Sandy's Say: Beauty - 1
Sandy James begins her account of a Zulu called Beauty, who, although her appearance did not match her name, was an extraordinary and fiercly determined woman.
The concluding part of this fascinating tale will appear in Open Writing next Thursday.
To read more of Sandy's words, including another memorable Zulu story, please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/sandys_say/
‘Beauty’ was her name, both in Zulu and English. She had been named ‘Nobuhle’ by her father shortly after her birth in a grass hut on the farm of Mr and Mrs Scott in Babanango. But the ignorant, white people in the city could not pronounce her traditional name so, when she eventually required an English name, she translated it quite literally and to us she was always known as ‘Beauty’.
It was an unfortunate choice her hopeful father had made really because it only served to emphasize the fact that she was not physically beautiful at all. In a country where buxom, curvaceous women were prized as a sign of health, wealth and fertility, she was rather skinny and under endowed. In a culture where women risked skin cancer and mercury poisoning trying to lighten their brown skin by applying bleaching cream, she was at the darkest end of the spectrum.
Amongst a nation of people known for their regal bearing, she was somewhat hunched over and looked older than her age. She was myopic and proudly wore a pair of scratched, yellowed glasses which a nun had managed to find for her at the local mission station many years before. She was convinced that they gave her an educated air even though she had never learned to read or write. Yet beneath this unremarkable exterior was one fiercely determined woman. You did not mess with Beauty Ngwenya.
The first person to find this out was Beauty’s brother in law. After sixteen years of a childless but happy marriage, her beloved husband had dropped dead with a heart attack. As was the Zulu “ukungena” (to enter) custom, her husband’s brother came to her hut one evening soon after the funeral, expecting marital favours. This was a perfectly legitimate request as tradition states that on a man’s death, his widow becomes the ‘property’ and responsibility of his brother. Beauty, however, had other ideas.
Her husband’s brother was a known scoundrel and philanderer who fell far short of Beauty’s high ideals so she mustered all her courage, pushed him away and in the only two English words she knew she shouted at him to, “Fok auf!” Well, as every good Zulu knows, the house of the loud talker leaks, especially when the walls are simply made of thatch and the whole community lives within earshot. Everyone had overheard what had not taken place in Mrs Ngwenya’s hut that night and as a result she was obliged to leave the village the next day in absolute disgrace.
Beauty had never been beyond the Babanango valley before, so having to find her own way in the world was a most daunting prospect. In her hour of need she instantly thought of the one person who had been a surrogate mother figure to her, Mrs Scott, the farmer’s wife. Beauty had never been to school. Instead, she had been an odd job worker around the farm, picking maize, hoeing weeds between the maize rows and helping out as a maid in the farmhouse.
She had been extremely sad when Mr and Mrs Scott had retired only a few months previously, sold the farm and moved to be close to their grandchildren in the city of the bay ‘iTheku’ or Durban, as the British had named it. Mrs Scott had written her new address down on an envelope for Beauty and so it was, armed with this valuable piece of paper, that she painstakingly made her way to her saviour, enlisting the combined help of literate bus drivers and unscrupulous owners of pirate taxi vans along the way. She arrived, having spent every last rand of her meagre savings on transport and collapsed in a shaking heap on Mrs Scott’s doorstep. ‘Phuthuma’ (Hasten On), the family’s German Shepherd announced Beauty’s presence with fierce barking.
Kindly Mrs Scott was an old friend of ours and she had heard that my mother was looking for a housemaid. She begged my mother to take on the destitute and desperate Beauty even though Beauty spoke not a word of English and my mother not a word of Zulu. Oddly enough, Zulu language skills had not been a requirement for my mother’s A-level exams back in Yorkshire. Reluctantly my mother agreed to take on this waif and greenhorn and so the non communicative battle commenced.
Beauty soon lost her shyness and insecurity and began to regard herself as the lady of the manor. She was quite bossy and would take it as a personal affront if you tried to do anything for yourself. If you made your bed or scrubbed a stain from your clothes she saw it as a reflection of her incompetence rather than the fact that you were simply doing your bit to help. She became particularly agitated when my father, who enjoyed cooking, worked in the kitchen. In her culture kitchen work was strictly women’s work and here was the master of the house constantly breaking this taboo. What’s more, he often whistled cheerfully whilst he concocted meals or baked bread. Beauty would place herself on standby near the sink, muttering and shaking her head at his shamelessness.
Beauty was so house proud that she insisted on trying to keep the whole house spotless, every day. This meant that, to the family’s exasperation, she would barge in whilst you were sewing, studying, playing the piano or cooking and noisily use the vacuum cleaner or dust all around you. It was like living with a buzzing bush fly that seldom left you alone. She meant well but she drove us quietly crazy with her manic fervour.
The situation only became worse when Beauty spent two whole weeks with rustling, plastic bags tied around her feet. This was done for medicinal purposes as her feet, which had never known shoes until she came to the city, had become so dry and cracked that they developed gaping, bleeding fissures. The local ‘nyanga’ or herbalist doctor had advised her to coat her raw feet in Vaseline before placing supermarket packets over the top.
Feeling sorry for her, and in an attempt at a quieter solution, we bought her some potent urea based cream and a pair of thick socks instead. Gideon, the gardener, skillfully made her a pair of sandals out of an abandoned car tyre and she never had that problem again. She was so delighted with her new acquisition that you’d have thought he’d made her a pair of ruby slippers. Years later, it occurred to me that Gideon’s talents had been wasted as a gardener. With the help of a marketing expert he could have made his fortune creating and selling his tyre shoes to any surf wear company in the world.
