“Let’s go see who he is.”
“I’m scared.”
“Bangbroek! Coward!”
A black man steps from the tin hokkie that shines in the sun. We watch as he squirts tobacco juice between his big white teeth, far into the veld. His head is full of peperkorrels, tight black curls, and his beard too. He looks like the clay bust that my mommy bought at the door. He points to his chest. “Smuts, night watchman.”
Our bodies block the only light from the small window in his tin hokkie. His bed is up on bricks for protection from the tokoloshe, a bad spirit. Smuts warms his bones by lighting a fire in a tin drum pierced with holes. The coals leave wood smoke in the tiny room and the ceiling is black from fires burning through the night. He wears a khaki coat with brass buttons and a shiny lining to stop the sun from burning him. We watch as he pushes snuff up his nose, sniffs deeply until his eyes water, and then his sneezes echo around the tiny room. His hokkie is neat as a pin, but coloured people and black people have germs on their lips and the germs land on their cups when they drink from them. We don’t play with babbies and Malays, because we think they also have germs.
We find Mommy feeding stale bread to the fowls and we tell her about Smuts.
“His mother probably named him after our Jannie Smuts, the great statesman,” she says.
“He has big white teeth.”
“He probably cleans his teeth with ash.”
“He has a club,” says Gabriel. “He calls it his knopkierie.”
“And he has a fire with a big black pot balanced on the top and it’s only got three legs,” pipes up Desiree.
“It’s called a kaffir pot and he probably cooks mealie-meal in it. That’s what Natives eat,” says Mommy. “He’s brought all his superstitions with him, but I’m sure he’s wise beyond his years, like his Xhosa ancestors.”
“His palms are pink,” says Gabriel. “I wonder if his soles are too. I wonder if he’s a Nat or a Sap.”
“Mommy,” I say, “why can’t Smuts marry Aunty Ruby’s Xhosa maid, Sophie?”
“Because Sophie’s a migrant labourer.”
“What does that mean?”
“You ask too many questions.”
But we don’t; we really don’t. We already know lots about Sophie anyway.
Sophie smokes a pipe with beads of every colour of the rainbow wound round and round the long stem. Rocking back and forth, puffing contentedly on her pipe with a faraway look in her eyes, she sings a Xhosa lullaby.
Thula baba …
We know she’s dreaming of her children in the Transkei and the children are dreaming of the money she will send. Sophie carries bundles of washing on her head. She washes the sheets outside in a big tin bath, with a block of Reckitt’s Blue. The sheets draped over the bushes are so white they dazzle our eyes.
When I come back from the lavatory and I step back inside, it’s warm and cosy, with the smell of bread rising. Desiree’s fingers climb my buttons.
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief! Colleen, you’re a thief!”
“Stop it, you two!” Mommy’s eyes are cross. “How would you like me to bake a cake? Maybe that’ll keep you out of mischief.”
I look at Desiree. “We can’t help it!” we wail in unison.
“There’s no such word as can’t,” Mommy mutters.
Mommy starts measuring, sifting and mixing. Six eyes watch the oven as she pops the cake in, and they’re still darting about anxiously when she finally removes it from the oven, all hot and steaming, and places it out of our reach on top of the cupboard. “Never again!” she says. “That was a once-in-a-lifetime effort,” as she wipes her hands on her apron.
“Mommy, if we collect dennepitte, then will you make tammeletjie?”
We can taste the nuts and toffee on our tongues already, so we make a beeline for the pine trees in the yard. We are smashing the brown nuts with stones when a red-faced Maureen comes to find us.
“Why does my mommy have to throw the plate against the wall every time?”
Desiree puts her arm around Maureen’s shoulders. “We’ll share our pine nuts with you.”
Maureen wipes her eyes, squats beside us and holds her hand out, the one with the af finger, open palm towards us.
“Are we late?”
“Yes. Hurry up, Skinny Legs!”
“She’s calling your bluff! She can’t tell the time,” shouts Mommy from the lounge.
“Don’t forget your coats and your pixie caps.”
Desiree and I wear the same dusty pink coats with shiny braid around the Peter Pan collars. We have bunches of cherries embroidered on our chests and the tips of the pixie caps curl over at the top and make us look like the elves in a storybook.
The Gospel Hall is all lit up. The glow from the windows falls on the path and lights our feet. Our cousins are there with their wild coir mattress explosion hair. Of all the holy pictures, I like the picture of Jesus with his hand resting gently on a little girl’s head the most. With all my heart, I want to be that little girl. Underneath the picture it says Suffer the little children to come unto Me. The lay preacher, Mr Anderson, says Jesus is all-seeing. Then why can’t he see through the walls of our Doll’s House and see the suffering of my mommy and her little children? Maybe Jesus is blind.
I love you, Lord Jesus, and ask you to stay
Close by me forever and love me, I pray.
Our friend, Leonore, is sitting in the Gospel Hall in all her glory. She dresses like a princess and has a playroom with dolls’ beds and a small kitchen dresser with tiny cups and saucers, plates and dishes. Blue-and-yellow budgies chatter away in a cage to keep her company. If we misbehave, Daddy says, why can’t you be like Leonore? Leonore is adopted and her mother is old, nearly like a granny, and she has pots of money.
We go and play at Leonore’s house and the gardener calls us into the cool darkness of the garage where he keeps his Thermos flask, his hedge clippers and his wheelbarrow. Our eyes take time to get used to the dark and then we see his overalls crumpled around his thick ankles. With his pink palms he beckons us to come closer and look at his brown thing standing away from his body. He wants us to touch him.
I can see the whites of Desiree’s eyes in the darkness of the garage. She silently takes me by the arm and steers me backwards until we’re outside, blinking in the bright sunlight.
Leonore’s birthday table groans under the weight of cool grapes, coconut surprises and dozens of iced cakes decorated with hundreds-and-thousands and little silver balls. My eyes dart from one to the next, not knowing which to try first. We’re scared stiff of the gardener and his brown thing, but we go back to Leonore’s house every time because it’s like paradise has come to Crawford.
Also in the Gospel Hall is my friend Miriam. Miriam is always in church, squeaky clean, a halo shining on her freshly washed hair. She sits with her head bowed.
“Shhh,” says Mr Anderson, “she’s communing with the Lord.”
We love going to Lantern Lecture because it is always on a Friday, brandy night. Desiree and I call the Lantern Lecture the Holy Show because it’s not like in the bioscope with the film stars. There’s Jesus at the well, Lazarus rising up, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus turns water into wine we don’t understand, because Mommy says all the wine and brandy in the world should be emptied into the sea.
After the Holy Show, Mr Anderson tells me and Desiree to come with him to the stage and tells us to take a seat. “Did you see the pictures of Jesus knocking on the door?”
Desiree’s had enough of Jesus, but she gives him a half-smile.
“He is knocking at your heart and He wants to come in. Will you let Him in? Will you let Jesus, who died for your sins on the cross at Calvary, come into your hearts?”
Mr Anderson is tall and thin. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down when he talks and his tie moves. My feet don’t reach the floor and I start swinging my legs back and forth.
“Sit still!” Desiree digs me in the ribs. “This is serious.”
“Jesus died for your sins. The Blood of the Lamb will cleanse you. You will be absolved from all sin.” He lays a thin hand across his heart and his eyes roll back in his head. “Will you let Jesus in?”
White spit has formed in the corners of his mouth. His eyes right themselves like a sleeping doll and he looks straight at Desiree. “Will you give your heart to Jesus, our everlasting Saviour?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me. Desiree looks at me. I shift in my seat.
“Will you give your heart to Jesus our everlasting Saviour?”
I suppose if Jesus is good enough for Desiree, He is good enough for me. “Yes,” I whisper in a tiny voice.
“Let us pray.”
“Oh, Heavenly Father,” prays Mr Anderson, “We come to Thee with these two young souls who have given their hearts to Jesus, Your Son, who died on the cross for their sins. Smile upon them, look after them, oh merciful Lord; help them through their daily lives. Grant them forgiveness for their sins and everlasting life, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, amen.”
He gives us a broad smile, but I don’t feel any different. Maybe Jesus takes a while to take hold. Mr Anderson walks us to the door and I want to tell him about the white spit in the corners of his mouth, but I don’t.
We leave the hall with our collars pulled up stiffly against the cold. Our voices float on the cold night air.
Joy, joy, joy, with joy my heart is ringing,
Joy, joy, joy, His love can be my own,
Our sins are all forgiven,
We’re on our way to heaven
My heart is bubbling over
and it is joy, joy, joy.
Out of habit we do all the actions. Hopefully, when we’re dead we’ll land up slap-bang, right in the middle of heaven.
“Don’t tell Daddy we’ve given our hearts to Jesus,” warns Desiree.
“What does absolved mean?”
“Don’t know, but promise you won’t tell …”
“If you give me half of your tuppeny cake on Sunday, I won’t tell.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I don’t understand why we can’t tell Daddy, because Mr Anderson says giving your heart to Jesus is good, but Desiree always knows best. I can’t wait to wake up next morning with Jesus in my heart, but when I do I don’t feel any different. Instead, there’s just the sound of roosters crowing and the radio softly playing. The music is drowned out by Gabriel’s loud voice bragging about the penny he found in the lavatory.
My daddy’s friend, Mr Parker, was in our Doll’s House last night. Mr Parker lost the penny because he was drunk when he pulled down his pants to do his number two. Mommy says they’re drunk skunks for not taking home their week’s wages to their waiting wives. Gabriel says who knows what’s fair and what’s not? We are not about to work it out and give the money back. We take what comes our way and live to see another day.
Sunday is special, the day of our mother’s full baptism in the Gospel Hall.
“Better wear your Sunday-school clothes,” says Gabriel.
Mommy laughs and says to wear my golden dress and silver shoes. But golden dresses and silver shoes are only for princesses, so we just have to get on with it. Instead, I wear my pink gingham dress and Desiree her blue dress with buttons down the front that look like sailing ships. Gabriel brushes his hair across his forehead. He is wearing grey shorts with a blue shirt and a navy-blue tie with white dots. His school socks are neatly turned over below his knees. His shoes shine and he has brushed his beautiful white even teeth.
“Time to go!”
Mommy is already at the Gospel Hall, sitting in the side room with Mr Anderson.
“What are they doing in there?” whispers Desiree.
“Praying, of course!” retorts Gabriel.
Is the baptism going to be so bad that they have to pray before it happens? What’s going to happen to my mommy? I know her head has to go under water just like all those people in the River Jordan but she can’t swim. When we go to St James beach she sits on the rocks and knits; she never swims. She almost drowned at the Long Street swimming baths when she was seventeen, she says.
We file into the church, Gabriel first, then Desiree and then me. Mommy’s friend from school, Aunty Martha, has brought her son Carl. He is my age and sits with his hands folded in his lap, neatly dressed, with not a hair out of place. We want to see every step of Mommy’s baptism, so we make for the seats in the front row. Mommy asked Daddy to come with us, but he had plenty to say.
“If you want to be part of a religious group that’s your prerogative, but don’t expect me to take part in any baptism, immersion, conversion or whatever the hell you call it.”
We wish Daddy would come to church just once. Jesus would knock on the door of his heart, holding the lantern high, with thorns on his head and blood running from his side. Mr Anderson would pray out loud and Daddy would see the light and give his heart to Jesus. Jesus would make Daddy stop drinking.
Not like that time with the advertisement.
“God helps those who help themselves,” said Mommy one day when she saw that advertisement in a magazine.
“DRINK HABIT DESTROYED,” she read out loud. “Act now! Don’t wish that your Husband did not drink. ‘Eucrasy’ has brought happiness to homes cursed with misery and ruin through drink. Harmless, tasteless, can be given secretly in any food, or voluntarily. Send thirty shillings now.”
It took forever to save the thirty shillings and then, with high hopes, Mommy sent off her money. Gabriel followed the postman every day.
“Haven’t you got a parcel for Le Seuer today?” he asked for the hundredth time.
“How big is the parcel?” the postman answered.
“We don’t know,” muttered Gabriel. “Who knows how much powder it will take?”
Then, at last, it arrived and the paper inside the box read:
If you sprinkle this powder over his food,
he will never touch another drop, guaranteed.
We were so excited. We were going to have a daddy who never touches another drop ever again. Guaranteed. We would all be happy, especially our mommy. That afternoon, Desiree put the tin bucket under the kitchen table just in case he vomited.
“He’s coming! I can hear him whistling,” announced Gabriel breathlessly.
We scampered through the lounge and arranged ourselves around the kitchen table.
“Hello, Daddy. Our supper was lovely. We had bean curry,” said Desiree.
We couldn’t wait for him to take the first mouthful, but first he had to remove his collar stud, take off his collar and tie, and roll up his sleeves. He picked up his knife and fork, then stopped. “Today we heard Cecil’s wife’s going to have a baby so we had a drink after work to celebrate. Won’t you children cut pictures of babies out of the Outspan? We want to stick the pictures all over his workbench.”
“Jacob, your supper’s getting cold. Eat while it’s hot.”
At last he lifted his fork to his mouth and eight eyes followed his hand, but he put his fork down again to tell us about something that happened at work. I’m sure I could see my mommy’s lips say, please pick up your fork and eat. Finally, he took a mouthful and then stopped again, his fork in mid-air. “Mavis, why don’t we go on holiday to Kleinmond? We could borrow the bell tent from my cousin Samuel.”
I wondered whether he was ever going to swallow his food. We watched in silence as he loaded his fork with beans and meat, filled his mouth and chewed. I opened my mouth to shout hooray and Desiree aimed a kick at me under the table, but she kicked the tin bucket instead. Our hearts fluttered in our chests. For a second there was total silence.
“What the hell?” exclaimed Daddy, stopping mid-chew.
Desiree looked daggers at me, but I’m only little and it’s not easy for me to stay quiet about something as important as my daddy staying sober for the rest of his life. He had already taken quite a few mouthfuls and soon his plate would be empty, but he still hadn’t vomited. Desiree looked at me, I looked at Gabriel and we all looked at Mommy. She had a puzzled look on her face.
The next day, Mommy said it must be his strong constitution. We hoped he’d never find out about the powder in his dinner, because then Mommy would be in the wars again and she was already thirty shillings down the drain.
But now, back in the church, we sing hymns while we wait to see our mother.
Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline,
Someone is drifting away,
Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline,
Someone is drifting awaaay …
After what seems like a year she appears wearing a full-length cape. I wonder what she’s wearing underneath. Maybe they let her keep her petticoat on. If it’s a half-slip, what does she have on the top? Perhaps only her bust bodice?
The Gospel Hall stage floor has been raised and underneath there’s a big bath. The preacher stands waist deep. He has a long beard and looks holy like the disciples in the Bible. A fat lady makes such a big splash, we are sure there will be no water left for Mommy. When Mommy steps forward I have a moment of panic. What if she drowns? The preacher supports her neck the way Aunty Dolly does when she teaches ladies how to bath their babies at the Muizenberg Clinic. With his other hand he pinches Mommy’s nose closed.
“In the name of the Father” – dunk – “in the name of the Son” – dunk – “in the name of the Holy Spirit” – dunk …
We sit open-mouthed. If Grandma were here, she would say stop catching flies. Mommy splutters as she comes up for breath each time. Thank the Lord she’s still alive!
“Will the congregation please stand and sing hymn number six.”
There are the soft sounds of fingers riffling through pages and chairs scraping on the wooden floor as everyone stands to sing.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way,
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Desiree and I sing:
Cashmere Bouquet, for there’s no other way,
To be happy in Jesus, but through Cashmere Bouquet.
It was Miriam, my friend who comes from the holiest family in the whole wide world, who dared us to sing Cashmere Bouquet, but she is a holy sissy and she would never do anything wrong at her own mother’s baptism. When the singing stops we move to seats further back, in the middle of the hall. We know a thing or two. The lay preacher is going to preach of hell and damnation and his spit can reach as far as the fourth row.
The church is our place of safety in an up-and-down world. Gabriel becomes Mr Anderson’s right hand. He helps carry extra benches, hands out hymn books and puts out the chairs for Lantern Lecture night. Desiree and I have given our hearts to Jesus and we go to Sunday school regularly. When we sit in the church, there’s the smell of Grandma’s sewing room all around us.
Now that Mommy has been baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, she never misses a prayer meeting at the Gospel Hall where she is always embraced and clutched to the bosoms of fifteen over-excited women. The first time Mommy meets the over-excited women they sit in a tight circle and they all say a prayer out loud. When Mommy’s turn comes around, her mind is blank and her face red. She says, “I pass,” in a small voice. “I pass” becomes our excuse to get out of jobs. But Mommy gets used to praying long prayers because, she says, she has so many troubles to pray about.
We can’t call her halfnaartjie because she’s a grown-up, so we call her Two-Coffee-One-Milk, the way my daddy does. The coloured people and the white people know her well, because she’s a friend in their time of need.
If you need my services, I’m at your service.
– Home Undertaker
Her real name is Cinta and she smells of blue spirits. Aunty Dolly says she sometimes works for the poor for nothing. “Just give me a dop, sweet wine will do.”
When she lays the bodies out she removes their false teeth and folds their arms across their chests. “I always put rouge on the cheeks of the deceased to make them look good and to cheer up the mourners.”
Her hands are smooth from rubbing oil into dead people’s bodies, like in the Bible. She plugs up all the holes with cotton wool to stop the number two and the pee from running out. Desiree and I get the giggles, but Gabriel says it’s disrespectful to laugh at the dead.
Two-Coffee-One-Milk wears black, with a mourning brooch at the throat, a big black cloak, and boots with buttons up the sides. When she passes our Doll’s House in her horse-drawn cart, she’s on serious business. She has her big brown leather Gladstone bag beside her. We don’t wave because you have to show respect. But on her way back, it’s a different story. Cinta holds a flickering candle in a brown paper packet to light the way, her shadow looming big and scary.
“Thank your lucky stars you’re alive. I feel so happy I could dance.”
It’s because she’s done a good job of getting a dead person into a box. Daddy says it’s the dop. We’re brave now and we wave.
“Have you ever seen a dead person, Gabriel?” asks Desiree. “No, but you want to touch one? Here, hold your finger up and put it against mine. Now feel our pressed-together fingers.”
“Ag sis!”
“I bet you don’t know the bodies fart before she puts the cotton wool in! How would you like to be locked in a room with dead people farting?”
“Do dead people’s farts smell different?”
“Sis, man, don’t be revolting.”
But we really don’t know about dead people. All we know is what we learn when we’re over at the Finnerans. Two-Coffee-One-Milk and Aunty Dolly sit at the kitchen table drinking tea out of Aunty Dolly’s best teacups, the ones with the English cottage and the hollyhocks. When Mr Finneran comes home from work, he doesn’t care if Two-Coffee-One-Milk is sitting in his house, even in his favourite chair, drinking cups of tea with Aunty Dolly. Daddy is disgusted when he hears things like this.
“If they lived overseas, he could have married Two-Coffee-One-Milk, no questions asked. She even calls him Connor to his face without blushing. It’s ridiculous!”
Cinta sees us out of the corner of her eye. “Wie’s hulle? Who they?” she whispers to Aunty Dolly.
We hear Aunty Dolly tell her our sad story.
“Sweet kids, but my heart goes out to them. Nervous wrecks, all three of them. You don’t want to know how their father carries on. They’ve been through so much. I wish I could do something.” She shifts in her seat and blows her nose.
Cinta says, “Ag, siestog, now I see who they are. They are the children from across the street. We have lots of the same thing going on in Mossieness. It’s a terrible business. Verskriklik!”
Aunty Dolly says, “What worries me is what is going to happen to them when the anger and frustration get too much for them. Someone is bound to get hurt. Someone has to be the scapegoat.”
“Ooo, God-ta,” Cinta nods.
Aunty Dolly sighs the biggest sigh we’ve ever heard, and carries on with her stories. She tells Cinta how she used to sleep in her uniform when she was a student nurse because she was afraid of being late for duty.
Cinta says isn’t it funny that she, Cinta, has no training at all. Not at Groote Schuur Hospital, or a nursing college, or anywhere else in the world. But, she says, she’s a natural.
“I just love to hear the things people talk about before they die … the mystery of life and death. At first you gril, but you get used to it. When you are alone with the deceased, you feel happy to be alive and the least you can do is take your time and do a proper job. While you’re washing the dead, their whole life flashes before your eyes, from the cradle to the grave.”
“I don’t mind sitting with the sick, but I don’t think I’m cut out for your job.”
“Sometimes it’s a secret you’ve kept close to your heart for years,” winks Cinta. “You know what I mean, like here comes the bride, all fat and wide …” and she laughs. “Then you have to take a decision whether to tell the family or not, before you leave the death room.”
The children from Mossienes say she has special powers like a witch and she can turn you into smoke or a baboon or anything she wants. They say the smell of death clings to her, so the klonkies outside the babbie shop hold their noses when she goes in to buy her spirits.
“Jou ma se proverbial!” she says crossly, giving them some of their own medicine. “And your grandma’s proverbial too!”
When we ask Mommy what the big word means she says Two-Coffee-One-Milk knows they are too young to understand, but it gives her the satisfaction she needs. We don’t understand that either. Aunty Dolly says she’s trying hard to be a lady and to have some standing in the community, but we’ve heard her use big swear words when some skollie interferes with her. She gives them a piece of her mind.
“Oppas, ek het my Afrikaanse tande in vandag. Ek is vuil met my bek maar my koek is op sy plek!”
Aunty Dolly asks her what it means.
“I told them I have my Afrikaans teeth in!” she laughs. “That means I can swear better! Those skollies, they understand our Mossienes sense of humour! I’m fond of my people, but sometimes they really get on my coloured nerves! I told them I might have a foul mouth, but my nether regions know how to behave.”
And then they laugh and laugh.
My daddy, though, has the last word.
“Ook maar mens,” he says. “She’s only human. She does people a good service, and you can’t spend the rest of your life being scared of someone.”
Sometimes I love my daddy. On Sundays when he takes us for a drive to Blouberg in his van, I’m not scared of him. I’m only scared of him when he gives me a hiding or when he smells of brandy and his eyes bulge and the veins stand out in his neck. Then I’m more scared of him than of Cinta and the dead people who lie with their arms crossed over their chests.