The rainbow nation

The door banged open and Betty looked up in horror as Piet staggered in, blood dripping from a cut above his right eye.  Silently Betty went to fetch a bowl of warm water and bathe the cut.  She knew this son of hers, fruit of her womb, would not go to the hosptial - she would have to do what she could at home.  what trouble had he got himself into now?  she didnt ask how it had happened, where he had been.  It was better not to know. That way nobody could beat the information out of her.  She knew that Piet was involved in a group that would carjack and re-sell the vehicles.  That crime was rampant, and seemed an easy way to make money. 

He said it was  because the Afrikaaner government had repressed him when he was young - he had not been able to go to school. "you burnt the schools down," she told him, in her quiet way, " that's why you couldnt go to school, dont always try to blame the whites".  She thought of how she had slaved every day as a maid to pay for school feees, and yet her son had still turned out bad, and never even learned to read or write.  Oh how she wished she could change the past, change the mind of this young man, who was so bitter and angry all the time.  He could have a good life now, schools were open to everyone, there was a black man in charge of the country.  Still, things were going wrong, maybe running a country was not as easy as it had sounded.  Certainly all the things they had been promised had not come true.

Betty still worked as a maid, for the same family that she had worked for for 20 years.  Her employer had slowly progressed from being the "white madam"  to her employer, now there were rules governing how much she was paid, and regulations on how long she could work.   Sandra though had always been a good employer, so for her not much had changed.  Some of her friends had been worked very hard though, especially those who had done peice work, working at a different place every day.  It was hard with Sandra being disabled, and although she had a nurse in daily to help her bathe, still Betty had to help her in and out of her wheelchair, for her afternoon nap.  Still they had a rapport, and now they would sit at the kitchen table for afternoon tea together, while they waited for Martin to return home from work.  Something unheard of in the days of apartheid.  In the days of apartheid, there would always be under the sink a pile of metal plates and cups, and those were to be used by the "girls" and the "boys".  No matter how old they were. It was so much better now to be reffered to as the maid or the gardener.  Betty relished those afternoons, when they would discuss how things had changed and how they had just accepted the the restrictions placed on them before.  

"I just want to know, Betty, that you forgive me for being so naive, for not noticing you as a real person", Sandra said one day over tea. 

 "Of course, of course, you have always been very good to me, but it is nice that we are now friends too.  It is nice to be able to talk about those times in the past when things were tooo bad, and we didnt know any different". Martha replied.

  "Not that I think we are  doing everything right yet.  I think we still have a long way to go.  There is still so much hatred, just look at my son... what can I do?"
"I pray to God every night that he will see the folly of  his ways, and turn away from all this violence"   "I see that he thinks we have not got everything that he thought he would get when we came into power, but so many false promises were made.  Nobody told the angry black students that sure they would get the two cars, and the fine house, but they would have to work for it. they thought it would just come to them on a plate"  She turned to Sandra with tears in her eyes, "he came in last night again, bleeding from the head, but I didnt ask how it had happened - is it wrong to continue to love a child with so much hate in their heart?"  "no" Sandra said, "you will always love your child, and maybe one day he will see the light, hold onto that thought.  Oh! here is Martin, now you go home and rest up, and enjoy your weekend, and I will see you on Monday.  Thank you so much Betty for all you do, I dont know what my life would be without you here to help me.  I know you are a maid, but deep down I look at you as more my companion, and I am so blessed to have you in my life."

As Betty walked the few steps to the bus stop she thought about the whole weekend at home ahead of her.  Anticipating the spring clean she would give her own house, so that the weekend was not much different to working for Sandra.   She took as much pride in her own home as she did  in keeping Sandras home clean and dust free.  She knew that with cystic fibrosis Sandra needed to breathe air that was as dust free as possible.  Martin, being a lawyer, earned a good salary, and so they had installed good air filters on the air conditioners.  It was a lovely home, and very sparsely furnished, so was easy to keep clean.  Sandra's Danish heritage showed in the furniture selections, and she had often passed on bits of furniture to Betty so that her own home reflected that of her employer in a way.  Betty was grateful, but Piet would often say that she was just a chairty case,and should demand more, and not be so compliant, and not go to work when her back was hurting.  "these days you have rights, Mom, you can take sick leave"  'Dont worry about their old furniture they give you, they should - they owe us, for all they did to us over the years."  Gosh, he was such a bitter, and angry young man. 

That whole weekend she did not see Piet, and as she worked around the house, cleaning, scrubbing, ironing, she kept the TV on.  On Sunday she met up with some of her neighbours and as usual they walked the 3 miles to church.  Sometimes they would catch a taxi, but being crowded into a minibus with 20 other people was not something she and her friends enjoyed.  So, if the weather was good, they would walk, and gossip, and laugh and the miles would just fall by the side of the dusty road on the way to the pentecostal church, where Betty had worshipped since she walked alongside her mother and grandmother on this same dusty road.   Her mother now lived on the family farm where she had gone to atttend to her dying mother and stayed on, tending to the goats and cattle, and growing a few mielies.  At christmas time the family would congregate there and there would be much joyous laughter and fun, and she would take them all presents from the big city 'Egoli" - city of gold.  Piet had long since stopped going back to the family farm, he had nothing in common with them he said, and he had "jobs' to do.  Always jobs to do, and Betty knew he had a few casual jobs he had done, gardening and building, but she suspected most of the cash that he flashed around came from illegal sources.  Did this wild streak in him come from his father?  A good-for-nothing, he had staggered out of the door drunk  one saturday night, and she had never seen him again.  Once she had cleaned up her broken lip, and put a sling on her arm, she had picked up two year old Piet and cuddled him, and it had just been the two of them since then.  This group of ladies that she walked to church with every Sunday each had their own stories and so were tremendous support for each other.  None of them expecting too much out of life.

Walking home after the service the streets around their part of Soweto seemed exceptionally quiet.  Deathly quiet, and each of the mothers in the group silently wondered what that meant.  Each one had a son, or a nephew, or a husband that was coninually in their thoughts and prayers.  A second sense came into play at times, and this was one such time.  When the phone call came, Betty was ready for it, Piet had been arrested, and the charges were hi-jacking.  He was allowed one phone call, and so he called his mom.  When the police had persued the car he had begun to speed onto a dirt road, and then in his subconcious thought a strange sound had erupted.  A baby crying!  Shit! he had stolen a car with a baby in it!  Suddenly he hit the brakes, flung open the drivers door and ran. He didnt realise there had been another police car coming from the other direction and he was pinned between the two.  It was open veld and there was no-where to hide, so he was soon knocked to the ground and handcuffed.  It was though someone poured cold water over him, and he woke up "a baby! - there is a baby in that car!"  he yelled.  Caring about another human was alien to him, but somehow that crying had triggered an emotion he did not realise he had.  Now added to the charge of hi-jacking was a charge of kidnapping of a child.  Betty put down the phone after talking to him and buried her face in her hands, sobbing tears of frustration and despair.  

On Monday morning Sandra immediately noticed that Betty was a bit pre-occupied, and before too long had extracted the trauma of the previous weekend.  Sandra determined to sit Martin down that night and discuss the whole situation with him.  "What exactly do you think I can do, my sweet", Martin asked.  "that man is a criminal, nothing will ever change his ways.  Just such a pity that he didnt seem to inherit any of the goodness of his mother"  "No", said Sandra, we can never give up on them.  Sure they had a bad time growing up, but I think we have a responsibility to help them rise up above all that".  "what about the mens group at the church where you take on a prisoner and visit them every week, just to get them associated with the idea of having a man that is interested in them personally.  You know Betty's husband left when Piet was very little,so he has never had a father figure in his life.  I suspect too that Betty pandered to his every need, and so he grew up without much discipline.  The sad story of many of the black men in this country today" "very well", Martin sighed, a wry grin on his face as he looked at his lovely wife.  So beautiful on the inside, she could never see any bad in anyone.  She always brought out the best in him too, surely he could repay the favour and at least meet this young man.

 The following morning when he asked his secretary Angela to find out where young Piet was being held and organise a visit, she frowned slightly.  This was not their usual type of client.  Later she buzzed him at this desk "Martin, you can go and visit Piet at 10am at the central Joburg Jail, and also Mrs Van Heerden is here".  He sighed, some clients were just too needy, but he hoped soon the messy divorce case  he was handling for Mrs Van Heerden would be settled.  Every day she found another woman that her ex-husband had been involved in, the strange thing was that what she really wanted was to get him back, intact and whole as he had been before the affairs started.  Not going to happen, but he had to offer to negotiate, that was his job.  "send her in, and buzz me in ten minutes to tell me I have a call, thanks, Angie" 

The interview room at the Jhb jail was essentially a huge room, divided into cubicles, too many criminals to have separate rooms, and so there was a coninutous hum of lawyers and clients negotiating, pleading and begging.  Piet seemed contrite, something Martin was not expecting.  "I didnt know there was a baby in the car Man, I could have crashed and killed it.  For the first time in my life I have been thinking over what my mother has been saying all these years.  Maybe my life is ready for a change"   

Martin mulled over this statement, not quite sure what he had been expecting after hearing about Piets exploits passed on to him through Sandra.  "Are you just saying this to get a shorter sentence?  That wont work, you know,  you have been in and out so many times, they are going to think you will never change"  Piet smiled wryly, "yes I know I have to do my time, but I think this has been a turning point for me.   Everything suddenly hit me when I heard that baby crying in the back seat.  My life cannot go on like this anymore"  "Well, said Martin, our church has this program where you can get a volunteer to come and visit you every week, and help you to turn your life around.  you will still do your time, but hopefully he can help you get some focus when you come out.  Would you like me to sign you up for that?  

Piet mulled over this silently "cant you do it?  I know you better, and you know me"  "No" said Martin, "the point is to have someone that you do not know, that doesnt know your past history, so that you can start again fresh"  "now as to representing you in court, I can do that, but think if you have signed up for that programme then whatever time you have to serve can be spent going forward.  I am very happy you have come to a crossroads, and have decided to change direction.  Have you spoken to your mother?  You will make her very  happy"  

Martin went home that night with a particularly bouyant step, gosh it felt good to think that he had concievably witnessed the change in the direction of a young mans life. Piet did seem to be a genuinely changed man, but would it last?