Tamieta looks at her watch. It is five minutes past two. She would not expect students to be late for such an important ceremony; why should they want to keep Coloured time on an occasion like this and put her to shame? Where is everybody? And she sniffs, sniffs at the comforter impregnated with Californian Poppy.
The rector strides across from the Administration block in his grand cloak. He bellows like a bull preparing to storm the empty chairs.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, let those of us who abhor violence, those of us who have a vision beyond darkness and savagery, weep today for the tragic death of our Prime Minister. ’
He is speaking to her. Ladies and gentlemen. that includes her, Tamieta, and what can be wrong with that? Why should she not be called a lady? She who has always conducted herself according to God’s word? Whose lips have never parted for a drop of liquor or the whorish cigarette? And who has worked dutifully all her life? Yes, it is only right that she should be called a lady. And fancy it coming from the rector. Unless he hasn’t seen her, or doesn’t see her as part of the gathering. Does the group of strangers backed by the dark-suited Theology students form a bulwark, an edifice before which she must lower her eyes? How could she, Tamieta Snewe, with her slow heavy thighs scale such heights?
‘. these empty chairs are a sign of the barbarism, the immense task that lies ahead of the educator. ’
Should she move closer to the front? As his anger gives way to grief, she can no longer hear what he says. In Tamieta’s ears the red locusts rattle among the mealies on the farm and the dry-throated wind croaks a heart-broken tale of treachery through the cracks of the door. She must wait, simply wait for these people to finish. Never, not even on a Sunday afternoon, has she known time to drag its feet so sluggishly. If she could pull out of her plastic bag a starched cap and apron and whip round smilingly after the last amen with a tray of coffee, perhaps then she could sit through the service in comfort. And the hot shame creeps up from her chest to the crown of her head. The straw hat pinned to the mattress of hair released from its braids for the occasion (for she certainly does not wear a doekie to church like a country woman) smoulders with shame for such a starched cap long since left behind.
So many years since the young Mieta carried water from the well, the zinc bucket balanced on her head, her slender neck taut and not a drop, never a drop of water spilled. Then she rolled her doekie into a wreath to fit the bottom of the bucket and protect her head from its cutting edge. So they swaggered back, the girls in the evening light when the sun melted orange in an indigo sky, laughing, jostling each other, heads held high and never a hand needed to steady the buckets.
If only there were other women working on the campus she would have known, someone would have told her. As for that godless boy, Charlie, he knew all right, even betrayed himself with all that nonsense about the carnival while she sniffed for his treachery in quite the wrong direction. Of course he knew all along that she would be the only person there. And at this moment as he stands in Hanover Street with the pink and green satins flowing through his fingers, he sniggers at the thought of her, a country woman, sitting alone amongst white people, foolishly singing hymns. And he’ll run triumphant fingers through his silky hair — but that is precisely when the Jewish draper will say, ‘Hey you, I don’t want Brylcreem on my materials, hey. I think you’d better go now.’ And that will teach Charlie; that will show him that hair isn’t everything in the world.
The words of the hymn do not leave her mouth. A thin sound escapes her parted lips but the words remain printed in a book, written in uneven letters on her school slate. Will the wind turn and toss her trembling hum southward into the ear of the dominee who will look up sternly and thunder, ‘Sing up aia, sing up’?
Oh, how her throat grows wind-dry as the strips of biltong beef hung out on the farm in the evening breeze. The longing for a large mug of coffee tugs at her palate. Coffee with a generous spoonful of condensed milk, thick and sweet to give her strength. How much longer will she have to sit here and wait for time to pass? This time designated by strangers to mourn a man with a large head? For that was what the newspaper showed, a man with the large head of a bulldog, and Tamieta, allowing herself the unknown luxury of irreverence, passes a damp tongue over her parched lips.
She will watch the plants in the concrete flowerbox by her side. She does not know what they are called but she will watch these leaves grow, expand before her very eyes. By keeping an eye trained on one leaf — and she selects a healthy shoot resting on the rim — she will witness the miracle of growth. She has had enough of things creeping up on her, catching her unawares, offering unthinkable surprises. No, she will travel closely with the passage of time and see a bud thicken under her vigilant eye.
It is time to rise for prayer, and as she reminds herself to keep her lowered eyes fixed on the chosen leaf the plastic bag under her chair falls over and the overall, her old blue turban and the comfy slippers roll out for all the world to see. But all the eyes are shut so that she picks up her things calmly and places them back in the bag. Just in time for the last respectful silence. The heads hang in grief. Tamieta’s neck aches. Tonight Beatrice will free the knotted tendons with her nimble fingers. She does not have the strength to go into town for the wool, but Beatrice will understand. Tamieta is the first to slip out of her seat, no point in lingering when the rain is about to fall, and with her handbag swinging daintily in the crook of her right arm and the parcel of clothes tucked under her left, she marches chin up into the bush, to the deserted station where the skollie-boys dangle their feet from the platform all day long.
YOU CAN’T GET LOST IN CAPE TOWN
In my right hand resting on the base of my handbag I clutch a brown leather purse. My knuckles ride to and fro, rubbing against the lining. surely cardboard. and I am surprised that the material has not revealed itself to me before. I have worn this bag for months. I would have said with a dismissive wave of the hand, ‘Felt, that is what the base of this bag is lined with.’
Then, Michael had said, ‘It looks cheap, unsightly,’ and lowering his voice to my look of surprise, ‘Can’t you tell?’ But he was speaking of the exterior, the way it looks.
The purse fits neatly into the palm of my hand. A man’s purse. The handbag gapes. With my elbow I press it against my hip but that will not avert suspicion. The bus is moving fast, too fast, surely exceeding the speed limit, so that I bob on my seat and my grip on the purse tightens as the springs suck at my womb, slurping it down through the plush of the red upholstery. I press my buttocks into the seat to ease the discomfort.
I should count out the fare for the conductor. Perhaps not; he is still at the front of the bus. We are now travelling through Rondebosch so that he will be fully occupied with white passengers at the front. Women with blue-rinsed heads tilted will go on telling their stories while fishing leisurely for their coins and just lengthen a vowel to tide over the moment of paying their fares.
‘Don’t be so anxious,’ Michael said. ‘It will be all right.’ I withdrew the hand he tried to pat.
I have always been anxious and things are not all right; things may never be all right again. I must not cry. My eyes travel to and fro along the grooves of the floor. I do not look at the faces that surround me but I believe that they are lifted speculatively at me. Is someone constructing a history for this hand resting foolishly in a gaping handbag? Do these faces expect me to whip out an amputated stump dripping with blood? Do they wince at the thought of a hand, cold and waxen, left on the pavement where it was severed? I draw my hand out of the bag and shake my fingers ostentatiously. No point in inviting conjecture, in attracting attention. The bus brakes loudly to conceal the sound of breath drawn in sharply at the exhibited hand.