You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, Page 4

  So opinion was divided. Father and others were not so sure whether even in the unfortunate circumstances . . . the trousers, the empty cans, the refusal to drink coffee, the desecration of her home . . . it was not immoral of her to leave a lawful husband. A double scandal seemed unnecessary, showed a heathenish disregard of the family. So that they were not prepared to believe everything Truida said.

  Jan Klinkies wandered off after the weather recital, tugging at the waist. Why was it that the trousers, khaki and far too wide, sagged at the waist in spite of the improvised wire belt? He clearly did not experiment, did not arrange equidistant little folds in the band before securing them with the wire. Or sew loops through which to thread the wire. Instead he haphazardly bunched the fabric together, drew the wire around his middle and twisted the ends. So that the wire ends shunted and bumped together as he walked and naturally people complained about this eternal tugging at the waist. Like people who sniff and sniff to prevent mucus from dribbling out of the nostrils, when from a jacket or trouser pocket or even a handbag, much to the surprise of those present, they produce a perfectly adequate handerchief upon which to drain the lot. Jan Klinkies was not altogether insensitive to the problem. He had discovered a flaw in the stitching around the waistband and so sensibly hooked a pinkie into the improvised pocket. But this did not alter matters much. He wandered off discreetly tugging at the waist with a crooked little finger hooked in the waistband in the way that everyone found so potentially indecent.

  Father stumbled about with hammer and pliers repairing the fence, tapping at this and that in the awkward moments when Jan Klinkies popped up unexpectedly from behind a bush or a wall. I had an idea that we were not altogether welcome. Entry for me had been a humiliating business, an undignified scrambling over the fence laced with barbed wire. The gate was barricaded with a hillock of tarnished cans, and as further security the house refuse was heaped in front of it. Our host had stood on the stoep watching from beneath his broad-rimmed hat, as if the nature of our reception depended upon the method of mastering the obstacles. His trousers stayed up beautifully, not a suspicion of sagging as he stood with arms folded. Then he came to watch as Father dug a hole for the refuse with a spade that I passed over the fence. Father shovelled the mountain of cans away from the gate. A wondrous variety of cans: besides the tall cylindrical container of canned pilchards, there was the elliptical Fray Bentos can in two sizes, soft-cornered rectangles of sardine cans, squat condensed-milk cans and others of which you could only guess the spent contents, for all the cans were scrupulously stripped of their labels.

  There was no telling whether Jan Klinkies welcomed or resented this shovelling aside, whether he minded the discarded cans mounded in an obelisk on that particular spot. His face remained set. No tell-tale smile of approval played on his lips; he did not clench his teeth in anger. But I suspected that careful aesthetic considerations had been at play. The cans so callously shoved aside might have been placed one by one, interrupted by the stepping back to appraise from a distance and perhaps replace or reposition. There is the business of balance, for instance; the wrong shape could bring the lot toppling down and you’d have to tap sliding cans carefully back into place. And a starting pattern can gradually lose its regularity until a completely new one is formed. It is perhaps only the beginning, the first small mound that you step back from, that is totally pleasing. With such a great number and variety of cans the permutations of summit and slope must be endless. Perhaps it was precisely that consideration that made Jan Klinkies appear a detached observer.

  The entrance was briskly cleared. There was plenty to do. The potatoes had not been earthed up, the cabbage seedlings elbowed each other ruthlessly for breathing space, the goat lay listless in need of some or other drug. And all the while Jan Klinkies shuffled about, heaping empty cans at the base of the tree where he carefully examined them for rust or dents or other blemishes. He also prowled about and spied on us from behind scant bushes through which his eyes shone like a jackal’s.

  Aha, hum, said Father, clearing his throat and forgetting himself when our host came upon us suddenly, ‘Ahum, a cup of Boeretroos would be just the thing now. A strong cup of coffee.’ Jan Klinkies turned very red and rattled, ‘Whatcomfortsaboerispoisontome.’ Four times and I had just stopped counting when it came again, tattered with use so that only the contraction Boerpoison came out.

  I was sent to make tea. I knew that he had given up Rooibos tea with its illustration of an ox wagon scaling the Drakensberg. The figures alongside the wagon were in Voortrekker dress, so Rooibos too offended him, in spite of his once-favourite sister Sissie’s pleading for its lack of tannin, its goodness for the urinary system. So I made Five Roses with the inoffensive label of a rosette of five on the silver wrapping suggesting nothing other than its name. The men drank their tea outside in the sun. I had mine in the kitchen which I scanned for irregularities, for clues. But the pots and pans like any others were heavy and black on the Jewel stove, and from a beam large enamel mugs hung at an angle at which mugs of that size would. Two or three modest cobwebs clung to the beam. There was nothing of interest. Besides, the dust rose from the earth floor choking curiosity.

  Through the window I watched them sitting in the sun on their haunches. Father beamed at the unexpected pleasure of taking tea together, observing the ritual of men breaking off from work. They slurped their tea noisily and in concert. The pauses were liberally interspersed with the one-sided conversation conducted by Father.

  ‘The potatoes don’t look too bad this year. When did they go in?’ Jan Klinkies held the tea in his mouth and stared at Father, who felt obliged to continue.

  ‘Last month, first week of last month, no later. I’d bet on it.’ They slurped their tea comfortably in concert. Until Jan Klinkies was caught with the mug just poised at his lips.

  ‘Is there enough to last through the winter? I’d have thought the little patch by the chicken run could be used as well, chickens have used it for so long, it should be good soil, give a good yield.’ A long silent savouring of tea. Then Father prefaced his remarks with gentle nodding.

  ‘You could be right, those fowls need the space. And ja, there are plenty potatoes for one and even for a family dinner now and again.’

  For a moment Jan Klinkies took command of his slack jaw, but the resulting discomfort which might induce one to shift the pressure through talking made him drop the jaw again within seconds. He walked off with the mug of tea held carefully in front of him.

  ‘The floor is dusty,’ said Father, returning his mug to the kitchen. ‘We must smear it.’ By which he meant that I should, since I am a girl.

  One could be fastidious about handling a cow-pat with bare hands, but the mixture of cow dung and a dollop of clay pounded to a smooth paste with a splash of water loses many of the unpleasant properties of freshly released dung, even though the texture resembles it more closely. And applied to the floor it is transformed by its function and so becomes sweet smelling. It is therefore in anticipation that the mixture in the bucket squelches luxuriously between playful fingers; that you apply it first thickly for idle sculpting before smoothing it down to a thin layer of sealant. Then the roughness of fibre presses up against the palm and is left like a sprinkling on the surface. The door left ajar, the freshly smeared room, just dried, suggests such lush green meadows as the cows have never seen.

  The kitchen floor was done. There was a fair amount left in the bucket. It seemed a pity to waste it, to pour the mixture away in rivulets down a slope or splash it over a ghanna bush, foully disfiguring wherever it chanced to land. I thought of doing the dining-room floor. The dining-room was never used. It had lost its original function of seating deaf great-aunts at family gatherings. I tiptoed across the kitchen, smoothing the stunted footprints on the wet dung behind me. I battled with the three bolts that warned against entry.

  The room was small. A square table with tucked-in extensions stood in the corner. Four chairs, tucked in
, touched each other’s knees sedately at four right angles, forming a lesser square under the table. Two more chairs of the same family fitted the corners facing me as I surveyed the room from the doorway. Two persons sitting on these chairs would face each other squarely, knees held close together in decorum with the room. To my left, fitting the fourth corner, was the sideboard with a glass-fronted display area which once was packed with objects worthy of a privileged position. Three of these were left, abandoned on their backs or sides as the others were hurriedly taken away. A band of gold on white porcelain, a painted something on blue opaque glass, a flash of silver; I could not be sure in the darkened room. Perhaps they were not whole objects; perhaps they were mere fragments of things shattered in a reckless removal.

  I did not hear anyone cross the kitchen floor. There was simply a shadow beside me in the doorway and then he sprinted over to the sideboard and stretched his arms and planted his feet wide apart in a modified crucifixion pose.

  Jan Klinkies, my cousin once removed, did not seem himself at all. Between his long legs, just beneath the inverted V of his crotch pressed against the cupboard space below the display cabinet, was a piece of paper stuck on to the wood. In the shape of a star and of a dull goldish colour. I left the room with the bucket still swinging in my right hand. The star was familiar. But the floor, as I turned to check his position, the floor was covered with patterned linoleum as of course a dining-room floor would be. Hardly in need of cow dung. Silly of me, and I remembered that it was not really a star at all, but almost a star, the label of the Gold Cross condensed-milk can.

  Father was waiting. We were ready to go. The afternoon wind was rising. Not that anything was suddenly carried off; things merely shuffled in readiness. The tree barely moved, but the branches stooping heavily under the hundreds of cans tied to them with wire rattled and sent off beams of blinding light at angles doubtlessly corresponding to a well-known law.

  WHEN THE TRAIN COMES

  I am not the kind of girl whom boys look at. I have known this for a long time, but I still lower my head in public and peep through my lashes. Their eyes leap over me, a mere obstacle in a line of vision. I should be pleased; boys can use their eyes shamelessly to undress a girl. That is what Sarie says. Sarie’s hand automatically flutters to her throat to button up her orlon cardigan when boys talk to her. I have tried that, have fumbled with buttons and suffered their perplexed looks or reddened at the question, ‘Are you cold?’

  I know that it is the act of guiding the buttons through their resistant holes that guides the eyes to Sarie’s breasts.

  Today I think that I would welcome any eyes that care to confirm my new ready-made polyester dress. Choosing has not brought an end to doubt. The white, grey and black stripes run vertically, and from the generous hem I have cut a strip to replace the treacherous horizontal belt. I am not wearing a cardigan, even though it is unusually cool for January, a mere eighty degrees. I have looked once or twice at the clump of boys standing with a huge radio out of which the music winds mercurial through the rise and fall of distant voices. There is no music in our house. Father says it is distracting. We stand uneasily on the platform. The train is late or perhaps we are early. Pa stands with his back to the boys who have greeted him deferentially. His broad shoulders block my view but I can hear their voices flashing like the village lights on Republic Day. The boys do not look at me and I know why. I am fat. My breasts are fat and, in spite of my uplift bra, flat as a vetkoek.

  There is a lump in my throat which I cannot account for. I do of course cry from time to time about being fat, but this lump will not be dislodged by tears. I am pleased that Pa does not say much. I watch him take a string out of his pocket and wind it nervously around his index finger. Round and round from the base until the finger is encased in a perfect bandage. The last is a loop that fits the tip of his finger tightly; the ends are tied in an almost invisible knot. He hopes to hold my attention with this game. Will this be followed by cat’s cradle with my hands foolishly stretched out, waiting to receive? I smart at his attempts to shield me from the boys; they are quite unnecessary.

  Pa knows nothing of young people. On the morning of my fourteenth birthday he quoted from Genesis III . . . in pain you shall bring forth children. I had been menstruating for some time and so knew what he wanted to say. He said, ‘You must fetch a bucket of water in the evenings and wash the rags at night . . . have them ready for the next month . . . always be prepared . . . it does not always come on time. Your mother was never regular . . . the ways of the Lord . . .’ and he shuffled off with the bicycle tyre he was pretending to repair.

  ‘But they sell things now in chemists’ shops, towels you can throw away,’ I called after him.

  ‘Yes,’ he looked dubiously at the distant blue hills, ‘perhaps you could have some for emergencies. Always be prepared,’ and lowering his eyes once again blurted, ‘And don’t play with boys now that you’re a young lady, it’s dangerous.’

  I have never played with boys. There were none to play with when we lived on the farm. I do not know why. The memory, of a little boy boring a big toe into the sand, surfaces. He is staring enviously at the little house I have carved into the sandbank. There are shelves on which my pots gleam and my one-legged Peggy sleeps on her bank of clay. In my house I am free to do anything, even invite the boy to play. I am proud of the sardine can in which two clay loaves bake in the sun. For my new china teapot I have built a stone shrine where its posy of pink roses remains forever fresh. I am still smiling at the boy as he deftly pulls a curious hose from the leg of his khaki shorts and, with one eye shut, aims an arc of yellow pee into the teapot. I do not remember the teapot ever having a lid.

  There is a lump in my throat I cannot account for. I sometimes cry about being fat, of course, especially after dinner when the zip of my skirt sinks its teeth into my flesh. Then it is reasonable to cry. But I have after all stood on this platform countless times on the last day of the school holidays. Sarie and I, with Pa and Mr Botha waving and shouting into the clouds of steam, Work Hard or Be Good. Here, under the black and white arms of the station sign, where succulents spent and shrivelled in autumn grow once again plump in winter before they burst into shocking spring flower. So that Pa would say, ‘The quarters slip by so quickly, soon the sun will be on Cancer and you’ll be home again.’ Or, ‘When the summer train brings you back with your First Class Junior Certificate, the aloe will just be in flower.’ And so the four school quarters clicked by under the Kliprand station sign where the jewelled eyes of the iceplant wink in the sun all year round.

  The very first lump in my throat he melted with a fervent whisper, ‘You must, Friedatjie, you must. There is no high school for us here and you don’t want to be a servant. How would you like to peg out the madam’s washing and hear the train you once refused to go on rumble by?’ Then he slipped a bag of raisins into my hand. A terrifying image of a madam’s menstrual rags that I have to wash swirls liquid red through my mind. I am grateful to be going hundreds of miles away from home; there is so much to be grateful for. One day I will drive a white car.

  Pa takes a stick of biltong out of his pocket and the brine in my eyes retreats. I have no control over the glands under my tongue as they anticipate the salt. His pocketknife lifts off the seasoned and puckered surface and leaves a slab of marbled meat, dry and mirror smooth so that I long to rest my lips on it. Instead my teeth sink into the biltong and I am consoled. I eat everything he offers.

  We have always started our day with mealie porridge. That is what miners eat twice a day, and they lift chunks of gypsum clean out of the earth. Father’s eyes flash a red light over the breakfast table: ‘Don’t leave anything on your plate. You must grow up to be big and strong. We are not paupers with nothing to eat. Your mother was thin and sickly, didn’t eat enough. You don’t want cheekbones that jut out like a Hottentot’s. Fill them out until they’re shiny and plump as pumpkins.’ The habit of obedience is fed daily with second help
ings of mealie porridge. He does not know that I have long since come to despise my size. I would like to be a pumpkin stored on the flat roof and draw in whole beams of autumn’s sunlight so that, bleached and hardened, I could call upon the secret of my glowing orange flesh.

  A wolf whistle from one of the boys. I turn to look and I know it will upset Pa. Two girls in identical flared skirts arrive with their own radio blaring Boeremusiek. They nod at us and stand close by, perhaps seeking protection from the boys. I hope that Pa will not speak to me loudly in English. I will avoid calling him Father for they will surely snigger under cover of the whining concertina. They must know that for us this is no ordinary day. But we all remain silent and I am inexplicably ashamed. What do people say about us? Until recently I believed that I was envied; that is, not counting my appearance.

  The boys beckon and the girls turn up their radio. One of them calls loudly, ‘Turn off that Boere-shit and come and listen to decent American music.’ I wince. The girls do as they are told, their act of resistance deflated. Pa casts an anxious glance at the white policeman pacing the actual platform, the paved white section. I take out a paper handkerchief and wipe the dust from my polished shoes, a futile act since this unpaved strip for which I have no word other than the inaccurate platform, is all dust. But it gives me the chance to peer at the group of young people through my lowered lashes.