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Ma Smit always told us not to stick our spoons in someone else’s cooking pot.
Ma Smit was full of good advice. She shared it with everyone, whether or not they wanted to hear it. Often the other villagers would answer back with their own family wisdom, and a lively debate would follow. We drank in every word. In Africa, it takes a village to raise a child. And for those of us who the ancestors blessed with even a small measure of success, it takes hard work to repay that privilege. Long hours. Sacrifices.
That’s why I put up with Oom Paul’s repeated callouts. I hadn’t built his house. As far as I knew, he’d built it himself. He was that kind of guy. Always taking charge. Confident in his own abilities. Certainly in his younger days, when he had run a successful construction company and built most of the permanent structures in the area. Not much had changed. Except that he had sold the company a few years before, retiring to live quietly with his wife on the largest stand in town. In a multi-storey monster where the electrical cables had been strung together like Xmas lights in an asylum.
“Two days,” he told me again.
He wasn’t that old. His long beard had turned white, earning him automatic respect as an elder of the community. But he hadn’t yet lost any muscle, or the ability to walk. In fact, despite the beard, he was still bigger and stronger than most young men.
“Two days I’ve been waiting for this to be fixed, Thulani,” he went on. “Two days without a hot shower, in this damn freezing weather. It’s been hell.”
I looked away from the fuse box and met his gaze. I was seconds away from resolving the issue that had seen me crawling from one end of his dusty attic to the other in a futile attempt to find a break in the wiring that ran his geyser. He could wait a few seconds longer.
I let my dust-stained clothing speak for me. The white golf shirt that had been fresh last week. Damp patches creating concentric circles under the arms. My best pair of jeans, now ripped at the knee but still salvageable with a borrowed needle and thread. And the sweat lines that cut through a thick layer of grime despite the single-digit temperatures outside.
“Two days without a shower? Eish. That’s a tragedy, boss.”
He grunted and looked away. Reached for a photograph on the nearest bookcase. This one was only marginally closer than the others. Every wall in the house seemed to be lined with bookcases. A layer of wooden insulation, dark mahogany shelves stretching from floor to ceiling in unending rows. Some of them actually held books. The others were home to more bric a brac than any one family had a right to own.
“Alright, man. Just get it done, will you?”
I glanced at the photograph. Oom Paul standing next to a small blonde lady, arms around one another, both smiling at the camera. Oom Paul was wearing a cowboy hat and oversized shades. She wasn’t. “Is she around, Mrs Verster?”
He shook his head as he put the photo back where he’d found it.
“No, man. She’s at her sister’s place.”
I nodded and flicked the mains switch. The lights hummed back into life. “Recovering from her holiday?”
Oom Paul sat down heavily. Perhaps he was feeling his age after all. “You know, that was the real tragedy. All those people...” He looked again at his wife’s photo. “She doesn’t even like country music. She just wanted to spend her time in the casino. ‘That’s why people come to Vegas,’ she said. But I insisted. Now look where we are. It’s as if she holds me personally responsible.”
I closed the fuse box. My work here was done. “Look, Oom Paul, it could have been worse. You know what I’m saying?”
He nodded. Stood up, tugging on his beard. “Ja, of course. You’re right.” He reached for his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”
I held up a hand. “The insurance company will give you a call once I’ve submitted my report. There’s probably a small excess. But if you need anything else done,” I took out my notepad and scribbled my new number, “you know you can call me directly. Electrical. Plumbing. Whatever.”
Oom Paul took the piece of paper and held it at arm’s length, squinting. “What, no business card?”
I laughed. “Oom Paul, right now I don’t even have a roof over my head. You missed the storm that blew through here the other day. There’s a bunch of us crowded into the Estcourt community hall, just trying to survive while we rebuild our shacks.”
Oom Paul looked me in the eyes. “The world’s going to hell. I just don’t understand it anymore. Why isn’t the government doing something?”
“Come on, Oom Paul. They’re too busy taking one another to court over petty distractions. It’s like watching a soap opera. Or a stage magician. Nobody wants to focus on the real problems. Poverty. Starvation. Housing. Unemployment. It’s never going to change for most of us. So the people, they do what they have to.” I shrugged. “But you know what they say. Every cloud has a silver lining.”
“Eh? How can you say that?” Now I regretted the locked eye contact. “Where was the silver lining for all those people gunned down in Vegas? Where’s the silver lining from your shacks blowing down? All your people left homeless?”
“Displaced.”
“What?”
“That’s what we are. Displaced. Not homeless. Look, I’m just saying that sometimes people put themselves into situations...”
“No.”
He raised one meaty hand and picked up the photograph again with the other. It was clear that this conversation was over. I reached for my jacket, hanging on the back of a chair near the door.
“No. Thanks for all your hard work, Thulani, but please, just go.”
He stepped past me and grabbed his own jacket from the back of the door. It was soft black leather, with a sheepskin lining. It was the warmest thing I had ever seen.
Oom Paul opened the door and gestured with the wave of an arm.
I stepped out into a biting wind that took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes.
*
AN HOUR LATER MY PHONE rang.
“Thulani?”
“Hello?”
“It’s Paul. Look, man, I’ve been thinking... we can’t have all you guys homeless and hungry. Not when the rest of us have more than enough to go around.”
“Displaced.”
“Eh? Ag, whatever, man. You know what I mean. Listen, I’ll be coming out there tonight with a big pot of soup for you guys. Should be enough to feed maybe a hundred people. That will be enough, right?”
I stopped on the side of the uneven dirt road. The rains had come and gone, absorbed into the parched African dust, leaving only devastation in their wake. In the human world. Mother Nature held a different view. Green shoots peekabooed through the cracked mud, long sleeps ended by a lover’s kiss. Soon there would be fruit on the scattered trees, and backyard vegetable patches would yield their meagre feasts. But soon wasn’t today.
“Oom Paul, that’s a great gesture. Really. I’m just not sure whether you’d be safe out here after dark.”
I moved the phone away from my ear to avoid his bark of laughter.
“Nonsense, man. Everyone there knows me. Look, make sure they’re all gathered together in that community hall you mentioned. Around seven, say.”
“Maybe if you drop it off early enough, you can make it back home before it gets too dark.”
The phone squawked in my ear. He was driving between cellphone masts. I missed most of what he said. He had probably missed my words too.
“...enough bad news and misery, Thulani. Tonight, we let the people smile again. It’s what she would want me to do if she was here. Hell, man, she’d be driving out there herself.”
He hung up before I could reply.
I looked back towards town, picturing Oom Paul in his kitchen with a mountain of vegetables and his wife’s photograph propped up on the counter. I was almost home. Another half hour and my long day would be over. Taxis didn’t run out to the township, not this late in the day. Even if I’d had money in my pocket, no amount would have persuaded one of them to tackle this rutted track as dusk approached.
I turned my gaze towards home. I could already see cooking fires flaring up between the few remaining shacks. A chill spread from the bottom of my spine. I shrugged myself deeper into my threadbare jacket, hands pushed deep into the side pockets.
We’d only received electricity recently in the township, and not everyone was lucky enough to be wired into the grid yet. Cable theft was still a problem. The informal nature of the community was another. Neither problem was insurmountable. They would be resolved and overcome, in time. African time, which runs differently from Western time. In the meantime, people did what they had to do to survive. Whatever it took.
I started walking again, scanning the horizon as it gradually changed from blue to crimson. No rains tonight. That should be a good thing. Except that a decent downpour might have changed Oom Paul’s mind, made him think twice about negotiating the fragile trail linking our two worlds.
He was wrong. If Mrs Verster had been there, she would have talked him out of it. Everyone knew that she was the sensible one. Yes, she would have wanted to help. Would have been the first one to volunteer. But then they would have come out in the middle of the day, leaving their feast to be reheated and served when the people returned from work. She wouldn’t have left it this late, this close to dusk. She had been born and raised in the community. She understood.
I could see the dominoes falling, one by one.
I raised my phone to call him back, but I was out of airtime.
*
SURE ENOUGH, JUST BEFORE seven, Oom Paul’s double cab could be seen in the distance. We watched it approach, headlights burning through the smog that cloaked the rural community after nightfall. There could be no mistaking those headlights, or the spotlights mounted on top of the cab. Even if there had been other vehicles negotiating that lonely road at night.
The neighbourhood kids ran in circles. They’d never had food delivered before. Most of these families had no money to waste on such luxuries.
They were the lucky ones. Many of the other kids had no families. The community looked after them and made them part of something bigger. I’d been raised that way myself, until Ma Smit had taken me under her maternal wing.
Anyway, no restaurants delivered this far out of the main town. Certainly not after dark.
Nobody came out here after dark.
*
I’D DECIDED TO TRY to head him off at the open area in front of the community hall, where he would have to park. If I could get him to drop off the food and turn around, all might still be well.
As he pulled up in front of the only solid building in the village, I could see that wasn’t going to work.
Music blasted from his truck, sparking a juvenile dance-fest from the children who had run behind him for the last hundred metres. Tom Petty. I Won’t Back Down, from 1989’s classic Full Moon Fever album. Well, there we go. End of discussion.
Except that there was no discussion. As soon as Oom Paul opened his door, even before he climbed out of the cab, he was accosted by the mini multitudes.
“Thulani,” he called, laughing as he hoisted two of his fans into the air. “Grab some guys, will you? There are boxes in the back filled with 500 ml tubs of soup. I managed to make ninety-two of them.”
I waved towards the lights of the community hall, and people came forward to help. The cooking fires behind the hall flickered as shadows passed in front of them. They were far enough away that we couldn’t see exactly what was happening over there. But not so far away that they would have missed Oom Paul’s arrival. I shivered.
Oom Paul’s meaty hand fell on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, boet. This soup will warm you up. Put some hair on your chest.”
*
THE CHILDREN ATE FIRST, purely to keep them quiet. Community leaders stood behind the fold-out table that had been set up in a corner of the hall, watching for those who might try to help themselves to more than one portion. The wooden spoon that lay on the table wasn’t intended for dishing up.
Then the old people were served where they sat on plastic chairs that stood in double rows in front of the table. The soup was an instant hit. More stew than soup, each white polystyrene tub was filled to the brim with meat, rice and multi-coloured vegetables, all swimming in a savoury broth that filled the hall with steam and smiles and silence.
Oom Paul stood by the door in his leather jacket, nodding his head. He didn’t need a bowl of soup to warm him. That jacket was impervious to wind, rain and plummeting temperatures.
I undid the zip on my weather-beaten windbreaker. It had served me well over the years. Too many years. Looking at Oom Paul’s sheepskin lining made me feel naked.
“Here’s your coffee, Oom Paul.”
His eyes never left the faces of the community members as they tucked into his offering. He smiled.
“You know, man, Thulani, this is what it’s all about, eh? Reaching out. Being involved. Standing together.”
I sipped my own coffee. “You should have had reindeers pull your cab here tonight. This is the most some of these people have eaten all month. They’ll be talking about it for weeks.”
I saw Ma Smit slip her best false teeth from an inside pocket, the ones she saved for special occasions. She popped them in before raising the first spoon to her lips. Eyes closed, she chewed slowly, savouring every mouthful. I could see her mind working, trying to identify the herbs and spices. Trying to decide what she would have done to make it better.
“But I thought you had more people than this. Where are the rest of them?”
Damn. The warm glow had distracted me, taken my eye off the ball. I had missed my chance to draw a line and bring the evening to a close.
“They’re still at work, Oom Paul. Some of them stay over in town, if they end up working late.”
He looked around. “Nonsense, man. Not that many. Can’t be.”
The old man headed for the door. I tried to cut him off, but I was too slow.
“There’s plenty soup left over, Oom Paul. We’ll keep it for them. Warm it in a pot when they get back.”
“It won’t be the same.” Now he stood on the dusty concrete slab that served as an outside extension of the hall. It occurred to me that he had probably poured that slab himself, although the actual bricklaying would have been handled by his construction crew. “There they are, off having their own party without us. Didn’t you tell everybody, like I asked?”
I took a second to place my coffee mug on the ground next to the door. Ma Smit would kill me if anything happened to her best mugs.
By then it was already too late. The big man in his sheepskin leather jacket was striding through the dust, determined to share the last of his bounty while it was still warm.
“Hey, you guys. Come get some soup, man. It’ll do you good.”
I caught up as he reached the circle of figures huddled around a crackling fire. Greasy smoke fell in waves, clinging to the scorched earth, creating an unearthly atmosphere from which a score of eyes blazed.
“Didn’t you hear me? There’s food in the community hall. Enough for everybody. Come on, guys. Before it gets cold.”
Gaunt faces turned slowly from the flames. They regarded the newcomer in solemn silence. He took a step back.
I grabbed Oom Paul’s shoulder and pulled. One last chance to get him away, bundle him into his truck, send him home. But my fingers were numb from the chill that was making its way through every part of my body, and he was just too big, too strong.
His size sealed his fate.
The men around the cooking fire stood slowly, one at a time. Still silent, now they grinned at one another. Rolled their shoulders. Rubbed their hands.
The nearest one took a step towards Oom Paul. He looked him up and down, then he grinned. Teeth that had been filed to razor points reflected the leaping flames and were themselves reflected in the old man’s widening eyes.
*
I PARKED THE DOUBLE cab a few blocks from Oom Paul’s house. It had been wiped clean. An unnecessary precaution, with South African policing being what it is, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Nobody saw me leave. Sensible folk keep to themselves at that time of the night. Why pull back a curtain to look out into the darkness? You might find the darkness staring back at you.
I didn’t mind the long walk back to the township. My new leather jacket kept me warm. And I knew there would be a hot meal waiting for me when I got home. He’d been a big man. With the right seasoning, and a basket of vegetables gathered from the grateful community, Ma Smit and the elders could make that much meat last a long time.