Sometimes There Is a Void (77 page)

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Authors: Zakes Mda

BOOK: Sometimes There Is a Void
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Zenzi is jumping up and down with excitement at seeing these celebrities so close she could touch them. Zukile is nonchalant. Nothing ever seems to move him. Gugu and I have never given a hoot about celebrities, otherwise we would have struck up a conversation with Gayle King and her friend. We are just happy that we have made the kids' day bringing them to Soweto on this particular day when Ms Winfrey has decided to visit Soweto as well.
‘I wish I was that kid who is with Oprah,' says Zenzi, looking at them longingly.
‘That kid is with Oprah because she is poor,' I say. ‘So, you wish you were poor.'
‘Yes, just for today,' she says.
A young vendor thinks he will corner Ms Winfrey to buy something. He comes with a wooden carving of a giraffe but before he can get to her the bodyguards shoo him away. He returns to the rest of the vendors disappointed. They laugh at him.
One says, ‘We told you, those big ugly Negroes will not let you talk to her.'
They still call African Americans Negroes in Soweto.
Fancy coming to Soweto and meeting Oprah Winfrey! We never meet her in America. But here in South Africa Gugu and I have this tendency of bumping into her at the oddest of places. I remember one year we went to Kokstad to visit my magistrate brother. Kokstad is out of the way, more than eight hours from Johannesburg. We drove through the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands crossing rivers and valleys at such villages as Ixopo, made famous by Alan Paton, and ascending and descending
some of the most hauntingly beautiful hills until we reached Kokstad in the evening. We didn't want to bother my brother for accommodation at that time so we thought we would just book in at one of the two hotels. It was fully booked. So was the second one. Oprah Winfrey was in town and all the rooms had been taken by her entourage. All the restaurants were full also, and we couldn't get any service.
We had to go and sleep at my brother's place.
Despite the holiday spirit that we have managed to create, the kids must go back to school in the United States. Judge Alan Goldsberry of the Athens County Common Pleas Court, Domestic Relations Division, in his final attempt to get the children back to Athens, issues a court order granting me permanent sole custody of the children, without visitation rights to Adele. I am hoping that with this order the visas will be granted. After all, Mr Dornburg's email to me states clearly that all he needs is proof of permanent sole custody without visitation rights. We drive to Lesotho again, our fourth trip to the American Embassy in Maseru. Once again the visa is denied. Mr Dornburg has moved the goalposts. Now he needs a decree of divorce. According to this apparatchik, a court order issued by a judge in his own country is not good enough for him. Once again, it turns out that Adele was warned by 'Mabereng about my next visit to the Embassy and she sent an urgent fax to Mr Dornburg. She instructs him to ignore Judge Goldsberry's court order because it was made for visa purposes only.
I am aware that this court order is being brought to the Embassy this week and I still refuse that my children should be given visas without my consent
, she writes.
In the three months that the children are stranded in South Africa I go to America three times to address this problem without any success. It is mid-August and school has started. It seems their mother doesn't care whether they go to school or not. Zukile has responsibilities at the Athens Middle School where he is president of the students' council. He also wants to participate in track and football and cannot be picked if he is not there. He is brooding now because it seems to him and to his sister that they will never be able to return to Athens.
My friend Melanie Chait, who is a film-maker and also the founder and principal of a film-making school in Johannesburg, tries to find them
a school in Johannesburg, even if it's on a temporary basis. She knows of an American school in one of the suburbs which may accommodate them. The kids are totally against the idea because it implies that we are giving up on ever returning to America.
Melanie has been trying to convince me not to return to America. In fact, she thinks I shouldn't have gone there in the first place. We were trying to establish our own television station when I left in 2002. I had promised her then that I was just going for one year and would come back as soon as Adele was admitted for her PhD and was settled with her own funding. When I stayed on she occasionally wrote and reminded me of my undertaking. There were many projects that we needed to be doing together. I can see that now she thinks this is her opportunity to convince me to stay and just enrol the kids at one of the schools in Johannesburg.
‘Why go back to George Bush's America?' she asks.
In fact, many of my friends in South Africa feel sorry for me for living in America, especially at this time in history when South Africa is free and presents its black elite with boundless opportunities, and when America is, according to them, ruled by the war-mongering Bush. The Bush factor is very big with them. ‘You're going back to Bush's America?' they ask incredulously. They don't understand that I don't live in Bush's America. I only see him on television as they do. I don't live in the America they see in the media either. I live in Athens, Ohio, a small college town with a very progressive mindset. My children ride bikes in the peaceful streets with kids from Ghana, Iran, Russia, China, Jamaica, Venezuela and every conceivable country in the world. There I can be alone while surrounded by the world. After every few months I can return to South Africa and enjoy great South African theatre at the Market Theatre and other world-class venues in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town; and feast on some of the best cuisine in the world at restaurants in those cities. I can drive to the Eastern Cape and harvest honey with the Bee People. I can breathe the air of my ancestors on the pink mountain. Then, after a few weeks, I can return to the succour of my family in Athens, Ohio, where I can once more be alone.
As for the boundless opportunities that they are talking about, you have seen already that they are not for me.
Buzz Ball finally manages to get a firm date for the divorce hearing. I fly back to the United States, once more leaving the children with Gugu in Johannesburg. On August 25, 2006, the case comes for a final hearing before Judge Alan Goldsberry. My brother Sonwabo has come down from Columbus to lend some moral support. My former student Spree McDonald is my character witness. The only other witness is Dr Terry Harvey, the Guardian Ad Litem. He tells the judge under oath that in his opinion I am the better parent. He has made a number of house visits to me unannounced and every time he has found the house very neat and clean. He observed that I personally cook for the children and don't feed them junk food. On some occasions he has come in the evening and found me helping them with the homework. Most importantly, I care very much about their extramural activities whereas their mother does not. Adele also presents her case through her attorney, Mr Walker. She wants custody of the children, all of the Weltevredenpark property (because, she insists, I have the Eastern Cape property) and half of all the royalties from my books.
The divorce is granted on the same day, and the judge decides I should be the primary custodial parent. Adele is given visitation rights every other weekend and one full week each month. She will not get any royalties and will only get half of the Weltevredenpark property. I think the fact that she abducted the kids last year and stubbornly refused to sign her permission for them to get visas this year counted against her. You will remember that I never wanted custody in the first place. All I wanted was reasonable access to my kids. Because of her actions, she has lost custody and I am not ever going to let her have it again. It is not in the interests of the children to deprive them of their father, just as it is not in their interests to rob them of their mother.
This time Adele signs the permission for visas because if she doesn't the judge will revive that order where he took away all her visitation rights. If she doesn't want her kids to return to the USA where she herself resides then she doesn't want visitation rights.
I fly back to Johannesburg with my freshly minted decree of divorce.
The first thing I do after my arrival is to go to Gugu's home to ask for her hand in marriage. Her parents, Josephine and Bra Phil, live in Piet Retief on the Swaziland border. The custom is that on such a mission I
need to be accompanied by a male relative. I therefore ask Monwabisi to fly to Johannesburg so that we can drive to Piet Retief the next day. I will pay for his airfare. But he is not interested in being of assistance even though he tells me he is free that weekend, which doesn't surprise me because we have never been there for each other. And that cuts both ways. I adopt George Menoe, a film-maker who was my partner when I still owned a production company, as my relative for the day and we drive to Piet Retief. Gugu's parents welcome the idea. I had already met her mother Josephine and was delighted to meet her father who is quite garrulous and jocular.
On Monday, September 4, 2006, I marry Gugu at the Roodepoort Home Affairs office. My witness and best-lady is Nakedi Ribane. I can see that she is not impressed that I am getting married in my blue denim jeans and striped denim shirt. She was one of South Africa's top models and is still very particular about dressing well. Gugu is in a dress made of the
seshoeshoe
traditional cloth, courtesy of the young designers of Stoned Cherrie. She doesn't comment on my blue jeans. Her witness is her older sister, Pat Mphuthi. The only other people in the small wedding chapel are our kids – Gugu's three kids, Nonkululeko, Simphiwe and Gcinile; and my two, Zukile and Zenzile. But I am also with two of my older kids, Neo and Thandi. Nakedi came with her daughter Letsatsi. Dini is the only one who is not here. After the ceremony, which lasts less than thirty minutes, we go for lunch at the Hard Rock Café in the Town Square in Weltevredenpark.
Gugu is glowing. We are finally husband and wife. I don't know if I am glowing too because I can't see myself. But I know how I feel. Euphoric. It's been a long road. I have the satisfaction of a man who has finally reached a destination.
I remember that after my divorce from Mpho I immediately married Adele. I met an old friend, Khomo Mohapeloa, the mathematician and jazz musician I told you about earlier. He had heard of my divorce and congratulated me on it. He, too, was recently divorced, from a beautiful Swazi woman who was our local physician in Maseru.
‘Now we can live in freedom as bachelors,' he said.
‘Not me, mate,' I said. ‘I just got married again.'
‘Oh, man, you are a glutton for punishment,' he said.
He didn't know that he was being prophetic. He was merely expressing his disappointment in me. Well, I have let the side down again today, but I am confident that this time there is no room for self-fulfilling prophecies.
There is no honeymoon for us. We have work to do. As soon as we get back to her townhouse that very afternoon I phone the American Embassy in Maseru about the children's visas and they tell me that they have transferred our case to Johannesburg. This saves us a lot of travelling; Maseru is five hours away from Johannesburg. At the American Consulate they grant the children visas immediately; they don't even look at Adele's letter. They tell me that it was silly of the Embassy in Maseru to be swayed by Adele's faxes in the first place. The judge's orders were sufficient for them to grant the visas.
Now
they are telling me, after all the trouble I had, and the expense of flying to America on four occasions. They apologise for the inconvenience and give me all the letters that Adele wrote to the Embassy in Maseru in case I want to take action about the matter. But, of course, I am not going to waste my time on this matter any more. All I want is to take my kids back to their school in Athens, Ohio.
The kids and I fly back to the United States on the United Emirates airline. It doesn't bother us that we have to spend the whole day in Dubai. There is a lot to do and to see at that airport. There is a lot to eat too, all of it free if you are a passenger. But my thoughts are in Johannesburg where I have left my new wife. It will be another year before she joins me because her three kids are at a private school in Piet Retief where they live with their grandparents. It will take that long to make arrangements for them to transfer to a school in the United States, get visas for them, and buy a much bigger house for the family that has instantly more than doubled. Gugu also has a job which she can't just leave abruptly. All this doesn't really bother me because for the past few years I have been commuting to Johannesburg every two months or so to see her and my mother. I will continue to do so.
Zenzi and Zuki are late for school, but their teachers understand; they have been marooned in Johannesburg for three months.
I am only back in Athens for two weeks when a telephone call from my sister-in-law Johanna, summons me back to Lesotho. My mother is dead.
I ask Adele to stay with the children but she does not respond to my emails. That is how the court has advised us to communicate now, via emails so that there should be a record of our bickering. And indeed there are hundreds of emails covering the whole period of this ordeal. I don't expect her to respond because she has vowed that she will make my role as custodial parent very difficult. ‘I'll make you wish you hadn't got custody,' she said. When I don't hear from her I know that she wants my trip to Lesotho to bury my mother to fail since I can't leave the children alone. The people who used to help me babysit are Spree McDonald and his wife Tsibishi, but they won't do it any more because, they tell me, Adele has threatened Tsibishi if she continued helping me with the kids. So she won't do it now because she says she fears for her life. But I have not run out of options. There is my brother in Columbus, and Sonwabo takes time off work and comes to Athens to look after my kids.

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