(Author: Cedric Ginsberg, Vol. 68, No. 1, Pesach 2013)
1959 saw the posthumous publication of Nehemiah Levinsky’s book of stories. Called Der Regn hot farshpetikt – Dertseylungen fun Dorem Afrike1 (The rains came late – stories of South Africa), it was a remarkable collection for its time.
Not much is known about Levinsky. He lived in Bloemfontein and was very active in the town’s Yiddish life. He and Berl Levinsky even tried in the 1930s to publish a Yiddish journal, called Freystater Baginen – “Free State Dawn”. Only a few issues appeared and it seems that the journal did not receive much support from the major Yiddish centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town. From the outset, the publication of Yiddish cultural materials in Johannesburg was beset by major difficulties, mainly of a financial nature. The first journal, Dorom Afrike, only existed for a few months. The re-appearance2 of Dorem Afrike in 1928 was a little more successful – it survived until March 1930 and limped on under the name of the Yidishe Tribune until the middle of 19323. The attempt at publishing a journal in as small a centre as Bloemfontein was therefore a very valiant one.
Nehemiah Levinsky was not a prolific writer. It would seem that this little book contains much, if not most of his literary output. It was published by Mishpokhe Farlag – Family Publishers, apparently by his family and friends. The stories were probably written during the late 1920s through to the early 1940s – none of them are dated. He died in 1957, aged 56, after several years of severe illness. The book was published more than ten years after the Nationalist government had come to power. Some key elements of Apartheid policy had already been introduced, such as Bantu Education, more strictly enforced pass laws and the banning of the Communist Party of SA. Strong criticism of government policy was closely monitored by the security police. However, the latter had no access to or apparently no interest in critical writing in Yiddish. Thus the writings of Leibl Feldman, presenting a Communist perspective of the early history of Johannesburg and South African Jewry, were published in Yiddish unhindered. Publication in English would have resulted in an immediate banning order. It is doubtful too whether Levinsky’s story of the friendship of Hassie, a little Afrikaans boy and Zulu, a little black boy, could have been published in English.
This story, ‘Children’ (Kinder) brought here in translation, is a very problematic one. It is the tale of a love-hate relationship between two boys. Hassie, son of a poor white farm labourer, is portrayed as being superior in every way to Zulu, son of an exploited poverty-stricken domestic worker. Hassie’s father drinks heavily and assaults him and his mother. Hassie in turn often beats Zulu – and this portrayed, in the story, as acceptable behaviour by both boys. Socially, both boys belong to the “lower class” – yet Hassie’s ‘innate’ social standing is higher than Zulu’s simply because he is white. The friendship seems to continue as long as this perceived hierarchy is recognised. As soon as the equilibrium is disturbed, so is the ‘viability’ of the friendship. It is Hassie’s greatest dream to visit the big city. When his teacher announces to the class that all the children in the province will travel to the capital for a few days, he can hardly contain his excitement. This exhilaration is dampened somewhat when it emerges that Zulu will also be going on the school trip with his school. Hassie has a complete ‘melt-down’ when he realises that he may not be able to make the trip because the family cannot afford the costs. He is enraged at the prospect of Zulu going on the trip while he most likely remains at home. At this point it seems that the racial issue takes over – how is it that Zulu who is black, will go on the trip and he, Hassie who is white, will not? Hassie’s reaction is to turn to violence – this is how he sees how issues are solved in the family. He seeks out his unsuspecting friend and beats him until he bleeds – all the while muttering the highly pejorative term “kaffer”. The description of the fight is very graphic, a terrible release of raw racial tension. It ceases only when a blow to Zulu hurts Hassie’s hand and recoils in pain. The fight seems to relieve Hassie’s rage – we are not told what effect it had on Zulu. The boys end up rolling in the dust in laughter, with tear-stained faces. The episode as described seemed so traumatic for both boys that its mild outcome, their laughter together, appears incongruous. Apart from the occasional beating dispensed by Hassie, their relationship is described as warm and human, a friendship between two little boys. Both are aware of racial divide – Zulu is afraid to be seen in the white cemetery – he knows that white adults would certainly not approve. There is even a measure of ‘resistance’ on the part of Zulu. The boys had been to the cemetery to visit Hassie’s Ouma’s grave. A discussion arises between them concerning heaven – Hassie believed there must be a ‘location’ heaven for blacks. Zulu responded thus:
…Dort muz oykh far undz shvartse zayn shlekht. Got iz dokh a vayser,un yezus zayn zun iz oykh geven a vayser, un vayse hobn nit lib di shvartse. Neyn, Hassie, ikh vel mer nit davnen tsum vaysn got, ikh darf im nit… (…It must be bad for us blacks there too. God is after all white, and Jesus His son was also white, and whites don’t like blacks. No, Hassie, I won’t pray to the white God any more, I don’t need Him…)
This was quite a shocking statement for the Apartheid era. Hassie, indeed was so taken aback he wanted to react by beating Zulu. However, wrote Levinsky, he refrained, because “he was afraid Zulu would run away”.
It is interesting that this story does contain a single Jewish character. The characters described are all Afrikaners and Blacks. The Magistrate’s name is Mr Cooper (in Yiddish ). This could be transliterated as Kuper (Jewish?), or Cooper (English?) – I chose the latter since there was no suggestion that he might have been Jewish. Regarding transliterations and translation equivalents, I used the words Oupa (Zeyde in the text), Ouma (Bobe in the text), Predikant, Diaken, spruit, veld –because they seemed to me to in keeping with the spirit of the story.
Dovid Wolpe, editor of Dorem Afrike at the time, wrote a brief appraisal of the newly published work. He regarded it as a very important addition to Yiddish writing in South Africa,4 and considered the story Children as one of the best in the book. He published the last part of this story together with his article. The fragment opens with Zulu’s retrieval of his buried ‘fortune’. No introductory information is presented. We do not know that the previous scene told of the terrible beating of Zulu by Hassie. The piece contains within it several interesting aspects of Levinsky’s writing. Firstly, the stark contrast in the way the white children are treated on the trip compared with the almost dismissive way the black children are handled. Secondly, the “oyfrekhtikayt un emesdikayt”5 – the honesty and the genuineness of the story comes through. Levinsky describes life in the village the way he sees it, with all its problems and imperfections. Thirdly, Levinsky presents a fictional reality to the reader. He makes no direct social criticism in the narrative – this emerges implicitly, if the reader is sensitive to comments. He seems to be saying: Look at the social and political setting within which these children are interacting – can this be right?
South Africa has undergone radical change since this story was written. Unfortunately, the society still grapples with many of issues that emerge from it, including racism and domestic violence. Levinsky’s stories, even though they are few in number, form an important part of the South African literary ‘canon’ in Yiddish. They deserve to be studied – to contribute to a greater understanding of our history.
CHILDREN
Nehemiah Levinsky
(translated by Cedric Ginsberg)
Hassie was already eleven years old and had never left his father’s house. He knew the village where they lived very well: he knew where there were tasty plums for the picking, where one could nibble grapes, where there was a hole in the fence and one could easily climb through it, where there was a deep pit where one could play with friends, hide oneself from a drunk father or simply take a nap on a hot summer’s afternoon. Should a stranger ask for an address, enquire about somebody in the village: where a certain person lived, what he did, Hassie knew it all and was ready himself to take the stranger to the required address. He was also not lazy to run an errand. He often earned a sweet or a penny for delivering a little package to someone.
Hassie knew that somewhere beyond the mountains there were big cities, spread out, with high walls, with houses like great crates, just like the pictures in the books he loved to page through. But he had no accurate concept of the cities, they seemed alien and nebulous to him. Sometimes, lying with eyes closed on the hot sand in the veld, he would try to imagine the cities and put his ear to the ground, trying to discern even the slightest sound, a noise that could come from the city. The great white city became a dream for him and would sit for hours in a pit or in the sand, planning how to get there. But they remained dreams, he could never travel to the city, his parents were too poor.
His father worked on a farm and hardly earned enough for food, so he could not afford to spend money on a ticket to the city and there could certainly be no talk of taking Hassie with. If a spare shilling actually turned up in the house, his father immediately took it to the bar, bought a bottle of cheap liquor and got drunk. Arriving home intoxicated he would soon beat his wife or Hassie.
Hassie tried to escape his father’s blows. He would trail his father and when he saw him go home drunk, he would run away somewhere else. But sometimes his father would beat him even when he was sober. Then there was nothing Hassie could do to avoid it. After receiving the hiding he would wipe the tears from his eyes with his fist and run out to play in the street. When his father beat him particularly badly, he would go to the edge of the village, and seek out a little black boy there. He would call to him, throw him to the ground and beat him, often until there was blood. Then he would run away satisfied. He had several such victims. He would often play with them: fishing, catching frogs, picking fruit. They were loyal to Hassie and looked to him as a leader accepting the blows as something due to them.
At school Hassie was a diligent pupil, although he did not study much. He grasped things easily and effortlessly and prepared his lessons quickly and punctually. Often his mother would reproach him when he completed his homework in such a short time. She did not believe that he had really finished his work. She would scold him, call him lazy, forbid him going out to play. But at the end of the term he would proudly bring the school report to his mother. “You see”, he would tell her, “Hassie is not lazy, Hassie is a good student”. His mother would pat him lovingly, or kiss him with her full lips and say: “Yes, study Hassie, you could become a clerk in the Magistrate’s office, perhaps even a Magistrate”. Hassie’s chest would swell with joy, his heart would beat faster and he would think contentedly about how years later, he would sit there in the white house and judge people, send them to prison and fine them and even give them lashes. Everyone would respect him, like portly old Magistrate Cooper. They would take their hats off in his presence and stop to chat.
He could not keep his dreams concealed within himself; he needed to pour out his heart to someone. In those moments he would slip out of the house, climb through several fences, go down into the valley to the spruit, where the “location” lay with its small clay huts. There the roofs are covered with stones and pieces of plank, there the windows are bare holes, looking like extinguished eye-panes. And in the ditch, where lean dogs wander about together with thin black children, looking for bones in the garbage and sand, there Hassie would roll down with a cry. He would chase away the dogs and the black children would scatter. Only one, Zulu, would remain. He would cower in his torn jacket and wait for the blows. But today Hassie is not beating. He takes Zulu by a button of his patched jacket and pulls him along.
Zulu is a black child of the same age as Hassie, with a head of curly black tousled hair, tangled in lines reminiscent of rows in a plantation. He would follow Hassie with his hands dangling at his sides, like a monkey, watching with wide trusting eyes not knowing whether a game or a beating awaited him. Both Hassie and Zulu are slight, thin, restless scamps. They became friends apart from all the other children. They played horses together, they dug and built, caught birds and naked warmed themselves in the sun. And when good fortune sent them a few sweets, both their mouths were smeared with the sweetness which they shared. The blows which Hassie often dispensed to him, Zulu accepted with indifference, as if it were part of a game.
“Zulu, you know”, Hassie stopped him on the other side of the ditch, “I’m going be a Magistrate like Mr Cooper. My ma says that if I study well, I can really become a Magistrate. You know baas Cooper don’t you? When I grow up, I will judge like him. I’ll put people in prison like him. Zulu, how do you like that? Hassie will be a big baas, a Magistrate”.
Zulu’s face melted into a radiant smile: “That will be great. You, Hassie will be a big baas, a magistrate, you’ll drive a motor-car. Will you judge me too, Hassie?”
“Yes, Zulu, I’ll judge you too. If you steal or go around without a pass I’ll certainly judge you, but I won’t put you in prison for long, perhaps a few weeks”.
Zulu beamed and contentedly danced around Hassie singing:“
Hassie is a magistrate, Hassie will judge everyone and he will acquit Zulu”.
“Yes, Zulu, you will drive my motor-car, we will both go to town, or I will make you a policeman, but both of us will go to town”.
Hassie would embrace Zulu and hug him affectionately and together they rolled in the white sand, like a black-white flaxen skein…
* * *
The town lived off the farmers. There people celebrated their joy and mourned in their sadness. Early in the morning with sleep still on their eyelids, they looked to the horizon, seeking a cloud – a messenger of rain and felt whether the wind on the face came from the direction of the rain. Often when the rains were late, they were saddened and they dreamt together with the farmers of dark steely clouds and leaden skies. When someone’s calf was born, the whole village knew thereafter how much milk the cow produced. When a housewife’s hen fell dead, the next day all the women dosed their hens with Epsom salts… At night, when one visited a neighbour, everyone – young and old – spoke about rain, about sowing corn, about cows which produced four-fi ve buckets of milk, about sheep that had fallen prey to foxes. They listened as if to a miracle as an old boer related, how the sheep survived a terrible drought. And how a two-day rain saved a fi eld of mielies…
That was the environment in which Hassie grew up. They lived on one side of the village, in a humble little house hidden by little trees. In the home furniture was placed very close together. On the walls – a couple of pictures of old Boers, several drawings from old calendars and in the middle a large picture of General de Wet. All of this had been hanging on the walls for years, in the same places. Hassie had soaked in the conversations, borne the concerns together with the adults, furrowed his young brow with the worries of the old Boers. In hot dry summers he dreamed of damp meadows and green fi elds and also of the huge multi-storied boxes, that were called a city.
Once Zulu came with some news: they were opening a school in the “Location” and he, Zulu, was going to attend. He would learn everything just like Hassie, and would, when they were grown up go to the city with him.“
Yes, Zulu, learn quicker, we’ll be able to go together”, Hassie happily agreed with his friend.
The African sun burns down on Hassie’s little white body, reddens him, then he turns brown and later his body darkens. The same sun burns down and also caresses Zulu’s little black body.
The days stretch on and turn into weeks. Zulu often meets Hassie and tells him, repeating word for word what the teacher has taught him. He asks whether his teacher teaches the same stuff as Hassie’s teacher teaches the white children. With great importance Hassie gives his opinion and advises him what to learn.
* * *
Hassie’s Oupa lived in the village, an old Boer, a former missionary. He lived with his wife, Hassie’s Ouma apart from Hassie’s parents. He was shocked that Hassie’s father drank so heavily. The grandfather wore a long black jacket with a starched collar and a white bow-tie. He always carried a prayer-book under his arm. He was not well liked, he was quite stern and had an angry demeanour. Hassie seldom went to him and even less frequently visited his Ouma. She spent most of her time in bed, surrounded by little bottles of medicine, with herbs and little cups of water which exuded a strange odour of oldness.
One day his mother told him that Ouma had died. He did not go to school that day. His mother dressed him in festive clothes, bought him a new pair of shoes, a black dress and a black hat for herself. His father put on his Sunday suit, sewed a crepe bow to his hat and his sleeve, looked around sober and angrily, and they all went to Oupa’s house. There it was quiet. Ouma lay in a coffi n covered in fl owers. Inside and outside the house there were old and young Boer women all dressed in black. In their hands they held little prayer-books or little Bibles bound in leather, together with their sunshades. They were sitting along the wall and in the middle of the room there was large table on which rested the casket with the dead body. There was a hush each time someone entered the room. If a man, he would remove his hat, shake hands with the neighbours, quietly ask after their health and begin complaining about the drought. Then it would once again become quiet. Others shuffl ed from one group to another and spoke about the weather. If, however, a woman entered, the attention of the bystanders was immediately drawn to her outfi t and what sort of wreath she brought. And when someone brought a wreath which was better and more artistically braided with a more lavish ribbon, one could hear an approving murmur from those present as they glanced enviously at the friends of the dead woman.
Hassie stood outside near the stoep, feeling a little uncomfortable in his new shoes and festive clothes. He would rather have been playing, but he was afraid of his father and watched everything that was going on in the house with interest.
A strong wind was blowing and the dust stung the eyes. Hassie was delighted to see people bending and grabbing their hats. The women carried the wreaths behind them and turned with them against the wind. Hassie ran forward wanting to help them carry the wreaths, but none of the women wanted to let go of her wreath, blocking it with their heavy stout bodies. Upon entering the house they would compose themselves and with a sad expression would place the wreath next to the coffi n, they would sit down and begin to wipe their eyes with a handkerchief. Tears would appear and their noses became reddened. They chatted quietly.
Everyone waited for the Predikant. Eventually he arrived in a small shiny black automobile. He was accompanied by his young wife, both in black. He drove to the entrance of the house, stopped his car but did not alight. Several elderly Boers, a Diaken and Church Elder ran towards the car, opened the door and great respect waited for him to alight. The Predikant was still young, but he was a stout man with a large belly, and he climbed out of the car with effort. His admirers assisted him to take out his little religious books and a thick Bible in a golden frame with many pieces of paper placed between the pages. In one hand he held his prepared sermon. He shook the hand of each person around the car and enquired: “Hoe gaan dit?” He stopped next to Hassie, stroked his head looking as though he stroked the head of an orphan. However, remembering that the deceased had only adult children, he quickly entered the house. He stopped in the middle of the room, greeted everyone, called a Diaken said something to him and immediately started the prayers. He said a quiet prayer, with eyes tightly closed. Everyone bowed their heads and repeated the prayers in a distressed tone. There was a buzz like in a beehive.
Initially Hassie also kept his head bowed and tried to repeat the prayers, but he soon became bored. He began to observe the people around him, sought a friend with his eyes, but did not see anyone. On the stoep, not far from him stood a little girl holding a little prayer-book in her hands, swinging it and shaking it childishly. The prayer ended and everyone lifted their heads in relief, opened their eyes and looked around as if trying to convince themselves that they were still in the same place they were standing a few minutes before. The Predikant called out the number of a Psalm and immediately a Diaken who was standing next to him began singing the Psalm in a very loud voice. The voice coming out of the room sounded so strange that the little girl burst into resounding laughter. Hassie also could not restrain himself and their laughter resounded above the singing in the death-room. Someone scolded Hassie, and the little girl took fright and ran away.
After the singing the Predikant delivered a sermon. Hassie listened attentively and looked at the Predikant’s lips, as he pronounced his words so slowly, drawn out, as if he were pushing something out of his mouth. He spoke for a long time. Hassie did not grasp everything. Eventually the Predikantturned to the old Missionary, Hassie’s Oupa, and to his children and said in an authoritative voice, that they should not mourn, for their wife and mother has gone to the Garden of Eden where she lives happily near Jesus. He pointed his fi nger towards the heavens. Hassie followed the fi nger, looked for something in the blueness of the horizon, but he saw nothing. He began to long for the big cities and he imagined to himself that the Garden of Eden, about which the Predikant had just spoken, was that kind of city.
People prepared to leave, others pushed towards the exit. Women held small kerchiefs in their hands and blew their noses. They carried the casket out followed by the old grandfather weeping bitterly. The children also cried. Hassie stood to one side and wondered why Oupa who was himself a Predikant – Missionary, was crying now, even though the young minister had said they should not mourn for Ouma, because she had gone to a better world, to the Garden of Eden. He asked his mother why his grandfather did not listen to the Predikant and wept so much, but his father called him away and told him to go and sit on one of the wagons with an old man. The procession of cars and wagons left slowly for the cemetery. There the old man stopped the horses and gave the reins to Hassie. He warned him not to leave the horses alone. Hassie wanted very badly to follow the crowd to see how they buried the grandmother, but he was afraid to abandon the horses – so he remained seated on the wagon.
* * *
The cemetery was a mile from the village, surrounded by a stone wall, which shone in the distance like a painted square. From the gate there were tree-lined avenues paved with gravel, adorned on both sides by tall old eucalyptus trees. In each avenue there was a row of graves, some old, collapsed, others fenced around with iron rods and adorned with marble monuments, many had great brick tombstones and crosses. Silence reigned in the cemetery. Seldom a bird even twittered there and then was immediately silent.
Hassie walked through the avenues and sought the recent grave of his Ouma. Behind him Zulu trailed cautiously. He constantly looked around uneasily, wanting to satisfy himself that no white person would see him here. He knew that also here, at the last resting place of the whites, a black is an unwanted guest and if they would fi nd him here he would be beaten. But he had to go, Hassie had called him, and his curiosity drew him to see the “white” cemetery.
Both little boys walked slowly along the avenues, stopping at the marble monuments, looking inquisitively at the graves and speaking softly, as if fearing that the dead would hear them. Eventually they arrived at a new grave, where the soil had not yet fallen in and tens of withered fl ower wreaths lay around.
“This must be where my Ouma lies”, Hassie said quietly. “No one has been buried here in the last three weeks, and the fl owers are not yet completely withered. Come Zulu, kneel down, let’s pray for Ouma’s soul. My ma said so.
“But, Hassie, you told me that your Ouma has gone to the Garden of Eden and that she is happy, so why should we pray for her?”
“Yes, Zulu, that’s what the Predikant said, but Oupa apparently didn’t believe him. He wept a lot after Ouma died. Even today he is still sad. My mother says, that we are all sinners and we do not go straight to the heaven. Perhaps my Oumais also not there.”
Zulu considered this for a while and asked: “And our black people, Hassie, do they also go to heaven”?
Hassie’s jaw dropped in surprise, but he soon composed himself: “Perhaps blacks go to heaven – ‘locations’ – there must be such a place there for Blacks to live”.
Zulu lowered his head and picking up a pebble said apprehensively:
“Yes, it’s true. It must be bad for us blacks there too. God is after all white, and Jesus His son was also white, and whites don’t like blacks. No, Hassie, I won’t pray to the white God any more, I don’t need Him”.
Hassie looked at Zulu in confusion, and wanted to defend the wrong against God by beating Zulu. But he was scared that Zulu would run away so he remained silent. A short while later Zulu suggested to Hassie that they visit the black cemetery. Hassie agreed.
They climbed over the white stone wall, which separated the two cemeteries. In the black cemetery the graves were very close to one another. Here and there stood a small stone with an inscription. On others there were small crosses made from nailed together box-planks. On some of them one could read the name of a soap manufacturer, from where the box originated. On almost every grave were strewn broken plates, glasses, empty canned goods tins and broken tea-pots. Each grave looked like a plundered workshop, with traces of kitchenware. Zulu pointed to one of the graves, which was enclosed on the sides with the frame of an old iron bed, and said proudly:
“You see, Hassie, there my father lies”.
Hassie stopped near the grave, and looked at Zulu in astonishment, slapping him on the shoulder:
“Zulu, is this your father’s grave? And I thought your father was alive. How long since he died?”
Last year, of cholera. Many people in the Location died”.
“Zulu, your father must have been a good boy; I wish he could get a good job there in heaven”.
* * *
On hard planks people sleep fi ve together, ten in a room. The huts sway in the wind, the roofs are low, bearing down on the head, burning hot tin roofs, which cool down with the sound of a cracking whip. Here sleep people dark as the night, black as shadows and they do not dream. They are exhausted from the scorching days, from hard work, from pouring sweat while digging gardens, carrying heavy sacks, looking after white children, from hammering and building, from blows and indignity. People sleep with open doors, with windows that look like the blind holes of eye-potsherds and their breathing is audible, freed from the day-slavery.
It is quiet in the village. All lights have long been extinguished. The streets are empty. Somewhere far away at the edge of the spruit a dog barks, a puppy awakens and replies with a hoarse high-pitched bark.
But now Hassie cannot sleep. He has lain half the night and cannot fall asleep. For a long time he kept his eyes closed, tried putting the cushion under his feet and throwing off the warm blanket, but sleep evaded him. The teacher told the class that day that in three months- time there would be a special get-together of all the pupils in the capital of the province. The tour would last four days and the children of the province would have the opportunity of visiting all the museums, buildings, factories, as well as the special School-Exhibition. The teacher also announced that each pupil would have to pay fi ve shillings towards expenses, each one must have a new uniform, proper shoes and a hat. Hassie listened to the teacher with a pounding heart. He could hardly wait for classes to fi nish and he ran home. He met his mother in the kitchen, as always, busy with the pots in the oven. He told her the good news, that he would travel to the big city. He spoke with such excitement, that his mother who was not in a good mood that day patted him with a smile. She did not want to express her doubts, so as not to dash his hopes. She thought to herself that Hassie’s trip would not be realised because of the suit. Well, the pants she could sew up herself, but a jacket and shoes would have to be purchased and the fi ve shillings was also a heavy expense. She did not tell him – why should she disappoint him now already?
From his mother Hassie ran to the ditch, looking for Zulu, but since he had not arrived yet, he tried playing with the other black boys but did not rest. He ran along the road to the Location, to see if Zulu was on his way. In the distance he noticed Zulu’s little form and he ran to meet him. Zulu was also running and bouncing, after each jump he gave a drag with his foot, leaving a cloud of dust, which spread out on the sides of the path. Zulu shouted to him breathlessly:
“I have just come from School! Only now from School!”
“Why so late?” asked Hassie, who had in the meantime forgotten his own news.
Zulu answered him proudly: “We are preparing for Education-Week, so the teacher is teaching us to sing. Hassie I am going to the big city, to the big city I go!”
Hassie turned up his nose, spat with disdain: “I don’t have to sing, nevertheless I will also travel to the city for Education-Week.
Zulu stopped jumping and listened to what Hassie had to tell him. Thereafter like a wild colt he twisted over in the veld, noisily doing somersaults and turned towards Hassie:
“This means, Hassie, we will both travel to the city, we’ll have a great ‘holiday’. Listen, to the beautiful songs I learned today”.
With shining eyes, which refl ected the joy of this future vacation, he sang out the fi rst bars of a song which the blacks sing. Hassie was ready to interrupt his song, but the singing so fascinated him the he listened quietly to his friend and even tried to assist him.
In the quiet of night Hassie now relived the whole joyous day. Only when behind Hassie’s room the hens began to fl ap their wings and greeted the early morning with crowing, did Hassie, exhausted from thinking, eventually fall asleep.
* * *
For little Hassie the three months crawled by very slowly. He longed the days to pass by, feverish with expectation. When his mother once mentioned that she did not know how she would afford to buy him a jacket, he went pale and began to sob quietly. He appeared so helpless, so vulnerable, so small, that his mother was startled by the impression her words had made on him. She began caressing him with her brown hard gnarled hard-working hands, cuddling and reassuring him. It was then that she vowed to provide everything for the trip. Hassie continued whimpering for a long time, swallowing his tears, but after his mother had repeated her pledge to buy the jacket for the umpteenth time, he fi nally fell silent. But some wariness remained in him, his heart was sore, wracked with tears and spasms. Quietly he left the house and sidled across the street so that no-one should see him. He crawled through several broken fences and slid down into the ditch. There, as always, scrawny black children were playing with hungry dogs. Hassie evaded them. He was embarrassed to show his red, tear-stained face. But Zulu noticed him, and as always jumped up and followed him:
“Hassie, where you running to? Don’t you want to play today?”
Zulu’s voice appeared strangely high-pitched to Hassie and full of abandon. He turned around angrily, hurled himself at his friend with all his strength and punched him in the face. He fl ung him to the ground and began to beat him with both hands. Zulu did not defend himself, he just turned and screamed. Hassie rained blows cruelly, beating and shouting the words through his teeth: “O, kaffer! O kaffer!”, with more blows. Suddenly his hand connected with Zulu’s hard skull. A sharp pain swept through Hassie’s limbs. His face distorted and he pulled his hand away and cradling it in the other one and ran away, still shouting “O, O, kaffer!” At edge of the pit he sat down on a stone, examined his fi st blowing on it, as if the cool the pain. He was exhausted and panting, but he was pleased and thought that he had done well to beat Zulu that day. It could not be otherwise: why should a kaffer go to town, while he, a white, could not? It was this thought that he would perhaps not go to town that made him so heart-sore and great tears began to roll from his eyes. He felt such pain from this, that his dreams of the trip had been destroyed, that he forgot all about the fi ght. He began to look for his bruised friend. He found him lying in the same place, sobbing his whole body trembling.
When Hassie approached him Zulu lifted his black head. As he became aware of Hassie, he protected himself with his arm. He was sure that he was coming to beat him more. Zulu’s face was smeared with dust and with tears. Now, as he saw his face Hassie burst out laughing, so that Zulu’s teeth also sparkled in a smile. A minute later both of them were lying in the sand laughing, smearing fi lthy tears on their tearful faces.
* * *
Zulu came home at dusk. The sun threw out golden rays, lighting up the mountain peaks and sank into the distant horizon. In the “Location” it was already dark. There were no windows in Zulu’s hut. The roof lay low over the uneven walls. There was no fl oor in the house, but the earth was hard and clean and tidy. In the corners lay several old mattresses covered with torn blankets. In one corner stood a broken bed supported by a paraffi n tin – this was his mother’s bed.
The room was dark. Next to the house sat Zulu’s two older brothers and a sister talking loudly. His mother stood over a little stove made of bricks and clay cooking a sparse supper for her children in a big pot. She often broke into her children’s conversation. Zulu ignored those around him. He had crawled in under the bed and in a corner near the wall began digging with a piece of iron. From the hole he lifted out a small, round little tin and crawled out from under the bed. He walked out of the hut, strode past the children and went round the back of the house. Stretching out on the ground he carefully opened the little tin and shook out several silver and copper coins. He began counting them, examining each one separately. Since it was quite dark he lifted each coin close to his eyes, felt it and mumbled: one shilling and six pence, one shilling and seven, one and ten, until he had counted two and six pence. He repeated the sum several times and thought he had collected a lot of money, quite a lot. His mother earned that much for doing a week’s washing. He was going to take the money with him on his trip into town. Now he took two six pennies and placed the rest back in the little tin. He closed the lid well, went back into the house and buried it in the same place under the bed. The two shiny six pennies, which he had put on one side, he tied in a little piece of rag, and pushed it in his pocket, checking to see it was not torn. He would give the shilling to Hassie the following day. How could he, Zulu, have such a large fortune and not share it with his friend? True, it had been very diffi cult for him to save up the money and he did not even remember how long it took him. He received six pence a few months previously from a white man for carrying a parcel from the train station. It was heavy. He had had to stop several times. He was not even sure whether the white man would give him something for his trouble: there are white people, who do not give a reward for carrying their parcels, but they even give a kick in the pants and chase one away! But this white man had given him six pence. And so the weeks and months passed. Now he was proud of his fortune and compared it to the pittance his mother earned for her hard work in doing laundry, mangling, pressing and mending. And so he decided to give a great portion of his fortune to his white friend as a gift. True, to a white, a shilling is a small sum, but it would surely be of use to Hassie.
Zulu forgot the blows he received at the hands of his friend. It was not diffi cult for him to part with the shilling. From childhood he had become used to sharing everything. His mother shared her pot of mielie pap with her hungry neighbours, and his father would share his last bit of chewing-tobacco, which he would chew day in and day out.
* * *
Zulu travelled in a coach which near the engine. He travelled together with a large number of black children. At each station more and more black children would get on with their teachers. The coach was very crowded for the entire journey. They sat very squashed together. Some teachers even tried to get the children in their choirs to sing, but in view of the crowdedness, this was impossible.
Hassie was travelling on the same train. He was busy looking outside. Right from the start he occupied a place at a window, resolutely maintaining his position at the window frame and not allowing himself to be pushed away. He swallowed everything he saw along the way with his eyes, everything interested him: the rails, the telegraph-poles which slunk quickly past the train, the people reciprocated greetings, waving their hands and shouting to the passing train fi lled with children – everything was new, he cast his eager eyes at everything.
In the city they brought all the children to a park, where canvas booths stood ready, with blankets and straw on the ground. For the younger children wooden plank-beds had been prepared.
They took the black children to the Location where canvas tents had also been prepared for them. For three days the children walked in procession in groups with their teachers, visiting the museum and Art Exhibition. They visited the Agricultural Exhibition, several cinemas and also a theatre production.
Hassie walked in rows in procession together with other children. With his head thrown back he looked at the highest stories of the tall buildings, stared in amazement at the trams, with the clamour and ringing as they moved over the rails in the middle of the town. His head was spinning from all of this, yet he could not get enough of it all. He would certainly have forgotten to eat, were it not for the teachers, who, at exactly at twelve noon and fi ve in the evening arranged them in rows and took them off to the marquees in the park. There were laid tables which awaited them with women dressed in white, like nurses, who served the children: sliced loaves of bread, smeared with butter, they handed out plates fi lled with soup, meat and vegetables.
In the three days Hassie never saw Zulu, because while the white children walked in procession from one Exhibition to the next, the black children practised and repeated their songs, which they were to sing at the Concert on the third evening of their stay in the city. Only at the time the white children went to eat, did they take the black children to the Exhibitions. They took them quickly, hurrying from one place to the second, from one street to the next. Only in a few instances were they given any explanations about what they saw. They took them quickly from one building to another and by two o’clock in the afternoon they had already been taken back to the Location.
* * *
On the evening of the third day it was overcast. A cold wind was blowing. In a large square in the Location, temporary seating had been set out – seats for white spectators. A large crowd of white people gathered and occupied the seats that had been prepared. The blacks stood respectfully to one side. The black children’s choir was arranged in rows like soldiers in the middle of the square. There were around fi fteen hundred black children who together with their teachers, were to display their singing talent to the whites. It would also serve as an expression of gratitude for the hospitality. The teachers ran breathless and sweating through the rows of children, straightening them for the umpteenth time, and telling them how to behave. The wind was blowing ever stronger and the children were shivering from cold. Others, the more daring ones, began to stamp their feet and jump up and down to warm themselves up. The teachers kept an eye on them and immediately put a stop to these undisciplined movements. They were waiting for several high-ranking guests. Eventually, after a delay of half an hour, several cars arrived at the square. The black organiser of the concert greeted the late-arrivals and wanted to show them to their seats of honour but they refused, saying: “On such a cold night, it is more comfortable to sit in the car and to hear the concert from there”.
The black conductor then waved his baton and the children began to sing. It was a song of praise for the whites, composed by one of the black teachers. The whites did not understand the words, they heard only the singing, which rang out from fi fteen hundred children’s throats into the atmosphere and twisted like strings of pearls. The notes changed like images in the cinema, and the audience sat enchanted, no longer feeling the cold and the biting wind. They simply listened to the harmonic singing of the black children.
Hassie was one of the score of white children who were brought to the concert. He sat listening to the singing of the blacks, straining his ears in an attempt to make out the voice of his friend Zulu. Eventually it was the rain which began pouring down with tropical force, that dispersed the crowd. They looked for places to shelter and one of the whites sitting in a car, gave the order for the children to disperse.
The next day Hassie and his friends left for home. In the first carriage, next to the engine, the black children were travelling, Zulu among them. He had caught a bad cold during the concert. He now had a fever and was wrapped in a blanket.
Three days after his return home Zulu died from his severe chill. Hassie found out about this from other children, when he asked after Zulu.
It was already dusk. He ran home in terror. He wandered about the house the whole evening in confusion hardly knowing what he was doing. The next day, as soon as classes at school ended, he quickly went home. He waited until his mother went out of the kitchen and grabbed a few plates and hid them in his shirt. In the yard in a corner, he smashed the plates into small pieces which he concealed in his pockets. Then he set off for the cemetery. He climbed over the wall into the black cemetery and began to search for the fresh little grave of his friend. He found two new mounds of sand. Not knowing where Zulu lay, he emptied his pockets and strewed the broken fragments of plate over both graves…
Cedric Ginsberg, a frequent contributor to and long-serving member of the editorial board of Jewish Affairs, has taught Jewish Studies at Wits and Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Unisa.
NOTES
- נחמיה ללעווינסקי, די רעגן האט פארשפעטיקט – דערציילונגען פון דרום אפריקע. יאהאנעסבורג/בלומפאנטיין, פארלאג ”משפחה”. 154 ז”ז.
- The first attempt at a Yiddish cultural journal (Dorom Afrike) began in December 1922 and closed in August 1923.
- CJ Ginsberg, “Forty years of Dorem Afrike and Yiddish Kultur in South Africa”, in Journal for Semitics, Vol.20, No. 1, 2011, p51.
- Dovid Wolpe, “N. Levinsky un zayne rasn-dertseylungen”, Dorem Afrike, June/July, 1959, pp16-17.
- Ibid.
