Mr Nkum-whatever slammed the door, I got the chance to take one last look at Janie September. She wasn’t laughing. She sat there at the back next to the empty desk that I’d just got dragged from. And like always, her eyebrows were high and curved on her forehead as if she was surprised. Surprised, but not much interested.
Did she remember me? Did she recognise me at all?
Mr Nkum-something gave one last shove so I was over the threshold and out in the passage. In his hand he still had my crumpled-up test. He didn’t even bother to look at my date of birth that I’d printed right there under my name in extra-big digits.
If he had, he would have seen that today is my birthday. And not just any birthday. My eighteenth! What kind of a way is that to treat someone on their eighteenth?
The conference room doors banged shut on me.
I was so angry, I smashed my fists against the fancy egg-shell-painted wall. Right underneath the photo of the chairman or whatever. Three times, four times. I smashed until there was blood and pain.
It’s strange. Because I haven’t smashed stuff for a long time.
Down the passage, the Double A receptionist looked at me with big eyes. Like I was frightening her.
That made me feel a bit better.
*
Mrs Mogwera remembered my birthday.
Early this morning when I was there in the bathroom of the maid’s quarters washing and shaving with cold water, she came walking across the backyard from her kitchen.
Carrying a present.
Just a small one, but properly wrapped up. With a ribbon round it, even.
See, that’s where I live: in the maid’s quarters of 5 Groenewald Street, Villa Park. Mrs Mogwera’s husband owns the property now.
She said, “Happy, happy, happy birthday, Dirkie!”
She has this soft voice and this soft smile. When I’m near her, I always get this calm feeling coming over me. And, you see, that is why I get confused with all that stuff Bethany says about Double As. I mean, I know I’m not so good at understanding things. But how can Mrs Mogwera be a Double A? She would never oppress anyone. But when I ask Bethany, she just says, “Oh, grow up, Karel!”
Mrs Mogwera’s present for me was a blue tie. Silky and shiny new.
She said, “In my culture, blue is the colour of hope. I hope today will be good for you. I hope Kagiso Holdings will give you a place in their training scheme. I will be here at home hoping and hoping for you.”
It was Mrs Mogwera who found the advert in the newspaper and brought it to me.
Earn while you learn. No matric required. As part of our commitment to social upliftment amongst the Youth of South Africa, we offer a Youth Training Scheme …
She brought me some writing paper and an envelope and stamps so I could apply.
“This will be good, Dirkie. You mustn’t spend all your life being a gardener. You have more promise than that.”
Bethany says it’s disgusting. “How can you stoop so low, Karel? Squatting in the servant’s room behind a black family’s house! Digging their garden like some labourer! Where’s your pride?”
But if I didn’t stay behind Mrs Mogwera’s house, I would be out on the streets. I would still be sleeping by the fountain at Northfields Play Park with Aggies and Rosie. Or under Victoria Bridge when it rained.
And it’s not so bad in the maid’s room. Except there’s no hot water.
“So, Dirkie, you will wear your blue tie for your interview? Then you will look smart and handsome. You are a very handsome young man. They will give you a place for sure.” Mrs Mogwera smiled at me again and walked back across the yard, back to that kitchen door.
I struggled to remember how to knot the tie. I tried quite a few times, checking in the dressing table mirror with its huge crack on one side. In the end I got it right. And I did look smart. Like a man with somewhere to go. Especially since Mrs Mogwera had ironed my white shirt.
That’s what your eighteenth birthday is for, isn’t it? To mark that you’ve become a man. That you can drive and go to a bar and vote and earn a proper living. You’re not a boy any more and so things will never, ever be the same for you.
I should have realised. Hope was hanging round my neck like a blue noose.
*
Strange. In my culture, blue is not the colour of hope. Blue is about being sad. There is the Monday blues. There is feeling blue. My dad used to sing a song: When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do is take a look at you and then I’m not so blue …
He sang it to my ma sometimes when he was in a good mood and she was well. He said it was called “Groovy Kinder Love” or something. But the point is that blue is not the way you want to feel.
Back when I was ten-almost-turning-eleven, the doctor came. My ma was sick again. And the doctor said to my dad, “Look, Pieter, I’m no psychiatrist. But maybe you must get Leila out of that blue dressing gown. I’m sure that’s not helping her depression. If she’s refusing to get dressed, at least get her something in a bright, cheerful colour.”
“Cheerful?”
“Yes. Like yellow, Pieter. Yellow is a good, happy colour. I’m sure that will lift her spirits. And of course, I’ll prescribe more sleeping pills. She really needs a good night’s rest.”
So Dad took me with him to the shops and we found this lovely, soft, thick gown. It was so yellow, it was almost golden. Like the colour of Mrs Mogwera’s Barberton Daisies.
“This is the one, Dirkie! This will do the trick!” my dad said. And there was so much hope in his voice that I wanted to cry. “Yes, my boy, we’ll make your ma smile again. You’ll see!”
But in the end, the yellow gown didn’t help. The sleeping pills neither. My ma still went wandering around the house at night, checking and re-checking the doors and the burglar bars. Often I woke up and there she was at my bedroom window. Whispering.
“Got to be careful. Got to keep us safe. They want to break in and murder us all, you see? They’re outside right now, watching, just waiting for their chance.”
Sometimes I managed to get back to sleep. But not always.
*
So, anyway! There I was standing in the passage of Kagiso Holdings with blood dripping down my knuckles a bit. The receptionist stopped looking frightened and started phoning Security. So I walked past her and out into the morning sunshine.
People were rushing past me, all grown-ups, all looking smart and on their way to work. And what was I supposed to do now with my eighteenth birthday?
I’ll go see Aggies, I decided. I like to be with Aggies.
Aggies spends the mornings at his begging post outside the Pick n Pay mall in Villa Park. Sitting against the third pillar
