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In isiXhosa they say: unyawo alunampumlo (literal translation: the foot has no nose), meaning you can never foretell what you’ll encounter in your travels because your foot cannot smell the road ahead.
The other day I was sitting at a restaurant in Wannsee, Berlin, with a fellow South African who now lives here. We were talking about books, mainly because I would like her to translate my book Dancing the Death Drill into Afrikaans. I’m here in Germany to promote the recently published German translation of the same book.
Then a lady accompanied by a kid, who must have been 11 or 12 years old, politely approached us and said she couldn’t help overhearing what we were talking about.
She loved books, she said. But, more significantly, she was born and bred in South Africa, even though she’s been based here in Germany for years. She asked to join us at the table. We happily invited her to do so. She introduced us to her daughter. The daughter was clearly excited to meet a real-life author, and breathlessly shared the titles of books she’d read. Clearly, a passionate reader.
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As the conversation continued over refreshments, the mother started opening up about her South African past.
Turns out her mother had been a socialite of note in Joburg (these days she would be called an Influencer). She was friends with Bubbles Mpondo!
Nobantu “Bubbles” Mpondo was a beauty and fashion model who was popular in the mid-1970s.
What attracted even more attention to her was that she was openly dating an Afrikaner man when it was still illegal for black people to have sexual relations with whites.
Bubbles and her lover Jannie Beetge, a famous bodybuilder, provoked the ire of white racists when they walked hand in hand in public.
Beetge’s family, prominent in National Party circles, disowned him. He did not care. He went ahead to propose marriage to his Bubbles. The couple told the newspapers that they planned to leave the country.
One day the two lovers were found dead. They both had bullet wounds. The official version was that he had killed her, then turned the gun on himself.
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This was in August 1978. It was a sensational story. Long after she was dead, one of the popular pick-up lines among kasi young bloods was: “Wow, lady, you’re so beautiful. Are you sure you aren’t Bubbles Mpondo!”
Now, here I am in Berlin, with a person whose mother was personal friends with Bubbles! Who would have known. Unyawo alunampumlo.
