Thula-Thula (English Edition), page 25
But be that as it may.
Late afternoon the visitors started heading home. When the last ones were gone, Samuel came to say he and one of the labourers were going to the vygie camp to fetch hay for the cowshed; could he have the keys for the truck. Abel fetched the keys and held them out to Anthony. My big boy, he said, you’ve been driving for a while and because it’s your tenth birthday you can drive Samuel to the vygie camp in the Isuzu.
I was clearing cups on the stoep and sent Mabel home to gather kindling for our evening fire. My tired body wanted to be in bed early. I watched them drive off with my own eyes. Samuel and Anthony in front, with Anthony behind the steering wheel. The other man in the back. Not even a dark feeling anywhere inside me because Anthony was driving from before he could see over the steering wheel properly. Almost had to stand up to reach the pedals for the brakes and petrol.
I only had the stoep to sweep before I could go home when I saw the other man come running towards the house. His face and jacket covered in dust, his eyes almost popping out of his head. He jumped out when he saw the truck was sliding over the cliff, he said, out of breath from running.
Although I am old and half-blind, the picture of Samuel’s body being carried on the canvas to lie on the stoep still haunts me. With Anthony beside him.
Covered with blankets, bodies without spirits.
Star people.
To this day I can hear Missus Sarah scream. Or I see her in my dreams running through the garden like a dog with rabies. Rushing here and there between the stoep and the garden. Beating Abel with her fists while he stood like a man made from cement. She hit his face, his chest, kicked his shins, and cursed him into hell because he gave Anthony the keys.
Abel stood like a statue.
Without the doctor to give her an injection to make her sleep, she would have jumped from the windmill that same evening. Or held the big gun against the top of her mouth and pulled the trigger.
Almost twenty-two years have passed. And in all that time Missus Sarah and I never spoke about Mabel’s white skin. What would it have brought her anyway? But she knew, and that was the reason she loved Mabel like her own child. How Missus Sarah’s head worked, I couldn’t say, but there were times when I thought that the love she owed to Abel she gave to Mabel instead. As if she loved Abel through Mabel.
But not once after Anthony died did I see Missus Sarah comfort Abel. Never touched him. Never sat and drank coffee with him. Never laughed with him. Every feeling inside her twisted and became pitch black.
Only Gertruidah loved him. Like a tiny shadow she trailed after him to the shed. Sang to him.
I love mommy, she loves me
We love daddy, yes siree.
He loves us and so you see
We’re a happy family.
In my heart I know for sure that being lonely and being pushed away was the reason Abel lost his head later on. I am not trying to defend him, that’s not it. But my heart knows that the sorrow must have overtaken him too. The bitter guilt. And the fear, because everyone on Umbrella Tree Farm had to tell the police the same story, that it was Samuel driving the truck. If the police knew it was Anthony behind the wheel, Abel would have to stand in court for murdering his own child. Manslaughter, that’s what Mabel says.
If you mix together the guilt and the fear and the loneliness, I don’t want to know the kind of poison you make. But it is a poison that will go straight to your head.
About six months after Anthony died, that was when Missus Sarah went to Cape Town for the WAU meeting and Gertruidah stayed behind with Abel and me. And the months after Missus Sarah came back was when Gertruidah became silent. Didn’t recite rhymes any more. Didn’t leave breadcrumbs out for the garden fairies. Or chase the dragonflies in the ponds in the garden. Started wetting her bed.
I thought the reason was Anthony, that the sadness was only hitting her then.
I got the fright of my life the morning I was putting dry sheets on her bed and saw the blood stains on the bottom sheet and on her pyjama pants.
I found her in a corner of the tree house with her doll. Gertruidah, I said, show me where you are bleeding. I’m not bleeding, she said, and the fear travelled across her tiny face.
That’s a lie, Gertruidah. Tell me or I will go tell your mama.
If I tell the leguan will come in the night and stick his tongue up inside my nose and suck out my brain.
That’s not true, Gertruidah. Besides, Bamba sleeps with you. Do you think a leguan will get past him? Tell me, Gertruidah, I want to rub ointment on the place that is bleeding …
Daddy did rub ointment on it last night. He made magic ointment come out his trunk and rubbed it on with his fingers. Go away from my tree house, you’re making a noise and it’s waking my baby.
Now that Samuel was a star I was alone by the fire at night. There was no one I could tell what I had heard. I must go knock at the mfundisi’s house when I am in town, I thought. He is a man of God and he won’t gossip or cause trouble. He will tell me what to do about my fears for Gertruidah.
I wasn’t only scared for Gertruidah; I was scared for Mabel too. She was often in the yard and in the house on Umbrella Tree Farm. Went along everywhere in the truck. And once a man’s head got twisted, it stayed that way and got tangled up even more. And with every new twist he imagined it was a way of turning straight. Until after a while he could no longer tell which one was the twisted road and which one was straight.
I walked into our house and found Mabel paging through the Woman’s Weekly magazine. Mabel, I asked, have you ever seen a white man’s willy? She laughed and held a fist in front of her mouth. Yes, she said, long ago when Anthony peed behind the almond tree.
Then I knew that Mabel wasn’t harmed. I told her to close the magazine and listen to me a while. Because I wanted to talk about places on her body that weren’t other people’s business. I didn’t get far before Mabel said she already knew all about those things because Missus Margie talked about them at school. She said Missus Margie said if anyone touched your private places, or wanted to look at them, or wanted to show you theirs, you must hit and spit and shout and tell. You mustn’t stay silent.
‘I’ve already punched three of the boys at school, Mama, and every time I put a rock in my fist. Mama,’ Mabel twisted her fingers together the way she did when she was nervous, ‘I know a secret about Gertruidah … but Mama mustn’t tell Missus Sarah.’
When Mabel told me about the hole between Gertruidah’s Lulu doll’s legs, there was no longer any doubt in my mind about why Gertruidah was different from before.
Late that night while Mabel slept I put another wild-plum log on the fire and in my head I talked to Missus Sarah. To Abel. The mfundisi. No one answered. I talked to a star because I thought it was Samuel’s star. And I thought I heard Samuel’s star say: Thandeka, keep your nose out of white people’s business or you could be digging your own grave.
I stared into the flames and sang my most beautiful song to console myself. Softly in the back of my throat. Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika; Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo … God bless Umbrella Tree Farm. Help bring an end to Abel’s war.
Many years have passed. Today I know that sometimes you pick a star to talk to, any old star, and you pretend that star is telling you something. Because you’re afraid to figure out the truth with your own head.
I waited for my chance with the doll. Waited a long time, because I wanted to see what would happen in the meantime.
When Gertruidah went away to school for grade one, I took a needle and thread and I darned the hole between the doll’s legs. When Gertruidah came back from the hostel I told her that while she was away Lulu got sick, with a runny tummy and fever. And that I fixed the sore place between Lulu’s legs.
Her eyes grew wide.
So she wouldn’t be scared, I carried on talking. I didn’t tell Lulu’s grandmother, I said, or she would be worried. And she didn’t have time to be worried now she was busy making a double-breasted jacket for the WAU’s needlework competition. If she was worried she wouldn’t sew straight.
After the weekend when Gertruidah went back to the hostel she took the doll with her. Never brought it home again. Told her mother someone must have stolen her doll. Missus Sarah nagged the hostel people to look for the stolen doll, but nothing came of it. No one had seen the doll.
Until twelve years later. When it was almost time for Gertruidah’s baby to be born she went up into the mountain with her heavy body to show Mabel where the stone house was. When Mabel came back she told me the doll was hidden in the stone house. Wrapped in a flannel blanket; lying on a red-grass mattress.
That night by the fire I thought: One day, when Nkosi separates the sheep from the goats, a heavy whip will crack on Abel’s back.
Where can Mabel have gone to, about something to do with Gertruidah?
Gertruidah who sits with her back against the umbrella tree and longs for a man. Nkosi made a woman’s head different from a man’s, I don’t know why. A man’s head is nearly always filled with fighting and bedroom things and money and cars. A woman’s head is nearly always filled with tears. It must be terrible to see what is going on inside Gertruidah’s head.
Nkosi must keep my legs steady, because on Monday I must take my walking stick and make my way to the yard. To tell Gertruidah about Mfenana and all the other dark things she has to know. Then I want to hold her a while, and sing to her like the day at the windmill.
Thula thu, thula baba, thula sana … There, there, my little child, there there …
I will hold her even though she doesn’t like anyone to hold her or say thula. I must go to the yard, even if it is the last place I go on earth.
Maybe I’ll send Mabel to town with Missus Margie on Monday. So she can tell the teacher I am asking him to come here. He mustn’t go to the big house, he must came straight to me. He knows the path by the river because he came here once before, a long time ago.
It was in the time when Gertruidah was hiding with Miss Lyla in East London. Abel told everyone he and Missus Sarah were going to East London too, to keep an eye on Gertruidah after the operation on her sore shoulder. They wanted to make sure she was resting properly and that she didn’t hurt her shoulder on purpose. And they wanted to take her schoolwork so she didn’t fall behind. They made up lots of stories, but they didn’t go to East London. The whole time they sat in a hotel near the sea to calm Missus Sarah’s nerves.
In a way it was my fault her nerves were giving in. Because one day in the kitchen I cornered her and said what my heart wanted to say. ‘Missus Sarah, you must see that Abel’s seed tubes are tied. Because if you don’t, the Lord will punish you.’
‘Thandeka,’ and she cried so hard her tears fell onto the scone dough, ‘I don’t want to live any more. I’m going to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills …’
‘Heavens, Missus Sarah, and when you wake up on the Other Side, you will be burning in hell. It is no good running from one fire into another. Just see to it that Abel’s seed tubes are tied; ask any doctor in the town where you are going.’
‘I’ll castrate him with the carving knife … The biggest present I could get would be to never have to sleep with him again. I hate it, Thandeka, I want to throw up every time he takes off his pants.’
‘That is something a wife has to do, Missus Sarah. That is just how it is …’
One Saturday afternoon while she and Abel were away, the teacher pulled up in the yard and walked along the river and right into my sitting room. To ask where Gertruidah was. Mabel was out, gone to the store on Sweetwater, and I had to do the talking. I thought about Samuel who told me to keep my nose out of white people’s business. I said Gertruidah was in East London with a bad shoulder that needed cutting.
‘That’s a lie,’ he said, ‘I want to know where Gertruidah is, right now.’
He kept saying I was lying. When I saw he had me cornered I switched to my mama’s language and pretended I was senile.
Then he gave up and left.
It was a good thing Mabel was at the Sweetwater store or she might have told the teacher the truth.
On Monday Mabel must go and tell him I need to talk to him. Even if he comes at night while Gertruidah is asleep. And even if he must leave his car behind the hill at the causeway so no one will see the lights.
No, maybe it is better to leave the teacher alone. My blood feels thin and if I fall over now Mabel isn’t here to help me up. So let me get to my bed and lie down for my afternoon nap.
◊◊◊
She has drifted off to sleep under the umbrella tree, and wakes up with a start. Drinks coffee to clear her head. Dusts the soil from her pants. She’ll have to hurry up with the dining room if she still wants to get to the stone house to fetch the key for her school suitcase. Mabel and Johnnie will have to help with the heavy furniture.
It’s almost one o’clock when she reaches the stairs.
She leans against the doorway of the open-plan living and dining room. Studies everything slowly. The impressive teak furniture. Mohair curtains. Wine-red Van Dijk carpets. Sheffield silverware. Venetian chandeliers. Waterford crystal, the kind people drink from in palaces. Black Steinway concert piano. Persian prayer mats. The table runner Sarah brought back from the Passion Play in Oberammergau.
She writes a letter sentence in the dust on top of the Steinway. The eerie dirge Gertruidah heard ate at her heart.
Money wasted on a piano no one played. Except Abel on evenings when he’d been drinking. He could only play two songs. Haltingly, while he sang along. ‘Moon river …’
Drunker, sadder.
Old man look at my life
I’m a lot like you
I need someone to love me
The whole day through
She heard the thud from her bedroom when he fell off the stool. A pathetic bundle on the Van Dijk carpet. His head on the ironing blanket, which Sarah placed there so he wouldn’t vomit or drool on her carpet.
Equal amounts of pity and contempt, for the man who lay in front of the Steinway.
She must’ve been about seven or eight the winter the big rains came. It poured down for days until the yard looked like a dam. Trees, cows and rocks were swept downriver. Both the bridge and the causeway were flooded and Mama Thandeka couldn’t get to work. Umbrella Tree Farm was cut off from the town. When the rain cleared and the water level started dropping, she and her father drove into the veld to inspect the damage.
Near the almond trees he stopped and said they must walk the rest of the way. He wanted to see what was blocking the irrigation ditch and he was scared the truck would get stuck. While he dragged a drowned sheep from the ditch, she jumped across to play among the clover. She pretended she was a Dutch countrywoman with a bonnet and apron and a basket with cheese she was going to sell in town.
Suddenly, out of the blue, there was a loud crash.
How he got to her so quickly, she had no idea. He grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder. Ran through the clover, cleared the ditch. She could hear the rushing water while he ran. When he put her down next to the truck and she looked back, the Dutch countrywoman’s clover field had turned into an angry brown sea. It washed over the irrigation ditch and lapped at the trunks of the almond trees.
‘I heard the weir break.’ He was gasping for breath. ‘Heavens, Truidah, that was close …’
He wrapped her in his parka jacket and they drove home. He made hot chocolate because she was shivering. While she drank, her teeth rattled against the mug. Down the passage she could hear Sarah’s stomach go.
Although she hated him, in the winter months she always covered the bundle at the Steinway with a blanket.
Years later, in a collection of poetry she’d found in Mr Williston’s library, she read a poem called ‘The Dug-Out’ by Siegfried Sassoon. She loved the hissing sound his name made: Sassoon. Who was the person in his poem whose sleep reminded him of the dead? Every time she covered Abel with a blanket, she silently recited the poem:
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled?
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head …
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Did it matter if your surname was Stevens, Spencer, Strydom or Sassoon? Was there in everyone’s life someone whose pain touched their heart, though they were often sullen and cold? Someone who would make them hot chocolate when they were shivering from shock. The same someone who turned into a frog when he came to your bed wearing a different skin?
Frogs arrive
With an ugly fury.
You are my judge,
You are my jury.
Her eyes glide around the imposing living room. It has been a safe haven. Whenever there were guests, she was protected.
The living room was filled with people who’d been invited to Sunday afternoon tea.
‘Come, Gertruidah,’ he said so they could all hear, ‘get up on the piano stool and sing us the giddy-up song.’
‘No, I don’t want to.’
‘Ah please, Gertruidah,’ Andrea’s mother said, and some of the other women too.
She aimed for the door but her father caught her and lifted her onto the piano stool. When no one but her could see his eyes, they turned into angry wolf eyes. Sing, he hissed, close to her ear. She pulled up her bobby socks, smoothed out the front of her new tartan winter church dress and swallowed her tears. The people’s outlines became blurred. The song came softly out of her throat.
Horsy, horsy don’t you stop
Just let your feet go clippity-clop
Your tail goes swish and the wheels go round
Giddy-up we’re homeward bound.
She jumped off the piano chair and ran away to hide under the breakfast nook where no one would look for her, not even Mama Thandeka because it was Mama Thandeka’s off-weekend. Just as long as she was quiet as a mouse.
