Pivot of Violence: Tales of the New South Africa

All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Roy Holland

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

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These stories are the product of the author’s imagination., as are the names, characters and places. Any resemblance to persons living is entirely coincidental

ISBN: 0-595-15821-8

ISBN: 978-1-4697-1257-4 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

The Season Comes

The Eighth Puff

Western Aid

A Man of His Word

One Unholy Morning

The Betrayal of Mrs Whitecourt

Culture Shock

Eye Witness

Pivot of Violence

The Necklace

No Hiding-Place

The Praise Singer

Before the Summer Rain

Somebody’s Funeral

About the Author

For Maria, Rachel and Tessa

Foreword 

These vivid stories touch the raw nerves of imaginary yet typical characters who might have lived through and continue to live in the climate of violence and change in South Africa. Notwithstanding the stark reality of the author’s vision, there is an underlying tenderness and sympathy, which adds to the poignancy of his characterizations, as in the portrayal of Mpho, the young Basotho girl in the first story of this collection.

In these stories, which make an important contribution to the literary heritage of South Africa, the author brings together the atmosphere of violence and change that broods over the harsh world of the old Apartheid South Africa and which still threatens the stability of the New South Africa. Perspectives of both white and black are explored—perspectives of the victims rather than the oppressors where the victims are from both sides of the cultural divide. But the harsh realities are ameliorated by a vein of sympathetic insight, sometimes by a gentle comedy such as that which portrays a pipe-smoking priest, or by a tongue-in-cheek satire as is found in the tale of a well-to-do white woman who is methodically and meticulously covered by her lover’s semen The most powerful story is perhaps ‘Pivot of Violence,’ from which the collection takes its name. The tragic relationship between a white policeman and a Swazi girl is all the more poignant for the sensitivity and verisimilitude with which their intimate sexual relationship is portrayed. The dramatic suggestion and superb imagery in the description of their shared orgasm makes this tale perhaps the most memorable.

The author has written a quartette of stories, the other three titles of the quartette being News from Parched Mountain: Tales from the Karoo in the new South Africa, Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales From Southern Africa and Elsewhere; and Just a Bit Touched: Tales of Perspective. All make a very vivid and lasting impression.

Charles Humphrey Muller, PhD (London), DLitt (OFS), DEd (SA)

The Season Comes 

Every morning for two years, Mpho had risen with sadness in her heart and a deep yearning that her husband should again want her and be proud to own her as his wife.

But no! she sighed. He has put me away from him, to live and sleep in my own hut.

Only once, months ago now, had he needed her: when he had come home late from a beer-drink.

As she recalled it, a little smile formed on her cheeks. Then she puckered up her lips and blew out through them (‘Phoooo!’, like that) ironically—accepting the experience for what it was.

She had hoped it might be a turning point in their relationship. In a way, it had proved to be so.

She folded up her blankets and sleeping-mat and put them on a stool in the corner. The air in the hut gave out a slight sweetness, a blend of odours that came from the new roof-reeds and the cattle dung with which the mud of the floor and walls had been mixed. The dew must have been heavy in the night. When the air was dry, under the ever-present muskiness of smoke, the fragrance in the hut was too faint to detect.

Outside, between ‘The Little Bosoms’ the dawn was breaking.

She turned from the hills and looked across the lapa at her husband’s hut a dozen or so strides away. He would still be asleep; he would not get up until she had gone to the fields. She felt a pang of regret that he never woke to see her off, unusual though it would have been. Basotho men were not made so!

In the other direction, next to her own hut, was the kitchen. She entered it and took a handful of thick maize-porridge from the iron pot for her breakfast. With a pinch of salt, the cold cake was delicious. When she had eaten, she poured a little water from the bucket into a plastic bowl, washed her hands and face, and went out.

The sky had brightened; but there was still a mist on the slopes where the sun was beginning to pull half-coherent shadows out of the mountains like dark filmy garments.

She went across to her hut. She must prepare for her day’s work in the fields.

On the scrubbed wooden table she laid out—as she had every working day for some months now—what she needed to carry with her. She cast her eyes over the objects ranged there to see she had forgotten nothing.

She must not be taken unawares!

She put all the things—except three—into a small leather bag with a tie-neck, which she strung about her waist. She picked up the necklace of dried pumpkin seeds and put it on. That left her water-bottle and the small rag doll about six inches long which had a long leather loop from its waist. She put the loop around her neck and let the doll dangle behind her in the small of her back as though it were a child. Then, she wrapped herself in a blanket of many colours—bright red, azure blue, black—hiding the doll, the necklace and the bag. At last, well protected from the chill of the morning, she felt ready to go.

Suddenly, she hunched in pain.

It was a minute or two before she could straighten herself up. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She sighed deeply as the pain subsided. It had been a bad one!

She reached for her water-bottle.

Mpho was getting fat. But she was proud of it. Married women were expected to plump out a bit; it showed contentment; it was a mark of fulfilment; of status.

Besides, it helped to disguise her condition, although her body was of the kind that hid what she carried easily. Inside, she was as roomy as a kist. But still beautiful, she knew. At twenty-two, she would be attractive for many years to come.

If her present plan failed, she would try another. There would, she hoped, be plenty of time to win back the affection and respect of her husband. It was a pity she had had to deceive him. She regretted that very much.

In the circumstances, what else could she do?

The path to the plateau rose sharply before her, winding up the mountain side. Under her feet, it was very pebbly and rocky. Even halfway up, the rocks were still not day-warm.

So hurtful had been her husband’s scorn when, after two years, she had not produced a child; such had been her grief and consternation when Ratlere would no longer touch her and had banished her to her own hut; so frantic had his tauntings made her that—after the night of the beer-drink—she had made up her mind, right or wrong, not to tell him if she became pregnant.

She felt it would humiliate her to have to say that conception had been the result of his drunken urges—an accident—not even an echo of affection!

She had so badly wanted a love-child.

Why, oh why, hadn’t she conceived earlier?

If Ratlere found out now, he would insist that she follow the customs of their people. But the pledge she had made to herself ruled that out.

When she knew for sure she was with child, she had experienced ecstasy.

She should have informed Ratlere and her parents at once: it was their right. But she had not. Her temperament and inclinations made it hard for her to keep her happiness and knowledge to herself. She wanted to sing it aloud to the women of the village, young and old, and to all her friends and relatives besides.

However, her determination and courage had pulled her through. She would tell no-one! No-one! Not until the child was born.

No! It was her secret. Hadn’t she earned it through Ratlere’s treatment of her?

The route was so hard on her bare feet, so full of broken stones and rounded pebbles, as well as points of rock protruding from the side of the mountain, that today she felt glad to be nearing the top.

On the brow of the path, jigging again into view with her last steps, she saw a glorious sight! The plateau opened suddenly like a fan before her eyes and, little by little, her field of kaffir-corn—shimmering, burnished, dark bronze in the fullness of the sun.

The climb had made her breathless.

Her heart pounded and there was sweat on her face. In an unconscious gesture of protection, she spreadeagled her hands across her belly.

She was pleased to be early. They would soon arrive, the other women. For the moment, she was free of their endless chatter and curiosity. Now, she would be able to concentrate on her task.

On that very thought, another pain hit her, doubling her over. Before she realized, she had lost her balance.

She fell heavily onto the heels of her hands, jolting the child inside her; and then toppled sideways onto the ground. She chided herself:

That was careless!

Getting to her feet, she dusted herself off. She must be careful! A miscarriage now would be the greatest calamity that could befall her! Luckily, everything seemed to be all right.

She made her way to a large red rock nearby.

In the shape of a pear, it towered above her. It had a good strong shadow and, under its base, a small cavity had been scooped away where she had hidden her sickle and whetstone. She took off her blanket and removed the tie-bag from her waist. She placed them, together with her

water-bottle, in the cool cavity under the rock and withdrew her tools.

Then she made her way to her section of the enormouus field.

The corn—mabele she called it—stood at least a foot above her head, swaying in the breeze, the pithy hollow stalks as thick as the tip of her little finger swishing gently against their bladed leaves.

The panicles held seeds in dense clusters like blunt flames—tilting, leaning, bowing. Bronze as the spears of warriors in the sun, how they glinted at her! There must be more seeds on one stalk than all the stars in the night-sky! Taking one of the heads in her hand, she studied its glossy tightly-clustered pellets. Then she rolled it in her palms until she had collected a little mound of hard shiny grapeshot. They were beautiful!

If only she were as fruitful! She wouldn’t be in her present plight, would she?

Suddenly, the child inside her kicked.

With a sense of immense exultation, Mpho flung out her arms, scattering the brown, glossy seeds as far as she could. It would be wonderful for her baby to be born into the world she loved so much and to grow up and feel what her mother felt! Without knowing why or how, Mpho sensed that the child had somehow understood and had been enriched by the emotions that possessed her.

In a mood of passionate contentment, she began to harvest the corn.

The sickle swung rhythmically.

Taking only a few stalks at a time in her left hand, the blade cut through them crisply. At each stroke, there was a slight crunch and the smell of juice and the long yellow stalks with the white waxy bloom still on them fell with a heavy sigh sideways to the ground. Soon, behind her lay a burnished path fit for a queen to walk on.

Her pains came and went—a little more frequently, now.

The air was getting warmer.

She heard the women distantly coming up the path to work. As they emerged onto the plateau, they called to her in the clearness of the morning:

"U phela joang, Mpho? How are you living?"

"Kea phela. I am living."

"Dumela, Mpho! Good day!"

"Dumela, Mme!"

"Khotso, Mpho!"

Peace to you, also, Mathabo! called Mpho.

They dispersed to their own sections of the huge field and began to work.

Then, only the sighing of the corn in the breeze, the crunch of the sickle, the smell of the earth mingling with the fresh-cut stems, the occasional shriek of a bird or woman way over the plateau and the silence of the mountains kept her company.

Mpho’s mind turned again to her baby.

She was sorry to have broken with the customs of her people. If she hadn’t, two months ago now, she would had to have gone again to live with her parents. Oh dear, no! She would not have been working the fields in her ninth month.

She sighed.

They lived many miles away. It would have been an arduous journey. But they would have cared well for her: removed all her ornaments, shaved her eyebrows and forehead, and probably smeared her face and torso with butter-fat.

She smiled. They were both so conservative!

Nowadays, even respectable people did not follow all those rules: they went to the medical clinics. But they believed completely in the old ways of the tribe. They would doubtless have given her a sheepskin, too, and fastened it across her breasts to keep the unborn child warm.

They might even have insisted she wear a sheep’s gall-bladder around her neck! Horrid thought! It wasn’t as if they even knew why! But they were sticklers for convention. She wouldn’t have minded a wild-cat’s claw. And she even wore a necklace of pumpkin seeds herself! She believed in that—although it was another of her secrets.

But a gall bladder! No, that was too much!

As if in admonition, she felt another pain—a strong sharp one. Also, there was a dragging sort of heaviness at the base of her insides. This spasm emptied her of breath. She was long in straightening up. In a few minutes she felt another. And she had made only a few sweeps with the sickle when there came another. And another.

So she knew her time was near.

She walked back to the boulder where she had hidden her things.

She took out her blanket and tie-bag and replaced them with the sickle and whetstone. Picking up her water-bottle, she made her way again to her reaping. Further up the field, a woman saw her and waved. Mpho waved back. When the woman had once more bent to her task, Mpho looked quickly about her and stepped right into the shielding corn.

She was careful to walk between the roots in their straight rows. The cobs, like elongated knobkerries, swayed back and forth over her head. Her heart beat with gratitude. They were confident and protective. She watched the clear blue of the sky blemishing slowly in the heat.

Only a week ago, a dustdevil had flattened a patch the size of a small hut towards the centre of her section, causing the mabele to scatter its shot and the waxy yellow stems to lie broken on the red earth.

She is standing in the small clearing, in the merciful corn. It is growing with vigour, defending her secret, soothing her pain. Her floor is the earth and the pithy hollow stalks her walls.

Her pains are coming quickly. Quickly now!

She gathers the broken stems until there is enough for a bed. She places her folded blanket at one end to support her head. She puts down her water-bottle and places her tie-bag beside it. She sits down and begins to arrange the contents carefully beside her: a small tin of balm; some lotion made of herbs; soap once given to her as a present by her husband; two strips of clean white cloth; a pair of scissors and a small white shift she has sewn herself.

She takes off her string of pumpkin seeds and lays them down, too.

Last of all, she removes the loop that holds the doll in the small of her back and places it beside the necklace. She has worn it longer than necessary. But she believes it has done its job.

She begins her lonely labour.

The mabele seems to nod assent each time the pain rises.

Soon, she is in a haze and barely conscious of the tall screen of stems surrounding her.

She is bathed in sweat. She is pressing down, assisting the child to come. She is breathing. She is panting. She rests. She presses. She rests.

Slowly, the child’s head starts to emerge and she tightens her muscles with care. Soon, but not too soon, the head is out. Before the shoulders can follow the baby gives a lusty cry of complaint, or of joy.

Then there is the slither of the whole little body, Whish! like a landed fish, onto the reeds and the red earth.

The baby yells lustily.

It seems to Mpho at that moment the dense ripeness around her dances and sends its hosannas across the distances of field and plateau to the mountains beyond. They ring in her ears.

She is born! At last, her daughter is born!

For a moment, Mpho cannot see: the joy has unfocussed her eyes.

Then, beyond the squalling bloodiness of the child and the bronze of the corn, she sees the wonderful pure blue of the sky washed with the paleness of heat and her heart exults.

But there are things to do.

She takes hold of the cord about six inches from the navel and cuts it. Quickly, she folds it against the belly of the child, coats it thickly with the balm and ties it in place with a strip of the cloth. She washes the baby all over with soap and water and anoints it with her lotion of herbs. Now she is ready to put on the little cotton shift. She is careful, but the infant bawls. It must be clad. Now, she is swaddling it in her blanket. The child continues to bawl. All that remains is to remove the colostron. She milks it out of her, watching the clearish liquid ooze from her nipples. Afterwards, she washes and dries herself.

At last, she puts her baby to the breast.

Silence.

It is bliss. Only the sound of the wind in the corn.

As the infant sucks, she feels the after-birth emptying from