Entertaining Angels

by Marita van der Vyver

  ‘Nothing but a little more self-respect.’

  The prince married the dumb girl and became king, and a year later the queen had a baby. The night after the birth, one of the queen’s old playmates from heaven appeared and said, ‘If you admit that you opened the forbidden door, you’ll get your voice back and you’ll never have to write again. If you refuse, I’ll take your child away with me.’

  ‘But I like writing,’ the queen wanted to cry, but she couldn’t utter a word. The angel picked up the child and flew away. The next morning, when word got out that the king’s child had disappeared without a trace, the people began to whisper that the queen was a cannibal who’d devoured her own offspring.

  A year later the dumb queen had another baby. The night after the birth an angel appeared again with the same message as the first time. The queen dissolved into tears and wanted to beg the angel not to take her second child too, but she couldn’t utter a word. The angel flew off with her second child, and next morning the rumour spread throughout the kingdom that the queen had devoured her second offspring.

  A year later the dumb queen had a third baby. The next night an angel appeared again with the same message as before. The queen fell to her knees before the angel. ‘I’ll do anything not to lose this third child too!’ she wanted to scream, but because she still wouldn’t admit that she’d opened the forbidden door, she still couldn’t utter a word. And the angel flew off with the third child.

  Griet took a packet of cigarettes out of her bag. Her attorney hadn’t had a cigarette since she’d arrived fifteen minutes ago, she realised. The big black ashtray, which normally looked like an obscene offering to the god of lung cancer by this time of the day, stood gleaming and empty on the glass-topped desk. Griet experienced a feeling of impending doom, but offered him a cigarette all the same.

  ‘I’ve given up.’ He folded his hands over each other hastily as though they might reach out automatically for the sin before him. He’d never looked so vulnerable. ‘I’m trying to give up.’

  Now it really was only her and the chap in the Camel ad who still smoked, Griet thought despondently.

  ‘How on earth are you doing that?’

  ‘Doctor’s orders.’ Griet shoved the cigarettes back in her bag. You can’t eat ice cream in front of a hunger striker. ‘But I don’t mind if you smoke. Please go ahead.’

  He didn’t sound very convincing. He hadn’t reached the sanctified stage, the stage when Reborn Non-Smokers watch you consume one cigarette after another with a kind of sadistic pleasure. They’ll even keep cigarettes in the house just to show you how much will power they have. But her poor attorney was still struggling through purgatory.

  ‘I suppose I could wait another two weeks,’ she sighed.

  ‘Of course you can. And you’ve got a better place to stay now. Why don’t you just sit back and relax?’

  Only a man could say something like that.

  ‘I can’t relax, I have to pack!’

  He probably had a wife who packed his bags every time he went off on a business trip.

  It wasn’t only the packing that made it impossible for her to relax. It was all the forms she had to fill in and all the calls she had to make to let the world know she had a new address.

  There were forms for her current account with one bank and her credit card account with another bank; for her personal insurance and her life insurance and her medical aid; for her membership of the Writers’ Guild and the Children’s Book Forum and the Theatre Club and the Friends of the National Gallery and the AA (the one for motorists, praise be, not the one for alcoholics); for the street children’s night shelter and a home for dying cancer sufferers and a creche in Nyanga; for READ and the Peninsula School Feeding Scheme and the SPCA …

  If you no longer gave a tenth of your income to the church, you had to get it to the underprivileged some other way.

  And then there were all her personal priests who had to know where she was going to be living. Her doctor and her gynaecologist and her dentist and her auditor and her attorney and her therapist. When had her life become so complicated?

  Long, long ago, her most important possessions had been a rucksack and a pair of hiking boots. She’d toured Europe, without credit cards, without personal insurance, without an attorney. She’d slept on trains and at stations. She’d been fearless and happy. She hadn’t needed a therapist.

  She’d never be that happy again, even if she sold all her possessions tomorrow, consigned all her personal priests to hell, and tore up all her membership cards and insurance policies.

  She couldn’t travel in Europe with a backpack again; she’d never be able to find one big enough for all her neuroses. And she couldn’t sell her sadness along with all her other possessions.

  ‘Why don’t you take a few days off work?’ The change in her attorney’s voice told her that her time with him was up. ‘To settle down in your new flat?’

  He tugged at his collar again and swivelled his neck like a dog that’s trying to get out of a leash. The poor fellow had put on weight, like everyone who gives up smoking, and his wife hadn’t bought him new shirts yet.

  ‘I don’t have any more leave due to me.’ With her wretched pregnancies and all her crises, she’d used up her quota. ‘And I can’t afford to take unpaid leave.’

  ‘Never mind, in two weeks’ time you’ll be able to afford a holiday,’ promised Hilton Dennis and stood up to see her out of his office.

  And so my story’s almost done, thought Griet.

  The next day all the people rose up against the queen who’d devoured her children. The people demanded that she be burnt to death. The king shrugged and rode off on his green horse. The queen was dragged to the pyre by her hair. As the flames started to lick at her feet, she found her voice and screamed, ‘I opened the forbidden door!’

  And it grew dark suddenly and the clouds were ripped asunder. Rain drenched the earth and quenched the fire. And when it grew light again, the queen was gone. She had disappeared without trace, just like her children.

  She apparently became a saint who killed dragons. She was seen at a festival of witches in England. She was seen on a beach in South America – riding a green horse. She changed her name and became a writer. No one will ever know what really happened.

  24

  The Devil Takes Care of His Sister

  ‘So, what do you think of her?’ asked Tienie. They were in Griet’s new flat.

  ‘Well, she looks …’ What do you say about someone you’ve scarcely spoken to? wondered Griet helplessly. Someone who isn’t particularly large or small or pretty or ugly. Someone who doesn’t have any noticeable physical characteristic – like a long nose, green eyes or a sensual mouth – that you could remark on. ‘She looks … nice.’ She laughed at her own clumsiness.

  ‘Exactly what Ma said! Anyone who dresses more conservatively than Nella – and that’s ninety-nine per cent of the human race – is classified as “nice” these days. I really miss the good old days when I could still shock my family.’

  Tienie followed her into the living room where she was arranging her books.

  ‘I’m glad you took your friend home and introduced her. I was beginning to suspect you were ashamed of your family.’

  ‘My God, Griet, you sound more like Ma every day. My relationships are usually over so quickly that it’s not worth the trouble of involving the family.’

  ‘Well, this one’s already lasted an entire holiday.’

  ‘Don’t say it out loud,’ whispered Tienie. ‘In case fate overhears you.’

  Griet sat on the floor among the piles of boxes. Her hair was bundled up under a bandanna and her face was streaked with grime. But when she moved in here next week, her books would be unpacked to help her feel at home.

  ‘Ma had a word with me after you and Elsie left,’ said Griet without looking at her sister.

  ‘What did she say?’

  Tienie sat down gingerly on a box of books. Griet lit a
cigarette and inhaled deeply while she wondered how to broach the subject diplomatically.

  ‘Ma knows you’re gay, Tienie. Why don’t you talk about it to her?’

  Tienie looked down at her hands without saying anything.

  ‘I know you’re going to say I don’t know what I’m talking about and Ma would never understand.’

  ‘More or less.’ Tienie smiled.

  ‘Maybe she won’t understand.’ Griet stared at the cigarette in her grimy hand. ‘But she wants you to be honest with each other.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  Not in so many words, thought Griet.

  ‘Is she happy?’ Gretha wanted to know.

  ‘Well, she probably doesn’t wake up every morning with a song on her lips, Ma.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ sighed Gretha. ‘That’s not what I’m asking.’

  Griet and her mother sat at the kitchen table having a last cup of coffee the night Tienie and her lover had come to supper. Gretha leant with an elbow on the table, fingering the soft skin under her eyes. Without any make-up she looked older than usual.

  ‘Is she so convinced of her …’ Gretha looked at her daughter helplessly. ‘Is she certain that she can’t find a man who’ll make her happy?’

  Poor Rapunzel, thought Griet. One of her daughters became a lesbian, another dressed like a clown. Her first-born lost her husband, her house, her children and stepchildren and tried to climb into an oven. Her only decent daughter lived light years away in another country. Her only son refused to play either the hero or the martyr and ran away from the army. Her life really hadn’t followed the path she’d dreamt of long ago in her tower.

  ‘Have you ever discussed it with Pa?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fact that he’ll never be called upon to propose a toast at Tienie’s wedding.’

  ‘There are things you discuss with your husband, Gretel, and there are things you don’t discuss with your husband.’

  ‘She wants you to be happy,’ Griet told Tienie.

  ‘And happiness means getting married and having children?’ Tienie’s heavy eyebrows drew together, a black curtain over her eyes. ‘It’s those fairy tales of yours that have fucked the world up, Griet, do you realise that?’

  Griet knew when not to fight with her bedevilled sister.

  ‘Every fairy tale that Ma ever read to us ended in marriage.’

  ‘Not Hansel and Gretel,’ Griet countered.

  ‘Why isn’t it called Gretel and Hansel? If Gretel is the heroine, shouldn’t her name be mentioned first?’

  ‘Would you prefer to have grown up without fairy tales?’

  ‘No,’ said Tienie, still scowling. ‘It probably wouldn’t have helped, they’ve got so many other ways of getting the message across. But don’t you think new fairy tales should be spun for a new world?’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing,’ sighed Griet. ‘I’ve published a book of modern fairy stories, but not one of you has read it yet, because you think fairy stories are for children.’

  ‘Will you lend it to me?’ asked Tienie, laughing at Griet’s obvious pleasure. ‘I promise I’ll read it.’

  Noddy comes in from the cold [wrote Louise from a frozen Britain]. The BBC is apparently going to make a ‘new’ version of the Toytown saga. The golliwogs have been thrown out in case their presence is seen as racist; Noddy doesn’t sleep with Big Ears any more in case that’s seen as a case of you-know-what; Miss Rap will become Miss Prim(!), Mister Plod the Policeman has been forbidden to spank and – wait for this – Martha the Monkey presents a strong role-model for women.

  Sometimes I wonder about this world we live in.

  As I sit here under three blankets writing this, BBC2 is showing a documentary on overpopulation, pollution, famine, drought, and babies dying by the million of diarrhoea. Doom, Death and Destruction. And I worry that I’m eating too much chocolate. Makes you drink, doesn’t it?

  Isn’t it better to live a completely decadent life? To eat and drink and fornicate to your heart’s content? And then to die while there’s still an earth to die on?

  Late last night I caught the end of one of those depressing black and white movies – I don’t know what the name was, but they should issue a warning on the screen when they show stuff like that: ‘This might he damaging to your mental health’ or something. The woman’s husband, her housekeeper and her friend have already left her by the time I began watching, and then she gets a telegram with the news of her sister’s death. And then it ends, and the last words on the screen are: ‘People who live unto themselves are left unto themselves.’

  ‘Alternative fairy tales have been around for centuries,’ said Griet, opening the box she’d packed her fairy tale collections into. ‘But they never became as well known as the safe ones and the proper ones that asked the right questions. One of my favourites is about a soldier who served in hell for seven years. The devil taught him how to make music and gave him a big sack of gold, and then he travelled the world as a musician and ended up marrying the daughter of a king. What’s the moral of a story like that?’

  ‘It’s OK to work for the devil?’

  ‘The devil looks after his own.’

  ‘Have you heard from your angelic visitor again?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Griet, ‘and I doubt that I ever will. And I can’t understand why I feel so bloody disappointed about it! It’s probably just my ego – can’t bear to be forgotten, not by George, not by Adam …’

  Tienie looked at her silently, like her therapist. Thank heaven she didn’t have a file on her knee.

  Angelici, Griet had learnt recently, were heretics who advocated the worship of angels.

  ‘Do you know what I want?’ she asked her clever sister. ‘I want someone to fall in love with me again. Or doesn’t it happen any more after thirty? I know, one day when I’m in an old people’s home, the senile old codger in the room next door will be smitten. If I ever reach the age when you’re allowed into an old people’s home. If I don’t die of disappointment along the way because I’m no longer the femme fatale I was at twenty.’

  Angels are divided into nine orders and the nine orders into three circles – from seraphim and cherubim in the lowest circles to archangels and angels in the very highest. And her Angel Gabriel was no cherub, she thought sadly.

  ‘I know I’ll fall in love again. I’ll carry on being idiotic until the day I die – and then probably fuck that up too. If only it was possible to fall in love without getting hurt. I’ve had a gutful of getting hurt.’

  ‘You’ll keep on,’ said Tienie. ‘It’s in your blood. We’ve got the same blood.’

  ‘I had an Aids test today.’ When Griet saw the surprise on her sister’s face, she lit another cigarette immediately. ‘I’ve been putting it off for months. The older I get the more cowardly I become.’

  ‘No.’ Her clever sister shook her head. ‘We get braver as we get older. The older we get, the more courage we need just to get up in the morning. We don’t leap off cliffs as we used to as children, but we have to make an enormous leap of faith each day just to stay alive.’

  ‘Well, I took a massive leap over my own fears today,’ said Griet.

  She thought her GP would be shocked when she said she wanted to be tested for Aids. And then she was the one who was shocked speechless: he suggested she have a syphilis test at the same time.

  ‘Syphilis?’ She swallowed hard, her mouth dry from surprise. ‘But I have only had … only slept with one man since … since I’ve been on my own.’

  ‘Of course,’ said her middle-aged doctor with a soothing smile. ‘But there’s always the chance that you might sleep with someone else, isn’t there? Unless you’re getting married in the next few days?’

  She gazed at her doctor’s silver-grey hair and his silver-framed spectacles. He was the sort of man who’d even pronounce a death sentence as a rhetorical question, she thought. ‘You have only three days left to live, you know
?’

  He sent her, form in hand, to the pathologists’ laboratory three floors down in the same building. She gave the forms to a virginal girl behind a counter, one who’d surely never needed to be tested for any venereal disease. She smiled at Griet and sent her to a room about the size of a reasonably big fridge. Another virgin came in and fastened a blood pressure band around her upper arm. Maybe they all looked like virgins to her because she felt like a syphilitic old slut.

  She was still trying to think of something witty to say – if all else fails, laugh – but then her blood samples had already been taken and it was all over. All but the results which she would only have after the weekend. Because she’d been stupid enough to have the test done on a Friday, she had to live through the entire weekend with the nightmare of a venereal disease. Two frightful venereal diseases. Three long nights to lie awake through.

  ‘Aha, here it is,’ she said, hauling out the book of fairy stories.

  As she passed it to her sister, a card fell out of it. Griet picked it up, surprised because it looked so unfamiliar. On the outside there was a picture of a man and a woman on two striped merry-go-round horses. The background was blood red. She opened it. ‘My dearest George, I hope we stay on the merry-go-round for ever and ever. Love, Griet.’ The date was his birthday last year.

  Three months before she moved out. She sat and stared at the words until they started to slide off the card. Her tears were making the ink run, she realised. She’d been fighting the tears for months – and here she was, dissolving over sixteen words in her own handwriting.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Tienie’s voice came from a long way off.

  ‘No.’

  She dropped her head into her hands and her shoulders started to shake. She was crying, she thought in wonderment, over a silly little birthday greeting.

  25

  Rose-Red Loses Her Man

  ‘Let’s drink to my last night with the cockroaches.’ Griet lifted her glass high like a freedom fist. ‘And to whatever awaits me in the new flat.’

  ‘Viva,’ said Jans, clinking his glass against hers. ‘May the gods be good to you.’