No, no, no, thought the stepmother. This is no good. And she drew a deep breath and blew away the whole company of soldiers – horses and weapons and all. They landed in a great heap under the castle walls. When the king saw this, he realised that the five had something against which he was powerless, and he left them alone from that day on.
The five divided the treasure between them, giving the king’s daughter a share as well. And each one made his or her own way in the world. The king’s daughter decided not to be married to anyone. She went to live with the strong sister in the city of gold. Where they are most likely still living happily today.
18
Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum, I Smell the Blood of a Human Child
Tearing her hair out, was Griet’s first thought as she woke with Adam’s hands in her hair. In one of the books she’d borrowed from the library last week, she’d read that one of the most pervasive beliefs about witches was that their power lay in their hair. She had no difficulty in believing that. She’d grown up with the story of Samson.
She wished she could wake up every morning like this, with Adam snuggled against her back, his hands in her hair, his breath on her neck. Le gros bon ange, it was called in the language of enchantment of the West Indies – the soul that was revealed in the breath. The great good angel.
‘I’m going to miss you,’ she murmured without opening her eyes.
She could feel his penis grow until he began to thrust blindly between her legs, a seeking snout against her groin. A lemming headed for oblivion, she thought, and felt him hesitate for a moment on the edge of the precipice. Then he crashed down into her. Her body was a pit, a deep dark hole that men fell into, where children died, from whence no one could ever be rescued. No, a cup, she thought, full, fuller, fullest.
My cup runneth over.
That must be how the first woman felt. Eve, after she’d brought shame, sex and sin into the world. Or the mythical Pandora who was destined to bring a box full of evil to humanity. Because Prometheus had stolen fire from the gods. Adam, Adam, Adam who could light the fire of the gods between a woman’s legs.
‘Depilation of the witch frequently preceded torture. Once shorn of her bodily hair, it was thought that even the most obdurate of witches would make the confession required of her.’ No wonder, thought Griet when she opened her eyes and caught sight of the stubble sprouting in her armpit.
‘Good morning, South Africa,’ said Adam, kissing her shoulder.
‘This can’t be South Africa.’ Griet smiled drowsily. ‘It feels too good.’
He rolled her over so she was lying on her stomach. Their lower bodies stuck together with semen, he raised himself on his elbows to control his pelvis better. He glowed hotly inside her. The rubbing set her alight all over again. His lower body the bellows, the fire a blaze that even her blood couldn’t quench. Adam, Adam, Adam, she cackled.
‘Adam!’ she shrieked.
His arms faltered, Samson’s pillars, and the temple collapsed on to her back.
‘You didn’t use a condom,’ she gasped when she could find breath to do so.
‘You can’t fall pregnant in the middle of your period.’
‘That isn’t what I worry about these days, my darling Adam,’ she sighed, closing her eyes again. She didn’t want to ruin the moment by mentioning the unmentionable. Who knew how many honey jars this golden organ had been thrust into?
‘What does he do?’ was Petra’s first question.
That was the difference between her sisters, Griet realised. Nella asked what he looked like, Petra what he did, and Tienie: How do you feel about him? Tienie and her therapist.
‘I suspect he’s a gigolo,’ she said, just to get a reaction from Petra.
‘Can you afford a gigolo?’ was Petra’s immediate response, more concerned about her sister’s finances than her morals or her health.
‘He looks like a gigolo,’ she told Nella.
‘Great! Then he’ll know what to do in bed.’
‘I don’t know,’ she told Tienie and her therapist. ‘I’m trying to think less and do more.’
My sister wants to know what you do, Adam.
Tell her I’m searching for myself.
She’ll want to know if you have a sponsor for your search. She’ll offer to create an advertising campaign for you.
Tell her my hands are capable of anything.
As though I didn’t know that, my darling Adam.
‘He works in a restaurant sometimes,’ she said finally so that Petra’s great good angel could get some rest.
‘Did it rain or was I dreaming?’
‘It rained all night.’ He rolled off her and folded his arms complacently behind his head. ‘If you turn that delicious body of yours over, you’ll see something that’ll give you a big thrill.’
‘You’re impossible!’
‘Oh, come on, I don’t mean me. Open your eyes and look outside.’
She turned on her side, still drowsy, and gasped for breath when she saw the rainbow framed by the window.
It seemed to have been painted on to the glass, an arch of enamelled colours, crystal clear. She raised herself on an elbow and stared at it.
‘Does that mean we can’t go to the mountain?’ asked Adam, sounding genuinely disappointed.
‘We could hike up – but that isn’t what you had in mind, is it?’
Last night, in a moment of weakness under his supple body, she’d confessed to the crazy fantasy of sex in a cable car. It had fired him up so much that he’d immediately invited her to give it a whirl with him on his last day in Cape Town. She knew it was useless arguing.
‘It’s just a fantasy, Adam.’ She fell back on her pillow, her head in the hollow of his arm, her eyes on the rainbow. It shouldn’t come true.’
‘Hey, why not?’
‘My sister Tienie says the gods punish us by making our wishes come true.’
‘There’s a difference between a wish and a fantasy. It’s like, you know, wishes are impossible. I wish I was you, I wish I was a movie star, that sort of crap. But fantasy can come true. Fantasy should come true! It’s like, something you can do, something you want to do, but don’t have the guts for. It’s like fucking a complete stranger in a train going through a tunnel! The stuff movies are made of!’
He put a hand under her chin, turned her face away from the window, forcing her to meet his eyes. His hand was bloodstained, she noticed. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or to cry.
‘You should act out your fantasies,’ he told her seriously.
‘Do you?’
Silly question, she realised immediately. She could only hope it would begin to rain again.
‘I’ll tell you what: we’ll go up at dusk. We’ll watch the sunset, then come down again after dark. We’ll probably be the only passengers. Maybe it’ll be your lucky day!’
‘Adam!’
‘Go on, be a devil.’
With an angel in a cable car.
‘Swing from a chandelier!’
That’s probably how it would feel to have sex in a cable car. ‘The only thing to fear is fear itself!’
Grandma Lina’s granddaughter. She shut her mouth firmly before she could say another word. She rubbed her face against the wiry hair under his arm and his sweat was salty on her tongue. It looked as though the lower part of his body had been wounded. The man who feared nothing, she thought, not even a woman’s blood.
Adam was one of those rare males who genuinely didn’t give a damn if his body, or the sheets, or even his mouth, was soiled with menstrual blood. Oh, they all said they didn’t mind, but see how they rushed off to the nearest washbasin the minute the orgasm had subsided. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
If men menstruated, Gloria Steinem had dreamt, it would have been something to boast about. If horses could grow wings, Griet dreamt, a cow could jump over the moon. The mind of modern man was in revolt against his ancestors, but his soul was still in bondage.
&nb
sp; Contact with menstrual blood was regarded as mortally dangerous in many primitive cultures. As a precaution, women were segregated, sometimes even locked up. According to Leviticus, it wasn’t only the menstruating woman who was infected but also anything she sat or lay on for the next seven days. And anyone who touched her bed or anything she sat or lay on. And anyone who kept company with her and anything such a person sat or lay on …
‘In many places menstruating women have been prevented from touching the earth with their feet in case they should pollute the ground.’ Question: How does a woman get about if she may not touch the ground? Answer: She climbs onto a broom and starts to fly.
She waits until after dark and then she flies up through her chimney to the highest branches of a tree. Or she changes into a ball of fire, or into a nightbird, and she flies to a mysterious wood where she and her sisters turn their backs to one another and dance in the moonlight.
‘Let’s see what happens,’ she said at last to Adam. ‘Let’s see what the weather does.’
‘While the weather looks like this, we may as well just stay in bed.’
‘Wonderful idea,’ she answered with alacrity. ‘I’ve got a lot of sleep to catch up on.’
‘Hey, not a chance! It’s your last day with me – do you think you’re going to sleep?’
‘The spirit is willing, darling Adam, but the flesh is weak.’
‘So why don’t you tell me a story?’
Was she imagining it or had the rainbow begun to fade?
If a witch was really stubborn, she read in her library book, if even a shaved body didn’t persuade her to play ball, she was kept awake.
‘An iron bridle was bound across her face with four prongs thrust into her mouth. The “bridle” was fastened behind to the wall by a chain in such a manner that the victim was unable to lie down. In this position she was kept sometimes for several days – while men were constantly by to keep her awake.’
‘Once upon a time, long ago, there were three gods who sat on three thrones above the rainbow. The Mighty, the As Mighty and the Third Person …’
‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation!’ Adam crowed, running his hand covered with dried blood through her hair.
At least it was less sexist than the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, she thought when Jans had told her the story of the Scandinavian gods.
Or the Father, the Son and the Holy Ancestors’ Ghosts, as a sangoma had recently insisted on Good Morning, South Africa. God conveyed his wishes to Christ, explained the witchdoctor with three fingers in the air, who conveyed it to the amadlozi – the spirits of the forefathers – who in turn passed it on to the sangomas and other mortals. No wonder the messages that eventually reached her on earth were so confusing, thought Griet. Brziffgtprkss.
‘At last I know why I write fairy tales about my grandparents,’ she’d told her therapist that very morning. ‘The sangoma reckons you can’t ignore the spirits of your forefathers. They can drive you mad. They can even kill you.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Rhonda had asked very carefully.
‘What’s the alternative? Two men and a bird?’
As usual, Rhonda’s face was a blank page upon which Griet could scrawl all her emotions in invisible ink.
‘That’s what Robertson Davies called the Trinity,’ she added apologetically. ‘Rhonda, if I knew what I believed, I wouldn’t sit and torture myself here week after week.’
‘One day the Third Person decided to go and see how the mortals dwelt on earth. Leaving her throne unattended, she made the long journey in the company of her sister, the Rain …’
She believed in the power of imagination, Griet decided, rather than the impotence of reality.
She believed in the possibility of love rather than the certainty of death.
She believed in stories … but was that enough?
Dizzy Tales
‘An African witch can be young, because her evil powers and activities have nothing to do with her age or appearance. In fact, there is not much she can do about her inherent wickedness, though if she is lucky her supernatural powers will be quiescent, and she will be able to live a normal life as a member of her community.’
Encyclopaedia of Magic and Superstition
19
The Cook Who Wanted to Learn How to Live
‘I used the oven.’ Pleased with herself, Griet leant back in the sucking chair. She wouldn’t be swallowed, she knew now; she wouldn’t disappear that easily from the face of the earth. Too bad if she had to peer out over her kneecaps at her therapist. ‘To cook food.’
Rhonda nodded encouragingly.
‘I made a farewell dinner for Adam. I was quite nervous because he’s much more at home in the kitchen than I am. But I have this lasagne recipe that no one can mess up, not even me.’
Thank heaven for the Italians. Thank heaven for Italian fantasy and imagination, for Fellini and Bertolucci and Calvino and Moravia. Thank heaven for a country where the government changes every year, where a pope sets himself up as a king and a porn star is elected to parliament.
‘Did you always have so little confidence as a cook, Griet?’
‘No, I actually enjoyed it, long ago. Before the kitchen became a battlefield. With George, every meal ended in an argument.’
By this time, Adam was sleeping in the clouds somewhere over Africa. Like the angel she’d taken him to be that first night. Long ago, mortals had to wait patiently for death before they could glimpse the glory of heaven. These days, they hopped into the belly of an aircraft and had a preview, a heavenly sightseeing tour, while girls with wings offered them drinks.
‘I thought it only happened in cartoons – the volte-face of the married man – the thoughtful, obliging lover who is transformed into a seriously retarded baby. George brought me coffee in bed before we were married. It’s no hassle, he said, he woke up earlier than I did, anyway. In my whole married life, I never once got a cup of coffee in bed, not even when I was pregnant and felt like throwing up every time I tried to raise my head from the pillow. And I was pregnant the whole time, as you know.’
She lit a cigarette. To hell with discipline. The blue pools of Rhonda’s eyes were as inscrutable as ever.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Three days ago. Completely unexpectedly. If I think of how many times I’ve driven past his house in these last months! Or looked for excuses to pop in on someone who might have seen him. And when I finally stop wondering where he is and what he’s up to, I bump into him in the last place I’d have expected. On the beach!’
Rhonda crossed her legs at the knee, something she very seldom did. Griet realised that she knew her therapist’s body language as well as a close friend’s. She knew every gesture and every expression on her face. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly an Italianate variety. And naturally she knew nothing of what was going on in her therapist’s heart.
‘George never went to the beach. He grew up in the Orange Free State – he’s more frightened of the sea than my Grandma Lina was – and he always thought it was ridiculous to take your clothes off and sunbathe. Where he comes from, you’d probably be roasted to death if you did that. And there he was, lying on Clifton beach like a rock rabbit in the sun!’
‘Well, he changed after you married, didn’t he? He’ll probably change again now that you’re getting divorced. Haven’t you changed too, Griet?’
‘Not from Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde! I don’t know, I suppose I have. I’m more cynical than I was.’
‘A healthy streak of cynicism can be a good thing.’
‘But an overdose can kill you. Or at least kill all your emotions. In the end you can’t love anyone any more.’
‘And you think that’s what happened to George?’
‘God only knows what happened to George,’ sighed Griet with her eyes on Mickey Mouse’s crippled arms. ‘I think he sold his soul to the devil.’
Rhonda wrote something in the file on her lap.
She was wearing a pale blue silk shirt, the same colour as her eyes, and shoes that could only be Italian. The caramel-coloured leather looked like creased satin. The sort of shoes a modern Cinderella would wear. You couldn’t walk down a modern pavement in glass slippers. Thank heaven for the Italians.
‘Did you speak to each other?’
‘On the beach? We said hello. He was with some other people and I was with Adam.’
It was more embarrassing than she’d admit. She had to pluck up all her courage to be seen at Clifton beside Adam’s heavenly body. She couldn’t bear to think what she looked like beside him with her winter-white skin and her voluptuous hips. What if someone thought she was his mother? she thought in a panic. If all else failed, she comforted herself, she could always expose her breasts to distract attention from her thighs.
Her breasts had always been her strong point. Not as strong as her brain, obviously. Though lately she’d developed a horrible suspicion her breasts had begun to droop, and she had her doubts about her brain as well. Unavoidable, certainly, after a succession of pregnancies and seven years with a clever man.
And then she’d bumped into George on the beach. If she’d come upon him in heaven, it would have surprised her less. She had just spread her towel out on the sand and undone the clasp of her top. She was luckily still lying on her stomach – compelled to modesty by the perfect teenage nipples on all sides – when she saw him sitting on a rock opposite. He must have noticed her, she thought, hot with embarrassment. He must have noticed Adam’s hand on her bare back. One of the women in his group was a stranger to her. Irrationally, she hoped that he’d slept with this woman recently. Anything to ease her own feelings of guilt.
But even stranger than this odd wish was the feeling of alienation. She still loved him, she realised, but it was the sort of love you store away somewhere in your heart for someone who is dead. She would always love the man he was long ago. The reddish body over there on the rock, laughing with a strange woman, was someone she didn’t know.
Entertaining Angels Page 13
