Last Day
Monday, September 29th, 2008
They gather in the sparsely shaded courtyard, the pupils of Tshiyamo Primary School for their usual assembly, in uniform rows, they chat uproariously to one another under the filtered midmorning sunlight. A canopy of evergreen trees demarcates the perimeter of the well kept assembly area. The principal’s swift ascension to his podium descends a lulling hush on the marauding mass.
Tall, dark and bespectacled the headmaster, Mr. Ndlovu, is guised in a navy pin-striped suit tailor-made to fit his hefty frame; it shimmers, accentuating his rapidly greying hair. “The time has arrived, once again” he articulates with conviction “the day that you have all been waiting for. The last day. Your last day at school this year”, he pauses offering a distance gaze at his tepidly attentive audience. They stand alert, the anxious pupils, like a battalion of soldiers during a mission briefing.
For Mpho, whose faculties are unwaveringly attuned to the man of scholarly rectitude on the stage, this is no unfamiliar occasion. A grade seven pupil at the school, Mpho has heard a similar rendering of this speech that dispenses accolade and abhorrence in the same breathe since his first year at Tshiamo back in grade one.
Lifting his right hand to briskly cover his face from the sun’s piercing rays someone behind pinches him on the shoulder but Mpho resists, passively perturbed. “Elsberg we go today, akere?” a muffled whisper sounds. He duly glances back and immediately looks to the front again, not saying a word, but parting a look of disapproval for the seemingly out-of-place suggestion and continues to savour the clichéd mouthfuls of principal Ndlovu, one last time. The seventh grade is the last and highest at this community school in Robertsville where Mpho and his classmates have agilely scaled to the summit.
“Yes… the year has come to an end but let me remind you that the learning has not” notes the proud principal of his infantile learners the appetite for educational continuity. “I look forward to having most of you with us, next year. To those grade seven’s who have passed; I bid you farewell and good luck”. “But to the rest I say goodbye until next year…Enjoy your Christmas and have a blessed new year to all”. The teetering school bell rings, right on time, punctual as always; and a louder racquet ensues.
Several paces up ahead are Kamo and Noluthando giggling at the height of their voices. Kamo, short for Kamogelo meaning “graciously welcomed”, is Mpho’s younger sister and also a pupil at Tshiyamo Primary School, a grade three pupil. Noluthando is her classmate. Behind them stroll Cyprian and Mpho in a less jovial mood than one would expect of the pair at the start of their holidays. It seems Cyprian’s succinct message during assembly is the villain that holds ransom the end of term festive temperament between the two. “E Jo I’m telling you there’s nothing to be scared of …anyway what you scared of mfana, tell me?” persuades Cyprian. He awaits a response from Mpho much like an agitated officer of the law would of a suspect in an interrogation as depicted in the many-a-popular crime television drama. Facing down at the reddish gravel walkway Mpho steadily lifts and turns his head to meet with Cyprian’s eyes, intrusively, a childish attempt at sounding a silent protest at the insinuation of cowardice levelled against him. Mpho’s stare is only but superficial as he too has had the thought cross his mind: the thought of visiting the infamous town of Elsberg. “My mother’s warned me countless times about that place” he finally succumbs. “That’s fine then…remain a Mama’s baby” Cyprian responds speedily.
A vacuum of audible silence envelopes this lukewarm exchange, punctuated by the crunching of arid weeds and grains of sand underfoot. The rustling of leaves in the trees along the wayside to the wind’s latent rhythm and the intermittent chuckling of Kamo and Noluthando, in front, has clearness like never before.
Today she is home and not working at her employers, the Van Tonder family. On this day Mme-Tlali, Mpho’s mother, is meticulously tending to her own household’s keeping. Mme-Tlali is a domestic worker who’s laboured at the Van Tonder’s residence for most of Mpho’s short life, from before he was enrolled at Tshiamo. The Van Tonder’s residence is in Robertsville Hills; the cleaner and greener more suburban neighbourhood of Robertsville, divided by Steenkamp Laan from their barer, populous side. Having his mother home on arrival from school is a rarity for Mpho who’s usually bestowed the responsibility of watching over Kamo until either of his parent’s returns from work but today he has a day off, so to speak. However on this afternoon Mme-Tlali has found the time –among her other domestic duties– to put together a warm cooked meal for lunch. Pap and tinned sardines with some sweetened tomato gravy.
Promptly changed-out of their uniform and gathered at the wobbly kitchen table Mme-Tlali’s offspring tuck into their scrumptious treat savouring the benefits of her hereabouts. “Mpho-we where are your reports?” “Have you children passed?” she asks in a maternally austere tone. Mpho is caught surprised and between spoonfuls, “Coming Mme!” he politely spews, as he dashes out of the kitchen. A dense air of anticipation lingers on in the kitchen interrupted by the out pour of water from the tap outside into a galvanised bucket that holds the week’s laundry.
Mpho reappears in the kitchen tightly gripping two light brown A5 envelopes in his left hand, “Here they are Mme”, “we haven’t opened them” he announces gleefully. Passing Kamo, who still feasts at the table, he makes his way out hollering “Tomorrow parents must go to school to meet with the teachers” and hands over the parcels to his mother. “I hope your father can go…I’ll ask him” Mme-Tlali euphemistically informing Mpho that she’ll be at the Van Tonder’s and seeing as how she has taken to be home today for them, Mpho and Kamo, it shouldn’t be too unreasonable to expect that the other “parent” do the same.
Mpho’s father is at work today, he’s a groundsman at the municipal buildings in Robertsville Hills.
“Mpho-we please get that” instructs his mother hearing a pronounced knock at the front door. Mpho, coming hurriedly out of his room, struts over to inspect the door. It’s Cyprian. He has on a crisp white baseball cap that Mpho has never seen before, the gold and black emblem of Kaizer Chiefs embroidered on its visor. “Heita mfana, what you doing?” “Eeh… nothing why?” Mpho replies, stupefied, “No I mean… well I’m just waiting for my father to come back and take me and Kamo to Nkgunu” he adds. Mpho’s gaze is firmly fixed on Cyprian’s latest acquisition, he stands amazed.
“You like it? My mother got me it today, it’s because I passed and everything… you know?” boasts an elated Cyprian. The last born of four sons, Cyprian is regularly showered with gifts and endowments from the fortune of Robertsville Extension’s – the dustier denuded side – infamous enterprising family, the Kgobe dynasty. Mme-Mam’seto, loosely translated as “The Woman who will “set you up””, is the name garnered Cyprian’s mother by the droves of customers that have generously benefited from the ample range of profitable services that she, her husband and their three grown sons adroitly provide. Furniture removal; tent, table and chair hiring; accommodation renting are a few of several more.
Cyprian requests Mpho to accompany him on one of the usual errands his parsimonious mother commissions of him, it is to a client whose curtains she made. An outstanding balance is due for her dexterous curtain-making; it too is another niche of this ample-services providing Kgobe family.
There’s no answer at the indebted client’s abode, no noise from within, nothing. “Oh well, my mother will have to come by here herself and check on them” says Cyprian, “they should know better…” he adds with a whimsical shake of his head he expresses premature sympathy for the debtor. They smile in unison, Mpho and Cyprian, aware of Mme-Mam’seto’s scathing character towards delayful debtors. Surprised at the unfamiliar direction that his accomplice takes upon exiting the gate Mpho asks “aren’t you going to have tell your mother?” “Relax mfana I don’t have rush back today it’s the last day… remember” is Cyprian’s witty comeback “No early curfew!” he continues reminding Mpho of the inherent perks of being on “di-holiday”.
Knowing that he was to go visit his grandmother and remembering that he had not even begun with his miniscule chores for the afternoon Mpho stops, abruptly “C’mon Cyprian we must go tell you mom now…please!” he insists, opting not to disclose his familial predicament to Cyprian, “besides, where could we possibly go to on that side?” adding impatiently as he points over to the deciduous landscape of Robertsville Hills. Cyprian, undeterred by Mpho’s cautioning, walks on as though deafened by his own premeditation. “Cyprian…CYPRIAN!” “What?” “Let’s go back to…” “I told you not stress about it, didn’t I?” Cyprian interjects defiantly “We’re just going to my uncle Oupa” “we won’t stay long, we’ll be back soon” he concludes, calmer.
Silence has once again taken the place of conversation and now the two, Mpho and Cyprian, are privy to the varied intonations of the township’s banality. The banality that they have become is an inescapable commonplace typified by people muttering along, asynchronously, as they engage in meaningful this and that against the perceptible backdrop of rumbling old trucks on ground and thunderous airplanes overhead.
“How much longer ‘til we reach your uncle’s” Mpho probes delicately, noticing that they’re on course to Steenkamp Laan, Robertsville’s dividing pass. “What do you think high school will be like?” answer’s Cyprians. Mpho is made uneasy by his accomplice’s avoidance of his grave concern but, not one to be incessant, he entertains yet another one of Cyprians tactless distractions “Better I hope” “I hope so too… we’ll be doing less subjects, so it should be” asserts Cyprian. Mpho is silenced again puzzled by Cyprian’s sudden dodger-like tendencies. Nearer to Steenkamp they stride until only a metre of pastel gravel separates the two of them from the newly re-tarred road.
Walking deftly in the direction of fragmented oncoming traffic Cyprian holds out his left hand with his thumb pointed up, he’s hitch-hiking. Unfamiliar with this roadside pastime Mpho continues to observe a religious silence ambivalent to Cyprian’s niftiness as a fly is of a spider’s web. “We cannot make the rest of the way on foot, we must get a lift… hike” “Hike?” “Yes my uncle’s is in Elsberg”. Astounded by Cyprian’s ease of revealing this forbidden destination Mpho fails to conjure up an immediate protest and before he knows it a van has already veered off the road to halt on the pastel gravel behind them, its flickering orben tail-lights luminous in airborne dust. There’s no turning back now we’re on our way, he thinks to himself.
They have been moving for some time now –twenty minutes or so– they, Mpho and Cyprian, sit precariously on the edge of an oversized trough attached to their transporting van. The small town of Robertsville gradually fades away in the distance, obscured from view by hundreds of high rising timbre trees erect in demarcated rows, similar to those they stood in at assembly that morning, on either side of the road. There’s an unspoken excitement exchanged between them. “This is the first time I’m so faraway from home without my parents” Mpho voices, “Me too mfana” Cyprian concurs. With their fragile fingers gripped tightly to the rim of the trough and their backs hard-pinned against the motion’s turbulence, a consensus of appreciation for this totally pertinent excursion, which will no doubt narrate as a captivating tale at many a playground gathering, is mutely shared.
“I have never visited this uncle, he usually visits us but we haven’t been to where he stays”, “my mom says it’s because Elsberg is not safe” reveals Cyprian “But I think she says that only to scare me” he chuckles mischievously. “My mother told me that Elsberg used to be fine until those Barui started coming in”, “she says they are the ones that made people of Elsberg jealous and angry” Mpho informs Cyprian ,“they opened many, many bottle stores like the Mshengu one” he goes on, convinced of his mother’s telling and her plentiful wisdom. The Barui, translates as The Rich and Wealthy, are the handful of businessmen and women, in transit to varying destinations, daily passing through Elsberg to refuel their expensive cars; replenish hunger and thirst; and find ephemeral accommodation in the quaint bed-‘n-breakfasts common about town. Elsberg’s close proximity to the N3 carriage way has seen it evolve into a flourishing stop-over hub from a once dilapidating town. Conversely, this make-over provided the perfect veil to the town’s growing notoriety as a hedonistic haven.
Not far to go, alerts the driver. He won’t be going into town so they will have to dismount at the outskirts and make the rest of way by their lonesome, on foot. There’s no charge save of sound parting words. Mpho and Cyprian zestfully negotiate the terrain of stubborn knee-high veld grass to the town’s official entry/exit point. “WELKOM IN ELSBERG, WAMKELEKILE E ELSBERG” (Welcome to Elsberg) reads a concrete banner on the large stone edifice guarding the entrance. Below are ornate representations of a wagon-wheel and an old-style shotgun, which appear to be the town’s crest. Both beside themselves with excitement, the two, Mpho and Cyprian, prance about this monument, akin to the kind a dog would upon sensing its master. “We’re here mfana” Cyprian shouts “what you say, let’s have fun?”, “I don’t know man… we’ll see” responds Mpho, unsure. Veritably overwhelmed with guilt Mpho feels his innards forcibly thrown into conflict between this endearing adventure and a grave disappointment at himself, “How could I do this…” echoes deep within him.
The gate stands ahead of the St. Augustus cathedral, the town’s spiritual landmark, elegantly perched atop a mound circumscribed by the town’s main road. A freshly groomed lawn and in season tulips surround the cathedral, it exudes infallible morality. This is a stark contrast to the debauched dwellings and dealings fervent beyond this point. Behind the church the main road continues with an equidistant island running down the middle. Two-pronged street lamps and small shrubs litter this divider. Mpho and Cyprian cross the incoming street on to the sidewalk, as do all pedestrian visitors of Elsberg.
Store by store they inspect, peering through the all the windows, most covered in the “fifties”-era signage. “Wow!” each sighs, almost in-sync, as they move from one window to the next. “All these shops are the same” Mpho exclaims, “They look alike but sell different things” “Yes…it’s like the same shop again and again”. They’re unaccustomed to such nuances. Nearing the corner, gradually, they notice others like them, boys and girls, shuffling in and out of a store at the corner shop just before the first short street, a “sho’t right” in taxi commuter terms. Jason’s Fun & Games World. It’s a games arcade, Mpho realises and just then Cyprian yanks him inside.
“Tokens please”, “yes… with all of it” insists the ecstatic spender “wait Cyprian shouldn’t you save some for…” Too little too late, an avalanche of shiny silver coins is fiercely churned out by a grand machine to the left of the counter. Forty coins, twenty Rand’s worth. Engraved on them, the tokens, is “Not for Resale” they aren’t worth their weight in metal; they serve only as an unmarked currency for irreversible puerile pleasure. “Let’s start there mfana” Cyprian orders “yes… fine… what the heck”, “but I’ve never played it before” declares Mpho “Me too” says his accompanying half. In tandem they stride toward a one of the many boxed contraptions towering two metres or so.
An hour’s elapsed and their nowhere near done, there are still more games and more conquests yet only a few tokens remain. They play on. The place now sings a riotous tune, a tune led in by an older pubescent lot that has trickled in, group by group, and loudly congested the premises. Each noisy crowd pasting itself permanently at their chosen machine, barring access to anyone who might also want to give it try.
“Our last game and then we’re out of here” “we got to get home” announced Cyprian, candidly, seemingly unaware of the gravity of his utterance. Home! Home in Robertsville? Mpho confirms “where else”. He’s forgotten, Mpho realises, forgotten that the whole point of coming to Elsberg was to visit his uncle albeit an uncle he has never visited before today.
Undoubtedly the most fun he’s had in too long, tells a satisfied Cyprian, as the two of them lazily step across to the young man behind the counter. Jason? Handing over coupons, three hands-full, to the prize teller Cyprian glows in anticipation. He, the teller, hands out unknown delights from the treasure dispensary in which he stands. A small reddish maroon teddy; a smaller soccer star figurine and a moderate pack of sweet chewy treats are awarded them in exchange for their woeful spend. “You take the teddy bear, I’ll take the Maradona…you can give it to Kamo” says Cyprian “at least it won’t look like you were gone for nothing, you see mfana” he adds bargaining with Mpho’s inattention. “Good then, I can keep Mr. Jersey No.10”
Bright flickering blinding lights everywhere above to the right to the left everywhere. A darker sky, it’s definitely late. The quiescent and subdued charm that heralded their arrival is now no more, in its place is a palpable frenzy smeared all over the sidewalk. Grown-ups are out and about prowling from this store to that, feverishly, different from how the two unlikely travellers roamed around wide-eyed and curious. To the dry-cleaners the chemist the supermarket some went, some stopped to chat, some drove by while the rest darted across the road, to and fro.
Flagrant red tail-lamps; glaring Apollo lights; bright green blue and amber flickers, a light kaleidoscope draped everything and ushered in a licentious night time.
An orderly queue pours out of the shop, a fast food outlet it seems, on the opposite corner to that of the fun and games arcade. Luigi’s Portuguese Take-Away they read. “Let’s go ask them, those people there, if they know your uncle… what’s his name?”, “Oupa!”, “Just Oupa?”, “No Oupa Tabane”. Tabane is Cyprians mother’s maiden name. Mpho walks ahead of Cyprian, “Ex…excuse me ma’am” he pauses “do you know where Oupa Tabane stays”. No she doesn’t know; how could she? She is, after all, only spending the night in Elsberg, possibly a Murui judging from her elegant black two-piece suit and white shirt she is wearing. She politely instructs them to ask the cashier in front. A very unusual thing to happen this, Mpho thinks. That is to say for a Murui to be kind and polite to other people. Aren’t they supposed to be the bad ones? At least that is what his mother seems to believe.
Cautiously treading to the front Mpho and Cyprian are subject to many animus stares from the waiting horde whose thinning patience, they assume, entitles them to exact such contempt.
“We’re lost… can you please help us” Mpho pleads on their behalf to the swamped attendant, she obliges with a blank stare. “Do you know Oupa Tabane”, “Oupa Ta ba ne!” she annunciates “Where does he stay” “ehmm… Tamsyn Court” Cyprian remembers – in the knick of time, as the adage goes. “What street?”, “Street?”, “Yes! What street?” repeats the proletarian visibly annoyed. They look at each other stumped by this latest enquiry. Cyprian intimates a whispered “I don’t know” and an immediate ear-piercing “Next!” follows. Cyprian had only heard of his uncle Tabane’s residence when his mother fervently yelled it out during a rare exchange of heated words with his father but nothing was uttered of what street this place was to be found.
There’s no use bothering anymore nobody knows Cyprian’s uncle, they concede, having probed almost everyone, young and old, along this capacious stretch of road. It’s now obvious that Oupa Tabane is not a popular as they had first thought. Exhausted by the fruitless searching Mpho suggests that they find solace in quenching their, his and Cyprian’s, tiresome wanderings with a few gulps of water from a nearby tap. The tap protrudes from the side of one imposing three storey relic of building into an alley-like passage that separates this building from the next. Only partially visible under the dim light raining down from an obscure source on the neighbouring building, the tap opens with relative ease for Cyprian. “I told you Cyprian that this was a bad idea… coming here”, “we really shouldn’t have come here at all” Mpho rebukes sullenly as his culprit accomplice slurps out of his cupped hands. “Look now!” he persists “We have no money to get back home, nowhere to go and we don’t even know one single person here”.
A familiar silence invades their impasse. Water dripping from the tap and echoing as it slithers down the drain is all that intervals the awkwardness, this time around.
In conciliation, “I’m finished…you can drink now” Cyprian offers, an unspoken admission of guilt? His fellow expeditor accepts. Finished and done, they step into an intensifying medley of light. Startled again, but not like they were earlier, outside Jason’s Fun & Games World, up the road from here.
“Ey… where you lighties come from huh?” spits a hoarse voice from out of the darkened passageway behind them. “Isn’t it paas you lighties fokon bedtime already?”, “Maybe you looking for some bledy nightmares nne!” purports the faceless profaner accompanied by faint and muffled giggles. There’s more than one of him, the two realise and Cyprian’s confirms their suspicion with a swift glance at the ground behind. Indeed there are four, or about, as the lower limbs of the menacing gang come into view under the alley’s diffuse light.
Cyprian whispers, to Mpho, that they, simultaneously, slowly move forwards and turn around to face the aggressors. They look familiar, Mpho contemplates, as the amply luminous sidewalk uncovers the form and figure of everyone, out-of-towner and outlaw alike. The games arcade. That’s were he remembers them from. They were mixed in, all four of them – two boys two girls, with the wave of unruly teenagers that teemed about the arcade just as Mpho and Cyprian left. They must have followed them.
“Look how nice is his cap, baby” one of the lasses comments in a sing-song accent pointing at Cyprian’s head: his presented white baseball cap. “We have no money, nothing!” pleads Mpho “Please don’t hurt us”, “Yes, yes… really we don’t” Cyprian agrees. The wannabe tsotsis – small time crooks – had barely heard him, Cyprian, when in that instant he pulled on Mpho’s dangling wrist and ran brazenly in to the road. An immediate discordant melody erupted with a thick cloud of noises from uncontrollable screams, screeching rubber, incessant hooting and reflexive expletives poisoned the previously breathable air; choking everyone’s ears. Run stop run turn jump Cyprian leads the way having assumed pertinent escapist instincts. Paining to keep abreast with the leader and running short of breath a montage of half-thought thoughts race across Mpho’s mind hotly pursued by his and Cyprian’s frightening, unthinkable reality. They have nowhere to go.
With the bandit’s chase inevitably stifled by the feverish commotion they resort to taunting their pseudo-victims, from afar, with empty threats and promises that go unheard by Mpho and Cyprian but swallowed whole by the furore.
It’s quiet on this street, no noise, nothing but stillness. The light is softer and all white; it showers the ground from not that high up, as do the towering Apollo’s on the main road. Panting and feet stepping, their feet, Mpho and Cyprian, are the only sounds they hear. They stop. Still. Bending over to balance on his knees Mpho is entranced by the smell of blood so fresh and intense he tastes it all the way to the back of his throat, or at least he believes it is blood. “We beat them mfana” Cyprian wheezes “they won’t get us no more”, “You think so” “but what if they’re still coming…? We must hide”, “fast!” commands Mpho just as winded. “Yha fine but where Mpho?”, “over there behind that danger”. The danger he refers to is the large green steal voltage box, the power supply. The danger stands erect in front of a wall of the one-of-many old-Dutch styled houses on this serene street. Mpho hesitantly walks toward it, the danger, to gauge its suitability as a place of refuge. He peers behind it, briskly paces around it and nods in approval, an inspection he undertakes with an astuteness one would only expect of a trained municipal official. “Come Cyprian” Mpho whispers “it’s a good place to hide, there’s enough space”. “Do you hear… are they coming” “No, I can’t hear anything but the noise of this thing” grumbles Cyprian unhappy with Mpho’s choice of cover.
Moments of silence pass in the hide-out, shallow gasps and a humming voltage box define these moments they know well. Mpho leans to his side “Let me check the coast” he mutters to a tight-lipped Cyprian. Mpho’s shifty eyes survey the tranquil perimeters of their surroundings and eventually they rest square on a window on the opposite side of this quiet street. He is intrigued by the coloured light, an opaque turquoise, emitted from behind the window’s transparent curtain. Above and to left, he spots a name. “I’m coming” he says “What?” “I’m coming back now” “Where you going man?” “I’m going there…” “Wait…I’m coming with you” insists Cyprian dusting himself off.
Above the wrought-iron gate that prohibits entry past an open-flung glass door, hangs Tamsyn Court, in big white capital letters drilled on to the face brick front. “This is the place isn’t it?” asks Mpho “Yes… yes it is” Cyprian concurs, numbed whole. Both stand inert, stunned, each waiting for the other to act to move to do, something or anything. They wait. With a gruff clearing of his throat Mpho utters “Let’s go in” “Yes let’s” again Cyprian agrees and stretches a shivering hand towards the door bell, mounted on the wall close to the gate’s keyhole. He presses. They wait. Cyprian looks at his side-kick, assimilates an uncomfortable swallow and presses once more. Again they wait. At this interval Mpho’s gaze passes the iron barricade landing on the narrowed rustic corridor, he harbours grim imaginations in his weary mind.
A door is heard to be frenetically unlocked. They can both hear it; it’s near, each thinks. A steady pull follows and into the hallway steps out a short elderly women. “Hello daar” her voice squeaks. Dressed in a lilac night dress and matching robe and violet bed-slippers it would seem she had readied herself for bed when the two truants arrived. “Who are you here for?” she asks courteously “Oupa!” Cyprian’s upbeat response, “Wie se Oupa are you looking for?” “Oupa Tabane… he’s my uncle”. She puckers her thinned lips and raises her chest then finally she sighs softly “Ag Kleinjtie your Oupa left in the afternoon to go back to Welkom…today were his last day in Elsberg”.
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