Not a Fairytale

by Shaida Kazie Ali

  I understand I have little to offer you, aside from my sharp teeth, my warm fur, my keen night-time vision, my undying devotion, and the knowledge that grey wolves mate for life, unlike the boyfriends of your past. I am hoping that as a vet you will not be adverse to an inter-species relationship. I am praying you will accept my invitation. A cup of coffee, next full moon. Ten minutes of your life, a chance to woo you: that is all I ask. No strings attached. Feel free to discuss it with your mother and grandmother – they are your pack, they have wisdom.

  I await your response. However, if you choose not to reply I will understand. I will be unhappy, but I will understand. You owe me nothing for loving you, it has been my opportunity for growth.

  Yours faithfully

  Wolfie

  Driving Ma

  NOW THAT I’M ON THIS EXTENDED HOLIDAY, Ma seems to think it’s only right that I become her personal chauffer. Why did I imagine I could come to Cape Town and live outside of Ma’s freaky control?

  Today she wants me to take her to the city. She wants to visit a kramat but she won’t drive into town because of the taxis. Ma says she’s told The Prune time and again to go to the kramat to get rid of her bad luck, but Polla won’t listen. Polla’s always having car troubles, money troubles, man troubles.

  On the drive here, Ma was waxing eloquent about my big sister. Apparently, she’s forgiven her for divorcing Zain, because now Salena takes Ma out once a week for tea. Which, Ma says, is something that never happened when Salena was married to “that man”.

  At the kramat, I park the car close to the kerb and Ma goes inside the burial room to pray. Papa never allowed her to visit kramats because he said she was praying to the saint, instead of directly to Allah, which made her no better than a worshipper of idols. Ma denied this but could never make Papa believe her. Papa didn’t get that Ma loves the ritual of lighting an incense stick and the peace of prayer, particularly because, she tells me, as a woman she’s been made to feel uncomfortable in a mosque.

  I sit in the car until the heat forces me out. Behind the square of the kramat’s resting place is a girls’ school, and in the hazy distance I can see a few uniformed figures throwing balls about. A door in the building behind me opens, and two white-haired women in flowery dresses make their way haltingly towards a wooden bench, where they gingerly collapse and the dusty smell of talcum powder reaches out to me. They clasp each other’s hand. I wonder if Salena and I will grow old together like that.

  Ma’s back, looking optimistic. Have her prayers been answered? We get into the car. She says she understands why we have to pray five times a day. It was Allah’s way of getting the dirty Arab men to wash regularly, and forcing them to focus on something besides chasing women. I’m beginning to like Ma.

  Cleaning

  MA’S CUPBOARD OPENS AND HER SMELL WAFTS OUT: a heavy floral scent. I remember when these smells were a comfort to the child-me, when I would lie, pimply with chicken pox, my nose buried in her nightgown.

  The week before, I went to visit Papa’s grave – for the first time ever. That day I got as far as the dusty, gravelly parking lot, before my courage almost deserted me, but I persevered. I sat in the car, clutching the flowers I’d bought at Woolies, already wilting in the heat. I didn’t know you could purchase bunches of the stuff outside the cemetery for a fraction of the price. I turned the car back on and put the air-conditioner on full blast.

  I don’t see the point of flowers on graves. I don’t see the point of graves. I plan on being cremated. Ma said she would never allow this. What would people say? It never occurred to her she’d die before me. Ma believed she was immortal, that dying was something other people did.

  Ma warned me about the grave cleaners hanging around the cemetery. Not that she ever went there herself; the man she hired to maintain my father’s grave told her. He said there were men, mostly illegal immigrants, who made money cleaning the graves for visitors. So when I got there, I wasn’t surprised to see men walking around with little shovels. They looked creepy in their white coats, like living ghouls. I wondered if they lived in the cemetery, like the squatters in Cairo who have moved into the graveyards for lack of urban space.

  Eventually I got out of the car, only to be surrounded by a group of grave guards. But I’d come prepared. I was covered from head to toe in a burqa, with horizontal slits for my eyes. Of course this meant I had no peripheral driving vision, which had made the drive here somewhat dicey.

  Salena had said Papa’s grave would be easy to find – against the wall, seventh row from the front. As I searched, an insistent guard followed me, nattering incomprehensibly. From the safety of my black shroud, I stuck my tongue out at him and shook my head vehemently from side to side. It didn’t help. He was undeterred, and followed me until I reached the meticulously kept grave.

  Ma was surely getting her money’s worth. There was a suitably severe headstone, all covered in pretty roses and carnations, displaying Papa’s name, date of birth and date of death. I felt slightly faint crouching there in the 32-degree heat and my heavy, black attire. I didn’t know what to think. All I could see in my head were visions of my father beating Salena until bruises like violets covered her pallid skin.

  Then, as I turned to go, I noticed the name on the gravestone next to Papa’s. Mrs Julayga Slamang. I looked around. In the grave behind him lay Gamiet Salie. My father had Malay neighbours! I choked on hysterical silent laughter. I searched further. Parker, Rawoot, Narkar, Karjiker. Indian village stalwarts buried in between Matthews and Fredericks.

  The proximity of his bones to those Malays must be killing him all over again, daily. I’ll confess: I went back to my car much lighter. Now all I can think about is that Ma will be Papa’s neighbour, too. I wonder if they’ll get along better in death than in life.

  We don’t know what happened. Salena found her in the lounge. Oprah playing on the TV, a cup of tea next to her, as cold as her skin. Salena says she felt bad interrupting Ma watching TV, knowing how much she loved Oprah. So Salena watched the show along with Ma and when the credits began to roll she phoned me.

  I know I should cry. It’s the right thing to do.

  Potpourri

  4 cups rose petals

  1 tsp powdered aniseed

  1 tsp powdered allspice

  1 tsp powdered nutmeg

  6 long cinnamon sticks, coarsely broken

  1 tsp powdered ginger

  ¼ cup whole cloves

  1 tsp ground cinnamon

  2 vanilla pods, cut into 2 cm pieces

  20 drops essential rose oil

  1 cup coarse sea salt

  Cut flowers may wilt quickly in the summer heat, and transforming them into potpourri is a way of lengthening their too-short lives and making them productive instead of merely decorative. Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and place it in a room or in the middle of a house that needs its spirits lifted, particularly after a bereavement.

  Different Tastes

  I was alone, for a short time, while Hansel went outside to play with his new collection of pearls, rich rubies, diamonds and other jewels. I wanted to make sure she was dead. When I opened the oven door, I found her, the tough old bird, already overcooked, but still tempting. And I thought: Just a nibble, a suck. After all, she was going to eat Hansel. She tasted burnt, but her skin crackled pleasurably on my tongue, and I chewed delicately as her once-solid flesh became mine.

  At home there was much rejoicing, and we three settled into a comfortable life, no one mentioning our stepmother. It’s strange, now that I think about it after all these years: we never asked father how she died. Simply celebrated her absence. Had he killed her in a fit of guilt over dumping us in the forest? Did she run away with a man who could feed her? Did she die of hunger? What’s even odder is that we never blamed him for our abandonment. It was always her fault; she was the villain in our story.

  We delighted in the presence of the abundant food. Each morning, I cooked an enormous
breakfast: porridge, scrambled eggs, fried bread, flapjacks sweating honey and cream. Hansel insisted on elevenses: triangles of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, and samoosas with dhania chutney. Then lunch. Soup and salad for starters. A leg of lamb, curried chicken and basmati rice, fish almost swimming in butter and lemon juice. A pudding of yellow custard and brown syrupy fruit. I drew the line at cooking supper. They ate leftovers or cornflakes with thick slices of banana. Father grew a belly. Hansel spurted into a long-limbed teenager and took up weight-lifting; he grew as sleek as a forest cat. But I found the food unsatisfying: often, I left my plate untouched. I had other longings.

  Then Father sickened and died. The doctor said it was an extreme case of heartburn. I convinced Hansel that a cremation would be less expensive. Now that he was wealthy, he hated to spend any of our ill-gotten gains. It’s funny how having lots of money can make a man stingy. He found pleasure in playing with his jewels, but he hated converting them into hard cash and spending the stuff – even on food. I said it would be cheaper if I burnt Father myself. Hansel left me to it, and I held back a thigh, to roast and season at my leisure. That hit the spot.

  Without Father to bind us, Hansel and I drifted apart. I saw him watching our neighbour all the time, a moronic girl, always asking Hansel to help her get rid of mice, tweaking my nose as though we were friends.

  Hansel and I divided the remaining loot, with him taking the lion’s share – I didn’t care. I needed to move out. I went back to her gingerbread house, threw out her ashes, put potpourri in all the rooms, and restored the place to its former scrumptious glory. I took up cake-baking to cover my living costs, to keep me entertained and busy. I’m a perfectionist: I’ve been known to throw out a perfectly good sponge if there’s a little hollow in the centre, one that only I can see.

  We wait, the always-warm oven and me. To hear some stray, small person’s juicy-pink lips, someone’s lickable white milk teeth nibbling at my chocolate windows.

  When Salena was born, she had black hair, dark as midnight, and eyes grey-blue as a turbulent sea. Her mother, while disappointed at the birth of a daughter, was glad that at least the girl looked white. Imagine her displeasure when, within weeks, Salena’s eyes turned green, her hair a rusty brown. At least her skin stayed fair.

  Hafsa soon grew irritated with the child, wishing her away as she prepared for another pregnancy, a replacement for the disappointment.

  Salena learnt early that neglect was preferable to being beaten, and that submission ensured neglect, so as a little girl she bit her tongue and cut her flesh until her body became perfectly silent.

  In fact, Salena stayed silent for several decades. But she did speak up, eventually.

  Let me tell you her story.

  Salena’s Tale

  Cango Delights

  SALENA’S FATHER, HANIF PARUK, HAS A NEW VOLVO, and they’re leaving Cape Town to visit the Cango Caves in Oudtshoorn. There is an air of festivity in the car that not even the bruises on Salena’s waxen arms can diminish. Faruk sits in the front, next to their father, and Salena and her mother, Hafsa, have the back seat. The car smells of padkos, especially the garlic chutney Hanif insists Hafsa spread on all his sandwiches, no matter what the filling. He even eats it with peanut butter.

  No one speaks as Hanif concentrates on driving. Occasionally he lets Faruk change gears – it’s never too early for a boy to learn how to drive.

  They stop at a garage for petrol and for Hafsa to use the toilet. Hafsa comes back, adjusting her scarf and complaining about the state of the toilets. She tells Salena that at the next garage she must ask for the toilet key so that they can be sure to get the ones to the white toilets.

  Salena, seated in the back seat, shifts until she can see her face in the car’s rear-view mirror. She looks at her skin, chalky white, her eyes the colour of marbles. Her hair, in its two plaits, has an auburn glow, and her nose is short and narrow. This face, this reflection, dooms her to playing white on family excursions, or whenever her parents demand it.

  She is the third in the queue at the Caves. If she fails, she knows she’ll get another hiding with the belt, or her father’s other favourite, the wooden spoon. Ahead of her are a mother and three children. The children, two boys and a girl, turn to stare at Salena. Her cheeks redden. Can they see she’s not white?

  She looks away, then back. The children are barefoot. The boys have shorn hair, showing their pink scalps, and the girl’s hair is blonde, waist-length and horribly knotted. Their faces are smeared with strawberry jam and dirt.

  When it’s her turn, she smiles politely at the woman selling tickets and asks for tickets for two children and two grown-ups, in what Hafsa calls “high English”. The woman smiles back, hands her the tickets, and says she is lucky; this is the last tour of the day.

  She goes back to the car, parked out of sight of the ticket counter, and gives her father the tickets. In her absence, Salena’s mother has added more white powder to her face, so her dark skin glints grey. She’s freshened her pale pink lipstick too, and removed her scarf. Her thick black hair, most of it artificial, is arranged on top of her head like Elizabeth Taylor’s.

  Off they go, up the path. They are the last to join the queue. Hanif hands over the tickets to the collector. He scrutinises each member of the family.

  “This tour is for whites only.”

  Her mother’s face, under its pale guise, begins to melt in the rays of the afternoon sun.

  “Go, before you get into trouble, just go! I want to get home early for a change.”

  The family turn as one, back to the car. As they drive away, Faruk is crying. Salena can’t understand why. Their father hardly ever hits him. She feels queasy. She puts her head out of the car window and leaves a trail of padkos in the dusty road.

  Masala Peanuts

  ½ cup chana flour, sifted

  ¼ cup rice flour, sifted

  1½ tsp chilli powder

  salt to taste

  1 cup salted roasted peanuts

  5 tbsp water

  oil for frying

  Mix the sifted chana flour, rice flour, chilli powder and salt together in a bowl. Stir in the peanuts and slowly add 4 or 5 tablespoons of water. Heat the oil in a pan and drop the peanut mixture into the hot oil. Separate the peanuts that clump together. Deep-fry over medium heat until the peanuts are golden brown. Allow to cool and place in an airtight container. The perfect snack for long car trips.

  A Visit to the Beach

  THE MIDNIGHT WAVES WASH OVER SALENA’S feet as she lies on her back in the sand, watching the full moon, a sallow reflection of the sun. She wishes the moon, her namesake, could reach down and pull her up into its heavens.

  At the library, she read that a man had walked on the moon, and in her last year of primary school she was taught that the moon affects the tides, that it exerts a pull on the seas, on water.

  The beach is Salena’s refuge from her father’s rages. She knows the routine: grab Zuhra and her bottle as well as a handful of the biscuits her mother keeps on a shelf near the back door, and run. Across the main road, past the Catholic school, to the stony beach.

  She hears the giggles of her two-year-old sister. The baby is trying to catch the white foam on the black waves with her left hand while holding her milk bottle high in her right one. Little Zuhra doesn’t understand that people don’t visit the beach at this time. She does not know yet that water is treacherous, that there are sea monsters living in the dark, watching from below. She does not know that the butter-yellow midnight moon is natural light to predators, and should not be witnessed by children on a dark beach.

  Salena recalls, as a tiny child, perhaps as little as Zuhra is now, being protected in her daadi’s arms, while around her the storm that is her father raged. Now with her grandmother gone, she is her sister’s rescuer. Salena tries to rise, but her arms are as limp as the seaweed strewn on the sand, her body as fluid as the water.

  She collapses back onto the sand, spreads he
r arms out wide, and gazes up at the opaque clouds moving across the moon’s crust. Her hand closes around the sharp edge of a broken shell. She tightens her fist around it until the skin yields, and the moon is witness to the blood mixing with sand.

  Coke Float Dreams

  SALENA TREADS SOFTLY ON THE STONE PAVEMENT in the dark morning, past the row of cottages and storefronts that separates her father’s house from his cornershop, Hanif Paruk General Dealer.

  The street lamp throws its bleak light on the tiny keyholes of the padlocks that guard the shop each night. The keys grate, opening a shadowy world of sweets and cigarettes. She reaches for the broom to sweep away the musty night, readying herself for the deliveries of hot bread and icy milk.

  She thinks of her parents, undisturbed, asleep beneath their mirrored gudri. It has been her job to open the shop, every day, for two years now, ever since her thirteenth birthday.

  That birthday morning had been a gloomy winter one, too. She’d heard the black telephone ringing at seven o’clock, as she was ironing her school pinafore, dark red cotton, dampened to smooth the iron’s path. Her father had answered, and then, with a surprised, silent scowl, handed the receiver to her.

  Her quivering ear heard a boy’s voice wishing her happy birthday, a short laugh, a click as he replaced the receiver. She turned to face her parents’ glares.

  Later, at school, Mrs Goosen pinched her twice for not concentrating, and made her sit at her desk during break, writing, “I will listen to my teacher, I will listen to my teacher,” one hundred times.

  That afternoon she walked into the house and sniffed the air for her mother’s mood, heard her twelve-year-old brother’s squeaky voice tormenting her cat, then felt her eyes brimming even before her mother’s words.