Thursday 29 March, 1990
The impi was coming closer. She hid under a bush, its thorns piercing her bare legs. A man with a shield in one hand and a spear in the other was running towards them. She could see the whites of his eyes, the tear just below the second button on his beige shirt. She tried to warn Mandla but no sound came from her lips. He was looking away, he hadn’t seen the man.

She reached out to pull Mandla towards her but it was as if she had no arms.

She woke from another nightmare, the sun streaming through the gap in her curtains. Her bedside clock told her she was late for work. Che Guevara’s penetrating eyes stared above her from the poster on her wall. She tested her voice. It still worked. She lay back, allowing herself to breathe.

Eventually she dragged herself out of bed, pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. She hurtled past the fridge and swigged straight from the milk bottle. A pasty face with black rings under the eyes looked back at her from the mirror in the hallway. She drove to work in a trance, a taxi’s hoot finally jolting her out of her stupor.

The car park at work was full of people. They huddled in groups on the grass, on the concrete of the car bays, their voices subdued. She eased her car past an old woman who’d tied a blanket’s corners to form a carry-bag. Vusi’s carefully tended lawn was almost completely concealed by the throng of women and young children sitting on it.

“Nisuka kuphi? Where are you from?” she asked a young woman as she manoeuvred her way to the front door.

“KwaShange.”

She reached her desk, dropping her bag on the table and taking up the day’s newspaper. ‘Open warfare rips through the Edendale’ read the headlines with an aerial photo of burning houses staring back at her. She skimmed the full-page story.

‘More than 120 houses burned… 16 people killed, 54 shot and wounded.’

She screwed her eyes closed and blinked rapidly. He could be one of the dead, one of the injured.

Justice was interviewing Vusi who hadn’t been to work yesterday. He was normally so cleanly dressed but today his shirt was torn, a dirty brown smudge plastered his grey pants. Vusi, gentle Vusi, whose Gogo made grass bracelets, whose only violent act was cutting the grass and clipping the hedges for the church. What had happened to him?

“Hey Sue. I think you should hear this.” Justice said.

Her legs dragged her to Justice’s desk. “Sawubona Vusi,” she greeted.

“Sawubona nkosikazi,” Vusi kept his eyes on his shoes. In his hand he fiddled with a dirty cloth, tying and untying it. One toe poked through the front of his takkie, his hair was matted and wild.

“Vusi’s from KwaShange.”

She started. “That’s where Mandla…”

Justice nodded. “Vusi got separated from his family when the theleweni attacked. He fled down the river with his friend. He doesn’t know where they are. He wants us to help him find them.”

“I’m so sorry Vusi,” her heart was thumping in her chest.

“Vusi was with Mandla yesterday,” Justice added.

She grasped Justice’s arm. “Does he know where he is?”

Justice spoke with Vusi in Zulu. She tried to pick up words from their conversation and shuddered as she heard ‘dubula’. Someone had been shot, she couldn’t decipher who. Justice turned back to her, his face grave, then shifted his eyes back to his exam pad.

“He says he was with Mandla and Thulani’s brother, Sipho, when the impi attacked. He said … he said they tried to defend themselves…”

“And…? Justice, tell me. What happened?”

“He and his friend fled down the river. He said he heard that Sipho and Mandla … that they were killed.”

Her legs wobbled, the paper in her hand quivered.

“Is he sure… he only heard it, right?”

Justice turned to Vusi and spoke again in Zulu. Justice’s words came to her as if muffled by cotton wool.

“That’s what he heard but he doesn’t know for sure because he hasn’t been back there.”

She looked away to the door, biting her lip. Robert was coming through the door, his forefinger inside his dog collar, trying to tug it away from his neck. Justice took her hand.

“I’m sure it can’t be true. We’d have heard,” he said.

Robert came and stood beside them. “What can’t be true?”

Sue couldn’t frame the words, so Justice told him. Robert looked down at Sue.

“Mandla’s an important leader. We would’ve heard if he’d been killed. You know how fast bad news travels.”

Justice looked at them both. “Vusi is asking if we can take him home to find his family.”

Sue hung on his words. “I’ll take him. We can try and find out about Mandla too.”

Robert studied the two of them, his head shifting from Sue to Justice and back to Sue.

“Okay, go, but Justice, you go with her. Be careful.”

***

Tell us: What do you think is the cause of these unrests?