The taxi stopped at the bottom of the track. The area was empty except for three children playing in the builders’ sand. The dog next door pulled on the end of its chain, barking half-heartedly at the incomers.
Jaco gave the driver R21 and slid the door open. Esther swung her legs out and put an arm around her son’s shoulders. Liedjie carried her nightie, a toothbrush, a small hand towel and half a cake of soap in a plastic bag.
“O Jitte, dis seer.” Esther winced as she walked, slow steps that took her up the track.
“Easy, Ma,” Jaco said.
They made their way along the track with Esther holding on to Jaco, and Liedjie following.
When they reached the house, she leaned against the wall, while Liedjie looked for the padlock key. It was good to be outside again, Esther thought, to see the mountains and the veld and feel the sun. The sky was white blue and in the whip of the wind she could feel the heat that lay ahead.
“The builders are laying more foundations,” she said, looking across the open ground. In the distance they were chopping along chalk lines on the rocky ground with picks and a koevoet. There would be more people living here soon, Esther thought, swallowing up the open veld.
“Another hundred houses, Ma. They say this time they are not putting in doors or windows or toilets until the new owners are given their keys. They are very afraid more like us will move in and take over.” Liedjie burst out laughing, and Jaco, and Esther, holding on to her sore ribs, laughed too.
“Who will allocate them now that he is dead?” Jaco asked.
“They say it’s three women from George who have come through to do it. Ag, there will always be some skollie, who is going to rob the people and give to their friends or people who will pay their bribes,” Liedjie said.
This time it wouldn’t be so easy, Esther thought. The people knew now how it worked, getting houses. They wouldn’t stop occupiers, even without doors and toilets. It was a roof people wanted. The rest they could get from the scrapyard.
Jaco took his mother’s arm again and Esther shuffled inside to the kitchen table. The dishes were washed, the bed covers pulled straight and the washing bucket was upside down in the corner.
“Everything is done, Ma,” Liedjie said.
“It looks nice, my children.”
There was a little veld plant in a cut-off cooldrink bottle on the table and Esther touched its swollen leaves. There was a lot to be thankful for.
Liedjie filled a pot to boil water for tea and lit the gas.
“How is everybody here? The little girls? And Titty?” Esther asked.
“The bitch stole my phone,” Liedjie said, setting a slice of bread in front of her mother.
“Where is she?”
“In her house. Don’t say her name or she will appear,” Jaco replied, and they laughed again.
When the water boiled Liedjie poured it on to the tea bags and spooned in sugar.
“There is a letter, Mammie,” she said.
She had tucked it out of sight, waiting for her mother to settle in first, and now she fetched it from the dresser. It was in a long white envelope with the municipality address on the back.
“E. Gelderblom; By Hand” was typed on the front.
There wasn’t much, one sheet, Esther thought, feeling but not opening it.
“Where did you get tea bags?”
“Jaco has been giving me his pay.”
That was a relief. Jaco was difficult about his wages. It was Creme Soda, chips and DVDs the boy wanted, not tea bags and sugar.
“Dankie, my kind,” Esther said, patting her son’s arm.
“Ag, Mammie, what can they still do to us?” he said, looking at the official envelope.
Esther turned the letter over and over. On a page they could lay a criminal charge, or send an eviction notice. A letter could bring hope or despair. She didn’t want the letter. She wanted to be left alone with her children to live in a small square house in the veld where she would plant a garden and put up a fence.
Liedjie passed her a knife and she slit open the envelope. It was a thick white sheet, folded three times. As Esther opened it she saw a gold badge on the top. The typing was clear and the signature at the bottom was a flow of black loops.
“Dear Mevrou Gelderblom,” she read aloud. “His Worship, the Mayor of Oudtshoorn, would like to meet with you to discuss the ongoing and troubling housing situation. He is aware that you have been one of the people most affected. You are invited to a meeting in the mayoral chambers.”
The date was tomorrow.
“Did Katjie get a letter?”
“No, just you.”
She would take her housing application paper to show the mayor how long she had been on the waiting list. Katjie must come too and explain to him about losing everything in the fire.
“When did it come?”
“Two weeks ago. I told the man who brought it you were in hospital and he asked me to let him know when you came home. I used Jaco’s phone and phoned him yesterday.”
Liedjie wondered if her mother was strong enough to go back into town.
“Jaco, you will have to give us money for a taxi again,” Esther said.
“The man said they would fetch us in a municipal car and bring us home.”
Esther nodded. It was right. This was an important meeting and she was still not well enough to travel all that way in a taxi again. “Katjie must come.”
In the afternoon, Liedjie set a chair with a cushion outside for Esther. A truck with a mechanical arm was offloading bricks in a fenced area.
“That’s for the walls,” Esther said.
The houses would go up quickly when the foundations were ready. There were so many people without homes, so many needing help.
It was only then, as she sat with the afternoon breeze on her face, that Esther saw the shell of the burned-out car in the narrow passage between two houses. The bigger children must have pulled it there, and two boys were playing, pretending they were driving.
“You wouldn’t have stopped it, Ma,” Liedjie said. “He was looking for trouble, you know that.”
“It is not our place to take a life,” Esther said
The younger woman finished her cigarette and killed the stompie on the step with a bare heel.
“How, Ma? How else is this going to end? You are alive with a letter from the mayor. Maybe we will get this house now, so we can think of something else for a change.”
She sank on to her knees at her mother’s feet.
“Sorry, Ma.” She was crying, and it felt like the cut on her soul was so deep it would never heal. “I want to sing in church with a happy heart, Mammie. I don’t always want it to be breaking. This place, this house, is not even a proper area yet, but already there are people being killed and tyres burning. How does that happen, Ma?”
Esther put her hand on her daughter’s neck and pulled her head into her lap. For a long time they stayed like that, until Liedjie sat up.
“What happened here? With the car?” Esther asked.
“Jaco said Mr Louis tried to get back to his car. It was hidden behind the builders’ container, but the boys followed him and when he got there he couldn’t get it started and— The other man ran away.”
Liedjie sucked in her breath and let out a half-sob.
“Who was that now, do you think?” Esther said. People had told her there were two men in her house but she didn’t know the other one.
“He was the one that ran, because he knew what was coming. He left Mr Louis running for his car. The people were laughing at Mr Louis, at his fear, and they started rocking the car and going through his pockets.”
“Was Jaco one of them?”
“He said so.”
“Who lit the match?”
“A lot had matches and petrol.”
“And Titty?”
“She was still hitting the drum lid, working everybody up with the noise.”
“It was good she did that,” said Esther. “Her noise made everyone come.”
They saw Katjie, then, walking down the track with the girls, and Liedjie stood and went in to wash her face. When she came back, the children were hugging and kissing Esther, and Katjie smiled at her.
“Antie Esther, my deddie is coming from Cape Town to help us with the new hokkie,” Bessie said. “Ouma phoned him from the call box.”
“And, Antie, we are going to try for electricity again. He says this time the place won’t burn down, it will be done properly.”
Esther and Katjie’s eyes met.
“Is it legal electricity?” Esther asked.
“My deddie says it’s going to be fine and he is bringing us a TV,” Criszenda said. Katjie looked at the mountains but Esther said nothing.
It was hard in a hok with no power, she knew that. A person needed to cook and, when the snow was on the mountains, the cold crept into your soul.
“They have given us a toilet to share with the neighbours,” Katjie said. “It’s much better than having to find a private place in the veld or to make a pit toilet.”
“And a tap?” Esther asked. That was the big thing, carrying water.
“Yes, yes, there is a tap too. It’s much better.”
Even those in the hokke were being helped with taps and toilets, Esther thought. For the occupiers there was nothing.
Jaco came later with wood and they made a fire and talked about the meeting with the mayor. Music from one of the new shebeens thumped in the distance and an ostrich walking the fence of the neighbouring farm hooted softly. For supper Liedjie boiled half a cabbage in stock. There were potatoes too, which she chopped into the pot. When they finished eating, it was dark, and Katjie said they would stay and walk home in the morning. The children slept with Liedjie, and Katjie helped Esther into her room, then curled up next to her, in Neville’s place.