Last Train to Retreat (3 page)

•

His father, Edmund, his mother, Gloria, and his sister, Chantal, were waiting for him and the chicken as they usually did on Saturdays.

‘
Aweh jy, hoesit?
’ Chantal greeted him, her brown eyes shining.

‘
Gee my ‘n drukkie, Sussie!’
Zane gave her a hug. Her long auburn hair smelled of shampoo.

He turned to his mother. It was difficult to believe that the woman in the shapeless jersey and trousers, the socks and sandals, and the
doek
or headscarf could have given birth to the beauty that was his sister. His father wasn’t an oil painting either – faded Adidas tracksuit straining around his thighs and stomach, his veins wine-soaked, his hair all but gone. Over the years, the old photo of his young parents on the mantelpiece had made Zane realise just how much a hard life could change people. It made him determined to succeed.

He kissed his mother and shook his father’s hand. ‘Ma, Pa, let me get the fire going.’ He took out the chicken.

‘
Yoh, seun, dis ‘n kwaai hoender die!’
Gloria ran her hands reverently over the plump bird. In winter she heated up
sop bompies
, frozen soup in a plastic bag, or made bean curry, or
bredie
with vegetables, occasionally adding cheaper parts of the chicken, like wings, to the stew. Only when Zane came did they cook an entire chicken.

‘I’m
lekka
hungry,’ Eddie smacked his lips. Zane could see that his father had already sipped from the
papsak,
the foil bag in box wine.

‘Beats a
Gatsby
,’ Chantal said. ‘It’s all I smell at work – Viennas, egg, polony,
slap chips
in French loaves …
arag!
’ Zane smiled, one day he’d bring not chickens but whole fillets of beef.

Zane walked through the ground floor flat to the small yard at the back, past the sign in the lounge, ‘
Die weg na God
, The way to God’, his Mother’s Day card from months ago on the mantelpiece, the cheap china, small TV set, blue and white linoleum floors, round cheese lights, and stuff lying around everywhere. People trapped in the wrong colour skin on a God-forsaken piece of earth, pushed aside by the White government and now by the supposedly ‘inclusive’ new Black government – a joke of a promised land to four million people. The Coloureds, who always saw the funny side of things and told it in their special way, ha, ha, thank God they could still laugh.

Zane stopped at the structure in the yard that had once been his bedroom – poorly built by his father, holes in the roof that made him freeze in winter and bake in summer. For years Zane had been a ‘backyard dweller’, forced to stay with his parents, until he got his lucky break. He stared at the rubbish that had been thrown onto the roof from the flats above: dried-out chicken bones, a KFC box, a Tassies bottle, cigarette butts, and a used condom. Nothing had changed. Even the junk that his father was going to fix and sell was still inside the room.

He lit the Weber that he had bought his parents. Soon fragile spirits and the aroma of grilled chicken would rise in unison. He also paid their rent of R400 per month, a fraction of his rent in Wynberg but he needed to save as much as he could to get them to the other side.

•

They sat in the small lounge afterwards watching Nigeria play Argentina in Johannesburg. They always watched TV after the chicken. There was nothing else to talk about. At least today there was the Word Cup. TV also helped because Eddie often became argumentative after drinking too much and it was best to say as little as possible for fear of setting him off.

It didn’t stop Eddie today. His voice rose above the sound of the TV. ‘
Ek wietie meer
nie,
Zane, you not talking
Kapie-taal
anymore, huh? Why’s that?’

Zane knew that their language was something Coloureds were proud of, it made them what they were. ‘Gimme a break, Pa, it’s my work …’

‘
Wat mompel jy soe binnemonds, skaam vi’ jou taal?
Forgetting where you came from, hey, boy?’ Eddie felt uncomfortable with White English speakers or
souties
as he called them, limp-wristed liberals who did no more than tut-tut about the plight of the Coloureds. And the Afrikaners, whose blood, language, and religion the Coloureds had shared for centuries? Eddie had never forgiven them for systematically taking away their rights until none were left. The new Black government had changed that but what did a cross at the voting station mean when you were stuck in a place like this?

‘Ag, los tog die seun
. Pa, leave him alone.’ In front of her parents Chantal also called Zane ‘boy’ but she wasn’t condescending, it was her way of taking his side.

Zane tried again, ‘Where I work, Pa,
Kapie-taal
isn’t a good idea. It’s English
or
Afrikaans, nothing between. Mr Theron says in the communications business it’s what clients expect … not to mix the languages. It’s just good business …’

‘
Ek gie fokkol om!
’ Eddie’s face went blotchy. ‘It’s that job of yours.
Ja,
die pay is
goet ma’
wat vi’ ‘n job is dit?
Adverts, know what they are? A lot of noise and promises just like the
blerrie
politicians!’ It reminded Eddie of his pet gripe, ‘And when will we get our place back, huh?
Nooit,
I tell you!’ As a boy Eddie had lived in Eckhard Street in District Six. Over a period of fifteen years the apartheid government had extracted District Six from Cape Town’s smug white mouth like a bad brown molar, leaving an unsightly gap.

Eddie jumped back to advertising, ‘And how safe is it, boy? Now a trade, a
trade
is something no one can ever take away …’

‘Eddie, Eddie,’ Gloria said, ‘it pays for our rent, the chickens, and the things he buys for us!’ She dabbed her nose with a Kleenex, delicately, a few pats at a time without sniffing. It had become a habit, an expensive one at that. Zane regularly had to buy Kleenex to stop her from using folded-up pieces of toilet paper.

‘
Minute
, Gloria! The boy’s
stirvy
… thinks he’s better than everyone else!’

Zane stared at the TV saying nothing, reminding himself as he always did that it was the alcohol talking, not his father. Tomorrow Eddie and Gloria would go to church in their Sunday best and afterwards he’d start drinking and scream at her. He hadn’t changed since Zane was a boy, when he used to say, ‘you don’t have a clue, do you?’, ‘can’t you do
anything
right?’, ‘seems you just can’t do better’, ‘oh, that … that’s no big deal.’ Then Eddie still had a job, now he didn’t and he was only forty-eight. The
dop
system had got him years ago on a wine farm that paid their workers partly with low quality wine. Post-apartheid laws banned the practice but Eddie didn’t stop drinking – he simply bought his liquor which meant not enough was left for essentials. For years the family suffered with Gloria the only breadwinner.
Ja,
were it not for Gloria, Chantal and Zane, his father would be
afbiene
today
–
broke on the streets of Lavender Hill – or dead.

When the time came to leave, Zane ignored his father’s hand – it was too much like a stranger’s – and gave him a hug instead. ‘Pa, now you look after yourself,’ he said softly. His father’s words would prey on him for days, it always happened after a visit to Darwin Court. But Zane would live with it because getting his parents out was more important.

•

Chantal walked with Zane while he pushed his bike. They passed the small general dealer flying the South African flag for the World Cup, and the car with the blackened, burnt-out front and the sticker that said ‘Jesus was here’.

‘How’s work?’ he asked. She was a seamstress in a clothes factory, sitting in a long row behind a machine for hours at a time, earning R700 a week.

‘Dreaming of my officer and gentleman … walking into that terrible building to take me away one day.’ She had seen Richard Gere and Debra Winger in a movie and never forgotten it. Zane told her she was more beautiful than Debra.

‘Someone
will
come,
Sus
, you’ll see … a dish like you!’ She was twenty-seven, two years older than Zane, waiting for Mr Right so that she could ‘marry up’ and get out of Lavender Hill. People couldn’t understand it, and some had expressed concern to Gloria that her daughter would end up an
oujongnooi
, a spinster. It had been his sister’s first serious relationship with Hannibal at nineteen that messed up subsequent liaisons but somehow it made her more beautiful over the years.

Chantal stopped near the house where the men were sitting outside the door, caps every which way on their heads, eyes hard and restless, waiting for the night. Zane had ridden past them on the way in, avoiding their stares.

Chantal shivered. ‘They weren’t there a month ago.’

‘What are people saying? Who are they?’ He took her hand.

‘No one is talking but Shaheed at the shop said he heard an explosion the other day, seemed to come from the house. He didn’t report it … too scared.’

They both suspected what had caused it. Making crystal meth using volatile chemicals was dangerous but it was easy to make and the rewards were huge. It resulted in many a house and backyard becoming a
tik
‘factory’. Entire families were smoking the heated crystals
–
from kids in their early teens to people in their sixties – fathers putting crystals, tubes, and lighters out on the table DIY style.

‘Try to avoid the house when you go to work, Chantal, and
never
make eye contact. Too risky, you’re too pretty.’

She squeezed his hand and smiled wanly. ‘What if they’re Hannibal’s men?’ The thought of Hannibal so near to where Chantal lived was unwelcome. Hannibal was the reason why Zane was close to his sister and why they always looked out for each other. Zane said, ‘Don’t lose any sleep,
Sus
. If he was going to do anything, he would have long ago. Go back now …
mooi loop
, take care.’ He kissed her.

‘You too,’ she said.

He watched her walk away. How he wished for her to be happy. He rode past the recreational area where he had played as a child – a concrete slab with weeds and wild grass growing through the cracks, and only two basketball hoops still standing. Broken glass had been swept to the periphery. He lifted his gaze to the Constantia Mountains and thought of the beautiful houses and vineyards on its slopes, the spots he had marked in his mind during many rides of where he’d like to live. Chantal’s words had rattled him. What if the men
were
members of Hannibal’s Evangelicals? Zane hadn’t recognised any of them but then recruiting new members had never been a problem for Hannibal.

On the mountain side of the track Zane had managed to keep his past deep inside him while he worked for his future. Now as he rode through Lavender Hill it was out on the streets again: the sorry flats and houses, the burdened faces, the very language spoken. He knew that one day he’d end all physical ties with this place and move on. But how to cut the invisible link that was hanging between him and Hannibal? It knew no boundaries.

Zane was in for a bad night. Just as well he had Sunday to get his mind right for the week ahead. More than anything it was his job that would bring deliverance.

T
he realisation that she’d probably killed another human being made sleep impossible for Lena. She relived the scene frame by frame: the man’s swagger as he came down the steps, the high-pitched voice, his face close-up, his hands around her neck – she could still smell his breath – and the sickening feeling as the knife seemed to slide effortlessly into him. Should she go to the police, or Mavis? How could it have gone so wrong? To Lena, the future had never been something she could trust. Now it was looming over her.

She and Sarai had caught the last train to Retreat with minutes to spare. They had huddled in silence among the happy fans in the coach, Sarai’s head on Lena’s shoulder. At Retreat station they disembarked, then ran two kilometres to Lena’s house, Lena clutching her knife as they zigzagged through the deserted, dimly-lit streets. Once home, Lena gave Sarai tea, and peanut butter and syrup sandwiches which the girl gulped down. Lena put Sarai in the spare bedroom, the one that had been hers long ago, and watched the girl fall asleep almost immediately curled up like a kitten, overwhelmed by fatigue and relief at having got away from Cupido.

Only afterwards had the full horror of it all sunk in.

•

When dawn came creeping into her room, Lena was thankful that it was Saturday so that she didn’t have to face everyone at work. Sleep had eluded her, she’d checked regularly on the small figure in the same clothes from the night before, listening to make sure it was still breathing.

The girl’s presence was both disconcerting and comforting. Sarai had brought Cupido’s brutal world into Lena’s house, carrying it in her eyes, in her cheap clothes and perfume. At the same time she stirred in Lena the desire to care for her, a sensation new to Lena and heady in its intensity. Lena had never owned a cat or a dog. Her mother, Rowena, was allergic to cats, and her father, Elton, hated the dog turds in the gardens of his congregation when he was on house visits as
dominee
of the local church. Lena once brought home a rabbit given to her by a girl at school. All Fluffy did was sleep and eat and chew carpets and the telephone cord – until Elton, in a rage, passed the unrepentant rabbit and its cage onto someone else. To Lena the house had always felt empty – even before Fluffy disappeared, before Elton Valentine left when Lena was fifteen, and before Rowena died when Lena was twenty. Now, suddenly – exotic and vulnerable all at once – the Thai girl was there, making Lena fiercely protective as if she had found and brought home a beautiful, injured bird.

Lena looked at her bedside clock. It was nearly 8 am and she could hear no sounds in the house. She tiptoed into the spare bedroom, looked down at Sarai and stroked her hair and her face. A strange, new sensation spread from Lena’s fingertips to her whole being. She had never touched another human being like that. The girl murmured something – was it Thai?