Free Sometimes There Is a Void by Zakes Mda Page A

field where the rest of the multitudes had gathered. My mother, sister and baby brother got a ride from the neighbours as my father did not have a car. Speeches were made and the Today’s Choir sang Reginald Spofforth’s glee Hail Smiling Morn . My father’s slim frame was dwarfed by the hundreds of singers in front of whom he was standing, fervently conducting them. There were tears in my eyes when the choir sang Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus , J P Mohapeloa’s Obe and Fisherman’s Goodnight. I never got to know the composer of this last one.
    There are tears in my eyes as I stand in the grounds among the ruins listening to the ghostly choir. To this day, when I hear these songs I get a lump in my throat and my eyes moisten. The void widens.
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    AS I DRIVE BACK from Bensonvale I wonder how things would have turned out for me, my brothers and my sister if we had not left Sterkspruit. We would have lived here for the rest of our lives, and become teachers and nurses like everyone else, without the exposure to the world that was a result of the single occasion the Boers came for my father in the middle of the night; a whole contingent of white policemen with bright flashlights. They turned the house upside down, looking for ‘terrorist’ documents and banned books. My father’s Communist books were nowhere to be found. I later learnt that he had earlier that week asked our nanny to bury them underground at her place. How did he know he was going to be raided by the police? He must have got a tip from an insider – maybe from a sympathetic black cop.
    They took him away in a kwela-kwela police van with bars on the windows. My mother sat at the kitchen table and wept.
    The following week was very important for me because I was
representing Tapoleng Primary School in a track meet where Herschel District primary schools were competing. I had outrun all competition in middle and long distance races at my school, and it was time to use my famous long strides to bring the trophy to Tapoleng. But how could I do it with my father in jail? It was not so much for him that I felt sorry, but for my mother. I knew he was strong and could handle any situation. After all, we were all terrified of him. I didn’t see how he could fail to terrify the Boers as well. But my mother did not take the arrest well. She worried about how they were treating him in jail and whether they were torturing him or not. Fortunately, she was allowed to take him some food, but never to see him. She cried a lot even as she kept on reminding herself that she needed to be brave for the children.
    I lost the race.
    The following Monday I went to school as usual, but something unusual happened at the morning assembly. After the prayers the principal Mr Moleko, also known as Mkhulu-Baas, made a speech about the folly of trying to fight against the white man in South Africa.
    â€˜There are people who think they can win against the white man,’ he said out of the blue. ‘That is very stupid. Umlungu mdala – the white man is old and wise. What do you think a black person can do to make South Africa a better country? A black person is a baby. If you try to stand up against the white man you will end up in jail.’
    I knew immediately that the nincompoop in the threadbare grey suit was talking about my father and I hated him for it.
    One evening when we were eating dinner father came home. He was on the run from the police and had come to take a few of his things and to say goodbye.
    He went into exile in the British Protectorate of Basutoland, as Lesotho was then known.
    We pieced things together later. He was being accused of holding secret meetings all over the Cape, planning the violent overthrow of the state. We had not been aware of all these nocturnal activities because he seemed to be a looming presence at home all the time. A few days after he had been locked up there was a line-up, an