Читать книгу Searching for Simphiwe - Sifiso Mzobe - Страница 6

For Aphiwe, braiding her grandmother’s hair has become their ritual bonding time. There is something sacred about hair.

The two of them are even closer since Gogo was diagnosed with heart failure and moved in with Aphiwe and her parents in the suburb of Amanzimtoti. Now there is always time and opportunity to work on her grandmother’s hair.

‘Your hair is easy to braid, Gogo,’ she says as her fingers move quickly. ‘It’s not silky like mine.’

‘Don’t you like your hair, Aphi?’

‘It’s all right, Gogo, but I want to do dreadlocks and it’s not possible with my type of hair.’

‘It’s because you take after your mother.’

‘Yes, I know, but she doesn’t take after you … Well, not as far as hair is concerned, that is.’ In temperament they are alike, Aphiwe thinks and smiles. Since she can remember, Gogo has always been fiercely independent and notoriously stubborn. Her mother is no different.

Aphiwe’s phone vibrates and she stops her work to look at the screen.

Can you braid my hair next

week Saturday? I’m in Cato

Manor. How much do you

charge?

The message is accompanied by a picture of the style of braiding. Aphiwe looks at it and replies:

Yes. I charge 350 for this. Where are you in Cato Manor?

The client responds immediately:

I’m by Mkhumbane Community Hall.

She follows this with a pinned location via WhatsApp.

‘My braiding business is going well, Gogo,’ Aphiwe says cheerfully. ‘That was another client. She wants me to braid her hair in Cato Manor next Saturday.’

There is a rare smile on Gogo’s face.

‘Do you know anything about old Cato Manor, Aphi?’ she asks.

‘We learned about the forced removals of Cato Manor residents during apartheid when I was in high school, but I can’t remember much.’

‘No, Aphi, that was the end of Cato Manor,’ Gogo says and shakes her head. ‘I’m talking about life there, the people.’ There is a glint in Gogo’s eyes that Aphiwe has never before witnessed.

‘Why? Did you ever live there, Gogo?’

‘I was born there. I lived the happiest days of my life in Cato Manor.’

Aphiwe is surprised. Gogo never talks about the days of her youth. Aphiwe has never seen even one photo of Gogo as a young girl. The subject of Gogo’s past has been off limits even to Aphiwe’s mother, Gogo’s only child. ‘Leave the past to the past,’ Gogo would say when Aphiwe’s mom asked about family history.

‘Tell me all about it,’ says Aphiwe, hoping that her grandmother will not clam up again.

‘I grew up in a lovely household in Cato Manor, Aphi. My family had a large piece of land where we played. We had a functioning farm.’

‘A large piece of land, back then?’ Aphiwe is sceptical. ‘Wasn’t Cato Manor a whites-only area?’

‘Cato Manor was a place for all people – black, white, Col­oured and Indian. Our neighbours were Indian, the Perumals. Beyond them lived a Coloured family, the Petersens. At the corner of our road there was a white family, the Fergusons.’

‘What year was this, Gogo?’

‘From the day I was born in 1940 and through all my teenage years. From when I opened my eyes until those sad days of forced removals.’

Gogo takes a moment to recollect herself. She wipes away a tear. ‘When those bulldozers came, they demolished houses, shacks, businesses and even churches.’

‘Where were you supposed to go?’

‘To the newly built townships of KwaMashu, Umlazi, Phoenix, Wentworth and Chatsworth. The government was forcing the multiracial community of Cato Manor to disband, according to race, into these new townships. They forced racial segregation on us.

‘What happened to the white family, the Fergusons?’ asks Aphiwe.

‘While we were forced to live in tiny houses in those townships, the Fergusons and other white families were given huge pieces of land in the same Cato Manor. They still own property there today, in the form of flats they rent out. Their son, who was just a baby when the removals happened, has a big property business now. He also owns FER Construction. The white families became rich from our plight,’ says Gogo.

‘I’ve never known much about Ma’s side of the family,’ says Aphiwe hesitantly.

Gogo takes the bait. ‘My father, your great-grandfather, was a direct descendant of the Ntuli clan, which had owned what is much of Cato Manor since the 1730s.’

Something wonderous is happening today, Aphiwe thinks. It feels like she is rubbing these stories out of her grandmother’s hair.

‘Mkhululi Ntuli was a good man,’ Gogo continues. ‘Ahead of his time. Our household was a place of great industry. We sold cattle, milk, eggs and chickens. We had a spaza shop.’

Gogo first smiles at this memory, looking into Aphiwe’s eyes, but she is quickly overcome with sadness.

This must be why she never speaks of her history, Aphiwe thinks. ‘I’m sorry for reminding you of those days, Gogo.’

Gogo wipes at a tear. ‘It’s been so long since I allowed myself to think about those beautiful days in Cato Manor, yet the memories are so fresh I can still smell the morning breeze. I remember the many friends I had. Reggie and Santhisha Perumal. Crazy Lucy Ferguson. The effervescent Thobile Dladla.’ Gogo sighs. ‘Yes, Aphi. This dream of a rainbow nation they talk about now is a dream we once lived. And we were not even aware, because we simply grew up with Indian, white and Coloured neighbours. It was normal to us. The Group Areas Act destroyed something beautiful.’

‘Did you keep in touch with any of them?’ Aphiwe asks as she adds the finishing touches to her grandmother’s hair.

‘We were relocated alongside the other black neighbours, so we stayed friends with them. The Fergusons became a powerful and wealthy family, so even though we did not keep in touch as friends, I am aware of them. But I don’t know what became of the Coloured and Indian families.’

‘Perhaps we can try to find some of your old friends and reunite you!’ Aphiwe suggests, clapping her hands in excitement.

She doesn’t understand why Gogo looks upset.

‘No,’ Gogo says. ‘I don’t think so. It won’t be possible. I tried long ago but …’

‘Don’t worry, Gogo, with social media today it will be much easier. Give me their names and I’ll do a search.’

‘No, I’m tired now. Tomorrow.’

‘But, Gogo …’

‘I said tomorrow,’ the old woman says sternly.

Aphiwe understands that she must give Gogo some space. They join Aphiwe’s parents in the dining room for supper. Afterwards Gogo takes her pills and retires to her room.

‘Today is my pension pay-out day,’ Gogo says to Aphiwe the next morning. ‘Will you take me on my errands?’

‘I will, Gogo.’ Her grandmother seems to be ignoring last night’s discussion about finding her childhood friends. She doesn’t give Aphiwe any details to aid a search.

Aphiwe prepares breakfast for the family and brings Gogo’s medication when the meal is finished.

‘I’ll take the pills when we get back. They make me drowsy. I can’t be asleep for my errands,’ says Gogo.

‘At least take your medication when we are on the way back. Please,’ Aphiwe pleads.

Gogo nods to this compromise. She’s in a smart, classy dress. Aphiwe is in jeans and a T-shirt. Gogo looks at her with dissatisfaction.

‘Don’t you have a nice dress, Aphi?’

‘I do. But I wear my dresses on special occasions.’

‘Today’s women.’ Gogo shakes her head. ‘In our times being a lady was a special occasion every day.’

Aphiwe ignores Gogo and puts on lipstick in front of the mirror. ‘How is this then?’

‘Much better.’ Gogo smiles. ‘Now you look like a lady.’

‘Can I put some on you?’

Gogo lets Aphiwe put lipstick on her. They look at their reflections in the mirror. Apart from their hair, they look so much alike. They have the same eyes and nose, the same wide forehead and high cheekbones. Their skin is the same dark brown.

Gogo smiles and says, ‘Now we are pretty. Now we can go.’

Aphiwe helps her into the car. ‘Where do you want us to start?’ says Aphiwe, reversing the car. ‘What do you want to do first at the shopping mall?’

‘We are not going to the mall. Take me to the hall near my house.’

‘All the way in the township? Gogo, the whole point of getting a card was to avoid those long queues in community halls.’

Gogo wears her stern look. She holds her head high and says, ‘I need to see my friends. I can’t be holed up in the suburbs like this. It is not healthy.’

‘Okay, but we can’t stay long. I also have things to do.’

‘Things like what?’

‘I need to cook and clean. You know Ma is not that young any more either, although she might seem a young sixty-two. I need to do my part while I’m still staying at home.’

‘What do you mean when you say clean? Are you talking about that tiny house?’ Gogo shakes her head. ‘When we were kids, we had a mansion, and no workers, just us and Mama to clean the house.’

Aphiwe puts the car in first gear. She secretly switches on the voice recorder on her phone to record this piece of lost family history.

‘Do you have pictures of them, Gogo? We can pass by your house and get those pictures. I want to see them and how you looked in your younger days.’

‘Do you think when those bulldozers came to tear down our houses we had time to save photo albums? I don’t have a single photo; everything I remember is all here in this old mind.’

Aphiwe glances at Gogo. She imagines herself being forced from her home. Her heart breaks thinking of what her grandmother endured.

‘Mama was a bubbly lady. My father was a sweet, hardworking man. I will always have fond memories of the childhood they made for me and my brother. Always. When the Group Areas Act came into effect, Baba was one of the many people who fought it. He organised marches with other brave men and women.’

‘Wow, Gogo, I didn’t know that. Then what happened to my great-grandparents?’

‘A two-year jail sentence is what happened to your great-grandfather. A heart attack killed him one month into his sentence. Death from a broken heart is what happened to Mama one week after Baba died. In just one month and one week after being forced out of Cato Manor, my brother and I became orphans. My brother left for Johannesburg … and disappeared.’

They have parked for a while outside the Community Hall where most of Gogo’s friends collect their pension.

‘I was all alone,’ says Gogo.

She goes quiet. A few minutes pass while she stares into a void.

Aphiwe doesn’t know what to say. What a sad history. No wonder her grandmother never speaks of it.

Inside the hall Gogo introduces Aphiwe to her friends. They all address Gogo as ‘Princess’, although Aphiwe knows her real name is Thembeka.

‘We call her Princess because she comes from royalty,’ one of the friends reveals. ‘She is the daughter of Mkhululi Ntuli, the same Ntulis who once ruled over what is most of Cato Manor.’

Gogo looks happy as she talks to her friends. She trudges on, with her walking stick, to each of the many groups of elders in the hall. Aphiwe finds herself surrounded by a group of grandmothers. Gogo passes her as she goes to talk to another group of her friends.

‘She is going to braid a client in Cato Manor,’ Gogo says and points to Aphiwe. ‘Ladies, can you tell her about our days in Cato Manor? Tell her about our Mkhumbane.’

These grandmothers around Aphiwe grow animated. They take turns telling Aphiwe about the old days in Cato Manor.

‘The beauty pageants! And the regional finals at Durban City Hall.’

‘Stage plays and talent shows. Those evenings of music and dance!’

‘And the high rollers who wanted the jewel of Cato Manor, your grandmother, Princess Ntuli.’

‘But the only one who captured her heart was the quiet Reg­gie Perumal.’

‘That handsome devil!’

The group of grannies chuckle.

‘When they finally got together, they were the talk of Cato Manor.’

‘They looked good together!’

‘Shush ladies, don’t be corrupting this innocent young woman with love stories.’

They burst out laughing.

On the way home, Aphiwe looks at her grandmother dozing off a little in the passenger seat while they are stuck in afternoon traffic.

‘Gogo, who is Reggie Perumal?’ she asks, when her grandmother wakes.

‘I told you, he was one of my friends. Him and his sister Santhisha.’

‘Your friends told me he was more than a friend.’

‘Those old goats don’t know when to shut their mouths,’ says Gogo jokingly. A radiant smile spreads over her face as she says this.

‘He was more than a friend!’ Aphiwe realises and laughs. ‘We must find him, Gogo. Of all your old friends, at least you must find your old boyfriend.’

‘No, Aphi, I don’t think so,’ Gogo says. ‘Leave it alone.’

When Aphiwe glances at her, she sees that her grandmother is sad.

She doesn’t pester Gogo with questions for the remainder of the drive back home. She lets her reminisce about Reggie Perumal in silence. They buy take-away food at the shopping mall in Amanzimtoti, and head home. They eat, and Gogo takes her medication. The trip has taken its toll – she needs help getting from the lounge to her bedroom for her afternoon nap.

‘What happened to Reggie Perumal, Gogo?’ asks Aphiwe, as she tucks her into bed.

‘I honestly do not know.’

‘How come you never looked for him?’

‘How come he never looked for me?’ Gogo talks softly, as she does when the pills start to work.

Aphiwe has no answer.

‘I looked for him, Aphi,’ she says. ‘I looked for him in crowds, in the city. When I walked past a restaurant. Sometimes I’d go and just sit at bus ranks to Indian townships, hoping I’d see him.

‘When I did find him, it was only in my dreams. With time I believed he may have relocated to another province, found a good Indian girl and got married. The mixing of races was prohibited and strictly enforced after the Group Areas Act and the Immorality Act. Even if I’d found him, what would have happened to us?’

‘I understand, Gogo … Get some rest.’

While her grandmother is taking a nap, Aphiwe tells her mother the story of Gogo and Reggie Perumal.

‘I’ve never heard this history before,’ Ma marvels. ‘Perhaps there are some things she wants to get off her chest in her final years …’ Suddenly the expression on Ma’s face turns to shock. ‘You know, I was born only a few months after the forced removals. Gogo has always told me that my father simply disappeared. What if this Reggie … What if he’s my father?’

‘What?’ Aphiwe is confused. ‘How would that be possible? He’s Indian and we’re black.’

‘I’ve always wondered about our straight hair,’ Ma muses. ‘But I thought it might be a remnant from a past generation,’ she says. ‘These things happened, you know. For instance, there might have been a great-great-grandmother who was Coloured. But now I wonder if my hair can’t be traced back directly to my own father.’ The possibility seems to overwhelm her, and she sinks down on a couch.

Aphiwe and her mother look at their reflections in the mirror in the lounge. They run their hands through their silky hair. Their fingers run over their bushy eyebrows, then touch the dark-brown skin of their cheeks.

‘My mother said my father disappeared before I was born. Does this mean it was Reggie Perumal? She never wanted to say anything more about him, not even his name, so I don’t know for sure,’ Ma ponders aloud. ‘I always thought he abandoned us.’

‘I suppose it could be someone she met after they were removed …’ Aphiwe suggest half-heartedly.

Ma jumps up. ‘I need to know the truth.’

They go into Gogo’s room and gently wake her. ‘Mama, is Reggie Perumal my father?’ Aphiwe’s mother asks in a hushed voice.

Gogo looks at them both with sad eyes. Then she nods. ‘Yes, he is your father.’

Ma takes a deep breath. ‘Did he know he had a daughter?’

‘He didn’t know I was pregnant when the forced removals happened. Neither did I, actually. It was only a month later that I realised. My parents also died not knowing.’ She shakes her head.

‘But you should have told me about him, Ma. I deserved to know.’

‘I know … but I had my reasons for keeping this secret,’ Gogo says, and wipes away her tears. ‘I didn’t want to let my mind go back to those days … because that whole chapter is the big trauma of my life. I didn’t want to traumatise you as well.’

‘But, Ma, we could have gone through it together. You know that it was always just the two of us against the world.’

‘I see now that talking about it heals somehow. My heart feels lighter now that I have talked about it. I hope you can forgive me, child.’

Aphiwe’s mom nods while holding her mother’s hand.

‘I just couldn’t let you live with the stigma of being mixed race in the township during those volatile times. I know it was your right to know. But what was I to do? There was no manual for how to deal with what happened to us.’

‘I understand, Ma.’

‘I wanted to raise you to be strong.’ Gogo holds on tighter to her daughter’s hand. ‘If I told you while you were young, I didn’t know what it was going to do to you.’

‘You stayed strong for me, Ma. I’m thankful for the sacrifices you made for me. But I want to look for him. I must find him. He is my father.’

‘That’s exactly what I feared you’d do if I’d told you when you were younger. That you’d turn your focus away from your studies and look for him.’

‘Ma, I just have to find him. Maybe he is still alive.’

‘Aphiwe has also asked me to do that …’ Gogo hesitates.

‘So, let us do it.’

Gogo nods. ‘He was a good man. He’d be happy to see you. You have my blessing.’

‘Did he say where his family would go, if the forced removals happened?’ Aphiwe asks.

‘It honestly never crossed our minds,’ says Gogo ‘We were just kids and honestly believed that the forced removals wouldn’t happen. Both our fathers fought against it.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll find him.’

Aphiwe leaves her mother and grandmother to talk. When she peeks into the room later on, Gogo has fallen asleep holding her daughter’s hand.

‘I will start with an extensive internet search,’ says Aphiwe the next morning. ‘Did Reggie say what he wanted to study, Gogo? Having a possible profession might help when I do the search.’

‘He was undecided between being a doctor and being a lawyer. Had applied for both, in fact.’

‘And how old might he be now?’

‘Reggie was two years older than me,’ says Gogo.

‘So, he is 82 years old now, born in 1938,’ says Aphiwe. ‘That’s good; this will help to narrow down the search.’

Aphiwe scribbles all this information on her notepad. Gogo eats her breakfast. Aphiwe sits on the couch opposite her. She starts the internet search for Reggie Perumal on her tablet. The search reveals numerous pages of ‘Reggie Perumal’. Aphiwe searches for him in ‘images’.

‘Do you think you can still recognise him, Gogo?’ Aphiwe inquires as the images of Reggie Perumal load on the tablet.

‘Why? Have you found him already?’ asks her grandmother after swallowing a spoonful of porridge.

‘Unfortunately not. There are lots of pages here with photos of people named Reggie Perumal.’

Gogo gets her spectacles from her bedroom. ‘I think I could still recognise him, if he hasn’t changed much,’ she says, as she sits next to Aphiwe on the couch.

Hours pass while Gogo and Aphiwe scroll through photos on the tablet.

‘How can there be so many Perumals?’

‘It is a common surname in the Indian community,’ says Gogo.

Most of the photos they see are definitely not the Reggie Perumal they are searching for. The search reveals mostly young men. An older gentleman deeper into the search brings hope to Aphiwe and Gogo. Aphiwe enlarges the photo.

Gogo squints to see. ‘It’s not him,’ she says. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to nap.’

Aphiwe searches the whole day but they don’t find Reggie Perumal. She has to face the fact that Reggie Perumal might have passed away a long time ago. And finding this out might devastate Gogo again and disappoint her mother.

‘I think we should employ a professional,’ Aphiwe tells her mother the next day. They visit an agency that specialises in finding long-lost loved ones.

‘There are a few resources that we can use,’ the lady at the agency explains. ‘The voter roll at the Municipal Electoral Office for instance, and other databases. We have access to more databases than the average person.’

‘That’s impressive,’ Ma says.

‘And we operate on a no-success no-fee basis. So, you will only pay if we manage to locate your person.’

This sounds like a fair deal to Aphiwe. She and Ma give the agency the same information that Gogo shared with them.

That Saturday Aphiwe is returning from her client in Cato Manor when she gets a call from the agency. She pulls over to answer.

‘The closest we can find is a Reginald Subash Perumal born in 1938. He lives in Phoenix,’ the woman says.

Aphiwe scribbles down the address and contact number. She bristles with excitement as she types a message to her mother.

I think we may have found him.

Same age, lives in Phoenix,

retired teacher. Don’t tell Gogo

yet. Don’t want to get her hopes up.

Later that night, after Gogo has gone to sleep, Aphiwe and her parents make the call to Reginald Subash Perumal. They switch the cellphone to speakerphone mode. It rings for a long time. No-one picks up.

‘Maybe he is asleep. It is late,’ says Aphiwe’s dad.

Aphiwe’s mom calls again. She is about to end the call when someone picks up.

‘Hello,’ answers a youngish male voice.

‘Hello,’ says Aphiwe’s mom, stunned. ‘May I speak to Reginald Subash Perumal, please?’

‘Speaking,’ says the young man.

‘I’m sorry, maybe this is a mistake. The one I’m looking for is older; he was born in 1938.’