Some spoke eloquently but uninspiringly, some spoke competently but drearily, some spoke articulately but had very little of substance to say. One poor fellow was near incomprehensible. They were all overwhelmed by the prospect of what potentially lay ahead – actual freedom and the responsibility it entailed. The ceasefire was only a few months old, and now the country’s first elections were looming and these men had barely had enough time to get their bearings. Seemingly on the spot, they had had to decide whether to eschew the communist principles that had guided them thus far, and continue with the country’s capitalist model, or create the socialist society they had long fought for. Each speaker had some variation of this conflict contained in his speech, and it was quite obvious that the party line regarding the party’s political future was something of a moving target.

The crowd, primed by the man of the people, Silas Mthimkhulu, was generous enough not to look too closely at such things but to hold on to the promise of a future that was different from the one they had previously imagined for themselves. They saw messiahs in ordinary men.

Even after Spokes showed the four formidable men guarding the entrance to the VIP Lounge his BSAP badge, they were reluctant to let him through. They did not seem to understand that his being with the police automatically meant that he had right of entry.

‘It is all right,’ a woman’s voice said. Spokes turned to see Bodecia standing behind him, beaming. ‘He is with me,’ she said.

She was dressed in stunning African attire, with an elaborate and impressively arranged scarf wrapped around her head. Perhaps it was because he had spent the past few hours watching her on stage, but she seemed larger than life.

‘Mrs Mthimkhulu,’ Spokes said as he removed his fedora from his head.

Bodecia was amused. She was obviously laughing at him, but at what about him, Spokes did not know. His old-fashioned ways, perhaps?

‘Since when have I been Mrs Mthimkhulu to you?’

‘Since you married Silas Mthimkhulu,’ Spokes said wryly, offering her his arm.

Bodecia laughed outright as she casually put her hand in the crook of his arm, accepting his old-fashioned ways.

Again, Spokes marvelled at how far removed she was from the quiet and painfully shy girl she had been. The way she strode around the room evinced how comfortable she was in this place filled with politicians, cigarette smoke, and glasses and bottles of alcohol. This was her environment. These were her people. She raised a fisted hand into the air. ‘Viva!’ she cried. ‘Viva!’ came the response.

She spoke the language. This was her world.

Spokes tried to see her clearly through the haziness of the room, but he could not.