'Can't you ask someone else?' he said.
'Yes, I can. But I am asking you. These are private papers, private letters. They are my daughter's inheritance. They are all I can give her, all she will accept, coming from this country. I don't want them opened and read by anyone else.'
Private papers. These papers, these words that either you read now or else will never read. Will they reach you? Have they reached you? Two ways of asking the same question, a question to which I will never know the answer, never. To me this letter will forever be words committed to the waves: a message in a bottle with the stamps of the Republic of South Africa on it, and your name.
'I don't know,' said the man, the messenger, playing with his spoon.
He will make no promise. And even if he promises, he will do, finally, what he likes. Last instructions, never enforceable. For the dead are not persons. That is the law: all contracts lapse. The dead cannot be cheated, cannot be betrayed, unless you carry them with you in your heart and do the crime there.
'Never mind,' I said. 'I had thought of asking you to come in and feed the cats as well. But I will make another arrangement.'
What other arrangement? In Egypt they bricked in cats with their dead masters. Is that what I want: yellow eyes padding back and forth, searching for a way out of the dark cave?
'I will have to have them put down,' I said. 'They are too old to take to a new home.'
Like water against a rock my words thudded against his silence.
'I have to do something about them,' I said. 'I can't do nothing. You would feel the same, in my position.'
He shook his head. Not true. Indeed, not true. One winter's night, sooner or later, when the artificial fire in his veins is no longer hot enough to preserve him, he will perish. He will die in a doorway or an alley with his arms hugged across his chest; they will find him with this dog ox some other dog by his side, whimpering, licking his face. They will cart him off and the dog will be left behind in the street and that will be the end of that. No arrangements, no bequests, no mausoleum.
'I'll post your parcel for you,' he said.
II
Florence is back, bringing not only the two little girls but her fifteen-year-old son Bheki.
'Is he going to be staying long, Florence?' I asked. 'Is there going to be room for him?'
'If he is not with me he will get into trouble,' Florence replied. 'My sister cannot look after him any more. It is very bad in Guguletu, very bad.'
So now I have five people in the back yard. Five people, a dog and two cats. The old woman who lived in a shoe. And didn't know what to do.
When Florence went off at the beginning of the month I assured her I could cope with the housework. But of course I let everything slide, and soon a sour, clammy odour pervaded the upstairs, an odour of cold cream, dirty sheets, talcum powder. Now I had to follow shamefacedly after her as she took stock. Hands on hips, nostrils flaring, spectacles gleaming, she surveyed the evidence of my incompetence. Then she set to work. By the end of the afternoon the kitchen and bathroom were shining, the bedroom was crisp and neat, there was a smell of furniture polish in the air. 'Wonderful, Florence,' I said, producing the ritual phrases: 'I don't know what I would do without you.' But of course I do know. I would sink into the indifferent squalor of old age.
Having done my work, Florence turned to her own. She put supper on the stove and took the two little girls up to the bathroom. Watching her wash them, wiping hard behind the ears, between the legs, deft, decisive, impervious to their whines, I thought: What an admirable woman, but how glad I am she is not my mother!
I came upon the boy mooning about in the courtyard. Once I knew him as Digby, now he is Bheki. Tall for his age, with Florence 's severe good looks. 'I can't believe how you have grown,' I said. He gave no answer. No longer the open-faced little boy who, when he came visiting, used, to run first of all to the rabbit-hutch, haul out the fat white doe, and hug her to his chest. Dissatisfied, no doubt, with being separated from his friends and hidden away with baby sisters in someone's back yard.
'Since when have the schools been closed?' I asked Florence.
'Since last week. All the schools in Guguletu, Langa, Nyanga. The children have got nothing to do. All they do is run around the streets and get into trouble. It is better that he is here where I can see him.'
'He will be restless without any friends.'
She shrugged, unsmiling. I do not believe I have ever seen her smile. But perhaps she smiles on her children when she is alone with them.
'Who is this man?' asked Florence.
'His name is Mr Vercueil,' I said. 'Vercueil, Verkuil, Verskuil. That's what he says. I have never come across such a name before. I am letting him stay here for a while. He has a dog. Tell the children, if they play with it, not to get it too excited. It is a young dog, It may snap.'
Florence shook her head.
'If he gives us trouble I will ask him to leave,' I said. 'But I can't send him away for things he hasn't done.'
A cool, windy day. I sat on the balcony in my dressing-gown. Below me in the lawn Vercueil was taking the old mower apart, with the little girls watching him. The elder, whose name, says Florence, is Hope (she does not entrust me with the real name), squatted a few yards away, out of his line of vision, her hands clasped between her knees. She was wearing new red sandals. The baby, Beauty, also wearing red sandals, staggered about the lawn, kicking out her feet, sometimes sitting down suddenly.
As I watched, the baby advanced upon. Vercueil, her arms held out wide, her fists clenched. As she was about to stumble over the lawnmower he caught her and led her by the chubby little arm to a safe distance. Again, on unsteady feet, she bore down on him. Again he caught her and led her away. It was on the verge of becoming a game. But would dour Vercueil play?
Once more Beauty lunged towards him.; once more he saved her. Then, wonder of wonders, he wheeled the half-dismantled lawnmower to one side and, offering one hand to the baby, one hand to Hope, began to turn in circles, first slowly, then faster. Hope, in her red sandals, had to run to keep her footing; as for the baby, she spun in the air, giving shrieks of pleasure; while the dog, closed off behind the gate, leapt and barked. Such noise! Such excitement!
At that point Florence must have come on the scene, for the spinning slowed and stopped. A few soft words, and Hope let go of Vercueil's hand, coaxed her sister away, disappeared from my sight. I heard a door shut. The dog, full of regret, whined. Vercueil returned to the lawnmower. Half an hour later it began to rain.
The boy, Bheki, spends his time sitting on Florence 's bed paging through old magazines, while from a corner of the room, Hope watches and worships. Sometimes when he has had, enough of reading he stands In the driveway bouncing a tennis ball off the garage door. I find the noise maddening.
Though I clutch a pillow over my head the remorseless thudding still reaches me. 'When are the schools going to open again?' I ask peevishly. 'I will tell him to stop,' says Florence. A minute later the thudding stops.
Last year, when the troubles in the schools began, I spoke my mind to Florence. 'In my day we considered education a privilege,' I said. 'Parents would scrimp and save to keep their children in school. We would have thought it madness to burn a school down.
'It is different today,' replied Florence.
'Do you approve of children burning down their schools?'
'I cannot tell these children what to do,' said Florence. 'It is all changed today. There are no more mothers and fathers.'
'That is nonsense,' I said. 'There are always mothers and fathers. ' On that note our exchange ended.