HEART
OF A
STRONG
WOMAN
From Daveyton to
Sarafina! My story
of triumph
A MEMOIR
XOLISWA NDUNENI-NGEMA
AS TOLD TO FRED KHUMALO
KWELA BOOKS
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my late sister Nompumelelo Cynthia Nduneni: a mother, sister, confidante and friend. Growing up we had our share of troubles and fights, but love conquered all. You were my memory.
To my late best friend and ancestor Vuyokazi Toto-Ngcukana: we got married very young and both marriages were not happy ones. You were my pillar of strength until your passing. You came into my dreams when I needed you most. You are my guardian angel.
To late Sis Nomgcobo ‘Gcobs’ Sangweni: you were a pillar of strength both in New York and here at home. Thank you for the love and support during that trying period.
Prologue
The wedding
20 December 1991
Hesitantly at first, dawn probed the dark horizon with its light grey fingers. Encountering no resistance, it gained confidence and pushed the dark curtain further back. The city began to stir, ever so languidly. Happy it had done its job, dawn made a hasty retreat, making way for older brother morning. Dressed in shimmering yellows and bright blues and burnt oranges, morning took over. It started dancing, like a sprite, on the roofs of tall buildings, on the glittering faces of skyscrapers, on the recently cleaned pavements. But morning soon vacated the stage, handing it over to swarms of people – on foot, in sleek sedans, singing songs of joy from buses – surging around the corner of Smith and Aliwal streets.
‘Who are these people?’ someone asked.
‘Sarafina is getting married, I hear!’ someone else offered.
‘Which Sarafina?’
‘Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina.’
‘But Sarafina is a stage character.’
‘Yes, the woman behind the stage character is getting married.’
‘Hawu! She’s so young and fresh and pretty, who’s the lucky guy?’
‘Mbongeni Ngema himself, who else?’
‘Hawu, isn’t Mbongeni a bit too long in the tooth for this girl – he’s like in his 40s and she is only fifteen, if not younger?’
In fact, Mbongeni Ngema, creator of the Broadway smash hit musical Sarafina!, was 35 and ‘Sarafina’ was 21 at the time they were set to walk down the aisle this warm Friday morning, but their story had begun in 1986, when Leleti Khumalo, got the leading role. Beautiful, dynamic, precocious Leleti would become a star and Sarafina! an international success on stage and, later, on screen.
With shooting for Sarafina! the movie beginning early in 1991, and with the cast in South Africa that year, Mbongeni decided he would use the opportunity to tie the knot with Leleti in flamboyant style. His bride was now a spunky young woman whose face regularly graced the pages of glossy magazines in South Africa and abroad.
By the time the sun was high enough to be a nuisance that summer’s day in Durban, the Central Methodist Church at the corner of Smith and Aliwal had become a hive of activity. Although the groom and the bride had not yet arrived – they were 75 minutes late – the many well-wishers were milling around outside on the pavements and the street.
Reverend William Bohlmann, who was to conduct the marriage service, was a bunch of nerves, it being in the nature of members of the clergy sometimes to take these ceremonies personally – but that wasn’t the only reason for his anxiety. Earlier that day the priest had received a three-page faxed message from a firm of lawyers in Pretoria and he needed to make a decision.
The sun was high in the sky when a cavalcade of sleek cars stopped outside the church, bringing lunch-hour traffic to a halt. Celebrated musician Hugh Masekela, the chief umkhongi or emissary, got out of one of the cars and hurried inside to announce the arrival of the bridal couple.
Singing started in earnest. Out on the streets, passers-by who had spotted Ngema and his bride stopped to stare, to ululate and sing in congratulation. That’s how these things are done, after all. Joy is shared. Or, as they say in Zulu, ‘akudlulwa ngendlu yakhiwa’ – when you encounter a party of people building a house, you don’t just pass by; you ask if you can be of any help – even if that only means uttering words of encouragement to those who are engaged in the physical act of building.
Masekela remained inside for a long time. The bridal couple and the guests waiting in the cars grew restless. What was keeping Masekela so long? When he finally came out, he was in an agitated state. Clearly something was afoot. He whispered into Mbongeni’s ear. There was a quick verbal exchange between the two men. Then a smiling Masekela, trying to play it cool and more or less succeeding, whisked everyone into the church. The singing and ululating crescendoed.
Inside Reverend Bohlmann said a few non-committal words and that was it. The service came to an end. Some of the people who walked out of the church afterwards could be forgiven for wondering what had just happened, while others, who thought they knew what had just happened, said the official exchange of vows had been done in an earlier ceremony. The brief ‘service’ inside the Methodist church was just meant to bring the couple inside the house of God.
Later that evening, hundreds of well-wishers crowded into a five-star hotel on the beachfront where booze flowed and food was plentiful. It was a spot-the-celebrity jamboree that would be the talking point of South African celebrity for a long time. Members of the Sarafina! cast had taken a break from the hectic shooting of the movie in Soweto and they were all at the party, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lebo M and Whoopi Goldberg, Tu Nokwe, Somizi Mhlongo and Dumisani Dlamini. Hugh Masekela flitted from table to table, the gregarious side of his nature in full parade. Musician Thembi Mtshali sparkled. Sister Bucks, who had designed the bridal couple’s outfits, pranced around like a peacock, brimming with satisfaction and joy. Different bands treated the guests at this private party to an eclectic smorgasbord of musical offerings. The groom himself took to the stage with his band and wowed everyone with his hit song Stimela SaseZola. It was definitely a party that Durbanites would speak about for a long time.
The most spoken-about aspect of the whole thing was to come two days later, however. The front page of the Sunday Times Extra edition published a full-colour picture of the bride and groom being congratulated by the producer of Sarafina! the movie, Anant Singh, but it was the headline that caught the attention: ‘Priest Refuses to Marry Sarafina Bride and Groom’. In colourful detail, the story, written by veteran reporter Marlan Padayachee, unravelled the mystery that had confounded those who’d been at the church on Friday. The Sunday Times explained how Xoliswa Ngema, the long-time wife of Mbongeni Ngema and also his celebrated creative partner, had been in the dark about the wedding plans until the last minute. When she discovered what was about to happen, she consulted her lawyers, who moved swiftly to block the official ceremony. They drafted a letter which they faxed to Reverend Cooper of the Methodist Church who in turn forwarded it to Reverend Bohlmann just hours before he was to have tied the couple in holy matrimony.
Only those in artistic circles knew who Xoliswa Ngema was. To the average newspaper reader, the questions that arose that Sunday were: Who is this Xoliswa? And why did she have to wait until they got to church before she stopped them?
I am Xoliswa. And I am going to tell you my story.
Chapter 1