51

SNAKE OIL

TITHES COLLECTED AT THE PROPHET HALLELUJAH’S gatherings went towards church expenses and community charities – all detailed in his annual report. The family’s income came from Violet’s souvenir stalls, which sold DVDS of the prophet’s sermons and Hot Gospeller spirituals, inspirational booklets and Correct Baptised paraphernalia, such as beaded headbands and lapel badges. Also popular were sacred oil roll-ons: aromatic massage oils bought in bulk and decanted into phials with roll-on stoppers. The idea was to anoint your skin every day with a dab, then to rub it in as you prayed.

Righteous Rosemary was a big seller, as was Blessed Balsam, but Holy Herb Oil wasn’t selling. She wondered as she packed the display box whether they’d do better with a more positive-sounding label. Hal always said that a successful brand was a skilful combination of a great idea, good presentation, clever marketing and the right name …

In a flash of inspiration she had it: Brown Madonna Sacred Oil. The Catholics didn’t have exclusive rights to Ma-Jesu. Correct Baptists could call on her good offices too.

Violet called in the youngest wife, who had computer skills, and together they designed the logo that became famous, of a haloed African mother and child silhouette in an elongated oval, printed in brown on a gold background. A label printer churned out a batch, old labels were removed and the new stuck on. Within an hour Brown Madonna Sacred Oil was on sale.

Mother Esmé had gone back to the hotel to sleep. She rose late and phoned the nuns to say that the episcopal car would come back the next day for her and Sweetness, only to be told that the girl had disappeared again.

‘She wasn’t there when we went to wake her,’ Sister Immaculata wept. ‘The bed was made, the new clothes still hanging on the back of the door. I’m afraid we’ve lost her for good.’

‘The poor child can’t have gone far,’ Mother Esmé said in her soothing coffee liqueur voice. ‘Try to stay calm, oui?’

‘How can I? We’ve failed again. Our Lady will never forgive me.’ Sister Immaculata rang off with a sob.

Palesa was back at the Ingrams’ house helping Cassie with her first breastfeed. After twenty-four hours in the incubator being hydrated through a nasal tube, the child was rosy pink and very hungry. When he turned his still egg-shaped head, found her nipple, latched on and began to suck, it was like being mauled by velvet pliers.

‘It’s so sore!’ She hadn’t expected breastfeeding to hurt.

‘You’ll toughen up after the first few days.’ Palesa stroked the fine blond baby wisps of hair. ‘What have you decided to call him?’

‘We’re not sure yet. Something grateful. You were all fantastic yesterday when he wasn’t breathing.’ She looked at the trainee midwife with the anxious query she had put to Dr Ulrich when he came to check if the child was ready to leave the incubator. ‘Do you think there’s brain damage?’

‘His Apgar rating was fine, he looks good this morning and there’s nothing wrong with his appetite, so I wouldn’t worry too much.’ Palesa hesitated, then added, ‘Sister Dineo says her prayers to the brown Madonna about the birth were answered. Maybe you could believe it too?’

‘I’ll try.’ But Cassie’s face when she looked down at the child was troubled.

In the branch pastorie, after a prolonged discussion on how to sabotage the vision and the gathering with its gospel singers and free feast, Pastor Nazaret and Hester had come up with a plan: smuggle enough castor oil into the chakalaka and there’d be mass diarrhoea. Hester would sneak into the cooking arena and do the deed while the absent cooks listened to the prophet’s final oration in the tabernacle tent.

‘And bingo!’ The pastor slammed a clenched fist into his bony hand, adding as a righteous afterthought, ‘Purging is good for the digestive system.’

Hester had a second niggle of doubt as she hurried out to Rooi Barend’s bakkie which was parked behind the pastorie: wasn’t bingo forbidden? But the niggle was soon swamped by a bigger worry when she tried to drive out into Holy Joe Row. It was jammed with vehicles and people milling in all directions like disturbed ants. She would have to make her way on foot through the mob to get to Vanderlindea and back.

‘Is that Hester I see over there?’ Tannie Charmaine tried to point her out to one of her daughters from their vantage point on the farm trailer. After defrosting the frozen supplies and cooking up huge pots of mutton bredie, mieliepap, aromatic bobotie and yellow rice, they were serving free food and ginger beer to grateful pilgrims desperate for sustenance.

‘Hester? Where?’ But when the daughter looked, she had disappeared.