‘Pa,’ Johann shouted.
‘What?’ the man said.
Werner froze. He thought about the gun. ‘Johann,’ he shouted. ‘It’s me! Werner!’
Johann stood up and shielded his eyes from the light. He peered into the darkness.
‘Werner, where are you?’ he called out.
‘Here,’ Werner said as he clambered over the debris in the garden, waving an arm in the air.
‘What are you doing here?’ Johann asked.
‘I just . . . came to say hello.’
Johann stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, licked the jam off his hands and leapt over the stairs that led down from the stoep. He stood in the middle of the garden, hands on hips, and watched as Werner made his way towards him.
‘Who is it?’ the man shouted.
‘No one, Pa,’ Johann called back. The light from the stoep cut across Werner’s face and Johann saw the gash above his eye.
‘What happened to you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You can’t come here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Does your mother know where you are?’
Werner shrugged. ‘I’m in trouble anyway.’
Johann peered at his friend. ‘It’s looks like you’ve been in a helluva fight.’ Werner stood by his friend, waiting to be invited in. Eventually Johann said, ‘Do you want a sandwich?’
Werner nodded and followed him into the house. It was worse than he’d expected: filthy, with worn carpets that smelt of dog and cat piss. The sitting-room floor was littered with newspapers and empty beer cans that doubled as ashtrays. Johann’s father was sitting in an old garden chair trying to tune a radio.
‘Who’s he?’ the man asked.
‘Werner, Pa. He’s just here for a few minutes.’
‘Hello, oom,’ Werner said. The man said something unintelligible and Werner followed Johann into the kitchen. The little girl who’d been sitting on the stoep trailed after them. ‘My name is Charlize,’ she said.
‘Hello, Charlize.’
‘Johann is my brother.’
‘Ja, I know.’
‘For my birthday Johann is going to take me to the flicks. Do you want to come?’
Johann reached for an open tin on the counter. The contents were pink and creamy. Werner thought with distaste that mixing the butter with the jam was a bantu thing to do. The melamine counter was crawling with ants. Johann picked a few out of the jam-butter mixture and flicked them on the floor. He looked at his younger sister, who’d sunk down on her haunches and was inspecting a trail of ants that led under the kitchen counter.
‘Sies, man – get up off the floor,’ he said to his sister.
She ignored him and asked Werner, ‘So you want to come?’
‘Maybe. Depends on what you want to see.’
‘Cartoons. Tom and Jerry. The ants are eating something. I think there’s something dead under there. Maybe a gogga.’
Johann handed Werner two slices of thick white bread, slathered in the pink mixture. They even eat like blacks, he thought, without cutting the bread in half or using plates. He tried not to think about Johann’s dirty fingers in the jam, the animal hair everywhere, the piss and the ants and the dead thing under the counter. Charlize got down on all fours and peered under the counter.
‘What are you doing?’ Johann asked.
‘I want to see what’s under there. I want to see what the ants are eating.’
Her brother grabbed her by the back of her dress and lifted her off the floor.
‘Stop it!’ she shouted as she slapped his hands.
‘You wanna fight, huh?’ he said, grinning. She lunged at him, but Johann, too quick, ducked out of the way. He assumed the pose of a boxer, dancing from foot to foot, leant forward and tapped her on the left ear and then on the right. Charlize tried to smack her brother in the balls, but Johann grabbed her wrist. ‘Charlize!’ he said in mock indignation. ‘Who taught you to fight so dirty? Sies, man – you mustn’t hit a boy in his goonies!’
Charlize turned around and bent down to open a cupboard. Johann playfully kicked her bottom. She grabbed a cast-iron frying pan from the lowest shelf and swung wildly at her brother.
‘I am going to bash your head in,’ she said.
‘Oh, are you now?’ Johann said.
Werner backed away from the siblings and pressed himself against the kitchen wall. Johann saw him and smiled. He darted behind Charlize and flicked her ear. She swung at him with the frying pan. The wooden handle was oily. She underestimated the force of her swing and it slipped from her hands. Werner ducked as the pan flew across the kitchen and smashed into the cabinet opposite.
‘Donner!’ Charlize said.
‘Charlize!’
‘What the fuck is going on?’ It was their father.
Johann quickly grabbed the pan and put it back into the cupboard. ‘Nothing, Pa – we just dropped something; it’s fine.’
‘Sounds like you’re breaking down the blarry house!’
‘No, Pa,’ he shouted. ‘Charlize is just breaking down the bloody kitchen,’ he said quietly. He looked at the damaged kitchen cupboard. The wood was cracked.
‘Donner,’ Charlize said. ‘I’m in the kak now.’
‘Ssshhh. Werner, go stand by the door and check for my father.’
While Werner kept a lookout, Johann rummaged in the drawers for a screwdriver. He started unscrewing the hinges of the broken door. Charlize stood by her brother with cupped hands, holding each of the screws as he removed them.
‘Someone is coming,’ Werner said.
‘Kak!’
‘Donner.’
The door now hung awkwardly on one hinge. Johann held it in place with his hand, as he looked to see who was entering the kitchen. Charlize emptied the screws into the front pocket of her dirty white dress, wiped her hands and looked towards the door nervously. Werner, who was looking down, saw two bruised white feet at the end of fat calves.
‘Ma,’ Johann said. ‘Come in quick, close the door.’ The woman shuffled into the kitchen. She steadied herself with a walking cane. Charlize darted round the back and closed the door behind her mother.
‘What’s going on?’ the woman whispered. The problem with Johann’s mother – the reason that he did not want anyone to visit his house – was not that his mother was fat. And it was unlikely also that she was a whore. The problem with Johann’s mother was that she was simple. Werner tried not to gape. For all these years he had been expecting feather boas and snakeskins: the stripper of Benoni; instead, a fat retard, in a pink nightie with a walking stick. She was not a mongool – she didn’t have a flat face and she didn’t talk funny – but there was definitely something wrong.
‘Who are you?’
‘Werner, tannie.’
‘He’s Johann’s friend, Ma,’ Charlize said. The woman nodded.
‘What happened to your face?’
‘I tripped.’ She nodded.
‘Charlize – watch the door and tell me if he’s coming.’
The girl was torn between helping Werner with her mother and standing at the door keeping a lookout for her father. Johann hopped onto the kitchen counter and carried on removing the broken door. His mother looked up and saw the kitchen cupboard. She opened her mouth wide, covered it with her hand and then giggled.
‘Johann, what have you done?’
‘Just a little accident, Ma.’
‘If your pa sees that, he’s going to be so mad.’
‘Ja, Ma, that’s why we’re not going to tell him.’ He put the cupboard door on the counter and turned to his mother. ‘We’re not going to tell him, are we, Ma?’ She shook her head. Johann started removing an identical fitting, which, being lower and behind the kitchen door, was mostly hidden from view.
‘What’s your name again?’ she asked Werner.
‘Werner, tannie.’ She nodded.
‘Your face looks sore.’
‘It’s fine – thanks, tannie.�
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She walked over to the sink, picked up a filthy cloth and put it under the cold water. ‘Come here,’ she said.
‘It’s fine, tannie, thank you – it’s really not bad.’ She wiped his face with the cloth. The dirty water ran down his cheeks and into his mouth. It stung.
‘There. That’s better.’ She rubbed the cut above his eye and it started bleeding again. ‘Oops. Oops! We must get you a plaster – or maybe some bandages. Charlize, we must get some bandages.’
The woman repulsed Werner. Her crude maternal gestures were like those of a young girl with a doll, stemming from a place of instinct, but a clumsy imitation of the real thing. He took her hands in his own and held them. ‘Thank you, tannie. It’s much better.’ She nodded. He could feel the tension in her arms, so he held onto her hands for a while. He did not want her to stick the dirty cloth into his face again. He eventually let go of her hands and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He blinked away some of the water in his eyes. What must it be like, he wondered, to live with this woman every day?
Johann had finished the top cupboard. He tested the door. His mother clapped her hands. ‘Ag, Johann, that looks beautiful. You’re so clever!’
‘Thanks, Ma.’ He went to work on the lower cupboard, screwing in place the broken door that he hoped his father would only notice a few days from now.
‘Johann says he’s going to buy us a television one day,’ the woman said.
Werner looked at Johann and said, ‘Really?’ Johann shrugged.
‘Ja, Ma,’ Charlize said. ‘But I think maybe he will have to rob a bank.’
‘He mustn’t rob a bank. The police will hang him if he robs a bank.’
‘Don’t worry, Ma, I’m not going to rob a bank.’
‘Do you know what a television is?’ she asked Werner. He nodded. ‘It’s like having a bioscope in your own house. Then we can watch Tom and Jerry cartoons like at the flicks, hey, Charlize?’
‘Ja, Ma.’
‘How much is a television, Johann?’
He closed the bottom door and stepped back to inspect his work. ‘I don’t know, Ma,’ he said distantly. ‘A lot.’ Johann turned to his sister. ‘What do you say?’
‘Me?’
‘Ja.’
‘About what?’
‘About saving your butt. Again.’
‘It’s your fault. You know I don’t like it when you flick my ears.’ Johann put the screwdriver back into the kitchen drawer. Charlize inspected his work. ‘It’s a bit skew,’ she said.
‘She’s a right little madam, isn’t she, Ma?’
Charlize took her mother’s hand. ‘Come, Ma. Do you want to go to bed?’
‘No, I want to stay here with your friend.’
Johann looked at her. ‘Ma, Werner has to go now. He’s going to be in big trouble if he doesn’t go home.’
‘Are you leaving?’
‘Yes, tannie.’
She hugged him and kissed him on the mouth. ‘It’s so nice to meet Johann’s friends. I think you are Johann’s best friend.’
‘Yes, tannie.’
‘My name is Sara.’
‘Tannie Sara,’ Werner said.
Charlize grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her out of the kitchen. ‘Come, Ma.’ Sara followed her seven-year-old daughter to bed.
Werner and Johann sat in embarrassed silence. ‘My ma is quite ill,’ Johann said. Werner did not know what to do, so he said nothing. ‘I don’t think she’s ever going to get better.’ Werner nodded.
It was after ten by the time Werner made his way home. When they left the house they saw that Johann’s father had fallen asleep on the couch. They sat in the front garden, smoking cigarettes and drinking the dregs in the beer cans that Johann had found lying around the house. It was good, Werner thought, to be out here, away from his family. The distance that Johann kept from most of his friends – a distance attributable, Werner thought, to his mother and father and the conditions in which they lived – was now broached. Johann’s life aroused both sympathy and admiration, and Werner felt bad for the way he sometimes treated his friend. Before he left, Johann gave him a pack of XXX Extra-Strong Spearmints, as Steyn did, to disguise the smell of beer and cigarettes. He walked quickly. He knew the way well, but the bushveld was more menacing at night. He stumbled into a cobweb and brushed the sticky strands from his face. He tugged at his shirt, front and back, in case a spider had fallen on him. From the path he could see the light that spilt from the kitchen. The flowers that grew wild around the outside tap were prettier than anything his mother had managed to grow. Steyn’s light was also on. He wondered whether he shouldn’t go to Steyn’s rondavel, but by now he’d probably heard what had happened and would send Werner straight to his parents anyway. As he approached the house he could hear the clink of dishes in the sink. His mother was drying some pots and his father was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking.
When Werner entered his house, Hendrik regarded his son coolly, waiting for him to say something.
‘Pa,’ he said in greeting. ‘Ma.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Outside.’
‘Outside where?’ his father asked.
‘Just by the river.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘And I visited Johann.’ Hendrik nodded. He disliked Johann’s family too, but there was something unseemly, unmanly, in insisting that Werner stop seeing the boy, as if he were delicate and in need of protection. Hendrik’s instinct was to say, ‘You know how your mother feels about those people,’ but he did not.
‘Do you have nothing to say for yourself?’ Hendrik asked.
‘I’m sorry, Pa.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m sorry, Pa.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
‘Sorry who?’ Hendrik shouted.
‘Sorry, Ma.’
Petronella carried on washing the dishes and did not turn to face her son.
‘Go to your room,’ Hendrik said.
Petronella waited for Werner to leave the kitchen before she said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’
‘There is nothing wrong with him,’ Hendrik snapped.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m finishing my drink.’
Petronella’s rage was suffocating. She needed to hear it being done. Hendrik slammed his whisky down. He got up and banged the chair against the table.
‘Finish your drink. I didn’t say you shouldn’t finish your drink.’
It was good, this surge of anger he felt for Petronella; it would help fuel the thing. Quickly, before the anger subsided, Hendrik started undoing his belt buckle as he walked to Werner’s room. He grabbed the chair from Werner’s desk and pointed. Werner bent over the back of the chair and rested his elbows on the seat. Hendrik folded the belt in half, raised his hand just above his shoulder and brought the belt firmly down on Werner’s backside. ‘Count!’ he said.
‘One,’ Werner said. By the time he reached four, Hendrik could see that tears were coursing down his son’s face and dropping onto the wooden seat. His panting was almost inaudible. He does not wish to give me the satisfaction, Hendrik thought and felt proud. But the last two strikes were harder, so that Petronella could hear a cry and Werner would be reminded that he was not a man yet. Afterwards he shook his father’s hand, washed his face and went to bed. Hendrik sat down in the kitchen. Petronella was still busy with the dishes.
‘There we go. It’s over,’ he said. She didn’t respond. ‘What now, Nellie? Are you never satisfied? I said it’s over.’
Petronella picked up a dinner dish and smashed it on the floor.
‘Nellie? What’s going on? Have you gone mad?’ he asked. She glared at her husband, but said nothing.
The next morning the kitchen was thick with the events of the night before. Everyone ate their breakfast in silence. Marius, who’d been sent to bed before Werner got home, glanced at his
brother and his parents. He’d awoken to the crashing of a plate and wondered what Werner had done. The students were due to leave at midday, so Hendrik hurried out of the kitchen to prepare for the final assembly. Petrus was waiting in the bakkie to take the boys to school. Petronella handed them their packed lunches. She kissed Marius on the cheek, but when she tried to kiss Werner he turned his face away from her and walked out of the kitchen without saying goodbye.
‘Did you see that?’ Petronella asked Maria.
‘I see, missies. He’s cheeky, that one.’
‘Ja.’
‘He’s becoming a man, missies.’
‘Huh!’
For a moment Petronella considered asking Maria about Lerato, then decided against it. The bantus already knew too much about them. She did not need Maria to know that her husband had done something without her knowledge. She looked out of the kitchen window as the boys hopped into the back of the bakkie. Werner stood, holding the back of the cab, like a chariot-rider. He was forbidden to do this. Marius sat beside his brother, holding his school bag between his legs. She resisted the urge to run behind the bakkie and ask her son to sit. He’d just pretend not to hear her. Her anger towards her son quickly dissolved in the imagined horror of an accident. It was too late to do anything about it now. The bakkie was nearly out of sight.
Werner began to spend more time at Johann’s house. He got used to the dirtiness. Tannie Sara was usually in her room, and the father, though bad-tempered, had little interest in what they did so long as they didn’t make too much noise or get in his way. Werner met Johann’s two older brothers, André and Lourens. Both worked at the motorcycle shop in town and would come home with different bikes that they’d borrowed for the night. Johann told Werner there was nothing his brothers didn’t know about bikes, and they were teaching him. Sometimes the boys would watch them service the motorcycles in the back yard. The brothers would explain what they were doing and both Werner and Johann would nod. If they brought home a 50cc, Johann was allowed to drive it around the garden. Werner tried once, but he kept on stalling and the sight of Johann and his brothers giggling made him squirm with embarrassment. Johann said he was sorry for laughing and he’d teach Werner to ride properly if he wanted, but Werner told him he’d make do with his bicycle for now. There was no point in learning to ride a motorbike if he couldn’t go further than the back yard.
The Curator Page 10
