ray of light during my time at the camp: there was beef mince, lots of beef mince. Bobotie, shepherd’s pie, sausage, meatballs, round and rectangular meat pies, spaghetti with mince and tomato, mince with fried onions and grated cheese . . . I was amazed at the big metal containers, the amounts, the smell. The only big amounts in my life were the dormitory slop and the stench of it. Here it was almost festive. Three meals a day appeared from the big camp kitchen, also tea in the morning and warm milk at night. Each of these five helpings was supplemented with bread. Toast, sandwiches, thick slices of fresh bread lined up on trays, bread soldiers dipped in egg and grilled, also bread pudding. I only knew two kinds of bread: shop bread, white, brown or wholegrain, soft and ordinary; and farm bread, crunchy crust on the outside, solid and snow white on the inside. The bread in the camp was different: big slices, good enough to eat without butter, looked home-baked, but delivered twice a day at the big metal gate. I called it prayer bread. And encountered it only once afterwards, more than ten years later when I again attended a church camp, I was in love with a vision of a youth worker and had heard there were open showers on the grounds.
Back to Riebeek West: On the second-last evening everyone sits in the hall, on chairs, crates, cushions and laps; a white cloth has been strung against the wall up front, at the back is a film projector on a high table. Someone turns off the lights and monsters begin to jump around on the white cloth. A few people turn around but then the movie starts behaving.
A grey city appears, full of pillars, massive buildings, women with braided hair, men in long garments, soldiers with swords, horses, coaches without roofs and markets where live animals are peddled.
It’s Rome, my mother mouths.
Is it near Wellington? I ask.
No, my mother’s mouth explains, It’s overseas, hundreds of years ago.
A man has golden leaves on his head. Red fabric hangs from his shoulder and a white cloak drags behind him. (I now know that the actor was Peter Ustinov.) He is furious, he walks up and down in a marble hall, he balls his fists and yells at a row of anxious people, I hear nothing.
Emperor Nero, explains my father’s mouth.
The mouse is awake and eats at me. At once the whole cloth is full of people, thousands, they sit in rows in a big round place. This is the most people I have ever seen, also the biggest place, a roofless church, a tent-less circus, a treeless athletics day. The mouse is suddenly quiet, both of us know big trouble is coming.
In the middle of the crowd is an empty circle. Small groups of people begin to appear, they look scared and hold on to each other.
The Christians, explains my mother’s mouth.
Nero lifts his fist and then jerks it downwards.
Rubbish! That is all my father’s mouth forms.
Inside a thick wall a barred gate is raised and one lion after another slinks into my young life. Their big paws slash at the Christians, the thousands of people jump up and shake their fists in the air, Nero smiles broadly, a thin woman next to him feasts on a bunch of grapes. Against a cloth in Riebeek West: lunacy. I can’t hear myself, but I know I’m crying, on my mother’s lap my baby brother wakes up and looks at me, he smiles, a lion rips off someone’s arm, my father picks me up and carries me outside, a strange woman brings me sugar water.
A few months later we visited Grandmother. One afternoon we drove to Paarl to see a movie. There was a theatre close to the Tower Church, unlike at the drive-ins we sat very close to the screen, like the lions at the church camp everything was too big and too close. The movie was Hawaii, an odd story with Julie Andrews in the lead role; it had come out three years earlier, but was shown on that day in Paarl.
Julie Andrews and a bunch of English people in uniforms sailed in an old-fashioned ship on a rough sea. There they met the queen or leader of the island. She was a giantess, she was fascinated with the ship and wanted to see the inside. Because she was too big to climb the ladder at the side, a primitive crane had to be built. Unlike at the church camp, all my senses were fully functional and I could hear everything. Were the waves too rough? Was the music too dramatic? By the time the unwieldy body started swinging to and fro above the ship, things became just too much. I cried ferociously, possibly screamed, I was amazed (and a little impressed) by my volume, but I couldn’t stop. Again my father had to carry me out, again I was soothed with food.
Until then the universe had consisted of Riebeek-Kasteel, Riebeek West, Wellington and Paarl. Rome and Hawaii were unthinkable; that people could think up such things, so cruel and on such a scale and without warning, was unthinkable, that each time after such a disillusionment we could drive back home like nothing was wrong, it was unthinkable. Overwhelming, inconceivable, impossible.
War
Whether we drove directly from home, or we first went to Wellington, or my little brother was dropped off somewhere, or I was wearing a hat or not, details like these were all erased by my second emergency coma. Only the very worst moments, the life-threatening images, the most barbaric sounds, those remained. We must have parked somewhere, we must have walked far, my father would have held my hand, perhaps a blanket under his arm, my mother would have carried a bag or a basket, at some point we would have stood in a queue, bought tickets, sucked on orange ice lollies.
The experience starts suddenly, explodes like a surprising scene – smell, temperature, sound, movement, feeling, everything at once. I must have been wearing sandals, my feet are white from the dust and it is more than just seeing, I can feel it, dry, dry, dry. Hard soil with light powder that puffs round your ankles, trampled grass, straw-like and sharp, it stabs between my open toes like knives. For some reason I am smaller than usual, short and close to the ground, I reach up, up, but I stay down. I see dusty shoes, men and women all in the same shoes, some shoes are brown, now sandy from the dust, some shoes are black, now grey from the dust. All shoes are visible, trouser legs end at the ankle, dresses’ hems and petticoat ruffles too.
The dresses: Each a wide, flared skirt, with narrow pleats going up to the waist, shapeless bodice, puffy sleeves with bows on the elbows. The colours are dull, light pink, light blue, light yellow, light green. Nobody stands still, the dresses are in a hurry, definitely on their way to an event, everyone is called. I am too short, I cannot see the world, the dresses ball around me, I am an ant on a bazaar table, surrounded by sponge cakes, a big finger is going to squash me any minute. I jerk myself higher, I see their shoulders, white cloths hang like on the backs of armchairs. I jerk myself again, even higher, there are no faces, no hair, only bonnets, white things that first bulge like the heads of the octopuses in my picture book, then point to the front. At the back pleated flaps hang like in the windows of The Earth Houses.
I know my parents are on either side of me, but I don’t look at them, I stagger through the chaos like a wind-up duck, bent over like our town’s fat men walking at night, can’t go on, dare not stop, can’t go on, dare not stop.
Where are we? I call.
This is the Goodwood Showgrounds, says my mother, It’s the big Republic festival.
We have to go! I yell.
What are you talking about? says my mother, We haven’t even found a spot yet!
What are these people doing? I yell.
They’re dancing in front, says my mother, Look at that! Heavens, did you know so many people could make circles?!
In front of us appears a field bigger than the church, the school and the dormitory grounds combined. There are
