already knew.
The icon meets the aikona: Evita with Nelson Mandela at an ANC rally in Retreat before the 1994 election. She presented him with a plate of koeksisters while wearing her National Party orange, white and blue outfit. (Photo: Benny Gool)
Mrs B started out very much as a cartoon, but as her CV developed she was forced into opinions about more than just her favourite perfume or shoes. A complex history built up around her, usually in answers to questions from the public: Does she have a husband? Children? A job? What does she think about …?
Today she can hold the attention of an audience comfortably for three hours on the issues of yesterday, today and tomorrow, because she has nearly four decades of fake news and misinformation to choose from. My biggest commitment to this icon who doesn’t exist is to diet, so that women in the audience will recognise the woman, while men will forget the man.
The fact that she is not a fan of Pieter-Dirk Uys is essential. She refers to me as a third-rate comedian who wears women’s clothing. She brushes away my theatrical roasting of her with contempt. The fact that she has no sense of humour and doesn’t understand irony makes her even more familiar, not just to South Africans but to audiences in many countries. The Evita in Argentina was not unique.
23 June 2010: Evita with Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who calls her ‘Ousie’). He was blessing the community swimming pool in Darling, which was built by The Darling Trust.
Now in her eighty-second year (Evita will always be ten years older than me), Mrs Bezuidenhout is a member of the ANC, which really deserves her. She is in the Luthuli House kitchen cooking for reconciliation, being inspired and challenged by her three non-white grandchildren and sharing, with whoever cares to hear, how important it is to know where we come from and to celebrate where we are going. She is also becoming my only mouthpiece that can give a satirical perspective on the state of our nation without unleashing a torrent of angry hashtags.
November 1994: Evita and ANC Secretary-General Cyril Ramaphosa enjoy trout fishing in the Northern Transvaal. (From her M-Net series Funigalore. The full interview can be found on YouTube.)
I try to avoid being the white mouth criticising black action. If I wielded my satirical weapons of mass distraction as me, there would just be an irritated reaction at white noise. However, when she says it, somehow it floats on the top of the turmoil. After all, who can take offence at someone who doesn’t exist? Nelson Mandela always enjoyed her. If there were one good reason for her existence, it would be that she made him laugh. I would be summoned to fundraisers and dinners for my fifteen minutes of fame, standing in her heels to entertain the latest gods on the Olympus of power: among them, Oprah, Bill Clinton, and the Queen of the Netherlands. One night there was a moment when Evita and Madiba were standing together on the red carpet. Through clenched teeth I whispered:
‘President Mandela? Every time you see me, I’m dressed as Evita Bezuidenhout!’
He chuckled through his smile. ‘Don’t worry, Pieter, I know you’re inside.’
18 March 2006: Evita greets Nelson Mandela at FW de Klerk’s 70th birthday with FW de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Elita de Klerk in tow.
Introducing the players
My father, Johannes Dirk Jacobus (Hannes) Uys, (9.12.1906 – 21.12.1990) and my mother, Helga Maria Bassel (2.7.1908 – 26.5.1969).
My sister, Theresa Hannelore (Tessa) Uys (born 11.8.1948).
LEFT TO RIGHT:
Susanna (Sannie) Abader (28.9.1918 – 25.7.2004).
Ma’s mother, my Oma Theresa Löbl Bassel (1.4.1880 – 24.10.1960).
Pa’s mother, my Ouma Gertruida Leonora (Gertie) Malan Uys (22.9.1872 – 27.8.1964).
The pictures I have chosen invite a story. Body language tells me more than an occasional explanation scribbled on the back of a photograph. Eye lines, facial expressions, clutched hands and uncomfortable feet suggest something other than what was often intended in group photographs of mother, father and children. Tensions and boredom often belied the ‘say cheese’ automatic grin. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, these snapshots lay on the dining room table, being moved here and there, up and down, from childhood to teenage years, from golden hair to early baldness. Each time a little pile became the main focus of the tale, until the next revelations opened a new horizon of adventure. Where does one start construction of this sandcastle? It has to be with Sannie.
‘Where would we be without our maid?’ was a familiar refrain in most white homes during those years when it was accepted that women of colour ruled from the kitchen. My sister Tessa and I didn’t remember what life was like without her. Sannie’s stories alone could fill another hundred pages, from the dramas when Sannie screamed in terror, having discovered the chameleon we put in her bed, to the evenings when she ‘babysat’ us, while Ma and Pa treated themselves to a film at the Pinewood Cinema down the road, where subtitled films were often shown. Sannie called them ‘overseas films’. Tessa and I would sit in our pyjamas at the dining room table with Sannie and two friends who regularly popped in, since they also worked in Pinelands. We’d play dominoes, not genteelly as white people were supposed to, but wildly excited, with shouts and the thwack of the domino on the wooden table as the game developed.
I found a piece of paper on which Pietertjie Uys had written on 21 February 1961 at 9.10 pm, probably to himself:
‘Herewith I wish it known that the period from 8 February has been unbearable – having to work all day and not being able to manage it. I worry about so many things. Doing cadets at school worries me because I’m scared my uniform won’t be clean enough and that I might do something wrong. I always see that my uniform is very clean. All my homework is terrible – there is never something to look forward to. Now Ma is sick, Ouma [Bassel] also, and both in hospital. Pa is also unhappy and only Tessa understands what’s happening. Sannie is bedonnerd [this wasn’t even written out completely, but treated like a swear word: bedo****rd], but strangely can be handled for a change. I worry about everything, about every possible stupid pointless unnecessary thing – just about everything. I can’t sleep because I worry so much about everything. It’s making me quite sick. Now the concerts lie ahead, also the work for the [school] bazaar and sport and I really don’t know how I can manage everything, but we must just see what happens and hope for the best.
(Signed) Pieter-Dirk Uys’
I’ve only now become aware, after having read that little note, how deeply fear was entrenched in most of my doings as a child. It took me another fifty years to find the courage to use the f-word to fight fear – and that word is fun! The note reminded me that the echo should not only be of the noise of fear, but also of the snigger of fun – of everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the impossible to the ordinary. Every soap opera has its stars; every drama swirls around characters of emotional noteworthiness; every comedy will send in the clowns. Before turning up the volume of noise, it
