Zakes Mda - The Madonna of Excelsior

“I am well aware that we were not powerless and we discussed using section 212,” he said. “But we felt that in this case it would not have resolved our difficulties.”

The days that followed saw Niki walking about in a daze. She was oblivious to the fact that her activities in the barn, in the yellow fields, and in Madam Cornelia’s bedroom had caused such a stir nationally and internationally. She was not aware that a whole government was under threat because of her body parts. That a whole nation was shaken to its foundations by her orgiastic moans. She did not follow the national debate generated by the heat of her body. She did not read The Friend , which we so enthusiastically awaited every morning. Many of us who had never cared for newspapers, because they only carried news about white people, had now become avid readers of The Friend .

Her daze began with her first night of freedom. She had left her toilet refuge at dusk, and had slowly walked to Mahlatswetsa Location. She had opened her shack door, struck a match, lit a candle on the table and just stood there open-mouthed. Her shack had been ransacked. All her clothes were gone. Everything that Pule had bought her. Plunderers had taken the trunk that she kept under her bed. And everything in it. They had pillaged the blankets from her bed. And the duvets. They had even raided the kitchen part of her shack. They had stolen her blue and white porcelain dinner set. And her plastic table covers. And her pressure-cooker. They had left only the wobbly pan.

She had just stood there, numb for a while. Then she had walked dazedly to Mmampe’s home. Mmampe’s mother had welcomed her with her resonant laughter. There was a treat waiting for her, she had said. But Niki did not show any excitement. Her eyes were tiredly searching the room for Viliki.

“Viliki likes to play in the street until it is too late in the night,” Mmampe had said. “Night-time is a good time for hide-and-seek. He comes home only to sleep.”

Mmampe’s mother had given her dumplings and chunks of meat that swam in rich brown gravy. She had gone through the motions of eating, without really tasting the food. Without feeling anything. She had vaguely heard Mmampe’s mother say: “This is goose-meat, Niki. Have you ever tasted goose-meat?”

The voice had sounded as if it was coming from a distance. Mmampe’s mother had been bubbling all over the place. She had announced proudly that she had cooked the goose-meat to welcome her daughters back after their resounding victory.

“Even though you are not of my womb,” she had said to Niki, “here in the location a child is every woman’s child.”

She had explained how she got such succulent meat. A man in a brown suit and yellow miner’s helmet had come selling dead geese. She had said to herself: “I must buy one of these fat birds. I must give my children a treat, especially Niki who has spent all this time in the cold jail of Winburg while my daughter enjoyed her bail outside.”

The mention of her incarceration and of Mmampe’s bail had made Niki fidget with uneasiness. She could not hide her discomfort around Mmampe. If it was at all true that she was the woman who had sold them out, then it would be very difficult to forgive her. Especially after Niki had lost all her valuable property.

Mmampe had laughingly accused her mother of buying stolen meat.

She had said to her mother: “The goose-man must be one of the naughty people who steal birds from the farmers’ homesteads in order to sell them to the location people. They shoot geese and ducks with pellet guns, as if they are game birds, instead of shooting guinea fowls in the veld.”

But Mmampe’s mother had said a stolen goose tasted as well as any goose.

“When a man comes selling meat, do you ask where he got it?” Mmampe’s mother had asked, not expecting an answer. “When you buy fish and chips from the Greek café, do you ask the Greek-man where he caught the fish and who dug out the potatoes?”

We continued to call Dukakis’ old café the Greek café even though he had long since left Excelsior. The café was now owned by a brave Portuguese family, whose children were daughters and would therefore not be at risk of necking with Jacomina, the Reverend François Bornman’s daughter, who had now grown into what Scope magazine would have called a blonde bombshell.

After the goose and dumplings, Niki had walked back to her shack with an excited Viliki jumping behind her. Viliki, who had been expecting “nice things” from Lesotho, but who did not seem to care that they were nowhere to be seen. All he had cared about was that he had been reunited with his mother.

Niki had huddled up with her two children on a bare mattress on the bed.

The days that followed saw her daze being gradually replaced by self-pity. Then by anger. A silent rage. She was angry with Pule for deserting her. Angry with Mmampe for selling her out. Angry with Madam Cornelia for weighing her on the scale. Angry with Johannes Smit for raping her. Angry with Tjaart Cronje for seeing her naked. And for his horsey-horsey game. Angry with the people of Excelsior for pointing fingers at her. Angry with Stephanus Cronje for dying. Angry with everyone else but herself. Angry at the barns and the yellow fields and the distant sandstone hills and the open skies.

Her greatest anger was directed at those who had duped her. People had made promises. Messages had been sent to her cell in Winburg. Things had been whispered in her ear at Excelsior Magistrate’s Court. Do not give evidence against the white men, Niki. They will look after you and your child. They will engage the services of a good lawyer for you. They will pay for the support of your child . Persistent whispers. Promises of lucre. Of freedom. Coming mostly through prison warders. And through policewomen, who were emphatic that they were merely the messengers. That they would deny everything if she were to reveal their messenger role to anyone. And the consequences would be very bitter for her. Messages from a faceless source. No point in sending people to jail when you can all be free. Do not give evidence against the white men. Do not give evidence against the white men. Do not give evidence against the white men . She had believed the promises. And had agreed with the other accused-women that she would not turn state witness.

The promises were not being fulfilled. They would never be fulfilled.

She was free. And hungry.

THE BLUE MADONNA IS different from the other madonnas. No cosmos blooms surround her. She is not sitting in a brown field of wheat. No sunflowers flourish in her shadow. Yet she exudes tenderness like all the others. She is drenched in a blue light. Blue and white strokes of icy innocence. Her breasts are not hanging out. She is not naked, but wears a blue robe. A modest madonna. A madonna with blue flowing locks that reach her breasts. Her features are delicate. Her face is round and her pursed lips are small. Smaller than each of the slanting eyes. A face of brown, yellow and white impasto. She holds a naked baby in her hands. The well-fed baby wears only white booties. She holds the baby in front of her breasts like an offering.

That was the only madonna the trinity was going to paint that day. Niki got up from the stool on which she had been posing, and put Popi on the floor. Popi jumped onto a brown corduroy sofa and sat there with her legs tightly closed. At five she was already conscious of nakedness. A good girl never sat carelessly, her mother had drummed into her head. During these moments of anger, Popi’s obedience to her mother’s little commandments was a reflex action. She sat motionless on the sofa and sulked.