Free State
Matthew Krouse
Some feelings cannot be explained, they just have to be absorbed. For a Jew, like me, to meander through a small town in quest of the Christmas spirit on a sweltering Sunday feels quite odd. Even if the town is called Bethlehem, and the Sunday happens to be five days before Christmas itself.
>From Johannesburg, the highway heading south to the Free State province is the way to Durban, and so it is a charming reminder of holidays gone by.
About two hours into the journey, under dramatic skies straight out of the paintings of JH Pierneef or Vincent van Gogh, green boards begin showing the way. Bethlehem, for some reason, has as many pointers as New York City. If Jesus resurfaced here the wise men wouldn’t need to follow a star.
Arriving in Bethlehem, a big red Coca- Cola sign says: “Welcome, help us to keep Bethlehem clean.” The world’s biggest brand name endorses the namesake of Christendom’s most sacred town. Founded in 1864, it is a town with little to distinguish it from others in its province. Its wide main road deposits one right in its centre of commerce. But today the shops are closed. Franchises of the country’s most popular restaurants are, predictably, doing a booming Sunday trade, dishing up what Bethlehem wants most.
South Africa’s small towns may be changing, but progress is slow. No day of the week demonstrates this better than Sunday. Our country folk have an unshakable reverence of the sabbath – and the consumption of alcohol is a number one sin in religious law.
Bars, in particular, have to stay closed on Sundays. The God of the Free State will visit the direst punishment on anyone who peddles liquor on His special day. But, as most South Africans remember from the past, hotels are exempt from such wrath. A cold beer is permissible, as long as it is sold with a meal.
What a welcome sight the historic Royal Hotel is then, with its colonial stone faade. Inside, its cool, dark lobby is deserted. But in the back garden there are about six Afrikaans couples setting up a braai under the trees. The men are all clad in khaki, busy preparing the fire in half a corrugated drum. The wives are putting out the drinks and the salads, on a table in the shade.
“The hotel was built in 1916,” says Tertius, the hotel’s owner, who cannot understand why a Johannesburger would be interested in trivia about his town. Then he points to a row of more modern- looking rooms, jutting out incongruously from the old building’s stone walls. “That’s the new wing, built in the 1950s, I think.”
“Is this a Christmas party?” I ask one of the wives, a plump woman of about 40, pouring my beer into a glass.
“No,” she says, concerned I may think she’s in a lighthearted mood.
“But it is the festive season,” I say, prodding her a little more.
Theirs is not a Christmas party, I establish. Rather, it’s a regular luncheon that the hotel lays on for anyone who might arrive. Something they call a “bring en braai”.
But what of Bethlehem – how does the woman feel, so close to Christmas, about the name of her town?
“We have a saying here,” she tells me in her rural Afrikaans. “You can come to Bethlehem, but you won’t find the three wise men.”
The Royal Hotel isn’t ready for lunch so, bidding farewell, my cohorts and I begin to leave. As I walk away, I hear a rustle in the trees and I turn, glancing at a lone building a little way off. There, on an open stoep, a pair of cute teenagers are necking in the blazing sun. I think back on the holiday romances of my youth.
If one is searching for religious references in Bethlehem then there are more than a dozen church spires floating above the town. There is also the Jordaan River, a brown stream that flows into an equally brown lake called Loch Athlone. This is the town’s picnic and camping spot. The lake laps up against a rolling park where families have set up their caravans and tents in Afrikaner splendour. Every appliance and convenience facilitates the work of the wives who keep home away from home, in the exemplary way Voortrekker women tended their families in the difficult days of the Great Trek.
Their men sit silently on the banks of the loch, beside their fishing rods, staring sombrely into the distance. Christmas is on its way.
Nearby, on the same shore is the most curious structure, a concrete ship named after the legendary Athlone Castle, one man’s dream that has become a landmark for the town.
I had read about it – this unusual building that is supposed to resemble the luxury liner that was turned into a freight ship before being junked some time ago. Memorabilia from the original ship can be found hanging on the walls – menus and even a suitcase used by its original owner when he sailed to Europe on the ship as a student in 1964.
This week the Baron of Athlone, as the steakhouse in the ship is called, plays a selection of carols set to contemporary beats, while the gentlefolk of Bethlehem order their salads and steaks.
For a Jew like me, this visit to the town with the famous Hebrew name presents an obvious mystery. And, although I question everyone I bump into, nobody seems to know why the hell the place is called what it is. Until we pitch up at the Wimpy for afternoon tea.
Here, two big mysteries are solved, albeit only partially. Our sweet waitress called Ennie, the first black person who has felt brave enough to speak openly to a party of whites, tells us that her township – that all of Bethlehem can see dotted on a nearby hill – is called Bohlokong. In Southern Sotho, she tells us, it means “my pain”. But the reason for this tragic reference she doesn’t know.
The manager of the restaurant is the next to bear fruit. The town of Bethlehem, he informs us, received its name because it is the wheat producing capital of the country – 65% of the crop, to be precise. Of course, in Hebrew it means House of Bread. And that is precisely what it is.
As we leave the town, sinking into the lazy evening, I catch a glimpse of the disused Jewish graveyard, set a little way off the main road. We stop to inspect. In the sandy lot we find a couple of hundred crumbling headstones, indicating that there must have been a vibrant community here more than 50 years ago.
So, some things must have changed in the town of Bethlehem, after all.