CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

When we were finished being close in the new ways we had found, I lay in Henk’s arms on my bed, my head on his chest. There was a lone frog singing somewhere outside, and a band of crickets as backup. I breathed in Henk’s cinnamon-honey smell, his warm body, his furry chest, copper and grey hair, his mouth that held that big smile, his strong arms around me. I stroked his forearms, feeling his muscles and his silky chestnut hair, and inhaled him as if I could make him a part of me for ever.

I felt our closeness, but I also felt the distance of the things unsaid between us. I knew that once I had spoken, we could not go back again. And if I did not speak, we could not go forward. I wanted to stay in this place, now, for ever.

Henk pressed me to him and held me tight. As he squeezed, I felt the weight of Fanie’s body, the weight of forgiveness not given.

‘I’d better go,’ said Henk. ‘Tomorrow night I’ll bring Kosie. I’ll come early, about six.’

My sleep was disturbed by nightmares. The same ones and new ones. I woke up in the early hours and swallowed an antidepressant. Then I took the last piece of pie out onto the stoep and ate it as I watched the yellow half-moon sinking down towards the hills in the west. The kudu appeared from behind the gwarrie tree and walked through the veld, across my garden, onto my stoep. It stood with me, and we watched the moon set.

I slept okay after that but got into work a little late.

Hattie was busy on the phone when I arrived. Jessie was at her computer with her coffee; she grinned and raised a mosbolletjie rusk to me in greeting.

Hattie was talking to one of the Klein Karoo Gazette freelance reporters, from Riversdale. I put on the kettle and looked at the letters on my desk.

‘Fine,’ said Hattie, ‘if you want to cut it in half yourself and re-submit, you are welcome to do so, but we’re working to a deadline here, so we need your piece in an hour.’

When she was finished on the phone, I told them about the masked people who had invaded my therapy group. I tried to make light of it so that Hattie wouldn’t fuss too much.

‘Horned masks and sulphuric smoke?’ she said. ‘Sounds like they were satanists. From the satanic mechanic’s dark past. I hope you reported it to the police.’

‘Um, not yet,’ I said.

I pushed aside their questions by sorting through my letters. So many people, with so many problems. One of the envelopes had that spidery handwriting I recognized; I would save that as a treat. I made coffee and opened a letter from a woman getting a painful divorce, but I did not feel up to responding to her. I sipped my coffee and chewed the rusk. We’d put the Mama Bolo letter and my response onto the website. And now I had a number of emails from other healers and herbalists. They weren’t asking for my advice but offered to help with ‘every kind of love problem and any other suffering’. Was love always suffering? I wondered. The herbalists had remedies to make ‘big breasts, D-cup’ and cure ‘slack vagina’.

‘“Do you need a magic mirror,”’ I read out loud to Hattie and Jessie, ‘“for finding lost lovers, stray sheep and catching your enemy before he gets to you?”’

‘Hmm, could come in handy,’ said Hattie.

‘And here we have the “one and only very most important help with love”.’ I translated from the Afrikaans. ‘“Men, I can help you if you have small birds. I have muti to make your tools big and strong, and give you the most powerful moves. In only ten minutes. Guaranteed. Money back if you do not get results you dreamt of.”’

Jessie laughed.

‘Honestly,’ said Hattie, shaking her head. ‘By the way, Jessie, did you see there were some nice responses to your website article about the bunny? Even some emails offering a few hundred rand.’

‘Yes, thanks, Hattie. But it will costs tens of thousands to do what’s needed there.’

‘Perhaps public opinion will pressurise the council or Nature Conservation?’

Jessie shrugged. ‘Their funds are already allocated.’

‘Well, at least we tried,’ said Hattie.

I picked up the letter from the woman who was getting a divorce.

Dear Tannie Maria,

I hope you can help me. My husband is soon to become my ex-husband. We should have been honest with each other years ago. But now it is too late. The lies grew like cancer and killed the love between us. He is a good man, and there was love, and we did have some very sweet times together. I am grateful for this. The pain is unbearable, but there is no going back now. I am not asking your advice for mending – the divorce is going through in one week. I would just like some ideas on the last meal to make for him. We still have affection for each other and have agreed to sit down together one last time.

Should I make him one of his old favourites? Or should I have something new?

Yours sincerely,

Woman soon to be alone

I made myself and Jessie fresh coffee while I thought about this. Then I wrote:

How about an old favourite main meal? Maybe something that can be served with a sweet and sour sauce. And a new pudding. Have you ever tried malva pudding served with yoghurt?

I gave her Tannie Ina Paarman’s recipe for sweet and sour mustard sauce, which was delicious with raw or cooked vegetables. The malva pudding was one of my best family recipes. It came from my great aunt, Sandra. With the yoghurt, it was also sweet and sour. Tannie Sandra was a strong woman, whose husband died young. She managed a mielie farm and raised five children on her own during hard times.

An old recipe is like a spell. It holds spirit and memories as well as ingredients. I hoped that Tannie Sandra’s recipe would give this woman the strength to face her own hard times.

As I wrote out the sweet and sour recipes for divorce, I wondered what I would make for Henk that night, and if it might be our last meal together. Would telling the truth end our relationship? Would burying the truth kill it slowly over time?