Free Sometimes There Is a Void by Zakes Mda

to this superhero.
    But the best for me were not the Marvel or the DC Comics, but the Harvey Comics. Their characters had more fun and were more lovable. There was no heaving and grunting and fighting in Harvey Comics. No Wham! Whack! Pow! Thwip! Even devils such as Hot Stuff and ghosts such as Casper and Spooky were gentle. Though Spooky was an ill-tempered little ghost, he was adorable nonetheless. Casper on the other hand actually went under the title of the Friendly Ghost. These maudlin modern fairy tales appealed to me more than the manly stuff.
    Every time I entered Mather and Sons the sales staff would have Little Lotta , Little Dot and Richie Rich ready for me. The last particularly, featuring the richest kid in the world, his butler Cadbury, and his mean cousin Reggie, took me to a fantasy world of splendour and gold-plated limousines and life without pain or toil.
    The Mather and Sons people said I was the only black kid in Sterkspruit who bought that sort of rubbish. Only white kids wasted their parents’ hard-earned money on comic books. They never got to know that my parents had no idea that I was spending their hard-earned money in this manner, that in fact I was a thief and a scoundrel who sneaked into their bedroom to raid their pockets, handbags and purses to satisfy my addiction.

    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    THE SIGHT OF MY parents’ old house is depressing. Slowly I drive away, up the street, past Keneiloe’s home. Buses used to be parked in the yard. But today there is not a single one. Only the skeleton of a truck. I drive past the Tindleni residence, and then to Bensonvale College which is about six miles away.
    â€˜You know you hate to drive at night, with the lights of oncoming cars shining in your eyes,’ says Gugu.
    â€˜We’ll make it to Johannesburg, don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I just want to show you something.’
    But Bensonvale College is no longer there. Only the ruins. I almost weep. The whole college that used to be vibrant with students walking up and down the paved paths is gone. Ivy still covers those walls that have been defiant enough to remain standing. I stop the car on the edge of an open field and get out of the car. Gugu follows. I can hear the voices. At first they are soft, but as if carried by a gust of wind towards me they gather volume and become so loud that I lift my arms in supplication. They are the voices of the beautiful men and women of the Today’s Choir. And indeed the choir materialises in the field – women in black skirts and white blouses, men in black pants, white shirts, black jackets and black ties. My father in his black suit standing in front of them. Waving his arms, conducting the choir with gusto. The choir is composed of hundreds. Thousands more people fill the grounds, listening. Many are in school uniform – black gym-dresses and white shirts. Black and white predominates.
    I remember how this came about … how I was grateful that I had more time to read my comic books and to draw pictures and write stories because for a number of weeks my father was not calling his meetings or demanding that we draw water for his flowers and vegetables. He was busy rehearsing with a mass choir he had named the Today’s Choir, which had been assembled from all the choral societies of the Herschel District for the commemoration of the centenary of Bensonvale College.
    Although we had some respite from meetings and garden work, one thing he never forgot even when he came back home late at night was to give us our nightly doses of cod liver oil and Scott’s Emulsion. That
was one assignment he didn’t trust even my mother to undertake with the diligence it deserved.
    When the day of the centenary celebrations came I joined a group of pupils from Tapoleng – including Cousin Mlungisi, his younger brother Bobby and the twins – and walked to Bensonvale, about six miles from Sterkspruit. We found a place in the open