HERMANUS MARKET.
Vans have unloaded their cargo. Cardboard boxes have spilt their wares. I have put out my beaded animals.
The market is a jamboree of colours: Kenyan cotton sarongs called kikois, bolts of Indian cloth, Chinese silks, pyramids of mangos and oranges, yellow and red peppers, and golden bananas.
The market echoes with the rapping of the Tanzanians hawking their wood carvings, the muttering of a faux Zulu shaman fogging magic muti (a mix of beetroot, garlic and honey) to cure you of The Virus and still another hex in a vial to spook snakes away, the keening of a Moroccan snake-charmer’s flute, the dry-bone music of marimba men from Malawi and the haunting howl of the whale crier’s kelp horn.
Instead of riding listing, laden boats to Spain or Italy, young Africans with a fiery dream may head south, leaving behind them countries where a leopard-hatted ruler fattens his gut on overseas funds. They spend all their money on rides under tarps in trucks, in the holds of cargo boats. Or they walk for miles and miles, crossing borders, dodging the men and animals that prey on them under a vulture-zoned sky. By hook or by crook they find their way south to Cape Town, the London of Africa. And further south still to this marketplace.
A villagey, matey vibe pervades the market. Traders whistle or wave across the square; they shake hands and linger.
Now locals and holidaymakers drift into the square. You can tell them apart. The locals have sun-jaded, wind-scratched skin and a lazy lilt to their walk. They have lost their stiffness. The slick holidaymakers from Johannesburg up north tend to have an upbeat skip to their walk. They strive to look chilled in their Billabong gear and flip-flops, but they stay tuned to their cellphones in case a deal eludes them. The pale-skinned holidaymakers from overseas stand out like folk from another planet with their muted joy, Crumpler bags and colourful Crocs.
A coloured fruit seller pitches his high call over this jumble of voices. Liii-tchiii. Liii-tchiii.
Seeing me tuned in, he lobs a red ball to me across the square. I dart to catch it.
The spiky skin stings my palm. I pop the reptilian peel between my teeth and suck the slick sweet off the stone.
– Who’s stall’s this?! a bass voice booms.
I spin to see a fat ass forming big bongos in front of my stall.
The video-toting tourist in hard-core hiking boots flips over the bead animals as if to find some flaw in the handiwork. She spurns them one by one: topples a giraffe, tips a turtle’s feet up, tangles gecko tails.
– How much?
I hope to stay calm as I put the animals on their feet again.
– Depends. Was there one you had in mind?
She picks up a penguin.
– How much for this here bird? she twangs.
– That penguin’s a hundred rand.
– One hundred? I’ll give you half.
She plonks the penguin down and manhandles a gecko instead. So far I’ve traded a whale for a stone and now a woman wants a penguin at cost. I have nada to hand over to Zero, never mind profit to pocket. I ought to heed Zero’s Survival Tip #2 and haggle to and fro, but her gung-ho air kills this tango.
– I’m sorry. That’s what I want for it.
– You just lost money, boy.
She drops the gecko and shunts on to Hunter’s cowries.
– You walk on by, shoots Hunter. I have fuckall to sell to you.
The woman stomps off, lugging binoculars and bazooka-lensed camera.
Hunter laughs and I echo her as I fix the penguin’s bent feet.
Hunter and me in cahoots. An old white woman with dry, gooseberry-husk skin and a lovesick coloured boy. A killer duo.
A whisper of paper swirls over the hard fabric of the world.
I can smell low-tide kelp on the cool harbour wind.
I realise I haven’t seen the stray market dogs all day.