The List

Despite her self-defined status as the estranged wife of the deputy president, Lindiwe Vilakazi was seated in the VIP section of the parliamentary gallery for President Moloi’s state-of-the-nation address at this gaudy opening of parliament. Alongside her sat the two ageing former presidents with their wives. One of them had taken time off from his court hearing, perhaps cheekily, to make an appearance in this ritual that had once been his.

Lindi looked down and across at Amos in the front row of the ANC benches, next to the seat that awaited the arrival of President Moloi. She wondered again why on earth she was here. Discipline? Decorum? In this age? But, she had been – had had to be – persuaded to keep up appearances, if not to actually reconcile. She wondered at that word. Reconcile? Reconciliation? Mandela’s word. Being reconciled implied that there was a previous conciliation that had to be recaptured. Had she ever been ‘conciled’ with Amos? Yes, she supposed, in the very early days of exile, of hope, love. But she learned, painfully over time, that Amos was a man of outward conviviality and inward fathomlessness. In short, he was a charmer, but when you were close to him that charm hid a stickiness, a murkiness, a secretness she did not understand. Apart from anything else, the charm also made him an incorrigible womaniser. And his status, surrounded by bodyguards and personal assistants and other factotums, created a wall of protection against the approbation of his comrades, his family, his society.

But not against her. She had had enough and she told him so. She walked out on him. He did not plead. He did not apologise. She was, however, summoned to his village for a family intervention. They pressed her for a reconciliation, but she was emphatic, told them it was not possible. Then Baba Dlamini took her aside to ask her, to tell her, that she had, for appearances’ sake and for the sake of political stability, to play her role of second lady. She did not understand when he said, ‘Amos will rise all the way to the top sooner than you think.’

Now the voice of the Sergeant-at-Arms boomed the arrival of the Speaker and the president. All stood. Lindi looked down on the procession, Moloi striding down the carpeted walkway, his head turning from one side to the other, smiles and gesticulations. Amos appeared lethargic. She lifted her eyes to the opposite gallery. She caught sight of Jerry Whitehead, seemingly alone, no Bongi at his side. He looked dishevelled, wrinkled. She wondered what he was doing here. Being long out of government, he had no need. Perhaps some nostalgia? Perhaps some hope for what would emerge from Moloi’s coming words. She missed that crowd of him and the other ANC intelligence comrades. Memories crowded in – deep discussions at the departmental planning sessions in Lusaka, raucous drinking sessions afterwards, the bottomless barrel of anecdotes, the camaraderie that lasted into the early post-struggle years. But now they had all drifted apart, away, into discreet corners, some down into the earth. She missed them. She missed those days. Now all that was left her was playing wife to a husband she despised, a traitor to her heart.

The Speaker called on the president to deliver his address. The ANC benches stood, cheered and ululated. The opposition benches stood politely, some heckling from the back, somewhere below Lindi’s vantage point. She sat down again, and waited for the wave of sound to recede. Moloi spoke, it seemed off the cuff, although perhaps there was a teleprompter – she couldn’t see.

Speaker of the National Assembly

Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces

Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairperson

Deputy President Amos Vilakazi ...

He paused, looked around, pushed something away from him on the lectern. He waved his arm around the chamber.

Come, come. Let’s forget all this imbibed pomp and ceremony, for goodness sake ... all protocol dispensed with ...

Lindi saw the cabinet ministers in the front row of the ANC benches fidgeting, glancing surreptitiously at each other. In the directors-general box, alongside the Speaker’s podium, facing into the hall, she noticed the director-general in the Presidency fiddling with the pages before her as if looking for the place in the script. Obviously, Moloi had gone off script, abandoned the carefully prepared and meticulously consulted address. As for Lindi, she was pleased.

This is a small change. It is time for a big change. It is time, fellow South Africans, that we go back to basics; back to the things we struggled for, the things we dreamed of when our miracle was unfolding nearly thirty years ago.

It is time, indeed, to rid ourselves not just of the pomp that we inherited and took as our own, but also of the trappings, the indulgences of power.

Let us be honest with ourselves. Not only did we inherit a country, a society that was grotesquely unequal; we ourselves, yes, all of us, basked, bathed, lavished in that inequity. We got ourselves big cars, big houses, big bank accounts. We thought it was our birthright, or rather, our struggle-right. We were sucked in and we descended with fervour, with passion, with new philosophies and theories to explain, to justify our descent.

And the result? Lascivious greed, corruption, naked individualism.

Moloi appeared to drift back to the script, tinkering with something in front of him.

Our Party and our Government have been pondering these challenges for the past year and, with great difficulty and great self-reflection, we have decided on a number of steps to, apart from anything else, dramatically transform the morality of our government and, in fact, of the country as a whole ...

Leaning against the railing, Lindi peered down at the gathering below, trying to assess their responses; she had a good view of the ANC benches opposite, partial glimpses of the opposition below her, and the seats in the middle especially set up for the premiers and MECs of the provincial governments. She noticed an MEC from the Mpumalanga benches rise, perhaps with an urgent biological need, although it was admittedly a measure of discipline to sit through the president’s speeches. But the man did not sneak to the exit as she had expected; instead, he approached the president at the podium, drew something from his jacket pocket and jabbed repeatedly at Moloi, who swore and crumpled to the floor. Only then did the man turn and run out the chamber.

It took a moment, but it came upon Lindi, like a wind wave through wheat approaching from across a field, what the recent words of Baba Dlamini had meant. She felt the blood snap in her head and all go dark.