Sometimes There Is a Void (32 page)
Read Sometimes There Is a Void Online
Authors: Zakes Mda
Unlike my fellow artists who were happy just being artists, I yearned
desperately for a formal qualification. It didn't matter what it was or how much recognition it had, as long as it allowed me to put the letters after my name. That was one reason I had previously attempted the courses of the College of Preceptors in London â on qualifying I would have been an Associate of the College of Preceptors, or ACP, and would continue with them until I became a Fellow, with an FCP after my name.
desperately for a formal qualification. It didn't matter what it was or how much recognition it had, as long as it allowed me to put the letters after my name. That was one reason I had previously attempted the courses of the College of Preceptors in London â on qualifying I would have been an Associate of the College of Preceptors, or ACP, and would continue with them until I became a Fellow, with an FCP after my name.
I came from a family of learned people where degrees were valued for their own sake. Even if I were to sell lots of paintings and make millions of rands, there would still be a gaping hole in my life that could only be filled by a university degree. And of course I was not making the millions. I could barely survive. Once in a while I would sell a painting but the money would not be enough to pay rent. I was still renting a room on the outskirts of Maseru, at Qoaling, where I lived with Mpho and the kids. Occasionally I had to borrow money from my mother who was then working as a registered nurse at Holy Cross Clinic, a Roman Catholic mission station in southern Lesotho. I was too ashamed to ask for assistance from my father.
One day an artist from Pretoria, an old white man called Walter Battiss, paid a visit to the Lesotho Museum that Leabua Jonathan had established in Maseru. What impressed me about him, besides his very unconventional looks with his mane of white hair and flamboyant style of dressing â a flowing white caftan â was the fact that he was not just an exuberant abstract painter but a scholar of art. Indeed, he had retired from a professorship of art at the University of South Africa a year or so before. I was in awe of artists who were also academics because they were not the sort of people one usually met in our circles. He was a Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters (IIAL), a learned society in Switzerland, and I wanted to see letters of that type follow my name as well. So, Walter Battiss introduced me to artists in Switzerland who were operating the distance learning International Academy of Arts and Letters. They were financed by the International University Exchange Fund which was in turn funded by the Swedish government.
You may remember the IUEF as the organisation that was infiltrated by the South African master-spy Craig Williams in the 1980s
â long after my association with them, I must add. He had inveigled the Swedish director Lars Eriksson into appointing him to the staff, and reached the high position of deputy director where he was able to gather information on the South African students whose scholarships were being sponsored by the organisation. He was also able to carry out a wide operation of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of South African refugees and political activists in Europe from the offices of the IUEF. When he was exposed as a spy of the apartheid government, the IUEF had to close down. But that is another story, and if you want more of it visit the documents of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
â long after my association with them, I must add. He had inveigled the Swedish director Lars Eriksson into appointing him to the staff, and reached the high position of deputy director where he was able to gather information on the South African students whose scholarships were being sponsored by the organisation. He was also able to carry out a wide operation of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of South African refugees and political activists in Europe from the offices of the IUEF. When he was exposed as a spy of the apartheid government, the IUEF had to close down. But that is another story, and if you want more of it visit the documents of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The Lesotho representative of the IUEF was a friend of my father's, Abner Chele. He handled the funds and paid all the fees for South African refugee children who were attending the various high schools in Lesotho and the local university. He recommended that the IUEF in Geneva pay directly to the Swiss academy and I was able to study while I struggled to make a living. At least the IUEF purchased all the art materials for my school projects, but of course most of the materials were used for the paintings that I peddled to the tourists.
On completing my studies, Sister Arnadene Bean, the principal of Mabathoana High School who hailed from Oregon in the USA, gave me a job as an assistant teacher of Literature in English. The salary was two hundred and forty rands a month, a far cry from the twenty-five rands a month I was earning from OK Mofolo. I had never had so much money in my life, and of course I immediately put it to good use drinking with the civil servants at Lancer's Inn and at some of the more up-scale shebeens, rather than at the pineapple and hops home-brew joints I used to patronise with Mr Dizzy.
In addition to Mr Dizzy and Clement Sima Kobo â the Lesotho High School teacher we called Clemoski â my circle of drinking buddies increased to include Thabo Sithathi, an aspiring lawyer who was reviled by everyone else as a South African spy while they continued to associate with him, Sol Manganye â Bra Sol â who taught commercial subjects at Lesotho High School and was also a PAC activist exiled from Lady Selbourne in Pretoria, and Mxolisi Ngoza, a thoroughly gay man who
was my colleague at Mabathoana where he taught mathematics. These were my Maseru friends.
was my colleague at Mabathoana where he taught mathematics. These were my Maseru friends.
Whenever I visited home in Mafeteng I continued my drunken association with Litsebe Leballo, Peter Masotsa and my mentor Ntlabathi Mbuli.
The other two Mafeteng guys who had been promoted into my ever-widening circle were my brothers, the twins Monwabisi and Sonwabo. But Sonwabo, also called Thabo, was at the Lerotholi Technical College in Maseru studying technical drawing and Monwabisi, as I said, was in Edinburgh. My other siblings, my sister Thami and the last born in the family, Zwelakhe, were still living with our father in Mafeteng, but I did not socialise with them when I was there because there was quite a wide age-gap between us and we didn't have much in common to talk about. In any event, I didn't have a reason to go to Mafeteng that often, especially with my mother now living seventy kilometres away at Holy Cross; I had it made in Maseru in my new job and I wanted for nothing.
The nuns gave me a fully furnished four-roomed house next to the junior block and opposite the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Names. I moved in with Mpho, our four-year-old son, Neo, our two-year-old daughter, Thandi, and our three-month-old son, Dini.
A few weeks after we had taken occupation of the house my mother came in a van with her driver from Holy Cross to see the child. We could host her now that we had a decent house with an electric stove, a fridge, a bathroom with a geyser for hot water.
I was having a beer with Thabo Sithathi in the living room when my mother and Mpho joined us. My mother took the baby in her arms and marvelled at how beautiful he was.
âHe doesn't look like your other kids,' she said.
âAre you saying my other kids are not beautiful?' I asked, laughing.
âThey are beautiful in their own way,' she said. âThis one has fluffy hair and is light in complexion like a Coloured.'
âMaybe he takes after your people, mama,' I said. âYou are light in complexion because you are a descendant of the Khoikhoi people. We all know that we Mdas are not easy on the eye, but you and your people are very beautiful.'
We all laughed about it, including Mpho. But Thabo Sithathi didn't think it was a laughing matter. He looked at us pityingly and said, âMy friend has been cuckolded and you people think it is a joke?'
I was surprised that Thabo Sithathi should make such a statement because I had never discussed anything of the sort with him. I also felt deeply offended that he should be so brazen as to mention something that Mpho and I never talked about. We had gone on with our lives as if nothing had happened. We glared at Thabo Sithathi in unison, and then turned our attention to the baby and talked baby language with him, extolling his beauty.
I wasn't about to make a song and dance about anything.
Â
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I THINK I UNDERSTAND
why Press is a bit shy about his new calling. He sees me as his brother's son (I am actually his first cousin's son in the strict Western sense) who has accumulated so much knowledge from the land of the white man and would therefore be ashamed to be associated with a relative who is a servant of the divine ancestral spirits. He does not express anything of the sort, but I know him so well I am certain I am correct. I try to make him perish the thought by congratulating him once more for responding so positively to the call.
why Press is a bit shy about his new calling. He sees me as his brother's son (I am actually his first cousin's son in the strict Western sense) who has accumulated so much knowledge from the land of the white man and would therefore be ashamed to be associated with a relative who is a servant of the divine ancestral spirits. He does not express anything of the sort, but I know him so well I am certain I am correct. I try to make him perish the thought by congratulating him once more for responding so positively to the call.
âIt's an honour to have an uncle who is
igqirha
,' I tell him. âWhen I am ill or have evil spirits that bother me I'll know where to go.'
igqirha
,' I tell him. âWhen I am ill or have evil spirits that bother me I'll know where to go.'
â
Khawundenz' umntu, mntak'a Bhut'Solomzi
,' a grating voice startles me. Make me into a person, son of Solomzi. You may remember that Solomzi is my father's name, and therefore these words are addressed to me. I know immediately that the ragged old lady uttering these words is asking me for a favour. It is how words are used by my people. When someone needs help from you she is in fact asking you to make her into a person. We are not people, my grandmother used to instil in us, until somebody makes us into people by being generous towards us. When we are born we are animals. We are no different from the rock rabbits that urinate on the cliffs and boulders of Dyarhom Mountain, making them slippery. Until someone makes us people by showering us
with acts of kindness. The more acts of generosity and compassion we receive from others, the more human we become. In return, we become generous and compassionate to others, making them human as well. When we do that, our own humanity is enhanced. When you make others human, you enrich your own humanity as well. Thus goes the cycle of humanity and humaneness. Thus it expands as we make one another human. It is for that reason that the forebears composed the saying:
umntu ngumntu ngabantu
. A person is a person through other people.
Khawundenz' umntu, mntak'a Bhut'Solomzi
,' a grating voice startles me. Make me into a person, son of Solomzi. You may remember that Solomzi is my father's name, and therefore these words are addressed to me. I know immediately that the ragged old lady uttering these words is asking me for a favour. It is how words are used by my people. When someone needs help from you she is in fact asking you to make her into a person. We are not people, my grandmother used to instil in us, until somebody makes us into people by being generous towards us. When we are born we are animals. We are no different from the rock rabbits that urinate on the cliffs and boulders of Dyarhom Mountain, making them slippery. Until someone makes us people by showering us
with acts of kindness. The more acts of generosity and compassion we receive from others, the more human we become. In return, we become generous and compassionate to others, making them human as well. When we do that, our own humanity is enhanced. When you make others human, you enrich your own humanity as well. Thus goes the cycle of humanity and humaneness. Thus it expands as we make one another human. It is for that reason that the forebears composed the saying:
umntu ngumntu ngabantu
. A person is a person through other people.
When a whole gang of us grandchildren lived with my grandmother and the resources were scarce, it was difficult sometimes to be kind towards others and to share whatever little we had. The first instinct was to hog and hoard for even harder times. Whenever my grandmother discovered such selfishness she would shout at the culprit,
âAwungomntu!'
You are not a person! Why? Because only those who are generous and compassionate have reached the state of personhood. That was what
ubuntu
as practised by the villagers was all about.
âAwungomntu!'
You are not a person! Why? Because only those who are generous and compassionate have reached the state of personhood. That was what
ubuntu
as practised by the villagers was all about.
âWhen you say I must make you a person, grandma, are you not yet a person?' I ask the old lady.
Press sneaks away. He has no patience with fellow-villagers who beg.
â
Sukundigezela
,' the old lady says. Don't ask me a silly question. âHow can I be a person when you have not made me a person?'
Sukundigezela
,' the old lady says. Don't ask me a silly question. âHow can I be a person when you have not made me a person?'
âYou are old,' says my aunt behind the cash register. âHow many people have been making you into a person all these years?'
What she means is that the old lady has been a beneficiary of the kindness of others for such a long time that by now she should long have attained the state of personhood.
âYou are the last person to say that,' says the old lady mournfully. âYou know the problems of this village.' Then she turns to me and says: âThe problems of poverty, my child ⦠they have stripped people like us of all personhood. Your aunt is a person because she is married to your uncle who is rich. Now she does not want us to be people too.'
âSo how do I make you into a person today, grandma?' I ask her.
It is very simple. All she wants is a quart of beer. Normally I don't indulge people who ask me for beer, a request one gets a lot when one
walks into a bar here and in Lesotho. I always tell them that I cannot spend my hard-earned cash subsidising their drinking habit when I myself gave up drinking many years ago. But I make an exception with this grandma. She is old and she might as well have a blast in the few moments that she has left. The irony is not lost on me that I am making her into a person by helping her get drunk.
walks into a bar here and in Lesotho. I always tell them that I cannot spend my hard-earned cash subsidising their drinking habit when I myself gave up drinking many years ago. But I make an exception with this grandma. She is old and she might as well have a blast in the few moments that she has left. The irony is not lost on me that I am making her into a person by helping her get drunk.
My aunt gives her Black Label and I pay for it. She walks to some corner where no one will bother her asking for a sip, and enjoys her process of becoming human in a spirited manner. Press returns, perhaps because it is safe to do so now.
âI tell you all the time that you are spoiling these people,' he admonishes. âWe work hard for our money and we cannot be dishing it out to people like these who do not want to work.'
I don't respond to this. It is futile to argue with Press about such matters. He is living proof that the rich among us are more often than not the first to dismiss
ubuntu
as a touchy-feely philosophy of losers that has no place in our ruthlessly acquisitive and competitive South Africa. On a broader national level, crony capitalism rules supreme, killing whatever had stayed with us of the values of
ubuntu
instilled in us by our grandmothers.
ubuntu
as a touchy-feely philosophy of losers that has no place in our ruthlessly acquisitive and competitive South Africa. On a broader national level, crony capitalism rules supreme, killing whatever had stayed with us of the values of
ubuntu
instilled in us by our grandmothers.
On the other hand, the oppressed cling to
ubuntu
because for them it is the only way to move from victim to survivor. The perpetrators have no need for that.
ubuntu
because for them it is the only way to move from victim to survivor. The perpetrators have no need for that.
Ubuntu
was displayed by the people of Lesotho when they welcomed a flood of new South African refugees into their country. In Sesotho culture the philosophy exists as
botho
, which means the same thing.
was displayed by the people of Lesotho when they welcomed a flood of new South African refugees into their country. In Sesotho culture the philosophy exists as
botho
, which means the same thing.
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IT BEGAN A MONTH
or so before I joined Mabathoana High. I was having fun with the two beautiful women who worked at Badul's office. Badul was a lawyer from Durban who had recently opened a practice in Maseru. Thabo Sithathi, the aspiring lawyer who often pretended to be a real one to those who did not know, had introduced me to him and
we spent a lot of time just hanging out at his office. Obviously, my heart was still in the legal field.
or so before I joined Mabathoana High. I was having fun with the two beautiful women who worked at Badul's office. Badul was a lawyer from Durban who had recently opened a practice in Maseru. Thabo Sithathi, the aspiring lawyer who often pretended to be a real one to those who did not know, had introduced me to him and
we spent a lot of time just hanging out at his office. Obviously, my heart was still in the legal field.
Badul had two secretaries, even though there wasn't much business since he was new in town and prospective clients did not know of him yet.
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