The 30th of February

Ma Lebo was a whale of a woman and fearless. From the top of her barrel-shaped head to her ankles she was a wad of corrugated flesh. Her cold, black eyes could peel the skin off a baboon’s back. Nothing daunted her. No Apartheid law, no tsotsie’s threat [1], no tempest from a troubled earth ruffled her equilibrium.

She was, however, inordinately terrified of one thing; the 30th of February. It had been explained to her that February never did have more than 29 days. Not since the beginning of time, at any rate. Common opinion said that was unlikely to change any time soon.

Ma Lebo knew better. She was the victim of a curse. She knew what she knew, and she knew that common opinion was as nothing compared to the power of a curse! If it was your fate to be cursed then cursed you were. And she was. Sure as hellfire, misfortune would find her on no other day than 30 February and nothing and no one could prevent it.

It all stemmed, so the rumor went, from a love triangle gone wrong. Hard as it was to believe, Ma Lebo had been something of a siren in her youth. Not content with seduction alone, she also managed to goad the forsaken woman to suicide. But therein lay her greatest mistake for once the wife was dead there was no chance of the curse being revoked. It was, as they say, cast in iron.

From that time to this, Ma Lebo did her utmost to minimize her risks. Calendars hung on every wall of her shebeen [2], each displayed the comforting assurance that 30 February did not exist. The collection was eclectic, encompassing a wide range of tastes and sensitivities from photographic studies to cartoon silliness. The bathing suit one was the most popular, and the young men claimed the benches nearest this one as their own. Whatever their style, no matter what time of year it was, they all displayed the month of February.

No one, of course, ever mentioned that it wasn’t February. Truth is most people lived in holy terror of Ma Lebo. She was fairly abrasive. Her shebeen ran with the smoothness of an ocean liner, and certainly it was as lucrative. Rich as she might have been, no one squeezed a cent out of her. She paid no taxes and no white man’s bank ever made money off her, no sir. Still, she did not get away clean and clear of trouble, for who in this day and age of emergency regulations was free of all harassment? People were being arrested, tortured, detained without trial. A host of indignities lacerated their lives. Every day there were more restrictions on what you could do, where you could walk or sit or spit, whom you could speak to, eat with and most especially, whom you could sleep with. It was a hard time and a bleak one. South Africa reeled beneath the crushing regulations of Apartheid and Soweto was the vortex of the storm that raged daily through people’s lives; even Ma Lebo’s was not untouched. She’d lost four workers in the past three months. One had disappeared, two became pregnant and were summarily kicked out. The last one, it was discovered, was an impimpi, an undercover agent paid by the Apartheid police to inform on his own people. He had been necklaced [3] yesterday afternoon right outside the shebeen.

Oily smoke still wafted in occasionally, but that only served to remind Ma Lebo of her grievances. That was why when the girl shuffled in through the door looking for work, she was met with several choice phrases that burned her shell-like ears.

‘George, jou vuilgoed [4] shouted Ma Lebo, ‘what are you thinking, letting this mongrel in my shebeen? Are you mad?’

George appeared at the back door, rising like some B-movie monster from the deep places of the earth. He was incredibly old and ugly, a cross between some sort of fungal growth and a gnome. He stared back, as he always did, with bleary eyes that hadn’t seen much for more than a quarter century. Just why he held the position of watchman was a point of speculation among the clientele, especially as he sat in the back yard and the customers came in through the front.

Some suggested that it was in fact George who had been seduced away from his besotted wife all those years ago. Thing is, it was impossible to find out for George spoke to no one except Ma Lebo. Many people had tried and failed. It wasn’t that he couldn’t speak, he simply didn’t acknowledge anyone else. He sat outside the back door on his decrepit blue wingback chair and watched.

‘So, let me sit in the front,’ said George, ‘then I can see who’s coming.’

‘You stink too much to sit in the front, bad for business,’ said Ma Lebo. It was her stock reply when it came to George.

‘With this stink how can you tell?’ the girl chimed in, glancing at the smoldering mess behind her. It was true. The sickening smell of burned flesh and rubber permeated the air.

Old George’s mouth fell open but Ma Lebo was momentarily stunned by the impudence. Her head swiveled round with menacing purpose. ‘You, white girl, have you lost your way? It’s not safe for you here.’

‘I don’t have anywhere else to go,’ said the girl pulling the once red jersey more tightly against her threadbare frame. Her dress was only slightly less worn than she and the faded ginger cast of mixed blood was easily apparent in her features. ‘I need a job.’

‘What makes you think I’ll give you one? Go ask your volk. [5]

She did not even wince, for she was, at least to outside appearances, immune. And she was tired. Beyond tired, in fact. Soon after puberty, her ‘black’ features had emerged, the cast of her skin, the tell-tale crinkle in her muddy hair. Her white parents were faced with a dreadful dilemma. One did not keep a black child in a white home. It was indecent and against the laws of the Almighty and Apartheid. How to explain this fluke, this aberration? Whether she was a throwback to some distant indiscretion or some punishment from the Lord was immaterial. She had to go.

The school had already ordered her to leave, the dentist refused to treat her, the shop-keepers forgot her name. Public lavatories were forbidden her. And then, as if the fates were playing their final trick upon her unfortunate life one of her eyes turned green; not both, just the one, while the other remained dark brown. Not even her heartbroken mother could look at her anymore. She had left. There had been nothing else for her to do.

For her the streets outside the laager [6] of Afrikaanerdom were bitterly hard, but asking blacks for help was the final humiliation. At least it was until she realized that they didn’t want her, either.

The shock of it still numbed her but she had learned to conceal her feelings. Indeed with considerable inventiveness she nursed herself through from moment to moment, dangling, as it were, like a laboratory specimen in formaldehyde, generating just enough liveliness to pretend that she was living.

‘I’m not white anymore,’ she said. ‘You’re short of help. You don’t have to pay me until you decide, just bed and board, you lose nothing. If you don’t like me, you can get rid of me.’

Ma Lebo’s grunty eyes took inventory. ‘At least you’re too ugly to get pregnant. But just you curse one of my customers with that evil eye of yours and you are gone. Understand? Bed, board and three rand a week. Take it or leave it.’

The girl nodded.

Ma Lebo’s chair protested as she heaved her bulk upright. ‘Hey, Betty. Take this… what’s your name?’

‘Theodora, Thurry for short-…’

‘Ag, shut up. I don’t want your Afrikaans name. Here you are Cherry,’ said Ma Lebo.

Betty appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands and gawking at the unexpected sight of the evil eye.

‘Take Cherry,’ said Ma Lebo. ‘Find something in the box for her to wear. Can’t have her stinking the place up like George.’

‘The eye…?’ gasped Betty but one look from Ma Lebo sent her scurrying off.

Cherry followed. ‘You won’t be sorry,’ she said.

‘I’d better not be,’ said Ma Lebo, and then she turned and crossed herself.

It proved a boon beyond Ma Lebo’s wildest imaginings. For several weeks, business was not just good, it was terrific. People packed into the shebeen like sardines and relinquished their space only at the most urgent callings of nature. Standing room only became the norm, although, that was a precarious business. You needed sea legs to steady yourself against the ebb and surge of the crowd and still refrain from touching the wall calendars. These were icons, not to be trifled with.

They all came to see this Cherry person. They came to laugh, to ogle, to speculate as to what had caused her evil eye. Most of all they came to thrill at their own daring for being in the same room with her. Polished up and fed, she became a curious mixture of stateliness and sideshow freak. She learned to hold up her head and if she died a little inside, she learned to keep her emotions dangling in that laboratory jar. She was not beyond feeling gratitude for the acceptance, conditioned as it may have been upon gross unfairness, even cruelty. However along the fringes she may tread, this was now her community.

Like all things, when nothing untoward happened and no one cocked up their toes unnaturally, Cherry became just another fixture at Ma Lebo’s. Life went on.

Emergency regulations now targeted children. Many of them disappeared. Rumors were that some as young as twelve were being tortured but it was impossible to confirm. Schools burned, Saracens rumbled into the townships. Soweto vibrated behind a screen of acrid teargas. At nightfall when the soldiers cleared out of the townships, gangs of tsotsies claimed the streets, con-artists prowled, both fed on the hapless.

It was good for business… with or without the mongrel. Ma Lebo got richer.

Some two months after Cherry arrived a strange thing happened. Someone saw George wave at Cherry as she passed by him on her way to the outhouse. Someone else overheard them exchange greetings. Then, around Easter time, a deliveryman saw them sitting in the sun, sharing breakfast and chattering away like two old gossips over the backyard fence. This was sensational. The shebeen buzzed. Remarkably, the only person oblivious of this growing attachment was Ma Lebo. No one felt obliged to confide in her.

Speculation about what it all meant ran wild. Theories from the sublime to the ridiculous abounded, including the unlikely and somewhat disgusting idea that they were romantically linked. But that theory was soon disproved- and this is how it happened.

It was a regular evening and the place was crowded. Cherry and Betty scuttled about like whirling dodgem-cars while the din swelled in direct proportion to the amount of beer being consumed. As Cherry swept her tray up over her head she collided with a man. For a moment they all hung in mid air, then crash! Down they came. Curses railed. Beer rained. Astonished customers turned to see what the commotion was all about. Ma Lebo bellowed.

‘Aiyee, my jugs, my beer, vuilgoed!’

Cherry was oblivious of it all. She looked up into the face of the handsomest man she had ever seen. Skokiaan John was his name. He was the smoothest, the most charismatic con-artist in a town that boasted a fair number of slick operators. He was named after the potent drink of home-distilled liquor, because spending time in his company could make you inebriated, if not addled in the brain. He was just as lethal on the pocket.

Cherry blinked. Skokiaan John blinked. Cherry’s eyes slipped over his dripping head, across the broad wonder of his chest, now alarmingly visible under his wet shirt and jacket, down to his brilliantly shined patent-leather shoes with their two inch heels.

Skokiaan, after the initial shock of being accosted, found himself bewitched by a vision sporting one green eye and one brown eye. Now, Skokiaan knew about Cherry, and on occasion had even noticed her about the place, but until that very moment, he had never actually looked at her. Oh, he had heard about the evil eye, but this, this was an emerald that glittered at him, a gem so fine it shamed the one in his good luck ring.

For Skokiaan, the tumult of emotions was cataclysmic. Flashy, clinking, scented women with vermillion fingernails were his type. Cherry was a mouse, and a drab one at that. But now she sat there amid the clutter of her clumsiness and blinked her jewel at him, her little mouth open in shock, a flush on her peach-like cheek and he was a lost man.

He extended his hand and courteously helped her off the floor while he assured Ma Lebo that it was entirely his fault and that he intended to pay for the damage. It did not stop Ma Lebo from docking the same amount from Cherry’s pay at the end of the month. Business was business. You break the crocks, you pay. How else are you going to learn? But the lesson was surely lost in Cherry, who barely noticed the deduction, as the fog of love closed in and lifted her some six inches off the ground.

Ma Lebo didn’t like it, but there was nothing much she could do. Skokiaan was rich (comparatively speaking) at least he was always flush, his particular business being strictly of a cash nature. Still, it did not sit well and she hit back whenever she could.

Her first chance came soon after the spilt beer incident. ‘Hey, Skokiaan John,’ she called as he strolled in through the front door one evening. ‘I’ve got a message.’

‘From?’ he asked warily.

‘Bopane. He says to give back his stupid wife’s money-‘

‘Goddamn!’ said Skokiaan.

Ma Lebo’s amusement shrank into a thunderous frown. ‘Do not take the Lord’s Name in Vain.’

‘Shit!’

‘Also, Bopane says, bring an extra R50 as interest on his stupid wife’s money. That way everyone stays happy and he won’t trouble the police with the information. Less they know the better.’

There was general laughter from those who overheard the exchange. One of them, P.M. Pete, he was called, put down his beer. ‘You slipping, Skokiaan?’ he asked. ‘How did they catch you out?’

Skokiaan was equally in the dark. Everyone looked at Ma Lebo expectantly.

‘Isha, Skokiaan promised to get her son out of detention for fifty rand.’

‘And…?’ said P.M. and Skokiaan together.

‘And I reminded her that she is childless.’

Everyone roared. Not Skokiaan. He was disgusted. ‘Ag, sis, no kids,’ he said and made a quick exit.

Life continued beneath the pall of brutal smoke and hate. Things remained more or less the same at Ma Lebo’s until one day poor Old George upped and died. Some time passed before anyone realized it because, as has been said, George did not live an animated existence. The day after the funeral, Ma Lebo sat polishing her collection of religious paraphernalia. She had plenty of it, much of it badly plated silver that took a deal of buffing. It was a job she performed when she was particularly annoyed. The repetitive movement was somehow soothing.

P.M. Pete found it surprising, when he came round with a letter for her that morning, because he did not remember ever having seen Ma Lebo expend herself so vigorously. But then P.M. was hardly ever around during daylight hours, in fact he was hardly ever awake during daylight hours. He had, however, given his word to come around first thing in the morning, and here he was.

Ma Lebo barely lifted her eyes as he came in. ‘What?’

‘A letter for you,’ said P.M..

‘Put it down and take your hands off that!’ said Ma Lebo swatting his hands away from the elaborately branched candlestick.

P.M. was amused. ‘You got paraffin lamps, Ma Lebo, what do you want with candlesticks?’

‘It’s not a candlestick, pampoenkop [7]. Don’t you know anything? It’s a menorah.’

‘A what?’

‘Jewish candlesticks. You put eight candles in it and the Miracle of Lights keeps you safe.’

‘Really? How’s that?’

‘How do I know? I’m not Jewish. Stop bothering me.’

‘You’re Christian, aren’t you?’ he said bewildered, ‘why then this Jewish me-…thing?’

Her scorn was palpable. ‘So, and you know exactly which faith God belongs to? I cover all my bets, thank you. Now leave. Can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘Oh, well,’ said P.M. and raising his hat, he left.

Ma Lebo rubbed the miniature of Saint Jude a little harder. Her eyes slid momentarily to the white envelope at her elbow. She dipped her cloth into the cleaner but her hand remained still. Then with an oath she threw down the cloth and tore open the envelope. The note was not large. It was painstakingly printed and very neat. It read:


Dear Ma Lebo,

I have given this letter to P.M. Pete to take to you. You may as well know, I have gone away with Skokiaan John. He loves me and we are very happy. We want to thank you for the money we took from the inside Old George’s chair. We will use it well. Thank you for giving me work,

Greetings.
Cherry, aka, Thurry February


Ma Lebo sat wide-eyed with shock. ‘Mary Mother of Jesus,’ she wheezed clutching her cloth to her throat, ‘it was Thurry February not Thirty February!’



[1] Tsotsie, (slang) thug
[2] shebeen, township drinking hall
[3] Necklaced, a horrific form of retribution whereby the victim was convicted on the flimsiest evidence, bound with a car tire, doused with petrol and set on fire
[4] Vuil goed, (Afrikaans) dirty goods-- derogatory term meaning you filthy thing
[5] Volk (Afrikaans) people, folk,-- more figuratively used by way of identifying the greater political entity that supported the Nationalist Afrikaaner-dominated Government.
[6] Laager (Afrikaans) enclosure, particularly when applied to circle of wagons as a defensive stance against an enemy onslaught both in the physical sense and the philosophical sense
[7] Pampoenkop, (Afrikaans) pumpkin + head – someone who is stupid