26

SNOOPY

ROD GREYLING’S TAPE RECORDER, CAMERAS AND GLAMOUR worked overtime that Friday afternoon. After milking as many details as he could from his companions over lunch, he set off to gather more background about this place where people were talking of a miracle, leaving his main target till last.

Philomena had suggested starting with Vigilance at his sewing machine on the trading-store veranda. ‘He sees everything, that old man. For years now.’ He interviewed Vigilance at his sewing machine on the trading-store veranda, an ideal vantage point for an informant.

The mender of shoes recounted the highs and lows of the past five decades. The heady days of Land Bank loans and fleets of new tractors. The night Glenda Kemp came to undulate half-naked with her python in the Outspan bar, and Pastor Nazaret Harmse’s cursing her from his pulpit after he read about it the next day in the Sunday Times. The long quiet years when nothing much happened as the town crept closer and shacks grew and spread like fungi on dead wood. The harrowing years after 1976 when cops were everywhere, chasing stone-throwing kids with flailing sjamboks and Alsatians. The euphoria of the first election when everyone stood for hours in long queues to vote. The ongoing drought. No jobs. Young people running wild.

‘What do you think will happen?’ the photojournalist prodded, lifting his camera.

Vigilance looked away down the tarmac to where the gravel road began, a flattened strip of sulphur running to the horizon. The telephoto lens zoomed in on his eyes to pick up the superimposed reflections and the new moons of cataracts. ‘I think everything is changing too fast. Maybe for good, maybe for worse. Who can say?’ It was what many older people said, though he added a codicil. ‘But we always have hope.’

A metaphor for the New South Africa, Rod kept thinking as he roamed through the shacks recording more interviews, a conspicuous giant with feral blond curls that put people in mind of WWF wrestlers. His tanned hide looked as though bullets would ricochet off it, his boots as though they had slogged through many wars. It was a surprise when he lifted one of his cameras and made subtle movements with fingers that should be firing cannons rather than Canons.

One of the Lucky Boys suggested mugging him in a quiet spot, but Smart Fikile snarled, ‘Forget it. We’ve made our plan for tonight.’

‘We could get him too.’

‘Don’t be fuckin’ stupid. That dude’s packing a shoulder holster, check?’ The questioner wilted under his glare and sidled away.

Rod’s progress gathered a swarm of silent followers who stood watching as he clicked Queenie posing in her convivial shebeen, then Ma Sicelo and Lily in the spaza shop. He caught Lily’s gummy grin at its merriest after he had given her two new five-rand coins.

He sought out childminders, knowing that cute poor kids were sure sellers, especially if they had snot trails and holes in their clothes. He took prize-winning black-and-white mood shots of Mad Zizwe walking down a smoke-wreathed alley, trailed by three skinny dogs, and of Chief Mohlalipula’s Valiant with the old man snoring in the back seat.

From one of the koppies, Rod fired off a sequence of full-colour wideangle views that highlighted the contrast between the Prophet Hallelujah’s Tuscan mansion and the makeshift shanties crowding up to its walls. Affluence amid teeming squalor sold well too.

When he had quartered the settlement and wrung out the last drop of visual pathos, he went back to the tarmac and turned to shoo the followers away with a smiling ‘That’s it, folks!’ belied by a brisk gesture to get lost. Hangers-on were a hindrance when it came to more delicate negotiations.

After they’d trailed off, he headed up the road to the ex-garage where people said the nuns were sheltering Sweetness. His telephoned request for an interview had been denied, though he was confident that a winning smile would disarm them.

‘Could I speak to you ladies, please?’ he called from the service entry.

Sister Hilary looked up from her scrubbing. ‘Who are you?’

Sister Immaculata growled, ‘Go away. We’re busy.’

The heat level in the village notched up by degrees from mid-morning onwards, and all ten of them were flushed and sweaty from the dusting and sweeping and flower-gathering to impress Mother Esmé.

He stepped inside flourishing a business card. ‘Rod Greyling, freelance photojournalist. I’ve just had lunch with your Sister Dineo at the hotel.’

Lunchtime had come and gone for nine of the sisters without even a piece of toast, so urgent were their preparations. Accusing faces turned towards Sister Dineo, who was bent double lubricating the hydraulic altar. As she straightened up with a glowing face, Sister Immaculata advanced ominously. ‘Have we been misinformed, Dineo? You said you were going to check on Mr Drinkwater.’

‘I did. He looked terrible but was conscious. I advised his daughter to have him seen by a doctor. Then Captain Ngobese asked me to—’

Rod powered up the winning smile and cut in, ‘Captain Ngobese asked Sister Dineo to attend a lunchtime meeting at the hotel with other residents and explain the significance of yesterday’s vision.’

‘Miracle, you mean.’ Sister Nokwe had warbled her excitement all day.

‘Not necessarily.’ Sister Immaculata was notorious for her biting corrections. ‘The girl could be making up the whole thing. That’s why the man from the diocese and Mother Esmé are coming, to verify the facts.’

‘I’m here for the same reason.’ Rod took another step. ‘To get the real story behind the brown Madonna.’

‘Who told you about this?’ Sister Immaculata turned on him with a dangerous humming like an electrical substation. ‘It’s still sub judice.’

‘Not any more.’ Another cautious step forward. ‘The shoe mender at the trading store has been passing on the good news all morning. The whole dorp knows by now.’

‘Who are you? Why did you come in the first place? Answer me.’

He recoiled to the service entry jiggling his business card in outstretched fingers. ‘I’m trying to explain: Rod Greyling, photojournalist. I had an anonymous tip-off.’

Sister Immaculata whipped round to the other nuns. ‘One of you must have told this man.’ After a flurry of fervent head-shaking she pointed a trembling finger. ‘It must have been you, Hilary. You phoned Mother Esmé from the tickey box. You had the opportunity.’

‘It wasn’t me, truly,’ Sister Hilary quavered. ‘Ask Vigilance. He was watching. I only made one call. Then I dropped the phone and ran out to help him when that horrible postmaster knocked him down.’

‘Then who was it? Dineo? You’ve deceived us over this lunch.’

‘It wasn’t me. And I didn’t tell you about the lunch because I thought it would arouse—’ She faltered, suffused with guilt.

‘Envy? Rage? You’re right. I’m furious. You could have had a few mouthfuls and brought the rest back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sister Dineo said in a small voice.

‘Sorry doesn’t fill empty stomachs.’

Rod wheedled, ‘Please listen to me, Sister. The story is already doing the rounds and probably gathering all sorts of rumours. My job is to establish the true facts by talking to the person who had the experience. Is the girl here?’

‘What girl?’ Sister Immaculata challenged. ‘And where are your credentials?’

He held up his card. ‘That’s what I’m trying to give you: my business card. My agency deals with top publications worldwide. Time, Newsweek, The Times, Paris Soir, Sydney Morning Herald—’

‘Top publications cut no ice with me.’ Sister Immaculata was tapping the bread knife on one of the tables in a threatening staccato. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about, anyway.’

Rod laughed. ‘Do you really think I’m that dumb?’

‘I can’t answer for your IQ, but you don’t seem to realise that you’re not wanted here. So scram!’ The bread knife swished in a savage arc.

‘No, I won’t. I have rights.’ Holding out an authoritative hand palmforward to keep her at bay, Rod went on, ‘These are the facts as I understand them. The girl’s name is Sweetness Moloi, she’s in Grade 7B at Crocodile Flats Primary and she believes that she has seen the Virgin Mary – an African lady, she claims.’ The tone of his voice shifted from request to ultimatum. ‘This brown Madonna has international implications. I demand to speak to the girl.’

‘You may not.’ Father Liam strode forth from the doorway where he’d been listening to the fuzzy-haired creep trying to bully his way in. ‘She’s out of bounds until our superiors have conducted investigations.’

Cameras clashed round his neck as Rod swung to face the new challenge: a bulky priest with a face like thunder. Change of tactics; he’d thought there were only nuns here. He stuck out his hand and said, man-to-man, ‘Rod Greyling. Pleased to meet you, Father.’

‘Can’t say I’m pleased to meet you.’ Father Liam folded his arms.

‘Have it your way.’ Rod withdrew his hand. ‘But I’m an accredited member of the press with a right to request an interview with Sweetness Moloi. It’s up to her to decide whether or not to talk to me, not you.’

‘Tell me another. She’s a minor parishioner in our charge.’

Rod blustered, ‘And you’re obstructing the free flow of information.’

‘Am I, hell. You press people are pests. I’m exertin’ pest control.’

‘That’s an insult.’ Rod’s right fist clenched.

‘Try me,’ the priest said.

For a long moment they squared up to each other: both of the same height and build, though Rod was younger and unhampered by a cassock. Neither disadvantage fazed Father Liam. He looked the journalist in the eye and said, ‘Piss off, Snoopy. You’re not wanted here.’

It was one of the few times in his career that Rod Greyling beat a retreat in the face of anything less than withering mortar fire. I’m not done with that righteous bastard yet, he vowed as he stomped out the door with his cameras now bristling round his neck.

He’d break the story of the brown Madonna to the whole world, using it to show up the shocking contrast between the lifestyles of the holy hypocrites and those of the shack dwellers.

The satellite phone should be fully recharged by now.