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I t takes another twenty-two hours, two buses and four taxi changes to get to Soweto. By the time we arrive, I have been in transit for more than two full days and have barely slept. I have worn the same clothes for the entire journey, and have not been able to find a place to wash myself or change my underwear. I stink not only from the smell of my own body, but also from the sweat of the many passengers who have been pressed up against me in close quarters.
When we turn off the highway from Johannesburg, my fatigue sharpens into curiosity. I have never been to Soweto, I have only heard about it in the tales of others and I am eager to see if it lives up to its reputation. On the Old Potchefstroom Road, we pass Baragwanath Hospital on our left. It is one of the biggest hospitals in Africa catering to the black population though the doctors are all said to be white. I would not like to discover firsthand the kind of care a white doctor would take with a black life in a country like this. I wonder if their oath to care for human life is stronger than their prejudice.
Once the hospital has disappeared behind us, I try to get a proper look out of the window next to me, but the breathing of too many people in the taxi has steamed it up. I clear a viewing hole on the fogged-up glass with the sleeve of my jersey and am surprised by the sea of humanity outside. I was told that Soweto was big but I never imagined it could be this sprawling. Logic, more than the tales I have heard, should have prepared me for the size.
Johannesburg is a huge city filled with hundreds of thousands of white people, and what white people need more than anything is black people to labor for them. What white people do not need, however, is to have those same black people living near them threatening their way of life. This is how the township of Soweto came to be in the first place. Close enough to the city so that the workers can commute there, but far enough away so that the white man does not have to smell the black man’s stench. And as the demand for labor grows—as our villages are drained of men who head for the city to seek employment—so, too, does Soweto grow.
I have never seen so many of my own kind as here. The street is full of taxis, cars, buses and pedestrians, and all the faces are black. In between the chaos of cars trying to make their way down the street are donkey carts and cyclists, half-starved dogs and free-roaming livestock. A bakkie driving next to us is piled full of cages holding chickens. A single untethered pig sniffs the morning air from next to them.
Mothers weave through the traffic, babies tied to their backs with towels or blankets. Schoolchildren mingle with women in maids’ uniforms. Men in overalls stop to talk to those in three-piece suits. Fires burn in braziers with mielies roasting atop them, and peddlers call out their wares for sale. Cinder-block houses sit wedged between hostels, and car washes flank churches, making me realize that the old saying is true: cleanliness really is next to godliness. Two huge cylinders rise up into the sky along an otherwise flat landscape; they are the cooling towers of the Orlando Power Station.
The noise is overwhelming. Gospel and kwela music are turned up loud and filter out of vehicles, dogs bark as they chase cars, hooters blare in both warning and greeting, voices call out in a babel of tongues and taxi drivers yell out their windows to attract passengers. It is an electric atmosphere that relaxes my neck and shoulder muscles. Despite the frenetic pace and the noise, I am back in the protection of my people and I feel safe.
That feeling lasts only as long as it takes to turn onto Klipspruit Valley Road and see the huge army trucks parked on the side of the road.
The taxi driver whistles an exclamation of surprise.
“Is this not a usual sight then?” I ask.
“No, sisi . Something bad must be happening.”
We slow down. White men in army uniforms with big guns slung across their shoulders wave us past. A tremor of fear grips me as I recall Andile’s words from his letter: You must come immediately ... Your daughter is in extreme danger and I fear for her life. I cannot guarantee her safety here ...
I pray that these army trucks are not linked in any way to the danger Nomsa is in.
When I look at my watch, I know that she will have already left for school. I have waited long enough to see my daughter and do not want to wait another full day until she returns home. Instead of getting dropped off at Andile’s house, I instruct the taxi driver to go straight to the school. If I am lucky, I will see Nomsa before the bell rings for the first class. All I want is to hold my daughter and know she is safe.
When we jostle to a stop outside the Morris Isaacson High School, the gates are open; they gape like the toothless mouth of a sleeping madala , and the grounds are deserted except for a few startled-looking teachers who mill about uselessly, ants separated from their colony.
I approach one of them, a woman who looks to be my age, and say, “ Molo .” The rest of the customary greeting dies on my lips; she looks so worried that I cannot bear to waste time with pleasantries. “Where are the children, sisi ?”
“ Andazi . They have all left.”
“They have left? For what reason?”
“They are all going on a march.”
“They are protesting?”
The woman nods.
“What are they protesting against?”
“The new Afrikaans curriculum the government wants us to teach.”
“And you do not know where the children are marching to?”
“No, but there are rumors that it is not just the children from this school that are protesting. We have heard that many thousands of students will join them.”
Many thousands of students. I go cold with dread.
A man comes running up to us from a nearby group. His glasses glint in the morning light and his suit jacket flaps open. “There have been sightings of army trucks along the Klipspruit Valley Road.”
The woman gasps. “Army trucks?”
He nods. “And police vans on the Soweto Highway. It is worse than we thought.”
Before we can ask any questions, he jogs off to share his news with others.
Army trucks and police vans. This protest has attracted the attention of the military, and the white government and its soldiers are prepared to use great force against our children. My stomach clenches with fear and it mobilizes me. I clutch my suitcase and break into a run out of the gates.
Up ahead, stragglers head east along Mputhi Street. My legs are stiff and sore from the commute, and they cramp as I quicken my pace. Each step makes me feel much older than my forty-nine years, but I ignore the pain and keep moving.
I catch up and then overtake the students at the back of the march as I try making my way to the heart of the group. Someone bumps into me and almost sends me tumbling. I turn back to see a boy who cannot be older than ten years old.
He smiles as he rights himself, dimples sinking into his cheeks. “Sorry, Mother. I tripped.” He indicates his shoelaces that have come undone and scampers off to the side to retie them while his friends laugh at his clumsiness.
Three girls ahead of me in skirts and stockings link arms and begin to skip. A group of boys in blazers and hats posture and wave their fists in the air. Their faces are shiny with expectation and their eyes flash with merriment. They may be fighting an adult’s cause but they are still just children.
The air is cold. A chill bites at my bare hands as the weak winter sun struggles to penetrate the layer of smog that still hovers after last night’s fires. Wood smoke lingers in the air; it is a smell that warns of the possibility of violence and death. I push myself from one group of children to the next and scan the older girls’ faces for my Nomsa’s features. My heart stutters with hope each time I spot Nomsa’s profile: the proud jut of her chin or the high peak of her forehead, but it is never her. As my gaze jumps from face to face, the crowd swells and surges. I tighten my grip on my case.
We pass through Mofolo heading into Dube and the school uniforms start to vary in color and style. The teacher was right. Thousands of students from other schools have joined the march. I am borne along and nudged by children waving placards with slogans haphazardly scrawled across them: “To Hell with the Boer” and “Afrikaans Is Terrorism.” I try to temper my annoyance that the boards obstruct my view of the sea of young faces and fight the urge to swat them out of my face.
I approach some of the older children who look to be Nomsa’s age.
“My child, do you know Nomsa Mbali?”
“My child, can you tell me where we are going?”
I am either politely ignored or kindly told to leave.
“Mother, you are going to get hurt.”
“You will be safer at home, Mother.”
Eventually, it becomes too loud to be heard over the roar as the crowd breaks into song. The refrain “ Masibulele ku Jesu, Ngokuba wasifela ” washes over me, and my skin prickles and responds like a living thing with feelings of its own. Their youthful voices are fluid and their rapture flows through me. “Let us thank Jesus, for He died for us.”
I used to sing this song to Nomsa when she was a baby . Please, God, please keep her safe. She has the heart of a lion, but even lions cannot stand up against the white man’s guns.
When one song ends, a new voice rises up with the opening lines of another, and the crowd joins in to fill the silence: “Lord, bless Africa. May her spirit rise high up. Hear thou our prayers. Lord bless us.”
I start to sing along. The resistance song is, after all, as much in my blood as it is in any of these youths’; even more so, as I have been singing “Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika” since long before any of these children were born.
Then, suddenly, the forward motion of the crowd is halted and everyone lurches to a stop. Frustrated, I try to peer over the heads of the children in front of me, but the protest signs limit my view. I can hear shouting magnified through bullhorns, but cannot hear what instructions are being given; the sound is too distorted.
A tall boy next to me cranes his head over the crowd. “ Ke mapolisa .” It’s the police, he reports.
Another boy who has climbed up on the shoulders of a friend calls down to us. “ Bazama ukusivimbha singafiki la esithe kuhlanganwa khona .” They’ve set up a barricade. They’re trying to stop us getting to the assembly point.
“ Ba batla regutlele morao .” They want us to turn around.
The words are uttered in multiple languages. Even if I did not understand Zulu and Sotho, I would understand the angry tone. My breath catches as I spot two yellow-and-blue Casspirs. The presence of the dreaded armored trucks says more than any placard ever could.
Grumbles turn to shouts. The tension rises. Those who are coming from behind strain forward against the barrier of bodies in front of them; they are impatient to start moving again. I am caught in a rising tide. Violence is a muzzled brute walking among us, and it is just a matter of time before it is set loose.
A voice rings out. A boy in a school uniform stands on the bonnet of a car; he is one of us. He is composed and has a calming effect on the crowd as he gives a spirited address. “March in an orderly fashion. Do not provoke the police or give them reason to use violence against us.”
Thank God someone is trying to keep this peaceful . Please let them listen to him .
The crowd starts to move again and they split into rivers that stream around the police barricade onwards towards Orlando West Junior Secondary School, which appears to be the meeting point. Thousands upon thousands of young faces blur around me. Any one of them could be Nomsa. None of them is Nomsa.
I just think I have caught sight of one of Andile’s sons and am about to push through the crowd to get to him when we all turn sharply into Vilakazi Street. The energy level rises again. Children raise fists in the air and start shouting.
“ Inkululeko ngoku! ” Freedom now!
“ Amandla! ” Power!
We surge forward.
Then: a loud pop. Chanting turns to screaming. The air is stained with sour smoke. A canister bounces off a shoulder in front of me, skitters away. Tear gas . I try to shield my eyes and nose with my jersey, which I pull across my face. The tears stream down my cheeks and their salty bleakness makes me gag. I stumble blindly to get away from the streaming, poisonous can. Shoved from behind, I lurch forward and fall over other bodies and sprawl onto the road.
The last thing I hear before the world goes black is the sound of gunfire and the barking of dogs. The white man’s silver bullets and black beasts have been set upon us. Only God can help us now.
• • •
W hen I awaken from the merciful darkness, I can no longer hear the baying of dogs or the asthmatic rattle of guns. Those sounds have died away, replaced by the requiem of children screaming. Terror and panic surround me; they wrap me in a blanket of knives. My eyes are open but I cannot see. I am still in danger and struggle to my feet but a hand on my shoulder pulls me back. A voice is talking to me, its tone is urgent, but I cannot make out the words amid the sounds of a beautiful morning ended in bloodshed.
I reach a hand up to wipe my eyes and my fingers come away wet and feeling strangely like the sticky sap of the ikhala leaf. This time, I use my whole forearm to wipe at my face and when I look at the sleeve of my jersey, it is stained red. With the blood from my eyes cleared, I can see again, though when the world comes into focus, I wish that I had remained blind.
I am not in the middle of the street where I fell. I have been dragged clear of the road to a patch of sand twenty meters away. The air is thick with smoke and people run through it in every direction trying to get out of the way of the policemen and their batons and beasts. The few who are not trying to escape surge forward with glass bottles and bricks. They fight back, their faces made hideous by rage.
Two sets of hands reach out, pulling me to my feet, and I look up to see if I am being rescued or arrested. The hands belong to Langa and Dumi, my brother’s sons who are only thirteen and fifteen years old, and I thank the Lord for this deliverance. They are still trying to tell me something, but there is such a ringing in my ears that there is no hope of my being able to hear them.
Instead, I shout to be heard above the noise. “ Uphi uNomsa? ”
They cannot hear me. I pull Langa close and speak directly into his ear. “Where is Nomsa?”
He looks close to tears. “ Andazi .” I do not know.
He pulls at my arm again, wanting me to go with them, but I cannot turn my back on the vision of hell that has opened up before me. There is a river of blood in the street and the children are floating in it. They lie in unnatural shapes, limbs bent at awkward angles. Some of them are facedown, drowning, while others lie on their backs gazing up at the sky; they are human debris swept along in a flood of destruction.
Discarded shoes, placards, tear gas canisters, hats and bags are littered between the bodies. My suitcase, lying in the middle of all the carnage, looks like a relic from some bygone era; a time before it was acceptable for white armies to harvest black children’s lives like crops. I note with detached interest that the case has split apart; my clothes are strewn across the road and one of my dresses is covered in blood. My bible lies open next to it, the soiled pages fluttering gaily in the dirty breeze.
Is God watching?
Dumi links his arm through mine while Langa pushes me from behind. I know they want to get me to a place of safety but I cannot leave. I pull away from my nephews and try to find my balance as I make my way towards the body that is lying closest to me.
It is a girl. Her school dress is torn and raised up over her buttocks so that her white cotton underwear is showing. I gently roll her over and pull the dress down to give back the dignity taken from her. Her eyes are open and she is staring fixedly up at the heavens. She no longer sees the blood and violence of this world, and for that, I am grateful. She is seeing a better place, one in which singing voices are not greeted with bullets; a world in which innocent children are not murdered because their skin is a color that white people find offensive. I touch her eyelids with my fingers, drawing them closed.
Rest, my child. Go with God .
From there, I keep moving from one body to the next. Some of the children are still alive; they are either too injured or too terrified to move. They clutch my hands and ask for their mothers. I tell them that their mothers are coming soon and that they are loved. I make the promises they want to hear, the ones I would want Nomsa to hear, and wipe the blood and the dirt and the tears from their faces. I ask names and bear witness.
Zanele. Twelve years old. She is bleeding from the ear.
Goodness. Her lips tremble and her tears are hot against my skin but she still manages a smile.
Kidebone. Fifteen years old. Her lips are shiny with Vaseline.
Jabu. Fourteen years old. He is the man of the house after his father died in a rockfall underground.
Fumani. Wonders if I am an angel.
Thandeka. Asks if I have seen her younger sister.
Sipho. Has never met his father.
Kleinboy. Says he is late for school.