He – or she – often has a proper travelling bag, sometimes even with a label that says Gucci – genuine fake Gucci.
Eight pairs of eyes watch me as I approach. It’s a R10 note the one with the turned-up jeans is waving at me. The woman leaning against the road sign has a bandage around one arm. One of them calls out something, but I can’t hear anything through the bakkie’s closed windows.
Then they’re behind me.
They grow smaller and smaller in my rear-view mirror, an odd picture of wretchedness that settles somewhere in my memory.
We haven’t spoken today, Pa and I. When I reach the open road on the other side of Laingsburg, I pull over. The Swartberg Mountains are a dark ridge in the south. I dial Pa’s number. His cellphone rings and rings and rings and rings. Then it stops ringing, but the voicemail doesn’t come on. For a few moments there’s silence, then a shuffle, then I hear him: “Hello … Hello.” His voice is very soft.
He’s been in bed all day, I just know it. When the phone rang on his bedside table he struggled first to find it, and then to find the right button to press.
I picture him on the bed with the imbuia headboard in the room with its pressed ceiling. The bedside table always has more or less the same things arranged on it: a Bible, a flashlight, an old Westclock alarm clock, a can of Old Spice deodorant, a glass for soaking his dentures at night.
“I’m still in bed,” he says. “I’m short of breath again today. Where are you?”
“Between Laingsburg and Beaufort West,” I say.
“Just remember, I’m with you in that car, son. I’m sitting right next to you. Don’t you forget that. But believe me, your pa’s had it.” Silence. “Where are you going next?”
“I think I’m going to Pofadder, Pa.”
“Pofadder? Ag, son, why?”
“I want to see what the bank robbery did to the people.”
“When are you coming home? We’re waiting for you. It’s time you came home.”
I don’t know how many times I’ve driven along the N1 without stopping at Prince Albert Road station.
The name can be misleading because Prince Albert Road station is about forty kilometres from Prince Albert. It has a filling station, the North & South Hotel, and a few railway houses on each side of the railway line.
The door and window frames of the station building have been broken, and wasps have made nests in the rooftops. A Camry with a dented right-hand side is resting in front of the North & South. CY number plates. Bellville. A man is asleep behind the steering wheel, leaning to one side, with the window open and a bottle of Amstel between his legs.
In the bar, at the wide, dark counter, there’s one customer, a long, thin, greyish man in Jet Stores denim with a packet of Princeton cigarettes and a bottle of Castle on the counter in front of him.
“What’s the deal with the guy in the Camry outside?” He looks at the barman.
“No, I don’t know. It was early when he got here and ordered a beer.”
“And his car?”
“He says he was hit by a lorry.”
“Did he hit the lorry? Or did the lorry hit him?”
“He says it was the lorry that hit him, but I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“A woman came and asked him for money.”
“His wife?”
“No, one of the whores along the road.”
This morning’s issue of Die Burger is lying on the counter:
Pofadder. – The bank in Pofadder has been robbed.
This peaceful Northern Cape community about 170 km east of Springbok was shocked when five men robbed the local FNB branch.
According to Capt. Cherelle Ehlers, a police spokesperson, five men entered the bank at about 15:30. One of the suspects was armed with a .375 Magnum revolver, and another with a knife. They used the weapons to threaten bank personnel but no one was injured. The robbers escaped with an undisclosed sum of money.
The two armed robbers were arrested shortly after the incident and the stolen money was recovered. The three remaining suspects were later arrested near Springbok.
When I go outside again, the man in the Camry is still fast asleep. He’s leaning to the left, as if still trying to escape the force of the accident. On the other side of the railway line a number of people have gathered outside a roofless house. Some are pointing to it and others have their hands in front of their mouths. It looks as if the house has just burnt down. The walls are blackened at the top. The windows are missing. Buckled corrugated iron sheets are lying on the ground.
Two children are playing on a rise near the N1. One is pushing a draadkar; the other appears to be banging a stone on the ground. I walk over.
It isn’t two children. It’s a man and a woman. Not so young. Two grown-up children. The man is wearing an old tracksuit; the woman a skirt and a jersey with stretched sleeves.
The man notices me and jogs over, pushing the car in front of him. “B’rrrr’m,” he goes, making a sound like a car engine. “B’rrr’mmmm.” He turns sharply in front of me and sends the gravel flying from under the wire car’s wheels, which are made from old shoe-polish tins. He gives me a toothless smile. “I Attie. Hello.” The words sound hollow in his mouth.
The woman is banging two stones against each other and mumbles something I can’t quite make out. He points at her. “Poppie.”
Attie and Poppie.
They’ve made paths that crisscross the open space right next to the N1, the two of them have built a whole lot of enclosures made from bricks. In one, a battalion of empty bottles is lined up, waiting. In another, it’s a piece of galvanised wire and a rusty sardine tin.
The cars whiz by. Do the people inside them notice us? And what would they see?
“Oupa.” Attie points to one of the houses. An elderly man comes out the front door and crosses the empty yard. Klaas Romp. He used to be a labourer on the railways but he’s retired now and has been living in Prince Albert Road for years. He’s not Attie and Poppie’s real grandfather. “They’re my wife’s sister’s children. Their mother died and now they live here with us.” He waves his arm to where they’re still playing. “They’re not well, you see. They were born slow. They play like this every day, there next to the road. Sometimes they understand what you say to them but sometimes they get difficult, especially when they’re playing there and I call them home.” Silence. “But you know, sir, they’re on their own journey. That’s all.”
Both Attie and Poppie get a monthly disability pension. R1 080 x 2 = R2 160.
The small crowd still hasn’t left the burnt-down house on the other side of the railway line. Two men carry a couch out the front door. As soon
