Lucas Ledwaba is a Johannesburg based journalist. He has published works of fiction mainly in Drum magazine. Writing is his passion, and Lucas believes his heart would stop beating if he wakes up one day and finds he can no longer write. Lucas is hoping to publish works of non-fiction in the near future. He is currently working on a biography of one of SA’s legendary musicians.

The Valley of Hate

Lucas Ledwaba

Klein Paradys, one of the finest farms in the Levubu Valley, lay along the great road to Punda Maria, in a region of spectacular beauty where lush vegetation covered the misty hills like a green velvet carpet.

Legend had it in the valley that Groot Hendrik De Beer, the man who used to farm this fertile land, bestowed the name upon the farm because of its unbelievable beauty.

Petrus de Beer, the man who now owned Klein Paradys, and a grandson of Groot Hendrik, had a reputation for beating up his workers. The black people, the poor peasants who worked on the farms in the Levubu Valley, called him Mutheiwana, which means “the hated one” in their language, TshiVenda.

Like his great-grandfather, Marius de Beer, Mutheiwana’s teenage son often ascended to the top of a hillock in the middle of the farm to admire its beauty. The sight of the vast citrus farm, stretching as far as the eye could see, inspired him greatly. Especially in the summer months, when the sun hung over the majestic Soutpansberg mountains like a huge, glowing red fireball.

But on this particular day, the view couldn’t help lift his spirits, for there was a man who lay gravely ill in his living quarters on the farm. That man, Thomas Mulaudzi, a loyal farm worker, had been “disciplined” by Mutheiwana the previous day.

To discipline his workers, Mutheiwana either tied them to the back of a tractor and dragged them around the muddy farm roads or sometimes simply administered a severe beating with a leather whip, normally used to lash cattle.

Mulaudzi, the trusted farmworker, had earned himself a rough ride around the farm, tied to the back of a tractor, when he dropped a box of mangoes in Mutheiwana’s presence. That evening, a quiet summer evening, Mutheiwana had tied him to the back of a tractor, and dragged him several hundred metres along a muddy road around the farm.

Mulaudzi, like his father, was born on the farm, as were his two sons, Aifheli and Khathu. His father, Aluwani, was buried at Klein Paradys, where he had worked and lived all his life.

Mulaudzi, just like all other children of farm workers on the farms in the Levubu Valley, had started working on the farm as soon as he could walk, harvesting mangoes and avocados for payment of a loaf of bread a day.

Because the farm school went only as far as grade five, the farm workers’ children followed in the footsteps of their parents as soon as they passed — or most of the time, failed — grade five.

When Marius returned to the farm house from the top of the hill where he could see the spectacular view, he was still troubled by the thought of Mulaudzi, whose groans and cries relayed the pain he was feeling to those that couldn’t.

“I want that old kaffir off my land by the end of the week,” was Mutheiwana”s response when Marius brought up the subject of Mulaudzi.

“But why Pa?” replied the boy.

“He must go and die somewhere else, not here on my farm,” Mutheiwana growled.

“But Pa, where will he go? You can’t ...” Marius protested.

“It’s his own business where he goes!” Mutheiwana exploded.

Marius, his eyes watery with tears, tears of sympathy for the injured man, tears of anger, anger at the heartless man called his father, stormed back into the house and slammed the door behind him, leaving Mutheiwana startled by his son’s show of compassion for Mulaudzi, who according to him was nothing but a kaffir who could do nothing but drive around in a tractor all his life.

Mulaudzi lay on a single bed in the one-roomed compound house that was his only home. It was standard procedure at Klein Paradys that anyone who wanted transport to the hospital in Thohoyandou would lose their month’s salary of R170, which Mutheiwana said was petrol money.

Mulaudzi’s wife Tshifhiwa, who also worked on the farm, was paid with a bag of mealie-meal every month. Because they could not afford the huge transport fee, and because the ambulance service never arrived when called out to collect a black farmworker, Mulaudzi would spend his days in his room, hoping that time would heal his aching back.

And because he was unable to work Mutheiwana would not pay him or his wife, who had to spend her days nursing him back to health. And at Klein Paradys, anyone who did not work was not allowed to occupy one of these rooms.

“The mealie-meal will soon run out,” Tshifhiwa sighed. “And here my husband is lying in bed. Uh, God help us!”

“I will be fine to work again, my wife. I will be fine, really,” Mulaudzi responded hoarsely in a trembling voice. “I am not about to die now,” he said, trying to convince his wife not to lose all hope.

His manhood would not allow him to give up, no matter how much she realised how terrible his condition was. Mulaudzi did not want her to lose hope, because if she did, he would also lose all hope he had of recovering, though deep down he could feel his strength leaving him every hour.

It was a typically humid, sub-tropical morning. Tshifhiwa sat on a ragged sisal mat on the floor of the room, where the only furniture was an old wooden table, some enamel dishes and the single bed in a corner.

Mulaudzi was lying in bed, wishing he was up and about tending the mangoes and avocados on the land. But hell, the pain in his back was getting worse and worse. His right arm and leg were getting numb and swollen.

The peace and solitude of this troubled house was shattered suddenly when a raging Mutheiwana and three white men knocked down the almost broken door. A pick-up truck stood roaring outside, Phineas Singo, Mulaudzi’s cousin who also worked on the farm, behind the wheel.

“Kom julle donners. Ek gaan julle vandag wys wat ons doen met 'n siek kaffer,” Mutheiwana yelled as he grabbed the old wooden table and threw it out of the door and onto the waiting truck. The other three white men in khaki safari suits grabbed Mulaudzi and hauled him into the truck. One of them took hold of Tshifhiwa, who was still pleading for mercy, and threw her right into the truck, where she landed on the wooden table with a loud thud, her massive weight breaking it into two.

The noise of the roaring truck, the cries of Tshifhiwa and the crackle of the breaking table attracted the attention of the black workers living in the nearby quarters. They all gathered to one side, watching the proceedings. Nobody, not even Tshivhase, the old man whom all the farmworkers respected, said anything. They all just stared like cattle watching one of their own being slaughtered. They knew that the slightest plea, even a whisper for mercy, or just one word of protest, would earn them a similar fate.

The only way to express the pain they felt at watching one of their own treated like an animal, in fact, worse than an animal, was through their eyes, which gleamed with tears and mercy. Their ears heard all the abuse shouted and yelled by Mutheiwana and his white friends. Their hearts felt the pain, their arms trembled with anger, but their heads told them the best thing to do was to keep quiet, to let it all go, just like that.

It was already mid-morning when the two trucks stopped on a an open field next to the great road to Thohoyandou. The three white men, Mutheiwana and Singo clanked open the truck door and threw whatever was left of the wooden table on the red earth.

“Klim uit, julle kaffers. Get out, or do you want me to throw you out like that table?” Mutheiwana yelled, to roars of laughter from his three white friends.

Singo jumped onto the truck and helped both Mulaudzi and his wife off.

“Ja, I don’t want to see you kaffirs on my farm ever again,” Mutheiwana yelled, got into his truck and drove off, leaving a trail of dust behind a man and woman who had served him with loyalty for decades.

Singo remained behind to help his fellow man, for is it not the duty of a man to help another who’s in trouble, no matter the price?

“Hawu! my brother. I shall speak to the chief in Lwamondo. Perhaps he might help,” Singo spoke with the urgency required in such a situation, for he could see that Mulaudzi was no longer the man he was before. His eyes were glassy and his forehead getting colder and colder.

He helped Tshifhiwa carry Mulaudzi under a gigantic marula tree nearby, before hurrying off to Chief Mudau’s homestead in Lwamondo, a village of beehive-shaped mud huts that clung to the side of the mountains like leeches.

If only he and Chief Mudau had returned much earlier. If only the chief’s battered old Valiant had not given them trouble on the way back to where he’d left Tshifhiwa and her ailing husband.

The sight of Tshifhiwa resting her head on the body of her husband, whose face was now covered in her floral shawl, told the story. Mulaudzi had not been afforded any dignity in his life as a farmworker, and even in death he’d had none.

Mudau broke the sad news of Mulaudzi’s death to his people. News of this man, Mulaudzi, who was unknown to the villagers, yet connected to them by an invisible cord that tied all the black people of the Levubu Valley and surrounds together, set into motion an amazing series of events.

A local undertaker donated a coffin, Mudau offered his land for a grave to be dug and another good citizen of Lwamondo offered his cow to be slaughtered for the funeral. At least, on his last day in this world Mulaudzi got the dignity he had never had in all his life.

Marius, who risked his father’s wrath and attended the funeral, shared his grief with the mourners in their language, TshiVenda, which he had learnt from the farmworkers.

“This man here, Mulaudzi, was like a father to me. I’m heartbroken today because it was the actions of my own father that probably caused his death. I hope the white people in this area will realise one day that we are all human beings and equal. May his soul rest in peace.”

It was a moving moment for everyone gathered by the graveside, on a hill overlooking the chief’s homestead. This land was reserved only for royalty, yet here was a man, a farmworker from Klein Paradys, resting in the sacred land of chiefs and kings.

Driving back to Klein Paradys in his father’s car, Marius kept asking himself why he had not done anything to save this man, Mulaudzi’s life. Why, why, oh why?

Lost in thought, he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a sharp curve on the dirt road winding its way from Lwamondo to Levubu Valley. It was the last thing Marius ever did in this world, tried in vain to negotiate a curve. Mutheiwana was devastated by the death of his only son and only child. He’d lost his wife to illness a few years earlier, and now his only child was gone too. He was shattered, confused, angry!

The white people of Levubu Valley were gathered around the open grave in the cemetery where only the whites buried their fallen, when they heard melodious voices approaching from the road.

The voices were singing something that sounded like “Nearer to God”, but in a strange language, the language of the farmworkers. A large crowd of black people appeared on the path leading up to the cemetery and came towards where the white people were gathered around the open grave.

The only time black people were allowed into the cemetery was as labourers, theirs was only to dig graves and mow the lawn and tend the beautiful gardens surrounding the graves. Even when a respected white farmer died here, the blacks could only stand around the wire fence surrounding the cemetery to pay their last respects.

Yet on this occasion nobody, not even the notorious Coetzee brothers, known for their affiliation to a right-wing movement, did anything to stop the black people from entering the cemetery.

The winds of change were finally sweeping through the Levubu Valley, sweeping away the seedlings of racial hatred and discrimination.



LitNet: 28 March 2004

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