Lewis Nkosi, who died on Sunday, is being laid to rest in Durban today.
At his memorial service in Newtown, Johannesburg, on Wednesday, Nkosi's twin daughters spoke of the "wild jazz records" he played them as bedtime lullabies. That word, "jazz", best encapsulates the feeling that Nkosi transmitted through his prose fiction, which could rise to heights of wicked hilarity, and which never spared the satirical rod, lest South Africa come to find itself spoiled in its sensibilities.
BOOK SA is privileged to bring you an excerpt from Nkosi's last novel, Mandela's Ego, published by Umuzi in 2006. In the book, "a young Zulu boy named Dumisani grows up in awe of the legendary figure of Nelson Mandela. He thinks of Mandela not only as a great leader of the oppressed, but also as a great seducer of women, and it is in this aspect that he decides to emulate Mandela." In the following scene, Dumisani and his "Mandela Football Club" cohorts are on their way to the legendary 1961 All-In Conference in Pietermarizburg that was set to be a watershed in South African politics.
Enjoy some classic Lewis Nkosi jazz:
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In many parts of the country that week, preparations were gathering momentum. Hundreds, no, thousands of people were going to Pietermaritzburg (to P.M.!) for the big convention – some by train, some by bus, some by taxi, some by bicycle and some on foot – in the hope of hearing Mandela speak. Many failed to arrive. Rusty, ramshackle vehicles broke down, or ran out of petrol and were abandoned on the road. At the country's various crossroads, and at bus and railway stations, hundreds of police officers were on guard, detaining people on the slightest pretext, just long enough for the convention to come and go without them. Some were arrested for crossing the road against the traffic lights,some for urinating in public, some even for just holding hands. People were held for every minor offence, or for what was merely deemed unseemly behaviour, including kissing. They were all afterwards released without charge. Still people came, from all over the country they came. Some took it as a big picnic and filled their hampers with delicious edibles, baskets of mangoes, bananas and oranges, chicken, roast potatoes and dumplings. People were suddenly all kindred, all kith and kin – some more kith than kin – and they were all going to the big convention!
Speak now or forever be silent. Ten Voices:
Voice 1: Okay, brother. Let me speak! Are you going to let me speak or not? What I want to know is, what's on the agenda? If we are going to this convention I want to know the agenda.
Voice 2: Listen, comrade. Don't ask me about no agenda. I don't know what the agenda is. And do I care? No, I don't care!
Voice 3: Do we have to have an agenda to go to a conference?
Voice 1: You don't have no agenda! How can you go to a conference without no agenda? Without no nothing?
Voice 4: Ag, man, listen, don't you know what the agenda is? You mean you really don't know? It's right here in this paper. Right here it says this is going to be an All-In Conference that will issue a clarion call for a National Convention!
Voice 1: Get away! You jiving me. Man, are you jiving me? A conference to issue a clarion call for another conference to take place which will issue another clarion call for another conference to take place?
Voice 4: Don't be stupid!
Voice 3: He thinks he's so cute, talking about agendas! What agenda? Here we are talking freedom, son, how freedom is to be birthed in this lovely country of ours. We ain't talkin' no agendas! Do you need an agenda to birth freedom? Ag man, don't be such a clever dick!
Voice 1: Okay. What about the M-Plan? Don't we get to discuss it?
Voice 4: That's agenda, ain't it? We'll discuss the Mandela Plan? The M-Plan. The M-Plan is ripe for discussion, don't I say?
Voice 1: And the National Question. Brother, where do you stand on the National Question?
Voice 2: Me? I'm for the 1949 Programme. Dead or alive, I'll always be for the 1949 Programme. Oh God, the 1949 Programme! That's me!
Voice 1: And you, Comrade, where do you stand on the National Question?
Voice 5: On the National Question? I don't stand, baby! I am the one who is the whole question, ain't I? I'm the nation or nothing!
Voice 1: Okay, what are your beliefs then? What do you believe in?"
Voice 5: What do I believe in? What kind of question is that, what do I believe in! I don't believe nothing, man.
Voice 1: Well, like, you know, man, I don't see how you can go to a convention with no agenda and without no beliefs of any kind. How you goin' to rally the masses without no programme? How you goin' to get what you want when you don't believe shit? How you goin' to frame your demands? I am talkin' here about reasons, man. I am talkin' about context. Philosophy. Know what I mean?
Voice 5: Okay, you want to know what I believe. I say give me freedom or give me death!
Voice 1: Wow, that's great. Death. That's philosophy! Give me death! I like that. Have you got guns, mfowethu, because they got guns.
Voice 5: Baba, we don't carry no guns. We're nonviolent. That's the truth! At least, violently nonviolent or nonviolently violent or what-ever! You get me?
Voice 2: We are a peace-loving people waging a revolutionary struggle with bare hands!
Voice 3: Don't talk peace to me. Thixo! I haven't the time! I'm on my way! I'm going! To P.M., Pietermaritzburg! And, sonny, let me tell you, I'm going to be there, dead or alive! I want to be there. I want to be counted!
Voice 6: I heard MaNtuli is going too. Are you also going?
Voice 7: Me going? My sibunu is going! What are you talkin about, me going?
Voice 6: You're not?
Voice 7: No, I am not! You think that stupid man of mine would let me! He'd think I'm going to look for a man!
Voice 6: In P.M.? Are there any men in P.M.?
Voice 7: What do you think? Isn't that Cetshwayo's old capital?
Voice 8: Darling, I'm not going. Let me be frank with you. I'm full of apprehension. You know what I mean? Apprehension. That's the word. There's no telling how this thing is gonna turn out. We could have another Sharpeville on our hands before we know it!
Voice 9: Shame! Me, I'm going. You bet I'm going. I want to be in the Book of Life!
Voice 10: Me too! God, I'm going! And if Nelson Mandela is there I want to take a ride on his Sweet Chariot!
Dumisa and his Mandela Football Club were also going. Members of the Club and their girlfriends climbed into the hired bus at the crack of dawn, singing freedom songs on their way to the All-In African Conference where Mandela was expected to deliver his address. Somlandela, Somlandela u-Mandela! Somlandela, yonke indawo! We'll follow him, We'll follow Mandela.We'll follow him anywhere he leads!
Before they began their journey, there was much preparation. In the morning darkness they loaded the bus with provisions. Plenty of water and softdrinks were stashed under the seats, according to Dumisa's instructions. As they packed, every now and again Dumisa would pause and declare, "I want to see that Big Man! I want to talk to him face to face. I want to shake his hand. I want to touch his flesh."
When MaMkhize heard about the preparations for the trip she threw a tantrum. "They will be arrested!" she cried. "The South African Police will be the beneficiary of my labour! Did I carry Dumisa for nine months in my womb in order to donate my son to the S.A.P.?""Let him go!" Mziwakhe scoffed. "They'll soon find out what kind of people the Boers are. The Boers don't play games. They'll clap them behind bars and throw away the key.""And what good will that do me if he goes to prison?" MaMkhize shouted."After all the shootings in that place called Sharpeville, do we need any more sacrifices? It's the way you brought him up. I wanted to make him a proper Christian child. You turned him against the priests."
"Oh, yes!" Mziwakhe chuckled bitterly. "That Father Ross, with his flowing robes and mincing steps. No wonder the boy has turned out to be a dappled bird, a piebald thing of many colours, neither this nor that! He goes about with his head in the air. He thinks he is Mandela. I'm sick and tired of hearing about this Mandela! Mandela this, Mandela that. He makes a lot of girls pregnant. They will give birth to a lot of little Mandelas, and I'll have to pay fines to their parents as reparation!"
MaMkhize frowned. "You're talking about that Cele girl, aren't you? If the parents can prove Dumisa was responsible, I suppose we ought to take the girl in and keep the baby – unpleasant as the prospect may be, of becoming grandmother to a child of fornication."
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- Mandela's Ego is published by Umuzi