sun.
‘How will I ever bear this?’ thought Lindi. ‘How will I ever survive here?’
She was a child of the South Coast, of KwaZulu Natal. All her life she had been surrounded by beauty: gentle velvet-green hills and flowers that grew wild and burst with colours. There was the bright red of the hibiscus, the yellow-edged ivory of the frangipani, and the deep purple shades of yesterday-today-forever blossoms. And beyond lay the diamond-sparkling blue waves of the sea.
‘I want to go home,’ thought Lindi. ‘How can Mom and Dad do this to me?’
‘Two years!’ Dad had said to them, smiling as though this was something to celebrate. ‘Yes, I’ve signed a two-year work contract.’
Dad was going to work at the mine here in this terrible place. A removal van packed full of their belongings was on its way.
Beyond the red-brick houses, Lindi could see an ugly mine dump. The mountain of dull black rock and gravel towered over everything.
Two years! That was almost as long as forever.
The boy came out of the house now. He was around thirteen and he had lived here with his parents for the past four years. Two two-year contracts.Delwyn Jacobs, his name was. He smiled at Lindi.
‘Hey, don’t look so miserable,’ he said. ‘It’s not so bad.’
It was easy for him to smile. He and his family were about to leave. Their days in this awful place were over. This afternoon they would start their journey back home to Cape Town. Already Mr Jacobs’ car stood in the driveway, packed high with all their last-minute stuff.
The grown-ups were all still inside the house. Mr Jacobs was busy explaining to Dad about overtime. And Mrs Jacobs was showing Mom how the geyser worked, how the oven switched off. Mrs Jacobs was also doing a last-minute check that the house was clean. It should be! The whole place smelled of floor polish and bleach.
‘It’s more than bad,’ Lindi told the boy. ‘It’s terrible! I hate it. I just want to go back home to KwaZulu. Life was perfect there!’ She turned away so that Delwyn wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
But actually, life on the South Coast hadn’t been perfect. Not this past year, anyway. Not after Dad was retrenched from the cement factory. That had been hard to bear: watching Dad worrying, getting more and more stressed and bad-tempered.
Every Thursday he bought the local paper as soon as the café opened. He spent all morning looking through the employment section and all afternoon phoning and putting his CV into envelopes. Then he spent all of the next week waiting for calls that usually didn’t come.
At first Mom tried to keep smiling. She told Lindi everything would be all right.
‘Just a few months, love, then I’m sure Dad will find a new job. Then we’ll celebrate and buy you those jeans you’re wanting.’
But Lindi knew it was not a real smile. She had never got the new jeans and she had to stay behind when there was a school trip up into the mountains. Dad said he just couldn’t afford it.
‘It’s okay, Dad,’ Lindi said. ‘I didn’t want to go on that stupid trip anyway. It’s boring up in the mountains. Thandi went last year and she told me.’ Lindi was lying. But even that didn’t stop her Dad from looking tense and sad.
And by now Mom had stopped trying to smile and pretend everything would be fine.
Worst of all, Mom and Dad had started arguing. This was something new and strange to Lindi. At first it was only late at night and only in their bedroom with the door closed.
In the night, Lindi woke up to the sound of their muffled anger. She sat up in bed, hugging herself while cold, silent tears ran down her cheeks.
‘Please stop. Please stop,’ she whispered over and over. She wanted her parents to go back to the way they used to be: always hugging each other, teasing each other, laughing together over the smallest thing.
Later they began to argue right in front of her, as if they barely noticed she was there.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mom. ‘We can’t sell the car. How will I manage without it? And it’s so old. You won’t get a good price for it. They’ll rob us blind.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to learn to walk, won’t you?’ said Dad. ‘I’m selling it. End of discussion. The petrol price is going up again next Wednesday. We’re not eating into our savings any more than we have to. Why do you have to make it so difficult for me?’
It got worse. Lindi heard them saying things to each other that no fourteen-year-old should ever have to hear. Life was no longer perfect there in KwaZulu Natal.
And then came the day when Dad smiled again. Lindi got home from school and Dad was at the front door to meet her. ‘I’ve got a job, Lindi. Isn’t that wonderful? I’ve got a two-year contract with plenty of overtime and free housing. Come on, you need to get packing.’
Packing? Lindi had felt her heart sink. Where was Dad taking them to? But in her wildest dreams she hadn’t imagined he would bring them to such an awful place. Two thousand kilometres away from home and the sea for two years!
Lindi realised that the boy Delwyn had disappeared into the house. He was probably going for one last check to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind. Lucky boy! Soon he would be on his way home to Cape Town and the sea!
Lindi walked across the lifeless grass. ‘I will shrivel up here,’ she told herself. ‘Just like the grass. There will be nothing left of me. I will wither away inside long before I reach sixteen.’
And then she saw the feather. It was caught in the lowest branch of a thorn tree. And it was utterly, utterly beautiful: shining, iridescent turquoise. More beautiful than any turquoise Lindi had ever seen. More beautiful even than the turquoise shade of the South Coast sea on a hot January morning! It took her breath away!
And what kind of bird had shed such an amazing feather? Lindi knew a little bit about birds that were native to the South Coast. In grade six she had done a project for her teacher, Mr Ndlovu. Was it the purple-crested lourie with its shiny green cheeks or the sunbird with the splash of crimson on its tiny chest? What about the Malachite kingfisher with its deep blue wings and a turquoise-and-black striped crown? But even the kingfisher did not have feathers as brilliant and jewel-like as this one.
Lindi placed the feather in the palm of her hand. It curled gently there. She held it against her cheek, enjoying the softness of its texture.
‘It must be something very special,’ she decided.
And somehow, somehow this bird managed to survive in the middle of all this ugliness. Lindi tried to imagine it, perched on the thorn tree between those vicious, threatening spikes. She tried to picture the bird soaring above the darkness of the mine dump, its wings glinting in the sun.
And then she decided, ‘If something this beautiful can survive here, then so can I! I will find a way to be happy. Yes, for sure, I will find a way to soar above the ugliness too. Just like this bird.’
