Part 2

The Nkosi home was at the end of the road and was known as the nicest house in the neighbourhood. It was a massive 4-bedroom house, with tall round pillars and a tall, black, electric gate. When people visited, they often commented that “it was a house that did not belong in the township”. Noni disliked it when people made comments like that, as though they were saying that people in the township did not deserve nice things. She used to scoff at them and storm off until her mother scolded her and threatened that if she ever did that again, she would send Noni to live with her cousins in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape.

“Hai Noni, what time is this that you’re coming home?”

“Sorry Mum,” Noni shuffled in, dropped her bag by the kitchen table and ambled to the lounge where her mother was shouting from. She politely bowed in greeting to the other people in the room who were eating their supper.

“Hello Dad, hello Gogo, hello Khulu.”

They absentmindedly nodded a greeting back and continued eating, focused on the TV because it was time for their favourite soap opera, Scandal!

“You were with that white boy again.” Her grandfather grumbled. It was not a question; it was an accusation of knowing.

“Khulu, please, you don’t have to call him white all the time.”

“But he is white, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I was with J, he says hello.”

Her Khulu looked up for two seconds from the screen and tapped his walking stick in Noni’s direction. She was not sure if he was telling her to keep quiet or was disagreeing with something she had said. He was always so cranky, something she didn’t understand, but Noni had come to accept him as that. She had heard from her parents that her grandfather had been an anti-apartheid activist, so Noni assumed the trauma of those days had made him this way. His wife on the other hand, her Gogo, was one of the quietest and sweetest souls you would ever meet. She was gentle with her words and spoke so little, and whenever she was around, Noni felt a sense of calmness. How the two had ever been married for so long was beyond Noni’s understanding.

“Mum, Dad, there is something I need to tell you about J…”

“Shhh, enough talk about that white boy. We are watching Scandal! Shut up!” Khulu snapped and tapped his walking stick in her direction again. Noni’s mother gave her a warning stare and Noni sighed. She would have to find another way to broach the subject.

“Nonkululeko, could you help me with something?” Gogo asked and briskly got up from the chair. For someone who was almost 80 years old, Gogo was in great shape and quite fit. Noni was grateful for anything that would pull her away from that scene and followed her grandmother. Her grandmother led the way out to the kitchen, out the front door and into the garage.

“Gogo, it’s late and kinda dark, what are we doing here?”

“Switch on the light, I want to show you something.”

Noni did as she was told; curiosity seeping into her. The garage was overcrowded with boxes, broken tools, and rusty gym equipment lined the walls. Her father's car barely had space but somehow, he managed to park it in there every night.

“You see that box right at the top there, bring it down.”

Again, Noni obeyed the orders. She wished that she was not wearing her school uniform because she was tired from having it on all day but she couldn’t say no to Gogo. She went onto her toes and brought down this medium size, dusty cardboard box.  What was in that box was going to change Noni and Jacque's life forever, but Noni did not know that yet…

Noni handed the box to her grandmother who shook her head and told her to look through it herself. Slowly, Noni placed the box on the hood of her father’s car and soon she realised it was a box of memorabilia. There were old photos, diaries, letters and all sorts of other things that looked like they had been there for years.

“Wow, Gogo is this you?” Noni laughed as she saw a photo of her grandmother in shorts and a big afro, holding a cigarette. Gogo laughed but urged Noni to keep searching through.

“What exactly am I looking for Gogo?”

Noni held up another photo of her grandmother holding a baby, which must have been her mother! “Aw, so cute.” The next photo was of a popular building in Cape Town, “wow, is this parliament building back then? Sheesh, times have changed.”

Then Noni saw something that made her uncomfortable, it was a black and white photograph of two black men standing next to a street sign that read: CAUTION, BEAWARE OF NATIVES. She moved on to the next photo, and it was of black kids seemingly dancing at a beach called Sunrise Beach, next to a sign that said NET BLANKES. Gogo giggled when she saw Noni looking at that one, but Noni could not laugh. “We were so naughty. Go on, keep looking.” The final photo was the one that made Noni stop in her tracks. It was a distinct photo of her grandfather standing in a crowd with a microphone, and a poster that said, “We Demand Freedom”. He had blood on his face and there was a group of white police force surrounding them.

“That was the last day I walked without a stick,” her Khulu suddenly spoke up from behind them. He took the photo and held it up, with a mixture of pride and sadness in his eyes.

“The police beat me so much that they broke my leg,” he paused and looked into space and spoke very slowly. “We suffered horrible things under apartheid. They used us as disposal tools to mine gold and diamonds, and while they got rich, our humanity was destroyed…”

Noni could see that her grandfather was struggling to stand, but there were no chairs in the garage. So, she just watched him struggle, not wanting to ruin his speech.

“What was it like?”

“Well, those out in the farms, and some of us in the mines, were paid for hard labour with alcohol. You know, the effects of alcohol? It makes an already broken man angry, and he carries that anger home to his wife and kids.” Khulu raised his arm to signal the action of ‘beating’. “It was illegal for us to move around without a pass. There should be a photo with one like that in here, take a look.”

Noni dug through the heaps while Khulu continued to talk, “we couldn’t walk in white areas, or set up business’ there. Everything from the beaches to the hospitals was segregated. Education…well that was a dream, we had it, but it was restricted and after I lost my leg, I was useless in the fight.”

“No Jasper, you were not useless. Your grandfather worked so hard with the pen as his weapon,” Gogo gently touched his hand.

“I can see why you hate the whites; you went through so much.”

“No. That is not why. It’s because of what they did to your grandmother.”

Noni raised her eyebrows and leaned it to hear him better.

“Your grandmother, she was the real freedom fighter. Not me.”

“Gogo?”

“Yes, she was an executive member of the ANC Women’s League and led a host of women's demonstrations. She was phenomenal. That was until the Venters got involved.”

“Venters?”

“Yes, the ones that own the mines. Everyone praises them for their role in ‘ending apartheid’ but it is all a lie. They exploited us the most. All of us worked for them. I hate them because of what one of them did to your sweet grandmother…” Khulu’s voice caught in his throat before he continued to say, “They got her pregnant and abandoned her, those bastards.”

Noni gasped and stumbled back into the wall; she was surprised at what her grandfather had said but that was not what shocked her the most. What shocked her was the name her grandfather had said, Venter. That was her boyfriend Jacque’s surname!