Zakes Mda - The Madonna of Excelsior

She put on her clothes and went tamely home.

Niki’s triangular pubes loomed large in Tjaart Cronje’s imagination. Threatening pleasures of the future. A sapling looking to the starless sky for a promise of rain. He knew already that it was the tradition of Afrikaner boys of the Free State platteland to go through devirgination rites by capturing and consuming the forbidden quarry that lurked beneath their nannies’ pink overalls.

For Stephanus Cronje, Niki’s pubes, with their short entangled hair, became the stuff of fantasies. From that day he saw Niki only as body parts rather than as one whole person. He saw her as breasts, pubes, lips and buttocks.

While the Cronje men were seized by the fiends of lust, anger was slowly simmering in Niki. A storm was brewing. Quietly. Calmly. Behind her serene demeanour she hid dark motives of vengeance. Woman to woman. We wondered why she did not resign from Excelsior Slaghuis after being humiliated like that. But she knew something we did not know. She was biding her time. She had no idea what she would do. Or when. In the starless nights of Mahlatswetsa Location, she was nursing an ungodly grudge.

WE HAVE SEEN how the trinity loves donkeys. That is why this long-eared creature foolishly fills the whole space. It wears blinkers and its long tail touches the green grass on which the ass poses like the monarch of the canvas. The fields are uncultivated. They are brown with patches of green. They stretch for miles, until they reach the small brown hill that peeps over the white horizon. There is no room for anything else, except the red cock that the ass carries in a transparent bag strapped on its back and hanging from its side. The donkey and the cock own the world.

A blinkered donkey led the floats on a Saturday morning. It was the king of the world for that day. It wore a crown of flowers and ribbons. Red, yellow and blue ribbons. Pink and purple carnations. It was not burdened with a red cock. Instead, a black boy in a colourful Basotho blanket perched on its back. And absorbed in his little body the summer heat of the eastern Free State town of Ficksburg, near the Lesotho border. Eighty-nine kilometres from Excelsior.

The donkey nonchalantiy led the procession from the Hennie de Wet Park down McCabe Street, into Voortrekker Street, and up Fontein Street.

All the luminaries of Excelsior were there. They would not miss the cherry festival for anything. There was the diminutive Adam de Vries attired in a grey wash ‘n’ wear suit and grey moccasins. He was the only one of the Excelsior group who was dressed formally. He was also the only one who came with his wife. Lizette was dressed formally as well: a big straw hat shaped like a fruit bowl with plastic bananas, grapes and apples gracing it. A blue short-sleeved polyester dress with yellow flowers. White seamless nylon stockings and blue pencil-heel shoes.

The couple had to be formal because Adam de Vries was a member of the committee that organised the cherry festival — The Jaycee Cherry Festival Committee — even though he hailed from Excelsior, which did not grow any cherries. Some Ficksburg residents complained about this. Those who wanted to hog the festival and keep it to their district. But His Worship, the Mayor of Ficksburg, told them that people like de Vries worked very hard to make the festival — only in its second year — possible. His legal services had been indispensable. In any case, when the Jaycees had decided to organise a festival around a product unique to this part of South Africa, the intention was to bring to the attention of visitors the charms of the entire region, not just of Ficksburg.

The rest of the Excelsior men were in safari suits. And in a party mood. They had left their wives at home to take care of business. Those who had wives, that is.

The wifeless Johannes Smit was there in all his bulk, squeezed into a brown safari suit, fawn stockings and brown veldskoene. In addition to partying, he had come to sell his cherry liqueur. He was proud of this product. It had taken him many months of patience to achieve its fine quality. First he had acquired Black Big-gareau cherries from the neighbouring district of Clocolan. He had pricked each one of them with a darning needle. Then he had dissolved sugar in brandy and poured it over the fruit in a wooden barrel. He had stored it in a dark room in his farmhouse. After three months he had strained the concoction, put it into bottles and corked them tightly. He had then stored the bottles for another three months. Six months of tender loving care.

Now he had a stall at the Hennie de Wet Park where he sold his Excelsior Fine Cherry Liqueur. Another cause for snide remarks from the chauvinists of Ficksburg. How could Excelsior have a cherry liqueur when they did not grow any cherries? Shouldn’t they be talking of a sunflower liqueur instead — if there could ever be such a thing?

Johannes Smit couldn’t be bothered. Envy, that’s all it was. They couldn’t make as fine a cherry liqueur as his, so they opted for rubbishing him and his district, he concluded.

He sat at a vantage place where he could see all the parades go by. Next to his stall was one that sold biltong. This was Stephanus Cronje’s biltong, also made with tender loving care at his Excelsior Slaghuis. Unlike the hands-on Johannes Smit, Stephanus Cronje did not man the stall himself. While he went from stall to stall sampling the pleasures of the festival in the form of cherry crumble, cherry pudding, koeksusters, braaiwors and brandy — with the likes of off-duty Sergeant Klein-Jan Lombard, Groot-Jan Lombard and the Reverend François Bornman — Niki looked after the stall. Niki in her pink overall and grass conical Basotho hat to protect her from the November sun.

She sat at a wooden table on which a variety of biltong and dry wors was displayed. Under a big red garden umbrella. Johannes Smit sat at a wooden table on which cherry liqueur bottles were displayed. Under a big blue and white garden umbrella. Each pretending the other one did not exist. Each fussing over customers who wanted to taste the potent liqueur or to chew the spiced biltong.

Not many people were buying at that moment. Everyone was more interested in the procession of floats led by the colourful team of donkey and boy. It was followed by a tractor pulling a trailer with bales of hay, on which a number of Afrikaner children sat singing Afrikaans songs. The next float was also pulled by a tractor. It comprised a big red polythene cherry in a polythene bowl with all the colours of the rainbow in their proper order. All eyes were fixed on this float. On top of the cherry sat the Cherry Queen and her two princesses. The Cherry Queen was a twenty-one-year-old sashed blonde, chosen the previous night at the Andrew Marquard Hall by the mayors of Ficksburg and the surrounding cherry towns of Clocolan and Fouriesburg. The Cherry Queen was smiling and waving to her subjects. She was followed by a procession of polychromatic floats on tractor-trailers and lorries, like shapeless cakes in a confectionery. These were sponsored by local firms and cultural bodies, and sported the names of the sponsors prominently.

Johannes Smit had been at the Andrew Marquard Hall when the Administrator of the Orange Free State had crowned the Cherry Queen the previous night. He had been one of the boisterous whistlers rooting for her amid stiff competition from the beautiful Afrikaner girls of the region. The mayors had a good eye for beauty, choosing her from a bevy of twenty. He had been one of those who applauded loudly and wolf-whistled when the girl was handed her prize of vouchers for a two-week holiday trip to Durban and fifty rands pocket-money. Occasionally he had taken a swig from his flask of Klipdrift brandy. By the time Esme Euv-rard and her Spanish Troupe were entertaining the guests, he was already sloshed. He saw dimly that on the stage, radio personality Frans Jooste was compering. His head was spinning as people all around him laughed at Jooste’s jokes.