50

THE GATHERING MORN

SWEETNESS WOKE VERY EARLY IN A LUMPY BED in a strange room – the first time she had ever slept apart from her mother. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. Hanging on the back of the door were the new clothes that foreshadowed the frightening things that were about to happen to her: going away to a far place, being questioned by priests, being expected to tell again and again about those few awesome minutes in the burnt-out hut.

Ma-Jesu had seemed so kind that Sweetness felt sure she wouldn’t have wanted her to be harassed. Maybe if she just disappeared and nobody could ask her any more questions, people would disbelieve the vision and everything would go back to normal again?

She got up and put on her school gymslip and the frayed blouse she had worn for two days, now soiled and stale with sweat. She couldn’t take any of the new clothes if she was escaping. But where were the lovely butterflies the teacher had bought her? Miss Jacobs, she reminded herself, not Teacher—

Then she remembered. They were in the nuns’ dining room, nestled in the silver lamé on the altar so Sister Immaculata wouldn’t see them and get even crosser.

She opened the door with a quiet click and found herself in the passage that ran past the nuns’ common room where she had waited so long yesterday. When she crept along and peeped in, the statue of the sad Jesu was still pulsing red, on and off, on and off like an ambulance warning light.

She wondered if there was holy blood being pumped around in there like she had learnt in biology at school. The thought made her shiver, but she went on, her bare feet moving on the cold concrete floor like mice.

The dining room was dark with the lights off and she had to feel a careful way past the chairs and tables to reach the altar so as not to make a noise. Some of the flowers were wilted now, but her butterflies looked alive, their bright metal wings fluttering in the folds of the silver lamé as she drew closer. She picked them up one by one and pushed their hairpin prongs into her hair.

That morning Sweetness Moloi believed she’d had enough fame for a lifetime, but she had hardly begun her extraordinary journey.

Violet was up early too. She went through to the prophet’s dressing room to set out his vestments and jewellery for the day, always her first priority. Then she assigned two of the junior wives to look after the Hot Gospellers and hurried to the tabernacle tent to check preparations for the gathering.

All supplies had arrived, the half-drums of charcoal had been lit, the cooks were busy and the chairs and tables were in place. The stage had drums, lights, sound equipment and a rostrum for the choir. To one side was the prophet’s ironwood lectern, hand-carved with finely detailed crocodiles, lizards, tortoises, leguaans and snakes. God’s creatures crawling on the earth were in awe of His presence and power, he preached; their scales would fall away on Judgement Day, just as the scales would fall from the eyes of true believers.

It was a clever concept, as it turned people’s natural fear of reptiles into a parable celebrating humility. Hal was a genius at conceiving ideas and weaving them into sermons that enthralled crowds to the point where he could build up to a crescendo, and just lift one majestic arm to make them rise and shout, ‘Hallelujah!’ Choirs robed in African prints, moving in unison this way and that, backed him with gospel hymns, hands and feet chugging the old rhythms that got congregations clapping and singing along.

‘Involve your flock in joyful physical celebration,’ Hal always said, ‘and they’ll leave spiritually satisfied.’

Brilliant, that was the only word. Shaking her head in admiration as she continued with her scrutiny, Violet noted that the portable toilets had not yet been returned. She’d come down hard on the captain if they arrived a minute after nine and not emptied and cleaned. From experience, she knew that crowds needed to be assured of proper sanitation to get into celebration mood.

This was a make-or-break occasion, she and Hal both agreed. The brown Madonna was a threat to their enterprise. Twelve years of hard work down the drain if they couldn’t produce a truly memorable gathering that combined soul food with a feast everyone would remember.

She moved on to the cooking arena where butchers were cutting up the meat – strong-smelling because of the heat, but not too ripe for grateful feasters – into individual portions for roasting over beds of hot coals. Each cook had a task: one to stir the giant pots of phuthu and umngqusho, one to add wild spinach and herbs to the morogo, another to slide fresh mealie kernels into bean-thickened isophu. At the far end of the cooking line, a harassed woman flustered over a huge pot of chakalaka, complaining that it had too little bite because not enough chillies had been used.

‘Add a few bottles of peri-peri,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll send a runner back to the house to fetch some.’

In the serving marquee, paper plates and serviettes were being stacked on long tables with skirts caught up at intervals in Correct Baptised rosettes: green and blue satin ribbons frilled round beadwork centres.

Everything was going according to plan.

By eight o’clock the crawling traffic resumed: bus and taxi and car loads of the prophet’s faithful, delivery trucks, journalists, camera crews, two outside broadcast vans, and increasing numbers of pilgrims who’d read of the sensational brown Madonna in the Sunday papers.

Captain Ngobese had requested emergency tents, stretchers and more reinforcements – the army, if necessary – before snatching a few hours’ sleep. During the small hours, his second-in-command and the night shift dug the ten-holer, requisitioned portable toilets from sleepy building site foremen in town, set up traffic lights on tripods and marked off tent spaces and parking areas in the veld with red-and-white-striped plastic tape.

Just before dawn, the sound of iron pegs being hammered into the stony ground signalled that a khaki tent town was going up. An elderly white pensioner whose habit was to scan the horizon at sunrise through ancient binoculars got a bad shock when he saw it, and fled to the marital bed raving, ‘The Boer War’s come back to haunt us!’

‘Rubbish, Alfred,’ grumbled his wife. ‘You shouldn’t have eaten so much broccoli last night. It always gives you wind.’

The captain came on duty, sent the second-in-command home and the night shift to the tents for a few hours of sleep. Then he phoned round the village before calling his staff and reinforcements into the charge office for a briefing.

Before he could start, the sergeant said, ‘I’ve just taken a call for you, Captain. Ma Violet says if we don’t have her toilets back by nine, empty and clean, she’ll hold you personally responsible.’

He said, ‘See to it, then. They’ll be needed. She’s catered for the usual crowd, but it looks like their gathering will be invaded by pilgrims who can’t find the brown Madonna. When the hymn singing stops and the feast runs out, there are going to be big problems.

‘So I’ve asked all the shops to stay open. Tex was already baking when I went home last night. He and Mrs Ming and the butcher say they’ve re-ordered supplies for immediate delivery. Jo Drinkwater went with her father to hospital, but Khanya assures me that suppliers will bring in more bread and cooldrinks during the morning. And Tannie Charmaine van der Linde has offered free meals, using items from their stockpile.’

One of the women cops laughed. ‘She always runs the church fêtes. Bossy lady but a damn good cook.’

‘I also called the Muslim Council requesting an emergency call-out of their Poor Relief caravan. It’s a big favour to ask because these crowds aren’t poor, nor are they Muslims. But I’ve been assured the caravan will come as it’s a humanitarian issue.’

‘Their food’s delicious.’

‘How do you know?’ A number of accusing eyes turned to the speaker, who looked embarrassed and didn’t answer.

The captain gave him a thoughtful look. If he stooped to taking poor people’s food, maybe he was the one accepting bribes? He went on, ‘The shack builders are busy cladding the toilet facility. Anything else?’

‘There was a blue baby born in the village yesterday,’ another of the women cops reported. ‘A boy. Baptist Jolobe told me. He fetched an incubator.’

‘How is the child this morning?’

‘Okay, as far as they can tell. Sister Dineo swears the brown Madonna answered her prayers.’

‘I can’t say as much for Jolobe,’ the sergeant said. ‘I hear he’s fallen for Queenie in a big way. It must have been the full moon last night.’

Everyone laughed and the captain had to raise his voice. ‘That’s it, people. Get going. No time off until we’re in control of the situation. And no talking to journalists or posing for photographs. Refer them to me for further information or statements.’

Wishful thinking, he knew. No good journalist is deterred by bland ‘no comments’, and the paparazzi were everywhere.

Tannie Charmaine was preparing to leave Vanderlindea, having informed Swart Barend when she woke him in the gun room that their squirrelled-away supplies were required in the village.

‘I volunteered free meals, Barend. There are hundreds of strangers flocking into Crocodile Flats and the shops can’t cope.’

He was stiff and aching in all his joints after spending the night slumped in his old leather armchair, and when he found he couldn’t get up, growled like the ageing lion king he saw when he looked in the mirror, ‘You are making a big mistake, vrou, even to think of squandering this food. I forbid you to go forth from our homeland.’

Tannie Charmaine stuck out her chin. ‘Me and my team of helpers – including our two daughters – will be gone in ten minutes.’

‘I wash my hands of you and your degenerate female spawn!’ he roared. ‘My son and Hester and I will preserve the family name.’ He wagged a shaky finger in lieu of physically throwing her out.

‘Oh get real, Barend,’ she snapped. ‘Your son’s been carrying on with that totty Salomie by the motel and Hester’s always fawning over the pastor. She won’t breed any grandkids for us at this rate. No Van der Lindes anyway.’

‘Blasphemer,’ he moaned. ‘Viper in my bosom. Betrayer of the volk. Verraaier. Unnatural woman.’

‘I’ll be back to make you lunch as usual,’ she said and forged off to marshal her troops, never happier than when she had someone to organise.