13. Durban, 1990 - Readings and beatings

In which soft voices pack a punch.

At university, Elle’s world expands. The protests rage out there; but in the quiet of a friend’s room, some truths can’t be escaped. 

Eleanor

I sit down on the floor and rest my back against Meredith’s bed, reaching for my book bag. Meredith’s cat, Fifi, immediately claims my lap. One hand automatically pets her as the other ruffles in my bag. The shag carpet is slightly scratchy on the back of my legs. I love University, and being away from stultifying Pretoria, and the fishbowl of St Anne’s. The vibe on campus and in Durban is laid back. But it’s nice to escape the residence hall from time to time. The other first years can make such a racket, especially on Friday afternoons. Tig is also at the University of Natal, and our circles overlap, but are also separate—as he’s in Engineering and a year ahead of me, while I’m in Arts. 

Meredith’s house is not far from campus. It’s quiet, surrounded by leafy mahogany and macaranga trees. It’s not just the trees that are so different to Pretoria. Even the sounds, tastes and smells of Durban are different. The myna birds, rather the red-eyed doves. The vervet monkeys chasing each other through the trees. The taste of salt in the air rather than the dry dust of the Highveld. The smell of curry and bunny chow downtown. 

And the humidity! Argh. 

I pull my T-shirt away from my body, fanning it a bit. Then I pull out my ponytail and retie it, pulling all the stickiness away from my face. The humidity is the one part about Durban I don’t like, used, as I am, to the dry air of the Highveld. 

“What am I reading today?” I ask Meredith as I settle in, my hand resuming petting Fifi. I come to Meredith’s a few times a week now. To get a breather from res, but also to help Meredith. Not many of our textbooks are available in Braille, and it’s prohibitively expensive to get them transcribed. 

We met in Classics, but bonded over our shared love of literature. We can talk and dissect novels for hours and hours. 

“I think we’re on Chapter Eight, aren’t we?” Meredith says in her silver voice. 

I read. After an hour or so, my voice tired, and my body stiff, I lift Fifi off my lap, stand and stretch. 

“Lemonade?” I ask Meredith. 

“Mmmm, please, thanks,” she nods. 

When I come back upstairs with the lemonade, Meredith is softly singing, practicing one of the new songs she’s written. I settle myself back down quietly, not wanting to disturb her. When she reaches the end of her song, silence hangs like a prayer in the room. Meredith’s voice has that effect on one. 

Then a hadeda’s raucous caw breaks the melodic stillness. 

“Do you miss attending protests?” I ask Meredith, suddenly. There’s another one planned for tomorrow, I’ve heard. But with ANC¹ and Inkatha Freedom Party² supporters spoiling for a fight, protests—always risky and volatile—have become even more so. The rumor mill on campus is that the apartheid government is cynically stoking the tensions between the two parties, to be able to sustain the State of Emergency—which has not yet been lifted. I’m selfishly glad Meredith no longer goes to protests. I’m not sure if I would have the courage to join her if she did. My first in-person experience of the intimidating power of the toyi-toyi³ was shortly after I arrived on campus a few months ago. I’d been rooted in place as it went by, the rhythmic, pulsing stomp of feet, bodies and voice a tidal wave engulfing all in its path. 

“Sorta yes, sorta no”. She fingers the livid scar on her cheek. “I don’t miss being sjambokked⁴ and tear gassed and purple rained⁵ though. Oh, and also the dogs.” Her voice is matter of fact, like it is an everyday thing to be beaten and chased by the police for protesting against apartheid. But then maybe again it is, I think to myself. Meredith has told me many stories about the protests she attended before she started to lose her eyesight from her diabetes. 

I admire her courage. I don’t have it in me to attend the protests. The chaos, the running, the risk of being caught and beaten. Word has it the police are even more merciless towards white protestors. 

And I’m enjoying life at University and in Durban too much to want to jinx it. Away from the ever watchful eyes of the teachers, the gossiping and meanness of my classmates, and the pressure not to do anything to embarrass Mum, especially after Natasha’s departure and everything Mum did there to protect me, I feel freer, lighter. It’s like Natasha unlocked something inside of me, and I’m at last in a place where I can start to unwind and unfurl. 

Something else Natasha taught me: how to be a friend. Meredith presents as sanguine about losing her sight, but I see her when she just wants to throw something. Or have more drinks than she should. And then I just take her hand and go dance with her. 

Meredith is diminutive where Natasha was tall, round and soft where Natasha was muscular and angular, quiet where Natasha was loud. But she has the same independent fire within her. It smolders, rather than rages, though. There is a quiet steeliness in Meredith Porter that you overlook at your peril. I’ve seen some of the guys try stuff on her. They don’t try twice. And she’s barely skipped a beat with her studies as her eyesight has failed. 

“I don’t know how you did it,” I say to her now. “I would have been too scared.” 

“It takes less courage than you think, especially when you’re in a big group of friends.” She hesitates. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Elle,” she warns. “I’m not some white heroine.” Her clouded gray eyes turn unerringly towards me. “There are many ways to work for change. Protests and getting beaten and arrested aren’t the only way. Or even the bravest way.” 

“What is the bravest way?” I ask quietly, held by something that feels sacred at this moment. 

“Looking inside your heart, seeing the darkness that the hate that surrounds us has put in there, and choosing to see it, rather than pretending it isn’t there.” She turns her head away, looking towards the window. “Too many white people pretend to be anti-apartheid, but they won’t look inside their own souls, and see all the ways they like how it benefits them.” She turns back to me. “Even you and I, Elle. Our nice lives come from somewhere—and not just our parents.” 

I shift in my seat, aware of feeling uncomfortably seen by Meredith’s clouded eyes. What would home life be like without Becca? What would life be like without all the comforts and privilege being white in South Africa brings? 

I find it hard to imagine. 

It’s the only life I know.

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Bonus Materials

• Durban: the antithesis to Pretoria

• The toyi-toyi in action: In the words of the great poet-musician Hugh Masekela: “We couldn’t beat the police physically. But we could scare the shit out of them with a song.”

• Durban’s monkeys: an annoying fact of life

Guest Interview #2: uKhahlamba—Barrier of Spears

1. African National Congress

2.  The Inkatha Freedom party was a rival to the ANC. Its primary base of support was with Zulu-speaking black South Africans. The Zulu homeland was in the then Natal Province, in which Durban is located. 

3. A uniquely black South African dance, involving both stomping and chanting, that become synonymous with protests.

4. Sjambok, a heavy leather (or plastic) whip. One of the weapons used by the police when breaking up protests.

5. The police put purple dye in the water cannons so that protesters were stained for later identification and arrest.