*
The following day nothing much was expected of me until it was curtain up again. I woke up after 10, with Denzil in my thoughts and a smile on my face.
Julie was busy working on her oeuvre for the exhibition. It was called ‘The Portrait of a Mensch’ and showed our neighbour, Pop Millar, at his ripe and wrinkly age of 82. Various scenes and symbols in the background alluded to his life. Pop Millar had been born the son of a fisherman and had never put foot into a classroom. In the early 1900s school was not compulsory in the Cape, not even for the whites. Most of the right bottom quadrant of the painting was taken up by a harbour scene, because Pop Millar joined the harbour service when young, and worked as a stevedore all his life. He had hands like a crocodile’s foot and he had one passion: fishing. He knew everything there was to know about any fish in the Indian Ocean. In the painting leervis and mullet surrounded his hands, and close to his left ear a burnt siena coloured loaf of bread contrasted with a turquoise background. Pop Millar never said much, but he would turn any conversation onto the subject of fishing, culminating in the statement: “To hell with them fancy bait things. I can catch you any fish with a piece of bread.”
Maria Callas was singing Si, sorr’essi alzai la punta while Julie put the last touches to her painting. She mixed some red with yellow and said: “This whole acting business sure put a spring in your step, Mathilda. Won’t you bring me a cup of coffee? And tell Nohandbag to make lunch, macaroni cheese or something like that.”
I contemplated phoning Denzil but he would be at university, and also – hadn’t that whole thing last night only been a dream?
“Now you look like a wet rag,” Julie said when I brought her the coffee. “You know Mathilda teenagers are a total mystery to the rest of us. Don’t believe anybody who says your teenage years are the best of your life. Let me tell you from my own experience, once you are 30, married and settled, life becomes much easier. You must choose the right husband of course.”
I decided to go for a bicycle ride to get some fresh air and think about things. It was a beautiful day, the vegetation bursting in the lushest colours. After a fire, Pretorius Street was open again for the traffic. Big blue gum stumps were still smouldering along the road, and on the blackened ground towards the location not one blade of grass had survived the blaze. I rode down the curve where the railway line crossed the road, and for the second time in my life I saw a tank right in front of my eyes. My heart nearly stopped. It was too late to turn round, the soldiers had already spotted me. One of them stepped out onto the tarmac to stop me, his gun ready for use held in front of his body. On each side of the road, hidden in the shadows of the trees, soldiers stood waiting at the ready. I braked like an automaton, my mind empty but wide open to anything that might happen. I climbed off my bike and waited.
“It’s not safe here, young lady,” the soldier said. “There has been trouble in the township.”
A fat, young police officer approached and put on an important face. “Lady, this is not a place for a lady.” His eyes wandered over my bike, then from my feet to my face. “I’ll arrange for the police bakkie to take you home.”
Du lieber Himmel. Julie will have a heart attack if she sees me being loaded off a cop van.
”Thank you, officer. I think I can make it on my own.” I turned the bike round as fast as I could and pedalled up the hill at maximum speed. At the Chinese shop my stamina left me. I got off the bike and staggered through the shop to the shelf where they kept the sweets. I bought 3 bars of Turkish Delight and a packet of liquorice. As I walked back into the sunlight, ready to take a big bite out of the Turkish Delight, a terrible thought hit me.
Sweets promote pimples and I don’t want Denzil to spot a pimple on me.
I wrapped the Turkish Delight up again.
I’ll give all these sweets to the kids. Denzil looks like a guy who is worth some sacrifices.
Later that day it was in the news: 2 necklacings have taken place in Jabulani Township in V.B.
“These blacks are barbarians,” Julie commented. “To do that to their own people.”
“What exactly is a necklacing?” I asked her.
“They force a motorcar tyre over a person’s head, pinning his arms to his sides, pour petrol on it and set it alight. It’s a horrible death.”
“Hell, why do they do that?”
“It’s got to do with the black freedom fighters, the ANC and the PAC and so on. It’s their way to get rid of collaborators.”
“And what do the cops about it? The ones I saw today were outside the location. Do they go in there and make arrests, or do they just say, if the blacks want to kill each other it’s their own indaba?”
“I think it happens both ways,” Julie said. “I also think we don’t know half of what’s going on in the country, and honestly, I think I wouldn’t really want to know.”
The Jamesons’ telephone was engaged for half an hour before I got through, and then Coral told me, that Kim wasn’t allowed to speak to anybody or to see anybody because she was gated for the rest of the month. 10 minutes later our phone rang.
“Hi,” Kim said. “What’s news?”
“Gee Kim, your sister just told me you are totally gated.
“There are ways around things,” Kim said. “I’ve worked it all out. How was the party?”
I told her. For some reason, not quite clear to myself, I didn’t mention Denzil.
“I wish I could have been there,” Kim sighed. “Instead I had to sort out the junk in our guest room. All because of that bloody Dougie.”
I refrained from saying that I had told her right from the start that Mr Douglas would cause her grief. I didn’t feel like discussing the poep, so I changed the subject.
“What do these African words mean your mom said the other evening? Vula momo or something.”
“Oh, vul’ mlomo. It’s Xhosa. It means ‘mouth opener’.
“Mouth opener?”
“Ja, it’s a black custom thing. My mom knows about that stuff because she grew up in the Transkei. Anyway, before the blacks get married each of their clans sends a representative to discuss the lobola, that’s the bride price the groom has to pay for the girl, and to facilitate the discussion, they drink vul’ mlomo, in the form of Kaffir beer.”
So the vul’ m’omo is some kind of booze?”
”Ja, I think my mom needed some the other day; that …uh…Dougie thing came as a bit of a shock to her.”
“I think she was great. At least she tried to talk to you.”
“Ja, she was all right. But my dad!” Kim sighed. “He nearly flipped his lid. I half expected him to get out his belt like when we were kids. This bloody gating business was his idea. I find it’s totally over the top.” She sighed again. “I don’t know, men are weird. They somehow lack subtlety.”
A picture of Denzil jumped into my mind. To me Denzil looked like the most subtle human being walking on this planet. “Mebbe it depends on the guy,” I said to Kim.
For the next 2½ weeks we had one performance per weekday night, 2 on Saturdays and a break on the holy South African Sundays. I never got over my nervousness, nor did anybody else, but contrary to me some people seemed to thrive on it. Ludwig was in super top form. He was radiating enthusiastic vigour, hardly needed any sleep and spent his spare time in the boat shed working on a rudder based on Polynesian principles.
Denzil watched just about every show. I got him in for free through the stage door. He also came visiting at the Winters. We fixed up the roof of the tree house and painted the furniture in my room sea green and turquoise with traces of crimson madder.
On the second Sunday I was waiting for Denzil to pick me up when Ludwig called me. He and Julie were in their bedroom. Ludwig held a little box in his hand. He opened it and took something out.
“Mathilda, do you know what this is?” He held up a condom.
Of course I know what that is. Where do you think I’ve been living all these years, on the other s
ide of the moon? What’s next – if I know about the birds and the bees?
I put on a pensive face and took the French letter.
Let’s see how you are going to explain this to me.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know. What is it?”
Ludwig and Julie exchanged a glance. I studied the wrapper. It was blue and white with the expiry date in the middle, 04.06.77.
“According to Rotary rules exchange students shouldn’t have any love affairs,” Ludwig said, “but I guess one can’t suppress human nature. This, my girl, is a condom. You and Denzil seem to hit it off quite well and getting involved with another person needs responsibility. In my experience it’s always the woman who sets the pace and I don’t want any unwanted pregnancies here. So, if you want to fuck you use condoms. You can have as many as you like.” He passed me the box. “And one other thing if you want to fuck, do it in this house. Don’t do it in the car somewhere in the woods. It’s not safe. Now let me show you how these things work.” He grabbed a wrapper, tore it open and said to Julie: “Pass me your hairbrush, please.” And he rolled the condom over the handle of the brush.
I watched – stunned. I hadn’t expected such a straightforward demonstration in prude, ole South Africa, not even from Ludwig.
He examined his work with satisfaction, smiled at me and asked: “Any questions?”
“Ja. Why do you say fuck and not make love? Fuck sounds so unromantic.”
Ludwig pulled the condom and let it snap back with a crack. “I make love all day long,” he grinned. “In everything I do I make love. And on top of that is that extraordinary thing of making love to a woman.” He smiled at Julie and Julie smiled back. “And I like to call it fucking – it’s got a lekker zesty sound to it.”
Denzil owned a massive old bakkie, a green one tonner Chev that had rubber buckles to hold the bonnet down. In the cabin there was one long comfortable seat, a basic dashboard on which one could read the speed in miles per hour, and a cubby hole, whose lid when opened, could be used as a table, with 2 special round depressions to hold glasses.
I liked that bakkie because the cabin had windows all around and one was sitting so high up that one could see things one would never see from a normal car. Denzil liked it because it was so simple.
“Look at the air conditioning,” he said one day while we were heading for his place. He pulled a lever at his feet. Air came gushing in through an opening in the bodywork. “You’ve got the same on your side.”
I pulled the leaver and a minor gale including small pieces of vegetation and sand whirled around our lower legs. Denzil said this was a minor inconvenience. He’d rather have a jalopy on which he could repair just about everything himself, than some fancy car that needed a qualified mechanic after every 10 minutes on a dirt road. He carefully negotiated some big casuarina roots crossing the sandy lane and said proudly: “I bought this bakkie with the very first money I earned.”
A snake wriggled across the road and disappeared in the undergrowth. Denzil put his hand on my thigh. The earth shook. I put my hand on his knee. The universe shook. I thought of the condoms in my bag and also that I didn’t really feel ready to use them. Or did I? Mebbe.
In a casuarina grove overlooking the deserted beach, we had a major kissing session. At first I was still aware of the roar of the breakers rolling up the shore and of the shrill cries of the sea birds and of the scent of resin and salt in the warm, moist breeze. Then I only felt Denzil’s firm body all around me and his tongue between my lips, gentle and purposeful, and my body aching and opening, expanding and exploring, every cell wide awake, stunned, and filled with some ancient knowledge of how to give and how to receive.
When we got our breath back we raced like 2 puppies towards the sea and jumped into the waves with all our clothes on, yelling with the delight of living.
Harriet didn’t seem the least surprised when we walked sopping wet onto her stoep. ”Hello my darlings,” she planted kisses on our faces and then carried on placing blossoms into a water filled crystal bowl.
“Isn’t the jasmine gorgeous this year?” She held a jasmine twig under my nose. “I’m having a…uh… meeting here today. What are you 2 planning?”
“We haven’t planned anything yet, Mom, but I’ve got to go to the university to get some stuff.”
“Well, you can’t go there dripping all over the show. You better get changed.”
“I didn’t bring any spare clothes,” I said.
“No problem,” Denzil said sticking the jasmine twig behind my right ear. “You can have some of Bianca’s stuff. I reckon her things fit you.”
“Who’s Bianca?” I asked when we walked down the darkish passage with Oregon pine boards creaking under our feet.
“Bianca is my sister.”
”Gee Denzil, I didn’t know you had sisters.”
“I’ve only got one. Bianca. She’s studying medicine at Wits up in Jo’burg. She’s 24; 5 years older than I.”
I took his hand and said: “Denzil, what’s next? You are a total mystery man.”
I had hit the nail on the head but I only found out much later what kind of a mystery man Denzil really was.
The Fenessey house was ancient with a couple of built on parts, which were also already ancient – at least by South African standards. It was filled with paintings and objects of foreign places; a lacquered cabinet from India with copper and brass ewers for barley beer; low chairs from central Africa with masks and animals carved into the wood and djambas from Yemen, with curved blades and intricately patterned handles. The main feature in Denzil’s room was a detailed 1 by 2 metre relief on the wall next to the window. Denzil had made it in a pottery class while in standard 8. It had taken him 2 terms and it showed an entire goldmine with headgears, cages in the shafts and workers and cocopans underground.
In front of the window stood a drawing board scattered with photos. They showed Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Ronchamps, The pyramids at Gizah and a huge steel contraption, which, Denzil said, had a perfect parabolic shape and was the Gateway Arch at St. Louis, Missouri. He had taken all the photos himself while travelling with his mother and his sister. His father paid for one overseas holiday each year; that was part of Denzil’s parents divorce agreement.
Denzil dived into his chaotic cupboard to find some shorts and a T-shirt, and from inside there his voice drifted muffled across the room: “I’m completely starved.”
In the kitchen, which had one wall built of wattle and daub, Mastermind, the ‘boy’, dressed in a smart white uniform, was organizing lunch. He filled up little saltcellars and cut bread into slices, while Denzil searched for food for us.
Harriet stuck her head through the door and asked Mastermind to set the table for 4 people.
“Which table, Madam?” Mastermind asked with a rebellious undertone.
“The dining room table, of course,” Harriet said.
Mastermind let fly a disgusted snort. “Madam, Kaffirs belong in the kitchen and not in the dining room.”
“You do as you are told, Mastermind, and set the table in the dining room,” Harriet said with a stern voice. “Do you understand?”
“Yes Madam.”
Denzil and I sat down for an enormous brunch on the stoep.
“What was all that kitchen and dining room table business about?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Denzil said between 2 bites of a sickly pink looking vienna.
“And why does Mastermind who is black himself call other blacks Kaffirs?”
“Indoctrination.” Denzil gulped down some guava juice.
I swallowed a spoonful of paw paw. “Why d’you eat so fast?”
“One year and 21 weeks in a posh boarding school,” Denzil munched. “If you didn’t hurry up there you never got seconds.”
“It’s bad for your digestion.”
“My digestion is fine. Pass me the butter and a hot cross bun, please.”
“What happened after one year and 21 weeks at your
boarding school?”
“They kicked me out.”
“Why?”
“Because I used my brains. They didn’t like people using their brains there.” He knocked back half the bun and grabbed a chicken leg.
“Did you like that school?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then why do you allow it to run your life?”
“Huh?” Denzil stopped abruptly to dig his teeth into the chicken.
“You are eating at a speed here as if there was no tomorrow, just because some years ago you happened to be at some school where one couldn’t get seconds, if one didn’t wolf it down. Just think about it. If you don’t stop it now you’ll still eat like that when you’re 80. That place has conditioned you for life. Is that really what you want?”
Denzil looked at the chicken leg in consternation. “Hell Mathilda, I think you’re right. I never thought about it that way.” He put the chicken leg on his plate. “Do you reckon it really makes a difference? I mean if one eats fast or slowly.”
“‘course it does. One can actually enjoy eating – taste the flavours, feel the textures, roll the stuff around in one’s mouth…it’s not only getting some food into your body, it’s a sensual thing…” Like making love, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
We packed Denzil’s surfboard and other beach gear into the back of the Chev and set off to Seagull Bay.
“We better first pop in at the university to get the stuff I need,” Denzil said driving out the gate.
3 blacks, 2 men and a woman, came walking up the road towards us. They were dressed in the bright green cloaks of an African Christian Church with broad white sashes around their waists.
“Sambonani,” Denzil greeted them.
“Sambonani,” they replied smiling.
Denzil leant out of the car window and had a short conversation full of clicky words with them.
“You speak their language?” I asked when we drove on.
“Ja, Xhosa. My mom always said you can’t live in Africa without speaking at least one African language.”
“Makes sense to me, but not many white people seem to think that way, except on the farms maybe. They don’t even teach African languages in the white schools.”
“Boetie, don’t say that to an Afrikaaner. They say Afrikaans is an African language because it’s spoken nowhere else in the world than here. They even feel it’s so African that the government now insists on black schools using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. That’s a new thing. Crazy hey?”
“Ja, what d’you reckon the blacks think?”
“They say it’s the oppressor’s language and they won’t accept it.”
“Do they have a choice?”
“Not a legal one.”
We came across several traffic signs announcing horses crossing, and several groups of riders trotting along the sandy lanes. At the golf club, white players followed by black caddies were busy hitting little white balls around, and in the suburbs primly dressed people came out of churches that looked like normal houses.
The university was a conglomerate of modern concrete blocks strewn over a vast, flat area bordering directly onto Seagull Beach. Broad stretches of cadmium green lawns cut through the dense bush and connected the various buildings and sports fields. The department of English Literature, where Harriet worked, was situated between the swimming pool and the cricket field. The Faculty of Architecture sat right at the back of the grounds, surrounded by an immense parking space and a row of trees with pink blossoms.
The parking was deserted except for us and some silent seagulls. We went in a back door to which Denzil had a key and climbed up some broad, spotless stairs, our steps echoing from the grey concrete walls. After a long passage with a public phone and notice boards announcing lectures and advertising second hand books and drawing boards, Denzil unlocked a storage room full of shelves stacked with manuals, and big tables covered with piles of plans and cardboard models of buildings. The musty smell of infrequent use hung in the air, specks of dust danced in a sunray. In a corner stood the 2 boxes Denzil wanted to collect. We looked in silence at the blue stripe of the sea sparkling outside a bull’s eye shaped window.
Denzil touched the jasmine twig still tucked behind my ear. “You know what that means in Tahiti?”
“I haven’t got a clue.”
“When a girl in Tahiti wears a flower above her right ear it means she is available.”
I felt goosebumps spreading. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I read it in some social anthropology book.”
He put a hand on my breast and stroked it gently. My innards melted and I stood on shaky legs while my nipples hardened. Denzil stuck his other hand into my shorts on my bum and a glowing ball swelled somewhere in my belly. I drew him close, close, and suddenly froze.
Shit, the condoms are in the car.
Denzil’s hand wandered between my legs and every single cell in my body exploded into some strange atavistic intensity.
I want more. Now. Fuck the condoms.
I grabbed Denzil and rubbed against him and…the telephone in the passage rang and broke the spell. We stood there looking at each other breathing hard. The phone kept on ringing.
“D’you think it could be for you?” I croaked when I got my breath back.
“I doubt it, but I better go and check.”
I could hear him shout, “put your money in” several times.
“It was somebody who doesn’t know how to use a phone,” Denzil said when he came back.