October Page 4

  Mercia tries not to look at the woman’s arms, the emphatic hands held up in a gesture of helplessness. She imagines those elbows poking out of a tub of minced meat, as Sylvie kneads, her arms coated in grayish grease, whilst an even, steady sausage of speech issues from the girl’s mouth. She is embarrassed, critical of her own snobbery, but really there is no chance of correcting herself while the girl shouts as if she were in another room.

  Mercia recalls the wording of Jake’s brief letter: You are all he has left, which the mother echoes. There is no telling whether he had consulted with Sylvie, but now it does seem as if Sylvie too wants to wash her hands of the child. What on earth is Mercia to make of these people who belong to her? She cannot suppress her disgust at the fecklessness, the shamefulness of having a child whom you then hand over to someone else.

  Still on her haunches, she says to the boy, quietly, Would you like to take me for a walk, show me the veld? She points ahead to the kloof that plunges into the foot of a hill. Let’s go, you can be my guide, she says in her halting Afrikaans. How odd that Jake’s child should speak Afrikaans. What it surely shows is that Jake does not speak to him at all. How has her kind, loquacious brother come to be such an irresponsible father?

  The mother intervenes. Answer your auntie. I don’t think he can hear your whispering, she says. The shadow of a smile hovers on Sylvie’s face; it is clear that she knows exactly why Mercia has lowered her voice. The girl may be vulgar but she is certainly not stupid.

  But I don’t know the way, I don’t know what’s there, I’ve never been to the veld, Nicky says earnestly, and looking at his feet, I’m not allowed to spoil my good clothes.

  In perma-pressed long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the throat, the child is overdressed, a parody of a businessman. He wears Mr. Price’s cut-priced shiny black school shoes and socks. Not surprisingly, he is damp with sweat.

  Oh, Mercia says airily, we’ll make sure your clothes don’t get messed up; between us we’ll manage. Sometimes you may think you don’t know the way, but actually once you set out find that you can follow your nose, find that you know it quite well.

  Imagine, the child not knowing his own patch! Surely a child’s physical world should not be so circumscribed, especially here where you can see for miles across the veld. She smiles at Sylvie. We won’t be long, she says hurriedly, before the woman finds in the arcane field of motherhood a reason to object.

  She takes Nicky’s hand. The little warm hand in her own flutters like a bird before he withdraws it. As soon as they are out of earshot language tumbles helter-skelter out of his mouth. It’s a very long journey but he’ll have no difficulty getting to the top of the hill; in fact, the goats usually go to the left of the clump of castor oil bushes so there’s sure to be a path, but he wonders if Auntie Missy will make it. He wonders about the kloof. Is it the case that a kloof comes like a thunderbolt from the top, splitting open the hill and mangling its foot, or is it rather that the kloof starts in the hill, slowly as a trickling baby stream, before it grows and claws out the earth? Mercia explains about erosion brought by the rare rain—as a child of the hill the kloof nevertheless mangles the parent’s foot. And they laugh.

  What does Auntie Missy think they’ll find in the kloof? He’s heard there are caves, so would there be giant goggas, or snakes? The penny-bright eyes widen, his arms stretched out theatrically in measurement of a snake, and his mouth falls open at the terrible thought.

  Well, she says, it’s only just October so there may be a few sand snakes about but they’re not poisonous; we’ll just keep out of their way. More likely that a troll has made his home in the kloof, but Nicky hasn’t heard of a troll, doesn’t know the story of the Billy Goats Gruff. She adapts it, turns the bridge and the green meadow into a cave where the goats want to shelter from fierce sunlight. If only she had brought him some books. It turns out that Nicky knows no fairy tales at all, has neither been told nor read stories. His mother has told him a couple of things about Uilspieël, but stories about a funny man doing stupid things do not please him. He hasn’t got to know any fairies because he’s been trapped indoors, Nicky explains. There was heavy rain a little while ago and he was not allowed out for days. Look, he shows her the swirls of washed sand, traces of small winter streams that feed into the kloof. They stoop over the striations, the tender ridges of sand, and walk on the shrub in order not to spoil the memory of water.

  Mercia explains that most likely there’d be no more rain, that seasons come and go as the earth spins around the sun, that now it is spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Miraculously a verse from her childhood returns, in pristine Afrikaans, and he recites after her: Dit is die maand Oktober, / die mooiste, mooiste maand! / Dan is die dag so helder, / so groen is elke aand, / So blou en sonder wolke / die hemel heerlik bo, / So blomtuin-vol van kleure / die asvaal ou Karoo.

  The child declaims like a preacher, then once he has mastered the verse he stops at the fourth line, tickled by the poet’s claim that the nights are green. So wit is elke aand, he improvises, and laughs and laughs. Might as well call it white. He knows lots more colors—red, yellow, black—but purple would be best: yes, and starting again he folds in the color: so pers is elke aand. Now it is his poem, he says, and looks up at Mercia for her agreement.

  When Mercy loses her footing on a ridge, he tugs at her arm. Just as well he is there to rescue her; he doesn’t suppose that she does much exploring of the veld overseas.

  There is something of an overhang ahead, barely a cave, but the child is enchanted. It is a ready-made house, look, a roof that will never leak, and is also shaded against the sun. He darts ahead of her, scooping up a handful of freshly dried goat droppings, nice and round and light as a feather. These goats, having killed the troll, have a good place to hide. Now he knows to follow the goats; they know a thing or two, and he fills a trouser pocket with the pellets. Then he whoops with excitement. The cave is deeper than it seemed, and ahead, in the farthest recess, is a clump of flowers, their starry white heads burning in the dark.

  Chincherinchee, Mercia pronounces carefully, and explains how the rare rainwater coming down the hill—see, see the crack at the back of the cave—has found a basin in which to rest, how the roof delays evaporation so that the bulbs can swell and sprout. The child chuckles with delight at the plants, leafless, with pure, starlike flowers.

  Yes, it is wonderful, incredible, she agrees, that is why the Greeks called it bird’s milk. Ornithogalum, she sounds the word, syllable by syllable. Mercia says that she likes to think of their South African name, tjienkerientjee, of which the English name is a transliteration, as a Khoe word for stars, but she doesn’t know. It is of course a lily, like kalkoentjies. Has his father shown him kalkoentjies in the veld? she asks. The child’s face clouds over, the fleshy mound of his chin twitches.

  My daddy, he says hesitantly, is sleeping; he’s too tired to go to the veld.

  Or that is what she thinks he says, since Afrikaans does not have the progressive to distinguish sleeps from is sleeping. Nicky adds, My daddy can get lots of turkeys from the shop. Big ones with tails that make so, and with outstretched arms he struts, drawing arcs above his head.

  She laughs. No, not the bird, kalkoen. Kalkoentjie is also the name of a red lily you find in the veld. In spring.

  •••

  Jake would have been about seven years old when he came back from minding the goats with an armful of flaming flowers. Breathless, he had run all the way to present the treasure to Mummy. They were hiding, he said, in the shade of a cliff; he had never seen anything as wonderful in the dead old veld. There were of course the vygies with their little pink or yellow daisies dotted here and there across the gray bush, brazenly staring at the sun, but this—Nettie called them kalkoentjies—was a flower plant all by itself. A slender green stem grew straight out of the earth without proper leaves, he explained, sprouting bracts from which blood-red petals like little tongues leaned out, and look, the lower bract
s had not yet opened up, their blood-tipped fists barely poking out from the green sheath.

  There was no vase in their house; instead, their mother used a preserving jar so that the stems showed through the thick glass. Bent, but fresh and bright green. Jake was a clever boy, she said, to have found that treasure of kalkoentjies. She took one out of the water, held it up once again to admire the form. Elegant, she said, that’s what it is, and how heavenly it smells!

  The image is indelible: Nettie bent over the flower in the dappled light, and the little Jake looking up adoringly to say after her: Elegant, that’s what it is.

  Why are they called kalkoentjies? Mercia asked. It doesn’t sound elegant at all, and they look nothing like turkeys.

  Nettie didn’t know. Ask no questions, hear no lies, but she carried on smiling, twirling the flower between her fingers. At the age of eleven Mercia had heard plenty of lies without asking any questions at all, but it was best to protect her mother from that.

  When Nicholas came home he looked at the kalkoentjies sternly, as if the flowers had misbehaved. They are good, sweet-smelling flowers, he acknowledged, but they will die in this jar of brack water long before God has meant them to die. Jake started saying that there were bracts still unopened, that the flowers . . . but the words dried up under their father’s fierce eyes as he reached for the aapstert behind the door, so that the children whimpered with fear. The goats, he hissed, your duty was to the goats, and you’ve let them down, just left them who knows where. You’ve shown yourself to be as unreliable as any Kliprand hotnot. A failure. I’ll have no failures in this family.

  No, Mercia screamed, please, don’t punish Jake. I’ll take the hiding. Which she got anyway for trying to interfere, but that could not prevent the seven lashes that God had ordained for Jake. Their mother stood with her back against the wall, arms folded, tall and expressionless. She could not possibly have approved, so why had she said nothing? Jake was after all her favorite, as anyone could see.

  The next day Mercia found Jake holding the bunch of dripping kalkoentjies by their stems, ready to crush them underfoot. She snatched at the flowers, but Jake smashed the jar all the same. Later he claimed it was an accident, that he had run into the room, and taking off his hat had swiped the jar that must have been on the edge of the cupboard. Then he fetched the aapstert from its hook behind the door, but their father thundered that he was to put it back, that only God decided on chastisement. Their father heaved with rage, which surely showed a rift between him and God.

  Nicky is lying on his belly, sniffing at the chincherinchees, a spot of pollen yellow on his brown nose. He says it has a quiet smell, nice and fresh. How did the bulbs get there in the first place, how did they know to hide here? Mercy shrugs her shoulders. Then it must be God, the child says, when things can’t be known it’s because of God.

  Or perhaps the troll, she laughs. Once you learn to read, you’ll see that things you don’t know can be looked up in a book.

  Ah, he says triumphantly, but Mamma says God also made all the books. Will God mind if they pick the flowers?

  Her heart breaks for the repetition, the foreboding, and breaks again as he says, I could take it back for Mamma. Something screams in her head as she says quietly, There are two ways of thinking about it. On the one hand: how beautiful these white flowers would look at home in a vase, how your mamma would love such a present; on the other hand, they’ll die so much sooner before they were meant to and, besides, any other children who come to explore here won’t be able to see them.

  So what shall we do? the child asks.

  That is for you to decide, she says to the beat of a sledgehammer in her head and the roar of blood in her chest. It is not in her power to ward off disaster.

  I could pick just one to show Mamma, and when it’s in a glass at home I’ll try to remember the whole big clump of flowers, and Nicky bowls his arms for holding a huge imaginary bunch.

  But as he squats by the clump of chincherinchees, wrinkling his nose in search of the delicate fragrance, looking intently, he says that he wouldn’t forget. There is a long spike with a head carrying lots of little starry flowers, each with a central sac of yellow pollen, all bunched together, a basket of petals. A green spike so, so long, and he holds his hands an exaggerated twelve inches apart. Yes, he could easily remember that and he could tell his mamma, explain the chincherinchees to her; she is good at seeing things he talks about, although the smell would be hard; he doesn’t suppose she’d get the smell at all. He, Nicky, would remember it, even once he got home, but carrying it over to her exactly, that he couldn’t be sure of, that he would just have to try. He digs into his pocket for a handful of goat droppings. These drolletjies, he explains, would help the plants to keep healthy. He is not so very keen that other children should find this cave, but if they do at least the chincherinchees—he says each syllable carefully—would be looking their best, and the children wouldn’t dare to pick them.

  Does Auntie Mercy know that drolletjies make things grow better? he asks, sprinkling a handful at the base of the clump of flowers. He would keep a few in his pocket to help him remember.

  In her own pocket Mercia finds a paper tissue, not entirely clean, which she uses to wipe a smudge from his face and to dust down his shirt and trousers. It is not possible to remove the stain of earth on which he has lain. Then she remembers, unsolicited, the official name: Gladiolus alatus iridaceae; she had looked it up many years later. Why is it this name rather than the homely Afrikaans, kalkoentjie, that makes the eyes prick? Does Mercia know that what threatens are tears of self-pity, that she is touched by her own difference, her distance from home? It is the thought of the child by her side that stanches the tears. This is no time for sentiment, no place for crying, she admonishes herself, and so she launches into a description of giant gladioli you could buy at florists’ in town. Is that, she wonders, why Sylvie prattles? Does the heart command speech in order to clear a path for the child? This place, home, is a place for doing and thinking at an angle, a place where speech, triumphing over genteel silence, has many different functions.

  Back home, Sylvie dusts roughly at the boy’s trousers. Ag, liewe Here, look how he’s got himself in a mess, she complains, but at least he’s safe, and she ruffles his hair, as if indeed the child has been taken on a dangerous outing.

  Mam-ma, he squeals, squirming out of her grip, I saw the magic flowers in the troll’s cave. Like white stars in the dark.

  Oh yes, Sylvie says, you found tjienkerientjees. Why didn’t you pick some for Mamma? They last very, very long in water.

  In spite of Mercia’s explanation about seasons and her reassurances to the child the previous day, it rains. And that in October, the lovely, loveliest month.

  Sylvie laughs; she is a sugar lump; she dissolves in the rain. If it weren’t for the important job of making boerewors today, she’d wait until the rain stops. Mercia must now know that that is her job. Hers is the best boerewors in Namaqualand, a recipe she worked on for months until it was just right, an improvement on old Lodewyk’s slapdash mixture. In that case, Mercia says, she’ll drive Sylvie to Lodewyk’s butchery, prevent her from dissolving, and the girl crows with laughter, but then she bundles the child on her lap in the front seat, which Mercia will not have, so that the mood changes. Sylvie shakes her head, Ai Yissus! she complains, such fussing, as she straps Nicky into the backseat.

  At the stoplight Mercia points out to the child the wayward behavior of water on the windscreen. There are steady rivulets trickling down the glass, then for no apparent reason they stop in their tracks, momentarily, before a radical change of direction. The boy is mesmerized. He strains forward in his seat. Look, look how it turns on its heels, he shouts, as a rivulet skids horizontally across, refusing to roll down in an orderly, or rather, expected manner. The chaotic flow of water on the windscreen keeps them entertained, so that she does not have to speak to Sylvie.

  Nicky says that Auntie Mercy has brought this good, c
ool weather. He loves rain, and one day he’ll have a car so that he can watch at close range the water tumbling about on the glass, changing its mind. But his mother says that changing your mind is not something to be admired. You’ve got to stick with things. There’s no other way. Make your bed and lie in it.

  So why, Mercia wonders, is Sylvie prepared to give the child away? But that, she revises, may not be a fair question. The poor have always had to gird their loins and harden their hearts, packing off their children to be raised by grandparents. Or handing them over to more prosperous family members in the hope of better lives for their offspring. It was not so long ago that the barbaric Homelands policy for those less privileged than coloreds was justified by the belief that black people do not care for their children in the usual ways. Just look at how they pass them round! Wages from the cities easily compensate for leaving behind children in the desolate Bantustans! Distancing herself from the cant, Mercia still cannot help thinking that Sylvie ought not to part from her child.

  Mercia imagines Nicky in their apartment in the West End of Glasgow. Or rather, her apartment. There is Craig’s study, left untouched, next to the living room. South-facing and bright, and a good size, the best room, of course, for Craig the poet. But it is unreasonable to be bitter; it was after all her idea, for what better use could have been made of that room?

  Now she perches the child on that desk, a child looking up in wonder at the high old ceilings with intricate cornices, the ornate ceiling rose from which hangs a tasteful glass globe of diffused yellow light. She brushes out the image. Whatever is she thinking of? With her fastidiousness and need for silence, how could she have a child in her house? A boy somersaulting over her leather sofas? For there is no question of confining a child to one room, she imagines. Not like a man who keeps put, bent over a computer, his desk faced out toward the window.