For my brother, Wapie, whose death shook me to life,
and for Mamma en Derra, the pulse of this book.
The Photograph
‘I am. I am. I am.’
‘Yes!’
‘Issie, Liesie, my toe didn’t even touch the line.’
‘Is Jonie. You’re out!’
‘But–’
‘Ha a nee, you’re out. It is my turn!’
Marelize and I were arguing about whose turn it was to play hokkie when Antie Pyma Hinkepink came through the yard. I was watching her hobble past us towards Antie Molla’s house and in my head I sang to the rhythm of her walking:
Antie Hinkepink
One two three
Washing everybody’s dirty laundry
Five six seven
The dog runs loose
Seven eight nine
Her man is goosed
And her poor children cries ‘There’s no more food’.
Antie Molla was in the kitchen, I could see she was watching us playing through the window. Why is she looking at us like that? I thought. First she was looking at Antie Pyma, then at me, and then with her hands over her mouth. Then at me again. Antie Molla knocked on the kitchen window with her eyebrows pulled skew. Any child knows that means: ‘Get inside, or else …’
I was too busy looking at all the women from Dahlia Street, Skool Street and Roos Street running towards my street, and I wanted to run with, to see what was going on. I was just about to skedaddle when Antie Molla grabbed me by my collar.
‘In met djou,’ she said, ‘daai is grootmensgoed, you and Marelize must grate polony for the kosbakke.’
I smiled because I knew she only cared, even though sometimes she came across as strict. Sometimes I would ask Liewe Jesus if I could trade my ma for Liesie’s Ma. I wished I had such a nice Ma like hers. Ma Emmie said she is a weglê-eier from a white man. She has pitch-black hair like Sneeuwitjie’s and she wears her hair in a long vlegsel that hanged like a horse’s tail behind her back, and she is not brown like us, she was amper white like a real Boer.
I liked An Molla’s house. It was always full of laughter and they liked singing for Jesus and on Fridays, I would go to youth practice, and wear skirts and doekies that you tie like a bolla behind your head. Best of all is, they always had milk and Coke in the fridge, not like in our house where we drank powder milk in our cereal because Ma said milk was for madams and queens and we weren’t either. Sometimes An Molla even asked me to comb her hair when she came from work at the fish factory. I combed it carefully and handled it like something precious. Her hair always smelt like Colgate Apple shampoo. Afterwards, when I got home in the evening, I untangled my hair and combed it out and imagined I had hair like hers, but mine was brittle and kroes and had never grown past my ears.
My head was full of thoughts and the polony I was grating with Liesie just rested there. How was I supposed to help Liesie grate polony when Antie Molla looked at me the way she does when something bad happens in her favourite soapies? Through the window I saw her cross the street to join Antie Pyma and the others outside our house.
‘Your mother is looking for you,’ said Antie Molla, entering through the kitchen door.
‘Ma, my ma knows I’m sleeping over,’ I said, dikbek.
‘Man, moetie teëpraatie,’ she said, her voice a bit louder this time.
I nodded my head while I looked at my dirty feet, ash gray from all the games we played today. I was a bit sad that I couldn’t sleep over, but I would never answer back to big people.
‘Naand Oom Friekie,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Naand almal,’ I greeted everyone in the sitting room watching Bold and the Beautiful.
When I got home our whole yard was full of people. Even people from HOP Land were there. It is probably that stupid brother of mine, I thought to myself. I wish he would just disappear, but Ma mos always take his side. I felt that she forgot that I’m also her child. As I walked through our yard, everybody was whispering behind their breaths. Agies, I thought. They like gossiping about us, because Ma and Derra are always fighting, because he is always drunk. I stood in the door and watched my ma sob really loud while Antie Zin and Antie Kêtie comforted her. Ma was looking at the ceiling mumbling, ‘It’s not him, it can’t be him.’ I was so confused because everyone gave me that I’m-sorry look, but no one said a thing. They just watched my ma cry.
I did not go to school the next day. Ma was up early, cleaning and turning out the house. The house became quiet, that made me feel restless so I got up. Our house is made from siersteen bricks, a fabriekhuis, an ‘opskuldhuis’, Ma would remind Derra. I could see the living room from my room. Derra was sitting next to the CD player, listening to Kfm, with his head almost resting on his lap. Ma returned from An Griet, the Funeral Antie. The moment Ma came home, she just looked at Derra, but their eyes were screaming, ‘It is your fault!’
Later on I decided to go to Derra because I felt bad for hating my brother for dying. ‘Derra?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Jonie?’ he said.
‘Is Derra and Ma angry at me?’
‘No kint, this is not about you.’
He did not look at me once, like me being there made it worse. I knew he was lying to me. I left him there and went back to my room that Ma had cleaned by now, sweeping and dusting like her life depended on it. I lay on my pillow with my head at the foot side like Ma when she thinks about everything, hugging my teddy so tight almost like that would make it hug me back, but I became restless and so I walked passed Derra very quietly and pushed my bike out the tool hokkie.
As soon as I got on the bike I pedalled so hard it felt like I was riding on the wind up Ridderspoor Street, Lelie Street and past Beverly Hills Plakkerskamp. The closer I got to the shore, the more I could smell the fynbos, making my nose tickle a bit, and the smell of the sea, so familiar. It lingers in your lungs like the early morning mist resting on our roofs. The sea was my only sure thing. My backpack started to wriggle. I knew who it was. I was in such a rush, I took the bag my dog Suzie likes to sleep in. My back was wet and so was Suzie’s tail, shivering like jelly. I walked towards the shore to wash my shirt. The sea seemed angry that morning, the waves did not tumble forward and calmly rest on my feet like other days. She pushed forward a lot of bamboes, always a bad sign. I soaked my shirt in the water. I looked down at my body.
I am the only one that doesn’t have tieties in my class. My older cousin told me that if I put chicken stront on it, it would grow faster. I put my shirt carefully on
