Cobra (49 page)

He saw how her face crumpled. He saw her begin to cry, and he thought,
fok
, that was the wrong thing to say.

‘I’ll see a doctor,’ he said.

She hugged him tightly. He felt the warmth of her breath, and her tears. ‘I was so scared, Benny. I was never enough for Adam. I thought that was why he strayed. I just wanted to be enough for you.’

Adam, her late husband.

‘You are more than enough for me,’ he said. ‘Just not every day.’

‘Thank God,’ she said.

And then he heard her vibrant, joyful laugh.

GLOSSARY

Ai – ah, oh; ow, ouch, mostly used a little despairingly.

Ag – Very similar to ‘ai’: ah!, oh!; alas, pooh!, mostly used with resignation.

Annerlike – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘a different kind of’ – often used in a negative way. (Cape Flats slang refers to the Afrikaans spoken on the Cape Flats, a vast area east of Cape Town, where the majority of ‘Cape Coloured’ people reside. ‘Coloured people’ refer to the descendants of Malaysian slaves in South Africa (forced migration by the Dutch East India Company), who intermarried with white farmers and local Khoi people – as opposed to Blacks (descendants of the Bantu people) and Whites (descendants of European settlers).

Appie – Diminutive of ‘apprentice’, someone who is learning a trade.

Baie – Afrikaans for ‘A lot’, or ‘very’.

Bergie - Cape Flats Afrikaans for a homeless person, often a vagrant, living on the side of Table Mountain (berg = mountain).

Blerrie – Cape Flats slan for ‘bloody’.

Bliksem – Mild profanity, used as an exclamation or adjective (‘Damn!’ or ‘damned’), a verb (I will ‘bliksem’ you = I will hit you hard).

Blougatte – When trainee constables attend police college, they wear blue uniforms, and are called ‘blue arses’, or ‘blougatte’. The nickname is also used to refer to lower, uniformed police ranks in uniform as a slightly derogatory term, as opposed to plain clothes police women and men.

Boetie – Diminutive of ‘broer’, which means ‘brother’.

Bok – Afrikaans for ‘goat’ or ‘deer’, but used much more widely. ‘Here’s a middle-aged bok with a pretty young thing’ refers to an Afrikaans idiom ‘an old goat likes green leaves’, meaning ‘an older man likes younger women’. ‘Bok’ or the diminutive ‘bokkie’ is also used an as endearment for men or women.

Broe’, daai’s kwaai – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘Brother, that’s heavy’.

Coloured – See ‘Annerlike’ above.

Daai, daai’s – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘that’ (daai) or ‘that is’ (daai’s).

Daatlik – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘immediately’.

Dagga – Afrikaans for cannabis.

Die Boer – Literally, ‘The Farmer’. It is the name of a famous, intimate music theatre in Durbanville, a suburb of Cape Town.

Die rekening is agterstallig – Afrikaans for ‘Your account is in arrears.’

Dis ‘n lekker een die – Afrikaans for ‘this is a good one’. ‘Lekker’ is word widely used for anything that is ‘good’, ‘delicious’, ‘tasty’.

Dof – Afrikaans for ‘faint’, but also used to indicate a stupid person.

Donner – Mild Afrikaans expletive, literally meaning ‘thunder’. Often used in the sense of “I am going to donner you’ – I am going to hurt / hit you.

Doos – Afrikaans expletive, comparing someone to female genitalia. Closest English translation would be ‘cunt’.

Dop – Afrikaans for ‘a drink’, referring to alcohol.

Drol – Afrikaans for ‘turd’.

Dronkgat – Afrikaans for ‘drunkard’. (Literally, ‘a drunk arse’.)

Ek kom van die Pniel af – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘I come from Pniel’. Pniel is a village near Stellenbosch.

Ek sê jou – Afrikaans for ‘I am telling you.’

Ek versta’ jou nie – Afrikaans for ‘I don’t understand you’. (Cape Flats vernacular.)

Ek vra ma net – Afrikaans for ‘I am just asking.’

Ek wiet, ja – Cape Flats vernacular for ‘I know, yes.’

Flippen – Mild expletive, used as an acceptable alternative for ‘fucking’. (Afrikaans.)

Fokken – Afrikaans for ‘fucking’, as in ‘that fucking guy . . .’

Gefok – Afrikaans for ‘fucked’, as in ‘I am fucked.’

Fok weet – Afrikaans for ‘fuck knows’.

Fokkit – Afrikaans for ‘fuck it’.

Fokker – Afrikaans for ‘fucker’.

Fokkol – Afrikaans for ‘fuck all’, meaning ‘nothing’.

Goeters – Afrikaans for ‘stuff’.

Gooi – Literally, Afrikaans for ‘throw’, but used as a slang verb substitute for, inter alia, ‘sing for us’, or ‘tell me’ …

Hase – Literally, Afrikaans for ‘rabbits’, but used here as the collective name by which members of the South African police refer to the public.

Helm – Literally, Afrikaans for ‘helmet’. According to local superstition, when a baby is born with the placenta covering her / his head, it is believed the baby is born with the ‘helm’, and could have a special talent of foretelling the future, or ‘see’ or ‘feel’ evil.

“
Here is an example so long
” – ‘So long’ is a typical example of how Afrikaans had influenced South African English. ‘Solank’ (literally means ‘in the mean time’) became ‘so long’, and is widely used.

Hier’s nou ‘n ding – ‘Now here’s a thing.’ (Afrikaans.)

Hierjy – A nobody, as in “I am not just some nobody’. (Afrikaans.)

Hyahi – IsiZulu for ‘No!’. (South Africa has 11 official languages: Afrikaans, English, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga. Township slang transcends all 11.)

Jakob Regop – Afrikaans for the fl ower zinnia. Literally means ‘Jacob standing at attention’ sometimes Anglicized as ‘Jacob Straight-up’, it can also refer to an erect male sexual organ.

Jirre – Cape Flats slang for God, approximates ‘Gawd’. (Afrikaans.)

Jissis – Jeez (as in harsher version of the exclamation Jesus!) (Afrikaans.)

Jy’s – Abbreivates form of the Afrikaans ‘jy is’, meaning ‘you are’.

Jy kannie net loep nie – ‘You can’t just walk away?’ (Afrikaans.)

Jy wiet. Jy wietie – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘You know’. Or: ‘You don’t know’ = jy wietie.

Kaaps – Literally, ‘from the Cape’ or ‘of the Cape’, referring to anything from the Cape Town region, or the wider Western Cape Province. (South Africa has nine provinces (similar to the states of the USA): Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northwest, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Western Cape.)

Kak – ‘Shit’.

Knippies – Literally, ‘knip’ is Afrikaans for ‘clasp’, ‘clip’ or ‘fastener’. Knippies would literally be the plural form, but used here as a nickname for the pickpocket Tyrone Kleinbooi, who uses a hair clip as distraction.

Kwaai – Mostly used in slang form to indicate coolness, it is an Afrikaans word with a very wide application. Literally meaning someone who is hot-tempered, bad-tempered, ill-natured, harsh or severe, it is also often used as an exclamation: ‘Kwaai!’ = “Cool!’ (or ‘Heavy!’).

Kwaat – Cape Flats Afrikaans for ‘angry’.

Lat ek een hier het – Afrikaans (Cape Flats vernacular) of: ‘… that I have one here.’ “And it just so happens lat ek een hier het” means: “And it just so happens that I have one with me / right here with me”.

Lekka, lekker – Afrikaans word widely used for anything that is ‘good’, ‘delicious’, ‘tasty’. (‘Lekka’ is Cape Flats vernacular, ‘lekker’ is formal Afrikaans.)

Liewe ffff – Literally, ‘dear ffff . . .’ US English equivalent would be “Sweet fff…’ as in someone just stopping short of saying ‘sweet fuck’.

Lobola – (Or Labola, an isiZulu or isiXhosa word, sometimes translated as ‘bride price’.) A traditional Southern African custom whereby the man pays the family of his fiancée for her hand in marriage. The custom is aimed at bringing the two families together, fostering mutual respect, and indicating that the man is capable of supporting his wife financially and emotionally. Traditionally paid in heads of cattle, but cash is now widely accepted. (Source: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobolo
)

Los – Afrikaans for ‘loose’.

Ma’ – Abbreviated form of ‘maar’, meaning ‘but’. (Afrikaans.)

Ma’ nou weet hulle – ‘But now they know.’ (Afrikaans.)

Maaifoedie – Cape Flats Afrikaans for a scoundrel or rascal.

Maar – see ‘Ma’’ above.

Middag, goeie middag – ‘Afternoon, good afternoon.’ (Afrikaans.)

Mkhonto we Sizwe – or Umkhonto weSizwe (“Spear of the Nation”) or ‘MK’ as it was more commonly known, was the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), launched on the 16th December 1961.

The African National Congress (ANC) is South Africa’s governing party and has been in power since the transition to democracy in April 1994. The organisation was initially founded as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein, with the aim of fighting for the rights of black South Africans. The organization was renamed the ANC in 1923. While the organization’s early period was characterized by political inertia due to power struggles and lack of resources, increasing repression and the entrenchment of white minority rule galvanized the party. As a result of the establishment of apartheid, its aversion to dissent by black people and brutal crackdown of political activists, the ANC together with the SACP formed a military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation/ MK) in 1961. (Quoted from South African History Online:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic
/
umkhonto-wesizwe-mk
and
http://www.sahistory.org.za/organisations/african
-national-congress-anc)

Moenie soe wies nie – Cape Flats vernacular for ‘Don’t be like that’.

Moenie worrie nie – Afrikaans slang for ‘Don’t worry’.

Moer in – ‘Moer’ is a wonderful, mildly vulgar Afrikaans expletive, and can be used in any conceivable way. Its origins lie in the Dutch word ‘Moeder’, meaning ‘Mother’. ‘Moer in” means ‘to be very angry’, but you can also ‘moer someone” (to hit somebody), use it as an angry exclamation (Moer!, which approximates ‘Damn!), call something or someone ‘moerse’ (approximates ‘great’ or ‘cool’), or use it as an adjective: I have a ‘moerse’ head ache – I have a huge head ache. ‘Moer toe’ means ‘fucked up’, or even ‘dead’.

Mos – Widely used and applied Afrikaans adverb, mostly meaning ‘indeed’, or ‘as you know’.

Nee, wat – Afrikaans expression approximating ‘no, not really’.

Njaps, njapsed – Mild synonym for sexual intercourse.

Nogal – Afrikaans word with wide application, mostly meaning rather, quite, fairly . . .

Nooit – Never (Afrikaans).

Nou’s dit – Now it is (Afrikaans).

Orraait – Afrikaans version of ‘all right’.

Ou, Outjie – Guy. ‘Outjie’ is the diminutive form. (Afrikaans.)

Panados – A paracetemol pain killer in tablet form.

Poegaai – Cape Flats Afrikaans, meaning ‘very tired’.

Rand value – Over the past two years, the value of the South African currency (Rand, or R) has fluctuated between 7 and 110 to the US$, 9 and 15 to the Euro, and 14 to 18 to the British pound.

Sê nou – ‘Now tell’, or ‘do say’. (Afrikaans.)

Shebeens – A shebeen (Irish: síbín) was originally an illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence. The term has spread far from its origins in Ireland, to Scotland, Canada, the United States, England, Zimbabwe, English-speaking Caribbean, Namibia and South Africa. In modern South Africa, many “shebeens” are now fully legal. The word derives from the Irish síbín, meaning ‘illicit whiskey’. (Quoted from http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebeen
)

Sien jy – ‘Do you see?’ (Afrikaans.)

Sisterjie – Diminutive of ‘sister’. (Afrikaans.)

Sjoe – ‘Wow’. (Afrikaans.) With wide, broad application.

Skelmpie – From the (Afrikaans) ‘skelm’ (noun) meaning rascal, or sly person, or ‘skelm’ (adverb), meaning dishonest, a ‘skelmpie’ is the common term for a lover out of wedlock.

Skep, pappie, skep – ‘Skep’ can mean ‘scoop’ (as in scoop up water from a well) or ‘spoon’ (as in spoon up, when eating soup, for instance).Vaughn Cupido uses it in the sense of the Afrikaans idiom ‘you have to scoop when it rains’, meaning you have to gather your hay while the sun shines. (‘Pappie’ is the Afrikaans for ‘father’, and is used in the sense of the African American slang ‘dawg’).

Slim kind – ‘Clever child’.

Snotskoot – Literally, ‘snot shot’, as in ‘I hit him a snot shot’ – i.e. right on the nose, or ‘hit him in such a way that the snot flew’.

Sommer netnou – ‘Soon’.

Sussie – Another diminutive for ‘sister’.

Tik – South African nickname for the drug methamphetamine.

Versta’jy – ‘Do you understand?’ (Cape Flats vernacular.)

Volkies – Derogatory reference to coloured farm workers.