Something hit Popi on the back of her head. She fell to the ground. She saw a police boot connecting with her face. She felt another crashing into her ribcage. She went numb. She could hear as if from a distance sounds of whips lashing on her body. But she felt no pain. Her body was dead. Even the blood that was spurting out of her nose came from someone else’s body. Not her dead body. She went to sleep next to her dead body.
When she woke up, she was in the back of a rattling bakkie. With many other bleeding bodies piled together. Her body was no longer dead. It ached all over.
The van stopped. Roadblock. Tjaart Cronje, Johannes Smit and a group of police reservists were manning it. Some of them waving red flags with three black sevens forming a swastika that someone had forgotten to complete.
“Where do you think you are going, ntate?” Tjaart Cronje asked in Sesotho. Calling the man “sir” or even “father”. Polite, even in anger. Niki would have been proud of his upbringing.
“I am taking these people to hospital,” responded the driver.
“Are you an ambulance, then?” Johannes Smit asked, also in Sesotho.
“We called the ambulance, but the town council refused to send it,” said the driver.
“You are not an ambulance, ntate,” said Tjaart Cronje firmly. “You’ll have to turn back.”
“Some of these people are terribly injured,” protested the driver. “They might die.”
Tjaart Cronje switched to Afrikaans. He told the man that if he did not want to join the corpses in the back of his bakkie, it would be wise for him to turn back. The man drove back to Mahlatswetsa Location.
All the vehicles that carried the injured were turned back in a similar manner.
A child died.
POPI LAY on the bed while Niki washed her wounds. The hot water with Dettol antiseptic exacerbated the pain. Niki cleaned the caked blood with a wet sponge. Soon the white water was red. Now Popi could see exactly what Viliki had been talking about. The Boers knew nothing about fair play. She was no longer going to be a bystander. Or a sidewalker who minded her own business. A sidewalker who had done no wrong and would therefore not run away.
The pain. The pain. Why wouldn’t Niki mix the hot water with the cold?
Popi chuckled. Niki stood back and looked at her in amazement. Popi laughed.
“The honey,” she said. “Put honey on the wounds. They say honey kills germs.”
The honey. Only that morning, life had been so sweet. She had gone to gather cow-dung with Niki. She had been laughing in the veld. She reserved her laughter for Niki. She could afford to be carefree when she was with Niki. She became a child again. Replaying the childhood that she missed. She had laughed because Niki had screamed when a blade of grass had touched her calf. They had just been talking about snakes. Niki had mistaken the grass for a snake. Popi’s silly guffaws had not amused Niki.
Popi had laughed until she rolled on the grass. She had rolled down a slope, gathering momentum as she left Niki far behind. She had rolled until a pile of rocks halted her progress. And it had been a good thing that she had not rolled onto the rocks, for bees had built their hive underneath them. She would have been stung to death if she had disturbed their peace.
“Niki, quick, come and see!” shouted Popi.
The rocks formed a small picturesque cave. Honeycombs were hanging from the roof of the shelter like black icicles. Sweet stalactites.
“Let’s get the honey,” Popi had said, when Niki arrived.
They had lit a cow-dung fire next to the hive. They had used their mouths like bellows to blow the smoke in the direction of the hive. Soon the bees were dazed. They had buzzed drunkenly around the women, perching on them without stinging them. Popi had put her hand into the grotto, drawing it out again with a dark chunk. White brood in the comb.
“Put that back, Popi,” Niki had said. “It is a waste. All those young ones will die.”
Popi had put the big black chunk with white grubs peeping in the hexagons aside. Her hand went in again and came back with a golden honeycomb. The inebriated bees that covered her arm did not bother her. She shook it in swift vibrations and the bees fell onto the grass. She sunk her teeth into the comb, swallowing the golden syrup and chewing the wax, and then spitting it out. Honey ran down her arms and dripped to the ground from her elbows. Some of it ran down her mouth into a number of streams on her yellow blouse. Her hands were sticky, but that did not bother her.
“Popi, you know that gluttony is a sin?” Niki had asked.
“Have some,” Popi had said with a full mouth. “It is very sweet.”
“Leave some for the bees, Popi,” Niki had pleaded. “If you take everything, what do you think the bees will eat?”
“They can always make some more.”
“If you take everything, they will move somewhere else. Leave something, they will stay and you can always come to harvest honey again next time,” Niki had advised.
“What’s the use, Niki? If you leave something, someone else will find the hive and take everything.”
Niki had taken a small bite of a honeycomb. Honey and wax together. The women had then taken some honeycombs home. As they had no container, Popi had piled the combs into a mountain in her hands, while Niki carried the cow-dung in a sack on her head. The combs had leaked all the way, tracing a golden path that quickly turned black where the honey seeped into the soil.
The morning had begun with such sweetness.
Niki got the honey from the pot, and was rubbing some of it onto Popi’s wounds when Viliki arrived. His injuries were fortunately only slight.
“These are the last wriggles of the tail of a dying lizard,” said Viliki as he hobbled into the shack.
“More like the deadly kicks of a dying horse,” Popi corrected him. “The tail of a dying lizard is harmless, Viliki. It wriggles and dies alone. See what happened to me?”
“Don’t talk, Popi,” said Niki. “You will only make the pain worse.”
Viliki looked at his sister. She was lying on the bed, wearing only panties. Parts of her body covered with sticky honey. Her face was unrecognisable. Both eyes swollen. Eyelids glued together in swollen red balls. Niki spreading more honey on her body. And cleaning more caked blood from her mouth.
“I am sorry, Popi,” said Viliki, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “You shouldn’t have gone to that demonstration.”
“I didn’t go to that demonstration, Viliki,” said Popi chirpily, as if her body was not racked with pain. “That demonstration came to me. But from now on, I will go to every demonstration.”
“They want to take away all my children,” said Niki softly.
23. DAYMARE
THE BROWN IMPASTO WOMAN IS naked. She squats on her heels in the dark blue of the night. Her hanging stomach rests on her fat thighs. Her hanging breasts rest on her fat stomach. She has raised her thick hands to ward off the ugly spirits that haunt her dreams, turning them into nightmares.
Popi sat in a nightmare. Daymare. The light from the window shone in her eyes, almost blinding her. She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She squinted her eyes in order to take a good look at those sitting opposite her. And on both sides of her. Imprisoning her with their heavy presence. And their strong odours. Pipe tobacco. Cologne. Sweat. There was no escape. There could be no escape. It was all of her own making. She would face the consequences without complaint.