On the walls and tables and cabinets she proudly pointed out photographs of her beautiful daughters and granddaughters. She paused at each picture, telling a little story. A sepia photograph is of her younger sister. “See how beautiful she was,” said Bettie. The Theron women, I thought to myself, are indeed not only strong, but beautiful as well; the good genes that Charlize has inherited are in evidence on both sides of the family, for Gerda is an attractive woman too.
Among all the framed photographs it suddenly struck me – not what was there, but what was conspicuous by its absence: Where was Charlize? There was no picture to pay tribute to the famous granddaughter. No public display of the world-renowned Theron offspring. No photograph of Charlize with her Oscar, even though the entire Theron clan had been bursting with pride on the night, together with the rest of South Africa.
The answer is sad and tinged with irony: thousands of photographs have been taken of Charlize, highlighting every aspect of her career; she even has her own personal photographer. But her grandmother has never received a special photograph of her granddaughter to frame and hang on the wall. She has to share the images of Charlize that appear so regularly in the media with strangers from across the world. The only photographs she has are the ones she once received from a little girl.
Back outside, Bettie brought out the special Charlize album and a small red tin box. She might not occupy a place of honour on the wall, but Char-lize is cherished in an album and a tin box. From the box Bettie produced a packet of embroidered handkerchiefs that a young Charlize had once given her grandmother as a gift. Lovingly the fingers stroked the handkerchiefs. She put them back and clicked the lid shut. I would have liked to know what was going through her mind at that moment. It was touching to see her silent devotion to a memento that was almost twenty years old.
There were also gifts brought back after a holiday in Mauritius. And the letters, together with the photos Charlize had sent her grandmother as a little girl, were all formally arranged in the album. There was Charlize in school uniform, in ballet outfits, with her dog Lulu, a pink bow around its neck.
Countless families have albums with similar photographs of little girls, all looking more or less the same. Some smile toothlessly, others are camera shy, some are sulky, others precocious. Charlize looks as if she was born to be in front of the lens; she looks completely at home posing for the camera – a striking, natural beauty. It would not have taken a fortune teller to predict her future.
Bettie showed me a head-and-shoulders photograph of Charlize in her primary-school uniform. Her long light-brown hair was caught in two neat pigtails on either side of her head, tied up with elastic bands adorned with bobbles. One bobble was clearly higher than the other, and that in an official school photograph! “When she sent me the photo, I noticed the lopsided bobbles immediately and I phoned to ask why Gerda had fixed the child’s hair so carelessly. Charlize told me her mother had been too busy before school that morning and so her father had brushed her hair and made the pigtails.”
Next Bettie showed me a typed letter and told me the story behind it. In 1983 Charles had bought a typewriter to take care of his business corre- spondence. Bettie happened to be visiting when Charles brought the typewriter to his office. He asked his mother to see that Charlize, then eight years old, didn’t play with the new typewriter. He was only too familiar with her busy little fingers. But he had scarcely left when grandmother and granddaughter hatched a plot. Charlize just couldn’t keep her hands off those alluring keys, so Grandma rolled a sheet of paper into the machine and stood guard at the door to warn Charlize if her father should approach. Charlize began to type:
A puppy oh a puppy I want for chrismas so that he can be on gard at nite and lie befor my bed I rite a letter to father chrismas to ask for a puppy oh a puppy to chase away the krooks
Chalize t
Oh, how she and Charlize had laughed at that letter, Bettie recalled. She had kept the typed letter, dated 4 June 1983 in Bettie’s handwriting, along with all the other letters Charlize had written in her neat, childish hand, lavishly decorated in coloured pencil with brightly coloured flowers and hearts. On 5 December 1984, aged nine, Charlize had written to her grandmother in Kuruman:
Granny I love you very much enjoy yourself in koereman. Love from Charlize
On July 17 (the year has been omitted, but by then Charlize was clearly a more skilled writer):
Dear Granny
How are you. We are well. I hope you’re not ill. Granny the flu has got me. Granny I’m going to dance again, but this time I’m going to do a tutu dance. My daddy’s beard is very long now and my mommy is letting her hair grow. Granny must write me a letter. Granny I have to say goodbye now. Granny I’m sorry that the letter is so short but next time I’ll write a longer letter. Remember I still love you very very much.
Regards from Charlize
To her own letters to Charlize after Charles’s death, even those sent to an address in Hollywood, Bettie never got any reply. “Things were never the same after that terrible night. I am still grieving for my son. And I grieve for my granddaughter who doesn’t want to know me. I’m glad she’s achieved so much, but I’m very sad that her father isn’t here to witness her success.”
Still, she keeps hoping to see her granddaughter again, Bettie said, or at least to hear her voice, because she doesn’t know how many birthdays she has left. “I don’t care whether she’s rich or famous, I just want to see her again.”
I took my leave and left her my cigarette lighter; hers had lit its last cigarette. And I couldn’t help thinking what Charlize is missing here at Kuruman, far removed from fame and wealth. How do Hollywood illusions measure up against an album and a tin box filled with genuine love and longing?
You can almost picture the scene on the plastic chairs at the back door: grandmother and granddaughter with their heads together, sharing their memories, the sound of Charlize’s famous belly laugh.
But when I got into my car, parked under the camel thorn, another image filled my mind, the one on the last photograph in the Charlize album. Slightly macabre, but probably a fitting remembrance of the two loved ones Bettie had lost in a single night: the photograph of Charles in his coffin, his eyes closed as if he were merely sleeping.
Benoni, 1991
At that point someone hammered on the kitchen door.
I told my mother that it was my father and that I was afraid of him.
Charlize in her statement to the police, 1991
Tragedy
In 1991 Rooi Rose (later rooi rose), a Johannesburg-based Afrikaans maga-zine chiefly aimed at female readers, held a competition for aspiring models. The winner would be given the opportunity to take part in an international modelling competition, New Model Today, in Italy. One of Rooi Rose’s conditions was that the winner had to be a model of stature, or one with great potential, as she would be required to represent South Africa abroad.
A life as a model is the dream of many a young girl, and with Charles and Gerda’s approval, the fifteen-year-old Charlize entered the competition.
By this time serious cracks were showing in her parents’ marriage and the family were aware of it, especially Charles’s sister Elsa Malan, who lived with her family only a few blocks from the Therons in Cloverdene.
The two sisters-in-law, Gerda and Elsa, had had a long and close
