The Satanic Mechanic (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Kosie was lying on his blanket in the chicken hok, and I sat on the edge of my bed, my feet on the floor. Henk knelt in front of me, ran his hand through my untidy brown curls and kissed me softly on the lips. Then he kissed harder. He looked into my eyes and smiled as he undid the top button of my dress. That smile that turns my heart upside down. Those eyes that are blue and grey like the sea on a rainy day. They made me forget about the dead man, and the woman locked up in prison. They even made me forget about my own problems, locked inside of me.

‘Wait,' I said, and got up to switch off the bedroom light.

There was pale starlight coming in through the sash window.

‘I want to see you,' he said, standing up to turn on a bedside light. ‘There, that's not so bright.'

He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off, then put his big arms around me and held me against his warm furry chest. He smelt like spice cake and nutmeg. His waist pressed against my belly, and I could tell he was ready. I felt ready too, but not ready to be seen. Parts of me needed to stay in the shadows.

‘I'm a bit shy,' I said. ‘The light . . .'

‘I just want to see your face,' he said.

‘That's okay,' I said, ‘it's the rest of me that's shy.'

‘Hmm,' he said, leaning down to kiss my ear. ‘How about . . .' His hands travelled down the back of my dress and onto my round bottom. It was a bit too round, but his hands didn't seem to think so. ‘How about we keep your dress on?'

His hands moved down a little further, and he edged the skirt up a little. Then a little more. His fingers followed the edge of my white lace panties.

I made some noises that I didn't really mean to make; they just came out.

‘I'll take that as a yes,' he said, his finger hooking into my panties, pulling them down.

We heard Kosie bleating, a lonely sound. Henk undid the leather belt on his jeans. It was a big belt, with stuff attached to it, including a gun holster. Everything about Henk was big; I tried not to stare as he took off his jeans.

Kosie bleated again. And again. Baaa. Baaaa. Baaaaaaa!

‘Sorry,' said Henk. ‘He sometimes does that, even in the kitchen. Just a second. Or else he will get worse.'

I sat down on the bed, and he walked to the sash window and shouted, ‘Kosie! Go to sleep, little lammetjie. Lamtietie damtietie. Doe-doe doe-doe.'

Kosie went quiet. Henk came back to me, and I got a front-row view of him putting on a condom. Then he stood me up again, kissed the top of my head and bent down to nuzzle my neck, while his hands moved my dress up over my hips. He held me firmly by the waist and lifted me up and kissed me on my throat then on my lips. I am short, but I am not a little lady, not at all, but he made me feel small and light.

Then Kosie made a real racket, bleating like crazy. We heard another sound: a rough sawing call. Then the noise of chickens kicking up a big fuss.

‘Leopard,' said Henk, lowering me onto the floor.

I felt let down. But I loved my hens, and that hok might keep out a rooikat, a lynx, but it was no match for a leopard. Henk pulled on his jeans and headed for the door.

‘Take a weapon,' I said, looking around for something, finding only my hairbrush.

‘Leopards are very shy.'

‘Not if you get between a leopard and her lamb.'

‘I have my gun,' he said, patting the holster on his belt, but he took the hairbrush from me anyway.

‘Be careful, Henk,' I said as he left, suddenly realising he meant more to me than my hens. Much more. Although I really loved those chickens.

The lamb and the hens were still shouting for help. I leant out of my window into the darkness and shouted, ‘Go away, Leopard! Voetsek!'

A beam of light lit up the wild camphor tree outside my window, and Henk ran past with his torch, gun and hairbrush.

Soon Henk came back to the bedroom with a shivering lamb in his arms.

‘It's okay, Kosie,' he said, ‘it's okay, lammetjie. The leopard's gone.'

‘Did you see it? Are my hens okay?'

‘Ja. Its tracks were by the hok, but it didn't get in. There was rustling in the bushes; I threw your hairbrush, then heard something disappear into the veld.'

He laid Kosie's blanket on the floor and tried to settle the lamb on it, but Kosie bleated hysterically when separated from Henk, so he picked him up again and held the shivering lammetjie in his arms. It nuzzled its head under his armpit. Henk sighed and sat down on the bed. I sat down next to him and leant my head on his shoulder.

But Henk is not a man who gives up easily. He managed to slip Kosie off his lap and me onto it. Then I was lying on the bed, and Henk was slowly lowering himself onto me.

He looked into my eyes and said, ‘My hartlam.' My heart lamb.

Then, suddenly, I saw Fanie on top of me and remembered things I didn't want to remember. A wave of black nausea washed over me, and although the rest of my body disagreed, my arms pushed Henk away, and my mouth cried out.

‘What did you say?' Henk asked. ‘Did I hurt you?'

‘I feel sick,' I said, wriggling out from under him. I was shaking. ‘I am so sorry.'

I rushed to the bathroom. The pictures I didn't want to see, the secrets I didn't want to tell, were bashing about in my head. I knelt down and threw up into the toilet. Until I felt completely empty.

Henk was at the bathroom door, knocking.

‘Maria . . .'

‘Just leave me,' I said. ‘I'll be fine.'

The words I'd said, when I'd pushed him off me, were: ‘I'll kill you.'

When I was finished in the bathroom, Henk offered me a tot of brandy, and I shook my head. We lay down, and he held me tight against his chest. I was still shaking, and he pulled the blanket over me. After a while, he started snoring. The frogs were singing, but quieter now, like the party was over. I carefully climbed out from under his arm and made my way to the kitchen. I knew what I needed. It wasn't brandy; it was Venus Cake.

I took the lid off the tin and saw the cake glistening inside.

‘Jislaaik, you look good,' I said.

I ate until the bad taste was gone from my mouth. I ate until the shivering stopped. I ate until every corner of the emptiness was filled with peanut-butter coffee chocolate cake.

But even though it was the most satisfying cake I had ever made, and I'd eaten almost half of it, I did not feel complete. I wanted something else. And then, there he was, standing in the kitchen – the man I wanted to love and make love with.

‘Maria . . .' he said.

He looked at me and at the cake. The tears started leaking from my eyes. I looked away; I didn't want him to see me covered with icing and tears. But he touched my chin and turned my face towards him.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I'll try . . .'

But I didn't know what I could try.

CHAPTER FOUR

Monday morning, I drove along the stretch of dirt road from my house to Route 62, and the ten minutes into Ladismith. My little Nissan pick-up is a sky-blue bakkie with a cloud-white canopy. We had been lucky with the rains this year. On the mountainside there were some patches of purple and yellow where the ericas and other fynbos were flowering, but mostly the veld was different shades of green. Grey-green of the sweet-smelling bushes, brown-green of the grass, deep green of the karee, gwarrie and boerboon trees, bright green of the spekbome – the bacon trees. There should be different names for each of these greens.

The sky was pale turquoise, a kind autumn sky after the long hot summer. I could see it was a lovely day, but my heart was having trouble enjoying it.

Outside the
Klein Karoo Gazette
office, I parked in the shade of a jacaranda tree, next to Jessie's red scooter, which had her bike helmet clipped onto it. We kept a good distance from the back of Hattie's white Toyota Etios, because her reversing was even worse than her forward driving.

I walked along the path between the potted vetplantjies. The leaves of the little succulents were fat and silver-green. The building used to be a grand Victorian-style house; the
Gazette
now shares it with a small plant nursery and an art gallery. Like my farmhouse, it was built a hundred years ago and has mud-brick walls, and floors and ceilings of Oregon wood. But it's a town house and bigger and fancier than mine.
At the front of the building are pillars with broekie-lace ironwork and those ‘Ladismith eyes' – round, patterned air vents. The
Gazette
office fits into one room at the side of the house. I heard Jessie and Hattie chatting as I walked between the plants towards the open door. I was carrying a fresh tin of buttermilk beskuit – one of my favourite kind of rusks – and a Tupperware with a few remaining slices of Venus Cake.

‘This is the guy I'm going to interview in Oudtshoorn,' Jessie was saying, pointing to the front page of the
Weekly Mail
. The newspaper was on Hattie's desk. ‘Slimkat Kabbo.'

‘“Slimkat” . . . makes a change from all the “fat cats”,' said Hattie.

‘“Slim” means “clever”, not “thin”, Hattie. Anyway, I'll interview him tomorrow if someone doesn't kill him first. He's had death threats.'

‘Goodness gracious,' said Hattie. ‘Just up your alley, Jess. But can you link the story to your coverage of the arts festival? You said he was launching his book there.'

‘Ja. It's about the Bushman struggle for land.
My land, my siel
. My land, my soul,' She looked up at me. ‘Oh, hello, Tannie M!'

Jessie's a lot younger than me, so she usually calls me Tannie – Auntie. Her smile was wide in her brown face. It got wider as I handed her the Tupperware with the cake. She's short like me (though not as round), and her dark hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore her usual black vest, jeans, and belt full of pouches with useful things in them.

‘Maria, darling,' said Hattie. ‘We were discussing the KKNK.' The Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees is the arts festival that happens in Oudtshoorn every year. ‘Will you be coming?'

‘I'm not sure—' I said.

‘My, oh my, whatever happened to your hair?'

Hattie is tall, blonde, blue-eyed, speaks a Mary-Poppins-posh English and never has a hair out of place. She's the owner and editor of the
Klein Karoo Gazette
. Today she wore a clean cream top and an uncreased apricot skirt. Jessie's half my age, and Hattie's in her mid fifties – not much older than me, but it sometimes feels like she is the grown up, with Jess and I the youngsters.

I ran my fingers through my messier-than-usual brown curls. I had
on a green floral dress that sort of matched my eyes but was already wrinkled.

‘Henk threw my hairbrush at a leopard,' I said.

‘What?!' said Jessie. Then she opened the Tupperware and forgot about the leopard. She popped a piece of cake into her mouth.

‘Here you are,' Hattie said, handing me a hairbrush and a small mirror.

‘Ta,' I said, and did the best I could with the brush. ‘It's called the Venus Cake.'

‘Oh. My. God,' said Jessie. ‘It is totally awesome.' She stroked the gecko tattoo on her upper arm, which is something she does when she's happy. ‘Out of this world.'

I put on the kettle, which lives on my desk next to the beskuit tin, and prepared coffee and rusks for us, and tea for Hats. Hattie's not much interested in food, apart from my milk tart, that is. She's funny that way.

There was quite a pile of letters on my desk. ‘Tannie Maria's Love Advice and Recipe Column' is popular. People write in with their problems, and I give them some advice and a recipe that I hope will help. Finding just the right recipe takes time, and I only work half-days. You'd think that with all the advice I give, I'd be able to sort out my own problems. But you know how it is: a mechanic often doesn't fix his own car.

I opened last week's
Gazette
to the page with my column. There was my recipe for soetkoekies, those old-fashioned sweet biscuits, which I'd given to that woman who was feeling bitter about her mother-in-law. Next to my letter was a small advert in a pink box, saying, ‘Relationship problems? Difficulty with intimacy? Free FAMSA counselling at your local hospital. Family and Marriage Association of South Africa.' And a phone number. Could they help me with my problems? I wondered. I dipped my rusk, took a bite and felt better right away.

Jessie and Hattie were still talking about the newspaper article and this guy, Slimkat. I took my coffee over to Hattie's desk to have a look. The headlines said: ‘Kuruman San Land-Claims Victory'.

There was a photograph of a big group of people on the steps of
the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein. Closest to the camera were two men who were being carried on the shoulders of others. One looked like a lawyer: a white guy with a neat haircut and pinstriped suit, his mouth wide open as if shouting, and his arms stretched up in the air with joy. The other was a small man, in a T-shirt and neatly pressed trousers. He was a little crouched, and looking away, as if shy or thinking of climbing down.

‘That's Slimkat,' Jessie said to me. ‘One of the Bushman leaders.'

‘San or Bushman?' asked Hattie. ‘What is the politically correct term these days?'

‘Organisations say “San”, but most Bushmen say “Bushman”,' said Jessie. ‘Both are okay, I think.'

‘So they won at last,' I said. ‘That case has been going on a long time.'

‘Ja, they got some international funding for legal fees, and the Supreme Court ruled in their favour.'

‘I am glad,' I said. The Bushmen were good people who had been treated badly.

‘Hardcore, the diamond miners, aren't,' said Hattie, pointing at a tall man in a dark suit, standing higher up the court stairs, looking down his nose at the Bushmen below.

‘Nor is Agribeest, the cattle company,' said Jessie, tapping her finger on the big belly of a man with cross eyebrows and crossed arms.

‘These companies were both after the nature reserve beside the Kuruman River, which has now been awarded to the Bushmen as their ancestral lands,' Hattie explained. The talk of Kuruman made me think of Tannie Kuruman from the Route 62 Café and her excellent chicken pies.

The title under the photograph said: ‘San leaders celebrate their victory'. The lawyer certainly looked happy, but the faces of the Bushmen were peaceful rather than celebratory. Some had soft smiles, but no one was jumping up and down.

Amongst the small crowd were an old man and woman wearing traditional clothes: leather aprons, ostrich beads, headbands with feathers and porcupine quills. The old woman was holding the hand of a small
boy who wore only a loincloth; her face was turned away from the camera, looking at the child. A young woman in a smart dress gazed up at Slimkat with adoring eyes.

One of the Bushmen was not looking happy at all. He was staring at something or someone outside of the photograph. His fists were held tight, as if ready to fight.

‘They are a modest-looking bunch,' said Hattie.

‘Ja, it's not the Bushman way to boast,' said Jessie. ‘Even if they catch a big animal when hunting they will tell others it is small. And they are cautious too. For good reason.'

She read out loud from the paper: ‘Caitlin Graaf, spokesperson for the International Indigenous People's Organisation, said, “The San leaders have been subjected to harassment and death threats over the last few months. We are investigating this seriously and will not hesitate to take legal action.”

‘When asked about how they felt about this ground-breaking victory, Ms Graaf said, “Of course we are all pleased that the San can return in peace to their ancestral lands in Kuruman, but the San are not people to crow over a victory.”'

I looked at the lawyer with his arms in the air, and Slimkat crouching down.

‘“There is a saying,”' Jessie continued reading. ‘“The rooster that crows loudest at dawn is eaten by the jackal at nightfall.”'