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GRAND FINALE

YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY. Crocodile Flats has blossomed into an ecumenical theme park showcasing the world’s major religions, centred on the Brown Madonna Shrine. More than three million visitors a year pass through the turnstiles at the golden gates.

The vision described by Sweetness was not authenticated by the Catholics because the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith held that the Virgin Mary could not have been African. But a miracle was certainly accomplished.

As the village prospered, people built thatched homes with walls incised in geometric amaPula designs, one for each family. Old dwellings worth restoring have been converted into five-star B&BS. Ma Sicelo’s spaza shop, Queenie’s shebeen and an alley of shacks have been retained to remind people how tough life had been. The long drops and septic tanks were ploughed under and paved over to seal off the lurking germs. New windmills fed by a pristine aquifer supply all the water.

The theme park built on the site of the old settlement is a well-run, peaceful facility staffed by residents. The karate-trained Lucky Boys control security, headed by Smart Fikile who was released from prison after two years for good behaviour and passing his matric. Litterbugs and troublemakers are escorted to the Sin Bin and urged to mend their ways. The Lucky Boys no longer carry weapons.

In the finest traditions of ecumenical harmony, Muslims rub friendly shoulders with Jews, Catholics attend foot-stomping gospel sessions, Dutch Reformed dominees have learnt to unbend in Buddhist meditation classes, Anglicans permit themselves to be born again, uniformed majors of the Salvation Army have learnt to levitate, and Baptists have been observed debating the Kabbala with members of the Gay and Lesbian Association.

Alternative disciplines are welcome too. Running parallel with the resurfaced tarmac road is the Reconciliation Mall managed by Girlie Ming. It has muti shops, traditional healers, health spas, yoga and Pilates studios, a reflexology and aromatherapy centre, acupuncture, Ayurveda and shiatsu practitioners, a crystal emporium, and a bookshop, Holy Writ. Kiosks along the concourse house astrologers, homeopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, motivational gurus, sangomas, palmists, tarot-card readers and experts who analyse everything from dreams to handwriting to zygotes. A qualified alchemist runs the perfume kiosk, Heaven Scent.

Physical needs on a less elevated plane are catered for in a discreet cul-de-sac with massage parlours and a licensed brothel where the sociable tarts wear femidoms without fail. All the practitioners have regular medical tests.

There is a fynbos garden round the Speaker’s Corner where philosophers debate their theories with other seekers after truth. At a drum café, visitors learn to beat the rhythms of Africa to its glorious music. Dance studios give demonstrations of gumboot dancing, and San instructors teach the mysteries of trance dancing. Monthly choir contests in the amaPula Arena are very popular, especially when the Hot Gospellers – still number one on the holy hit parade – are competing.

Visitors are reminded as they depart to keep using South Africa’s secret weapon: a smile, which never fails to elicit a return smile. Even sceptics and confirmed atheists have been known to leave Crocodile Flats feeling enriched.

Some of the villagers have become equally famous.

The Prophet Hallelujah’s weekly gatherings in a giant dome that seats two thousand souls are a major attraction. The Correct Baptised God Come Down in Africa Church has a database of a million believers, regularly updated by the youngest wife when she is not busy with conjugal duties. Violet continues to orchestrate Jabula Enterprises Inc. and gives authoritative interviews about the prophet’s world-famous robes, each created by a different South African designer.

Sweetness can often be found at the Brown Madonna Shrine where people kneel among the butterflies flitting round the Amadonnamadonna statue, a South African masterwork sculpted by her brother, Tsietsi. She grants interviews and signs autographs in return for donations to the Ma-Jesu Children’s Fund, whose CEO is her friend Rejoice Ngobese, a qualified accountant, who also manages the worldwide sales of Brown Madonna Roll-on Sacred Oil via the Crocodile Flats website.

Sweetness is no longer a Moloi, having married Khanya Tibane in a moving ceremony conducted by Father Liam and the late Mother Esmé. They live with their children next door to her parents, Esau and Philomena. Ma Philo is a fond granny but seldom available for babysitting, as she runs the bakery celebrated for her Brown Madonna biscuits. Blind Esau is too disabled to work, but can speak again.

Khanya owns and manages the theme park’s souvenir shop, which wins annual awards for highlighting South African craftwork. One of its best-sellers is a waistcoat with amaPula motifs made by the Van der Linde spinsters on the ageing electric Bernina that can still do one hundred and twenty fancy stitches. Other best-sellers are carved soapstone miniatures of Amadonnamadonna, car tyre sandals in ethnic designs and the elegant wooden bowls turned by Greg Ingram, who discovered his talent for woodwork while making a crib for his baby son, Davy Mpho.

Tannie Charmaine does most of the buying for the shop, travelling the country in search of self-help groups making beautiful artefacts. Beaded decorations for Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, Hogmanay and other New Years are very popular. She and Violet have become fast friends and soul sisters.

Sis’ Diliza wears three important hats as Chief Diliza, Mayor Mohlalipula and a member of the Council of Traditional Leaders. Being a practical woman, she refused a mayoral limousine and is driven round in Baptist Jolobe’s new eighteen-seater minibus taxi, which allows her to give people lifts. The remains of his old Skoroskoro stand on a plinth outside the Hamba Kahle bus station to remind residents how far they have come since the bad old days.

Her official spokesperson is Rod Greyling, who has given up his roving ways and outrageous hair for clean shaves and a BlackBerry. He heads the Holy Office, the Crocodile Flats publicity bureau. Vigilance is the town crier who sits in the village square with a loudhailer to make announcements.

On the site of the Outspan bottle store is Holy Spirits, a bar run by Queenie Jolobe. Baptist can sometimes be found drinking orange juice in the corner and is known to klap men twice his size if they even look at his wife with hot eyes.

Interconnecting doors link the bar with the renovated Outspan Hotel, an acknowledged Art Deco masterpiece restored to its thirties glory; the glamorous dining room with mirror mosaics is often booked out for weddings. Benjamin Feinbaum, the manager, has won many Tourism Excellence awards. All his menus were conceived by his wife, Raylene, before she was appointed headmistress of the new co-ed school. She and the little Feinbaums ride to school every morning along a safe cycle path with the Moloi, Ingram and Van der Linde kids.

When Cassie Ingram isn’t running after Davy and his sister, she trains the theme park chefs and manages the efficient kitchens that supply the Harvest Festival Farm Stall with her unique line of Cassie’s Celestial chutneys, jams, konfyts, preserves and atchars, now also selling in Harrods and Bloomingdales.

Most food facilities in the park are Africa-themed, with a nod to Mexico in Holy Guacamole. Healthy fast food is available at the milkbar, Holy Cow, and from mobile units that sell low-fat slap chips and bunny chows in wholemeal half loaves.

Rooi Barend (still married to Hester) manages a tourist attraction popular with traditionalists and kids: the Voortrekker Homestead and Petting Farm, where the café serves coffee and koeksisters, and the museum has displays of farming life, peach pip floor designs and copper mampoer stills. On the werf are a jukskei pitch and a lawn where bokdrolspoegkompetisies are held. Salomie demonstrates the art to interested visitors, and few notice that she disappears afterwards into the old trek wagon with the feather mattress. Rooi Barend is hard to find too.

What about the villagers who preferred to be out of the limelight?

Tex’s vanilla cupcakes have become part of the Crocodile Flats legend, though he no longer bakes them. As soon as he could afford to buy a nearby farm, he handed the recipe to Philomena for her bakery and retired to raise cattle with his beautiful new wife, one of the prophet’s daughters. The villagers could hardly believe that surly Tex was the same man who stood beside her at the wedding ceremony: a beaming bridegroom in a white suit to match her David Tlale wedding gown. She delivered twins within a year.

In partnership with them on the farm, Zizwe Ngcobo – no longer called Mad – breeds African hunting dogs of such purity that he has been asked by the South African Kennel Club to help establish guidelines for the Africanis breed.

Dr Ulrich runs the Marie Stopes clinic in a new cottage hospital partnered by Dr Joanna Drinkwater, now qualified as a paediatrician, and Matron Palesa Tau, who takes no nonsense from anyone. Nobody calls him Dr Ugh any more. Dr Jo smiles a lot, but she’s tough on alcoholics.

Winifred Pybus gave away all the cats the day after Dulcie died in her sleep and continues to make lemon cordial, buying in juice from people in the district who own lemon trees.

Now that Hester’s children are in school, she has put sex behind her and is fully occupied at the Strictly Transformed Outreach Bureau, helping with the Bible translation into a Tsonga dialect. Pastor Nazaret Harmse is determined to carry the Word to every corner of South Africa, and Hester is right behind him every step of the way, never mind the duwweltjies.

Tinkie Harmse doesn’t have time to listen to his homilies any more, being too busy with her Special Occasion Cake Icing seminars. Her delicate trelliswork is perfection, and her Brown Madonna confirmation cakes sell countrywide. Magdalena Ossewa often partners her, demonstrating ikebana techniques using indigenous flora and artistic pieces of dry haakdoring collected along the riverbank.

Una Dauncey is the deacon at the Anglican chapel and keeps up her dance expression classes, though no longer for underprivileged girls, as there aren’t any in the village. The ex-Reverend Ambrose remains under sedation in a nursing home in town where she visits him to chat while she knits for charity. Her clicking needles make his eyes jerk from side to side, his only discernible movement in years.

At rest in the tranquil memorial garden on a slight rise towards the koppies are Mother Esmé, Chief Mohlalipula, Eddie Drinkwater, Dulcie Pybus and Ouma Klopper. Hendrik Ossewa is there too after a massive coronary, though only just. His will stipulated that he be honoured for helping to preserve Crocodile Flats and his widow, Magdalena, had him squeezed in at the edge next to Swart Barend van der Linde, who demanded an eternal view of Vanderlindea. Obadiah is the memorial garden superintendent and takes special care of his late wife’s grave. Old Mrs Ming’s ashes are not there, but rest in an alcove in her daughter’s mall office, modelled on the throne room of the Imperial Palace in Beijing.

Those who have moved away from Crocodile Flats include the Little Sisters of Extreme Destitution, their mission accomplished. Mother Dineo is their wise and stalwart Mother Superior and Sister Hilary is her deputy, a blithe soul who inspires young and old with her jubilant paintings. Sister Nokwe travels all over Africa demonstrating how to grow vegetables in well-composted trenches. Sister Immaculata is no longer with them, having been headhunted by the Centre for the Reconciliation of Insoluble Violence to oversee their peace missions to Somalia, the Gaza Strip, Iraq and Afghanistan. She often says that her cup runneth over.

Father Liam has been seconded to a township outside Port Elizabeth, where he strides about counselling the troubled and needy, sandals slapping the hard earth as his patched and darned cassock flaps in the wind. Since he no longer holds services or hears confessions, preferring to manifest his faith in more personal ways, he would have been excommunicated if Monsignor Alboreto, happily back in Rome, had not interceded for him. In a powerful speech to the doctrinal committee, he said, ‘However unorthodox, Father Liam is an honest priest and a good advertisement for the Catholic Church. Let us be a little flexible here, Brothers.’

As for the important men in this story: Captain Godwin Ngobese is Chief Police Commissioner for Tshwane, where Thulazi hosts gracious dinners for diplomats and visiting security experts, and Dr Qaphela wa-Yozi has risen to deputy president, an impeccable statesman renowned for his zeal in providing housing for all, so there are no more shack settlements. Or black spots.

Crocodile Flats has become the world’s leading faith fair: a joyful celebration of all things good and spiritual, potent icon on a turbulent planet.

Miracle indeed.