Last Day with the Journalists

On Stands Now: Amazwi Villager, Issue 07

Download The Amazwi Villager Issue 07 as a PDF.

“Read All About It”

Read: -Disgrace- by JM Coetzee

As gently as he can, he offers his question again. ‘Lucy, my dearest, why don’t you want to tell? It was a crime. There is no shame in being the object of a crime. You did not choose to be the object. You are the innocent party.’
Sitting across the table from him, Lucy draws a deep breath, gathers herself, then breathes out again and shakes her head.
‘Can I guess?’ he says. ‘Are you trying to remind me of something?’
‘Am I trying to remind you of what?’
‘Of what women undergo at the hands of men.’
‘Nothing could be further from my thoughts. This has nothing to do with you, David. You want to know why I have not laid a particular charge with the police. I will tell you, as long as you agree not to raise the subject again. The reason is that, as far as I am concerned, what happened to me is a purely private matter. In another time, in another place it might be held to be a public matter. But in this place, at this time, it is not. It is my business, mine alone.’
‘This place being what?’
‘This place being South Africa.’

*

The smile has vanished. ‘You go away, you come back again-why?’ He stares challengingly. ‘You have no work here. You come to look after your child. I also look after my child.’
‘Your child? Now he is your child, this Pollux?’
‘Yes. He is a child. He is my family, my people.’
So that is it. No more lies. My people. As naked an answer as he could wish. Well, Lucy is his people.
‘You say it is bad, what happened,’ Petrus continues. ‘I also say it is bad. It is bad. But it is finish.’ He takes his pipe from his mouth, stabs the air vehemently with the stem. ‘It is finish.’
‘It is not finished. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. It is not finished. On the contrary, it is just beginning. It will go on long after I am dead and you are dead.’
Petrus stares reflectively, not pretending he does not understand. ‘He will marry her,’ he says as last. ‘He will marry Lucy, only he is too young, too young to be marry. He is a child still.’
‘A dangerous child. A young thug. A jackal boy.’
Petrus brushes aside the insults. ‘Yes, he is too young, too young. Maybe one day he can marry, but not now. I will marry.’
‘You will marry whom?’
‘I will marry Lucy.’

*

‘But this is preposterous, Lucy! He is already married! In fact, you told me there are two wives. How can you even contemplate it?’
‘I don’t believe you get the point, David. Petrus is not offering me a church wedding followed by a honeymoon on the Wild Coast. He is offering an alliance, a deal. I contribute the land, in return for which I am allowed to creep under his wing. Otherwise, he wants to remind me, I am without protection, I am fair game…. Before you get on your high horse with Petrus, take a moment to consider my situation objectively. Objectively I am a woman alone. I have no brothers. I have a father, but he is far away and anyhow powerless in the terms that matter here. To whom can I turn to for protection, for patronage? To Ettinger? It is just a matter of time before Ettinger is found with a bullet in his back. Practically speaking, there is only Petrus left. I have no illusions about him. I know what I would be letting myself in for.’
‘Lucy, I am in the process of selling the house in Cape Town. I am prepared to send you to Holland. Alternatively I am prepared to give you whatever you need to set yourself up somewhere safer than here. Think about it.’
It is as if she has not heard him. ‘Go back to Petrus,’ she says. ‘Propose the following. Say I accept his protection. Say he can put out whatever story he likes about our relationship and I won’t contradict him. If he wants me to be known as his third wife, so be it. As his concubine, ditto. But then the child becomes his too. The child becomes part of his family. As for the land, say I will sign the land over to him as long as the house remains mine. I will become a tenant on his land…..’
‘How humiliating,’ he says finally. ‘Such high hopes, and to end like this.’
‘Yes, I agree, it is humiliating. But perhaps that is good point to start from again. Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept. To start at ground level. With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity.’
‘Like a dog.’
‘Yes, like a dog.’

Travel Writing Project

We began the travel writing project by examining a few models of vivid travel narratives; we discussed imagery, mood, sense of place, and how the narratives reflected the writers. The journalists then began some preliminary fieldwork in which they observed their community through the lens of travel writers. They then returned to the newsroom and captured Acornhoek in writing. Here are the audio versions of those pieces.

Bongi

Cosi

Lydia

Linky

Acornhoek Corner

Across the street at the Gauta Fast take-away restaurant, a young girl begins to set up shop. She is small, perhaps eight, and dressed in various shades of pink. She is sweeping the dust away from the white cement building and is setting the dust colored wicker chairs into small circles, readying for customers who will soon sit and eat their meals of tripe and coveted boiled cow’s head.

Two women walk past the take-away shop, moving in the direction of town. One is wrapped in a large pink towel that encompasses both her own body and her baby’s, which is strapped tautly to her back. On her head she balances a bundle, a lop-sided plastic bag stuffed with clothes, that sways with her stride and never threatens to tumble. Her friend pushes along an empty wheelbarrow, which will be filled on their walk back from town, perhaps with cabbage or netted sleeves of oranges.

A young man arrives in front of the restaurant, walking his dark green ten-speed bicycle next to him. Strapped precariously to the back of the bike is a case of Winboek beer, the cardboard casing torn at the corners.

Acornhoek: Main Drag

Acornhoek is a party. As I walk down the dusty sidewalks I am struck by all the color that brightens this grey day. If a flag flew above this city, waving to passers-by as an invitation, it would wave blue and yellow. A baby blue taxi rattles by, with a yellow stripe along its side, and fifteen passengers crammed into its insides. A pick-up truck, the same shade of blue, sits parked along the road next to yet another pick-up, white, but with a furry blue dashboard lining.

These blue and white decorations alone do not make the party, however. Acornhoek’s food options are generous; outdoor brai stands are plenty, wrapped around a rotted tree stump, under smoking huts draped with netting, and behind the car wash, where clusters of men sit huddled at sparse picnic tables. In front of the grocery store the open markets offer fruit: oranges, apples, avocados, bananas. Bags of fresh fruit hang from stands shaded by curved white aluminum awnings.

And always, a party needs music; from the cars, the bars, the brai stands. From womens’ handbags, a heavy, repetitive beat accompanies me through this walking celebration of Acornhoek.