My dear Elaine
How are you? Thanks for the photograph in your last letter; I remember the day I took it.
How is Leke? I can't believe he's almost a month old. Even though I'm tired, when I think of him I notice that I smile. But when I smile there is also a pain in my chest. Life has confused me.
I've noticed I feel tired a lot. Not when I'm speaking to you on the phone, then I'm most awake! It's this place, I feel as if I'm always holding my breath, clenching my teeth, my fists. I wake up tired.
Sorry to say these things.
I'm okay, really. I'm mostly left alone here. I'm grateful, but not everyone shares my fortune. I am now in a cell with forty other men, some of them are just boys, really.
I'm scared Elaine. I might get lost here. Write to me.
Elaine didn't intentionally skip a week without writing or phoning but when she came home from work and collected Leke from her neighbour, the time to sit and write seemed to elude her. In the morning she expressed milk and then hurried to drop Leke off. Telkom had cut the phone-line and her landlady installed a pay as you go. Rather than spend the money on the call, Elaine bought bread.
After this prison, hell will be a holiday. The smell of semen and urine waft through my dreams. I wake up gagging.
I sleep with my head by the wall. ‘Hey’ someone has written as if they are talking to me. There are also pictures. A vagina with a speech bubble, I cannot make out the words.
I missed your letter last week, perhaps it got lost in the mail.
I continue with my letters to Leke, I'll send them with this one to you. I'll put them in a separate envelope.
My mattress is thinner than a cotton summer shirt and it stinks. Sweat and desperation. Each night, as a distraction, I lie down and pretend you’re beside me. Your lavender smell.
How is Leke? Kiss him for me. I put a mental picture of him under my pillow, I sleep better now.
I've spoken to my lawyer about the money the university owes me. I think it will all be sorted out soon. I have asked her to send you something in the meantime. I'm so sorry Elaine, I cannot undo this.
Love always, Oscar
What was it about letters from Oscar that had her standing in front of a mirror? Elaine turned sideways, noticing the small bulge still around her waist. She smoothed her shirt down her front, holding her stomach in, and leaned closer, studying first one side of her face and then the other.
In prison Elaine's letters were more human to Oscar than the men he shared a cell with. The letters kept him sane, a kind of necessary course of medicine that he needed to stay alive. When he missed a letter he could feel his blood slug through his veins, uninterested. He lost his appetite and the environment around him, violence and loneliness, looked normal. Sometimes he panicked and re-read old letters but it was like taking expired medication, useless and even counter productive.
On nights when he could not fall asleep, remembering helped but rest was not always assured. Often it was the memories that kept him awake.
‘Oh excuse me,’ the woman said. ‘They'd said this room was empty. I would've knocked.’
Oscar had noticed her before, wearing the distinct bright blue and red cleaner's uniform, walking the passageways of his department. She was a small woman, pale with liquid-grey eyes. The reason he'd first noticed her was because she was so short. He'd seen her from behind once, thought she was one of the lecturer's children and wondered if she was lost. Despite lugging around the mop in a heavy steel bucket she looked as though you could scatter her with a puff of wind – what were those things called again? Oscar remembered them from the farm. Just a puff and off they went.
‘No problem. You’re actually right I was meant to be giving a tutorial. But you see some of the students complained to the faculty head that they can't understand my accent. Do I sound like I'm speaking English to you?’ Oscar felt bad but why should he not unburden himself.
The woman shifted her weight then said, ‘I'll come back then.’
‘No no no! Come in, please. Don't let me stop you.’
She heskated then entered the office.
Oscar's desk was set against the back wall, facing the door. To the left of the desk was an aging wooden cabinet with dusty glass doors holding back a stack of books. Something about the books seemed restless; some of them had pages that, swollen with age, had spilled from their dried out spines. Some pages had fallen and were stuck between the glass doors.
When Elaine opened the cabinet doors to clean them the pages fell onto the ground, sending the dust into the air.
Oscar sneezed.
‘Bless you.’
‘Thanks,’ he tried marking scripts but was distracted, he kept looking up.
‘What's your name? I'm Oscar.’
‘Elaine.’
‘Ah, pleased to meet you.’
She crossed to the right of the desk and began cleaning the heavily wooden-framed windows. She worked quietly but every few minutes let out a low hum, a piece of a song. Each time she did this Oscar looked up. She had her back to him. The red sash of the uniform fit round her small waist and ended in a bow with long ties that fell over the swell of her backside. She was small, but she was definitely a woman.
Elaine turned around and caught him staring at her, a warm flush rising from the base of her neck to her temples.
Simply looking away didn't diminish Oscar's embarrassment, and he emitted a series of coughs, hoping the brash sound would do the trick.
‘I need to vacuum. Should I come back?’
‘Listen. It's fine. I'll go. I can finish this at home,’ he rose and started packing away the papers into his briefcase.
‘Sorry for the trouble.’
‘No trouble.’
Elaine stood as he fumbled with the buckle of his worn leather bag. He glanced at her sideways, ‘How's the bicycle? The, uhm, the tyre?’
She looked confused.
‘I saw you the other day pumping it up – did you manage to fix it?’
‘For now, yes but… I've already patched it twice.’
‘I wouldn't compromise on that if I were you. Just get a new one, they can't be that expensive,’ a few more seconds of silence passed before Oscar guessed that his candour had somehow offended her. ‘I didn't mean to say… what I mean is…I'm sorry,’ he felt unclear about what he was apologising for.
Elaine's mouth set firm, she looked down. Oscar apologised once more and left the office.
He drove home, sitting at the green robot until the car behind him hooted. His earlier confrontation with his students was forgotten. Her hands would fit into his palms. He enjoyed remembering as much detail as he'd managed to take in, during their short encounter. A strong scent he couldn't place.
The following day, walking on University Lane, he realised what the scent was. He veered towards the bush that bordered the paved lane. Lavendar. He picked a sprig and kept it in his pocket.
The next time Oscar saw Elaine it was six o'clock on a Friday evening. He'd walked into the senior lecturers’ common room and found her paging through one of the fiction novels on the shelf. She didn't hear him enter. He walked quietly and, leaning over her shoulder, said, ‘Most of the book is tedious but there's a great sex scene on page a hundred and twenty.’
Elaine blushed.
I'm sorry. I've done it again. I'm an idiot…’
‘No. It's fine,’ her hands were shaking as she turned to put the book back.
Why don't you keep it? Take it for the weekend. Read and…maybe tell me what you think.’
‘No. Thanks. I need to get to work,’ she walked around him, picked up her mop and bucket at the entrance to the room and left.
In bed that night Oscar lay awake. Despite her size, Elaine wore the serious face of an adult, unlined but stiff. Her hair was short and just where the brown strands ended along the base of her neck the skin thickened and had the colour of dried grass – some kind of injury.
A couple of weeks passed before he saw her again. He went to find her in the locker room assigned to the cleaners.
‘I have something for you.’
‘What?’
One other cleaner was in the room, she collected her bags and left. It was the end of the day-shift and Elaine's shift was just beginning. Oscar handed her the book she'd been studying the last time he saw her.
‘I was just kidding about the sex, didn't mean to be offensive. Take it.’
‘No.’
‘Come on.’
‘I…’ Elaine looked around, the locker room had emptied, ‘I don't want to. Thanks.’
He withdrew his hand and turned around.
‘You’re kind,’ Elaine said to his back.
Oscar turned back towards her. He held his hands up in the air, puffing out his lips and feigned exasperation, although it was not all pretence.
‘I'm trying here,’ he said squeezing his face to signal frustration.
‘What is it you want?’
‘I want you to have this.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I don't know,’ he laughed. ‘Maybe friendship? Contrary to what you might think, I don't have many,’ he was facing her, smiling. ‘I could certainly do with some company,’ Oscar watched Elaine smile.
The austerity of her face, her whole body, lifted. Her lips were full, a pale pink colour, and she had a chip in her front tooth.
‘I think you’re beautiful,’ Oscar said to Elaine, emboldened by the weeks that had passed and their growing contact.
He leaned back on the giant steps of Rhodes Memorial, putting his arm around her shoulders. They'd taken the steep but short walk up from the university, taking advantage of the few hours before Elaine's evening shift began. They sat dwarfed by lions and a horse, myths and history hanging over their burgeoning attraction. The shadows of the monument diminishing as the sun disappeared.
‘Only half of me,’ Elaine replied.