Now Now
I still have hands and feet and eyes – this will serve me well. I am somewhere in a winery. The vines hang and hands work to pick the grapes: frantic, moving, cloth-like hands. I am looking out at the expanse of the Western Cape. I can see the lights of Stellenbosch in the distance where the students are. Where, possibly, my son is studying – it would be helpful to still know these things.
I don’t know exactly where my feet are heading. Those scampy stumps have a mind of their own, one I can never control. What drove me from the Atlantic seaboard to here was the pure instinct of these two feet. They brought me to this strange country in the first place.
Herbert would be at work. He wouldn’t know for hours that I was gone. So run. Feel the magic, the heat dripping. Think of summer holidays running through the sand dunes in Gullane, the North Sea ice still clinging to your body, draining the Scottish soul before it had the chance even to be half-filled. Here, the wind blows but the earth is silent. Nothing moves but working hands, whistles in the distance, the occasional rumbling of a jeep engine. It could mean war, or it could mean nothing.
I am not here to interpret anymore. I never was. I was here for love – something like that. That word felt awfully heavy but, then again, Herbert was a destiny laid out. When I met him in that dusty bar in Chelsea – was it 1970? – I knew in a second that he was a man I wanted. Oh, the way he talked to the staff: controlling, barbed but polite. The deference of the others there. The opulent wealth that he was never obtuse about. To a young model making her way through London, Herbert seemed like the perfect conduit to the inner circle. Back then my accent was mocked – it was the only part of me that appeared unconventional. Herbert liked that, back then. He bought me a drink before anybody else in the room had even sat down.
Now, we must keep moving. If the jeep is the war, tanks coming in, if the townships are burning, then we must keep moving. I have time, but the Cape is not a safe place to linger too long past nightfall. Herbert’s goons will soon be swarming, needle-eyes looking for white amongst the black – a woman amongst the men. In this country of division and classifications, to be invisible was impossible. But I will try; God, I will try. Maybe I will cross a border. Maybe I will reach Durban or East London and pay a man to take me across in his boat to a new reality.
Among the vines I think, Soon these words, this language, will mean nothing to me, I’m sure. Soon it will be a memory, lost to me. Me and June, my old English-speaking companion, mocked it in the tearooms, for it was an ugly way to speak, we thought. English is much more serene, we thought, but since independence it is now the second language in a country which has over thirty. Herbert would laugh and say, “Afrikaans is our heritage.” And later, while watching the news: “Look at how the Africans speak with all their clicks – so far away from anything a dictionary could document.” It was foreign to his ears, but it just made me think of something in the wind blowing through the veld: ringing, ringing, ringing. The voices of ancestors ringing, ringing, ringing. The voice of the country ringing, ringing, ringing. I was hearing it more and more often now. Even the maids would speak it to their children in their quarters, where they used to speak only broken English for their education.
A long time ago, when you were out shooting in the country, I heard the same whispers of the language these wine workers are speaking now. It is different from the ones I usually hear. I don’t know the names but I have heard it only once before, spoken by the boy in the corner, huddled under the bushes – a long way from the Cape Flats or wherever he had come from, out in the wilderness.
Can you remember the voice that haunted these valleys? They had shot an eland, Herbert and his friends. The black boy watched the bullet so intensely and analyzed the death of the animal as though it were a human experiment. I think I was the only one who saw him. He had on a ragged Manchester United strip, a pair of shorts, and a tatty leather jacket. I let him stay hidden. I thought he may be with the terrorists, but still, this seemed like something to do.
The boy whispered to a figure who was obscured to me. He spoke in this language, this strange tongue. He seemed to be looking for something. I thought it may be a militia, and I thought it was a deep irony that the police commissioner might die being hunted like sport. I could imagine the blood leaving his body and saw him dying on a hilltop like a Voortrekker. He was born in the city and knew nothing of the farms, but to die like a farmer protecting his land like the Boers of old seemed to be every white man’s dream. We will die here as folk heroes and be remembered as villains.
He didn’t die and the boy disappeared soon after. Later that day, it was discovered, some wiring had gone missing from an animal’s cage.
I must stop looking at this woman now, in the vineyard, for she looks scared. I always hated that look of fear. It’s why I don’t look at Black people very often; even my maid must turn away when I enter. Herbert likes to stare right into their eyes.
First, before I move, I will go into the farm and ask the owner for some water. I will then ask him for directions to a shop where I will buy what I need. It is early enough in my escape that this holds little risk, but I need to get plenty of supplies while I still can – as many supplies as I can carry. To deal with the man at the farm, I would need my wits about me. Indeed, he would think I was trouble out here all alone; then he would see me and think I was in trouble, then lastly he would hear the surname ‘du Plessis’ and think he was in trouble.
I have to work out how to get to the farm from his wineries without immediately being labeled a thief, or worse, a worker leaving before they were permitted. I can see the white facade of his house, the well-maintained green garden patch outside, a pond like a moat, a fence, guard dogs. The vineyard’s centerpiece surrounded by those cloth-like hands: picking, picking, picking. You can’t stay here, though, lying amongst the vineyards. The man will find you eventually. Maybe the police will know by then, maybe your picture will be on the TV.
Better to go now while I’m still invisible. So stand up, look at the workers and ask for their silence. They will listen to me, for I look official, like the wife of the vineyard owner. Hell, they probably can’t tell the difference. I probably am her, just as the voices here probably sound like the little boy in the football strip to me. When I make the ‘ssshhh’ gesture towards them, they say nothing. I creep around the bushes, around the back of the house to the front. I start to imagine the landscape as a chess board and me as a piece, with the liberty to move in any way I want. I approach the house, ring the bell, and watch a young man in his checkered shirt come down.
“Tannie, what is it? Are you okay?”
Checkmate.
“Come in for a tea, Auntie,” he says to me. “Come in and we will be safe.” For outside, the hands are still moving and the workday is not yet over. The curfew had not yet been imposed, the military jeep was not yet an enforcer, just an observer. But wait until night falls. Maybe I will see the flames and hear the sirens we read so much about. This would make me happy. I would like to see a little bit of destruction. I don’t hate this country, nor do I love it, but to watch something burn is exhilarating – even an inanimate object such as a piece of paper, lit alight by a schoolboy until it is cindered ash. That’s how I feel about dear old Suid-Afrika: a piece of paper slowly smoldering. Now I was a jumping ember.
Scotland burned for me a long time ago. Now, it is a place of memories as opposed to a country, but maybe that’s all a country is. And if the memories are different for everyone, then everyone has a different country. That means there are six billion countries; that means this place doesn’t exist. This is why, Herbert, your memories are useless, your heritage a sham, because this land is a land is a land is a land, just like Scotland is a land is a land is a land is a land; and feet walk and different faces smile and cry, bodies buried underneath rot and time’s needle moves. Stay stagnant, for the land doesn’t.
Oh, I used to talk about these things in cafes in London. That seems like a long time ago, when the world had no passport and no tramlines; when there was no signs to say, “You can’t step here”. Ot if there was, I barely noticed them. Now, I tend to stick to home and to cooking. Herbert doesn’t mind what I do as long as I cook for him and let him have sex with me twice a week. These are the two constants of our marriage; they keep the wheels of his life spinning, his business booming.
But now I have gone. Now that I have slipped, I can’t recover that reality. And the reality of the passion I had in the past with different men, young men, is a bygone one. It is not a question of returning to London, it is that the 60s are a time I can never have back – they were freedom, music, hash; I don’t know if they existed in the same way here. I had an image which could be captured irrespective of whose arm was around my waist. My disgraces were all still ahead of me, and to be disgraced seemed then like the greatest thing ever. Now it just seems like a headache. Could you imagine your figure in a bikini now, or a tight-fitting Dolce & Gabbana piece? It would make you laugh.
I’m accepting the young man’s offer. He called me “Auntie”. I’ve never learned to love that particular Afrikaner deference to age; it just makes me feel old. The house is large but ramshackle. And who is the boy? He looks to be in his early twenties; he has an unkempt beard and a tired look. It is clear he is not the owner as he takes me through to the kitchen.
“You want tea?” he says.
“Tea would be lovely,” I smile politely.
“Sit down on the sofa; make yourself comfortable. My dad will be back soon and you can tell him what’s going on.”
He is heating up water in the stove; the back door is open and the dogs roam, patrolling up the edge of the barbed-wire fence. I don’t know what to tell the owner when he comes. I need to think of a good reason for pitching up at the door of a random vineyard that doesn’t make me seem dangerous. The boy pours the hot water onto the teabag but doesn’t let it settle; for two seconds he swirls it around and then quickly takes it out and puts it in the bin. The tea tastes ghastly when he brings it to me. He offers his hand.
“Johan.”
“Pleased to meet you, Johan.”
“You too. What brings you here? Are you okay?” He looks me over with a sense of politeness, respect, and concern – the holy trinity.
“I’m fine, just lost.”
“Oh well, we are just outside Stellenbosch. Where is your accent from?”
“Scotland.”
“A Brit. Oh, my dad won’t like that,” he chuckles. “What brings you here?”
“I’ve lived here for 18 years. I’m married to a South African in Cape Town.”
“My dad will give you a lift back to the city if you’d like,” he says kindly, smiling. “It’s not safe to make the journey alone, with the current situation. My dad knows the route; it’s a little longer than usual but –”
“I don’t want to go back to Cape Town. I’m heading to Durban.”
He looks at me inquisitively. “You’ve got a long way to go, tannie, a long way. Do you not have a car?”
“No, but I need to find a friend of mine. It’s important.”
“Well, okay. What’s your name again?”
I pause. “Linda. Linda Clark.” Don’t tell him you are Sarah du Plessis and he will trust you more…
“Well, Linda – my dad will be back soon. Until then, please make yourself comfortable.”
But all I could see was the mess, the heat shining through the windows illuminating the stub of a rifle.
*
When the owner returns, he turns out to be a man whose stature does not match that of his farm. He is much smaller than his son and he wears a white shirt and brown trousers. Still, he commands the kind of respect I only hold for Herbert, and even that is now fading. He talks to the boy outside and then introduces himself. He says very little.
“Hello, Linda. You should stay with us tonight.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay. I’m just looking for directions to the shop –”
“Curfew is coming soon; you shouldn’t be out.”
“But I need to –”
“No, lady, I won’t take no for an answer. We can’t have the good women of this country out alone when the place is burning. You will sleep, and tomorrow we phone your husband, ja?”
I don’t want to stay, but I know resistance is futile. I know he won’t listen to those words; and I know what he said is right. He continues, taking my silence as a yes: “We have a spare room, please take it; Johan will show you.” That is all he says, and then he disappears again. Before he does, he picks up the rifle – this is the main thing I notice.
When Johan shows me the room, I see that it is a farmer’s room. I haven’t slept somewhere so small since the 60s – since London squats and, before those, Govan tenements. I was poor then, poor as can be, but now I hardly remember it. Now for one night again I will sleep like a member of staff; a high-ranking one with her own room, but still staff. I guess it will have to do. I guess I will need some food.
Johan says, “Is this okay for the night? I know it’s not perfect, but it is safe. Pa makes sure.” I’m sure he does. I’m sure the fence keeps you safe. I’m sure the expanse of the Cape, though, harbours many shadows, and some shadows are smarter than others. Smarter even than the blunt instruments used by your father. His gun and his fences can’t hold out forever – or maybe they can, I don’t know. As long as they work for the night, nothing else matters. I will leave early in the morning before the phone call can be made, before I can provide him with a number I don’t have.
“I’ll leave you to get comfortable. I’ll be here if you need anything.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Johan, but I am quite hungry.”
“Ja, ja, of course you are,” he grins. “I can make some chicken? Or I might have some boerewors?”
“Chicken is good.”
“Of course, give me half an hour.”
I sat there for forty minutes, watching the walls. There were three books and only one in English: an Agatha Christie murder mystery. I read it with intrigue until he called me, knocking on my door.
“Let’s have some chicken then, eh?” He smiled. I was starting to like this boy – polite, well turned out, and funny; kind of like my son. They were both army skippers as well; they must be.
“So, Johan, why aren’t you out there with the SADF?”
He looked at me, worried. “I’m just back.”
“So, you have already served your conscription? You don’t look old enough.”
“Ja, ja, well, I have a youthful face, but I was out in Angola.”
“Okay, enough said.”
“Yes, better not to talk about it. I might go back out if I can’t stay here.”
“What, to the townships?”
He shrugged. “You know this is the last chance for us in Africa. I have to fight. What happened to Rhodesia can’t happen here, you know. Anyway, let’s not get started on politics. An English and an Afrikaner, eh? Never ends well.” He laughed. “But we must be united. Tell me about your life in Cape Town.” His eyes lit up. “What does such a beautiful woman do with herself in the city, huh? I bet you have such an exciting life.”
“Not really, Johan. I’m a housewife.”
“Ah, the domesticated woman! How many kids? Who is your husband? What does he do?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“Who doesn’t? You just turned up here like a ghost.”
I couldn’t help but laugh and smile at his youthful arrogance. Oh, the boy was sweet; he had fight and candor and passion – all misdirected, of course, but when had that ever not been the case? “I don’t have any children, and my husband is a businessman.”
“Oh, a housewife with no kids? How come? What do you do all day?”
“It’s quite rude, Johan, to ask a lady why she doesn’t have any children.”
“And it’s quite rude to turn up unannounced and make me cook you a meal, yet here we are.” His grinning, contemptuous face – I realized he had stopped referring to me as tannie or auntie.
“Well, I never wanted any. And I cook and clean and keep my house for my husband.”
“Oh yeah? And why aren’t you there now? What’s your business in Durban?”
“Well, it’s part of a business deal.”
“Oh, okay.” He winked. “A business deal. What are you really running from?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh ja?” He smiled.
I scraped the rest of the chicken around my plate. “Do you have any coffee?”
He grinned. “No, but we can have a cigarette.” He lit one and passed me the packet.
“Sure.” I took it and smoked. I don’t smoke often now; I used to back in the day. Who didn’t in Glasgow in the 60s? And who didn’t in London in the 60s? Indeed, who didn’t smoke anywhere, at any time, in any place, in the 60s?
“So, Linda, I don’t care what or who you are running from.” He sighed and exhaled the smoke in an almost erotic manner which surprised me, as he leaned back against the chair, eyes measuring my body inch by inch. “It’s good to have some company here. Since the barracks, I’ve just been here.”
“You don’t have any friends? Girlfriends?”
“No,” he grinned. “Nothing like that. I’m alone on the farm. All alone.”
“Well, you should come to Cape Town. You know, study and –”
He laughed. “Study what? Eh, I don’t have any qualifications, and I’m good on the farm. I have my staff. I’m a good manager.”
“I’m sure you are a good manager.” I roll my eyes. Yes, I’m sure you are, with no education and no qualifications.
“Ja, I am. They respect me and I respect them; it’s simple.” He scratched his chin. “In the city, though, I would love to hear the music.”
“Not much chance of that anymore.”
“Well, it must still be more exciting than here. Tell me, how is England?”
“England is England. I am from Scotland.”
“Ja, but the only difference is the rugby teams.”
“You may think that.”
“I do. So, how is Scotland then?”
“It’s okay. Different from here.”
“Everywhere is different from here.”
“Most places are more like it than you think.”
“You travelled a lot then?”
“No, I’m just saying –”
“Just saying what?” His grin was starting to annoy me no end.
“I just mean … Oh, it doesn’t matter. Let’s stop the heavy stuff for tonight. I’m tired; I might go to bed.” I try to sound resigned to bed.
“There is still more wine,” he says.
“Well, you can finish it.”
He pours me a glass then says, “I’ve already poured you a glass.”
Ah youth – terrifying, backbreaking youth. “Fine, I’ll finish the glass.”
Johan talks about music and then cricket and then he talks about Dallas. I tell him, “I don’t watch TV.” He tells me I’m old and that I really must. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the SABC would never show anything that interests me. I know he would then, no doubt, ask what does interest me, and I don’t want to answer that because I don’t know – and even if I did know, I think the answers would worry him.
As we are sitting there, getting drunk, and the wind shakes the house gently, we are slowly moving closer. First he touches my hand and then my leg. I haven’t felt the touch of another man in a long time, and he is so much younger than me.
“I could be your mother, Johan.”
He chuckles, “But you’re not,” and leans in to kiss. I feel his unshaven skin bristle against my chin. At first, I pull away and keep my mouth firmly shut, but then I open and allow him to push me towards him, submitting to the vineyard, submitting to the Cape, falling down into the boy’s hands. I wonder how often he gets visitors.
“Do you want to go to your room?” he whispers, now gently moving his hands up my top, feeling my breasts. I don’t know, but I nod and follow him. It is over in 10 minutes. Johan is still laughing, as if something about sex amuses him, while we sit beneath the covers of my bed. We are not touching. After he cums, we do not kiss. He just puts a cigarette to his lips.
“Hey, tannie, that was nice, wasn’t it? I wish more ladies got lost out here.” He chuckled. “Wow, I haven’t felt that way since Angola.”
“What does that mean, Johan?”
“Ah nothing, nothing. I wish I could sleep next to you, but my dad will be back soon. I’m going to have a bath and let you sleep.” He doesn’t kiss me again before he leaves. He turns off the light as if commanding me to sleep.
I wake up at 4 a.m. and think of how to leave. The first step is simple: I climb out of the window. But then how do I get over the fence? That is the big lingering question. I can’t scale it. So instead, I decide to wake Johan. I stand in his room, shaking his sleeping body. “Johan, Johan,” I whisper. I look at him at this moment and see a child. Earlier seems a long time ago now; a different person almost. He wakes up.
“L-Linda, what is it? Are you okay?”
“How do I get out the gate?”
He switches on the light. “Are you leaving?”
“Yes, yes, please – I need to, you don’t understand.”
“Well, make me understand and then I’ll help.”
“Well, I just can’t go home.”
“Where will you go? Durban is too ambitious; you’ll never make it.”
“I don’t care where I go.”
“Well, I’m coming with you.”
He stands up stridently, suddenly putting his stuff together: four pairs of pants, two shirts, and a book in an army rucksack slung over his shoulder.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, yes I am. Come on, I need the excitement.”
I think I could let him believe I could be with him just so he can get me out of here. “Okay, okay, fine.”
“Really?” He grins.
“Yes. Now, how do we get out?”
“Oh, easy, I have the key.” He takes it from his bedroom drawer. “I can open it.”
We are out in the fields. It is dark. We do not have torches. I can barely make out anything but the guiding lights and sounds from the townships; the armored cars in the distance that endlessly move towards it. What lies in front of me, though, is empty.
I take Johan’s hand and let him guide me through the winery. It feels quiet without those voices, with only Johan whispering about where we can go next. I’m not listening. I let the words wash over me, but I am used to humoring men and know what to say so he believes my sincerity. It’s very easy with men; they tend to believe what they want to believe.
When we are through the gate, Johan says, “Where should we sleep?” I point out those glittering lights and walk towards the motorway, in the direction of the township. Johan looks at me as though I am insane. “We can’t go down there.”
“Are you coming or not?”
Johan just freezes. He doesn’t come. He sits and watches me walk down, confused. I can hear the ringing of something. I sense my life could very soon be over. I wonder where my son is; I wonder what is happening in Scotland right now; I think of Herbert’s goons out looking for me; I think of blood and Manchester United.
I look back at Johan as he gets smaller and smaller, and then toward those lights – the shacks, the fires that glisten ever bright.
