niki's refusal to name the father of her coloured child. But after a few months' silence, which he spent digesting what had befallen him, he had explicitly written that he forgave her. He had become a mzalwane—a born-again Christian. We observed with mirth that Niki's infidelity had had a commendable by-product. It had driven him into the comforting arms of salvation.

If the one who had been wronged had forgiven her, what business
was it of the police? Why would the government not forgive her as well?

She was still not totally convinced of any imminent danger when the Man with the Umbrella pointed his funny shoes towards the door and left to warn others.

Niki carried Popi on her back, wrapped in a red and blue tartan shawl, and briskly walked to Mmampe's shack three streets away. Mmampe's ageing mother sat forlornly on the mud stoep in front of the door. She expressed her surprise at seeing Niki walking the free earth of Mahlatswetsa. Her own daughter and her lightskinned granddaughter were in jail. The police had come for them in the middle of the night. Three police vans in all. Each with five heavily-armed Afrikaner policemen. They kicked the door down and shone torches in the eyes of a startled Mmampe and her mother. Mercifully, they gave Mmampe the opportunity to put a dress on over her nightie, before they frogmarched her into the street with the bawling baby in her arms. They bundled Mmampe and the baby into the back of a van, ignoring the old lady's pleas that they leave the baby with her. There were already other women and babies in the van. They drove away in a triumphal convoy.

“Maria!” cried Niki. “I must warn Maria.”

“Maria and her baby boy were picked up the night before,” said Mmampe's mother.

“Why didn't anybody tell me?”

She did not wait for an answer. She scurried back to her shack. Like a field-mouse sensing a rainstorm.

She retrieved the brazier from the back of the shack where it had been gathering summer rust, waiting for its winter tasks of warming the house and cooking the food. She carefully placed dry grass and twigs at its base. She piled dry cow-dung on the twigs and ignited the dry grass.

While the fire was burning outside, she pumped the Primus stove and boiled a little water in a kettle. She poured the water into
a blue enamel washing basin, placed it on a grass mat and knelt next it, holding Popi's head over the steamy water. The baby cried as her mother worked up a rich lather of Lifebuoy Soap on her head. Her hair slid between Niki's fingers like green algae filaments. The top of the head was pulsating like a wild heartbeat. With a Minora razor blade, she shaved her daughter's little head clean. No stranger would know that the hair that belonged on that bald head was not black and matted. Not nappy. Not frizzy.

But Popi was still pink. They would see that she was of mixed blood.

Niki took the smoking brazier into the shack and placed it on the floor. She held a naked Popi above the fire, smoking the pinkness out of her. Both heat and smoke would surely brown her and no one would say she was a light-skinned child again. The baby whooped, then yelled, as the heat of the brazier roasted her little body and the smoke stung her eyes and nostrils. Cow-dung smoke is gentle in reasonable doses. But this was an overdose. There was so much that it made even Niki's eyes stream. She assured the baby that it was for her own good. She sang a lullaby as she swung her over the fire. Rocking her from side to side. Turning her round and round so that she would be browned on all sides. Evenly.

F
OR FIVE DAYS
, they did not come for Niki. The nights became too long to bear, for they were unaccompanied by sleep. Days were tiresome and teary, for she spent them hovering over a smoky brazier, browning her little girl. Singing lullabies and hoping the baby would get used to the heat and would stop crying so. Singing lullabies until the baby became red instead of brown. Until the baby's skin began to peel from her chest right up to her neck. Until the baby became truly coloured, with red and blue blotches all over.

Just when Niki was beginning to relax, and to brown Popi for shorter and shorter periods, the police pounced on her. Not in the night, but in the glare of the day when the whole world could see.
Two police vans stopped outside her shack. Four burly policemen wálked into the house and dragged her out. Her resistance had no effect. Popi dangled from her hand like a raggedy doll.

When Viliki came back from playing in the street the door was ajar, but there was no one at home. There was nothing to eat either. He sat outside, hoping that Niki would return soon. When darkness fell, he began to cry. Then he walked to Mmampe's home, three streets away. Mmampe's mother knew immediately what had happened. She gave him sugared water and a chunk of steamed wheat bread.

S
HADOWS SHIFTED
around, creating space for her to sit on a mat of grey blankets spread on the concrete floor. She could see their dark outlines vaguely. Shadows holding babies. Gurgling babies sitting on their laps. She could hear Popi crying as a warder walked away from the cell with her.

“Bring back my baby!” Niki screamed. “What are they going to do with my baby?”

“Don't worry, Niki,” one of the shadows said. “They will bring her back. They are taking her to be examined by the Bloemfontein doctor for traces of whiteness.”

It was Maria's voice. Niki's eyes were getting accustomed to the dimness. She could see Maria sitting near the toilet bucket, rocking her baby to sleep. The cell was too small for the ten women packed in it. They barely had enough room to sit with their legs outstretched. Niki knew most of them. Those she could not identify she suspected came from other towns. The sex ring had expanded to include women from farms in neighbouring districts such as Brandfort and Clocolan. Even Marquard, a hundred kilometres away.

“Where is Mmampe?” asked Niki.

“They took her to another cell,” said Maria.

Niki learnt that the warders had had to move Mmampe to another cell because the other women were threatening her with
grievous bodily harm. They accused her of exposing their activities to the police.

“How do you people know that Mmampe did that?” asked Niki indignantly. “Mmampe would never do anything like that.”

“She did! She did!” shouted the women in unison.

“Read her the newspaper, Susanna,” said Maria to one of the women.

The woman—Niki learnt later that she was a teacher at a farm school—took out a piece of paper from her deep cleavage. It was a cutting from
The Friend
newspaper. She shifted closer to the toilet bucket where there was better light. She read with histrionic panache:

The Minister of Justice, Mr P.C. Pelser, said that all kinds of rumours had been doing the rounds in Excelsior for some time before the police took action. As a result of this a police officer from Ladybrand had given instructions to a warrant officer at Excelsior to investigate the matter. On 21 October he had called a Bantu woman, Mmampe Ledimo, to the charge office and had questioned her. She had admitted that she had had relations with a certain White man. She had, however, added that she had not been the only non-White woman who had done this, and had mentioned a number of others. As a result of this information seven Whites and fourteen non-Whites had been arrested.

“I refuse to believe this nonsense!” said Niki, clearly unable to convince herself that she unreservedly disbelieved the report.

“It's right here in the newspaper in black and white,” a said the farm schoolmistress.

“A newspaper cannot lie,” added Maria.