CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I stopped at the Spar for some oranges, sour cream and cream cheese for the cheesecake. There I bumped into Tannie Elna le Grange from the shoe shop, and Tannie Kuruman from the Route 62 Café. I tried to be quick with my catch-ups, because I needed time for that cheesecake. But it was difficult, with all the talk about Slimkat’s death in the beer tent at the KKNK, and the woman who’d stabbed her boyfriend in the heart in Barrydale. Elna said she’d heard the woman had said, ‘The devil made me do it.’ Then I chatted with Anna Pretorius, the mielie farmer. Ag, shame, she was still lonely after losing her friend, Martine. Anna told me all about the suspension problems of her bakkie. She’d heard about the new mechanic just outside of town.

‘He uses voodoo to fix your car,’ she said. ‘And he fixes people too. With fire and voodoo. They call him the satanic mechanic.’ She snorted and shook her head. ‘I think I’ll get HiWay Tyres to do the job.’

Marietjie, at the till, was quick and quiet. I think something was troubling her, but I didn’t ask what.

At home, I picked a lemon from my tree as I passed through the garden. I made the crust first: Candy’s recipe called for crushed digestive biscuits and butter, but I added in some desiccated coconut, crushed brazil nuts and orange zest too. And then I prepared the creamy citrus filling. Candy used lemon and orange rather than the usual vanilla flavouring. Once the cake was in the oven, I took my letters outside to the stoep table and opened the one that looked familiar. It was written on that thin paper by the mature Scottish woman who fancied the younger man. She wrote:

Thank you, dear Maria, for the wonderful recipes. The young man is visiting me more often now. Three times a week. He is such a strong fellow and he has been helping me about the house.

I did love your story about mature cheddar being more delicious. But I am wondering . . . Perhaps age is just a number, but is race just a colour? He has a lovely big white smile, but the rest of him is a very dark brown. I am a pale-pinky colour.

Some more of your wonderful recipes would be fine. Maybe something that lasts so I don’t need to be baking every day.

Yours sincerely,

Delicious Lass

I sat thinking about her letter for a while. Apartheid was dead in South Africa, but we all knew racism wasn’t. Especially in small towns. What would be most helpful to her? I wondered.

Heart-shaped chocolate brownies? Rainbow layered cake? Or a dark chocolate cake with pale-pink strawberry icing?

In the end I wrote:

Dear Delicious Lass,

The skin is just a thin layer on the outside. Your hearts are the same colour.

Here is a prize-winning recipe for a special fruitcake. The different ingredients (dark: coffee, cocoa, dates – and light: almonds, sultana, butter) join together to make something more delicious than you can imagine. This fruitcake matures with age. It will have him coming back for more.

Everything of the best,

Tannie Maria

The recipe had a very long list of ingredients, so it took a while to write up and made me quite hungry.

I added a layer of sour-cream topping to the cheesecake and put it back to bake a little longer. I studied my diet sheet. Boiled eggs for lunch. I sighed and swallowed my diet pills. I must’ve had the satanist on my mind, because I made devilled eggs, using Dijon mustard, cream cheese and red pepper. The eggs looked and tasted fantastic. As I sat at the stoep table, chewing my last mouthful, I saw that kudu again, at the gwarrie tree, nibbling on some leaves. It turned and stared at me. I went and switched the oven off, then phoned Jessie in Oudtshoorn, on her cell.

‘Jess. Any news on the Slimkat story?’

‘Yes! Ystervark saw the medical report. It definitely was poisoning. Hemlock.’

‘Hemlock?’

‘Ja, it’s quite a common plant. Grows all over South Africa. I googled it. It was used when that famous philosopher, Socrates, was given the death sentence. And the symptoms fit. Trembling, vomiting, dilated pupils, paralysis. Just like what we saw.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘Tomorrow. Are you all right, Tannie M? You sound a bit funny.’

‘I’ve had Slimkat on my mind. I keep seeing . . . his eyes. Looking at me.’

‘Ja. He was a good guy. I wish I could stick around here longer, find out what happened. But Hattie says I must be back Monday morning. I hope the Oudtshoorn police get on top of it. They’re not sharing much with me, I tell you.’

‘You’re not coming back today?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Is there something wrong, Tannie M?’

‘I have to go to counselling.’

‘Jinne.’

‘Ja.’

‘I went for counselling once; it’s not so bad.’

‘It’s with a group outside of town,’ I said. ‘Run by a mechanic.’

‘Ricus? The satanic mechanic?’

‘Ja.’

‘No ways! He helped out my cousin, Boetie, big time. Remember what a daggakop he used to be, a real marijuana addict?’

‘Ja?’

‘Well, Boetie found a snake that had been run over but was still alive. He put it in a sack and took it to this guy, Ricus, the mechanic. Ricus loves snakes, collects them.’

‘Is that why they call him a satanist?’

‘Ag, you know how people talk. I’d heard he used to do drag racing; his car was painted with flames and the words “bat out of hell”. Anyway, Boetie visited him – and the injured snake – a few times. I gave Boetie a lift there once on my scooter. I tell you, he became a different guy. Boetie’s got self-respect now. He left those scallywags he used to hang out with. He stopped smoking dope, and he’s just got a promotion at work.’

‘Sjoe. And the snake?’

‘The snake got better; they released it back into the wild. And Ricus sorted out my scooter brakes too. Don’t worry about him, Tannie M. He’s a cool guy. Good at fixing things.’

‘Thanks, Jess.’

I felt a bit better after talking to Jessie. I put the cheesecake in the fridge while I got ready to go out. I ironed my blue dress and wore fresh socks with my veldskoene.

I was deciding whether to call Henk when the phone rang and it was him. That sort of thing happens a lot, you know. I think about something, and then there it is. It makes me wonder if my life is neatly woven, instead of the tangle it looks like. If I could just follow all the threads, maybe I’d see a nice pattern.

‘How are you doing?’ he said.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘A bit tired.’ Sometimes I only realise how I am feeling when I speak to Henk.

‘I’m working late,’ he said, ‘but maybe I’ll pop round later.’

‘I’m going out,’ I said. ‘To a therapy group.’

‘Good. Where?’

‘It’s just outside town. In a . . . centre. I may be back late.’

‘Counselling on a Saturday night?’

‘It’s a kind of social thing, supper and that.’

‘Maria . . . I hope it helps. I spoke to a policewoman here. There are also counsellors for women who have been . . . abused.’

‘Ja. Well, let’s see how this goes . . . Maybe you can come after supper,’ I said. ‘For pudding.’

‘Oh. Lekker.’

‘I have made some cheesecake.’

‘Phone me when you get in.’

‘Henk . . . Hattie knows the place I am going to. And Jessie. If, if anything goes wrong . . . with my car or anything.’

‘Where is this place? What’s wrong with your car?’

‘No, nothing, I’m just saying, in case.’

‘Okay. See you later, bokkie.’

I cut the cheesecake into pieces and packed half into a Tupperware to take with me. The consistency wasn’t quite right; it still needed to cool some more, so I didn’t taste it. But I was glad to have the cheesecake for company when I drove off from my house.

‘I don’t know why I’m feeling nervous,’ I said to the cake. ‘I’m glad you’re coming with me.’

There was movement in the veld next to me, and there I saw the kudu, bounding through the bushes, parallel to the road. I was worried it would swerve into the road, and I slowed down. It slowed with me, keeping pace with my little blue bakkie.

I stopped and rolled down the window. The kudu came towards me, and I could see into its dark eyes.

‘Please,’ I said to the kudu, ‘stay further away from the road. I’m driving, and I don’t want an accident.’

It flicked its ears as if it understood. And as I drove off again, it moved deeper into the veld. It stayed at the same distance and speed all the way. Following me the way the moon follows when you drive at night.

I got used to the kudu, and my mind returned to my fears about the group. Who else would be there? I wondered if the guy from the Ostrich Supper Club with the angry eyes would come. What would we be expected to say or do? Would I have to diet some more, or take other pills? I didn’t want any more pills.

I carried on driving along Route 62, parallel to the long range of Swartberge to the north. I passed the road with a signpost to the Laingsberg and the Moordenaars Karoo. The Murderer’s Karoo is in the Groot Karoo. Then a little bit further on, a black raven was perched on the chassis of a tractor. A number plate said Ricus 10810.

I turned onto the dirt road, and the kudu turned too. The big buck was a comfort, even though I knew it wasn’t real. The cheesecake beside me was real.

I got to the entrance to Ricus’s farm and stepped on the brakes. There was a giant arch made of whale ribs and wood, decorated with zebra skulls and wildebeest horns. My heart was beating very fast.

‘I am scared,’ I said to the cheesecake. The kudu came and stood by the window, its ears pricked up, spiral horns pointing towards me. ‘Ek is poepbang,’ I told the kudu.

It twitched its ears and walked ahead of me with its long legs and graceful swaying neck. It jumped over a cattle grid, then carried on walking down the road.

The cheesecake should be almost right by now, I thought. I tasted a piece. It was pure pleasure, melting in my mouth. The sweet lemony cream-cheese flavour was like a balm. My heartbeat slowed.

‘You know,’ I said to the cheesecake, ‘it is not the satanist I am scared of. Or ravens, or pills, or diets. It is myself. It is the things I remember and the things I have done. And I can’t run away from myself for ever.’

I drove under the arch, across the cattle grid and down the dirt road.