Embrace (23 page)

At his door I again checked behind me. I turned the handle and stepped into the room, just as he was emerging from the shower. I locked the door. I asked whether we could open the curtains and the window, just a little, so that we could smell the rain. He cautioned meto whisper. He drew back the curtains a few inches and opened the louvres.

With both hands he ran the towel behind his back. I removed my sandals. In a whisper I asked whether he knew Eugene Marais’s poem about the rain. He nodded, smiling. I asked whether he’d like me to recite it for him. He winked and nodded, a finger to his lips.

‘Must I whisper the poem?’ I asked, smiling, gesturing as if perplexed. ‘Yes! Unless you want us to get caught. And we have about ten minutes before choir.’ Running his hand down my cheek.

‘Okay. I’ll whisper it to you. Sit down.’Then, while he sat naked on the bed and the rain again beat down harder on the corrugated iron roof, I began to whisper:

The Dance of the Rain

Song of the fiddle player, Jan Konterdans, from the Great Desert

I recited the dance and I moved my limbs, my body, my clothing, to make visible the words:

Oh the dance of our Sister!

First, over the mountain-tops she peeps on the sly

and her eyes are shy, and she laughs softly.

From afar she beckons with one hand;

and her bracelets shine and her beads glitter;

softly she calls

My hands, trembling, around my mouth:

She informs the winds of the dance

and she invites them because the yard is wide and the wedding huge

My arms open, go up, my body moves from one corner of the room to another, an urgent whisper:

The big-game chase from the plains
,

they dam up on the hilltop

they flare their nostrils

and they swallow the wind

and they stoop, to see her delicate prints on the sand

The small-folk deep beneath the ground hear the swish of her feet

and they crawl closer and sing softly:

Our sister! Our sister! You came! You came!

Leaping onto the bed, stooping the way game does to sniff the soil, and the whisper further subdued:

And her beads tremble
;

and her copper-ringsflash in the disappearance of the sun

On her forehead is thefireplume of the mountain vulture

she steps down from the heights

Step from the bed:

with arms outstretched she spreads the faded kaross

T-shirt removed and cast to the floor, body twirling around the room:

and the breath of the wind is lost

O, the dance of our Sister!

My arms shoot up and my hands reach towards the ceiling: ‘See, it’s the dance of our sister!’ My voice rasps in a laugh-filled whisper and my wild eyes see him come for me in the room’s centre. He presses my chest to his and my feet leave the floor and he kisses me as he carries me to the bed. ‘You’re getting too heavy! You’re almost as tall as me.’

In choir, smelling him from my hands, I feel how raw my chin is. Know in a day or two it will peel.

‘I did learn to speak Swahili, but not as well as Bok who was born there and spoke it all his life. And English, of course. That was a nightmare, because we hardly spoke English in Klerksdorp, you know, it’s a very Afrikaans town. We did do English at school — we had to — but writing a few words for exams or reading some books wasn’t the same as speaking it. I knew when I married Bok that I’d have to learn because he told me from the beginning that many people in East Africa knew no Afrikaans. So when I got there I just listened, picked it up from Aunt Siobhain — though I never got her Irish accent, of course. Siobhain and I raised you kids together because Bernice and Stephanie were four years apart and of course Lena and James just a few months. Look, let me tell you, Aunt Siobhain and I got along like a house on fire. That’s a smart woman, I tell you. Can work her fingers to the bone. No airs and graces. Doesn’t touch drink. A heart of gold. That Uncle Michael, though, believe you me, doesn’t know what he’s got in that woman. Always out at night, drinking with the boys while poor Siobhain has to sit at home with the kids. And a snob, man, thinks he’s better than us you know, and then there’s this pretence at being English. And Siobhain had a thing for you, of course. Ag, when I fell pregnant we were all hoping it would be a boy — but especially Siobhain — because you know there were the two girls and we really wanted a boy. Also to be friends with James. I told Bok this was the last time we were going to try and you know, my bad ear . .. Anyway we were all sure so everyone gave only blue things for you and there were still all the blue things from when we thought Bernie and Lena may be boys. That had all been packed into the campher kist and we’d had to buy pink after they were born . . .’

‘Couldn’t the doctors fix it, Bokkie?’ I asked, listening to her knitting needles click click above the half-finished jersey, concentrating on my own: one plain, one pearl.

‘What?’

‘The ear, Bokkie.’

‘No, we tried.’

‘Do all women go deaf when they have babies, Bokkie?’

‘No, Karl. It’s just something that happens to some women. It’s usually during labour, when the pressure on your eardrums is so intense. Same thing happened to Ouma Liebenberg: with each one of us that was born she went a little deafer. So when I fell pregnant with you we decided it was the last time, because I’d lost so much hearing with the first two. When news spread that you were a boy all the farmers and their wives came into Arusha and there was a big party at the club into the early hours of the morning. I could hear them all the way to the hospital. Bok was quite a sought-after bachelor. You know how handsome he is and how women always fall for his charms — lots of girlfriends before me I heard after I got to Tanganyika — and a bit of ’n ramkat. Just like we did with Bernie and Lena, Dademan made tape-recordings of you crying and making baby noises and we sent the recordings by mail to South Africa for poor Oupa and Ouma Liebenberg. Ag, later, when we got a letter, Ouma Liebenberg wrote to say how Oupa cried when he listened to you screaming. He has such a small heart, you know.’

And was it sore, Bokkie, when I was born?’

‘Not as sore as with Bernice and Lena. They took hours and hours. That’s where the deafness probably came in. But you couldn’t wait to get out into the world. Wasn’t really even necessary for me to go to hospital, but we didn’t know that of course, when my water broke. You just slid out like a little pink bird — nine and a half pounds, mind you — ten minutes and that was it. A smile on your face after onlythree weeks. Little devil, from the beginning. And you didn’t sleep through the night until you were three years old. Not one night did you sleep through until some time in Mkuzi. When we woke the next morning I told Bok to go and check, I was too scared, sure you died in the night or had been dragged off by a leopard.’

‘Tell when the Maasai came to dance at the house.’

‘Now that was a story! It must have been about six months after we were married because I was already heavily pregnant with Bernie. I fell pregnant five days after we were married. So somewhere on the trip from Klerksdorp to Oljorro; probably at Lake Victoria where we spent two nights resting. Anyway, one afternoon I was alone at home on Mbuyu, when I heard the singing from the distance. I think the houseboy had the afternoon off because I had no one to ask where the singing was coming from. We had a little stoep and I went out and looked down the farm road but there was nothing. The singing was growing louder, no drums or anything, just the singing and then I walked around the house and saw this group of twenty or thirty Maasai running towards the house, singing and spears waving and simis in the air and they were painted and I had heard all the stories about the Mau Mau and I ran inside the house and I couldn’t lock the door because we never locked doors there so I had no idea where the key was and it sounded like they were surrounding the house and I ran and hid under the kitchen table. Just praying. Praying that God would spare me and my unborn child. So scared, so very scared. Later it grew quiet outside but I was still too scared to come out from under the kitchen table. I didn’t know what they were doing out there. You know what the Mau Mau did in Kenia; killed hundreds of innocent white farmers, slaughtered all the animals they could find on the farms. Witchcraft and things. That was all going through my mind and I wished I had never come to Tanganyika. Then I heard the sound of a truck and I heard Dademan’s voice coming into the house. He found me there under the table and almost laughed his head off. He had asked the Maasai to come and dance, so that he could filmthem on cine. Anyway, the whole Oljorro thought I was a real pumpkin!’

‘Did you miss South Africa, Bokkie?’

‘I missed my family. Oom Gert and Aunt Lena. But the six years in Tanganyika were the best years of my life. I would go back tomorrow if we could.’

‘Did you ever visit?’

‘Once. That’s when you were conceived. And we wrote letters.’ ‘Were Oupa and Ouma Liebenberg still in the Molopo?’

‘No, they were already living in Klerksdorp where Oom Gert works on the mines.’

‘Tell when you were little and the leguan gave the donkeys a fright and they ran off with you.’

‘Ag no, Karl, that’s enough now. My throat is completely dry. Go outside and play in the sand-pit or take Chaka for a walk. Out you go, you haven’t been outside once today. You can’t sit in here day and night listening to stories.’ I dropped my knitting needles in her wool-bag and went off with Chaka to see whether we could find the eland herd.

Wednesday-evening concerts were attended by guests from the surrounding hotels. A deadly silence reigned in the dormitories; showers were taken without anything more than muted and hushed whispers; letters were distributed without the usual teasing and fanfare. Sound travels far and God help anyone whose voice reached the auditorium while a performance was in progress. When not our turn to perform, we could hear the music and applause carry through to us in the dormitories. These were some of my favourite moments. Hearing the songs from my bed. Not having to sing.

After Mr Samuels left in our Junior year and we were briefly without a conductor, Mr Mathison appointed me to conduct two of the Junior Choir’s Wednesday-night concerts. That was when we did
Oliver
as part of our programme. Richard Benson, the Senior soloist, had played Oliver on our tour earlier but with him away Dominic would be Oliver during the second, lighter part of the concert. Previously Mr Samuels had had me learn a portion of Fagin’s role:
‘One boy; boy for sale, he’s going cheap, only seven guineas’.
Excitedly I told Bok on the phone that I had my first solo part. I tried to growl out Fagin’s songs, but eventually Mr Samuels gave the part to a Senior, saying I just couldn’t act tough enough to convince anyone I was selling a boy. I lied to Bok on the phone and said the school had decided only Secondaries and Seniors would do solo parts in
Oliver.

Why Dominic or Mervyn weren’t asked to conduct our Wednesday-night concerts I had no idea and didn’t really care, even though they would have undoubtedly done a better job than me. We assumed it was because both their voices were needed in the choir. Before one of the performances I was cheeky to Marabou. She slapped me across the face and threatened to appoint a different conductor. Then, midway through the first half of the programme — to what must have been Hildegaard’s unmitigated delight — there was a humiliating moment when I couldn’t find the right combination of notes for the ‘Hodie Christi’. Four or five times I pushed the wrong chord. Eventually Mathison’s voice swept through the hall: ‘Help him, Mervyn.’

Mervy stepped forward and pressed the correct notes. I could barely continue to conduct: a fool in front of the choir and an entire audience. During break we sold LPs of earlier choirs to the audience. Everyone congratulated me on a job well done. I could hardly hear them. What was going through my mind was the ‘Hodie Christie’ chord. While we dressed into our orphan outfits for
Oliver,
all my peers said I had made a splendid conductor and that one missed chord was nothing to get stuck on.

Dominic was brilliant as Oliver. In the final scene, when we sang ‘Consider Yourself’, we bounced him up and down in a blanket. The audience was thrilled and the humiliation of my inability with the chord was forgotten by the time I had to conduct the following week. I never needed to know the notes for ‘Hodie Christi’ again, though I remember them even today: G, A, D.

‘The
Jesse Likes
rolled and the rhino were tossed from side to side in their crates. Slipping and sliding. Not a pleasant sight, I tell you. Waves broke over the bows, drenching everything on deck. They lost their footing. Awful, awful. I was concerned they’d break a leg or something. If that happened we’d of course have to get rid of the poor animals.’ Bok took another Paul Revere from his Thirties pack and gestured for Uncle Michael to pass the lighter. Aunt Siobhain clicked her tongue and said: ‘Shame, shame . . . Poor things.’

Bokkie and I had collected the girls from boarding school in Hluhluwe the previous day and then driven down to stay with our cousins in Amanzimtoti. Bok had been away for an eternity and I’d been beside myself missing him. I took a clipping from the
Daily News
that showed him loading the rhino, up to the camp store to Mr Watts. Mrs Watts asked me to read it aloud to some tourists next ‘ door in the small curio shop. The tourists asked how old I was and when I said I was almost six they said I was way ahead for my age. Unsolicited, I said I was going to be a jockey or a film star when I grew up. A woman said one had to be rather petite to become a jockey and that at five I looked as if I might grow up too tall. I said I’d stop eating and remain small. The tourists laughed.