***
The Winters lived in a suburb on the southern side of the Chinesese shop. Here the gardens were a bit smaller and the trees growing in them not as old. The houses were big but not grandiose. Hibiscus bushes lined the grassy sidewalks and big stretches of bush cut into suburbia.
Ludwig’s place was surrounded by a high white wall. The driveway led past a long, single storey, L-shaped house. Several balls and other toys were strewn around and a half finished dinghy stood on trestles next to a lemon tree. A brown spaniel appeared barking from a huge wooden shed in the back and a black Labrador shot out from under a bush, nearly flattening the gardener, who was trimming the lawn.
“The spaniel is called Schnappsi because he drinks my booze, and the other dog is called Clochard because we found him in a dustbin and also because some of my wife’s ancestors were French,” Ludwig explained while he parked the car in front of a double garage.
The house was whitewashed and surrounded by flowerbeds. The sound of some classical music floated through the big windows and somebody inside accompanied the orchestra with an enthusiastic soprano. We entered through the back door into a spacious kitchen. A longhaired grey cat was lying on a wooden table in the centre. “Shove off Doodles,” Ludwig chased it away. “You can sleep somewhere else.”
I stepped carefully over the lego blocks on the tiled floor and followed Ludwig along a passage. The walls were plastered with children’s drawings and photos, with prints of Gauguins and old maps. We went past several bedrooms and bathrooms and a carved wooden giraffe as tall as myself. Ludwig pushed the door to the main bedroom open. A slim woman in her 30s with copperish curly hair stood on top of a ladder, holding a paintbrush. She was in the process of adding some violet to a flood of wisteria she had painted onto the ceiling. The record player went full blast and the woman on the ladder as well, in duetto with the aria singer. On the huge double bed a little kid was busy trying to put a bra over her T-shirt. Ludwig turned the music down, which didn’t stop the lady on the ladder from singing the last bit of the aria on top of her voice, waving at us. She ended in a forceful trill.
Ludwig smiled at her and said: “Julie, I love it when you sing, my darl, you’ve got the most beautiful voice.” He looked at the ceiling. “And your flowers are gorgeous too.”
The kid had left the bed and the bra. Ludwig picked her up. She pointed at me: “Who is that, Dad?”
“This is Mathilda…”
“Oh, the girl who saved Marieke’s life,” said my new host mother. She stormed down the ladder and smacked a noisy kiss on each of my cheeks. “How brave you are.”
The kid stared at me with intense blue eyes. “My name is Loctudy,” she said. “Do you have a bra on?”
Nobody will ever catch me wearing a bra. Who wants to imprison their body?
”No, I haven’t got a bra on.”
Loctudy frowned. “My mom sometimes puts a bra on. I also want one, but my mom says I don’t need one until I’ve grown some boobs.”
“Your mom is a wise lady.”
The kid checked my front. “Mebbe your boobs must grow a bit more too. Wanta see my tree house?”
Ludwig and Julie laughed.
“Let’s first get Mathilda’s luggage in,” Ludwig suggested. “Lolo, you can show her where she is going to sleep.”
Lolo’s blonde corkscrew locks bounced around her head as she ran down the passage. My new room had a coir carpet and half a dozen hides on the floor. The bed and the cupboard were painted blue. An ancient school bench stood against one of the walls and a table covered with traces of dried paint and glue stood in front of the window. Outside was a big stoep decorated with flowerpots, hurricane lanterns and mobiles; the lawn stretched to a kidney shaped swimming pool in which several little sailboats and a huge blow-up crocodile were floating. 2 hammocks were suspended between some trees, and the red roof of a tree house peeped out between the branches of a blue gum.
I smiled to myself: I like it here.
A thin, brown skinned woman carried my rucksack into the room. Lolo informed me that this was Opheibia from Graaff Reinet, whose mother tongue was Xhosa , but that she had learned a lot of English since she had started to work for the Winter family, and she also made the best fudge in the world, ‘specially chocolate fudge’. Ludwig brought my sea sack.
“I’m getting hungry,” he said. “What’s for lunch, Opheibia?”
“I don’t know, Master. The Madam didn’t tell me to cook.”
Ludwig seemed neither surprised nor annoyed. “Ok, let’s organize something.”
I pulled Paulina’s parcel out of my belongings. “Here are stacks of sandwiches. Paulina thought I’d starve in transit without some padkos.”
“Looks like there is enough for all of us,” Ludwig grinned. “Go and wash your hands, Lolo honey bunny.”
“Hey Dad, my name is not honey bunny. My name is Pippi Longstocking Supergirl.”
“Ok, Pippi Longstocking Supergirl, wash your hands and ask Opheibia to bring the olives, please.”
I had hardly slept all night and only eaten a crunchy all day. After half a tuna sandwich I retired to my room and fell asleep before I had even taken my clothes off. When I woke up, elephants, lions and rhinos were staring at me. The whole wall along the bed was covered in animal posters and paintings. I turned round and looked into 2 dark blue eyes.
“Does your bath water in the northern hemisphere go clockwise or anti-clockwise down the drain?” a girl’s voice asked.
“Hm, I really don’t know.”
“But you must. It’s very important.”
“Hm. Really?”
“Ja, you see, Tracy from my class has just come back from England and she says there it turns anti-clockwise and I’ve just seen that in our bath it turns clockwise. Do you think Tracy is right or is she fibbing?”
“I haven’t got a clue, but if you want to put the question to my family we can send them a letter.”
“Ok. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“2 brothers and 2 sisters.”
“Wow, I’ve only got Lolo and Joshua but I am the eldest. Lolo is still a baby, she is only 4, and Joshua is 7. I’m already 8.”
“Oh I see, and what’s your name?”
“Greta, like Greta Garbo. She was a great actress. My dad loves acting. Do you like rocks?”
“Rocks?”
“Ja, rocks…like stones. You get very pretty ones. If you help me send that letter to your family I’ll show you my collection.”
When it got dark Julie asked me if I’d like to help Lolo with her bath.
“Ja sure.”
“Oh great; then let’s get organized.” Julie took a little box out of a kitchen drawer and gave me some money. “Here are the coins…”
Huh?
“…now we need the flippers.” She turned to the maid. “Opheibia, do you know where the flippers are?”
“Maybe on the stoep, Madam, maybe in the tree house, maybe in the dog house, maybe…”
“Ok ok, Opheibia. Just go into the garden and ask Joshua to look for them.”
I watched all this like an anthropologist doing a field study of a foreign tribe.
First money, then flippers! What else does one need in this house to have a bath?
Lolo was already in the bathroom. Her clothes were lying in a heap on the floor.
“I want my goggles, Mom.”
“All right Supergirl, go and fetch them.”
“Uh…what must I do with these coins?” I asked.
“Oh,” Julie burst out laughing. “Of course you can’t know. Lolo fell off the pier in the harbour last year. Ever since she’s been scared of water. So we make her dive for coins in the bath and invent all sorts of games to help her overcome her fear.”
A blond boy came in with the flippers and a sailboat made out of a piece of plank, a piece of broomstick and a piece of sheet.
“Are you the girl from Germany?”
“Yep.”
; “Lousy place. I wouldn’t like to live there.”
“Really? Why not?”
“They haven’t even got a decent ocean there. My dad showed me on the map. They’ve got a bit of North Sea and then there is the Baltic Sea and that’s a pisswilly little puddle. When I am big I am going to sail around the world on the biiig oceans like Joshua Slocum. I’ve already built 3 yachts.” He held the plank boat in front of my nose. “This here is the Spray lll.”
“Great boat. And who is Joshua Slocum?”
He shot a contemptuous look at me. “Ask Lolo. She is still a baby but she knows.”
“Joshua my darling,” Julie said, “different people know different things. That is one of the reasons why life is so interesting – but only if people talk to each other.”
“‘kay, Mom.” He put the boat into my arms. “Here, you may hold it.”
“Thanks Joshua.”
“My dad says your name is Mathilda.”
“That’s right.”
“My name is Joshua after Joshua Slocum. He was the first man who sailed all by himself around the world. It’s called single handed circumnavigation.”
“I see, single handed circumnavigation.”
“Yep, and that’s what I am going to do when I’m big.”
“Madam,” Opheibia stuck her head through the door. “There is someone on the phone for you.”
“Thanks Opheibia. Joshua, you and Greta can jump into the bath when Lolo is finished.”
“‘kay Mom.” He went to fetch the Spray I and II.
Lolo fished coins out of the water, she made bubbles with a long plastic pipe and she made waves with her flippers. That was when I saw the rat. It ran next to the wall and stopped under a shelf. It was still a young rat, about as big as my fist, with round hairy ears and brown fur. I had only known white laboratory rats and dark grey wild ones.
This must be an African variety.
I was just working out that in the strong African sun white animals would probably be prone to skin cancer when that rat did the most extraordinary thing. It peed on the floor, tramped in the puddle and climbed backwards up the doorframe as if it had suckers on its feet. When its bum touched the lintel it jumped on the door and ran swiftly along the top. It didn’t have a tail and for the life of me I couldn’t think of a reason why an African rat would be better off without one. Lolo was still splashing around, her goggles covered in foam. She hadn’t seen the rat yet, thank God. If she was terrified of rats anything could happen. That rat had to disappear fast.
The cat in the kitchen! What’s it called again? Noodle or Poodle or something.
“Lolo, what’s your cat’s name?”
“Which one? We’ve got 2. Doodles and Bubesi.”
I called the cats. They didn’t come.
Mebbe I should chase away that rat with a wet towel.
I chucked a towel in the water.
“Hey,” Lolo yelled through her plastic pipe. “Is that a new game? How do you play it?”
“I’ll show you just now.”
The rat was still sitting on the same spot and didn’t even move when Greta came in. I grabbed the towel and wrung it.
“Hey Gret, Mathilda has a new game,” Lolo shouted. “You throw a towel in the water and then you take it out again and then…I don’t know. You also need a cat.”
I rolled the towel into a long sausage and lanced an evaluating look towards the door. Just as I got ready for the big klap Greta said: “Hello Dodger, ts ts ts, where have you been?” and that damn rat jumped right onto her shoulder. “He is my pet dassie,” she explained. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Eh…ja.”
Joshua arrived with his boats. The dassie pissed on my hand.
Greta giggled. “He does that all the time. You can put him on the floor.”
“Does he always run all over the show?”
“Ja, and he sleeps in a little box in my room.”
I wanted to ask what exactly a dassie is but I changed my mind.
Joshua will think I’m a total dud.
“So how does one play your game?” Lolo asked again.
“Eh…uh…you throw the towel in the sky and try to catch it without using your hands and…”
“And the cat?”
“The looser must count the cat’s whiskers.”
“I don’t know if I like that game,” Greta said.
She and Joshua got undressed dropping their clothes all over the floor.
“Don’t you want to pick up your things?” I asked.
“No, that is Opheibia’s job.”
“If you lived in Germany you would have to do it yourselves.”
“I told you Germany is a yucky place,” Joshua said to his sisters.