The Angella Johnson Interview
They call her the bible puncher. Late- night Johannesburg revellers dragging their weary bodies home know they are likely to get a sermon if they end up in the back of Cathy Dermedgotlous taxi. At least you know youll get home safely, says one regular.
Yes, but how safe is a 67-year-old white woman driving around the city in the dead of night? That was precisely what I asked myself when, motoring through that den of iniquity Hillbrow at about 2am, I spied her grey hair over the steering wheel of a battleship-grey car.
It was such an incongruous sight, I nearly crashed trying to attract her attention. Thankfully, she cottoned on that my frantic waving, tooting and erratic weaving across the road was not due to inebriation, but were attempts to stop her.
Are you lost? Dermedgotlou said, smiling benignly at me.
Are you crazy? I replied in a semi- hysterical pitch the kind that comes from sleep deprivation. Arent you afraid out here on your own?
The smile never left her wrinkled face. After 14 years on the road, theres little out here to scare me now.
That is how I happen to be sitting in Killarney Mall with Dermedgotlou, sipping papaya juice and nibbling on a Juicy Lucy sandwich. This is where I hang out at lunchtime, she says. Then I know the cab is safe in the garage. In Hillbrow it would be gone in a split second, or the radio would be pinched and end up in a pawn shop.
Im her second appointment. Sitting at the table is a shifty-looking guy who tries to sell me diet pills. They are fabulous dear, injects Dermedgotlou, tugging at the elasticated waist of her voluminous floral polyester skirt. See how much Ive lost in just a few weeks. I decline politely.
The man attempts to recruit me into his pyramid-selling scheme. I fob him off, at which point he bids farewell, leaving Dermedgotlou and me to get acquainted.
It is not long before I begin to wish I had gone with him. I mean, how does one react to a person who says the Holy Spirit warned her about an attempted hijacking. Then she tells me that God had put a shield around her car when she got lost in a township late one night; and how anointing her taxi with olive oil once saved her life.
Oh gosh, Ive got a nutter here, is my initial thought. Excusing myself, I go to the toilet and wrestle with the desire to do a runner. Later Im glad I didnt. Dermedgotlou may appear to be several sandwiches short of a picnic, but she keeps me enthralled for well over two hours with the story of her life.
Tales about her marriage to a Greek restaurant owner, who had an affair with his brothers wife; how she walked out of the marriage leaving behind three sons; her dealings with devil-worshipping neighbours in Yeoville (where she still lives); and how she survived several near-death incidents in her taxi.
There is a delightful calm about her as she talks about these experiences. Like the time she was hijacked by a young white passenger eight years ago (and they say this is a criminal feature of the new South Africa). He said he wanted to go to a residential hotel in Albertsville. When we got to the area he told me to stop, grabbed the keys and said he was going to kill me.
Her assailant put a knife to her throat and Dermedgotlou quietly began to pray. She believes this saved her life, as the man then kicked her out of the vehicle and drove off. More recently she picked up two young men in Melville and was almost killed when one grabbed the steering wheel after she chided them for using profanities in the car. As they struggled, she narrowly avoided a wall and crashed into a tree.
I smashed my face into the windscreen and they had to put a steel plate with six pins into my right arm, she says, holding it up for my inspection. The ambulance driver said I was very lucky to have survived. Thats where the olive-oil anointing came in. It did not, however, save the car, which was a write-off, or the erratic passenger, who died in the ambulance.
I suggest that maybe she is pushing her luck and it is time to hang up her meter, so to speak. My children have offered to look after me if I stop driving the cab, but what would I do with my time? Anyway, I like working at night.
Dermedgotlou still limps from the injuries sustained when a drunken driver crashed into her car between Commissioner and Market streets late one night. Im not afraid because I know the Lord will soothe the way for me. But going into townships? Not very wise, I say.
I went into Thokoza and Sebokeng when they were killing people. Theres nowhere I wont go now, except Soweto. I used to go there until they started shooting drivers about two years ago.
Her only precaution when going into townships is to take a different route out. She also carries little money as most of her customers are on contract with Roses Taxi company. When things start to go wrong she sings to the spirits usually in tongues.
People say Im nutty, but Satan gives you the spirit of fear and the Lord gives you guidance and strength. She explains she is a born-again Christian. At the end of November Im going to be ordained in the Holy Ghost Evangelist Church in Westdene.
Dermedgotlou, who says her maternal family line goes back to the Earl of Saxony in Germany, was born in Witbank to a French father and German mother. She worked in several clothing stores before marrying her husband Costas, with whom she ran a restaurant in Commissioner Street until the building was pulled down in the late 1960s.
We lost all our money and had three children to bring up, so I opened a cottage industry making baby clothing from our house in Parkwood until the divorce in 1969.
It was while searching for a way to help her aged mother, who was constantly in and out of mental hospitals, that she became born-again. Her parents had divorced when she was nine. My father was a miner who went to work in Rhodesias copper mines. My mother dallied about moving there and he ended up marrying a Polish woman. It was after this that her mother started hearing voices.
Ironically, when Dermedgotlous own marriage broke up, she claims her sister- in-law (who was having an affair with her husband) used evil spells to try to kill her. I was made sick by the forces of darkness, though I did not know what it was then.
Initially she toyed with the idea of embracing Islam because I like their devotion. But apparently, the Lord stopped her. I met this evangelist and went to his church. It was like coming home.
Her three sons emigrated to Australia a couple of years ago. I hope to join them as soon as my papers are cleared, she says brightly. But only because I want to spend my remaining years with my grandchildren. Im not fazed by crime.
As we parted I felt moved by this strange woman, who has been so utterly sustained by her faith. We might think her cuckoo, but while most of us whinge and allow criminals to control our streets, she is out there staking her claim to normality. I think she deserves a medal.