Afrika, page 10
Kim leaned in to the open window. She couldn't believe her eyes. Her mother had gone through Kim's photos from Canada and had them spread all over the yellowwood table. Flushed, Riana was banging her fists against the heavy table. Whatever point she was making to Uncle Piet and Oupa, Riana was going about it too hard.
Kim strained to hear the conversation. What was going on? How dare her mother go through her stuff!
“Does Pa think it was easy for me?” lashed out Riana, screaming in English. “Me, alone in a new country with a baby! I showed you these pictures so you could see how hard our life was.”
“What Pa is saying, is …” said Piet reaching for a cigarette,“… you were the one who left for a safer land. The rest of us had to steel ourselves to stay in Africa.”
Oupa shook his head angrily. Riana's face was distorted with fury. Oom Piet stepped back to give her some breathing room.
“Just leave it now, Riana,” he continued. “You too, Pa. Let it go.”
Kim had to get away before someone saw her. But she could not move an inch until Rosie was out of sight.
Now Oupa was shouting. It was a side of her grandfather that Kim hadn't yet seen. “She has been asking questions about her father!” His beard was within an inch of Riana's face.
Rosie disappeared into the house with the firewood. Kim, just in the nick of time, crawled away from the window. Untangling Tara's reins from the tree, Kim led the horse quickly away from the house. But not before she heard her grandfather say: “She has a right to know!”
“Have you been to his house in the township?” Marjike asked Kim over her shoulder. “Your friend Themba's?”
Both girls were sitting on the grand red horse, Willem. Marjike had on riding breeches, tall boots, and her hair was braided into a plait. Kim wore jeans and a pair of old boots Marjike had lent to her. Out of view of the farmhouse, they were ambling in the field on the other side of the electric fence. Kim watched how Marjike communicated with Willem using her entire body, adjusting his speed with a single word or a pull to the rein.
“Yeah, I've been to his place,” Kim answered. She rested one arm on Marjike's waist, the other hand held the reins for Tara who was following behind them. “He eats the same thing for breakfast as we do, you know,” Kim added, imagining how Themba would laugh when she shared this conversation with him later. Ever since Marjike had helped Kim mail Themba's letter, five days ago, there had been a series of questions about him.
“The only Blacks I ever meet are laborers,” said Marjike as they guided Willem and Tara around a row of old pepper trees.
Slaves is more like it, thought Kim, recalling the swimming-pool men and poor Elsie and her overworked daughter. But she didn't say it. The truth was, Kim had thoroughly enjoyed her time on the farm and didn't mind one bit having people wait on her hand and foot.
During the five days she had spent at Milky Way Kim had fallen easily into the rhythms of life in the country. People woke very early and smoke drifted in from the workers' houses so it was the first thing you smelled when you stepped on the back porch. Kim would sit for a long time on the stoep listening to the wooing bird noises and watching the sun push up into the wide, empty, African sky. Sometimes Bliksem would join her, sprawling at her feet instead of doing his job of pacing around the farmyard and keeping snakes and other creatures away. Each morning there was a big breakfast, after which Marjike and Kim would take the horses past the fence and into the vast fields beyond the farmhouse.
Even though she had enjoyed the farm, Kim was well aware that since the morning she had overheard the argument with her mom and grandfather, she had found out nothing new to report to Themba. Cornering her mother was impossible. As luck would have it, a nearby town was a site for one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and suddenly, Riana was bombarded with work for her radio station. What we need is a Truth Commission in this family, thought Kim.
Kim pulled on Tara's rein urging the mare to keep up. Over the last five days Kim had been mainly with her cousin, learning how to ride. It was kind of Marjike to teach her, but Kim was frustrated that she was not allowed to ride solo on her own horse. That was why Tara had to trail behind them. Tara's big questioning eyes mirrored Kim's: How long before we have the chance to ride together?
After a while Marjike slowed the horses and let them drop their heads in a tussock of low grass. She pointed to a ruin made out of baked clay and stone. One wall rose a few feet from the ground, the rest had dissolved away. Two small lizards wiggled away from the ruins and into the dust. “That's our great-great-grandparents' homestead,” she told Kim. The use of the word our sounded odd to Kim, yet nice. She wondered what it would be like to have Marjike for a sister.
Behind the remains of the homestead were rows of old gravestones surrounded by a low whitewashed wall. On one side, beside a crooked thorn tree, was a newer grave with a small marker.
Kim leaned forward. On the tombstone there was a small image of a baby chiseled into it. “Who's that?” Kim asked.
“Katie. My little sister,” said Marjike.
“I didn't know you had a sister.”
“Check this out.” Marjike pointed at a beetle moving slowly across the ground. “It is a dung beetle. Do you know what dung is?”
“No,” said Kim. She wanted to ask more about the baby but didn't know how.
“Dung is poo hey,” said Marjike and then added, “Katie died when I was three.”
Kim wasn't sure what to say. In silence they watched as the stout beetle slowly, painstakingly rolled a ball of brown goo three or four sizes bigger than itself. Suddenly Marjike pulled back hard on the reins. “Oh no!” she cried. “The baboons are at our fig trees.”
Off in the distance Kim could see a family of baboons surrounding a patch of trees. They were pulling down the figs and stuffing as many as they could into their mouths. One mother had a baby hanging upside down from her stomach; another had a youngster riding piggyback.
This was great. Kim had never seen a baboon out of a zoo. “They're so cute!”
“They're beasts,” cried Marjike. “And they're dangerous! The big males can tear out a dog's stomach. Hold on.”
Kim coiled her arms tighter around Marjike's waist as the horses took off. “Voertsek!” Marjike shouted as they gained speed. Kim closed her eyes.
When she dared to look, Kim saw the baboons scattering. They tried to carry off as many figs as possible, some under their armpits, some in their hands. As they ran the fruit flew all over the place.
The last thing she saw was a male baboon lifting his dog-snout face to survey the scene before he disappeared over a small hill. Marjike bent over to reward Willem with some pats on the side of his neck. Kim relaxed her grip on Marjike's waist. It was a cool day and the blue sky was broken up with large dark clouds that rolled in over the mountains.
Marjike pointed off in the distance, “Look. There's Oupa's ship. His Noah's Ark.”
“It's as big as a house!” exclaimed Kim. It was Noah's Ark, all right, resting high and mighty up on wooden stilts. The bottom of the boat was massive and sloped away from a tall mast and a stout, red-painted cabin. Behind the wondrous craft the land spread out dry and golden for miles.
Marjike steered the horses in the direction of the ark. “Oupa named it from an etching he saw as a child in a children's Bible,” she explained. “Oupa had no knowledge of boats. I'm not lying if I tell you the poor old ark has never once seen a lake or an ocean.”
“Can we go inside?”
Marjike nodded and they tied the horses to a thorn tree beside the tall wooden ladder that led from the ground to the hull. Then they saw the dirt bikes. “Japie and his friends are here,” Marjike said with some concern.
“I don't care,” said Kim. “Let's climb up.” Both her hands and her feet were already on the ladder.
“Be careful,” cautioned Marjike. “Don't look down, man. It's much higher than it seems.”
Kim soon realized what Marjike meant. Halfway up she made the mistake of dropping her eyes. The golden ground swam below her and her legs began to shake. She focused on the top of the ladder and forced herself to keep going. Finally, she stepped over a wooden rail, onto the deck of the boat.
“What are they doing in there?” Kim whispered the moment Marjike was safely beside her.
“Hey,” warned Marjike. “Sh!”
Kim looked around. The ship had curved wooden sides that swept up much higher than her head. Oupa had made counters and some wooden seats under a carving of a sea bird. It was weird to be walking on an ark suspended high above land.
“Listen,” whispered Marjike. “I think they're downstairs in the hold.”
Kim could hear mumbled sounds from the bottom of the ark. It sounded like the boys were giggling, or tumbling, or perhaps fighting. The two cousins stepped quietly across the wooden deck.
Kim arrived first at the hatch that led down into the hold where cargo would be kept. The ship vibrated with each thud and wham. Three or four candles flickered and it took a moment for Kim's eyes to distinguish what she saw. Down below her, Japie and a carrot-topped friend were wrestling each other with pillows.
Some secret meeting. One of the pillows had burst and feathers flew like fairies through the air and all over the boys.
Japie was the first to see the girls. “ Wat kyk hulle!” he barked. He batted the feathers away, furious. He looked silly.
“Way to go,” Kim said.
“ Voertsek!” he shouted the same word Marjike had used to chase away the baboons.
“Let's go,” said Marjike, pulling Kim away.
“Foot-sack yourself,” said Kim.
Japie frowned. “She's the cousin I told you about,” he told his pal. The boy was a hillbilly with orange hair and orange eyelashes. His skin was translucent as if he never came into the sun, and his trousers were worn at the knees. “She's the one whose ma had to take off to Canada.” Jap's voice echoed in the hollow hull of the boat.
Marjike went very still. “Japie, shut up,” she said.
“I knew it, man,” said the hillbilly boy. He was out of breath from the pillow fight and the corners of his mouth glistened with saliva. “The minute she walked in here, I knew it.”
Kim flushed. “Knew what?” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
“Her pa was colored all right,” said Japie, spitting onto the floor. “If you know what to look for,” he added with a knowing grin, “you can see it a mile off.”
Kim pulled herself up as if to shout back, but no words came to her lips. Instead, she turned and marched away. In two seconds she was past the wooden seats and back at the place where the ladder rested against the side of the ship. Her heart was beating like crazy as she heard Marjike scolding the boys. “Tell her you're sorry, hey,” she said.
“I'm not sorry,” echoed Japie's voice.
Climbing down was much harder than climbing up. If Kim missed a rung she could fall to her death. She wanted to get as far away as possible. She started down – one rung at a time – holding the sides tightly, forcing herself to go slowly. It felt like an eternity before she was at the bottom of the long ladder. Without hesitating, she untied Willem's reins and hauled herself up onto his back.
Willem lifted his head and looked at Kim with bright, questioning eyes. Kim gathered up the reins and gave him a quick hard kick as she had seen Marjike do. Willem obeyed. Leaving Tara tied to the thorn tree, he bolted.
Kim tried to focus on what she was doing. Except she was not riding Willem; the horse had taken control. He was going way too fast. Stop, she tried to shout, but her voice was frozen with fear. Please stop! Kim's entire body jarred with every stride.
She had to gain control or Willem would kill them both. That realization, coupled with her anger, helped her to overcome her fear. She pulled smoothly back on the reins. Show the horse who is boss, Marjike had taught her. Miraculously, the horse obeyed. Willem calmed down and galloped smoothly and evenly. She was doing it. She was riding Willem! And she didn't stop, didn't need to stop, until they were way out in the middle of the veld, in the middle of nowhere, where the scent grew stronger and spicier and the dust redder and dryer and there was nothing around them but silence.
“Whoa,” she called to Willem, pulling back on the reins. He slowed to a trot, then came to a stop, his sides heaving. Kim stroked his neck.“Good boy,” she told him, amazed that her voice still worked, even though her hands were shaking.
She shivered and pulled herself closer to the hot body of the horse. Her hair had come out of its elastic and now it fell across Willem's mane. A memory flooded back to Kim. “Horsehair,” a kid had once called her. When had that happened? She had been seven or eight and there was a fight over it, maybe even her first fist fight.
The sun had gone under a dark cloud, leaving little light except on the distant purple mountains. A rust-brown bird with a long beak landed on a nearby bush. It's repeated cry – tjip-tjip-tjippie-e – brought her back to attention. The sky was very dark. It would rain – soon.
Kim gathered up the reins. She should never have let those stupid boys get to her. It was Riana's fault that she had run away from Japie like an idiot. What was Riana's problem? Why had she kept the truth about her father a secret? Was she ashamed of the very blood that ran through Kim's veins?
A large raindrop splattered on her hand, then another hit the back of her neck. Riana is going to tell me the truth once and for all! She is going to set this straight today! Kim took up the reins, and, kicking her heels into Willem's flanks, sent him galloping through the rain in the direction of the farmhouse.
The rain came down in sheets. Kim had just gotten Willem into the barn and thrown a blanket over him when the thunder exploded. Through the open door of the barn, lightning flickered and turned everything white – one, two, three, four flashes in a row and then darkness. Even though Willem must be used to such African storms, he was spooked. He squealed and backed into the corner of his stall.
Kim dashed for the farmhouse and burst into darkness. For a moment she didn't understand what was going on. There was a paraffin lantern flickering on the center of the yellowwood table. Rosie was down on her hands and knees building a fire in the front-room stone fireplace. “The electricity is broken,” said Rosie when she saw Kim's face.
Tante Reza, dressed in coffin black and carrying a candle, shuffled out of the dark toward Kim. “Japie and Marjike called me on the cell phone,” she said.“They are still in the boat. They are taking cover there from the storm.”
Suddenly Kim noticed the handle of a gun peeking out of Tante Reza's dress pocket. Terrified, she took a step back. “Where's my mom?” she demanded staring at the gun. Her clothes were drenched and her wet hair was clinging to her shoulders.
“Your Oom Piet took her to the train station.”
“Train station?”
“Ja, the newspaper or the radio, I don't know which, sent a message and asked your mother to go to Lion's River to cover some story,” Tante Reza said.
“What story?” Kim asked.
“I don't know. She left this note for you.” Tante Reza handed her an envelope. “Must I ask Elsie to make you some tea?”
“No,” said Kim.
“Take this candle please,” her aunt instructed. “You must change your clothes.”
Kim hesitated before taking the candle: her hands were shaking and she thought the candle would roll out of its holder and burn her skin. But she did as she was told and, taking the note and candle with her, made her way to the back of the house.
When she reached Marjike's room, she set the brass candlestick on the dresser, slammed the door, and flung herself on the second bed in her soaked clothes. She couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand being left in the dark in this spooky farmhouse with a certifiable nutcase at the one time she needed her mom the most. Kim made a fist and pounded the bed until the candlelight flickered across the walls and her hand began to throb.
She ripped open the letter and held it close to the candle. “My darling Kim,” it began. How incredibly fake. Just like her mom to try and butter her up and then run off in the middle of a storm and abandon her.
“I have to go to a nearby town to cover a story for my producer. There have been some protests about the Truth Hearings going on there this week. When the commission descended on this small town they underestimated the anger that people feel. I should be back in a couple of days.”
A couple of days! Kim pounded the bed again. Her mother had promised this would be a holiday. Didn't her boss at the radio station understand what he was putting her mother through? He couldn't go on making her cover stories about dead babies, tortured teenagers, and bomb blasts so deadly that roofs were blown off. Kim turned back to the letter.
“Please try and be patient. I know this has not been an easy time. So much has been kept secret and it is very frustrating for you. I promise I will reveal everything soon. Be good to Tannie Reza, Oom Piet, and Oupa. With love, your mother.”
Kim tossed the letter to the ground and started, as a clap of thunder boomed outside the farmhouse. What a pathetic letter! A million questions tumbled through her mind and this stupid letter added even more.
There was a knock on the door.
For a split second Kim thought it was her mother returning early from the story. But no doubt it was stern-faced Tante Reza with a “please Kim” expression on her face and a hand gun in her apron.
Kim flung open the door and was astonished to see her grandfather standing there with a tray of tea and a second candle. Silently she watched Oupa stoop and set the tray down on the dressing table. His chest was sunken and every hair on his head was snow-white, even his eyebrows. He set the candle on the other side of the dresser and closed the curtains.
“I heard you and my mom fighting the other day,” Kim cried. “Is that why she left?”
