The next day he was there at quarter to two. The world had not ended yet, but maybe it was still coming. I wore my nice dress with the blue flowers, and the shoes Candy had given me. We set off in his car, with a tin of old-fashioned sweet biscuits on my lap.
‘You smell good,’ he said.
‘It’s the soetkoekies,’ I said. ‘But they’re not padkos for us. I made them for Kobus and Stella.’
I heard a bleating sound, and jumped. The lamb was on the back seat.
‘You didn’t bring the lamb!?’
‘Kosie needs feeding every four hours,’ he said. ‘I can’t just leave him.’
I folded my arms to show I was not pleased, but turned my head to the window, so he couldn’t see me smile.
I wished I had brought us some padkos – it was quite a long ride. We went through a beautiful pass between tall green mountains, full of fynbos plants. We did lots of looking out the window and only little bits of talking.
When we were coming down the steep pass, he said to me: ‘I’ve really missed you, Maria.’
And I said, ‘Look at that sugarbird on the protea bush.’
‘Lovely,’ he said.
When he was all nice, it made my heart feel warm; but it also felt sore, like it was too full.
Henk sat at the back with the lamb because it was too hot to leave Kosie in the car. I sat in the front of the church, next to Kobus’s brother. It was a beautiful ceremony. She looked so pretty, and he so handsome. But what made it extra beautiful was the sign language that Kobus used. Somehow his moving hands gave even more feeling than the spoken words.
After the ceremony there was a nice spread of tea and food in a big tent outside.
Henk tied his lamb to a tree and we went together to congratulate the happy couple. Henk touched my arm as we walked but I didn’t want to hold his hand.
Stella was surrounded by people, but we managed to get close to Kobus.
‘Hello, Kobus,’ I said. ‘I’m Tannie Maria. Congratulations.’
He grinned at me like I was a new bicycle on his birthday.
He held his hands at the centre of his chest and then let his fingers flutter out, like birds flying away.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
I remembered a line from his first letter to me: When she smiled at me, I felt like a bunch of birds was trying to fly out of my chest. It looked like those birds had escaped now.
I know he was signing ‘Thank you’, but it felt like he was telling me: Open your heart and let the love fly out.
I reached for Henk Kannemeyer’s hand.
And why not, I thought. Why not?