31

BLACK SPOT II

THE GENEVA TIME ZONE IS ONE HOUR BEHIND South Africa’s. Hendrik’s report on Crocodile Flats, emailed from his office at six o’clock that evening, came through as Dr Qaphela waYozi reached into his suite’s bar fridge for a cold beer. It had been a long, taxing day of committee meetings, coffee breaks, pre-luncheon drinks, a six-course meal, a plenary session and an IMF delegates’ cocktail party, and he was looking forward to a relaxing evening with just his laptop for company.

Within minutes of scanning the first paragraph, the Minister of Redevelopment had flown into an epic rage. He summoned his secretary out of a hot bath intended to soak away the rigours of a servile day and yelled, ‘Get up here now! I want you to locate Ossewa. He’s not following orders. I’ll have his lily-white guts for garters.’

‘Yes, sir. Would he be at the office or at home?’

‘Try both. Just get him on the line.’

He read the rest of the email while the secretary – his hair still dripping on a snatched-up white towelling robe – rang through to the hotel switchboard, requested an emergency call and gave the numbers.

After his ordeal in the sweltering riot wagon, Hendrik had changed his mind about dragging out the process of relocation. No way would he be insulted by a mere station commander. His report to the minister stated that the Crocodile Flats squatter camp was the worst black spot he’d ever seen.

‘The place is an epidemic waiting to happen: jam-packed shacks, no sanitation, flies everywhere,’ it went on. ‘The existing infrastructure is on the point of collapse. The police can’t control the gangs or the shebeens or the prostitutes, and the old chief can’t control anyone – all he does is complain about losing his Great Place and the amaPulas’ rental income. The mainstream churches are busy meddling as usual, and a bogus church is stirring people up with revival meetings and mumbo-jumbo.

‘It’s a completely hopeless situation. If new homes aren’t available for relocation right away, people should be paid enough compensation to move. I recommend that you return home soonest to address this serious and escalating crisis in case members of the press get wind of the conditions.

‘I also want to report that my party of three was obstructed by the new station commander, Captain Ngobese. He used a Bantu language to pass messages to his men in front of me. This is not correct procedure.’

The minister knew precisely what was meant by ‘serious and escalating crisis’: the president would have him on the carpet for causing the government embarrassment. An icy chill ran down his spine. The thought of being called in for questioning had never crossed his mind. But the very idea of having to fly home before the IMF meeting ended was unthinkable. Ossewa would have to handle the situation. Fast.

‘How come this black spot wasn’t brought to my attention earlier?’ was the first question Dr Qaphela fired at him down the phone.

‘But it was, Minister. You yourself decided that Crocodile Flats should be cleared. Only there’s no alternative accommodation and you said it would have to wait until—’

‘I was misinformed. This is your indaba. Yours alone! I expect you to find a solution. Work something out, access the funds, organise prefab housing, then supervise the relocations with as little fuss as possible.’

‘Access the funds?’ Hendrik was appalled. ‘It’ll cost millions. You know how hard it is getting permission just to replace the office blinds, Minister.’

‘Organise a loan from a foreign government, man! The Scandinavians are pushovers for sub-economic housing.’ The minister had become querulous. ‘Understand, Ossewa. Your job and your retirement benefits are on the line here. You don’t fix this mess, you’re fired. No compensation. No golden handshake. No generous pension. Nothing.’

‘But you can’t! The Codesa Agreement—’

Hendrik’s voice trailed off. In a tizzy of panic he saw his entire career passing before him: his early years as a lowly clerk, the mighty struggle up the pecking order, the fawning for favours and promotions, dancing attendance on superiors, rising inch by inch towards the upper echelons of the ministry … Then the terrible shock after the first democratic elections when black people suddenly materialised in the positions of power. Often better qualified black people, women even. It was a shattering revelation to find out that so many black South Africans had been beavering away overseas getting degrees when everyone thought they only went to bush colleges.

Dr Qaphela warned, ‘I mean it. The president won’t put up with incompetence and nor will I. Comprende, Hendrik?’

It was the first time the minister had called him by his first name, an ominous sign. With a shudder of impending doom, he replied, ‘Yes, Minister, I understand. I’ll see what I can do.’ As he put down the telephone receiver with a shaking hand, he muttered to himself, ‘Three bags full, Minister.’

In distant Geneva the secretary was trying to scuff away his damp footprints on the deep-pile carpet as he backed out of the suite.

Irritated by his furtive shuffling, the minister snapped, ‘And you! Get my staff to compile a dossier on Crocodile Flats and order copies of the personal files of this Captain Ngobese and Hendrik Ossewa. I’ll expect them by midday tomorrow. Without fail.’

‘Without fail, Minister.’

‘And next time, don’t come to me in a state of undress.’

The secretary gulped. ‘I thought you were in a hurry?’

‘Don’t try my patience. Just do as I say!’ The command came boiling up from the deep place where the minister concealed his doubts and fears. ‘This is a five-star hotel used by diplomats and top businessmen, and we have an image to maintain. South Africans are proud. We do not scuttle around in towels.’

‘I apologise, Minister.’ The secretary clutched the bathrobe round his middle, slunk out the door and fled.

Dr Qaphela reached for the neglected beer, now sitting in a ring of condensation, and went to pour it down the marble basin in the bathroom. No minister could be expected to tolerate warm beer.

Back home, the black spot was seething with conjecture about the brown Madonna. Rumour flew from shack to shack that Sweetness Moloi had seen a vision which had so impressed the Catholic father and nuns that they’d called in some big guns all the way from Joburg. People stopped each other along the pathways. From the trading store veranda, Vigilance broadcast regular bulletins about the activities at the Outspan Hotel and the arrival of the VIPS in a big shiny car. The shops were doing a roaring trade and stayed open; the bar and shebeens were pumping by six o’clock with patrons eager to hear the details.

Which, naturally, got distorted with constant repetition.

The girl had seen a spook – no, a mark in the shape of a holy woman on the wall of a hut. She’d been drunk – no, bewitched. She’d been meeting a lover – no, she’d been raped and invented the story to cover her shame. The spook had a light shining behind it – no, a fire. The ancestors were angry because the girl had told lies – no, she’d seen something so wonderful that the nuns were singing her praises.

There was talk of saints and angels and revelations. Maybe the vision was a portent of good things to come in Crocodile Flats – like houses with brick walls and proper roofs that didn’t let in the rain. For everyone. General laughter greeted that quaint idea. Squatters and illegal immigrants could not expect to feature on housing priority lists.

The people Rod had photographed were celebrities. Queenie held court in her shebeen under the tarpaulin, teetering round on stilettos in her green-mamba sheath dress: emerald satin with sequin scales and long slits up the sides. Ma Sicelo had customers lining up outside her spaza shop for inside information with their purchases; Lily counted out the change like a seasoned bank teller.

‘That photo man’s got hair like a beauty queen, s-o-o-o-o long.’ Ma Sicelo lost count of the times she had demonstrated the extent of Rod’s crowning glory. ‘He took plenty of pictures, eh, Lily?’

‘Yeth, Ma.’ She was thrilled. Rod was the first stranger who had ever talked to her without his eyes flickering over the discrepancy between her features and her raw pink skin. He’d also given her two five-rand coins – riches! – after she’d answered his questions about her friend Sweetness.

‘Did she tell you what she saw?’ everyone wanted to know.

‘No, thorry,’ Lily had to admit.

‘But I heard for sure—’ Ma Sicelo grew hoarse giving her fifth-hand account of the brown Ma-Jesu.

‘Just like us,’ people went away marvelling.

Girlie Ming was more than a little annoyed that Rod had not come into the Beijing Bazaar to ask her opinion and take her photo at the counter. As the village’s acknowledged wise woman and authority on just about everything, she had a lot to say about teenage girls who claimed to see visions.

‘It’s the sexual urge dollied up with romantic ideas and religion,’ was her new theory, broadcast to everyone who came in the door.

As usual, Mad Zizwe refused to answer questions. After his dogs had each spurted pee several times on the Lancia tyres, he shambled towards the football ground and disappeared behind its derelict toilets.

‘Now it begins,’ he told them.