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    The Tale of the Sakabula Bird
    The Tale of the Sakabula Bird
    The Tale of the Sakabula Bird
    Ebook150 pages2 hours

    The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

    By Vincent Gray

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    Her story is told by her lover, an eccentric artist and Camus-eque character, who remains nameless. As an old man in the autumn of his life, he unburdens both his and Wanetta’s story to a stranger he meets by chance one night in the pub of the Masonic Hotel in Boksburg. Woven into the story is a painting of a bird called the Sakabula Bird. The painting was included in one of his youthful exhibitions and drew the attention of a young university student called Wanetta Samuelsson. The telling of the story behind the painting became the catalyst which ignited their love affair. Both were drawn into the People’s War of the 1980s in South Africa, and were subsequently detained by the notorious secret police. Under an excruciating regime of torture Wanetta’s body was plunged into that dark universe of unrelenting and bottomless pain, a universe described in Elaine Scarry’s book ‘The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World’. In her cell a stick figure scene of Golgotha had been etched into the wall by a previous detainee who died under torture. Always late at night the loud metallic clanking, clanging, smashing and crashing of heavy cell doors swinging open and closing begun. And then the night would be continuously pierced with the sounds of blood curdling screams, and just before the break of dawn the creeping sounds of silence could only once more mean the quiet wordless and voiceless whispers of death, death beneath the rising and twinkling morning star. No one knows when it will be their turn and how many times they will have to endure the journey to the torture chamber. The only exit is the door of death. Death is always comes as a welcome relief, followed by that unsettling stillness of expiration, like the condensing early morning dew while it is still dark, when the tortured body finally lies prone, naked and unmoving and unfeeling under the glare of a cold bare unfeeling light. How many times will they find themselves at the threshold of that door before they make their final exit? How times while passing through the mists of sublime pain will they wonder whether they are living or dead? What can torture, stress, trauma and anxiety do to the body? The body houses its own mysterious agents of death, silently waiting to be unleashed. How does one continue to live with death as one’s constant shadowy companion after escaping the visitation of the dark angel so many times? The dark angel could be the black Sakabula Bird floating in the bright golden sunlight over the grassy plains of the South African Highveld, plains which share the same grassy vegetative physiognomy of the US prairies, the Russian steppes and the pampas of Argentina. The story is embedded in an imaginary geography of Boksburg, a gold mining town close to Johannesburg on the so-called East Rand. The narrator is an Anglicized Afrikaner who was once a Marxist and communist struggle stalwart and now has to contend with the teasing paradoxes and ironies of an African Nationalist rent-seeking compradorial bourgeoisie who rule by corruption over a declining post-apartheid South Africa. He finds some solace in reclaiming his Afrikaner identity in the company of African political refugees. And the Sakabula Bird floats over the grassland plains of the great South African Highveld, collecting the souls of those who struggled for freedom and justice in South Africa.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVincent Gray
    Release dateJun 20, 2016
    ISBN9781311191175
    The Tale of the Sakabula Bird
    Author

    Vincent Gray

    As a son of a miner, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg. I matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, I was conscripted into the South African Defence Force for compulsory national military service when I was 17 years old. After my military service, I went to the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree I worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. As an obligatory member of the South African Citizen Miltary Force, I was called up to do 3-month camps on the 'Border' which was the theatre of the so-called counter-insurgency 'Bush War'. In between postgraduate university studies I also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales rep. In my career as an academic, I was a molecular biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where I lectured courses in microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology and evolutionary biology. On the research side, I was involved in genomics, and plant and microbial biotechnology. I also conducted research into the genomics of strange and weird animals known as entomopathogenic nematodes. I retired in 2019, however, I am currently an honorary professor at the University of the Witwaterand and I also work as a research writing consultant for the University of Johannesburg.

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      Book preview

      The Tale of the Sakabula Bird - Vincent Gray

      The Tale of the Sakabula Bird

      By Vincent Gray

      Copyright © 2016 Vincent Gray

      Smashwords Edition

      This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer’s imagination and are not modelled on any real persons. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

      All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

      ISBN: 9781311191175

      Author Biography

      As a son of a miner, the author was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg during the 1960s and matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, he was conscripted into the South African Defence Force (SADF) for compulsory national military service at the age of seventeen. On completion of his military service, he studied courses in Zoology, Botany and Microbiology at the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree he worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. Following the initial conscription into military service in the SADF, like all other white South African males of his generation, he was then drafted into one of the many South African Citizen Military Regiments. During the 1970s he was called up as a citizen-soldier to do three-month military camps on the 'Border' which was the operational theatre of the so-called counter-insurgency 'Bush War' during the Apartheid years. Before and in between university studies he also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales representative. The author is now a retired professor whose career as an academic in the Biological Sciences has spanned a period of thirty-three years mainly at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Before retirement, he lectured and carried out research in the field of molecular biology with a special interest in the molecular basis of evolution. He continues to pursue his interest in evolutionary biology. Other interests which the author pursues include radical theology, philosophy, and literature.

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      I

      Excuse me, may I offer you my services without running the risk of intruding.

      Do you wish to order something to drink?

      I fear you will not be able to make yourself understood by the worthy stone-faced Zulu gentleman who presides over the fate of this fine establishment. In fact, as one of our noble aboriginals, he only speaks two languages both of which would sound foreign to most people in the world. He only speaks the two native languages, isiZulu or Afrikaans. And I might add that this is a strange combination of linguistic proficiency even for a Zulu. Of course, you would expect that a Zulu should be able to speak isiZulu, but what other language would you expect him to speak? I would say English, especially if he hails from Natal which was once a colony of the British Empire. But here we have a black man, a Zulu, an aboriginal in the truest sense of that anthropological concept, who while being bilingual happens to speak only Afrikaans as his second language. It is quite inexplicable, if not extraordinary, indeed it is remarkable and begs for an investigation and also an explanation, but I assure you, he cannot comprehend a single word of English. Feel free, ask him anything you like in English and he will ignore you. Most South Africans are bilingual, especially with respect to English, but he is the statistical anomaly, the proverbial outlier of the Gaussian distribution, the white raven or the black swan if you like.

      He was born in the district of a place called Piet Retief, which is in Natal or KZN. What I have managed to gather over the years while drinking at this bar is that he grew up on a farm near the town of Piet Retief. He received his primary education at a farm school. The medium of instruction was in Afrikaans. And he has managed to get by without knowing a single word of English, and this is not an exaggeration. As a child when he learnt that the English had defeated and dismembered the Zulu Kingdom he vowed that he will never utter a word of English from his lips for as long as he lived. He has obstinately stuck to his vow and has made no effort to learn a single word of English or the fundamentals of English grammar. So you will wait in vain if you try and order a drink in English. Look at him, he does not even know that we are speaking about him, not that he would care.

      His unusual nurtured and practised inability to comprehend or speak a single word of English may go a long way to explain his reserved manner, his dour demeanour. You find this an anomaly? Well, I can assure you, you are now in the land of anomalies. Everywhere you look you will find anomalies.

      You probably have not noticed that there is another anomaly reigning in this fine establishment. You look perplexed at my comment. Look around and tell me what you see. You don’t comprehend what I am getting at? OK, let me explain, apart from our Zulu friend, strange as it may seem to you, I am the only other native in his bar who can speak Afrikaans, the rest of the clientele, like you, all happen to be foreigners, even though they are black, every last one is a foreigner. And what’s more, they are not tourists; they are all exiles, exiles every one of them, all living in one or other form of exile, there are many kinds of exile and states of being in exile. They are migrants, refugees if you wish, who have fled from one kind of disaster or another. They are economic and political refugees.

      How do the foreigners' order drinks? Good question. I have not been able to figure it out for myself. I think he can read minds.

      I see the Zulu gentleman is ready at last to take our order. What are you drinking?

      If you like beer, I would recommend the draught beer straight from the keg.

      Yes, I will have a draught beer as well. No, let me pay, it will be my pleasure. Money is no problem.

      Why should it be? I am a working man, old as I may appear.

      I don’t look my age? Well, thank you, that is a kind thing to say.

      I don’t believe in retirement. I will work until I drop dead. As I said, I am a working man. My motto is another day, another dollar.

      Oh here are our beers.

      Cheers.

      I see the beer meets your approval.

      You must excuse me, I am being very talkative tonight, it is a fault I have, and my other fault is that I think I make friends far too easily, and I seem to speak too easily about myself and about the things I know as if it these are the most important topics of conversation in the world.

      You say you don’t mind listening to the unsolicited conversation of a complete stranger. You say you are happy to listen to someone even if that person is going to only talk about himself all night. You are prepared to listen even if he is going to exaggerate his self-importance and the significance of his existence. It honestly won’t bore you to death? You say that I am not boring you at all? You say that you expect to find that whatever I have to say could indeed turn out to be very interesting, if not entertaining. Well then Mon Cher Monsieur, you are too kind. I hope I don’t disappoint you. You say that you are a good listener. Well, then cheers! To life!

      I agree that the night is still young and you say that you are at a loose end without a single care in the world or any commitment. The same goes for me. We are the same in this respect. Not having a care in the world. What is there to care about anyway? By the way, for whatever it is worth, the word ‘care’ has become a technical term, invested with conceptual richness, brimming to overflowing with meaning and significance. But who cares? Who cares about the self or self-care as they say?

      Yes, what should we care about? Why care about anything? I may add that the night is not only still very young, it is actually in its infancy, in fact at this very moment it is waiting to be born and it is also going to be a very long night before it dies at the break of dawn, and anyway, you say that you are not going anywhere, plus you are a good listener. This is then a rare occasion indeed, a valuable moment in both of our lives. Ah, I have made you laugh again. I see that I amuse you, it doesn’t matter, I don’t mind. But I agree that it is true that we may never meet again, we may be like two ships passing in the night. I have to confess that I have a good sense of occasion and this is not an occasion to be missed.

      Actually, I am not really that talkative. Most of the time I don’t talk much about myself. But tonight for some reason I feel like talking. I feel like confessing everything about myself, to anyone who cares to listen. Even though we are both strangers to each other, I will not hide anything from you about myself. No one wants to listen to the sorrows of a drunk. I am not drunk as you can clearly see. I have already had two or three beers, but so what, tonight is a special occasion. And I have been cured of all my sorrows. You say I am very fortunate to be cured of all my sorrows. Yes, I am thankful. But it was a long and difficult cure. Being cured of all my sorrows, and also being too old to have any regrets I promise not to disappoint you. If I end up singing a paean of personal praise to myself then so be it. You will no doubt forgive me for being a bit of a narcissist.

      Yes, I am from Boksburg. Haven’t I already said that I am from Boksburg? I think I must be getting old. Sorry, I did not hear you properly; you were asking why this town is called Boksburg? The town was named after Dr Bok. The story goes like this. A person by the name of Carl Ziervogel originally from Graaf Reinet bought a farm called Leeupoort. On the 21st of March 1887 just when he was going to sell his farm gold was discovered on Vogelfontein the farm next door to his farm. Of course, he took his farm off the market. At that time Dr Bok was the secretary of the state of the Transvaal Boer Republic which was recognized as an independent Republic by the British in 1881. Dr Bok discussed the gold discovery with President Paul Kruger who recommended that Dr Bok establish a properly surveyed and organized township to facilitate the orderly development of gold mines on the Leeupoort and Vogelfontein farms. The new gold mine town was then named Boksburg in honour of Dr Bok.

      Yes, I was also born in Boksburg, I grew up in Boksburg and I have lived in Boksburg all my life. I have lived most of my life in the same flat. In fact, I was born in the Boksburg Benoni Hospital. The hospital still exists. It is on the other side of the railway line across from the Lake standing next to the Cason Mine Dump. Unfortunately, Cason Mine Dump is no longer the majestic man made mountain that it used to be. It now looks like a half-eaten stale bread roll. It was once the largest mine dump in the world. Its towering presence dominated the geography of Boksburg.

      When I was a kid we stayed in the suburb called Plantation, just down the road from the Boksburg Benoni Hospital. My dad was one of the big shots working for the East Rand Propriety Mines or ERPM for short. He was a very prominent man in Boksburg in the

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