You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, Page 6

  ‘Ag, a person mustn’t complain,’ she mutters to herself. ‘This is the first morning of spring and even if it’s not going to last, there’s enough warmth to be soaked up against this wall.’

  If only she knew what the omen was, for it’s no good disregarding these things; they’ll catch up with you all the same. Now, if it had been yesterday – and did she not yesterday look up at a hesitant sun and toy with the idea of taking her coffee outside, to lean against this nice wall? – yes, if it had been yesterday then she would have been able to exclaim as Charlie’s Springbok radio bleeped the news, ‘This is so. An itch of the back early in the morning means there’s going to be an assassination.’

  And as she drains her coffee grounds into the rough grass she remembers. Beatrice’s wool. She promised to get to Bellville South after work to get a couple of ounces from her lay-by at Wilton Wools. Perhaps it’s not an omen but a reminder: the itch leading to the bricks leading to the pattern in Beatrice’s nimble hands. Knit four, purl one, chanting earnestly as she clicks her bricks into place. And the wool cleverly chosen by Beatrice to build a jersey in the colours of bricks and mortar. Ooh that child of hers is now clever. She can do just about anything with her hands and also her head, of course, because if your hands can do good so must the head. That is what the Apostle says and quite right too since it’s all part of the same person.

  As Tamieta braces herself for the day of labour in the canteen, her eyes fall on the bricks of this nice new wall and to her surprise must admit that it is not the colour of bricks at all. Really these are a greyish-black, with iridescent blue lights admittedly, but certainly not brick-red or brick-brown. Well, at least it isn’t just our people who get it wrong; as far as she can think, people just haven’t noticed, or people in spite of the evidence just go on talking nonsense. But she castigates herself for having been duped by a false association. She ought to have seen the futility of a reminder so early in the day when there is no need to remember. And now at this very moment the itch returns with new virulence. Tamieta has never known her flesh threaten to break free of its containing skin; such an itch must have a marrow-deep meaning.

  Raising her head in order to scratch more effectively, she sees the first student settling into a seat on the top floor of the library. She has never been in there, even though it is the block closest to the cafeteria. Here, along these paths linking the four buildings that the government has given specially for our people, this is where Beatrice will walk one day, flying in and out of glass doors in her baby-louis heels and a briefcase bulging under her arm. But her skirts will be a decent length, not creeping above the knees like a few of the girls have started wearing them.

  She climbs the steps to the cafeteria kitchen just as Charlie’s sing-song voice calls, ‘Tamieta, the mutton is chopped.’ He has a voice to match his swagger and her ears twitch for a note of mockery, for it is amazing how that boy persists in thinking of her as a plaasjapie. That’s why he slips in handfuls of English words as if she can’t understand. Let him go on thinking it’s so special to come from District Six.

  Tamieta’s energetic leap up the steps makes me wriggle in my seat. Large and slothful I sit pressed in my carrell on the top floor of the library making no progress whatsoever with the essay on Tess of the D’Urbervilles which should have been handed in yesterday. Failure to do it will lose me the right to take the end-of-year examination yet I have been unable even to start the thing. At the very moment yesterday as I strained for an excuse, trembling at the thought of a visit to Retief’s office somewhere along a carpeted corridor, a pet abdominal tapeworm hissed persuasively into the ear of its Greek host, whose trembling hand grew still for a second to aim a fatal shot at the Prime Minister. Today I arrived early and hid here on the top floor amongst large botanical tomes since a tapeworm cannot protect me for ever. Along the margin of this blank sheet of foolscap I have drawn triangles and parallelograms, clean geometrical lines. I have no talent for likenesses and it is Retief’s I wish to capture in this margin, someone to whom I can address the wormy tangle of questions that wriggle out of reach each time I pick up my pen. The Parker pen, a solemn gift from Father, lies before me, capped, uncooperative. I read through Retief’s notes once more. A pity in some respects that I did not get to see his room. James, who once was in the same position, except that his mother’s illness offered a legitimate excuse, says that close up Retief’s skin is not white at all, rather a liverish-yellow with fine red veins, and that his speaking voice is hardly recognisable to a student who only hears him lecture in the large theatre. And what, I wonder, would I have interrupted in that room? In that functional cubicle of new uncluttered design the rugby-playing Retief will barely be able to stretch his legs while he copies out in long hand the lecture notes of the correspondence university to which we are affiliated. Pressed against the door I would have said, through a plate glass of awe and fear, something, something credible, so that he would draw up his long legs in attentive sympathy and say in a strange voice, ‘But there is absolutely nothing to worry about, of course I understand my dear Miss . . . er . . .’

  I could say anything to him and it is a relief to know that it does not matter in the slightest how I deliver my lie, for he does not know me, doesn’t know any of us, and will not recognise me the next day.

  I uncap my pen and read through Retief’s dictated lecture. His pigeon head bobs up and down in empathy with the bowed heads of students before him as he pecks at his words in clipped English. The novel, he says, is about Fate. Alarmingly simple, but not quite how it strikes me, although I cannot offer an alternative. The truth is that I do not always understand the complicated language, though of course I got the gist of the story, the interesting bits where things happen. But even then, I cannot be sure of what actually happens in The Chase.

  Wessex spreads like a well-used map before me, worn and dim along the fold-lines, the lush Frome Valley and the hills so picture-green where Persephone skips sprinkling daisies and buttercups from her clutched apron, caring not two hoots about the ones that fall face down destined to die. The scuffed green strip is The Chase where God knows what happened. Seduced, my notes say. Can you be seduced by someone you hate? Can trees gnarled with age whisper ancient ecstasies and waves of darkness upon dark lap until the flesh melts? I do, of course, not know of these matters, but shudder for Tess.

  Beyond these pale buildings gleaming ghostly in the young spring light there is a fringe of respectably tall Port Jackson and bluegum trees that marks the clearing of university buildings from the surrounding bush. These raggle-taggle sentinels stand to tin-soldierly attention and behind them the bush stretches for miles across the Cape Flats. Bushes, I imagine, that send out wayward limbs to weave into the tangled undergrowth, for I have never left the concrete paths of this campus. Even summer couples may step out arm in arm to flaunt their love under the fluffy yellow flower of the Port Jackson, but never, surely, do they venture beyond. Somewhere beyond the administration block where today the flag flies half mast, they say there is a station where the train stops four times daily on the way to and from the Cape Flats. Skollie boys sit all day long on the deserted platform, for there is no ticket office, and dangle their legs above the rails while they puff at their dagga pils. But even from this height there is no visible path winding through the bush. The handful of students who use the train must daily beat like pioneers a path through the undergrowth.

  Along the top of my page enclosing the essay title, ‘Fate in Tess,’ I have now drawn an infantile line of train carriages. I cannot start writing. I have always been able to distinguish good from bad but the story confuses me and the lecture notes offer no help.

  Murder is a sin which should outrage all decent and civilised people.

  The library is beginning to fill up and a boy I vaguely recognise as a Science student passes twice, darting resentful looks at me. No doubt I am in the seat that he has come to think of as his very own. Perhaps I should leave. Perhaps he can’t
work for being in a strange seat.

  Through the window I watch James in his canary-yellow jersey, his jacket tucked under his arm, trotting to the Arts block for the English lecture. I shall get the notes from him. James is a good friend; he is not like other boys. It is the distant sound of the nine o’clock siren that makes my courage fountain and the opening sentence spill on to the page in fluent English: ‘Before we can assess the role of fate in the novel we must consider the question of whether Tess is guilty or not, whether she has erred in losing her virginity, deceiving her husband and killing her lover.’

  Exhausted by my bold effort I can go no further. Outside, the pathways are deserted. English I students are by now seated in their row, shoulders hunched over Retief’s dictation. The surly boy walks past me once again with a large volume under his arm. The hatred in his lingering look is unmistakable. I pack up my things hurriedly and before I reach the door the boy leaps up from his exposed seat at a central table and lurches indecently into the carrell so that I blush for the warm imprint of my buttocks which has not yet risen from the thin upholstery. It should be more comfortable on the first floor where I usually work amongst familiar faces, but by the time I reach the bottom of the stairs a reckless thirst propels me out, right out of the library towards the cafeteria where Tamieta’s coffee pots croon on the hot plate.

  She mutters, ‘It’s not ready,’ and clatters the lids of her pots and turns on a fierce jet of water so that Charlie jumps out of the spray and shouts, ‘Jeez-like Auntie man, that’s mos not necessary man.’

  He tilts his face for the gracious acceptance of an apology but Tamieta’s head remains bent over the sink. He cannot bear the silence and by way of introduction hums an ironic tune.

  ‘That ou in there,’ pointing at the door that leads into the lecturers dining room, ‘that ou said just now that Verwoerd was the architect of this place,’ Charlie offers.

  ‘It’s because you listen to other people’s conversations that you forget the orders hey. You’ll never get on in this canteen business if you don’t keep your head. Never mind the artitex; clever people’s talk got nothing to do with you,’ Tamieta retorts.

  Charlie laughs scornfully. He discards the professional advice because he will not believe that a speaker could fail to be flattered by an eavesdropper. So that recognising the root of the error he will not mind being brought curry instead of bredie. Besides, he, Charlie, had only got an order wrong once, several weeks ago.

  ‘I know you don’t need architects in the platteland. Not if you build your houses out of sticks and mud, but here in Cape Town there are special big-shot people who make drawings and plan out the buildings.’ He speaks slowly, with pedagogical patience. ‘So that’s what I mean; the Prime Minister got even more important things to do and a lecturer should know better. That ou must be from the Theology School over there’, driving a thumb in the wrong direction. ‘Those moffies know buggerall there.’

  Tamieta’s fingers are greedy beaks pecking into the pastry bowl and she fixes her eyes on the miracle of merging resistant fat and flour. She will not be provoked by this blasphemous Slams who has just confirmed her doubts about the etymology of his ‘Jeez-like.’ They know nothing of God and yes it is her Christian duty to defend her God, but this Charlie is beyond the pale. The Old Man will have to look after himself today. She adds the liquid slowly, absorbed by the wonder of turning her ingredients into an entirely new substance. But it will not last. Her melktert to rival all tarts, perfectly round and risen, will melt in so many mouths, and that will be the end of it.

  ‘. . . just reading the Bible all day long makes them stupid, those preacher chaps from the platteland . . .’ Charlie’s voice weaves through her thoughts. This boy will not stop until she speaks out against his irreverence and Tamieta sighs, weary with the demands of God. Even the bonuses have strings attached. What, for instance, is the point of having a Sabbath when you have to work like a slave all Saturday in order to prepare for the day of rest? When she first started in service with Ounooi van Graan, my word how she had to work. All the vegetables peeled the night before, the mutton half roasted in the pot and the sousboontjies all but cooked. And now in her own home in Bosheuwel, working all Saturday afternoon to make Sunday the day of rest. Oh what would she give to spread out the chores and do the ironing on Sundays. Instead she has to keep a watchful eye on Beatrice whose hands itch for her knitting needles. She feels for the child as they sit after the service and the special Sunday dinner wondering what to do so that she would yawn and shut her eyes and pray for strength to hold out against the child’s desire to make something durable. For knitting on a Sunday pierces God directly in the eyes. It is her sacred duty to keep that child out of the roasting fires of hell for, not being her own, she is doubly responsible.

  It was on her first visit back to Kliprand that she found cousin Sofie merry with drink and the two-year-old toddler wandering about with bushy hair in which the lice frolicked shamelessly. Then she pinned the struggling child between her knees and fought each louse in turn. She plaited her hair in tight rows that challenged the most valiant louse, and with her scalp soaked in Blue-butter the little Beatrice beamed a beauty that is born out of cleanliness. And Tamieta knew that she, not unlike the Virgin Mary, had been chosen as the child’s rightful mother. She who adored little ones would have a child without the clumsiness of pregnancy, the burden of birth and the tobacco-breathed attentions of men with damp fumbling hands. Sofie agreed, weeping for her own weakness, and found parents for the other two, so that the validity of choosing a child at one’s convenience was endorsed by the disposal of those she could no longer care for.

  Eight good years together testify to the wisdom of the arrangement. Beatrice loves the yearly visits to Kliprand where Ousie Sofie awaits them with armfuls of presents, not always the sort of thing a girl would want in Town, but so jolly is Sofie telling her fabulous stories with much noise and actions that they all scream with mirth. A honey mouth that cousin of hers has, full of wise talk which only gets a person into trouble. Just as well she has kept to the country; Cape Town would not agree with her.

  Beatrice has brought nothing but good luck. After serving the terrible English family in Cape Town – they paid well but never talked to her, nor for that matter did they talk to each other except in hushed tones as if someone in the family had just died – came Tamieta’s lucky break at the UCT canteen where she could hold her head up high and do a respectable job of cooking for people whose brains needed nourishing. She was the one who kept the kitchen spotless, who cooked without waste and whose clockwork was infallible; it was only right that she should be chosen to run the canteen at the new Coloured university. The first kitchen boy was quiet, eager to please, but this Charlie is a thorn in her flesh. Full of himself and no respect for his elders. Why should he want to go on about the pondokkies of country folk? She casts a resentful look at the girl just sitting there, waiting for her coffee with her nose in her blinking book. She too is from the country. Tamieta knows of her father who drives a motor car in the very next village, for who in Little Namaqualand does not know of Shenton? The girl speaks English but that need not prevent her from saying something educated and putting this Charlie in his place. She, Tamieta, will turn on him and say as she rolls the pastry, pliant under her rolling pin, strike him with a real English saying which will make that know-all face frown. She has not worked for English people without learning a thing or two. She has learned to value their weapon of silence, and she has memorised Madam’s icy words to the man with the briefcase, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ Oh to see Charlie’s puzzled look before he pretends to know exactly what it means. Her fingers stiffen as the boy rises with his board of chopped onions, but what if he were just to laugh at her if she said it now? If only she could leave him alone, but Tamieta calls out just as he is about to drop the onions into the pan. Curtly, ‘It needs to be finer than that.’ Charlie’s onion tears stream down his face.

&nbs
p; ‘See how you make me cry, Tamieta? This is the tears of all my young years, and I’ll have none left for your wedding. They say you getting married, Tamieta, when is the happy day?’

  He runs his hand over the mirror surface of his greased hair, asserting his superiority. This Charlie with his smooth hair and nose like a tent will find every opportunity to humiliate her. She ought to ask him to wash his hands. No one wants Brylcreem-flavoured bredie. But her legs ache and her back starts up again, the itching pores like so many seething hot springs, so that she really can’t give a damn. The stove will tend to the germs. This is no ordinary itch.

  Tamieta turns to Charlie. ‘We must get a move on. All tomorrow’s work has to be done this morning as well ’cause this afternoon is the memorial and the cafeteria will be closed.’

  ‘Ooh-hoo,’ the boy crows loudly, ‘I’m going up Hanover Street to get the material for our Carnival uniforms. We start practising next week and this year the Silver Blades is going to walk off with all the prizes.’

  ‘Sies,’ Tamieta remonstrates, ‘I don’t know how you Slamse can put yourself on show like that for the white people to laugh at on New Year’s Day.’

  ‘Oh, you country people know nothing man, Tamieta man. The best part is when we come out at midnight in our costumes. Have you ever been in the city for the midnight?’

  Tamieta seals her face and maintains a scornful silence.

  ‘No,’ he continues, ‘you won’t have seen the lights all down Adderley Street, man, twinkling like home-made stars, man, like all the planets just jiving in the streets. Then all the bells start ringing and that’s when we run out from the shadows with the black polish.’

  His hips grind as he dances towards her, waving his spread palms. She cannot ignore him and when she retreats with her wooden spoon, Charlie grabs his knees with mirth and crows breathlessly, ‘That’s when we get all the whities and rub the black polish all over their faces.’