Zebra Horizon

by Gunda Hardegen-Brunner

  *

  After having dropped off the guys at the stretch of road where they were supposed to fill up the potholes, we raced back to the farmhouse.

  “My friends from Zeekuievlei are already here,” Sarie said as we drove up the driveway.” She pointed to an African leading 3 horses to a camp. “Hezekiel is looking after their horses.”

  “Is that Hezekiel?” I asked. “I’d never have recognized him. To me all blacks look the same.”

  “Ag, come on,” Sarie said. “They all look different, just like us.”

  “Except they’ve all got the same hair colour and the same hair style…and the same eye colour.”

  “Ja, but they still all look different. Hezekiel has got long legs and a round face, for example. I guess you’ll get an eye for it after a while.” She parked the car under a tree and explained to me, that the Leroux kids from the neighbouring farm and the Saida kids had known each other since the day they were born. Sarie and Hummel had been in primary school with them, and now the 2 boys, Morné and Jaco, went to boarding school in Bloemfontein, and their sister Chandré was a boarder in Ficksburg.

  They were sitting on the stoep drinking ginger beer. One could immediately see that they were siblings. All 3 of them were big boned, broad faced, snubnosed, blue eyed and had the most amazing thick mops of nearly white hair. When they saw us they started to talk – in Afrikaans – all at the same time.

  “Woa guys,” Sarie cut in. “Mathilda here doesn’t understand Afrikaans.”

  “Oh alrrright,” Morné said, and everybody switched into English.

  We spent quite a while sitting on the stoep chatting. Whiffs of Ma Saida’s peach jam trailed through the air, some metallic blue-green birds called glossy starlings flew in and out of the pomegranate trees, and the dogs chased the lizards lounging on the sun drenched walls.

  “Let’s go to the river,” Sarie finally suggested. “The foofy slide has been fixed up. I’ll go and ask my ma for a picnic to take along.”

  I went with Sarie to find out how that delicious smelling jam was doing. In the kitchen Ma Saida had everything under control. Lena and Sannie were peeling and destoning peaches, fat Lorah was scooping the foam off the boiling jam and Ma Saida was sterilizing jars. A whole army of filled jars was already standing on the table.

  “I think a picnic is a brilliant idea,” Ma Saida said. “You can take some ham and droewors out of the larder, and there are rolls and half that apple crumble from yesterday.”

  “Thanks Ma.” Sarie disappeared to get the grub.

  “So you are going to the river?” Ma Saida asked.

  “Ja, to the foofy slide or what ever. I don’t quite know what that is.”

  “You’ll see my girl, and listen,” she put on a stern face, “don’t you teach my kids this German nonsense.”

  “What German nonsense?”

  “All these liberal German nonsense things.”

  What the hell is she talking about?

  I stared at her and waited.

  “You know, like taking all your clothes off when you go swimming. I want none of that on this farm, understand?”

  Now I’ve heard it all.

  A ribbon of willow and blue gum trees marked the course of the river through the bottom of the valley. It meandered in irregular bends through the veld and disappeared behind the slope of a long, flat topped mountain. We left the bakkie at the end of a track and walked Indian file on a narrow path along the edge of a ravine. The yellow and red shades of various geological layers shone like giant bands, squeezed and folded into an abstract pattern. Flowers and small bushes were clinging to narrow ledges and thorn trees hung over the chasm. At the bottom, the brownish water gurgled its way over smooth rocks and through carpets of watercress. A bright green-blue kingfisher perched on a dead branch suddenly took off towards a rockface covered with white streaks.

  “Dassiepiss,” Jaco commented and he pointed to a colony of dassies lounging in the sun on the opposite bank.

  I thought of Dodger, Greta’s pet dassie, and realized that I was missing the Winters, although my holiday with the Saidas was great fun.

  Mebbe because with the Winters I really feel like a member of the family and here more like a guest.

  I didn’t want to think too much about it. I’d just make the best out of every moment.

  Gradually the ravine petered out, and a green tunnel of willow trees shaded the river. After a while we came to a small dam surrounded by large blue gums. Trigger raced into the water.

  Sarie dropped her basket. “That’s where I’m going right now too; gosh, it’s hot today.”

  Before I could blink everybody had taken all their clothes off and dashed completely naked into the dam.

  Good old Ma Saida, she doesn’t have a clue of what goes on when she isn’t looking.

  I got undressed and joined the others. The water was cool with dragonflies dancing above its surface and brushy stuff growing at the bottom. There were reeds with weaver birds’ nests and fluffy white clouds had started to form in the sky.

  Sarie emerged from a dive. “Let’s try the foofy slide.”

  I still didn’t know what a foofy slide was and followed hot on her heels.

  “Rule number one,” Sarie said, “girls have to wear a cozzy.”

  “Why’s that,” I asked.

  “‘cause if you don’t you’ll cry for 6 days.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll see. Sometimes it’s a hard landing ‘specially between the legs and you don’t want to have your watchamacallit ripped out.”

  She put her bikini bottom on. “You don’t need a top though. No danger for the boobs and it gives the guys something to look at.

  Fuck the guys.

  My costume was a one-piece job so I put my panties on, not because of the guys, but because it’s unpleasant to run around in a wet cozzy.

  To get to the foofy slide one had to climb up a blue gum tree. I was quite impressed at the speed Sarie raced up a couple of footholds that had been nailed into the tree to reach the platform. From one of the branches up there a cable stretched right to the other side of the dam. Sarie grabbed a handle attached to a pulley on the cable and jumped with a lusty yell from the platform. She quickly gathered speed; that made her yell even more until, all of a sudden, she let go and landed with a big splash in the dam.

  Gosh, that knocks Tarzan into a cocked hat, yell and all.

  I was even more impressed when I was standing on the platform myself. It was at least 5 m above the ground, which feels higher than it sounds, and one had to hold on for something like 50 m before one could let oneself fall into the water.

  Jaco chucked a string at me with which one could pull the handle back to the platform.

  “Go go go,” he shouted climbing up the tree.

  I grasped the handle and jumped.

  Heidewitzka, this is great.

  The sun was hot on my body and at the same time I felt a cold tingle where I still had drops on my skin. In my stomach butterflies were performing a crazy dance and the world flashed by in a gleam of blue and green.

  We kept on foofy sliding until we were half starved. The guys pissed from the top of the platform, of course, and after each landing the girls took off their cosies to show off their lips, stuff we had done when we were in primary school or even before that.

  “Come on Mathilda,” Morné kept on shouting. “Show us what you’ve got in your brooks.”

  “Shut up, you idiot. You behave like some blooming kindergarden kid stuck in his Oedipus phase.”

  Morné’s jaw dropped and he shut up for 30 seconds. His face turned as red as a cock’s comb. “You know what you bloody German, it’s you who’s got the problem. You are a bloody lesbian, that’s why you don’t shave your legs and under your arms.”

  Phhh, you ignorant poep.

  “If you go by that there are about 20 million lesbians in Germany because German women don’t shave.”

  “That’s why they are so
bloody ugly and that’s why…”

  “Come on man, shut your mouth and grow up.”

  The others were standing around grinning, which didn’t help to restore Morné’s hurt male pride, and for at least half an hour he didn’t talk to me.

  We had our picnic under the foofy slide tree. Jaco said that he wanted to go and check for birds’ nests just now, but by the time we finished Ma Saida’s apple crumble the whole sky was full of enormous clouds.

  “There is a thunderstorm coming up,” Sarie said. “We better go home.”

  While we were chucking our things into bags and baskets, a gusty wind whirled dust from the ground and ripped waves into the water. Within minutes the light changed and a dark, grey-greenish bubbling front moved through the sky towards us.

  “Heere,” Chandré looked up. “We better hurry up. This is a big one.”

  We grabbed our stuff and ran.

  The wind grew stronger. The air was cold and thick with dust. Willow branches whipped across our faces. When we got to the ravine the first flash of lightning split the sky. Thunder crashed and rumbled. Trigger disappeared with a squeal into some bushes. Sarie flung herself on the ground to get the puppy out, but she only scratched her arms on the thorns.

  Morné pulled her up. “Come on Sarie. This is a hellsa storm. We must go now.”

  “Nooo, I’m not leaving my dooog. He’s scared of loud noises.”

  Another flash of lightning zig zagged through the darkness, thunder clapped; some sacred ibisses drifted sideways through the sky. Then the storm really started. Morné grabbed Sarie’s hand and ran. The universe was boiling and exploding and ripped apart by lightning flashes. Down in the ravine unearthly sounds rumbled and hissed and spooky shapes trembled in cold bolts of luminosity. We arrived at the other end of the ravine. And still there was no rain. And the wind grew stronger and stronger. Trees arched towards the ground. Some had broken like matchsticks. Something hit me across the face but I hardly noticed. A drop landed on my cheek. Chandré stumbled and fell; I helped her up and saw that she was crying. A mighty swish approached from somewhere and the rain started to fall. I had never seen anything like this. I could hardly make out Chandré in front of me. On the path up to where the car was parked, a wave higher than my ankles came rolling down the slope. An almighty roar made me stop in my tracks. I turned round and saw a wall of water higher than myself thundering through the riverbed, ripping bushes and trees from the embankment.

  “Floodwave,” Jaco screamed. “Run.”

  My legs had never been so wobbly and so heavy. But I still ran. The floodwave passed a few metres away from us and the bakkie. We all crammed into the cabin. For a while nobody moved or said a word.

  “Jeez,” that was a narrow escape,” Morné was the first to get his speech back. “If we had left 2 minutes later that wave would have hit us.”

  Sarie started the car, sobbing about the puppy. We were all wet to the bone shaking and shivering. I heard somebody’s teeth clattering and realized it was me. Water was running down the track, turning it into a mudslide. We skidded dangerously around a bend but Sarie quickly had the car under control again.

  “You’re a bloody good driver,” Morné said.

  I felt completely drained and miserable but I couldn’t help grinning.

  Well done boet – got over your macho pride after all.

  The storm was slowly abating. Occasional flashes of lightning connected the earth to the sky and the thunder rumbled further and further away. Even the rain thinned out, although I could still feel it running down my head ‘specially on the left hand side.

  Strange, with all the windows closed.

  I felt a headache creeping up my skull, me, who had never had a headache in my life.

  “Good Lord,” Sarie tramped on the brakes. “Look at that.”

  Before I could ask what, she had already jumped out of the car. We all got out. A ewe was lying next to the track, her legs up in the air, with a tiny lamb wriggling next to her. The lamb was covered in yellow mucus, splattered with mud, and his birth sac enveloped his hind half like a raincoat.

  “Wipe its nose so that it can breathe,” Sarie said to me, and to the boys: “We must turn the ewe over, she is having another one.”

  What do you wipe a lamb’s nose with in the middle of the wilderness when everything is sopping wet and covered in mud?

  We had lost our towels and all our stuff somewhere, just dropped everything while running.

  The others tried to turn the ewe right side up again. A transparent globule was bulging out of her vulva. The lamb at my feet jerked and snorted weakly, mucus bubbling all across its snorkel. I just took my T-shirt off. It had psychedelic coloured spirals all over and Ma Saida didn’t like it because it looked like a ‘hippie rag’. I wiped the lamb’s nose.

  Sarie nodded and shouted: “Clean it all over, the mother’s still going to be busy for a while.”

  I wiped the lamb with gentle strokes from the head to its tail.

  Strange. Little lamb is bleeding. But where?

  I wiped the blood off the lamb’s body but there was more and more on his face and his little belly, bright red, mingling with the rain, running down its baby wool. I looked over to the ewe. She was lying on her belly groaning; the lump sticking out of her vulva was growing.

  “Here are its feet,” I heard Chandré say.

  Why have the guys disappeared? Oh, there they are, at the bakkie letting the tail gate down…and the lamb is still bleeding and I can’t stop it and my head is going to explode.

  “Number 2, here we are,” Sarie said far away. “Mathilda give us your shirt. The mother isn’t doing anything, we must wipe this one clean too.”

  I felt like living in a slow motion picture when I handed her the wet sticky mass that was my shirt. I saw Sarie’s eyes grow as big as saucers and heard a hollow”good heavens”, and then “Morné, Jaco, come here fast.”

  “Jeez,” look at that gash in her scalp,” Morné took off his T-shirt. “Take this,” he said softly. He helped me drape it around my shoulders. I just grinned.

  Not so macho after all.

  His T-shirt was yellow and wet and then it was red and wet. He took me to the car and put me inside. The rain had weakened to a soft drizzle. A ray of sun pierced through a hole in the clouds and turned drops into shafts of silver. The bakkie rocked and I heard voices. I slowly turned my head. The others had lifted the ewe and the 2 lambs on to the back. Sarie made a thumbs-up sign and laughed. When I turned round again a rainbow arched across the somber sky; a stretch of field glowed like a lake of jewels – and then it was gloomy again.

  Finally the farmhouse appeared, tiny, under enormous dark clouds, rimmed by golden sunrays. On the drive, Ma Saida came running towards us, Alicia and several maids in tow.

  “Thank God, you’re back. What a terrible storm. Is everybody all right?”

  “Ja Tannie Bertha,” Morné said. “‘xcept that we are all half frozen and Mathilda’s got a big cut in her scalp.”

  “Goodness me, come inside quickly.”

  “Ma, we’ve lost Trigger,” Sarie sniffed, and we’ve got a ewe and 2 lambs in the back. Hezekiel must put them in with Rommy and Juliet.”

  “Hezekiel’s been knocked out by a sheet of corrugated iron. That storm blew half the roof off the small shed and old Hezekiel got hit. I think he has got a few cracked ribs. What a business!” She turned to one of the maids. “Lena, fetch Philemon. He can do the sheep.”

  We trooped into the kitchen where the ancient Magic stove turned out a lovely warmth. I felt totally schlapp all of a sudden. Ma Saida inspected my head while Poppie made hot Milo.

  “My goodness girl, how did that happen?”

  “Dunno, I didn’t even know I had it until Sarie told me.”

  “Well, looks to me like it needs a couple of stitches. Sarie get some dry clothes for all of you, and then I’ll take Mathilda and Hezekiel to the hospital.”

  “Where is Pa, Ma? Sarie asked.

>   “I wish I knew,” Ma Saida said. “I tried to phone Gran in Kneukelspruit to see if they popped in there but the phone is dead.”

  “Lightning hit the line,” Jaco said, “or a tree fell across it.”

  Poppie poured Milo into mugs. My head was sore. The door opened and Lorah walked in with Christo in pyjamas. I wished I were in bed. Another shower of rain hammered the corrugated iron roof. Ma Saida told Lorah to run hot baths in all the bathrooms and a groan came from the storeroom next door.

  “That’s Hezekiel,” Ma Saida said. “We put him in there on a folding bed. Sannie tell him we are going to the hospital just now.”

  I vaguely remembered from somewhere that people with head injuries must never be given food or drink until there is a clear diagnosis, so I refused the Milo. Alicia had evidently stopped her hunger strike because she grabbed my mug and said she could do with a second helping.

  Sarie came back with a pile of clothes. “Here we go, dry outfits for the drenched storm victims.”

  “Thanks, my girl. Mathilda you change right here in the kitchen where it’s warm.” Ma Saida handed me some garb.

  “Boys out,” Alicia said. “A lady is taking her clothes off.”

  Ha ha they’ve just seen me kaalgat.

  ”Morné and Jaco you go and have a bath in the green bathroom,” Ma Saida ordered. “You girls use the pink bathroom, and Chandré, you better first radio your parents. Ask them if you can spend the night here. I don’t like the idea of you kids riding home on horseback after this storm.”

  Ma Saida got a cloth out of the cupboard and wetted it under the tap. “Let’s clean your head, Mathilda. Good heavens, all that blood in your hair.” She wiped around the gash. “What ever hit you, you’re lucky that it didn’t hit you in the eye. Good Lord, and we are responsible for you while you are here.”

  “Things like that can happen to anybody at any time. It’s nobody’s fault.”

  “Ja, it’s an act of God,” Alicia said. “Like earthquakes and pimples, can I have some more Milo please, Tannie Bertha?”

  “No no no Alicia. You’ve already had more than anybody else and I don’t want you to be sick, so…”

  The door opened and Chandré stormed in. “Guess what. The whole of Kneukelspruit is without electricity, the school’s under water…”

  “And it has to happen during the holidays,” Alicia sighed.

  “…and my ma said Morné, Jaco and I should stay here for the night and…ah ja, Oom Sidney phoned my folks, their phone still works, and he and Hummel and Hein and Debbie are all sleeping over at Ouma Saida’s, ‘cause somewhere near the location the road’s been washed away and nobody can get through.”

  Here we go. African adventure. Wounded in the wilderness. Cut off from civilization.

  I found it quite exciting.

  Ma Saida plonked down on a chair. “That means we can’t go to the hospital.”

  “‘n Boer maak ’n plan,” Christo piped up.

  That was enough to get a smile back on Ma Saida’s face. “All right. Mathilda, those stitches will have to wait until the road is fixed. Now I want to get that blood and muck out of your hair.” She got stuck in cleaning me up. “It’s nearly stopped bleeding. Is it sore?”

  “Not really. I’ve only got a bit of a headache.”

  “What you need is 2 aspirins.”

  Here we go, South Africa’s universal remedy. You got a hang- over or a broken leg, first thing you do is to take 2 aspirins.

  Ma Saida sighed above my head. “You know what, my girl, I think I’ll have to cut some of your hair. There is stuff I just cannot get out.”

  “Huhhh,” Alicia gasped. “That will destroy your hairstyle.”

  “I’d rather have no hairstyle than an infection close to my brains.”

  Ma Saida put her cloth down. “I could do with a shot of buchu brandy.” She took a bottle from the topshelf and poured herself a tot of brownish liquid. “Mathilda, have some too. It’ll do you the world of good.”

  “What is it?”

  “Old Boere muti; leaves of the buchu shrub in brandy. Soothes the nerves and every thing else. Have a kelkie.”

  The Boere buchu burned down my throat and into my stomach. “It sure tastes jolly potent.”

  “Yuk, it smells terrible,” Alicia said. “I’d rather have some more Milo.”

  “No you won’t.”

  Ma Saida took some scissors out of a drawer and started to cut my hair. “Your hair is only shoulder length so it won’t take too long to grow back like it is.”

  “What’s a hairstyle in life, I find it’s not of major importance.”

  Alicia stared across the table with big eyes. “My Ma says hair is a lady’s most precious asset. Mathilda, you’ll look like my dog when he had mange. My Ma…”

  “Stop talking nonsense,” Ma Saida was getting exasperated. “Go and tell Sannie to tell Hezekiel that we are not going to the hospital after all and to give him 2 aspirins.

  “D’you think Hezekiel will be all right?” I asked.

  “Oh ja, he hasn’t coughed blood or vomited so it doesn’t look like he’s got any internal damage. The only thing is that he’s got to keep breathing and that is sore with broken ribs.” She snipped another strand of my hair. “The good thing is that these blacks are tough as nails. When we pass out they don’t even say peep yet.”

  In the morning the world looked fresh and sparkly and the sun was shining on the remnants of the storm. Broken branches and thrashed leaves covered the lawn and bands of washed away soil meandered like immobile rivulets on the ground.

  I felt nearly like new but Ma Saida insisted on going to the hospital the moment the road would be open again.

  Morné, Jaco and Chandré left after breakfast. “Use your brains and don’t do any dangerous things and radio us as soon as you get home,” Ma Saida said to them while they got on their horses.

  “Ja sure Tannie Bertha. “Don’t worry. Totsiens everybody. We’ll see you at the barndance.”

  Sarie wanted to go and look for the lost puppy but Ma Saida said that that was totally out of the question until the river was down to a normal level. We went to check on the new lambs instead. They were suckling at and wiggling their tails in a frenzy. On our way back to the house we came past Apie’s residence. The monkey was sitting at the bottom of his pole, busy defleeing Sheba, the dog. Sheba lay absolutely still, eyes closed, sighing little noises of contentment.

  Just before the one o’clock news Pa Saida’s Land Rover appeared on the horizon.

  “Thank God, here they come,” Ma Saida said. “Mathilda, get ready to go to the hospital.”

  I wiped the dirt off my bio sandals and washed my hands and joined the welcome back committee at the garden gate.

  Pa Saida and the kids had had a most exciting trip back from the dentist. They had encountered hail, high water and fire and the washed away road close to the location.