Sylvia Jean Dickinson
Outside the Waterfront fences, the motorway runs into an unfinished flyover. A leaping hyena sprawled in mid-air, caught between seafront and the Foreshore high-rises. Circling traffic hums, blind to this bridge. Its cement pylons hold arches hiding riff-raff rows of homes tacked from bummed boards for a hodgepodge of people, leathered by sun and by birth. Hansie lies on his litter of rags in his one-man shack. Listens to sundown guffaw. As night blackens, noises quicken, roughen to brawl. Rubs a black pebble, says in his head, ‘Doss down,’ shuts out the bawling. Twists to sleep, dreaming slow night hours in strange places. Shivers awake, clammy in summer’s misty dawning, rises long-long before bridge-people stir.
Their day starts at ten, sometimes eleven. They’re unofficial attendants who patrol parking bays. Cash upfront, the car slips into the slot. Sometimes, old tourists stray into the bridge tracks, dig into pockets, flip a rand or two into cupped hands. Toothless grins may nod, ‘Dankie, my baas.’ Fall about cackling after foreigners, who escape, clutching cameras, feeling for wallets.
Bridge-people say, ‘Hey, Hansie, is you getting up more gek than you was? Hell, man, goin to work!’ They chuckle as he lowers his head, beams with them, not understanding their jokes.
For he’s a young man. Proud of his job. Who cracks out at eight, collecting his cart at the City Corporation yard. A street-sweeper; shaking his head at dust brought by rattling skiddonks or sleek limousines. What hooks him is a snorting sports-mobile. The blonde chick driver, with sparklers for ears, stops. Zapps up her radio, reggae hammers the street. Hansie brushes his broom in time to the beat bucking, blurts, ‘Crazee.’ It doddles his day. He finishes at five, cavorts home, the fast car flashing red in his head.
Under the arches, night thumps with beats on boxes, piercing penny whistles and harmonized voices, drumming Africa into bridge-people’s feet. Round two in the morning, when the galley embers ashen, the sweet dagga scent dies, the empties scatter, Hansie nimbles the gap in the rolled barbed-wire girder blocking the start of the flyover’s slope. Takes off his shirt, gasps the sea breeze. It sticks to his skin. Gazes as the Devil stokes his pipe, smoke furling mountains lining the city bowl.
From his flyover, Hansie scans Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak and freeway. Rubs a black pebble. Fancies his perch is a red coupé. Mounts, brakes where the road suddenly stops. Dismounts, cries, ‘Run!’ Swells, splits through his skin, springs into silk sunrise. Zings over the pass. Recalls veld camp-fire stories that mix in the mist. Sees Knysna’s forests of elephants, Big Bull’s tusks crushing thickets. Hansie jumps swamps that can suck in a man. And he’s a lone troubadour, possessing the land. Caresses her hills, wallows through valleys. Zigzags back over treacherous tracks. Reaches the bridge, idles, cooling on the flyover’s hump. By five, Hansie’s down in his shack, dreaming to the bridge-people’s snoring. No one notices Hansie’s been gone.
Others from the city are afraid to enter the shadows under the bridge. Local social workers think they might be attacked. Police drive up in packs, only when forced by townspeople’s complaints about noise, theft or filth.
One Monday, when the camp’s still dizzy with sleep, a visitor comes: Miss Molly Dogood on some student exchange with cash from the British Council. ‘A major priority,’ she says, ‘is Portakabin latrines.’ Where she’s from, dog shit’s OK, but human excrement’s the pits. ‘And,’ she says, ‘you can make yourself better.’ Hansie rubs his stubble, says, ‘Please, Merrem Dogood, what you think, I sick?’ She replies, ‘You’re bright with potential… What about evening class?’
Then on Friday, eleven days later, she zooms up in a red MG. Hansie touches it, leaves the clam of his hand on the hood. Close up, her car’s so shiny, too swanky money. He reckons such-much rand notes could stack a truck, can’t dream of driving again. She pulls out a black bag of stuff. ‘A donation from generous people,’ she says, ‘collected by women of St George’s Cathedral.’ Hansie frowns. Her English is strange, a girl with grids on her teeth who says, ‘I’m from Buckingham, England.’
The like-new caboodle spread on the ground – books, soap, pans, clothes – makes him point inside his shack: ‘I likes dat lot, I picks dem up by my own.’ Shakes his round head. She encourages, ‘Go on, just try them.’ Smiles, ignoring his waving no with his hands, pushes some gear on to his chest. He clutches the cache, withdraws into his dark shack. Is shocked how she’s worked out his four-foot-six size. The black suit, shirts, jumpers, jeans just right.
So on Sunday he toffs up. The bridge-people butt, ‘Ooh, now who you thinks you are? Maybe’s you’s gonna be our bridge MP!’ A ouvrou pipes up, ‘If your mommy see you now… You was a birth-baby crying for food, thin-thin, but big-round tummy. How many years Mommy gone? Maybe four, make you… me see… seventeen/eighteen… don’t think you be more.’ While other bridge-people snigger.
Hansie don’t say nothing. Walks away, strides round the corner, grows to five feet tall up Adderley Street, makes a stop-off to smile at himself in the bronze façade of the Sun Intercontinental. He strolls through the Gardens with after-church dawdlers. Follows a smart Mommy, Daddy and two skipping kids through the Gardens, to the far end, to the National Gallery. Old Cape Dutch walls gleam white as they mount its steps. But they’re stopped by kerfuffle as they reach the entrance. The bouncing doorkeeper roughshods a tramp, flings, ‘You can’t come in here drunk, dressed like muck.’
Hansie hears the Mommy’s ‘Do you have to?’ and the doorkeeper’s grumble, ‘Madem, please. I know my job.’ While Hansie fidgets, buttons his jacket, as the family pulls him inside. He’s struck by the shine of the floor, the silence, the real look of pictures. Hansie’s drawn to the Karoo. A bushveld painting. A pack of men trekking across Karoo’s sand drifts, dotted with acacia trees. He leaves the gallery, muttering. Tjommelling about bleak desert landscapes.
In Monday to Saturday dawnings, Hansie dangles his legs from the flyover’s gaping mouth, stares at the sea, where cargoed tankers are anchored. It makes waterless spaces kaleidoscope in his head. He throws off his clothes, stands still, alone. Crosses the Over-berg, sees little men loinclothed, padding across acres of sparse, grass-studded flats. Scans the dry distance of the Little Karoo, finds dun-coloured ostrich bathing in dust. Sun sparkles the sand, sprinkles his mind. His lips whitened by thirst, thinks, ‘Water by bridge.’ He tracks back, creeps down for drink, slogged, not got enough sleep, whispers, ‘Next time, go slow-slow in sun.’
Hansie’s mashed on Sunday, can’t find his black suit, rumbles through his clutter, sits outside his shack, quietly keening. At twelve some bod shouts, ‘You’s want it. Come get it.’ The bridge-people send shirt, pants, jacket sailing in catch-us-if-you-can. Hansie grips the ground, inside his head whirls, ‘Fly – sun – desert.’ They break up the game, saying, ‘Voitog dopey, your mamma got you like dat.’ Hansie runs round, grabs up his clothes, backs into his shack, swaps into his suit, dashes away.
Now young man thinking, ‘Go smart.’ Slows down Adderley Street. Ambles Government Avenue through the Gardens in the quiet afternoon heat. Circles neat flowerbeds of clashing purple and crimson gladioli that aroma December. Again, he picks a young family to follow. Drifts after them, slippers into the South African Museum. Hansie sees some rough brown-ochre stones, others shining as tiger-eye gems. Snow proteas climb Cedarburg mountains, pincushion proteas too, sun-yellow to poppy-red, scramble the Arniston coast. Hansie sticks these flower-pictures into his head.
Strides into the Natural Science section. Looks at the animals, zebra black and white pelts, striped heads of grey-bodied gemsbok, horns like swords. He returns to the impala, gets the turn of their heads, capers the corridors, skittish ready to hide.
Hears the family disgruntle.
The Mommy says, ‘Let’s avoid the next section. Uncivilized, showing people like that.’
‘Like what? Primitives? Species?’ The Daddy shakes his head hard. ‘Kids must learn…’
‘Nude… oh, why do I bother?’ The Mommy grabs her kids’ hands. ‘Not with me, they won’t. Disgusting, offensive display.’
The Daddy stands still, murmurs after her, ‘Of blacks? What?’
She stomps on, yanking unhappy kids along.
And Hansie scratches his head, frowning. ‘Why smart people be so ugly cross-cross?’ He’s not about to miss anything. Pads on. Discovers a chamber with glass cabinets of indigenous people: statues of proud Zulu warriors, Xhosa women weaving bright beads. San rock paintings, stick figures in green and rust, dressed only in hide; some straight, others bent, hunting. Hansie goes on to the wax figures of clay-coloured Bushmen people. Small men crouch, suck ostrich eggs or bore for roots near waterholes. Others coil bodies, ready to spear for the kill. Hansie gazes into their plastic black eyes. Traces a finger over his own flat cheekbones. Notices their tight, knotty hair. Hansie scratches his own kroeskop above his ears. Transfixed by their image, he sucks it under his skin. On weekdays, he bends a bow and whittles arrows. Practises his aim in glossy shop windows, sprints down the street. Regular passers-by don’t stare any more. Think, ‘Street-kid, high on glue.’
Hansie’s a night-stalker, mounting his haunt on the flyover – above the unconscious bridge-people, hoping for the Southern Star to shine, a lucky sign. Good for veld hunting. The stalker finds beetle larvae for poison and dips his arrow. There’s an odd aloe and nowhere to shelter. Dry sands burn his splayed feet. Trekking to the waterhole takes time, but it’s shrunk to muddy brine. ‘Must drink!’ plays in his head. Midday and the sun shimmers the air, no animals there.
Stalker moves lightly, tracking impala, staring across the silence, over ruddy, bare earth. Moves away. Quickens. Sprints. Stops, spying a young buck, whose hide is shades of fawn. Reaches for his quiver. The buck’s alarmed, sniffs, its paws ready to glide. Bounces away.
Closing his eyes, Stalker crouches on the hump. Feels a slither. Tenses and waits. Sees a monster gecko: skin scaly, back fins prickly, head the size of his fist, moving slowly. Stalker shuffles. Giant gecko barks. Freezes, blending into the yellow-brown clay dust. A blown dart pierces his head. The reptile twists. Shudders, dies. Is spiked on to a whittled twig, ready for feasting.
Almost sun-up and Hansie squats. Sears his meal on a nest of coals. Licks his lips. Rests, fades to sleep with its glow.
Wakes, works, sweeps through the week, impatient for Sunday. Bounds home from work Tuesday. Already bridge-people ring the galley. Swinging above it is his black suit straw-stuffed into a guy. He stands still some time, thinking, ‘Julie blimsem, look again for brandy money. Won’t find such luck. I not so dwars.’ No use locking anything here.
The men tease, ‘You wanna pay? How much you got? Where’s it? Where you go in this blerrie get-up? You gonna be some street dominee?’ They don’t get an answer. A bloke pokes a stick in the fire. Torch the suit. Flame zips a pong, a spray of ash. Hansie don’t cry, don’t look, thinking no suit, no Sunday walking. Lies in his shack till St Mark’s peals four, can’t count time, but tells early-early morning by the gloom. Climbs up. Pulls off his clothes. Sits on fours, starkers in the brush, rubbing a black pebble.
Now a deer grazing, twitching his ears, his nose. Who knows what’s lurking, though it’s man he’s most scared of. Lifts a hoof, takes off. Leaps on, on, on. Suddenly stops, drops his head on his forelegs, slinks off to sleep. Till traffic bumbles. Tugs honk their horns. Waking, licking his forelimbs. Shivering, checks, he’s covered in short hairs like fawn. He twists his head, his cheek brushing a shoulder, thinks, ‘Nobody see me.’ Just the gulls squawk, starting for breakfast.
Hansie pops on his clothes, runs to work, collects his cart and brush, rushes to press a snub nose against a mirrored shop front, giggles. No talking, just working, no looking at cars. Does his stretch of streets in short time. Itches to be clean.
Slipping down to the sea. Brushes shingle with sturdy-soled feet, picks up pebbles. Lopes to where waves crack the point, crosses rocks where blue periwinkles cling, stinging jellyfish wait for the incoming tide. Dips into the sea, gushes as cold bites his legs, wades, paddles in the bronze, snaking seaweed. Safe, no one else’ll swim here. He drifts to a cove, scrambles on to the sands, shakes his hide, sprays water, nibbles a limb, pauses. Canters on all fours, climbs the bank and hill over the road, rests on a rock under clear sky, says, ‘Dat Devil gone lazy.’
Frazzled by trekking, Hansie thinks dimly, ‘Sleep Sunday.’ Watches the sun boil the lip of the sea, till the waters turn green, ripple, settle like ink in the dusk, brood under black sky. Stars spark to the crickets’ chime. The moon shines the leaves silver. His jumper and jeans dumped, the breeze licks his body stretched on the ground. Mind floating between sleep and awake, dreaming between being hunted and stalker, till sun breaks the morning, streaks the sky pink, touches his eyes. Still drowsy, he rises, stumbles on gravel, grazes a-shank, drags on, dribbles blood unknowing, scrabbles Signal Hill’s slopes. Hansie’s struck by the sight. The flyover is a stalking hyena, jowled laughing, legs leaping to strike. Hansie flits faster. Fangs bared, barking, gallops back to its track.
Dives through the barbed-wire gap and strides the animal’s rump. Moves tranced up the ridge to the screech of its jaws. Poises, body stiff, toes grip the ledge. Sucks in air loudly. Below, columns of people, tramping to work, stop, gawp. Point up, murmur. Call for help. Shout at him. Hansie vaguely hears cheers, sees arms stretch up to him. But the crowd’s a heave of breathing, waiting.
Rubbing a black pebble, looks into the sun. Light braces his mind, slackens his muscles. Beyond shut eyes, he sees red and orange velvet. Is a Bushman hunting. An impala dancing. Bushman darting. Weaves red and orange inside his head, waits. Now a hyena. Screams, ‘Jump!’ and flies. Hyena leaping! Hyena hurtling, yawling, ‘Eh-eh-eee!’ Thuds on to the road. Lies limp, skin grey, hooves twisted. Hushed bridge-people ring him. He quivers his fingers, flutters his lids, gazes unfocused. Slow-slow, raises a limp forearm. The go-to-work onlookers sigh, murmur, expand into clapping, gabbling, laughing relief. Disperses.
The bridge-people straighten his limbs, cluck, ‘What you’s done? We fix you up,’ lift him gently. A tail uncoils and slithers away. They carry him back to their row, fetch water, blanket and coax him into speaking. Hansie intones in a lilting voice they’ve never heard. They prod, ‘Hansie?’ Think he’s speaking in tongues. Their eyes meet and tell he’s gone to a place of his own. He hums, stares through them. They ask, ‘You gotta name? Where’s you goin?’ Try, ‘Wat is jou naam?’, ‘Waarheen gaan jy?’, ‘Ngubani igama lakho? Uyaphi?’ He glazes a smile, his tongue clicks in Khoikhoi, ‘I’m Oba, from the San kraal across the Kalahari.’ They respond in anxious silence… can’t interpret his words, but agree, ‘He from dem people, go long-long time walkin.’
Now at night, they gather round the galley as he crouches, a troubadour with a bag full of tales, entranced by his strange sing-song words and grin, when he breaks, barks a shrill, cackling laugh. Hansie still doesn’t drink, though when galley embers ashen, they all collapse together, huddle to sleep.
Sometimes in the glooming, Hansie cajoles them awake. Still drowsy, they drag from under the bridge, up through the wire, nose from where it flies into freeway, stop before it leaps into space. Hansie points to sea, stars, hills. Tells how they can cross mountains, lush valleys, over grass plains to desert.
Waiting for sunrise, they crouch hushed, eyes pricking the distance, wanting to see through the haze.