You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, Page 7

  ‘I must be a baboon to listen to all this nonsense. Where will a white person allow a troop of coons to even touch their faces? I may have been born in a pondok but I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.’

  ‘’Strue Tamieta, ‘strue,’ he begs her to believe him. ‘It’s been going on for years now, it’s a tradition you know,’ and taking up his chopping knife he adds soberly, ‘I suppose the whities who come there know it’s going to happen and come specially for the black polish, but perhaps there is, yes there must be, one or two who get the fright of their lives when we jump out from the shadows.’

  Tamieta sets the cups out on the counter. She really can’t be listening to this boy’s nonsense and if he doesn’t know that he’s supposed to spend the afternoon at the ceremony, well then, that’s his problem.

  ‘Here,’ she calls to the Shenton girl, ‘here, the coffee’s ready.’

  Midst these unlikely sounds of clattering cups and the regular fall of the knife, the bass of the bean soup and the sizzling onion smells, the essay is going tolerably well. There are human voices in the background, the amicable hum of Tamieta and Charlie, harmonising with the kitchen sounds that will materialise into bean soup favoured by the students and bredie for the staff.

  I have followed the opening thrust with two more paragraphs that wantonly move towards exonerating Tess. Retief’s notes are no good to me. He will not be pleased. Things are going well until an ill-timed ten o’clock siren sounds, signalling a visit to the lavatory. Since the collapse of the beehive I have not found a satisfactory way of doing my hair although the curve of my flick-ups is crisp as ever. Fortunately one can always rely on Amami hairspray. I wet my fingers at the tap to tug at the crinkly hairshaft of an otherwise perfectly straight fringe. Cape Town with its damp and misty mornings is no good for the hair. Thank God there is no full-length mirror to taunt me although I have a feeling that the waistband of my skirt has slackened. After a final glance at the now stabilised fringe and a rewarding thumb between my blouse and waistband, I am ready to face coffee-break.

  The boys who play klawerjas at the back of the room are already installed and they let out the customary wolf whistle as I re-enter the cafeteria. Fortunately my table is right at the front so that I do not have to endure the tribute for long. It is of course encouraging to know that a few moments before the mirror does pay dividends, that the absorption with a card game can be pierced by a pleasing female tread. My pulse quickens. Though I sit with my back to them I don’t know what to do. There is no question of carrying on with the essay. These males have a sixth sense. Whilst being held by the game they somehow know when a girl moves and will not fail to pucker the lips and allow the hot draught of air to escape even as you bend to retrieve a sheet of paper from the floor. There must be some girls who never get whistled at but I don’t think I know of any. We are all familiar with the scale of appreciation, from the festive tantara for the beauties to the single whiplash of a whistle for the barely attractive. Then there is the business of who is whistling at you, and since you cannot possibly look, since you drop your eyes demurely or stare coldly ahead, and while you shiver deliciously to the vibrations of the whistle there can be a nagging discomfort, an inexplicable lump that settles like a cork in the trachea. Should it be some awful country boy with faltering English and a feathered hat . . . but such a contingency is covered by the supportive group whistle. You will never know the original admirer so it is best not to look, not to speak.

  I am pleased to see James and tidy away my folder to make room for him. But he collects a cup of coffee, drops his bag at my table and with a dismissive hallo goes straight to the back where he joins the boys. Unusual for him but it really does not matter. I stretch my legs and with my heels draw in James’s bag to support my calves. Perhaps I should take my folder out again and try to work, but there is no point; the others will be here soon. Instead I decide on another cup of coffee. It is not an extravagance; I shall not have one this afternoon. With my ten-cent piece I tap on the stainless-steel counter until I realise that the sound is not drowned by the rowdy klawerjas players. No one has whistled. Have I in spite of my narrowing waistline become one of those who does not merit a second look?

  When Moira enters she stands for a moment framed in the doorway, blinking, for the sun has come out again. It is one of those just-spring days when the sun plays crazy kiss-catch games and the day revolves through all the seasons of the year. So Moira blinks in this darkness after the glare outside. The silence of her entry is unnerving. Moira has never moved in this room without a fanfare of whistles and an urgent drumming on the tables. She hesitates as if that exhalation of hot air is the only source of kinetic energy that will produce motion in her exquisite legs. Moira is indisputably beautiful. The smooth skin. The delicately sculpted form. The sleek brown hair.

  But now her eyes are troubled, her hovering form uncertain, so that I wave at her and lo, the legs swing into mobility, the left foot falls securely on the floor and she propels herself expertly towards me. ‘Coffee or tea,’ I whisper loudly and point at the table where my folder lies. Like an automaton she changes direction and manoeuvres into a chair.

  ‘What’s going on in here? Where’s James?’ she asks.

  James always sits with us. We have learned to make allowances for the filtered version of friendship that boys offer; nevertheless his behaviour today is certainly treacherous. Why has he gone without explanation to join the dark tower of boys peering down on to the table at the back? It is clearly not the klawerjas game that holds their attention. Someone screened from our vision is talking quietly, then bangs a fist on the table. The voices grow more urgent. We watch James withdraw from the inner circle and perch on the back of a chair shaking his head, but he does not look across at us.

  By now the cafeteria is full. There is a long queue for coffee. The boys drift instinctively to the back to join the dark bank of murmuring males while the girls settle with their coffees at separate tables. Moira is agitated. What can they be talking about? We listen carefully but the sounds remain unintelligible. The group is no longer cohesive. It is too large, so that sub-groups mutter in cacophony, someone laughs derisively and above the noise the sound of Mr Johnson’s gravel voice, herding the stragglers back into the fold. He is the older student who in his youth had something to do with politics and now wears the bereaved look of someone who cannot accept the death of the movement.

  ‘I think,’ says Moira, ‘we should go and join them. If they’ve got something important to discuss then it’s bound to affect us so we ought to go and find out.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I remonstrate anxiously. I can only think of crossing the room in slow motion, elephantine, as my lumbering thighs rub together. A deadly silence except for the nylon scratching of left pantyhose against right, then right against left, before the ambiguous sound from the lungs of that bulwark rings plangent in my ears. I do not recognise this register; can a whistle be distorted by slow-motion? I fail to summon the old familiar sound, its pitch or timbre. Some day, I think wildly, there will be a machine to translate a whistle, print it out boldly as a single, unequivocal adjective: complimentary . . . or . . . derisive? A small compact machine to carry conveniently in the pocket which will absorb the sound as confidently as I have done. The meaning must lie there in the pitch, audible, measurable; otherwise, surely, we would never have considered it as anything other than a sound, an expression of time. How did we ever know with such certainty that it spelled admiration?

  Moira is determined to go until I say, ‘They will whistle as we approach.’

  She slumps back in her chair and tugs listlessly at her skirt that has risen above the knee. In the seated position these shrinking hemlines assert a dubious freedom. We console ourselves that we might have risked it in last year’s skirts and curl our toes newly released from the restrictive points of last year’s shoes.

  When James strides over he stands for a moment with one foot on the chair while he lights a cigarette a
nd languidly savours the smoke before it curls out of his nostrils.

  ‘Hey,’ he teases as his eyes fall on my folder. ‘Have you done that essay yet? Retief asked after you this morning.’

  I have no desire to banter with him. Has it occurred to James that Retief has no idea who any of us are? James turns the chair around and sits astride it, spreading his legs freely. He does not read the resentment in our unyielding postures.

  The day slips into mid-winter. The sky darkens and a brisk rain beats against the glass. The wind tugs at the building, at this new brick and glass box placed in a clearing in the bush, and seems to lift it clean off the ground.

  ‘My word,’ says James and treats us to a lecture on the properties of glass as building material. It is clear that he will nurse the apple of knowledge in his lap, polish its red curve abstractedly until we drool with anticipation. Only then will he offer us little lady-like bites, anxious for the seemly mastication of the fruit and discreet about his power to withdraw it altogether.

  ‘Come on, what’s all this about?’ Moira asks, pointing to the table at the back.

  ‘We’re organising the action for this afternoon’s memorial service. We must be sure that nobody goes. If we . . .’

  ‘But no one would want to go,’ I interrupt.

  ‘The point is that there are too many cowards who don’t want to but who are intimidated into going. Fear of reprisals is no small thing when there is a degree at stake, but if no one, and I mean not a soul, goes, then there’ll be nothing to fear. Obviously we can’t call a public meeting so it’s up to every one of us to get round and speak to as many people as possible. Everyone must be reassured that no one will go. You two are going to Psychology next, aren’t you? So make sure that you get there early and get the word around. I’ll miss it and go to Afrikaans-Nederlands I instead. There’ll be someone in every lecture room this morning and a couple of chaps are staying in here. Mr Johnson and others are going round the library. The idea is that every student must be spoken to before one o’clock.’

  We nod. I had hoped to miss all my classes today in order to finish the essay. I shall have to think of something since Retief will certainly not accept it after today, especially not after the boycott of the service.

  ‘Do you feel any sense of horror or shock or even distaste at the assassination?’ I ask.

  Moira taps her beautiful fingers on the table. James gets up. ‘I’d better get along and speak to Sally’s table over there,’ he says.

  ‘Well, do you?’ I persist. ‘Can you imagine being a member of his family or anyone close to him?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Do you think there’s something wrong with us? Morally deficient?’

  ‘Dunno. My father would call it inhuman, unchristian. It seems to me as if common humanity is harped on precisely so that we don’t have to consider the crucial question of whether we can imagine being a particular human being. Or deal with the implications of the answer. All I can tell of the human condition is that we can always surprise ourselves with thoughts and feelings we never thought we had.’

  Moira laughs. ‘You’re always ready with a mouthful of words. I’m surprised that you have any trouble with knocking off an essay.’

  As we go off towards the Arts block we watch the gardeners in their brown overalls putting out hundreds of chairs in the square to accommodate all the students and staff. The chairs are squashed between the flowerboxes where the spring-green of foliage just peeps over the concrete. I try to think what they are but cannot imagine flowers tumbling over that concrete rim now lashed by the shadow of the wind-tossed flag.

  Later I lean against the brick wall at the back of the cafeteria, my knees drawn up and the folder resting on the plane of my thighs. The soil is somewhat damp but I do not mind since a luke-warm sun has travelled round to this wall. Besides, there is nowhere else to go; the library as well as the cafeteria is shut and I wouldn’t like to sit in the deserted Arts block.

  A heavy silence hangs over the campus. The bush is still as if the birds are paying their respects to the dead Verwoerd. This freshly rinsed light won’t last; such a stillness can only precede the enervating sweep of the south-easterly wind. I watch an ant wriggle her thorax along a blade of grass before I turn to my watch to find that the minute arm has raced ahead. The ceremony will start in fifteen minutes. It will probably last an hour and before that my essay must be finished and delivered. I read Retief’s notes and start afresh. This will have to be my final copy since there is no time to develop ideas, let alone rephrase clumsy language. My attempt to understand the morality of the novel has to be abandoned. Retief will get what he wants, a reworking of his notes, and I will earn a mark qualifying for the examination.

  It is not easy to work in this eerie silence. The stillness of the trees, the dark bush ahead inspire an unknown fear, a terror as if my own eyes, dark and bold as a squirrel’s, stare at me from the bush. I am alone. The lecturers settling into their mourning seats under the flag some three hundred yards away offer no reassurance. If only a bird would scream or an animal rush across the red carpet of Rooikrans pods along the fringe of the bush, this agitation would settle. When the tall Australian bluegums shiver in the first stir of air, I retrieve my restless fingers raking through the grass to attend to Tess, luscious-lipped Tess, branded guilty and betrayed once more on this page. Time’s pincers tighten round my fingers as I press on. This essay, however short and imperfect, must be done before three o’clock.

  I start at the sound of gravel crunched underfoot. Surely there is no one left. Students in the hostel would keep to their rooms; others have rushed off for the 1.30 bus, too anxious to hitch the customary lift to the residential areas. I get up cautiously, tiptoe to the edge of the wall and peer round to see a few young men in their Sunday suits filing from the Theology College towards the square. They walk in silence, their chins lifted in a militaristic display of courage. I have no doubt that they have been asked to support the boycott. But they will think their defiance heroic and stifle the unease by marching soldier-like to mourn the Prime Minister.

  Their measured tread marks the short minutes that go on sounding long after they have disappeared. I scribble wildly these words that trip each other up so that the page is defaced by inches of crossed-out writing and full stops swelled by a refractory pen that shrinks before a new sentence. Just as I finish, the gilt braid of fleece overhead slips under cover of a brooding raincloud. There is no time to make a fair copy. It is nearly three o’clock and I do not have the courage to wait for a bus or a lift at the main entrance where tall, fleshy cacti with grotesque limbs mock the human form. With difficulty I slip the essay without an explanatory note under Retief’s close-fitting door then brace myself for the bush, for I must find the path that leads to the little station and wait for the Cape Flats train.

  Tamieta shifts in her seat and lifts her wrist to check again the ticking of her watch. If this thing should let her down, should wilfully speed up the day so that she is left running about like a headless chicken amongst her pots . . . But she allows her wrist to drop in her lap; the unthinkable cannot be developed any further. And yet she has just fallen breathless in her chair, the first in the last row, only to find no one here. Not a soul. All the chairs in front of her are empty, except for the first two rows where the Boers sit in silence. Only two of the lecturers are women who, in their black wide-rimmed hats, are curious shapes in the distance.

  Tamieta had no idea that the ceremony was for white people only. Oh, what should she do, and the shame of it flames in her chest. Wait until she is told to leave? Or pick up the bag of working clothes she has just tucked under her chair and stagger off? But a few heads had turned as she sat down; she has already been seen, and besides how can she trust these legs now that her knees are calcified with shame and fear? She longs for a catastrophe, an act of justice, something divine and unimaginable, for she cannot conceive of a flood or a zigzag of lightning that will have her tumbling in scuffed shoe
s with her smoking handbag somersaulting over or entwined with the people at the front. There is no decent image of a credible demise to be summoned in the company of these mourners, so she fishes instead in her handbag for the handkerchief soaked in reviving scent. Californian Poppy, the bottle says, a sample that Beatrice had written away for and which arrived in the post with the picture on the label hardly discernible as a flower, just a red splodge, and as she inhales the soothing fragrance her mind clears into a sharp memory of the supervisor. Mr Grats said distinctly as he checked the last consignment of plates, ‘Tomorrow is the ceremony, so close up straight after lunch. It won’t last more than an hour so you still have an afternoon off.’

  Unambiguous words. Mr Grats is a man who always speaks plainly. Besides, they would not have put the chairs out if Coloureds were not allowed, and her new-found security is confirmed by the arrival of the first students. She recognises the young men from the seminary, the future Dutch Reformed or rather Mission Church ministers, and her chest swells with relief which she interprets as pride in her people. They slip noiselessly into the third row but there are only eleven and they have no effect on the great expanse between her and the front.

  Tamieta looks at her watch. It is five minutes past two. She would not expect students to be late for such an important ceremony; why should they want to keep Coloured time on an occasion like this and put her to shame? Where is everybody? And she sniffs, sniffs at the comforter impregnated with Californian Poppy.

  The rector strides across from the Administration block in his grand cloak. He bellows like a bull preparing to storm the empty chairs.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let those of us who abhor violence, those of us who have a vision beyond darkness and savagery, weep today for the tragic death of our Prime Minister . . .’

  He is speaking to her . . . Ladies and gentlemen . . . that includes her, Tamieta, and what can be wrong with that? Why should she not be called a lady? She who has always conducted herself according to God’s word? Whose lips have never parted for a drop of liquor or the whorish cigarette? And who has worked dutifully all her life? Yes, it is only right that she should be called a lady. And fancy it coming from the rector. Unless he hasn’t seen her, or doesn’t see her as part of the gathering. Does the group of strangers backed by the dark-suited Theology students form a bulwark, an edifice before which she must lower her eyes? How could she, Tamieta Snewe, with her slow heavy thighs scale such heights?