by Carol Gibbs
The boy with the soft centre has an obituary in the newspaper. Mommy reads to us from the part of the Argus she calls hatch, match and dispatch.
Benjamin Caleb Benson, son of Mr and Mrs Arthur John
Benson, accidentally drowned. Much loved son and brother.
Gone but not forgotten. Memorial service:
Gospel Hall, Fourth Avenue, Crawford, June ninth, l951.
We will miss you. From your heartbroken parents, brothers and sisters,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, Sarah, Naomi and Ruth.
Because his bed is not far from ours, we hear Gabriel sobbing at night. Mommy says time heals all wounds.
Ben’s coffin looks so big, resting on two stools in front of the congregation. The Gospel Hall is crowded and Mr Anderson and Gabriel scurry around to fetch the long benches we use for Sunday school. Ben’s teachers sit in the front row. Edna and the Bensons’ garden boy stand right at the back. Mr Pepler, the butcher, is wearing a striped suit and a black tie instead of his white coat. There are flowers everywhere, sweet-smelling roses, and asters, purple and white. A net covers Mommy’s face but we can see the tears in her eyes. Ben’s mother is wearing a lace mantilla. She walks up to the coffin and rests her hand on the lid, then she genuflects, drops her head onto her chest and makes the sign of the cross.
“Why does she do that?” I whisper in Desiree’s ear.
“She must be Roman Catholic. That’s why she has so many children.”
We can’t bring Ben back, but we can give him a good send-off, so Desiree and I sing with gusto.
The Lord’s my shepherd I’ll not want.
He maketh me down to lie
In pastures green He leeeeadeth me!
Desiree pokes me in the ribs.
“Who d’you think you are? Cecilia Wessels?”
When we get home from the funeral Mommy says she wouldn’t want to be in Mrs Benson’s shoes for the world. She gives Gabriel a long lecture.
“Dismantle your canoe and put it out for the dirt men to take.”
Gabriel has been shaken up, but Mommy’s worried that by next season he might have forgotten and he might make another one.
Death has never touched us like this before. We don’t understand why God didn’t look after Ben. Mr Anderson said we could all be saved. Ben never ever told us if he did, but we hope he gave his heart to Jesus, because then his soul will be safe.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and Benjamin,
The bed be blest that I lie on
Four angels to my bed,
Four angels round my head,
One to watch, and one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Wagter and Tarzan won’t let us through the gate. The big brown mongrels – with a bit of Rhodesian ridgeback, says Gerhardus – belong to my Aunty Catherine-Jean and Uncle Neels. We’ve just walked all the way from Parow station, two miles. Jackie’s little legs would never make it, so he has stayed at home. Daddy also hasn’t come along, because he finds Aunty Catherine-Jean and Uncle Neels boring. Uncle Neels cuts hair for a living and they don’t have much in common.
“I’m going to wet my broeks!”
Gerhardus sticks his head through the window.
“Jammer! Sorry, Antie Mavis.”
He holds onto the dogs’ collars, while we make a beeline for the lavatory. Our cousins live in a funny house, cut in half. They live in the back and on the front of the building there is a big sign: Neels du Toit – Haarsnyer. Best haircuts. Salon Elegance. You can’t miss their house, because of the tall red-and-white-striped pole outside on the pavement.
When we’re done with the lavatory we walk down a long passage to the lounge. Although the passage is dark, we know every picture on the wall. In a big black frame there are Zulus with spears and lots of bodies in a river running red with blood, alongside Uncle Neels’s Ossewa Brandwag certificate. In their wedding photograph he is dark and handsome. Aunty Catherine-Jean is plain, but on her wedding day she looked lovely in a dress of guipure lace with satin insets and a headdress with little teardrop pearls on her forehead. She carried a huge bouquet with sword ferns and white gladioli.
“Kyk, Ma dra haar dood aan die blomme.”
Aunty Catherine-Jean’s bridesmaid was Uncle Neels’s sister named Elsie. My boy cousins chant, “Elsie, Elsie, moenie kak gesels nie.” We giggle because the words mean ‘don’t talk shit’. Then we come to the two pictures with the shiny silver paper as a background. Wat is ’n huis sonder ’n moeder? Wat is ’n huis sonder ’n vader? And I wonder again what my life would be like without a father.
Aunty Catherine-Jean greets us with a smile. She smiles a lot and has crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes. Stacked up beside her bed are snow-white pots with turquoise lids that say Pond’s Angel Face, but it seems that all the Pond’s in the world hasn’t managed to fix her crow’s feet. Aunty Catherine-Jean has rheumatic fever and she spends a lot of time in bed. Her breath is shallow and she can’t stand for long. Mommy is very fond of her sister and they can talk for hours and hours, but we are not allowed to stay and listen.
“You can’t expect to be in grown-ups’ company all the time. Go and play with your cousins.”
Our cousins are Afrikaans and they play jukskei in their sandy back yard. It’s a foreign game to us, but soon we are tossing the jukskei about. Uncle Neels tells us how the Voortrekkers, when they made their laager, played jukskei with the skei from the ossewa.
“They didn’t have very much, those children, maar boer maak ’n plan.”
When Uncle Neels isn’t looking we slip into his barbershop and try to cram into the miniature car on a pole. When Gabriel outgrew the little car, Uncle Neels put a plank across the big seat so he could trim Gabriel’s bullet-shaped head. Uncle Neels sometimes slips someone into the barber’s on a Sunday, hoping no one will notice. Today a man enters through the back door and ducks down the dark passage, past the pictures, then into the kitchen and through the interleading door. Uncle Neels is a deacon in the Dutch Reformed Church and if the dominee finds out he will get into trouble for being sinful. When he wields his scissors on a Sunday, it’s like cutting into the eye of God and we’re very glad we’re not in his shoes.
We take turns to peep through the keyhole, watching as Uncle Neels puts a white cloth round the man’s neck. He picks up his comb and scissors and then its snip-snip-snip, but he has to stop every now and then to turn the roast. When he comes through the interleading door, we scatter because we are not allowed to eavesdrop, not even if it is idle chatter. When he’s finished cutting, he sprays a fine mist across the man’s neck from a squat bottle with a rubber bulb. When Uncle Neels’s undercover job is done, the man ducks back down the passage. The perfume smell mingles with the smells in the Sunday kitchen.
“Kom, was julle hande. Come wash your hands.”
There’s an overmantle above the bath, painted white. It has lots of mirrors and little shelves so four people can look at themselves all at once, and every shelf displays an ornament. There’s a hand-crocheted swan standing stiffly, starched within an inch of its life, a Dutch windmill in blue-and-white china and a wishbone from someone’s wedding, tied with a satin ribbon. There are so many trophies in the lounge they have to put the overflow in the bathroom, so there are also five medals won by my clever cousins in jukskei competitions. On the wall in a gold frame is a text that reads: De Oogen de Here sien in alle platzen.
“What’s that mean?” I ask Gerhardus as we wash our hands.
“It’s Hollands and it means that God can see you wherever you are. Jy kan nie van Hom wegkruip nie. You can’t hide from Him. His eyes are on you everywhere, even when you are in the lavatory.”
“Even in the barbershop?”
“Ja. Everywhere.”
“Hallie-ha, then God saw Uncle Neels cutting hair on a Sunday!”
We sit down to lunch in Aunty Catherine-Jean’s kitchen. They don’t have a dining room, on account of Salon
Elegance.
“Hold hands.”
Uncle Neels, with his big black beard, looks like one of the disciples.
“Heavenly Father, we thank you for the love of family and the abundance of food on the table. Amen.”
We slice through the hot meat and taste the first delicious piece of tender roast lamb. The potatoes are crisp and there’s gravy by the ladleful and lots of carrots to make you see in the dark. When lunch is over we place our knives and forks together like soldiers on our plates and ask if we can be excused.
There’s always a long wait for pudding because once Uncle Neels’s plate is clean he first fishes for his Springbok cigarettes. Wagter and Tarzan lie on the back steps waiting for scraps. We get their attention long enough to play tag, but we can’t run round and round the house the way we do at home because they only have half a house. When we get bored, Gabriel tries to teach our cousins to play submarines, but after all his best efforts they still prefer jukskei.
“Pudding!”
“The least we can do is wash the dishes,” says Mommy.
“I did them last time.”
“You lie like a cheap watch.”
“I pass!”
Johanna comes to the rescue. “You’re visitors. I’ll do the dishes.”
Uncle Neels is sweeping up the hair in his barbershop, hiding the evidence, and Aunty Catherine-Jean and Mommy are in the next room still talking. Sometimes they laugh out loud and sometimes they whisper. Skeie are flying around the yard, but I stay behind to help Johanna do the dishes.
“You can scrape the vinegar pudding pot. I say so.”
“Waar’s jou maniere? In jou sak?” she asks when I’m done, still licking my lips. “Are your manners in your pocket?”
“Sorry, I forgot … Thank you, Johanna.”
For afternoon tea, Johanna makes pumpkin fritters with lovely brown cinnamon sugar sprinkled over the top. We lick the last bits of sugar off our fingers. Aunty Catherine-Jean smiles with her crow’s-feet.
“There’s a lot more where that came from,” she laughs, her eyes sparkling.
But Mommy notices the time. “Go to the lavatory. We have to leave soon or we’ll miss the train.”
Gerhardus marches around outside the lavatory door with his hips thrust forward. His blue boxer shorts have a bulge in the front.
“Ek’s ’n man en ek het ’n stokkie. Look at my stick! Look, I’m a man!”
Martinus clutches his sides, giggling, and his eyes disappear like my grandma’s.
When I get back from the lavatory, out of breath and my head full of questions about Gerhardus and his stokkie, there’s a well-dressed stranger stepping through the door. Tall and thin, with a pencil moustache, he has big staring eyes and stringy, greasy hair that falls across his forehead.
“May, meet Mr Fredericks,” says Uncle Neels.
Mommy hurriedly shakes hands with the man because she’s watching the time.
“Mr Fredericks is the man who makes the pictures hanging in the passage,” explains Uncle Neels. “I always save the silver paper from my cigarettes for him. He likes it when I smoke a lot because he can’t keep up with the demand.”
Mr Fredericks smiles and his pencil moustache stretches in a long straight line.
“Don’t ask me where they get the silver paper from,” says Aunty Catherine-Jean, “but the children are very good about collecting it for Mr Fredericks. Mr Fredericks gave us the two pictures that hang in the passage as a thank-you for their efforts.”
It’s time to go, but first there’s just one thing Gabriel, Desiree and I need to do … Quietly, while the grown-ups aren’t looking, we slip back to the kitchen and head straight for the wax fruit in the bowl on the table. The grapes look so real that our mouths water. The bananas have black marks and the oranges even have little dimples in the skin. Quickly, we dig our nails into the fruit and leave little half-moon marks. Next time we visit we will find our marks and nudge one another and wink. We always leave with wax under our fingernails.
“Kiss everyone goodbye and say thank you for the lunch. The train won’t wait for us.”
My cousins kiss me goodbye, one by one, but when it’s Gerhardus’s turn I turn my cheek. Mommy gives me a questioning look, but I’m too shy to tell her why. We walk over the steel bridge with our tummies full and take our journey in reverse. As the train passes Aunty Beryl’s house we get ready to wave, just in case she’s in the front yard.
When Mommy opens the door and shoos us in, Daddy is sitting at his desk.
“So … how are they?”
“I think Catherine-Jean only got up because she knew we were coming.”
“What did you have for lunch? Wait … let me guess.”
“You’re right, same as usual,” Mommy smiles. “But I met the most disgusting man there. Phew! He shakes hands like a wet fish.”
“Who is he?”
“A Mr Fredericks. He makes those pictures that hang in their passage. Neels collects silver paper for him and so do the children.”
“Why’s he so disgusting?”
“It’s the way he makes his living. He reads the death columns in the Burger every day and finds out where the deceased live and then he appears on the doorstep with the appropriate picture under his arm.”
“And what’s so wrong with that?”
“If you’ve just lost your partner, you’re so vulnerable, Jacob. He preys on people’s emotions! He’s a snake in the grass with his thin lips and his pencil moustache.”
“Well, there’s a fool born every minute and there have always been crooks in this world.”
“But still,” Mommy frowns. “And you know, Jacob, there’s something else worrying me. There’s a man – an older man – who hangs around the boys. His name is Flip and when the children were playing jukskei in the yard he brought them chocolates.”
“And so?”
“Catherine-Jean wonders where the children get the silver paper for Mr Fredericks. Well, she needn’t look any further …”
“Mavis, it’s none of your business.”
“And if I tell you that Gerhardus has a brand-new bicycle from Uncle Flip? Next you know he’ll be sporting a timepiece on his wrist, just mark my words.”
When they mention Gerhardus, I prick up my ears.
“It’s easy to put two and two together, but Neels and Catherine-Jean don’t seem to make the connection.”
“You mean, uhm … sexual gratification?”
“Jacob! Not in front of the children!”
Mommy looks cross.
“Come on, Big Ears, off to bed.”
And so I go off to bed, and I fall asleep pretty quickly. But it’s not a good sleep. I dream that God is watching me go to the lavatory and I can’t get my broeks up quickly enough. The man with big staring eyes, thin lips and a pencil moustache is joining the long queue outside the lavatory door. The big brown dogs, wearing pearls and carrying bananas in their slavering jaws, have to watch out for jukskeie flying about. Aunty Catherine-Jean is thin as a skeleton, lying on her bed, wearing her wedding dress and dying from rheumatic fever. Old brides with crow’s-feet eyes crowd around her holding big bunches of flowers and then, along with the Grim Reaper, they form a guard of honour. Above Aunty Catherine-Jean’s head angels hover with bloodied halos, waiting to take her off to heaven. She floats up to the ceiling with her dead bouquet in her white hands, teardrop pearls resting on her forehead and with her last shallow breath and hands made of wax she’s juggling oranges around her head. Zulus dressed in black, with long shiny spears, are lining up outside the barbershop. The stoep is festooned with hair and there are big mirrors everywhere. Uncle Neels is cutting his fingernails. Snip. Snip. Snip. His fingernails are miles and miles long, like Struwwelpeter’s. The Romans are crucifying Uncle Neels on a cross at Calvary for his Ossewa Brandwag activities. Gladioli tumble from the sky. The white petals fall into the Sunday gravy. There are multiple images of God in mirrors and red roses made from silver paper. Rivers run red w
ith blood.
Soon after our visit to Tiervlei, Uncle Neels finds Uncle Flip ‘fondling the boys’. Nobody answers when I ask what that means, not even Gabriel. All I know is that Uncle Neels gives Flip a stern warning and tells him to stay off the property forever, but Uncle Flip returns to fondle the boys again and now both cousins are sporting new wristwatches on their arms.
The moon is high in the sky. The cardboard held in place by a peg goes thuck-thuck-thuck as Gabriel pushes his bicycle up the path, singing.
Oh, Danny boy …
He bursts through the kitchen door with Scout hat askew, bright-eyed and red-nosed from the cold.
“You’re late,” says Mommy. “Where’ve you been?”
Gabriel shuffles his feet and his Adam’s apple bobs as he nervously runs the tips of his fingers through his hair. “The G-g-girl G-guides joined us for the e-evening.”
Gabriel plays rugby for his new school, Observatory High, and he can’t wait to tell us how he nearly scored a try. He demonstrates for Desiree, Edna and me in the back yard with the cushion from the lounge chair under his arm.
“Run, Gabriel, run, run!”
Puppy Toby can barely keep up with him as he shoves his hand into the face of an imaginary opponent and dives over the try line. The cushion bursts open and kapok covers the ground like snow. Desiree and I scurry about picking the bits up and stuffing them back into the cushion. Edna carefully sews the cushion up with a needle and thread so we won’t get into trouble.
“I tell you, I w-w-was a hair’s breadth from the l-l-line! Nearly-nearly.”
Desiree understands the importance of winning. She pats him on the back. “Never mind. Next time.”
Gabriel is changing in front of our eyes. His voice sounds funny and he has pimples on his face. We have to wait forever because he spends a lot of time in the bathroom. He calls his first pair of long pants his symbol of manhood. Daddy says that all boys get big heads and they’re too big for their boots when they get their first pair of long pants. He won’t walk with us in the street any more and he sits in his own compartment when we travel on the train. It makes us cross, but Mommy says he’s just shy. He shuts us out of the bedroom and tells us to go jump in the lake if we want to fetch something from there. If a girl talks to him, he blushes and shuffles his feet and his stutter is worse than ever. There’s a picture torn out of a comic stuck on the back of our bedroom door. A skinny boy is sitting on the beach and a boy with big muscles is kicking sand in his face. Underneath are the words: In just seven days I will make a man out of you. It is signed by Mr Atlas.
