if that explains anything.
‘I thought she drove an ambulance,’ Colette says, suddenly annoyed with this unknown Australian girl who has lured her uncle away.
‘Couldn’t say. Something to do with a hospital, is all I know, that was mos how they met. After he got hurt in the explosion.’
Sina steps back to take a critical look at the tea tray. Then she nods, apparently satisfied that Meddem Lizzie will be satisfied.
‘But why does he have to run off to another country after her? Why doesn’t he bring her here?’
‘Your mamma says he wants to start “a new life in a new country”.’
Colette swings her feet more vigorously. ‘I also heard her tell my dad that you’d swear Uncle David was ashamed of his family in Africa.’
Sina gives her a strange look, almost as if to say Uncle David might have a point, but then she is all business again. ‘You carry the chocolate cake, and I’ll bring the tray with the rest of the things.’
Colette picks up the silver plate with the enormous cake on it, and carefully balances it on one hand while opening the kitchen door with the other.
‘It is not a she, Liz, it’s a he,’ she hears her uncle say in the drawing room.
‘You mean …’ The alarm in her mother’s voice makes Colette freeze in the doorway.
‘I am going to Australia because of a man.’
Colette glances over her shoulder at Sina who is approaching with the heavily laden tray, shakes her head anxiously and gestures sh with a finger on her lips while at the same time trying to retreat without a sound.
‘I always suspected …’ her mother says, consternation in her voice. ‘But I had hoped …’
‘Lizzie. I could never be myself in this country. You would probably die of shame if I tried. If I go away, no one ever has to know, not your in-laws or your children or …’
‘Pardon me, David, it’s just … the shock …’ her mother says, jumping to her feet and rushing from the room.
‘Here she comes!’ Colette whispers panic-stricken, and steps backwards so quickly she almost knocks Sina off her feet. They hear the tinkling of silver and porcelain, and for several endless moments it looks as if the tray is going to end up on the floor, and Mammie’s most beautiful teapot will be shattered. Colette grabs the tray with one hand to help Sina, and feels the chocolate cake slipping from the silver plate in the other. She watches helplessly as the cake hits the black-and-white tiled floor. Then she hears her mother’s footsteps on the stairs, probably on the way to her bedroom to blow and powder her nose, and she wonders frantically if there might be a way to scrape the brown mess off the floor and repair the cake before Mammie comes back.
‘Shame.’ Sina places the tray on the table and bends down to pick up the remains of the cake. ‘Another shock for poor Meddem Lizzie.’
And suddenly Colette starts to giggle. Maybe it is just from shock and nervousness, but the thought that a ruined chocolate cake might upset her mother just as much as the news that Uncle David has fallen in love with another man suddenly strikes her as extremely funny.
‘Will you stop being silly,’ Sina hisses. ‘Bring me the brush and the pan, quickly, before your mamma comes.’
‘Can you believe my uncle is a homosexualist?’ Colette whispers wide-eyed while she crouches on the floor to help Sina.
‘Oh, come on, it’s not so terrible,’ Sina mumbles without looking up. ‘Even on the farm you get animals that are … different.’
‘Queer animals? You mean males doing it with other …?’
‘Males doing it with anything that moves. Even their own little ones. And I don’t just mean the animals.’ Sina spits out the words with such a bitter expression around her wide mouth that Colette stares at her, stunned. She has sometimes wondered why Sina never talks about her childhood on the farm.
‘But if Ouboet knew …’ she whispers anxiously. ‘He can’t stand Uncle David as it is because he thinks he’s on the side of the English!’
‘He doesn’t have to know.’ Sina fixes her with a stare, her voice a soft hiss. ‘No one else in this house needs to know. Do we understand each other, Letty?’
Colette nods. The thought of yet another secret that is never going to be mentioned by name makes her mouth go dry. Uncle David will emigrate, and Mammie will be sad because she won’t know when she will ever see him again, but she will tell no one what her brother told her this afternoon. Maybe not even Deddy.
And what, Colette wonders, is she supposed to do with all this unwished-for information? About milk and coffee, and her handsome uncle who is queer, and the people of Somerverdriet behaving like animals, and heaven knows what else. Somewhere in the back of her mind she will have to make room for everything she isn’t allowed to talk about, a kind of attic where she can hide all the shame and scandals of her house and her family and her country. Yes, that is what she needs, she decides right there on the black-and-white tiles of the kitchen floor while Sina gets up to scrape the messy remains of the cake into the rubbish bin. An imaginary attic where all these secrets can lie in the dark, gathering dust, until one day the time will be ripe to shine the light on them. When that will be or whether it will ever be, that is something she doesn’t yet dare think about.
Re: Sintra
• Colette Niemand 11/9/2007
There now, it is just a nasty flu that has laid me low for a few days, nothing to be concerned about. And the weather is perfect for staying wrapped up in bed. When it is so cold and wet outside, it is almost a treat to lie under a down duvet and listen to the rain beating against the window. And Sina is looking after me, as always. The two of us, we take care of each other.
Well, that is quite enough about my health, let us get back to Sintra! I need only close my eyes to see the town before me. I remember Pena Palace high on the hill, its Moorish balconies with views of the sea, the yellowed old photographs of the last Portuguese royal family. So much faded glory, isn’t there? It made me feel melancholy even then, although I was hardly older than you are now. But of course you will have learnt by now that you are in a country where melancholy easily creeps into the soul.
I am not opposed to royal crowns. I am not in favour of them either – probably just one more thing about which I have never really made up my mind. Or perhaps I changed my mind so often I ended up forgetting what I’d believed at the start. I do remember that Mammie and I were awfully pleased when the old English King George and his dignified wife and the two lovely princesses came to tour the Union. Sixty years on, the younger princess is dead and buried, her older sister the elderly monarch of a shrinking empire, and the Union an independent democratic country with a black president. And all I feel when I reflect on these radical changes, is old.
Darling child, take no notice of my aches and pains and silences. But please do keep writing to me, even if I don’t always respond, and don’t stop searching. Your heart will show you the way. There is still no better compass. If I had followed mine half a century ago, I wouldn’t feel so lost now. And perhaps not so darned
