There Should Have Been Five. Marilyn Honikman
and nodded, Job had greeted him respectfully.
“Sawubona, Baba.” He’d paused. “Baba, there’s a school now, over the hill. Have you thought of letting Sipho learn to read?”
Sipho’s father had swung his long whip over his head. It had cracked like a gunshot. He’d silently watched the last cow jump into the soupy water, swim the length of the dip tank and stumble up the ramp. Job had waited. Sipho’s father then folded the whip, tucked it under his arm and turned to look silently at Job.
“School,” he’d said at last. “I did not go to school. There is nothing wrong with me. See how many cows I have. See how many cows have calves. I am a wealthy man. Sipho does not need to read. Mzi cannot read and he has good work at the coal mine. He sends us money every month. Why would Sipho need to go to school?”
In those days it was unheard of for a young man to contradict an older man. Job did so with such grace that Sipho’s father hardly noticed. They walked back to the homestead and Job asked if he knew how Mzi was getting on at the mine in Welkom. He wondered if they had heard any news. When Sipho’s father shook his head, Job said, “At the school they will also teach Sipho to write. He can write a letter to Mzi and ask how he is.”
Sipho’s father had not looked impressed. “But will the letter come back?” he wanted to know.
For a minute Job was puzzled. “Do you mean will a reply come back?” he asked. “Sipho can say in the letter that Mzi should find someone to write a letter to you, with his news.”
Sipho’s father had stood still for a minute and then given a quick nod.
*
Just before the sun rose on the first day of term, Sipho was already walking up the hill to the school that lay far down the next valley, near the great river. He was big to be starting school, almost in his teens. His feet were heavy and slow. He was not sure what a school was, but when people spoke of someone who had been to school there was a tone in their voices that made him think school was important, so he did not tell anyone he was nervous.
He reached the crest of the hill and then his feet refused to move. He turned to look back the way he had come. It was nearly milking time, and on every side of the wide valley young boys were driving herds of cattle down from the grazing land behind their homesteads. But behind his home a grown man was driving the herd. His father.
His father’s half-brothers thought it was foolish for a grown man to spend his days looking after cattle when he had a son who could do it. Sipho knew they would say so and make his father feel bad.
His hands were clammy with shame for his father, and with worry about what lay in the next valley, but then he breathed deeply, turned his back on the sight of his father doing boys’ work and hurried down to the distant small building.
*
The school was run by Miss Jabulani and an Irish nun, Sister Katherine. Miss Jabulani spoke isiZulu to her class, but Sister Katherine spoke only English. Sipho was put in Sister Katherine’s class with the big children. For the first nine weeks he sat in complete silence. He did not understand a word she said until one day, when some of the sounds started to mean something. A week later he spoke a full sentence of English.
After the winter holiday Sister Katherine brought a newspaper back from the city. On the front page was a photograph of a black man being presented with a medal.
“The fastest man in the world,” she told them. “Jessie Owens. He won four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Germany. And this man … ” She pointed to a photograph of a dark-haired man with a little black moustache. “This man, the German ruler, was very put out, very cross, because Jessie Owens is black. This is Adolf Hitler. He doesn’t like Jewish people and he doesn’t like black people. A cruel man, this! A dangerous man! And he wants to rule the world.”
Sipho asked if he could take the newspaper to show his father the picture of a black man winning a gold medal. Sipho’s father was more interested in hearing about Adolf Hitler.
After two years, Sister Katherine gave Sipho paper and an envelope and he painstakingly wrote a letter to Mzi. He ran over the far hills to Mr Aaron’s trading store to post it.
Mr Aaron spoke fluent isiZulu and sometimes, when Sipho’s father took his dried cow skins to sell to Mr Aaron, they talked about the worrying news from Germany.
Mrs Aaron was gentle and quiet-spoken. She had a long table in a back room where women customers could cut panels of blue seshoeshoe cloth and sew them into skirts on her treadle sewing machine.
Mrs Aaron was alone in the store when Sipho got there. He produced the envelope and took a copper penny from his pocket.
“Here’s a stamp, Sipho.” She pointed at the leather post bag. “Drop your letter in the bag. Mr Aaron is loading the lorry now. He’ll be taking the post today.”
When a reply arrived at the trading store, Sipho’s father brought it home.
“Mr Aaron said he could read it to me. But I told him, thank you but my son, Sipho, can read it.”
So Sipho read the letter to his parents.
When he had finished, his father said, “Good! Sipho can write a letter, and the letter comes back. It’s time for him to look after the cattle again.”
With that, Sipho’s schooling came to an end.
But Sister Katherine asked Sipho if he would like to come once a week to fetch her old newspapers. “I think your father likes to know the news, Sipho.”
So for several years Sipho ran over the hill each Friday to fetch the newspapers. His father heard what was happening in the world, and Sipho did not forget how to read.
*
The army lorry braked and Sipho pitched against the man next to him. His face scraped against a rough army uniform as he came out of his reverie.
They were at the prisoner-of-war camp.
Sipho climbed off the lorry onto spiky desert scrub so different from the misty grasslands he had left.
He knew that if he had stayed, if he had not taken Job’s advice, he would probably have starved in his beautiful hills.
4
To the city
Early in the morning the day after the funeral, Job had appeared at Sipho’s rondavel with an enamel bowl of imasi heaped with ground amabele grain. He pulled a woven-grass mat out into the sunlight and sat next to Sipho.
“Here, eat. From my grandmother,” Job said. “She got a shock when she saw you at the funeral. Said you were just big eyes in a skinny face.” He paused. “I don’t see anything for you here, Sipho. So what are you going to do?”
Sipho waved a spoon at the vivid green veld around his kraal. “I have lots of grass this summer but no animals to graze it, and no mealie seeds to plant. Our crops died two summers in a row. There is nothing here for me, Job.”
“Do you have any food at all?” Job asked.
Sipho pointed to a sack of mealiemeal and a big tin of powdered milk under the thatched eaves behind him. “I just saw these a few minutes ago. From the trading store. Enough for a few weeks. And there’s a note.” He read it to Job.
“Dear Sipho, We were sorry to hear of your father’s death. He was a fine man. Mrs Aaron joins me in wishing you a long life. Joshua Aaron.”
Job nodded. “They liked your father.”
“My father liked them.” Sipho took a spoonful of the creamy curds and nutty amabele. “I haven’t had time,” he added slowly, “to think what I will do. My uncles have nothing left either. No cows … Their sons are going to work in the coal mine, but I promised my mother I wouldn’t.”
“Your uncles!” Job stretched out his legs and laughed wryly. “They mocked your