The Curator

by Jacques Strauss

  Johann had stopped crying, but he still clung to Steyn in the dark of the rondavel. Steyn wanted to get up to switch on the lights, but it was pleasant just sitting here like this. He looked out of the window. There was no sign of Werner. In the distance he could hear the beginnings of a fight in the bantu village. A man and a woman were shouting. The girls at the camp were busy washing their tin plates and mugs in the giant troughs that had been filled with lukewarm soapy water. Lately they’d been telling the children to rub their plates with sand after eating. There had been outbreaks of diarrhoea because the girls and boys never cleaned their plates properly. The girls giggled when rubbing their plates in the sand. Steyn could hear one of the teachers shouting, ‘You didn’t do it properly – I saw. Do you want to get diarrhoea in your sleeping bag?’ This set off squeals of laughter. The fight in the bantu village was getting worse. Now another woman had joined in. All three were shouting at each other. He should get up and see what was going on, but it was good to let the world just wash over him. Shadows of the girls and their teachers crossed in front of his window. Someone could come in any minute.

  ‘Come,’ Steyn said, ‘we can’t sit here all night.’

  Johann sat up, sniffed and wiped his face on his arm. ‘My sister.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to go and find my sister. She’s with Tannie Nellie.’

  ‘All right – let’s go.’

  It had turned cold and he slipped on a jersey. He tossed the boy one of his, which Johann put on. Steyn took the sleeves and folded them over. He enjoyed the pathetic listlessness of the boy.

  Petronella was busy tying ribbons in a girl’s hair. She was too young to be one of the camp girls. His wife had a stern expression on her face and she glared when Hendrik walked into the kitchen. Before she said a word he felt drained. It had been a long day, but that face – never satisfied, always bristling for a fight – was enough to make him turn around, walk out into the bush and never come back.

  ‘And who is this?’ he asked.

  ‘This is Charlize,’ Petronella said.

  ‘Hello, oom,’ she whispered.

  Petronella jerked with her head towards the living room, but Hendrik decided for the moment to resist her. He opened the fridge and took out a can of beer. He pulled back the tab and dropped it into the open can. Petronella closed her eyes with irritation, but said nothing. He took a slug of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the can down on the kitchen table.

  ‘What are we having for dinner?’

  ‘That can wait. There are a few things we need to sort out.’

  He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the lampshade. It pooled in the shade and then leaked out the top vents, revealing six beams of light normally too faint to see. Some of the smoke drifted down and then trickled out around the rim. He took a sip of beer, stifled a belch and blew more smoke into the shade.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Petronella said.

  He took another drag of the cigarette and did it again. She clenched her teeth. He took another deep slug of beer and this time didn’t supress his belch. The children laughed and Hendrik smiled at them. Petronella ran her hands down her dress.

  ‘Marius, why don’t you and Charlize go and play?’

  ‘Ma,’ he said, ‘she’s just a baby.’

  ‘I’m not a baby,’ Charlize said.

  ‘Marius,’ Petronella snapped, ‘do as I say.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘And don’t you roll your eyes at me.’

  Hendrik was on the verge of saying ‘Watch it, boy’, but decided against it, instead just watching the scene unfold.

  Petronella waited for the children to leave. ‘Close the door,’ she shouted. Marius closed the door with some force, but not loud enough that he could be accused of slamming it. Petronella jolted at the noise. Her hands balled into fists by her sides. She then crossed her arms and held her right fist by her mouth. Hendrik looked at his wife and wondered how it was that she managed to distil all the minor irritations and arguments and the general friction of life into a pure burning rage that was eating her from the inside out.

  ‘Nellie?’ he finally conceded. She’d puckered her lips with anger. This was all he would offer. He would not console her; would not coax the anger from her. She said nothing. So he said, ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Are you not going to ask what that girl is doing here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s Johann’s sister, and today I caught them using the camp showers.’

  He shook his head while he exhaled. ‘They shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Hendrik, you should have seen the state of her. Never in my life have I seen a child that filthy. It looked like she was living in the bush.’ Hendrik shrugged with a look of resignation. ‘This is a problem,’ she said.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Nellie? Looks like the girl is all cleaned up now.’

  ‘We need to talk to the parents. What have we come to? Children sneaking in to use the toilets because their parents can’t take care of them. And the mouth on that girl! If those children hang around the camp, people are going to think I let my children hang around with that trash.’ Hendrik shrugged. ‘No, don’t you shrug at me,’ she said, wagging her finger. ‘I need you to step up! What about your job! What will the inspector think?’

  ‘Let me worry about the job.’

  ‘But you don’t!’ She pulled out one of the chairs and sat at the table. ‘I fired Maria today.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘That woman is out of control. So you need to get down there and make sure that she and her husband and the kids are off this property tonight. If you refuse to keep the bantus under control, I blarry well will. You hear me!’

  ‘Who do you think you are, woman? You have no right interfering with my staff.’

  ‘Maria is my maid! And I say I’ve had enough of her. Lettie will be fine. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Didn’t you go all the way down to Moedswill to fetch the little kaffirmeid because you were so concerned for her? Well, she has a job now! So get Maria out of my sight.’ Someone knocked on the door. ‘Who is it?’ she snapped.

  ‘We’re not finished talking about this,’ Hendrik said.

  Steyn opened the kitchen door and stepped inside. Johann stood a little behind him. Petronella looked at the jersey Johann was wearing. One of the sleeves had come loose and was hanging over his hand.

  ‘It’s like a blarry orphanage in here.’

  ‘I need to take my sister home, tannie.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Johann – you will both be going home soon. But you tell me, Johann, when has Charlize last been in school?’

  Johann looked at the floor and said nothing.

  ‘Nellie,’ Hendrik warned.

  She ignored him and carried on addressing Johann.

  ‘Johann, you tell me if I have this right, but I seem to remember that not so long ago you had problems with school. No one saw hide nor hair of you for over a year. It was only when social services came that you went back to school. And now we see the same thing happening again with your sister?’

  ‘Nellie, that’s enough!’ Hendrik said.

  ‘Nellie, the kid is upset – just give him a break.’

  ‘Steyn, I am not interested in your opinion. Hendrik, you can’t have a bunch of truants running around on property that belongs to the Department of Education! What is wrong with you two?’

  How, Hendrik wonders, would he shoot this woman? From behind, so that she never knows? Would she feel a sharp pain in the back of her head for a fraction of a second? Perhaps longer. No one knew. But then again, if he came at her with the gun, there would be something more satisfying in that. He would point the gun between her eyes and she would start trembling and crying, like a dog, backing away into a corner. ‘Have you gone mad?’ she would say. ‘Please, Hendrik, what are you doing? Have you gone mad?’ For every step she took back, he would take a step towards her. Maybe she would trip over a chair and piss he
rself.

  ‘Let me take these two home,’ Steyn said.

  ‘You can come with me – but we have to have a word with the parents,’ Petronella said.

  There was more shouting at the village.

  ‘Something is going on down there, Hendrik,’ Steyn said.

  ‘I wonder, Nellie, what you think is going on down there?’ He took another drag of the cigarette and blew smoke into the light.

  ‘I don’t care what the bantus are screaming about – maybe if you kept some control!’

  Hendrik got up and walked out of the kitchen. How his wife chose to deal with these children and with Steyn was of little concern to him. In the bedroom he opened his bedside drawer and took out his gun. Sometimes it felt good to give in to these temptations. Radical possibility made him feel calmer. With a gun you could quell the screaming of kaffirs. You could quell the screaming of your wife. After you did these things there was silence. What did the metal taste like? He licked the tip of the gun and then put the barrel in his mouth. Was the gun even loaded? He checked and it was. He couldn’t put the gun in a holster and then walk into the bantu village. He put on the safety, stuck the gun into the back of his trousers and untucked his shirt. In the kitchen Steyn and his wife were arguing. Marius, Charlize and Johann stood and watched in silence. The gun, he noticed, gave his voice authority. ‘Shut up! I’m going to see what’s going on,’ he said and strode out of the kitchen.

  It was impossible to dissuade Petronella. So all four of them walked through the bush to Charlize and Johann’s house. Steyn wanted Petronella gone. She was such a meddling, difficult bitch. But did he want Charlize gone also? The bush was dark. Steyn and Petronella carried torches that they used to light the path, but this meant they missed the occasional branch that hung in the way. At one of the clearings Steyn said, ‘Stop here for a second.’ He took one of the ends of the ribbon in Charlize’s hair and tugged it loose.

  ‘I like the ribbons, oom,’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing, Steyn?’ Petronella asked.

  He took the other ribbon out of Charlize’s hair, went down on his haunches and handed them to her. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You can put these in your hair yourself when you want. Okay? But not now.’

  ‘Steyn – this is none of your business.’

  ‘Johann, take you sister home.’

  Petronella grabbed Charlize by the wrist. ‘You’re not going anywhere without me.’

  Johann looked from Steyn to Petronella. ‘Oom?’ he asked.

  ‘You are coming with me, Johann,’ Petronella said. ‘For your own good.’

  ‘Tannie is hurting me,’ Charlize said.

  ‘Shut up!’

  Charlize bent over and bit Petronella on the wrist. She let go of the child. Charlize darted into the bush.

  ‘Go straight home,’ Steyn called. Petronella said nothing.

  They all stood in silence and listened to the breaking of twigs and the swish of branches as Charlize made her way back to the path further along. Steyn expected a furious eruption from the woman, but she just stood in the clearing listening to the girl.

  ‘Be careful, Charlize,’ she finally said. ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’ She took out a cigarette and started smoking. ‘I’m trying to help you, you know that?’ she said to Johann. ‘Everyone thinks I am this interfering woman. But you are so young. You know nothing.’

  ‘We know you’re trying to help,’ Steyn said.

  ‘Then why do you and Hendrik always fight me?’

  He sighed. ‘Go home, Petronella.’ She exhaled smoke, dropped the butt on the ground, shook her head and started walking home. Johann put the cigarette out with the heel of his foot. Steyn was alone with the boy again.

  It was Maria’s husband who was shouting both at Maria and at Lerato. He was struggling to understand how, in the course of an afternoon, his wife had lost both her job and the house they lived in. Lerato said little, but Maria argued with both of them, shouting at Lerato and then turning on her husband. Hendrik could see this from afar as he approached the village. When they saw him, they all fell silent.

  ‘And now?’ he asked.

  Maria and her husband shook their heads.

  ‘Maria – what happened today?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask the missies. I was doing nothing. I was cleaning and then the children want to use the shower, so I wait for them to finish. Now she say I must go. She want this one to work in the house,’ she said, pointing to Lerato. ‘Fine. I go.’

  ‘But where will you go?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know where I must go. It’s too hard to find a job.’

  Maria’s husband shook his head and said, ‘This is not right, baas. Please, baas, the baas must talk to the missies. Where must we go?’

  ‘Stop packing, Maria. You can stay here. Lerato – this can’t go on. You must go back to Moedswill. Stefan, the kleinbaas, he is still alive.’ She nodded. ‘Pack your things. I’m taking you home.’ Hendrik waited while Lerato gathered her few possessions. She handed him the two folded overalls.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The missies she give them to me for the job.’

  ‘Keep them.’

  Maria said something to her and Lerato shook her head.

  She packed the overalls into the suitcase and followed Hendrik back to camp. His bakkie was parked just outside the kitchen door. ‘What the missies going to say, baas?’

  Hendrik ignored her and walked into the house to grab his keys. His wife was not in the kitchen. When he came out, Lerato was sitting in the back of the bakkie, holding on to her suitcase.

  ‘It’s cold,’ he said. ‘Get in the front.’

  ‘Baas?’

  ‘It’s dark. No one will see.’

  Lerato hopped out the back of the cab. Hendrik opened the door for her. Ridiculous, he thought. What would people think if they could see this? It’s like I’m taking this meid out on a date. She was wearing the clothes she’d worn on the day he picked her up from Moedswill: the worn cotton dress that was indecently short. He thought about how in the cab he could reach over and put his hand on her thigh and then slip it between her legs. He closed the passenger door. If he did it right, if she gave in to him, she might writhe beneath his touch the way Nellie had once done, years ago, when he’d got her drunk.

  ‘Hendrik?’ Petronella pointed with the torch into the car to see who the passenger was. ‘Who’s that? Is that Lettie?’ she asked.

  ‘Did you take the children back?’

  ‘Why is Lettie in the car? What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m taking her back to Moedswill, Nellie. This has gone on too long. Maria is staying here.’

  Nellie walked round the front of the bakkie and yanked the passenger door open. ‘Out!’ she shouted at Lettie. She grabbed the suitcase from the back and threw it on the ground. The old buckles sprang loose with the force, strewing the clothes. ‘And who said you could take these overalls? Huh? I bought these for you to work in the house! You can’t just take them! You’re a thief!’

  Hendrik started picking up Lettie’s clothes while she sat in the cab with her arms folded across her chest. He picked up an old bra and panties and stuffed them into the suitcase. He walked over to the left front wheel of the car to pick up one of the overalls, but Nellie grabbed it from him and put it behind her back.

  ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘I won’t let you!’

  ‘Give it here, Nellie!’

  ‘Make me, you useless prick!’ As he walked towards her she stepped backwards, facing him. ‘You spineless waste of space . . . you pathetic joke. Look at this place! The children and the bantus walking all over you. What would your father think? He would die of shame.’

  ‘Give it to me, Nellie.’

  ‘I stopped listening to you a long time ago. Now tell that bitch to get out of the car and go back to the house.’

  Hendrik reached round and took the gun out of the back of his trousers. Nellie stood rooted to the spot and started shaking.
>
  ‘Hendrik? Are you mad?’ She dropped the overall behind her.

  ‘Give it to me,’ he said. Nellie didn’t move. He cocked the gun. ‘Give it to me!’ Petronella did not move. He fired a shot.

  Werner pushed the bed to the side of the room and took out a stack of A4 sheets. With sticky tape he created a new canvas for his picture and laid it on the floor. He called Marius.

  ‘What?’ his brother asked.

  ‘Where’s Ma and Pa?’ Marius shrugged. ‘Come, I need your help.’

  ‘Are you making a new picture of Jesus?’

  ‘Ja,’ Werner said. ‘But this time I want you to trace me.’

  Marius nodded. Werner stripped off his clothes and lay on the sheet of paper with his arms outstretched and his chin resting forward. Marius took a pencil and started tracing around Werner’s head, down his neck and shoulders and along his arm. Werner had placed his one foot over the other, like Jesus’s feet when they crucified him. Marius traced his sides and his legs. He brushed against his brother’s body. Werner closed his eyes and thought about Jesus. Outside they could hear their parents arguing. There was a gunshot and a scream. Werner jumped up.

  ‘Ma!’ Marius shouted. ‘Ma! Ma! Pa!’

  ‘Shut up,’ Werner said. He was struggling to get dressed.

  ‘Ma! Ma! Ma!’ he shouted.

  Werner slipped on a pair of jeans. Someone was still screaming in the bush, but his mother was silent.

  ‘Pa!’ Marius shouted.

  ‘Calm down.’ Werner grabbed his shirt and put it on. ‘Come,’ he said, grabbing his brother by the wrist. As they ran to the kitchen, they heard a car door slam. By the time they opened the back door, the car was speeding down the driveway towards the main road.

  ‘Ma!’ Werner shouted. ‘Ma! Where are you? Pa?’