The covenant - James A. Michener [574]
The anguish that showed on his face just before he fainted was not caused, as some thought, by extreme pain; nor was it resentfulness at the muttered cursing of the truck driver, for he got that all the time. It was his instant realization of what his death might mean to Miriam, his wife of more than thirty years. In a flash he saw her patient acceptance of the hardships thrown her way, the years of separation, the hard work of rearing children alone. Whole decades had passed with only brief visits from her husband; she could not join him, apartheid laws forbade that. So she had lived a meager life in one part of South Africa, he in another, and when Bloke at last gained the right that enabled her to live with him, she was so grateful that she advised him to accept any injustice regarding hours and wages: 'We got each other at last. You do the work, we say nothin'.'
On the third day after the funeral, Miriam was summoned to the office of Pieter Grobbelaar, director of the subdivision in Soweto where the Ngqika home was located. He informed her that since she was no longer married to a workingman with a legal right to remain in Soweto, she had become what the law called 'a superfluous appendage,' and as such, lost all right to remain in Johannesburg. He used the language well and outlined the steps of her expulsion.
'You can stay here to collect your things, but then you must leave for Soetgrond.'
'I've never been there. I don't even know where it is.'
'But you're a Xhosa. Your papers say that.'
'But I was born in Bloemfontein. I never been in Xhosa country.'
'The law says that you are now a temporary sojourner . . .'
At least ten times that first day Mr. Grobbelaar used the phrase 'the law says.' On every point raised by Mrs. Ngqika the law had anticipated her. Did she want to hold on to a house which she and her husband had occupied for ten years and had improved significantly? Mr. Grobbelaar could cite a law which said that the widow of a man lost all her rights when her husband died. Did she want to stay for six months in order to find some alternative place to stay? Mr. Grobbelaar could quote a law which said that he could order her to clear out within seventy-two hours. Did she want permission to take with her the new kitchen sink which Bloke had given her last Christmas? Mr. Grobbelaar had a law which said anything attached to the walls of government-owned property had to be left behind.
The first interview had miserable results. When she left Mr. Grobbelaar with his pile of papers, Mrs. Ngqika wept for two hours, then sent a young boy into Johannesburg to find her son, who had a 'location in the sky,' that is, quarters atop the apartment block in which he worked as cleaner. When this young fellow heard that his mother was being dispossessed and shipped off to a country location which she had never seen, he hurried out to Soweto.
'Mom, they can't send you to a place like Soetgrond. That's just a bunch of shacks in the veld.'
'Super says I got to go.'
'To hell with Super. I won't let you go.'
'He told me to come back to his office next week. You talk with him?'
And there was the difficulty. Her son's right to stay in Johannesburg, where he had not been born, depended upon his remaining invisible to the law. Were he to complain to Super, his papers would be inspected, the police would be summoned, and he, too, would be banished to Soetgrond. He was powerless to help his mother.
'Mom, there ain't nothing I can do,' and he was off to his location in the sky. If he could somehow hang on for ten years, he might earn a pass permitting him to remain in the area.
On the second visit Mr. Grobbelaar was as patient and as understanding as he had been on