Thula-Thula (English Edition), page 22
Question 4(g). Give the definition of these idiomatic words. Windbag. Skinflint. Milksop. Card sharp. Turncoat. Lounge lizard.
She answered every one, except ‘lounge lizard’. Raced through the rest of the paper. Back to ‘lounge lizard’. Her answer had to be an indecipherable message to Braham Fourie.
Eleven words. Each one beginning with a letter from ABEL STRYDOM. Capital letters, because irregularity drew attention. Perhaps if he saw the capital letters, he would begin to understand. She thought long, working in pencil. Rubbed out what she’d written, tried again. Assault Begets Emotional Lesions. Shall Time Reverse Years Damaged Or Mauled?
It didn’t sound right and she hadn’t gone over it in ink, but the teacher who was collecting the answer sheets was just four desks away. The chances were zero that Braham Fourie would unravel her message.
She empties the linen cupboard in the bathroom of every last thread. Scatters it evenly over the mountain of rubbish in the garden.
All that remains is the pearl shell filled with faded sea urchins on the window sill. Among the sea urchins is a small glass jar filled with hundreds and thousands and a single silver dragée. Though faded and worn from years of vapour, the label is still legible: You’re one in a thousand.
A church fête, in the time before the night leguan.
She won the tiny jar with hundreds and thousands at the tombola table. Andrea’s mother explained what the words meant. She skipped through the crowds to find her mother behind the craft table. Her mother had made lots of dolls’ clothes to sell at the fête so the church would have money to buy shoes and food for the poor.
‘A present for you, Mommy!’ she cried, jumping up and down.
Her mother read the words. Then she picked her up and swung her around. ‘It’s terribly precious, Mommy’s little Gertruidah. I will keep it for eternity.’
What did ‘terribly precious’ mean?
To like something very, very much.
And ‘keep for eternity’?
To keep something forever and ever.
Her mother tickled her and put her down. She skipped away to find her father; she wanted him to buy her a pancake with cinnamon sugar.
She pours out the contents onto the window sill. The bottom of the shell is almost completely dust-free; the sea urchins too. Why did Sarah keep the tiny jar all these years? What went through her thoughts when she recalled the time of sandcastles and seagull footprints in the sand?
They were building a sandcastle on the beach at Hermanus. She, her mother and Anthony. They decorated it with shells and sea urchins and bits of dry seaweed they found near the rock pools and fetched in a red bucket.
She was wearing a yellow bathing suit that matched the pineapple cooldrink in the plastic cups and the yellow wafer biscuits. Her mother’s bathing suit was white, like sea foam. The three of them ran across the wet sand to collect more sea urchins to arrange around the castle entrance. Her mother ran fast. Her curly hair bounced and her legs were brown. She was the most beautiful mother in the world.
She pretended that it was forbidden to walk on the seabirds’ footprints because she didn’t want to crush the pretty patterns. It made her fall behind.
Come! her mother called and stood in the shallow foam to wait for her.
Her father wasn’t there. He was talking to the lawyers in Hermanus about Grandpa Strydom’s will. Lawyers were people whose job it was to see that Grandpa Strydom’s money and all his possessions were divided fairly among his three sons. Grandpa Strydom had two more sons, her mother said. They were her father’s brothers. But they lived too far away to visit. A will was a letter in which Grandpa Strydom wrote who should get what. Things like false teeth and a watch and a gout bangle you couldn’t cut up so everyone got a piece, her mother said. That’s why one got the false teeth and the other one the watch and the third one got the gout bangle.
She wanted nothing from Grandpa Strydom because she felt scared when her mother and father argued about Grandpa Strydom. She remembered a time when Grandpa Strydom came to Umbrella Tree Farm to visit, or maybe she’d dreamt it. He wore suspenders and chewed with his mouth open. At night he walked up and down the passage, tapping the wooden floor with his walking stick. He prayed in a strange language before they ate and she had to hold his knobbly hand. She imagined it was a chicken’s foot and when he said amen she secretly dipped her finger in the glass of table water and wet her hand. Used one end of the tablecloth to rub the scales from her hand.
Or maybe it had been a dream.
Some mornings her mother got cross when she told her what she’d dreamed. Then her mother said she was making up stories. After a while she wasn’t sure if she’d really dreamed or not.
Although she wanted nothing from Grandpa Strydom, she wanted her father to get Umbrella Tree Farm. Because their beds and clothes and her tree house were there. And the green-and-yellow John Deere tractor her father had bought at the agricultural show. The Bonsmaras and Bamba and the chicken coop and her mother’s car too. And where would Samuel and Mama Thandeka and Mabel live, and who would light a candle inside the lantern beside the stone angel at night if her mother lived some place else?
The sandcastle looked breathtaking, her mother said, and poured more cooldrink into the plastic cups. Anthony put his wafer biscuits inside a pearl shell and said it was his sea plate. The seabirds made loud noises. Her mother said that sheep bleated, donkeys brayed, snakes hissed and seagulls cawed. Caw-caw-caw-caw. It was a beautiful sound she had to remember. She was so glad that the Hermanus beach and the seagulls and sea urchins couldn’t be written up in Grandpa Strydom’s will. They belonged to Jesus, so no one could fight over them.
Next it was evening and she and Anthony played with the lift buttons in the hotel. Then it was morning and she was wearing her white church dress. There was a long black car, driving slowly. Her mother said Grandpa Strydom was inside the coffin, but his heart was in heaven. A woman she didn’t know poured her tea at a long table with a white tablecloth and held a green plate with golden patterns around the edge close to her face. There was raisin bread on the green plate. She shook her head because she didn’t like raisins. She also didn’t like the woman saying she looked just like her grandfather.
When all the tea and cake was gone, her parents fetched their suitcases from the hotel.
They drove a long way.
They stopped at a garage with rows of petrol pumps and she and her mother went to the toilet. Her father bought pies and marshmallows with coconut. They drove on. The sun shone through the car window. Her mother pinned a towel in the top of the car window, and told her to sleep with her head on Anthony’s leg. Before she fell asleep she heard her father say he’d left the tobacco pouch and pipe and gout bangle and false teeth at the old-age home.
The car wheels made a sound like the sea.
Then she slept.
She stirred in her sleep when her father lay her down on her bed and took off her shoes. Shhh, we’re home, go back to sleep, he said and brushed her hair off her forehead. He covered her with the eiderdown and tucked the pillow under her cheek.
It was warm and cosy.
She loved him.
In her sleep she said caw-caw-caw. She dreamed of seagulls and false teeth inside a glass with water. And of spongy coconut marshmallows.
She sweeps the faded sea urchins and the you’re-one-in-a-thousand jar back into the pearl shell. Places it on the cast-iron table with the family Bible and Anthony’s picture.
She is hungry. Maybe Mabel left some food out.
Before she walks to the umbrella tree she wants to disinfect her bedroom floor. While she’s running hot water into the bucket, she notices bath foam stains on her white tracksuit. Never mind, the tracksuit dates from her tennis days in high school. She will throw it away tonight.
She hadn’t believed for a moment that Braham Fourie would solve the riddle. Year-end papers were never handed out for discussion either. By the new year her strange answer would be forgotten.
Suppertime at the hostel. Everyone wanted her macaroni cheese. She traded it for a small bunch of grapes. Shuddered as she watched them squeeze tomato sauce over the snotty macaroni.
They said grace.
Announcements next: Students’ Christian Association groups would meet after supper. Seniors had permission to study in their rooms. Lights-out no later than eleven. No radios. Mr Fourie wanted to see Gertruidah after SCA in the small office.
Godammit.
She was the only one at school who wasn’t an SCA member. It was compulsory to take part in a religious activity, the principal said. This was a Christian school of impeccable morals.
She ignored him. Quakers took orders from no one.
During SCA time she sat on a garden bench under the wild plum tree in the hostel garden, with her eyes closed. Thought about the cinnamon dove that was nesting in the cedar tree. What were Mama Thandeka and Mabel having for supper tonight?
In grade eight after she hadn’t turned up at SCA for the third week running, the principal called her into his office. She told him her father had said she didn’t have to go to SCA.
He had, because it suited him to keep her away from places where confessions might slip out.
The principal said she was involving herself with heresy, and that she would live to regret it. She didn’t care what he said. She didn’t want to praise a deaf Lord.
After SCA in the small office, Mister Fourie would probably tell her she was making a mockery of her opportunities. Had it been anyone but him, she’d have stayed on the garden bench and played dumb.
‘Sit down, Gertruidah.’ He gestured towards the old-fashioned couch.
‘Good evening, Sir.’ He was barely six years older than her. In her mind he wasn’t Sir or Mister, he was Braham.
‘Brilliant paper, Gertruidah,’ and he pointed at the stack of exam papers on the coffee table. ‘Best in the class.’
Braham, take me away. Far from here. To live on a river boat in Holland. In a mud hut in Lesotho. Beneath a rocky overhang. As long as you love me. ‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘And I know that you know the answer to “lounge lizard”.’
‘If I’d known it, I’d have …’
He open the paper on page two; pushed it across the table towards her, his finger on her answer to question 4(g). ‘Or do you really believe Abel Strydom is a lounge lizard?’
His thumb brushed her hand when she picked up the paper. It sent a shock wave through her. ‘One mark less won’t make any difference, Sir.’ She dropped the paper and rose to her feet. Her hand was on the doorknob when he spoke behind her.
‘What did you want to tell me, Gertruidah?’
‘Nothing. The paper was easy, I was bored.’
‘You’re lying, Gertruidah.’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘Gertruidah …’ She wanted to hear him say her name a hundred times. ‘Remember, if you ever want to explain what you wanted to tell me with question 4(g) …’
‘I didn’t want to tell you anything.’
Then she left. So he wouldn’t see her crying.
She washes the floor three times with warm water and disinfectant. Fills the bucket with clean water each time. Takes a clean cloth and tosses the soiled one among the blue lilies. Another clean one for drying. Lies on her stomach and licks the yellowwood floor. To confirm that every trace of Abel Strydom has been washed from her room.
Not long after their first visit to Braham’s parents he arrived at The Copper Kettle with the happy news that his housing loan had been approved and registration at the deeds office would be complete before spring. He couldn’t wait to leave the noisy, unruly hostel behind, he said.
‘Then we can have coffee at my house where no one will stare at …’
‘Forget it, Braham. I’ll come over and clean your house or whatever, while you’re at school. When you go on holiday I’ll water your pot plants and feed your cat. But I’m not going to visit you there on my own. It’s got nothing to do with people gossiping. I’m simply not comfortable with it.’
‘Surely you’re not afraid I’ll rape you?’ Tongue in cheek.
‘No. And possibly, yes.’
There was a wood fire burning in The Copper Kettle. It was warm and the place was packed, because there was a pancake special. She didn’t eat snotty pancakes. Ordered toast with honey instead.
‘You’re not all that busy on the farm during winter?’ It was part statement, part question.
‘We are. I’m white-washing the shed and my father is casting a cement floor for the covered section of the milk kraal. This coming week we’ll be inspecting fences all the way up to the plantain field and checking the watering holes. We each take a sleeping bag and a one-man tent. I’m glad to be getting away because the entire house feels sticky: my mother and Mabel are making marmalade. Why do you ask?’
‘I was hoping you’d have time to set the grade eleven language paper for me. I’m up to my ears with tennis matches and the papers are due in two weeks.’
She drew on the table with a toothpick, so she wouldn’t have to watch him eat his cheese-and-tuna pancake; it was smothered in cheese sauce. Ever since Abel had banned him from Umbrella Tree Farm, Friday afternoons had become her lifeline. She didn’t want to do or say anything that might spoil the afternoon; rather looked away from the soft mush. ‘Bring me a textbook, I’ll do it.’
‘Often when I’m setting papers I remember that time when you deliberately twisted the meaning of “lounge lizard”.’
‘I was bored.’
‘Tell me why you wrote Abel Strydom as the answer.’
If she took the bait he might reel her in. ‘Braham, so many teenagers have a grudge against their fathers. I just went through a stage like that and …’
‘You still can’t stand him.’
She turned the toothpick around, wrote with the sharp end. ‘My father can be such a show-off. Just last weekend at tennis he was dining out on the story of that bag of terrorist ears he’s still hoarding.’ She had to keep talking, lead him away from his objective. ‘And the tame lion that slept in his bed at the army base camp. And then the next day he was leading the singing in church. Sometimes I’m convinced he’s sick in his head.’
Relief when his plate was empty and the waitress cleared it away. She leaned forward to wipe a spot of cheese sauce at the corner of his mouth. Crumpled the serviette.
‘There’s something about your father I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time, but I’m hesitant …’
Head him off. ‘If it’s something negative you’d better not tell anyone but me or you’ll be out of a job. A recce doesn’t let anyone stand in his way.’
‘Your father, Gertruidah,’ and he rested a forefinger on her hand to distract her from the toothpick, ‘was never a recce. It’s just big talk …’
‘Braham …?’ A muscle twitched in her eye. ‘You weren’t in the army, how would you know? I swear, my father was a recce, he’s got a bag full of terrorist ears and photographs …’
‘Any soldier can have ears and pictures. I know someone in the Permanent Force. He told me your father’s name was listed on the Wall of Shame …’
‘What is a Wall of Shame?’
‘Google it. His name was removed after he apologised in writing a few years back. But if he keeps bragging about it …’
It was as if she was speaking with someone else’s tongue. ‘Then what?’
‘Then I will report him. And they’ll never remove his name again.’ He leaned forward, speaking softly so only she could hear. ‘He is a coward and a liar and a fraud, Gertruidah. You’re right, he’s sick in his head. I’m not saying it because he’s banned me from his farm; I’m saying it because these two eyes,’ resting his middle fingers on the corners of his eyes, ‘can see what he’s doing to you. I don’t know exactly what’s going on on Umbrella Tree Farm. But there’s something going on, of that I’m certain. Or do you suppose I’m blind?’
She laced her fingers through his as if she was clutching at him to save her life. ‘No, you’re perfectly clear-sighted. But I’m begging you, Braham, don’t hurt me. I’m in enough pain already.’
He kneaded her fingers between his. ‘Never, Gertruidah, not if I can help it.’
That evening she googled the Wall of Shame. Her father’s name wasn’t there. But she sat stunned, reading with growing bewilderment about power-hungry men who could just as well have been Abel Strydom. Made a printout and shoved it under his office door when she knew he was inside, busy with his spread-eagled lipstick women and his box of men’s tissues.
… The individuals listed on this forum are those who have falsely claimed to be Qualified South African Special Forces Operators, or who have falsely claimed to have served in / with / detached to Special Forces.
These individuals are to be found in all walks of life. From the Board room to the Bar room, in civilian, military and law-enforcement circles, in academic and research environments, in virtually all or any occupations.
They share no common denominator other than dishonesty.
Such individuals steal the honour of the real Operators, and they dishonour the name of Special Forces.
They are a disgrace to themselves and their country.
They prey upon the good intentions of people by falsely and dishonestly trying to solicit attention, sympathy, unearned respect or some other aspect of personal gain.
When the doorknob turned after midnight, she was waiting behind the door in the dark with her racquet. This would be the very last night he’d turn the doorknob. When the racquet caught him between his shoulder blades, he roared. Spun around. She hit his upper arm. Kicked his ankles together so he crashed onto the wooden floor. Her sneaker found his ribs. He groaned heavily.
‘Bloody coward! I’ve taken enough from you! You will never,’ and her sneaker connected with his ribs again, ‘come near me with your …’
In the dark she didn’t see him reach for the buckskin she was standing on.
It took a week before she was able to walk as far as the kitchen. Slowly, supporting herself with one hand on the passage wall.
