Cape of Storms (Part 1)

CAPE OF STORMS

  Copyright 2012 Erica Johnson

  Chapter 1

  Weak sunlight streams through the threadbare curtains of number 3 Cullington Place, Saltriver. Marie gets up slowly, swinging both legs to the floor at the same time, her hand automatically going to the small of her back.

  Better get this day started then, she thinks as she waddles to the kitchen to make some coffee. She has a vague memory of an unpleasant dream but doesn’t really try to recapture it; the threads of the dream are already eluding her.

  “Marie, is the coffee ready?!” Brian, Marie’s husband, calls his now all too familiar daily greeting from their shared bedroom.

  With their only child out of the house this past ten years or so, they seem to have nothing left to say to each other. She receives a grunt of acknowledgement as she delivers the coffee to her husband and then gets into her own uniform for the work day. Blue coveralls and blue cap. Mrs. Whitlock, here I come! , she thinks as she rinses her coffee mug, calls out a goodbye to Brian and closes the door behind her without waiting for a response.

  On her way to the taxi, Marie greets her neighbor, Meimoena, who seems to have taken up permanent residence on her little balcony, from where she espies the daily comings and goings of the rest of the world. Marie idly wonders whether Meimoena keeps office hours.

  “Morning, Aunty Marie! Saltriver, Woodstock, Caaaapppe!!!!” One of Marie’s regular mini-bus taxi drivers stops almost on her toes, to pick her up. “An’ how’s the aunty today? Auw, an’ it’s a lovely sunny day in the Mother City, no? Saltriver, Woodstock, Caaaapppe!!!!!! ”, this from the person commonly referred to as the taxi-guard, giving her his familiar gap-toothed smile.

  “Marie! Do you hear me, Marie? I asked if you had any news from Denver recently.”

  Marie blinks, then blinks again. She tries to focus on the voice, which she now realizes is that of her employer, Elize Whitlock.

  “Uhm, no… no nothing yet, Elize”, she says, marveling at how normal her voice sounds. She looks down at the vacuum cleaner she seems to be in the process of connecting to the wall socket. This is how it starts, she thinks, shaking her head to clear it. She can hear Mrs. Whitlock’s heels clicking on the tiles as she moves up the stairs and away from Marie.

  Well, thank God for small mercies. She’s definitely not up to making small talk this morning, since she is now battling to recall the earlier part of her morning. For some reason she has absolutely no recollection of her normally quite uneventful trip to work. All she has is a huge blank spot and the more she picks at it the less she remembers. Alzheimer’s, for sure. Old people’s disease some calls it. I cannot deal with that now, focus on getting through this day Maria Magdalene, focus woman! she thinks, forcing the encroaching fingers of fear back.

  At the back door, Marie takes a moment to look up at the mountain as she has every day for the past six years. Surely God won’t be too hard on her for the little bit of envy she allows herself, for wishing that she could be lucky enough to stay and not just work at the foot of this glorious mountain.

  By nature not an envious person, this is more wistfulness than actual envy. In Marie’s opinion Oranjezicht is the most beautiful suburb in all of Cape Town. Taking out the trash has become her favourite chore, as the garbage bins are lined up at the back of the property, right up against the rock face. Marie can actually touch the blue gray rock and run rough, work-hewn fingers over the rock, appreciating the feel and texture and breathing deep of the air that always seems so much purer out here.

  The sound of the metal spatula clanging on the tile floor snaps Marie back to the present. She has no idea when she came back into the kitchen and now her heart is beating very fast as she realizes that something is most definitely wrong. Marie picks up the spatula, forgetting for the moment about the back-ache that has been plaguing her regularly for the past few weeks.

  Maybe I should have myself checked out. Yes, I guess I will have to. Tomorrow, though. With an effort Marie tries to calm her fast beating heart, promising herself that she cannot put off the ordeal of going to the Day Hospital - which is where you go if you have no Medical Aid and cannot afford the ridiculous cash fees of a General Practitioner - any longer.

  “Marie? Marie, are you okay?!” Marie turns around when she hears the hesitant concern and sees Mrs. Whitlock ( Elize, Marie!) standing in the doorway, looking at her strangely.

  “I’m fine M…Elize, really.” Marie can hear the lie in her voice and knows that after six years of knowing her, Elize can too.

  “How… how long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to know that you are not fine! You’re as white as a sheet, Good Lord, woman! Sit down before you fall down!”

  Marie sits down obediently at the kitchen counter; feeling for a moment like she’s looking at everything through an opaque window. Colour gradually starts to seep back into her day and the momentary blurriness and nausea fades as mysteriously as it appeared.

  “……to the doctor? If you want, I’ll take you to my own doctor. “Marie looks up at Elize, who is obviously waiting on an answer.

  “No, thank you, that really won’t be necessary. If you can do without me tomorrow though, I will just go to the Hospital as I need to have my back looked at too, Elize.”

  “Yes, yes of course. Now, grab your bag and your jacket, I’m taking you home right now!”

  *

  Marie had had a very long day. It had started at 5.00 that morning and she had been systematically moved from one hard wooden bench to another, only to be told hours later, that the occasional bout of nausea is quite common in women of her age. The young nurse did not have to say that she attributes this to a “midlife crisis”.

  The wooden benches did not help Marie’s aching back. She will probably have to ask Brian to apply the ointment in the anonymous plastic hospital container, which was all she had received for her “probably a sprained muscle”.

  This request in itself will pose another quite different problem, as this will be seen as an invitation to be subjected to one of her husband’s infrequent, Thank God, and largely emotionless couplings. She supposes, though that she can put up with about 5 minutes of his inane grunting in her ear. At least he’s quick, she thinks and almost smiles.

  Marie sighs, as she digs in her bag for her ancient little Nokia. As she clicks on Elize’s number, she reflects on how she could not bring herself to mention her strange lapses (fugues? she read somewhere, maybe “O” Magazine?) to the dispassionate doctor at the hospital.

  She supposes it’s the fear of being viewed as having some mental problem or maybe a mental breakdown or perhaps even being referred for some sort of observation that stopped her.

  Marie reads quite a bit in the evening, as her sole companion can usually be found in front of the television in his threadbare easy-chair. She reads all of Elize’s old issues of You, Vogue, whatever magazines she can lay her hands on and she can by now come up with quite a few diagnoses of her own, courtesy of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil and a few others.

  After telling Elize that she will be back at work the next day, she busies herself preparing their evening meal. As hard as she tries not to think about it, her mind keeps circling the awful blank spots, prodding and probing and coming back to yet nothing again in the end.

  And then there are the nightmares. She can never remember what it was about in the morning but she has been awakening from bad dreams, with a palpable feeling of relieve, almost every morning now.

  Chapter 2

  Leonetta bends down and drops her cigarette butt before stepping on it.

  “You need to pick that up, Netta.”

  “Yes, Marie. Jeeeez!”

  Leonetta picks the butt u
p daintily between two fingers, rolls her eyes and favours Marie with one of her long-suffering looks.

  “Marie, you need to help me, my friend! Oh my gosh, Gavin don’t want to come around no more, on account he says I’m freaking him out, fighting and crying at night in my sleep! Every night for the past week, Marie! I like Gavin, he’s the first real sweet guy in a while, you know and I swear I cannot remember a thing! Ooh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”

  “Slow down, Netta! Girl, do you know you pick up speed like a steam train when you get going? What are you on about and what ever happened to Charles? It was Charles wasn’t it?”

  Marie is still amazed that Leonetta can manage to get anything done with those glossy long red nails but she is in fact a pretty good housekeeper, by all accounts. She has never seen Netta without make-up on and knows that she particularly hates the way her work cap covers her new weave, yet Netta is probably one of the hardest working people Marie knows… and one of the sweetest too.

  “Okay, girl, tell me again slowly. Gavin don’t like you anymore? What happened and by the way, when did you meet him?”

  Marie thought that Netta was much too trusting for her own good. She fell in love at least once a month and had her heart broken just as often. Marie always had a hard time keeping up.

  “No, no! Gavin is not the problem; he’s just the sweetest thing!” Google-eyed, Marie’s mother used to call that look.

  ” He’s stayed over once or twice and he is quite, uhm…concerned. He says I’ve been crying, screaming and sometimes even fighting in my sleep. Apparently I’m having these nightmares from which he can’t wake me and I’m not even aware of this!”

  Nightmares .The word sends an unpleasant little shiver through Marie.

  “Do you remember what you dreamt about, girl? Have you been having nightmares? What were they about?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware. The past couple of nights I’ve been so exhausted by the time I fell asleep, I didn’t even think about dreaming.”

  Netta winked at Marie and then blushed furiously. Marie had to smile.

  “The problem is that Gavin is starting to look at me funny, as if I’m some sort of weirdo psycho and pretty soon he won’t want to stay over at all anymore…..and he’s just the sweetest thing! What am I going to do?!” Netta continued.

  Unable to hide her smile completely, as Leonetta is clearly smitten, Marie admits that she really has no idea.

  “I have to get back to work, Netta. I think that I read somewhere that you should keep a pencil and paper next to your bed, so you can write your dream down immediately after waking, before it disappears completely. Maybe you should try that. I’ll see you later and good luck.”

  Marie has some problems of her own to deal with and nightmares, although troubling, seemed pretty low on the list compared to the rest. The trip to work had been uneventful this morning but Marie has no idea how the washing got on the line today. This time, when she came back to herself (so to speak), the nausea was quite a bit worse and for a moment Marie thought that she was actually going to lose her breakfast.

  She cannot imagine mentioning anything about this to Netta, no matter how disconcerting this is becoming. She will just have to find a way to deal with this by herself. Marie decides to start with an extra prayer in the church meeting tonight, just for good luck.

  Maybe she could speak to Pastor Williams? Maybe. With a sigh Marie kicks the lever to the on position and starts to steam-clean the curtains.

  She wonders what on earth Meimoena could want to talk to her about.

  Chapter 3

  Katriena is very, very scared. Scared like a fox in a steel trap, knowing instinctively that it must move or die but unable to free itself. He’ll come for her tonight and then Sara from the next farm will be fetched to take care of her and her problem.

  By her own count, Katriena is about 15 winters old but she has learned enough in her 10 full moons on this farm, to know what the penalty is and you hear things here too, especially at night around the fires. She crosses her arms protectively over her protruding belly and tries to control the shivers of dread running through her body.

  Though she is slight of built, she has managed to hide her pregnancy very effectively for the past seven or so full moons, but her time has run out and her bump is now unmistakable. She has managed to feign sickness for the past week or so, when Young- Boss Jan came looking for her but now she knows that her ruse is up.

  She had had to join the other pickers in the vineyard this morning and even though she had tried to carry the basket in front of her, the shock on the faces of the other girls was clear to see. She had also seen that blasted Lena Swarts, going from one group of pickers to the other every time the overseer’s head nodded.

  Lena had been envious of Katriena right from the time she was first delivered, along with a wagonload of others, about ten full moons ago. Katriena has very long, straight, pitch-black hair, which caught the attention of Young-Boss Jan almost immediately.

  This is not a common sight in the slave-girls they usually get, as most of them had short, tightly curled hair. Young-Boss Jan summarily forgot about Lena, whom he had just started bedding the week before Katriena arrived. Young-Boss Jan also treated Katriena much better than he had ever treated any of the others and had even brought her a piece of his mother’s rose-water scented soap to wash her hair with. Lena did not take kindly to this and has been trying to get Katriena into trouble ever since.

  Old-Boss Pieter and the Madam are of course only pretending to be unaware of their son’s predilection for the slave-girls, as this is common enough practice and there is always old Sara from the neighbouring farm, in the event of a mishap. Everybody in the slave-quarters knows what would happen to anyone unlucky enough to actually get with child.

  Katriena had known, had been warned, yet had had no-one to tell her just how to prevent this from happening, short of defying the Young-Boss of course.

  Nobody says “no” to Jan Van Niekerk, not the Old-Boss, not the Madam and especially not a lowly slave-girl.

  Katriena had tried to though, the very first time. Oh, how she had begged and pleaded. She had learned soon enough though that it is a lot less painful to just let it happen and she did grow to like the rose-water soap.

  Katriena had been taken from her mother when she was about ten winters old and had not seen her since. She has now come to view the child in her belly as her reward for all the hardship. It is going to be her new family and she has already started whispering to it in the dead of night. She knows that it is far too late for old Sara, as the baby had been moving inside her for quite some time. She also knows with a certainty quite beyond her years, that she will die too.

  Katriena had been curled up on her sleep-roll ever since the work-force had come back from the vineyard. The thought of the slop dished up in the eating hall, had turned her stomach tonight. She nearly screams when she feels the hand on her shoulder. Katriena turns around slowly, expecting the worst but it is only Anna, the youngest of the girls. Nobody pays her much mind.

  “What is it?”

  “Shhhh, the others aren’t back yet. Johannes wants to see you. He says he can help but you must come now!”

  Johannes was the only slave that had his own hovel, he had been on the farm forever and seems able to come and go as he pleases. He was also the strangest person on the farm and rarely talks to anything other than Old- Boss’s horses and the hounds kept at the main house. Despite herself, Katriena is intrigued and follows Anna out into the night.

  “You have gotten yourself into quite a mess girl.” Johannes moved his hat back to scratch at his head. This didn’t sound like a question, so Katriena kept quiet. She was standing opposite Johannes, who sat staring into his cooking fire, taking occasional drags on an impressive looking wooden pipe.

  “Well, sit yourself down girl before I get a crick in my neck from looking up at you!”

  Katriena sits down slowly, folding the hem of her dr
ess over her bare toes. She is almost unable to see Johannes’s features under the rim of his battered hat, as he has the darkest skin that she has ever seen. If not for the reflection of the fire in his eyes, his face would have been hidden from her completely.

  “I think I can help you, girl, but it’s going to be very dangerous. You will have to find a hiding place for a few days, until everything is ready. The others are talking and Young-Boss is even now looking for you, I think.”

  “Well? Speak up, girl! Time’s awasting, it’s you and yours on the line here.” Johannes coughs and spits into the fire.

  Katriena blinks hard to keep her tears from spilling over and tries to swallows past the obstruction in her throat.

  “Nobody can help me! I’m gonna die when they find me, my baby’s gonna die!”

  “Oh, I can help you alright, girl. As for the why……. I’ve been here a few years and I had a family once. At least the young one keeps to the young girls, me Mam wasn’t so lucky with his Da, though.”

  Johannes’s eyes seem to look right through her.

  “I was just a boy then and didn’t know why me Mam never came back to us after she got sick one night and old Sara’s mam was called in. Then the same thing almost happened to my sister Jana. Her spending a whole night screaming her head off and then not being able to work for months….. I sure was old enough by then to know what be going on.”

  “Crazy Jana is your sister? Nobody ever sees her as she keeps house for the Madam and is almost never seen in the common.”

  “She was as fine as you before, girl, but something broke in her that night. Yep, it sure messed her up good …….but she can still take orders pretty good and do what she is told and that suits the Madam just fine. Only, her mind seems to have gone and now she is just empty.

  Empty eyes, empty soul….Well, we cannot sit here flapping our lips all night. What will it be girl, do you want my help or not?”

  “If you can help me, I’d sure be glad, I surely would! I’ll do whatever you say, no matter the danger.”

  Anything, Katriena thought desperately. I’ll do anything, oh please!

  “Good. Let’s get a move on then. Come inside here.” Johannes stoops slightly as he enters his hut, where weak flickering light can now be seen through the open doorway.