My Children! My Africa! Read online

  THAMI: Yes. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

  ISABEL: Auntie, our maid, put down in front of me a plate of steaming, delicious jungle oats over which I sprinkled a crust of golden brown sugar, and while that was melting on top I added a little moat of chilled milk all around the side. That was followed by brown-bread toast, quince jam and lots and lots of tea.

  THAMI: Yes, you’re a writer.

  ISABEL: You think so?

  THAMI: You made me hungry.

  ISABEL: My turn now?

  THAMI: Yep.

  ISABEL: Let’s start with your family.

  THAMI: Mbikwana! (He clears his throat) Mbikwana is an old Bantu name and my mother and my father are good, reliable, ordinary, hardworking Bantu-speaking black South African natives. I am the one-hundred-thousandth generation.

  ISABEL: You really like teasing, don’t you.

  THAMI: Amos and Lilian Mbikwana. They’re in Cape Town. My mother is a domestic and my father works for the railways. I stay here with my grandmother and married sister. I was sent to school in the peaceful platteland because it is so much safer you see than the big city with all its temptations and troubles. (He laughs) Another Bantu joke.

  ISABEL: You’re impossible!

  They are now beginning to relax with each other. Isabel finds the class register on the desk.

  “Zolile High School. Standard Ten.” (She opens it and reads) Awu.

  THAMI (Pointing to the appropriate desk in the classroom): There. Johnny. Center forward in our soccer team.

  ISABEL: Bandla.

  THAMI: There.

  ISABEL: Cwati.

  THAMI: Cwati. There.

  ISABEL: Who was the chap sitting there who laughed at all your jokes and applauded everything you said.

  THAMI: Stephen Gaika. He’s mad!

  ISABEL: And your best friend?

  THAMI: They are all my friends.

  ISABEL: And where does . . . (She finds his name in the register) Thami Mbikwana sit?

  Thami points. Isabel goes to the desk and sits.

  THAMI: Yes that’s the one. For nearly two years I’ve sat there . . . being educated!

  ISABEL (Reading names carved into the wood of the desk): John, Bobby, Zola, Bo . . . Boni . . .

  THAMI: Bonisile.

  ISABEL: Where’s your name?

  THAMI: You won’t find it there. I don’t want to leave any part of me in this classroom.

  ISABEL: That sounds heavy.

  THAMI: It’s been heavy. You’ve got no problems with it, hey.

  ISABEL: With school? No not really. Couple of teachers have tried their best to spoil it for me, but they haven’t succeeded. I’ve had a pretty good time in fact. I think I might even end up with the old cliché . . . you know, school years, best years, happiest years . . . whatever it is they say.

  THAMI: No. I won’t be saying that.

  ISABEL: That surprises me.

  THAMI: Why?

  ISABEL: Ja, come on, wouldn’t you be if I said it? You’re obviously clever. I’ll bet you sail through your exams.

  THAMI: It’s not as simple as just passing exams, Isabel. School doesn’t mean the same to us that it does to you.

  ISABEL: Go on.

  THAMI: I used to like it. Junior school? You should have seen me. I wanted to have school on Saturdays and Sundays as well. Yes, I did. Other boys wanted to kill me. I hated the holidays.

  ISABEL: So what happened?

  THAMI: I changed.

  ISABEL: Ja, I’m listening.

  THAMI (A shrug): That’s all. I changed. Things changed. Everything changed.

  ISABEL (Realizing she is not going to get any more out of him): Only five months to go.

  THAMI: I’m counting.

  ISABEL: What then?

  THAMI: After school? (Another shrug) I don’t know yet. Do you?

  ISABEL: Ja. Rhodes University. I want to study journalism.

  THAMI: Newspaper reporter.

  ISABEL: And radio, TV. It’s a very wide field now. You can specialize in all sorts of things. (Perplexed) Don’t you want to study further Thami?

  THAMI: I told you, I’m not sure about anything yet.

  ISABEL: What does Mr. M say?

  THAMI: It’s got nothing to do with him.

  ISABEL: But you’re his favorite, aren’t you?

  Noncommittal shrug from Thami.

  I bet you are. And I also bet you anything you like that he’s got a career planned out for you.

  THAMI (Sharply): What I do with my life has got nothing to do with him.

  ISABEL: Sorry.

  THAMI: I don’t listen to what he says and I don’t do what he says.

  ISABEL: I said I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere.

  THAMI: That’s all right. It’s just that he makes me so mad sometimes. He always thinks he knows what is best for me. He never asks me how I feel about things. I know he means well, but I’m not a child anymore. I’ve got ideas of my own now.

  ISABEL (Placating): Ja, I know what you mean. I’ve had them in my life as well. They always know what is best for you, don’t they. So anyway, listen . . . I’m going to write up the debate for our school newspaper. I’ll send you a copy if you like.

  THAMI: You got a school newspaper! How about that!

  ISABEL: It’s a bit unethical reporting on a contest in which I took part, and won, but I promise to be objective. I made

  notes of most of your main points.

  THAMI: You can have my speech if you want it.

  ISABEL: Hell, thanks. That will make it much easier . . . and guarantee there won’t be any misquotes!

  Thami hands over the speech. It is obvious that they both want to prolong the conversation, but this is prevented by the sound of Mr. M’s bell being rung vigorously in the distance. They check wristwatches.

  ISABEL: Oh my God, look at the time!

  They grab their bookbags and run.

  SCENE 2

  Isabel alone. She speaks directly to the audience.

  ISABEL: It’s on the edge of town, on the right-hand side when you drive out to join the National Road going north to Middleberg. Unfortunately, as most of Camdeboo would say, you can’t miss it. I discovered the other day that it has actually got a name . . . Brakwater . . . from the old farm that used to be there. Now everybody just calls it “the location.” There’s been a lot of talk lately about moving it to where it can’t be seen. Our mayor, Mr. Pienaar, was in our shop the other day and I heard him say to my dad that it was “very much to be regretted” that the first thing that greeted any visitor to the town was the “terrible mess of the location.” To be fair to old Pienaar he has got a point you know. Our town is very pretty. We’ve got a lot of nicely restored National Monument houses and buildings. Specially in the Main Street. Our shop is one of them. The location is quite an eyesore by comparison. Most of the houses—if you can call them that!—are made of bits of old corrugated iron or anything else they could find to make four walls and a roof. There are no gardens or anything like that. You’ve got to drive in first gear all the time because of the potholes and stones, and when the wind is blowing and all the dust and rubbish flying around . . .! I think you’d be inclined to agree with our mayor.

  I’ve actually been into it quite a few times. With my mom to visit Auntie, our maid, when she was sick. And with my dad when he had to take emergency medicines to the clinic. I can remember one visit, just sitting in the car and staring out of the window trying to imagine what it would be like to live my whole life in one of those little pondoks. No electricity, no running water, no privacy! Auntie’s little house has only got two small rooms and nine of them sleep there. I ended up being damn glad I was born with a white skin.

  But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not saying I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it seriously or anything like that.

  It’s just been there, you know, on the edge of my life, the way it is out there on the edge of town. So when Miss Brockway, our pri
ncipal, called me in and told me that the black school had started a debating society and had invited us over for a debate, I didn’t have any objections. She said it was a chance for a “pioneering intellectual exchange” between the two schools.

  She also said she had checked with the police and they had said it would be all right provided we were driven straight to the school and then straight out afterwards. There’s been a bit of trouble in the location again and people are starting to get nervous about it. So off we went . . . myself, Renee Vermaas and Cathy Bullard, the C.G.H. Debating Team . . . feeling very virtuous about our “pioneering” mission into the location. As Renee tactfully put it: “Shame! We must remember that English isn’t their home language. So don’t use too many big words and speak slowly and carefully.”

  They were waiting for us in what they called Number One Classroom. (Shaking her head) Honestly, I would rate it as the most bleak, depressing, dingy classroom I have ever been in. Everything about it was gray—the cement floor, the walls, the ceiling. When I first saw it I thought to myself, how in God’s name does anybody study or learn anything in here. But there they were, about forty of them, my age, mostly boys, not one welcoming smile among the lot of them. And they were studying something and very intently . . . three privileged and uncomfortable white girls, in smart uniforms, from a posh school, who had come to give them a lesson in debating. I know I’m a good debater and one of the reasons for that is that I always talk very directly to the audience and the opposition. I am not shy about making eye contact. Well, when I did it this time, when it was my turn to speak and I stood up and looked at those forty unsmiling faces, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t prepared myself for one simple but all-important fact: they had no intention of being grateful to me. They were sitting there waiting to judge me, what I said and how I said it, on the basis of total equality. Maybe it doesn’t sound like such a big thing to you, but you must understand I had never really confronted that before, and I don’t just mean in debates. I mean in my life!

  I’m not saying I’ve had no contact across the color line. Good heavens no! I get as much of that as any average young white South African. I have a great time every morning with Auntie in the kitchen when she’s cooking breakfast and we gossip about everything and everybody in town. And then there’s Samuel with his crash helmet and scooter . . . he delivers medicines for my dad . . . I have wonderful long conversations with him about religion and the meaning of life generally. He’s a very staunch Zionist. Church every Sunday. But it’s always “Miss Isabel,” the baas’s daughter, that he’s talking to. When I stood up in front of those black matric pupils in Number One Classroom it was a very different story. I wasn’t at home or in my dad’s shop or in my school or any of the other safe places in my life.

  I was in Brakwater! It was their school. It was their world. I was the outsider and I was being asked to prove myself. Standing there in front of them like that I felt . . . exposed! . . . in a way that has never happened to me before. Cathy told me afterwards that she’s never heard me start a debate so badly and finish it so strongly.

  God, it was good! I don’t know when exactly it happened, but about halfway through my opening address, I realized that everything about that moment . . . the miserable little classroom, myself, my voice, what I was saying and them hearing and understanding me, because I knew they understood me—they were staring and listening so hard I could feel it on my skin!—all of it had become one of the most real experiences I have ever had. I have never before had so . . . so exciting . . . a sense of myself! Because that is what we all want, isn’t it? For things to be real, our lives, our thoughts, what we say and do? That’s what I want, now. I didn’t really know it before that debate, but I do now. You see I finally worked out what happened to me in the classroom. I discovered a new world! I’ve always thought about the location as just a sort of embarrassing backyard to our neat and proper little white world, where our maids and our gardeners and our delivery boys went at the end of the day. But it’s not. It’s a whole world of its own with its own life that has nothing to do with us. If you put together all the Brakwaters in the country, then it’s a pretty big one—and if you’ll excuse my language—there’s a hell of a lot of people living in it! That’s quite a discovery you know. But it’s also a little—what’s the word?—disconcerting! You see, it means that what I thought was out there for me . . . no! it’s worse than that! it’s what I was made to believe was out there for me . . . the ideas, the chances, the people . . . specially the people! . . . all of that is only a small fraction of what it could be.

  (Shaking her head) No. Or as Auntie says in the kitchen when she’s not happy about something: Aikona! Not good enough. I’m greedy. I want more. I want as much as I can get.

  SCENE 3

  Isabel alone. Mr. M enters, hat in hand, mopping his brow with a handkerchief.

  MR. M: Miss Dyson! There you are.

  ISABEL (Surprised): Hello!

  MR. M: My apologies for descending on you out of the blue like this but I’ve been looking for you high and low. One of your schoolmates said I would find you here.

  ISABEL: Don’t apologize. It’s a pleasure to see you again Mr. M.

  MR. M (Delighted): Mr. M! How wonderful to hear you call me that.

  ISABEL: You must blame Thami for my familiarity.

  MR. M: Blame him? On the contrary, I will thank him most gratefully. Hearing you call me Mr. M like all the others at the school gives me a happy feeling that you are also a member of my very extended family.

  ISABEL: I’d like to be.

  MR. M: Then welcome to my family Miss . . .

  ISABEL (Before he can say it): “Isabel” if you please Mr. M, just plain “Isabel.”

  MR. M (Bowing): Then doubly welcome young Isabel.

  ISABEL (Curtsy): I thank you kind sir.

  MR. M: You have great charm young lady. I can understand now how you managed to leave so many friends behind you after only one visit to the school. Hardly a day passes without someone stopping me and asking: When is Isabel Dyson and her team coming back?

  ISABEL: Well? When are we?

  MR. M: You would still welcome a return visit?

  ISABEL: But of course.

  MR. M: Why so emphatically “of course”?

  ISABEL: Because I enjoyed the first one so emphatically very much.

  MR. M: The unruly behavior of my young family wasn’t too much for you?

  ISABEL: Didn’t I also get a little unruly once or twice, Mr. M?

  MR. M: Yes, now that you mention it. You certainly gave as good as you got.

  ISABEL (With relish): And that is precisely why I enjoyed myself . . .

  MR. M: You like a good fight.

  ISABEL: Ja. Specially the ones I win!

  MR. M: Splendid! Splendid! Splendid! Because that is precisely what I have come to offer you.

  ISABEL: Your Thami wants a return bout, does he?

  MR. M: He will certainly welcome the opportunity to salvage his pride when it comes along . . . his friends are teasing him mercilessly . . . but what I have come to talk to you about is a prospect even more exciting than that. I have just seen Miss Brockway and she has given it her official blessing. It was her suggestion that I approach you directly. So here I am. Can you spare a few minutes?

  ISABEL: As many as you like.

  MR. M: It came to me as I sat there in Number One trying to be an impartial referee while you and Thami went for each other hammer and tongs, no holds barred and no quarter given or asked. I don’t blame our audience for being so unruly. Once or twice I felt like doing some shouting myself. What a contest! But at the same time, what a waste I thought! Yes you heard me correctly. A waste! They shouldn’t be fighting each other. They should be fighting together! If the sight of them as opponents is so exciting, imagine what it would be like if they were allies. If those two stood side by side and joined forces, they could take on anybody . . . and win! For the next few days that is all I could think
of. It tormented me. When I wrote my report about the debate in the school diary, that was the last sentence. “But oh!, what a waste!”

  The truth is, I’ve seen too much of it Isabel. Wasted people! Wasted chances! It’s become a phobia with me now. It’s not easy you know to be a teacher, to put your heart and soul into educating an eager young mind which you know will never get a chance to develop further and realize its full potential. The thought that you and Thami would be another two victims of this country’s lunacy, was almost too much for me.

  The time for lamentations is passed. (Takes an envelope from his pocket) Two days ago I received this in the mail. It’s the program for this year’s Grahamstown Schools Festival. It has given me what I was looking for . . . an opportunity to fight the lunacy. The Standard Bank is sponsoring a new event: an interschool English literature quiz. Each team to consist of two members. I’ll come straight to the point. I have suggested to Miss Brockway that Zolile High and Camdeboo High join forces and enter a combined team. As I have already told you, she has agreed and so has the Festival director who I spoke to on the telephone this morning. There you have it Isabel Dyson. I anxiously await your response.

  ISABEL: I’m in the team?

  MR. M: Yes.

  ISABEL: And. . .? (Her eyes brighten with anticipation)

  MR. M: That’s right.

  ISABEL: Thami!

  MR. M: Correct!

  ISABEL: Mr. M, you’re a genius!

  MR. M: (Holding up a hand to stop what was obviously going to be a very enthusiastic response): Wait! Wait! Before you get carried away and say yes, let me warn you about a few things. It’s going to mean a lot of very hard work. I am appointing myself team coach and as Thami will tell you, I can be a very hard taskmaster. You’ll have to give up a lot of free time young lady.

  ISABEL: Anything else?

  MR. M: Not for the moment.

  ISABEL: Then I’ll say it again. Mr. M, you’re a genius! (Her joy is enormous, and she shows it) How’s that for unruly behavior?

  MR. M: The very worst! They couldn’t do it better on the location streets. What a heartwarming response Isabel.

  ISABEL: What were you expecting? That I would say no?