Writings / Creative Non-Fiction: Isme Benni

Going by air was the way I usually traveled to the Cape like my father. But occasionally I would cadge a ride from friends and we would drive the 1000 miles, stopping briefly en route at the Colesberg Hotel for a drink or a bathroom visit. The hotel was like a stagecoach inn of the days of yore. The village of Colesberg itself was in the middle of the semi-desert called the Karoo and there were miles of nothing on either side of it. Then once in Cape Town, I would have to start canvassing for a ride home. I went on several holidays to Durban through the years, usually in the winter months, staying at my uncle’s beachfront hotel. But it is the holidays in the beautiful Cape that stands out in my memory.

After I left South Africa, I seldom went back to Cape Town. I did meet up one time with a friend from those days who was also visiting the old country. We spent a day on Clifton Beach, a day exactly like those of our earlier teenage vacations. Some years ago, in the new post-apartheid South Africa, I had a strong yen to return and so I rented a cottage on Clifton Beach for a few weeks. My sister and her family joined me, and we enjoyed beautiful weather, scenic drives, and idyllic days on the beach, descending from our cottage to the sea and sand below, sunbathing and taking the odd dip in the freezing cold Atlantic Ocean to cool off. Even in this new South Africa era, it felt as though nothing had changed. Our beach was still populated by whites; the cars outside the luxury apartment blocks were high-end BMWs or Mercedes. There were lots of black domestic help available. The cottages were still white-owned. But there was one change since my last visit: many had been rebuilt or renovated into luxury summer retreats with swimming pools.

In the evening we would barbecue or “braai” in an outdoor stone pit. I would give the leftovers to George, the black “boy” who came with the rental. He maintained the property for the owners in addition to his day jobs. George had a room with its own entrance in the basement of the cottage. When I left, I gave him the contents of the refrigerator. I heard later from the owner that he said I had been the best “missus.” I had a picture, perhaps unfair, of the red-faced, badly sun burnt, loud, gin or beer drinking English or Germans lording it over the black help.

The following Christmas I sent George a bonsella or ‘gift’ of some money, care of the cottage owner. The following year she sold the cottage and told me she was trying to find new accommodations for George. Then I got a letter from Louis Traub. He was George’s new employer and George had asked that he contact me. For several more years the bonsella was sent via Mr. Traub. I always made sure it was sent before George left for his annual vacation to his tribal homeland in the Eastern Cape. Then a letter came from Carol Musikanth. Mr. Traub had died and she was taking over. So the annual gift has continued.

This February I went to Cape Town and visited Carol Musikanth, hoping that George would be back from his vacation so that I could meet him face to face again. Carol told me he was seriously ill in hospital in the Eastern Cape. I left money for him. George, the “boy” was by now a man well in his sixties. He had held down manual jobs, several at a time. He was barely literate, unable to communicate directly with me except for one awkwardly printed thank you. But he had saved his bonsellas to put his daughter through university and she was now an accountant, and he was educating a second daughter. This, his life in Cape Town, had been playing out through those years we were enjoying the sun and sea.

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