‘The only thing you’ll discover here are rock spiders,’ Lynette had said derisively. As if she weren’t one herself.
‘Who’s afraid of rock spiders?’ Brandon had asked.
‘I am!’ Silly Bob again. ‘But we heard all these stories about all these pretty Afrikaans girls …’
‘Such as?’ Theresa had asked, instantly suspicious.
‘Such as that you all play hard to get. And we like a challenge. It’s a new experience. Live and learn.’
Theresa had given him a dirty look. Like three hunters who, having grown tired of shooting antelope, were now pursuing the challenge of another kind of prey. But Lynette snorted, and Theresa remembered what she had said the night before about tourists at a watering hole hoping for rare animal sightings. For the two girls, these English boys were just as big a challenge, just as novel an experience, as they apparently were for the three boys. Live and learn.
Then Leonard suddenly reached out his hand towards her, wrapped his fingers around hers, and her entire body was instantly suffused with hot flushes and chills. She wondered if it was safe to make a joke, to ask him whether his taking her hand uninvited meant she wasn’t playing hard enough to get – but what if he didn’t get the joke and let go of her hand? She knew too little about the rooinek sense of humour, so she decided to act completely nonchalant instead. As if gorgeous English guys with long dark blond hair routinely threw themselves at her feet. She hoped he would never let go of her hand.
And yet she had remained aware of the war throughout that summer, somewhere in the background of what she considered her everyday reality, like the static noise of an unfamiliar radio station interfering when you are trying to listen to your favourite pop songs. There were so many rumours of dead and wounded servicemen that it kept becoming harder simply to close your eyes and move your body to the beat of the music.
After four South African soldiers were captured deep inside Angola and paraded in front of the international media like circus animals, the government was forced to admit that the army had been fighting far beyond the border for some time. Against the Cuban communists, was how it was put to the nation, to safeguard white Christian-National values at the southernmost tip of Africa.
Then even more terrifying rumours started spreading like wildfire. Thousands upon thousands of Cubans were training the bloodthirsty terrorists to invade South Africa, to rape and plunder and kill. There were secret Russian weapons against which South African soldiers were supposedly powerless. There was Castro, who wanted to destroy white civilisation and for all races to be mixed together like in Cuba. Churches would be destroyed, religion forbidden; no one knew what to believe any longer.
‘If the government lied to us about where our soldiers were fighting,’ Theresa’s mother had said one night around the braai at the back of the holiday house, ‘then surely they could lie about the rest of the war too?’ She bit her lip, her voice uncertain. Hannie Marais had suffered from a lack of self-confidence her entire life, like many Afrikaans women in those years, and whenever she would say anything that might go against what her domineering husband believed, her voice would start to tremble.
As expected, her husband’s response was instant and indignant. ‘They didn’t lie to us,’ he had said, flipping the grid over the coals. ‘They had to conceal the truth for our own protection.’
‘What does it mean to “conceal” the truth?’ the twelve-year-old Sandra had wanted to know, wide-eyed. The question wasn’t intended to provoke. She had never been a rebellious child. That role belonged to her elder sister.
‘It means to lie,’ said Hannie, so softly that her husband hopefully couldn’t hear her.
Her husband’s attention was focused on the greasy boerewors that was making his coals hiss under the grid, but Lynette’s father had heard her. Gert Raubenheimer leaned forwards in his canvas chair and gazed earnestly at everyone around the fire, both the adults and the children, as if he were about to lead them in prayer. The light from the fire reflected in his spectacle lenses and made his tall forehead shine. ‘Everything is justified in a war. It isn’t a gentleman’s game. If the enemy wants to play dirty, we don’t have a choice. And that means that some things have to be kept secret—’
‘Jeez,’ Waldie interjected. ‘I wish I could go to the army right now to go give those kaffirs a bloody good hiding!’
Lynette’s two younger brothers, who’d been playing with their Dinky Toys on the back stoep, looked up surprised and started giggling.
‘Language, Waldie,’ his mother said, fussing with her hair that even here at the seaside was rock-hard with hairspray. It wasn’t clear if it was the swear word or the k-word that had offended Marlene Raubenheimer, but Theresa suspected that she thought ‘bloody’ a much nastier word than any racist insult.
‘We have to kill them before they come and kill us, Ma!’
‘We will stop them long before they can get here,’ Theresa’s father said, his eyes on the grid as if he were talking to the boerewors.
Would we? Could they be stopped? Theresa rubbed her bare arms, her skin covered in goosebumps like the first time Leonard had pushed his tongue into her mouth. She raised her eyes to the Milky Way and as usual tried to find the Southern Cross in the pitch-black sky. Who knew, perhaps one of those poor soldiers up in Angola was also looking at the stars at this very moment; perhaps he saw the Southern Cross and longed for his home. This wave of empathy for the poor soldiers was strictly confined to the South Africans. She didn’t think of the enemy as ‘soldiers’. Not as ‘kaffirs’ either. Her parents didn’t tolerate the k-word at home. But the enemy were communists and terrorists. That’s what they were called everywhere – at school, in church, in the newspaper – and that was how she thought of them.
And now she is here on Castro’s communist island, surrounded by those same ungodly Cubans, the feared enemy of long ago. What would that fifteen-year-old girl gazing at the stars above Stilbaai have said if she knew. Forty years on, the Southern Cross is still the only constellation of stars Theresa can recognise with relative ease. But in Havana she is probably too far north of the equator to see the Southern Cross. Altogether too far from home.
11. MOSAIC MERMAIDS
The third day starts on a high note. When she slides into the back seat of the red-and-white convertible, Oreste says: ‘Good news. Señor Borges called last night.’
‘And?’ Theresa leans forward eagerly, sees his smile grow wider under his NYY baseball cap. ‘Can his neighbour help us?’
‘She gave him address for a friend of Luisá – the mother of Mercedes – that lives in a different part of the city.’ He draws out the suspense a little longer, just like his smile, which suddenly strikes her as diabolic, as if he is enjoying her anxious anticipation. ‘Señor Borges has secured an invitation for coffee this morning.’
‘From the sick neighbour?’
‘No, from the friend. Marta Duarte Solar.’
Theresa is so pleased she could hug him. ‘So the “bribe” I gave Señor Borges helped after all.’
‘I think it is more likely you touched his heart by what you said about the letter from the soldier,’ he says, now serious. ‘For many of us the wounds of Angola never healed.’
‘For many of us too,’ she mumbles. ‘But what about you? I know you’re too young, but don’t you have older relatives who fought in Angola?’
‘I guess I am just lucky that no one in my close family was there.’
She glances at Ruben’s white hat, tries to catch his eye in the rear-view mirror, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him. She doesn’t know him well enough to ask why he wasn’t in Angola.
So she turns back to Oreste. ‘Do you remember anything about it? When were you born?’
‘In 1988,’ he says. ‘My earliest memories are of being hungry. In the “special time” in the early nineties.’
‘What special time?’
‘After the Soviet Union fell apart, money from th
e Russians dried up. We struggled. Before this we knew poverty but we did not know hunger.’
‘Cubans were like birds that were kicked out of the nest before they learned to fly,’ Ruben says from behind the wheel. ‘The nice cosy nest of the Soviet Union.’
‘That is why we love buffets where we can eat as must as we like.’ Oreste smiles mischievously, as if he wants to prevent the conversation from turning too serious. ‘Even now we eat as fast as possible to get as much food into our stomachs as possible. Your body never forgets what it is like to go hungry.’
She studies him in silence for a while. He is sitting in the passenger seat in his usual relaxed way, his left arm on the back rest, his body twisted towards her in the back, eager to help her understand his country. Or perhaps only to create the impression that he wants to help her understand.
‘Do you cook for yourself? I mean, do you live alone? Or with your family?’
‘On my own. But I now am the age where my mother is dropping big hints about finding a wife. She wants to be a grandmother.’
‘Hmm. Many of my friends are also turning into mothers who drop such hints.’
‘You have no children?’
‘No. I wanted …’ Theresa cuts herself short. Why does she always want to explain? ‘No, I don’t have children. No husband either.’
She pulls the wide brim of her floppy sun hat down over her eyes and leans back in her seat.
‘In my country the early nineties were also a special time,’ she volunteers after mulling it over for a while. ‘For different reasons. It was the start of democracy, the end of numerous unfair laws, for most people a time of incredible hope.’ She thinks of her former mother-in-law, shackled to her flat from the apartheid years, and shakes her head. ‘Of course not for everyone.’
‘For us it was desperate time,’ Ruben admits. ‘But we weren’t allowed to say that to each other.’
Theresa looks at him, surprised.
‘But without that terrible time, I maybe would not have this nice job,’ Oreste explains hastily, almost apologetically. ‘It forced the government to make tourism a source of income, and now I meet interesting people from other countries every day.’
‘Have you yourself been … to other countries?’
‘Venezuela,’ he nods. ‘Cuba and Venezuela are best friends. And some days in London and Paris too. Free trip for Cuban tour guides arranged by the government. But I hope I get the chance to travel much more. Someday.’
‘You’re still young,’ Theresa says. ‘I’m sure you will. Someday.’
Ruben’s dark eyes in the rear-view mirror look sceptical. Or perhaps just sad.
They are travelling in a westerly direction down a wide avenue in a distinguished neighbourhood. An uninterrupted row of palm trees splits the opposing lanes. The houses are impressive, with tropical gardens, in stark contrast with the swarming narrow streets and dilapidated buildings crowding one another in the old part of the city.
‘This is our famous Quinta Avenida,’ says Oreste. ‘Fifth Avenue in New York was named after this one. No, that is not true,’ he laughs, ‘but we are just as proud of our fifth avenue as the New Yorkers are of their famous street. Many of these houses are embassies and consulates.’
‘Is this where this friend of Luisá lives?’
‘No, she lives in a much poorer part. Jaimanitas. It was actually a slum but since about thirty years an artist started decorating his house with a kind of childlike art, and then the houses of his neighbours, and then the other streets. Now lots more artists live there and all the neighbourhood has become a tourist attraction.’
‘I think you will like it,’ says Ruben with his rare smile.
And Ruben is right. The colourful neighbourhood around José Fuster’s house and art gallery charms her. The streets are untarred and dusty, the houses small and modest but decorated with colourful murals and mosaics and images of mermaids and fish and chickens, or abstract shapes in bright colours.
For the first time Theresa behaves like a tourist, takes a few pictures with her cellphone, even poses with Oreste on a bench outside Fuster’s house for a selfie he takes with her phone. He does it so expertly that she realises it’s part of his job as guide. No wonder he’d looked so dejected when she refused to pose for pictures the past two days.
She has only taken a few pictures of all the old cars, something she still hasn’t got used to. As if back at home she will need proof that it hadn’t all been a dream. But her duty to find the person to whom the letter in her handbag is addressed weighs so heavily that she hasn’t been able to forget about it for a moment. It feels as though the letter weren’t written on thin paper, but on a rock or an iron shackle or a bar of lead that she is lugging around in her bag.
Perhaps the sudden spring in her step has nothing to do with the naive folk art around her; perhaps it is just the prospect of a meeting with Luisá’s friend that has filled her with hope. Like a flame that fills a balloon with hot air until it becomes airborne even though it’s carrying a heavy load.
Her heart beats faster when she and Oreste are standing outside Marta Duarte Solar’s small house. The veranda has been turned into an informal little curio shop. Behind a purple bougainvillea is a table crowded with homemade mosaic figurines and cheerfully painted ashtrays in the same style as Fuster’s work. Naive copies of naive art, like something crafted by a child without much talent.
Ruben couldn’t find parking in the street and has parked the car some distance away among other taxis and tourist vehicles. He would stay there to keep an eye on the car, he’d said. She’d looked away so he wouldn’t notice her disappointment. She is apparently starting to depend on his large, solid presence, the reassurance in his deep voice, his sceptical silence. Oreste is an outstanding guide, but it’s as if he is too small and light, both literally and figuratively, too young and too frivolous, to help her get a grip on this country.
Half an hour later, in Marta Duarte Solar’s stuffy living room where cigarette smoke hangs in the air like fog, she wishes Ruben were with them. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Oreste to interpret this friendly chain-smoking woman’s flood of words correctly. But she has a feeling Ruben would have done more than merely translate what Marta said. He may also have been able to guess what she was withholding. It’s a gift she has noticed with quiet people, the ability to discern the things more talkative people conceal behind their words, like dust swept under a carpet. And she needs someone to help her lift up a few rugs here in Cuba, or she will never reach Mercedes.
Marta also speaks a bit of English – which she is keen to practise because it helps her barter with tourists about the trinkets on her veranda – and frequently tosses a mangled English phrase into her story. Each time with such a proud smile that Theresa can’t bring herself to confess that she understands even less of the butchered English than of the Spanish. ‘Luisá was beautiful little beast.’ What on earth could that mean? Was it a compliment or an insult? ‘Marta love Luisá, Luisá love Marta, always huging and huging.’
‘Huging?’ Theresa enquires, confused.
Marta utters a Spanish word that disappears in the cloud of smoke she exhales at the same time and makes a gesture with both arms to indicate an embrace.
‘Ah,’ Theresa says. ‘Hugging.’
‘Yeah,’ says Marta and makes kissing noises around her cigarette. ‘Always kissing and huging.’
Could they have been in a lesbian relationship? Theresa looks at Oreste, puzzled.
‘They were very good friends,’ Oreste says with his ever-inscrutable smile.
‘Very good friends,’ Marta confirms between two deep drags of her cigarette.
Theresa decides against saying anything more, just keeps nodding until after a while she starts to feel like those toy dogs with spring-mounted heads that used to nod in the back of people’s cars when she was a child. Now and again she takes a sip of her strong black coffee. She is probably going to develop a stomach ulcer from all this
Cuban caffeine. But she has more important things to worry about right now.
In her younger days Marta Duarte Solar must have been a woman who turned heads. She has dark fiery eyes, an aquiline nose and sharp cheekbones, but she has become stick-thin with a persistent smoker’s cough, long grey hair that hangs limply around her wrinkled face, an unhealthy yellowish tinge to her brown skin. In the eighties, she lived near Luisá, diagonally across from her in the same street, she says. They soon became friends because they were both young single mothers, her son about the same age as Luisá’s Mercedes. Although her Ricardo gave her hell from an early age. Much naughtier than Luisá’s exemplary little girl.
‘Little bastard,’ she calls him, with such a fierce look on her face that Theresa wonders if she means it literally, whether she’s referring to the fact that he was born out of wedlock, or simply that he’d been a little brat.
This is followed by a lengthy saga from which it emerges that Ricardo did in fact clean up his act in the end. He is now a bodyguard for some or other Very Important Person and the father of two sons. When Marta starts bragging about her grandsons – ‘the pineapples of my eyes’ – Theresa gently nudges her back to Luisá’s story.
‘I work as a cleaner at the Hotel Nacional,’ she says while lighting the next cigarette, ‘and I help Luisá get a job there also.’
‘As a cleaner?’ Theresa asks, to check that she hasn’t misunderstood. ‘At the Hotel Nacional?’
‘Yes,’ Marta says. ‘I work there since almost my whole life, until so many tourists coming to this neighbourhood I realise I can sell my artworks here.’
She motions towards the table on the veranda with the cigarette in her hand. Theresa nods again, rather than comment on the artworks. ‘But Luisá is always always more ambitious than me. She not want to work as cleaner.’
Theresa’s head is reeling. Possibly from the shock of discovering that a quarter century ago the Cuban soldier’s widow may have cleaned the hotel room she is sleeping in now. Possibly just because she has flooded her veins with too much caffeine.
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