‘While our leaders are talking with the government to put things right, the government is busy killing us with its Battalion 77, and its vigilantes. What kind of negotiations are these where on one hand they talk of peace and freedom, and on the other, they kill us dead?’
After each speech, the Young Tigers lead the people in song and dance. They chant praises of the political leaders who have suffered years of imprisonment and exile, fighting for the freedom of their people. They also chant strong condemnation of those they refer to as sell-outs.
‘Death to the sell-outs! Down with the sell-outs!’
Other speakers address the problem of the tribal chief and his followers from the hostels. They say that the tribal chief has delusions that he can destroy the common goal of the people. But the people are united, and shall fight to the bitter end for their liberation.
After these stirring speeches, a committee of five is elected to organise the stayaway in the settlement. Noria is one of those who are elected. They will go from house to house, explaining to people why they should not go to work.
After the meeting, food is served on paper plates. The leaders are served on enamel plates. During the meal, they call Noria to join them at their table, as they want to speak with her privately. Noria, however, is in awe of these great people, and does not sit down. She stands respectfully in front of the high-powered couple. They express their heartfelt sorrow at the death of her son. They say it was a regrettable mistake. But they warn Noria very strongly that she must not speak to anyone about it, especially the newspaper people, because this would take the struggle for freedom a step backwards. She must remember that her son was not completely innocent in this whole matter.
‘We are very happy that you have been elected onto the stay-away committee. This shows that we, as a movement, have nothing against you personally. We love you as one of our own. Whoever burnt down your shack did a very cruel thing. We don’t agree with it at all. We absolutely condemn it, in fact.’
The bejewelled woman smiles benevolently at her. Noria listens silently, and then walks away without saying a word. She feels that there is nothing she can say, because the leaders are talking at her, and are not actually discussing the death of her son with her at all. Their apology is made privately, and not at the public meeting, as the local street committee had promised, and is accompanied by a rider about her son’s guilt. This fills her with anger.
Everyone is happy that the meeting has been such a great success. Everyone except Noria, who feels betrayed. However, she joins in the song and dance that follows the meal, and no one knows of the heavy sadness that occupies her heart.
The leaders drive away, and the men remain behind to blame the women for disgracing the whole settlement community in front of the honourable leadership of the movement. As the women clear the tables, the men reprove them in utter disgust.
‘How can you serve bread and cabbage to our important leaders?’
‘What did you want us to serve them?’
‘Proper food that befits our leaders. Were you too lazy to cook meat, and potatoes, and rice, and to make salads?’
‘We are poor people. We can only give them what we ourselves eat. They must see our poverty. We cannot pretend to them that we are meat and rice people, when in fact our daily supper is pap and water. As a matter of fact, we gave them a treat. We don’t normally eat bread.’
‘You talk just like women. Our disgrace will be told in all the communities around the country. We will never live down this shame.’
‘Perhaps if you were here, you could have given us money, and also helped us cook your meat and potatoes.’
As Toloki and Noria walk back to their home, they call at each shack along the way, and Noria tells those who live there about the stayaway. Most people agree that it is a necessary step, and say that they will observe it. Some shacks are empty because the owners are still singing and dancing in the school yard. One or two others ask her if the movement will feed their children when they lose their jobs. Noria patiently explains that if people all act together, they will not lose their jobs. The employers cannot sack every worker in the land.
Toloki notices that in every shack they visit, the women are never still. They are always doing something with their hands. They are cooking. They are sewing. They are outside scolding the children. They are at the tap drawing water. They are washing clothes. They are sweeping the floor in their shacks, and the ground outside. They are closing holes in the shacks with cardboard and plastic. They are loudly joking with their neighbours while they hang washing on the line. Or they are fighting with the neighbours about children who have beaten up their own children. They are preparing to go to the taxi rank to catch taxis to the city, where they will work in the kitchens of their madams. They are always on the move. They are always on the go.
Men, on the other hand, tend to cloud their heads with pettiness and vain pride. They sit all day and dispense wide-ranging philosophies on how things should be. With great authority in their voices, they come up with wise theories on how to put the world right. Then at night they demand to be given food, as if the food just walked into the house on its own. When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.
Toloki hesitantly mentions these observations to Noria. He attributes his keen sense of observation to the fact that he has not lived with other human beings for many years. He therefore sees things with a fresh eye. Some of the things he sees are things he would otherwise have taken for granted, if he had been part of the community in which they happened. Like other men he would assume that it was normal for things to be like this, for surely this is how they were meant to be from day one of creation. Noria listens to these ideas with astonishment.
Toloki wonders further why it is that the people who do all the work at the settlement are women, yet all the national and regional leaders he saw at the meeting were men — except, of course, for the bejewelled wife of the Mercedes Benz leader, who is also an elected leader in her own right.
‘You are right, Toloki. And I hear that it is not only here where the situation is as you describe. All over the country, in what the politicians call grassroot communities, women take the lead. But very few women ever reach the executive level. Or even the regional or branch committee levels. I don’t know why it is like this, Toloki.’
‘You know what I think, Noria? From what I have seen today, I believe the salvation of the settlement lies in the hands of women.’
‘You amaze me every day, Toloki. You come with things I don’t expect. Yes, when we were growing up, women had no names. They were called Mother of Toloki or Mother of Noria. But here women are leaders of the people.’
Again they find themselves holding hands as they walk towards their shack. But now they are not embarrassed, and they do not pull away. They make a strikingly lovely picture against the sunset: she of the poppy-seed beauty, and he of the complexion that is yellow like the ochre of the village. She of the willowy stature in a red and white polka-dot dress, he of the squat and stocky body in khaki pants and shirt. Their grotesquely tall shadows accentuate the disparity in their heights. They trudge the ground with their cracked feet in the same tired rhythm. Toloki decided that since Noria had no shoes, he was not going to wear any shoes either.