Black people are living across the road now, too. And they’re okay on the whole, except they grow mielies on the pavement. Treppie says it’s an excellent development. He says he wishes those two dilly dykes would come and see their old house so they could take a lesson or two from its new inhabitants. In times like these no one can afford to buy fertiliser for sweetpeas.
Ja, Treppie. He also just stays the same, except now he’s unfit for work, ’cause of his fingers. He doesn’t work at the Chinese any more. So, no more toilet seats or free crackers for them. And just one bottle of Klipdrift a month. Lambert’s in any case not allowed to drink so much any more. It doesn’t go well with his new pills.
Just look at all the stars. Big, wet, runny stars. Old stars. And now she’s also almost a whole year older.
After Pop’s ashes were put to rest she took the rose bush that Pop bought for her on her birthday last time, shame, and she planted it on top of his and Gerty’s grave. It was Treppie who said it would be a good place. Ash is supposed to be good for roses. She told them that’s where she also wanted to be buried one day. Scattered under the rose.
‘Hey, Ma, stop staring into the sky like that, or next thing you know a Martian pisses into your eye,’ says Lambert.
‘I’m looking at Orion. Look, a man of stars with three jewels in his belt.’
‘Where?’ asks Lambert.
‘There,’ Treppie points for Lambert to see.
‘Light blue, my beloved, for ever and ever. Orion washes my feet.’
‘What shit you talking now, Ma?’ says Lambert.
‘It’s not shit, it’s what you said last time, when you fitted out so badly and you were lying there in the den with a matchbox between your teeth. Pop also heard it. If he was here he would have told you.’
‘Lack of breath,’ says Lambert.
‘Multiple skull fractures,’ says Treppie.
Let them think what they want. He was her warhead, through thick and thin.
‘Pheeew-doof!’
She sees Lambert and Treppie look at each other. She knows what they’re thinking. They think she’s losing her marbles. But they can think what they like. And she thinks what she likes. And it’s okay that way.
‘In Orion,’ she says. That’s all she thinks about.
‘What?’ says Lambert.
‘I think Pop’s taking a rest up there, in Orion’s belt, in a hammock that hangs from the two outside stars.’
‘And look, Toby,’ she says to the dog, who’s come outside now to see what everyone else’s doing. ‘Look, Gerty’s resting between the two stars on the other side. All you can see is her tail sticking out.’
‘Ma, do you think you’re a whatsitsname or something who can see what’s going on in the stars?’
‘Astrologer,’ says Treppie. He’s smoking a cigarette with his crooked fingers. The bones grew back all crooked. Now he looks even more like the devil.
‘You think Pop checks his postbox every day?’ she asks. ‘I send my letters express, every night, in my dreams. Nice fat letters. Dear Pop, were you in the Spur today, and how was your T-bone? And did you and Gerty enjoy playing ball? The one that tastes like sherbet in your mouth? Now you’re out of the beast’s belly, hey, Pop, and you’re not looking from afar through a hole in his head any more. Now you’re nice and jolly, every day, hey! Not much longer, Pop, then I’ll be with you. Then I’ll feed you pieces of toast with honey. You and Gerty!’
She shows them with her thumb and index finger how big the pieces will be.
‘And you needn’t worry, Pop, I won’t forget my driving lesson. Flossie’s over the hill now, but I practise the gears every night in Molletjie, here under the carport while the others watch the news. First, second, third, fourth, reverse. So I won’t be stranded one day if there’s a crisis here. For my head, so it won’t go rusty. And for my eyes, so they’ll stay sharp, okay?’
All three of them look at the stars. They look at the big aeroplanes flying overhead, and the small ones too. Treppie points to a sputnik. It dips, on-off, on-off, through the sky. They talk about this and that. She talks along, with them, even if it is about other things. They’ve learnt by now to leave her alone.
They stay there for a long time as the crackers get fewer and fewer.
Until Orion tilts over to the west. He begins to dip, head first behind the roofs of Triomf. After a while you can’t see the jewels in his belt any more. All you can see are his heels sticking out above the overflow.
Treppie points.
‘No more North,’ he says.
Before heaven’s gates. As she predicted.
North no more.
GLOSSARY
Aikona — South African vernacular for ‘no!’, ‘not on your life!’, ‘forget it!’
AKs — AK-47 automatic guns used by ANC guerillas during the liberation struggle.
Ampie — name of poor-white, backward character from the Ampie trilogy by Afrikaans writer Jochem van Bruggen (Die Natuurkind, 1924; Ampie: Die Meisiekind, 1927; and Ampie: Die Kind, 1942). Van Bruggen received the Hertzog Prize a record four times.
AWB — Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (‘Afrikaner Resistance Movement’). Extremist militant and right-wing movement known for its struggle for territorial autonomy for the right-wing sector of the Afrikaners.
Backvelders — poor Afrikaner whites of rural descent or who still live in the country.
Beeld — name of a daily Afrikaans newspaper published in Johannesburg.
Biltong — dried, salted and spiced fillet of meat (mutton, beef, venison, either in strips or grated); South African delicacy first developed by the Boer pioneers.
Boer — white farmer; denotation for white farmer male; vernacular for police; a pejorative label.
Boerewors — spiced sausage, usually barbecued on an open fire.
Braai, braaivleis — (n) barbecue; (n) barbecue meat; (v) to have a barbecue. Common element of South African lifestyle.
Brood van Heerden — former Apartheid security operative. ‘Brood’: ‘bread’.
Bywoners — tenant farmers; pejorative denotation for rural poor whites.
Cattie — a home-made catapult.
Dagga — South African vernacular for cannabis.
Daisy de Melker — (hist.) name of notorious woman poisoner, who murdered three husbands and was sentenced to death in 1932.
Droëwors — dried spiced sausage.
Drommedaris — name of the ship on which Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch pioneer who arrived at the Cape in 1652, sailed when he arrived at Table Bay.
Eugene Terre’Blanche — leader of the AWB (see entry above).
Harry the Strandloper — the ‘strandlopers’, or the ‘watermen’, were a band of fifty-odd hunters, herders and outcasts of various kinds in the vicinity of Table Bay in the seventeenth century. These ‘watermen’ received small gifts in return for serving as postmasters, guides, refreshing ships and supplying intelligence about rival fleets. ‘Harry’s real name was Autshumato (1611–63) and he was the most important of the group. He was imprisoned by Jan van Riebeeck in 1658, but escaped from Robben Island in 1659.
Helpmekaar — (hist.) exclusive white nationalist charity organisation founded in 1917 to assist poor whites.
H.F. Verwoerd — famous leader of the National Party (see below); architect of legislative Apartheid.