Women Are Bloody Marvellous! And Other Stories

by Betty Burton

  Flinging an arm across her face, John turned over and muttered in his sleep. Immediately on contact, sweat sprang where their skin touched. She pushed him further to his part of the bed and turned on her side to watch the stars. The crickets seemed louder now than in the early evening. The night was filled with their grating and sawing, the garden must be seething. She imagined row on row of them, like the soldier ants that were for ever invading the larder.

  '...and you'd be surprised, Dad, how easy it is to let the sound of insects get on your nerves once you start to think about it.

  I always become aware of crickets just after sundown. Perhaps that is when they start up or simply that I don't actually hear them until the boys have gone to bed. But at sundown I become conscious of them. Before I came here, I associated the sound of cicadas with balmy tropic evenings, a delightful background of natural sound. Wherever did I get that idea I wonder? I hate them. Isn't that ridiculous? How can one hate insects? Hate is...'

  It was too hot for philosophical rumination about hate. Liz lifted the thin sheet with one foot and allowed it to drift down, trying to move air over her body. The air moved, but it was not cooling.

  As Liz raised herself on one elbow so as to turn the pillow on to its cooler side, there came from the servants' rooms high on the roof of Dunkeld Court, the next-door block of flats, the sound of shuffling bare feet and a whispered argument. A door-latch rattled. Someone in high heels clicked hurriedly up stone steps. A bead curtain rattled. A door creaked shut, then all was quiet again.

  Liz recognized the bead curtain. It hung at the door of the windowless cell that was home of Ezekiel, the Zingili boss-boy of Dunkeld Court. Whenever Zeke went in or out of his room and Liz was on her balcony, he would shout 'Heya!' grinning his perfect white teeth at her. A white man would have given a low whistle. Any possible misinterpretation of his gesture was negated by the respectful sweep of his tattered sugar-planter hat, 'Good morning, M'em.'

  As she did frequently on hot nights, Liz got out of bed. Carefully. John didn't know that there were many hours when he slept alone. Sometimes she would go into the sitting room and read until it was nearly dawn. She went quietly with bare feet, recognizing her own childishness in ignoring Sara's wagging finger, 'The Medam must not wear the bare feet, even in the flet. The jiggers will eat the toes.'

  As she went to switch on a lamp, Liz remembered that there was nothing to read, the library books were stacked ready to go back in the morning, she had read both newspapers from cover to cover, and Sara had taken all the magazines with her back home to Soweto. She wandered about, the rooms ht by the reflected light of bright security lamps in the corridors, idly plumping up cushions and gathering up an odd toy or two. She looked in at the children, wishing she could always feel like this about them, that she could be better at coping, calmer in their quarrels.

  She wandered into the kitchen.

  Liz quite liked this kitchen. Although the company had installed the gleaming and expensive equipment, Liz had managed to make it a bit like her kitchen back home, with plants and baskets of fruit and some wooden furniture. She rarely had the place to herself except, as now, in the middle of the night. There were sometimes as many as four Africans as well as herself, all doing the work she did unaided in her own house back home. But the Africans, like John, were paid by the company. Liz liked their uncomplicated friendliness and willingness and was grateful that they accepted her in the kitchen which was, after all, their territory.

  Taking a pot of yoghurt from the refrigerator, she hoisted herself on to the work surface beside the wide window. It was thirty feet above street level and, as it had no balcony or foothold, it was the only window in the flat uncluttered by iron-leafed burglar-proofing. Below ran the broad road to Pretoria.

  'Dear Mum,

  'I wish I could show you the road where we live. You would love all the colour. It's an avenue divided down the centre by a wide strip of grass which is kept watered, clipped short and wonderfully neatly edged. There are beds of flaming canna lilies, and great clumps of nerines and millions of Livingstone daisies. The clumps of asparagus fern — like the one on your sideboard — grow in the open and are six feet across and almost as high. In each flowerbed is a palm tree. Best of all, though, is the tree that grows just opposite where I often sit (in the kitchen) and think about what I shall write to you. It is a jacaranda tree — enormous — as big as an oak tree and the same shape, the blossom comes when the branches are bare, clear lilac...'

  Liz took the lid off the yoghurt and removed the thin pad of mould that covered the top.

  '...I don't think I told you the story about the yoghurt did I, Mum? Well our doctor told me that I ought to give it to the children and eat plenty myself. The first day it was delivered, every pot I opened was covered with mould. I rang up the dairy manager and told him exactly what I thought about it. Was my face red! It's supposed to be like that. The stuff they sell back home is just junk. I now have a passion for the stuff...'

  She smiled, wondering if she would get one of her mother's diplomatically phrased letters — not wanting to interfere, Liz was very capable of course, but maybe to be just that extra bit careful, the hot weather and all that. It was quite nice to be fussed over by your Mum — as long as you were the other side of the world.

  The smooth cream. Acidic, sharp. Below the avenue. Something moved. At first she thought it might be one of the scraggy dogs that wandered about scavenging, but no, over by the jacaranda she could make out the shape of a man. He was white, she saw his face and hands in the shadow of the tree.

  He looked up and Liz moved quickly back from the window. He was not looking in her direction, though, but towards Dunkeld Court. He stepped out from the shelter of the tree and beckoned, first up, then down the road. From behind some palm trees, two more men came into view. They ran, crouching like monkeys, to the jacaranda. All three withdrew into the shadow and stood immobile. Liz kept as still as they. The formica surface began to feel hot and sticky through her thin wrap. She kept well back from the window and took little tastes of yoghurt, and watched.

  It was seldom that one saw the avenue so empty. The five little shops on the corner that had been alive with people right up until midnight, were now shuttered, the only sign of life came from the patisserie where they were getting croissants ready for the first customers just after dawn.

  '...I do quite a lot of my shopping in the small shops. There is a greengrocer — it's interesting about greengrocer shops, they smell so different from ones back home. I think it is the guavas and paw-paws that give off a powerful smell — rather nauseating. Mostly Portuguese...'

  A light momentarily caught the canna lilies, flaring them alight, then went off. A car came coasting down the incline of the road.

  '...I'll tell you something quite interesting. Even on the very hottest nights, for a short while the air clears and it gets cool. I don't know about in the heart of the city, but it happens out here in the suburbs. The crickets...'

  The crickets had stopped again and there was no movement anywhere. Suddenly the car engine roared into life and the car was driven away very fast out of the city. As it pulled away, Liz saw that the three white men were racing across the wide avenue. They jumped a low garden wall and crouched immediately below where Liz sat. One man gave silent directions to the other two, one of whom went into the underground carpark and the other in at the 'Residents Only' entrance to Dunkeld. The man giving directions then went into an alley-way.

  Liz jumped down and ran silently through the flat into the sitting room. She pressed herself into the folds of the curtains and watched. From there she could see the other end of the alley-way and all five levels of corridors with immaculate front doors, where lamps only six feet or so apart were kept burning all night.

  The man held the alley-way door slightly open, looking up and waiting. Against the darkness of the sky appeared the darker shape of a second man, he must be the one who had gone in at the front door of Dunkel
d and up on to the roof where there were washing-lines. He signalled a thumb-up. The alley-way man replied. For a short while neither moved.

  The ground at the back of the flats was much higher than at the front where the kitchen was, so that where Liz now stood she was almost level with the two men. She jumped when the man who had gone into the carpark appeared only a foot or two below where she stood. He ran across a flowerbed, leapt a hedge and joined the man in the alley-way.

  The crickets were silent.

  Very faintly Zeke's bead curtain rattled, then Zeke came to the edge of his balcony, his pale servant's uniform showing up clearly. He could have reached up and touched the shoes of the man on the roof. But he did not look up. It was just like being at the pictures when you were a child — Liz wanted to warn Zeke, 'Look out! He's behind you!'

  'Do you remember me telling you about Zeke who is so nice to the children. He gave them some goldfish and some wind-chimes...'

  Zeke made a beckoning motion at the bead curtain and a woman came out. Liz recognized her. Annie-moo the other women called her. She was large and beautiful and accentuated the size of her breasts and curve of her hips with glossy, gathered dresses. She was very black-skinned and kept her hair in dozens of thin, beaded plaits. In cold weather she wore a coat made from the skin of dik-dik or some such animal. Liz had always assumed she was a prostitute from the way the men whooped at her and the women lowered their eyelids and jerked their chins as they turned from her. Liz wasn't very good at recognizing many of the tribal features but Annie-moo had a good voice.

  'Have you ever heard of the Xhausa tribe? They are fascinating to listen to. Their language contains a lot of "clocking" sounds, made at the back of the palate. I've tried to do it but all I manage to do is send all the African women I try it on into fits of giggles. And if you've ever seen six or seven African women laughing at a white Madam who they think is a bit eccentric...'

  Annie-moo and Zeke stood back against the wall, not moving. The three white men did not move. Liz watched from behind her burglar-proofed window.

  The crickets started again.

  There was a sudden, quick flurry of movement and Zeke and the woman went hurrying down the steps. There was a cry followed by a clang. The man on the roof had fallen from the iron ladder down which he was clambering. Zeke and the woman began to run along one of the residents' corridors. The man in the alley-way came into the open and shouted, 'Hold it boy!' and took a stance with his hand-gun like an American TV cop. The third man ran up some steps and along the corridor towards Zeke and Annie-moo.

  Zeke shouted something in what sounded like Zulu and the woman leapt from the balcony. Two shots zipped into the night. The woman shouted obscenities in English and Afrikaans from the flowerbed. The man who had come down from the roof prodded Zeke in the back until they were all together in the garden just below where Liz stood. Zeke and Annie-moo were handcuffed and pushed along the servants' alley.

  Liz did not move for a long time.

  If you believed everything you heard at dinners and cocktail parties, there were terrorists and subversives in every home and backyard. Liz had seen more handcuffs, revolvers and chases in the short time that she had lived here, than she would have believed possible.

  She pressed her forehead hard into one of the iron leaf-shapes, suppressing tears and the fear.

  Only twenty-eight more months and it will all be over.

  Say that every day for the next thirty days then — Only twenty-seven more months and it will all be over.

  She pushed down the images of Zeke and Annie-moo. She would think about them, but not yet, not tonight.

  The air became hot again, but at least the crickets were silent. The pansy darkness began to show the first sign of dawn. She went back through the flat and into the bedroom, fingering the imprint of the iron leaf on her forehead.

  John was still sleeping. Liz slid back under the sheet. The stars were less bright.

  'Dear Mum,

  'In the letter I got from you yesterday, you said that you often worry about us. You really mustn't you know. We are perfectly OK. This is a big, modern city, with police and buses and everything, just like home.'

  The automatic tea-maker clicked on.

  THE ZULU GIRL

  THE ZULU GIRL

  Eddie did not see the girl come or know how long she had been standing there. The colour of her dress blended with the bare red twigs of the thorn bushes as she stood, quite still, watching the only bit of civilization visible on the high veldt — the construction site where his gang was erecting a tall steel tower.

  He was intrigued, not at the sight of a young woman in tribal dress near the site, it was common for women to come in search of their men; often they came in small groups, shrill voices sounding raucous to English ears, cluttered with bundles they would descend upon the site; the labourers would stop work and call out invitations like gangs of young men anywhere. What intrigued Eddie about this woman was the way she stood, still and silent, on a slight rise in the ground from which she had a view over the entire site.

  She was tall and dignified in the manner of many Zulus, she had an air of remoteness and looked as though she could stand like that for days.

  Eddie's African chargehand came over.

  'What does she want, Altheus?' Eddie asked.

  'Who knows?' Altheus drew up his shoulders into an exaggerated shrug, holding them high for several seconds before releasing them.

  'How long has she been there?'

  'Maybe a day, maybe more. Yesterday she was in the bush. Do not bother, Baas.'

  'Do not bother, Baas' was as near as Altheus would go to telling the white man it was none of his business. Eddie nodded and went away to the other end of the site to supervise the erection of some steelwork and thought no more about the Zulu woman until he answered the call of the tea-boy banging on the corrugated shed.

  He took his mug of tea and walked a little way towards the rise where the woman stood. A group of huge aloes gave a little shade from the noon sun, so Eddie pushed back into the cool leathery leaves and sat sideways-on to the woman who was standing in profile to him and he could see her more clearly now. Her skin was not light as he had first thought, but smeared with a kind of grey chalk, her natural darkness showing in streaks where sweat had run. She wore a long cotton-print skirt, voluminous and reaching almost to her ankles which were banded with coils of metal and bead work. Looped about her shoulders was a large crimson cloak-like affair edged with intricate black tracery. On her head a high tubular hat of the same colour as the cloak.

  She made a small sharp movement, bringing her hands up from her sides and clasping them beneath her belly. She was pregnant, near her time. Eddie guessed that she was no more than about eighteen. She must be aware that he was looking at her but she gave no indication. He ought to do something but could not think what, so he finished his tea and walked back to the steel-erectors.

  The working day on the site began at dawn so as to get as much as possible of the heavy work done before the sun turned the dish-shaped site into an oven, so by two o'clock Eddie had finished for the day and was in his Range Rover heading back into the city. As he left the site he turned towards the thorn bushes — she had gone. That evening he asked Molly, a Xhosa woman who helped in the house, if she could guess why the Zulu girl was standing by the thorn bushes out in the veldt.

  'Perhaps she is widow, Masta,' Molly said. 'Some people make white face for widow, put fire-ashes on the face.'

  'But why would she want to come to the site? If she is a widow then she wouldn't be looking for one of my men. Anyway, why just stand there?'

  Molly gave the same slow shrug of the shoulders as Altheus had given earlier.

  'Who knows?' she said. Her eyes and face were expressionless and like Altheus she implied, 'Do not bother, Baas — mind your own business.'

  Next day Eddie was back on site just after sunrise. He had bumped the Range Rover over several miles of rough track beside t
he truck-load of men. As they reached the site the truck-driver roared ahead jolting the men about and they whooped and shouted like boys at a fun-fair. Suddenly they went very quiet and looked solemnly down as they passed the place where the silent girl now stood.

  She had come down from the thorn thicket on the rise, and was now standing beside the track that led to the site. She stood in the same pose as before, her crimson cloak moving slightly in the morning air and her cotton skirt flapping gently against her body. Her belly was flat. Eddie expected to see the baby slung on her back, but it was neither there nor anywhere that he could see.

  He stopped and got out.

  'Are you looking for someone?'

  Up to the moment that Eddie came to stand before her, she had not taken her eyes from the site but as he spoke she turned them slightly in his direction; her face as impassive as ever, and the stillness about her was almost tangible, chill. She looked into Eddie's eyes for about five seconds then returned her gaze to the site.

  'Can you understand me?'

  She didn't respond.

  'Look, if you want something, say so. I don't like to see you there so long.'

  Still there was no response.

  Eddie stood for a moment or two longer then returned to the Range Rover where Altheus sat, his face rigid, like a fake ebony head in a tourist shop.

  Neither man spoke until Eddie gave Altheus the work schedule for the day. Altheus took instruction politely but with few words, then he went off leaving Eddie feeling tense and fidgety. He went into the shack which served as his site office and sat looking out, she was exactly opposite. He knew that the reflection of light on the window made it impossible to see inside, so he sat on a stool gazing out at her.