by Zoe Wicomb
Once a month the entire family was cleansed internally. They fasted all day, and flushed out the unclean with castor oil, so that their digestive tracts felt sandblasted, later to be laved by the thin vegetable soup they supped in the evening. How could her father be oblivious to the cost of that cleanliness? Mercia remembered the horror of Saturdays when the chores assigned to her were specifically for her training as a girl. With the washing of the family’s handkerchiefs left to her, no one could have been more pleased with the advent of paper tissues, but Nicholas thought it an extravagance they should do without. How she gagged at the slimy mucus that had to be dislodged from the cloth. The grit of sand helped, a barrier between her fingers and the excretions of others, but the handkerchiefs had to be wrung, twisted this way and that to rid them of the slippery stuff, and then rinsed of the soiled sand.
Why were the nasty chores reserved for her? It was also she, Mercia, who had to empty the chamber pots, and if she can barely remember her mother, Nettie’s inspection of the pots on Saturdays remains indelible. A daily rinse was not enough. Once a week the enamel pots had to be scrubbed with sand to ensure that no unhygienic deposits adhered, and all before rubber gloves had found their way to Kliprand. Grown-ups were exempt from these demeaning tasks, and so was her brother. Mercia knew that questioning her lot would achieve nothing more than a stinging smack—such was the nasty world of grown-ups. Had her own mother not rebelled as a child? And if she had, why was she repeating the practice? Not only would Mercia never give her own child such tasks; she knew from an early age that she would rather have no children to bully. Mercia never traveled without rubber gloves in her suitcase, just in case something nasty had to be handled.
Then, as she watched her father steeped in borrowed nostalgia, stumbling about the village of Nettie’s childhood, affectionately recollecting the hardships of their early marriage, Mercia felt a rush of sympathy for their ineptitude as parents. She could hear Jake’s cynical reprimand, that it was in her own interest to believe that the old folk did what they did because they believed it to be for the best, to be in their children’s interest. How could you buy that shit? he asked scornfully.
Mercia does not understand why Jake has hardened his heart, why he seems angrier than ever. Surely people grow more relaxed about their parents’ faults as they grow older. After all, Nicholas and Nettie would have been damaged in turn by the weird beliefs of an earlier generation.
Mercia can no longer think kindly of Jake. He is a monster, not the nice brother of the novel at all.
Nicky says that he is not tired, that he does not want a nap as his mother has ordered. Could they not instead go for a walk and explore? Mercia smiles at him, pleased that he wants to be with her, or rather, she amends, pleased that he wants to go out. If it turns out that she’ll have to take Nicky to Glasgow . . . no, there’ll be a way out; she must not allow herself to be bullied into anything like that. All the same, she is pleased to take the boy out for a walk. Besides, she can see no reason why a child should sleep if he is not tired. But wary of repercussions she says that if he lies down quietly for fifteen minutes, they’ll go for a short walk. It will be cooler then. She makes another condition. They will speak English for the entire walk. She has ascertained that the boy understands well enough. What he needs is to practice speaking. Nicky looks uncertain; he doesn’t think that he’ll manage for such a long time. Perhaps, he suggests, they could speak one language on the way there and another on the way back. That would help Auntie Mercy with her Afrikaans. Mercia laughs, It’s a deal.
Settled on the uncomfortable sofa, Nicky falls asleep instantly, and wakes up half an hour later, still raring to go. With the help of a tossed coin, English chooses itself as the language for the outbound walk. Nicky hopes that they’ll go to the cave, or find more caves with chincherinchee in the mountain.
Is such conservatism typical of children? Do they all want to do the same things over and over again when the wide world of newness is waiting to be explored? Mercia startles herself with the thought that that will have to be beaten out of the boy, which, of course, is no more than an idiomatic expression, nothing to do with physical assault, but it pains her all the same to have thought in such terms.
No, she says, it’s too dull to do the same things. Let’s explore other places, see what crops up.
They set off across the field where the sheep graze, toward a disused road where Mercia remembers lorries bumping along the gravel with their cargoes of gypsum from now-defunct mines. The mountains are too far, although they could drive there another time, she promises, but today they have to be back before his mother gets home. Yes, says the child, she will worry about him being taken by the troll.
Nicky’s English is better than he thinks, although Mercia has to supply several words and also at times correct the Afrikaans pronunciations, but the concentration slows down his chatter. He promises to learn some from his father when he gets better; he knows that you can’t be clever without English. Mercia explains that it is simply good to know more than one language, that it allows you to talk to different kinds of people, and living as he does in South Africa he should also learn Xhosa. Perhaps they already teach it at school? she wonders aloud, but Nicky says he hopes not, and rushes ahead chanting to himself. Christ, there is no question of her being able to stand in for a parent. Not only the formidable task of raising a child, but also, there is so much for him to unlearn.
They stop to look at ants’ nests, track the ambitious insects struggling with impossible loads that seem beyond their means. But no, there appears to be always a way out as by hook or by crook the desired object is eventually dragged down into the excavated earth. Mercia, ever the teacher, has to stop herself from offering the behavior of ants as a homily. Nicky, with unbridled enthusiasm, is detained by all kinds of things, his pockets stuffed with stones, a dead insect’s carapace that he says looks like a Volkswagen, various leaves. Why? Why? Why? he asks continuously, and she wonders how parents have the energy or patience with so much talking, so much explanation of a world that barely makes sense to her. The responsibility is oppressive. If only she could turn back, announce that she’s had enough, for she is assailed by alarming heat, wave after wave of hot flashes that leave her breathless. When the heat subsides, she realizes that the child has taken her hand, that he has stopped talking. But it takes no more than a wan smile from her for the barrage of questions to resume.
Mercia is unable to identify all the flora; she could swear that these plants did not exist when she was a child. Together they marvel at leaf structures, at thorns and succulents. There is an extraordinary single green leaf that grows directly, without a stalk, out of the ground on which it lies flattened. Why, he asks, will it not sit up nicely like the fresh green of sorrel that is now bursting into flower?
Mercia doesn’t know, distracts him with the flowering sorrel that she had to gather as a child for making soup; she encourages him to chew at the long sour stalks packed with vitamin C. Nicky is enthralled by the history lesson on the Dutch sailors who, on their way to procuring Eastern spices, stopped at the Cape to cure their scurvy with sorrel. He likes the word scurvy, rolls the R extravagantly and chuckles—to him it sounds like a swearword. She explains that scurvy led the Dutch to gardening and refreshing themselves at the Cape, that it could be seen as the root of all the country’s troubles. Nicky the parrot repeats after her: the root of all our country’s troubles.
Mercia is surprised that the boy knows nothing of the fields of multicolored daisies that cover the land at the beginning of spring, only a few miles farther north, in the heart of Namaqualand. But Nicky does not think that sounds so good. Much more exciting to find things that are hidden, see what crops up, he echoes, and off he scampers, giving himself a break from the exhausting English.
Yissus, he screams, gou, kom kyk, then corrects himself hurriedly to repeat in English. Mercia catches up and laughs to find that he is excited about a tortoise. It could hardly run away, sh
e exclaims. Has he not seen a tortoise before? Oh yes, but he has never found one himself. They keep still so that the tortoise sticks out its ugly head and swivels its eyes about before withdrawing, this time tucking all away, head, legs and tail, so that it is dead still, pretending to be a stone in the sand. They admire the shell with its border of black and yellow triangles arranged around the twelve hexagons, themselves marked in black and a deeper yellow. Mercia thinks that the age can be told from the markings, but she can’t be sure. The child wonders if it is a female and whether its babies might be nearby, kept hidden in the shade of a bush. He would search for them, see what their markings are like.
Oh no, Mercia explains, the female simply scratches out a nest, lays her eggs, and wanders off so that the hatching takes place all by itself. The baby tortoise picks its way out of the eggshell and manages on its own, makes its way in the veld all by itself, finding its own food.
Nicky is sorry to hear that. He wants to know why. He would not like to be left by his mummy, left to find his own food. His mummy wouldn’t just leave him in the veld.
No, of course she won’t, Mercia says, taking his hand, because you’re a boy, not a tortoise. But you won’t stay with your mummy forever. Perhaps you’d like to come and stay with me for a while in Scotland?
Oh yes, he would, now that he can speak English, and blowing up his cheeks with the sound of a propeller, he shoots off at an angle, diving sideways. He would drive the airplane himself, he shouts.
When he returns from his flight the tortoise has wandered only a couple of feet. Nicky worries about its inability to run away from its enemies. Mercia knocks on the impregnable shell, turns the tortoise over to show him its undercarriage, and teaches him the words, carapace and plastron. See, she says, how it is protected from its enemies? It can always run indoors just by pulling in its head. The tortoise carries its house on its back.
Nicky would like to take it home. The tortoise won’t mind where it lives if its own home is on its back. Can we eat it? he asks. Mercia is horrified. Is that really what humans are programmed to think of, of destroying other creatures, of eating them? The thought makes her sick. She manages to say quietly that if he, Nicky, would not like to be eaten, the tortoise surely would not like it either, and that that is always a useful test. The child agrees, but then says triumphantly that if it has no children to care for, and if it carries its home on its back, it would surely not mind being taken home as a pet? Mercia says that they do not know what a tortoise likes to eat, what it likes to do, or whether it has friends it might miss. If it lives in the veld, that is where it prefers to be, so no, the test still holds. Would he, Nicky, like to be taken away as someone’s pet?
The child laughs. Yislaaik, he would fight his way out of a cage. Like this, and he demonstrates his fighting moves, thrusting his fists and rolling in the sand.
As they set off back home, he wags a finger. Now, he says, it is his turn to teach Auntie Mercy some Afrikaans. It is so much better to speak more than one language.
The child seeks her out, seems to look to Mercia for diversion. Come, let’s play, he says. She is panic-stricken. How? she asks. What is she to do? Nicky is on all fours, growling, expecting her to follow suit or to come up with something amusing. Mercia has no idea what such a game might be. Well, she says, playing for time, I don’t think I’d make a good lion. How about writing? she asks. Today he could learn to use a pen and to write his name. But Sylvie is worried; she wonders if Nicky is not too young to be burdened with schoolwork. Is that, she asks, the right thing to do at his age?
Mercia frowns. Actually, she doesn’t know; she imagines that children learn to write at different ages, so that there could be no harm if Nicky seems interested. It is simply a question of entertaining him with the alphabet, of offering an alternative to television. There surely is no need to think of reading and writing as labor if the boy enjoys doing it, she says. There is much laughter from Nicky, who screws up his face in concentration and tries with all his might to follow with colored pens her faint outline of the letters. He crows with delight as he gains control, as the wobbly lines spell his name. Then they sing together the alphabet song that Mercia summons from who knows where. She claps and sways along with him.
Now the child is indeed exhausted. His eyes droop, his head lolls as he slowly slides down into the cushions and slips into sleep. His arms are flung out on the old sofa, and he snores like an old man. Sylvie has gone to work, and Mercia does not know how long he should be allowed to sleep.
There probably is more to raising a child than common sense allows, and if Mercia is going to have any influence on him, she might as well start investigating. She looks about the room, hoping that a book on child care might be lying about. Jake has surely at some stage taken an interest in the boy, would have wanted to know what to do with him. She checks the corner, under the television, where books and papers are neatly stacked, but no, they are mail-order catalogs, magazines, and old newspapers. A large brown envelope slides out of the pile of disturbed papers; it is not sealed, and Mercia hesitates for a second before peering into it. They are photographs, which she cannot resist looking at. All of Sylvie as a young woman, taken at various intervals, some fifteen years or so ago, she guesses, before she put on weight.
Mercia frowns at the images, so radically different from the woman she knows, or rather from the current Sylvie. She is barely recognizable, but no, it is the same high Namaqua cheekbones, the narrow eyes and angled planes of the proffered face. The girl in the photographs is not only youthful and slender, but seems also unbelievably vain. She looks brazenly into the camera. The pictures are carefully posed, and clearly all taken by Sylvie herself. Dozens of pictures taken over a few years, Mercia surmises, nothing short of an autobiographical project, which for all her boldness makes the girl at the same time look vulnerable, exposed, and yes, she must admit, beautiful, with all the beauty of youth that is taken for granted by the young. Mercia has thought her to be a simple, uneducated country girl, one who talks too much, prone to whining, but modest all the same. Here, however, gathered in the envelope, is evidence of a confident, bold young woman brimming with self-awareness and striking various extravagant poses, a Sylvie transformed by the eye of the camera.
The brightest of the color photographs, one with patches of purple daisies, leaps out at Mercia. There is Sylvie in all her vulgar self-regard, the country girl’s take on glamour. The pose in cheap sunglasses and tight trousers is self-conscious; the ill-fitting shirt has sprung a button, presumably just before the click of the camera, so that the girl’s brassiere shows. But her head is tilted defiantly as if she has just been reprimanded by the aunties to stop her nonsense. It is true that she is slim, youthful, and surprisingly comely, the delicate face lifted to the sun. But what on earth could have possessed Jake to fall for the little tart?
Mercia is embarrassed by her reaction to the girl, or rather, to the pictures. Once upon a time one was able to say: I take back those words. Now that we know how our thoughts and utterances betray us, they can no longer be taken back. Unlike the evidence of fingerprints, they cannot be erased. If only the word tart had not entered her thoughts. Mercia remembers the day, some years ago, when Jake told her that he was going to marry the Willemse girl. She could not hide her dismay. Now there’s a surprise, she said, but why marry?
No, you’re not surprised. And marriage is not the issue. The truth, dear sissie, Jake cackled, is that you disapprove. You’re no different from the old man. You don’t even know Sylvie, but you do know that she’s not your kind, not good enough for your brother. You’ve become European, too grand for us; you don’t belong here anymore. How bourgeois you’ve become, Mercy, a fine liberal you are.
Mercia stared at him, tongue-tied. Once upon a time she used to think of bourgeois as a dirty word. But the truth was that over the years the label of bourgeois like a garishly colored garment had faded into something less offensive, something perfectly wearable. Acceptable, becaus
e she was wearing it. Considering who she was and how she lived her comfortable life, would it not be dishonest to claim otherwise? Mercia’s head spun. She would stand her ground.
Certain aspects of the bourgeois I won’t deny, she admitted. Social and economic security is after all of value because it brings tolerance of the other, which can only be a good thing.
But which, Jake said triumphantly, you have just shown to not be the case. You are your father’s child, and Sylvie belongs to those other people who can’t be tolerated.
Jake was right, she conceded, and her view of the girl was inexcusable, so that she would make every effort to get to know Sylvie and rise above her prejudices. She put her arms around him and said that she hoped he’d be a good husband and keep off the drink.
So once again Mercia falls short of her promise, knows that she cannot delete the word, tart. But it is not only the pictures of Sylvie that interest her. There is for her nostalgic recognition of the Willemse house, the whitewashed raw brick and its patch of veld fenced off with chicken wire that serves as a garden. Culture sliding into rude nature, for whilst the vygies have been planted, arranged in the enclosure, they are barely different from the flora beyond the fence. And around the so-called garden, in stiff competition, is the less garish, yellow sea of common gousblom that has drifted from the roadside. But it is quite eclipsed by the two patches of vygie in fluorescent purple that anchor Sylvie’s provocative figure.
As a teenager, Mercia found that house fascinating. It was the only one that had, if not a stoep as such, something of a verandah, a rough assortment of corrugated strips balanced on stilts, that threw its shadow on the broom marks of the patch where old women sat in the afternoons. Then it was by no means a garden since the enclosure, so much larger in those days, also held two hens and a bantam cockerel with a plume of glossy blue and green tail feathers, who strutted the perimeter, pecking his way, up and down, up and down, amidst what she remembers as straggly lucerne. Was there not an outlandish plaster gnome with a painted red hat that she admired from the distance?
